Aside from the Gaimaning, we had a really good time in Dublin. Hm. That sentence seems to suggest that we didn’t have a good time Gaimaning, which is clearly not what I meant. Ah, language. Don’t try this at home; I’m a professional. :)

Anyway, aside from dinner with Pádraig and Deirdre we lunched with Brian/, who is his usual charming self. (I mean this with all sincerity. Brian is a splendid example of a typical Irishman, with a tongue that is both silver and wicked. I love hanging out with him.) And we dined with Kate and Shelly and Michael after going a-Gaimaning, in a meal event which happened entirely organically and which Shelly, when we were halfway to where we were (trying) to have dinner, observed she hadn’t actually been invited to and started seeming concerned that she’d invited herself. Kate (who had also invited herself) then invited Shelly. *laughs* (Sadly, we did not get Mr. Gaiman and Ms. Palmer in on this self-inviting gig, although given that we ended up walking across the entire city centre only to walk into various restaurants as they closed, that might be just as well. I don’t feel so guilty about making my friends walk a mile and a half for dinner on sore feet (which is to say, their feet were sore, not dinner’s…) but I’d have felt dreadful about making two very tired performers walk that far. :)) Anyway, the point of all that was it was lovely to actually talk and hang out with them all outside of the Event. So it made for a very nice evening.

We accidentally bought a pile of books at Chapters, none of which was Jim’s latest Codex Alera book, which I’ve been failing to buy for several months now. Several *were* Gaiman books (and are now signed and shiny) and although I didn’t take Mary Anne’s specific advice, I did take the general advice and found two Pilates books which looked, between them, as though I could get some use out of them. (My friend Silkie said I should do like a youtube Pilates video for people who aren’t, you know. Supermodels. Or my sister, for that matter, who teaches Pilates and is slim and very strong, unlike me. :) I told her I would when I could do more than 8 exercises…:)) Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading them and creating some kind of regular (variable) program from them. (One says “do this program and in six weeks you’ll see a major change in your body.” Well, no *shit*, Sherlock. It’s an entire *book’s* worth of workouts. And as far as I can tell they’re suggesting doing it all daily. Even I, with my lacksadaisical schedule, am somewhat loath to spend two solid hours doing a Pilates workout. Assuming I could, which is unrealistic. Sheesh.)

Let’s see, what else. We went to the museum, which was pretty cool, although I noticed how we lingered at first and by the end we were almost marching through the rooms. :) Went to a movie (“He’s Just Not That Into You”), which we generally enjoyed. Ate out at different restaurants than we’d ever eaten at in Dublin (though we’d eaten at Milano in Cork, so it’s not quite a *new* restaurant to us), and…yeah. It was lovely. And now I’m going to eat nothing but salad and do nothing but Pilates for the next three years, or something, to make up for all that high living. :)

miles to Minas Tirith: 39.4