danny butt and eurovision

Danny Butt came to town yesterday and I picked him up at the airport, and we went to Meadow Heights shopping centre and bought some pide. Not real pide, at least, I know they don't sell it as pide, and don't buy it after 9 (as we did) because half the fun is it's warm out of the oven. Get there around 8. You may have to wait a while, and you'll also have to ask for it by name and/or describe it, which is a drag, because they don't call it pide. They call it something else. Danny insisted on paying for it. I don't know if he later regretted this but he did eat some even colder, voluntarily, later in the day. I stole a lemon from the tree two doors down and found that putting it on the ricotta and parsley pide made it taste like lemon cheesecake.

Danny came with me to Marc's surprise party. What a strange afternoon that was. Marc's Debbie took him out of the house for a short time and they were supposed to come back at 5 (I think) but in fact came back earlier to find a whole bunch of people scrambling to get from the kitchen to the front room. Like a prat I gave up and just sat on the stairs waiting for him to show up, because he'd seen us all racing from the back of the flat to the front of it. So what was the point? But he still went ahead with it and went into the front room and got a 'surprise'. In the more general sense, he was surprised. Or, at least, he hadn't expected it. Today he sent out a group email that read:

'thanks so much to all of you for coming to my birthday
party... it was a real surprise, i had a wonderful
time (especially cleaning up)! i hope you all enjoyed
yourselves as much as i did! we'll no doubt all catch
up soon at various events. until then, keep well... '

'Especially cleaning up'... what does that mean? Oh, right, I remember, he really likes cleaning things up.

Danny is a very well-travelled person who seems to be needed everywhere. I am amazed by his life. It was great to see him, anyway. He is not sure whether he will be in Teheran next week and whether he'll be in Ulster next month. I suppose we can all say we're not sure of such things, but he's got reason.

Then Mia, Danny and I had dinner with Michael and Nicola at the famous I Carusi and then went to Michael and Nicola's house and watched Eurovision. I picked the Greek winner very early in the piece, I promise not knowing that she had won, though it had apparently been broadcast on the killjoy ABC earlier in the day.