Friday 9.10.09

A bit of steely determination got me over my procrastination block, and I spent some time getting my college work up to date, just in time for week two to begin. I got a little thrill once I finished and look back over it, realising that I had been absorbed and interested. I was always good at reading and commentating on things when I was young, and could write a good essay (although all the work never bore fruit under exam conditions). It was pleasing to feel those old skills surfacing naturally. It used to be popular to tell young students that study skills once learned can be used throughout your life. I wonder if this is a line thrown to students still. It was once said to a group of slightly hung over students, which might have included my yawning self, by a librarian just before she explained the index card system and the microfiche. It was a small miracle today to be accessing a newspaper article on line, and finding out about the author as easily as blinking, in fact as easy as typing a couple of words.

Nick and I went out with friends from work to see Hazel O'Connor. Very much Nick's choice of thing, and a kind of musical biography as it turned out. I found myself enjoying it, 80's nostalgia fodder though it is. Sweetly, Nick held my hand and cuddled up close, misty eyed at the song Will You which is certainly one of 'our songs' although it came out in 1980 and we didn't even meet until 1983. Hazel is a Cov Kid so the audience were rapturous, awarding a standing ovation. In the show, Hazel told us that she ran away from home as a teenager and has lived in London, Europe, Beirut, California, and now Ireland.

It was the first time I had been to the Belgrade Theatre since it has been renovated. The new studio theatre is in urban garage style with galleries stacked in three storeys high and tight, I have doubts about what the view would be from the top, the top of the performers' heads certainly. The view and sound from where I was sitting several rows back in the circle was fine. Not so the leg room alas.

We arrived home to one of those on-the-spot tests that parenting has the tendency to throw up. I went for option A: turning a blind eye. I'll have to wait to get my mark back.