Last weekend I agreed to play a tennis match at 9 on Sunday morning. I definitely regretted it at 8 but at 11 I felt amazing, delighted with myself.
When we had some people around for dinner a couple of weeks ago, one of them brought us a miniature jigsaw in a tube which is something Spanish people do after dinner. Because they are psychotic.
I spent ages doing it doubtless ruining my eyesight and this was the unsatisfactory result.
But then while I was out at tennis, Daniel texted me this.
And what a treat.
Mr. Waffle and I went out to Howth taking our bikes on the DART (suburban train). We had a lovely lunch and we went for a walk. I was living my best life, I can tell you.
And this is where hubris caught up with me. I suggested that we cycle home which is somewhere between 15 and 20kms. God, I nearly died. We cycled around by the bay and the wind was vigorously against us the whole way. We had to stop half way for me to have a restorative cup of tea and when I got home all I could do was sit on the sofa for the evening whining about exhaustion.
I had another tennis match at 9 this morning (again the regret/satisfaction cycle) but all I had planned for the rest of the day was my Sunday afternoon bookclub which was altogether less physically demanding than last weekend’s adventure.
In cultural news, yes, of course that’s why you’re here, I saw “Zone of Interest” with a friend during the week (Mr. Waffle having refused to come). I thought it was really excellent. It’s a new angle on the holocaust which I would have thought impossible. It is truly chilling while showing no violence at all but set to a horrifying soundscape that I will remember for a long time.
I also took myself to the new exhibition in the Gallery which is lots of Dutch head studies – lots of Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck etc. I found it reasonably enjoyable but the stand-out find for me was an artist called Michael Sweerts who was born in Brussels in 1618. Here are a couple of his head studies which I found startlingly modern.
And how was your own weekend? Not too exhausting, I trust.