Next weekend

On Mondays, I usually write about the weekend just gone. But this week, it's really all about next weekend.

Next weekend sees Dublin's Traditional Music Festival. Something I love here is that traditional music is cool, and people see no disconnect at all between loving traditional music and also loving goth, or metal, or electronic, or...whatever. In fact, a lot of musicians seem to play in different genres. The result is that trad is young. As in, there are older players, of course, but it's not like it's FOR older players coz you can be 18 or 23 and tattooed and pierced and whatever and still whip our your bodhran or your fiddle and get down to it. It also means that while some of the traditional music is centuries old, it's also new; they are still making new stuff all the time. I love it. The music is great where I'm from too but, honestly, I don't think the Irish realise how lucky they are to live in a country where the traditional music just goes right on evolving alongside the culture and where it wouldn't strike anyone as weird to see a Doom Patrol CD on the shelf beside "20 Best Irish Reels" or something.

Anyway, because I want to go to town in the Trad Fest, I kept a low profile this weekend and spent as little money as possible. Plus, my Boyfriend's Dad is going to be playing with his band somewhere next weekend (not sure if it's part of the Trad Festival or an unrelated trad gig) and I think that we might finally meet. I'm hoping it'll go better than with his Mom.

So this weekend, all I did was have a Nice Meal In (OK, fish and chips from Beshoffs, not my usual home-made soup) with my Boyfriend on Friday and a movie Saturday. Up in the Air at Cineworld. Nice, but melancholy. Made a note to myself to be sure to settle down with someone by the time I'm 33 at the oldest. Would not like to be old and alone like George Clooney's character. Doesn't look pretty.

Got the strangest note from Uncle Joey. He's back home now. He said he had a great time and "Dublin and Ireland gave me a lot to think about." With all the drinking that went on, I don't know how thinking got much of a look-in!