Ducks in a row

Today's Music Group session was in a new venue, and was also the birthday of one of our members, so it was a bit special. I wasn't able to join the usual adjournment to the pub afterwards because I needed to begin preparations for tomorrow's hosting of a Grand Prix lunch, so I left immediately after the music and the birthday cake. It was during a quick trip to the bathroom on the way out that I spotted these ducks on top of the cistern. The house is rather grand, in one of the posher parts of Dublin, and it seemed gloriously incongruous to see something like this there. They just had to be blipped (and anyway I doubted if there'd be much else blippable later on.

I'm pormised last week to pick up the elder statesman of the Group and bring him to the session. He's still recovering from a nasty dose of vertigo and still isn't too confident about driving -- but quite apart from that, he's a great guy I''m desperately fond of, and it was a pleasure to help him out. I dropped him back home when the session ended, which was the start of a bit of a logistical nightmare in terms of preparations for tomorrow's lunch. From his place I had to retrace my steps and stop off at my local drive-in vegetable shop, then go to back in to town to M&S for some of their great party food (including most notably, absolutely divine-looking tiger prawns). From there it was back home again to the local supermarket for more basic necessities, at which stage it was after 7.00 pm.

That gave me a while to whip the house into some sort of quick shape before Carl came over in the DART and we went to the off-licence up the road, getting there with just twenty minutes to spare before they closed at 10.00. The box they packed this into was a heavy one, while my wallet was a lot lighter. Back home we prepared an interesting marainade for a deep-fried chicken dish (since the Grand Prix is from Spain, the obvious thing to do in terms of food was to do some tapas, and the chicken dish was one of them) and a sugar syrup which would form the basis for a batch of sangria blanco. A couple of G&T's made the procedure a little easier.