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Ireland is celebrating Mother’s Day today. Technically, it’s actually “Mothering Sunday,” which began as a religious festival in the Middle Ages and is many hundreds of years older than the purely secular and commercial Mother’s Day celebrated in the U.S. Mothering Sunday falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and is observed in many Anglican and Catholic communities in...

The weather has continued to be moody, with sunshine this morning then dark clouds and rain off and on. I let myself sleep in late and putter around the apartment most of the day. My average steps for the week have been falling behind, so I do get out for a short walk in the afternoon. There are some people out and about, more so than during the week, but the city still feels subdued. Some pubs...

Another week comes to an end. My SuperValu grocery order was delivered this morning by a new guy. It’s a bright, crisp day in Dublin with some off-and-on showers. Views of Sprangers Yard and Dame Street: My friend J covers over to hang out this afternoon. It’s been more than a month since we saw each other, and so it’s nice to catch up in person. We have been wanting to try...

The weather has been quite moody today — sunshine when I get up, then an icy blast of sleet/hail midday, followed by alternating bright and dark periods. I attend another webinar in the morning on nonprofit governance, risk and compliance sponsored by the Charities Institute Ireland. It’s rather ho-hum, and thankfully only 45 minutes. I’m itching to get out for a walk, but given the weather I opt...

This morning I woke up early to attend a 3.5 hour webinar about nonprofit reporting in Ireland, which turned out to be very enlightening and informative. Ireland seems to mirror the UK’s practises closely, and while there are many similarities with U.S. standards and practises, it seems that they are decades behind. I’m having to get accustomed to differences in terminology (apportion...

There’s more grey and drizzly weather in Dublin, and I don’t venture out of the apartment for a second day in a row. I spend most of the afternoon concentrating on my CMA studies and learning how to use the multiple regression functions on my financial calculator. The recent news cycle has been dominated by Oprah’s interview of Harry and Meghan. I haven’t been paying much...

Today’s big event is another video conference interview for the CFO job at OCCRP scheduled for 4:00 PM. Earlier in the day I go about my usual routine, including reviewing more material for this week’s CMA lesson. I start getting ready for the interview after lunch by reviewing previous notes on OCCRP, then I focus on making myself presentable. It’s been awhile...

It’s a beautiful mostly sunny day, but still chilly in lower 50s / high single digits C. In the afternoon I meet up with my friend CJ, whom I haven’t seen in awhile. We take the Luas light rail down to Milltown, a suburb on the southern end of Dublin, named for its location on the River Dodder. There is a riverside walking paths and a small park on one end with a shipping...

It’s been an uneventful day. There was not a repeat of last weekend’s anti-lockdown protest here in Dublin, and the one that did take place in Cork was apparently peaceful. There have been reports that another large protest is being planned for St. Patrick’s Day. For my afternoon walk, I cross the Liffey then westward until I reach Croppies Acre Park, which I had passed by last weekend. The...

Another week comes to an end… it’s becoming more difficult to interrupt the monotonous rhythm of lockdown. My weekly grocery order is delivered by a new person, Liam, who is a very Irish man in stature and personality, probably a few years older than me. As he’s unloading the bins of blue plastic bags containing my items, he chats me up asking where I was from (know...