Festival highlight

We were much better Festival-goers today than last night. We'd put together a tentative programme for the day, and more or less stuck to it. First, of course, the Hollyoaks omnibus had to be watched, but with that safely out of the way we were out and about in plenty of time to soak up some more atmosphere before moving on to the Big Wheel. Carl assured me that I'd agreed the previous night to go up on this, but I still don't remember making that pact. It was an enjoyable enough experience, though, providing good views across the Bay and down on to the harbour and the Marina and over Dún Laoghaire itself, an experience which was appreciated by young and old alike.

After that it was on to our first actual Festival event, a demonstration and tasting of Lebanese cooking (great fun, good value at 15 euro). We called in at the Pavilion Theatre which was buzzing with troupes of Indian dancers on stage, wandered through the Mela outside, with its artifact and food stalls from different countries, and ten it was time to go across the road to the Gastropub Company for an afternoon performance by a Cork-based group called Motema, which proved to be our Festival highlight and the subject of today's blip.

We went on to the Royal Marine Hotel (where we'd already been last night to view a spectacular light show projected onto the hotel façade) for another group, this time a strange mix of Irish, Russian, Swiss and Mallorcan musicians. It was okay, but it suffered from being staged in the hotel's ballroom, an unsympathetic space unimaginatively with a table-and-chair layout far too redolent of wedding receptions. We ended the night in the hotel bar nursing a couple of brandies.