Denise

Sniffles and sneezing yesterday caused me to stay at home and miss out on the weekly music session. It felt really strange not being with the gang, and several times during the day I felt myself thinking it was Sunday.

Today, as the real Sunday arrived, I suddenly felt a lot better. I'd booked a ticket for the cinema screenings of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, live from English National Opera in London, and was delighted to feel well enough to go to it. I'm so, so glad I did, because it was really wonderful — a terrific production, with great singing from the principals and the excellent chorus. On top of that, Edward Gardner led the whole thing in fine fashion, and was rewarded with really good orchestral playing. What with two 20-minute intervals, the matinée performance took from 3:00 to 7:00 pm. Every minute was terrific.

The screening was in the Swan Centre in Rathmines. Parking in the car park there is very much a matter of 'you can't get there from here', since there's no left turn when travelling south as I was. So I had to continue on past, do an about turn through a petrol station forecourt and creep up on it that way. First time round I thought: why pay in a car park when it's Sunday and there seem to be plenty of on-street spaces. So I passed by in the opposite direction and stopped in Leinster Square across the road from the cinema. Fortunately I checked the parking sign, which is when I realised that Leinster Square is one of those spots where Dublin City Council have designated as pay-and-display and permit parking seven days a week. So I moved the car, drove past Swan Centre yet again, did another turn in the petrol station forecourt and finally got into the Centre's car park. It was when I went to check the parking sign that I saw where Denise McA had left her mark in the wet concrete of the pavement where it had been patched. Not much of a blip, but still ...