Paddy's holiday weather

Today's music session was in Balbriggan, north of Dublin. I made my way on the M1 and all was well until I exited at Junction 6 when what had been light drizzle for a bit suddenly turned into heavy rain that the wipers struggled to clear. I usually park around the corner from today's host's place, but as I approached and the rain continued I suddenly remembered my parking permit which allows me to park free in on-street spaces. There was a vacant space right outside Séamus's house, so I slipped into that and suffered no more than a few drops on the head before the door opened. A couple of houses across the road were flying the flag for the holiday weekend. It was a miserable-looking scene through the window of the car. Happily, the rain passed and blue sky came along later on.

Some of the guys found it hard to concentrate on the music because of worrying about the crunch Six Nations match in Lansdowne Road between Ireland and the ancient foe, despite play not starting until 5pm. When the music session broke up I made my way through the Port Tunnel over to the far side of the city. The streets were deserted because of the match, so I made remarkably good time getting over to Carl's. I checked the score on and off on the way over and was quite pleased at the final score which gave Ireland the Grand Slam. Well done guys!

Where the time went after that I've no idea, but pass it did. Carl was in the middle of prepping ingredients for artichoke soup, starting from an actual recipe but quickly verging off in his own way. Prep took ages, but the end product was well worth the wait. More time passed watching a few episodes of something undemanding on Netflix and deciding what presents to get for two birthday celebrations we're going to during the week, at which stage my bed had to be made ready, which allowed Carl to demonstrate his own patented technique for putting on a duvet cover.

All in all, another really good day.