This was Irene’s pen-ultimate week in the office this year, as she is bidding the wind and rain Goodbye and travelling to warmer climates for Christmas. As such, we are tying up the couple of loose ends from this year and prepping for next year before the festive season hits us. There has been a lot of  planning, databasing, newsletter designing, list making, laughing, sorting through files, DVD copying, budgeting and even a long lost prompt book was found. Mind you it was not easy, as the heating in the office was broken for most of the week, but thankfully it is back on now.

For me, much of the week was taken up by pre-production of Slattery’s Sago Saga – a staged reading of an adaptation by Arthur Riordan of Flann O’Brien’s last and unfinished novel. I have been writing out contracts, making contact lists, disseminating travel arrangements, designing, printing and sending out invitations.

We have now cast our actors – the talented Clare Barrett, Lisa Lambe, Louis Lovett, David Pearse and Marty Rae. Under Jo Mangan’s direction, with Emma Hannon stage managing, they will read a working draft of Arthur Riordan‘s script in the Dining Hall of Castletown House next Sunday, with cellist Kim V Porcelli playing live music – should be quite fabulous!

If perhaps, like me, you are wondering what ‘sago’ is, Wikipedia says thus:

‘Sago is a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stems, Metroxylon sagu. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas, where it is called saksak and sagu. It is traditionally cooked and eaten in various forms, such as rolled into balls, mixed with boiling water to form a paste, or as a pancake. Sago looks like many other starches, and both sago and tapioca are produced commercially in the form of “pearls”. Sago pearls are similar in appearance to tapioca pearls, and the two may be used interchangeably in some dishes. This similarity causes some confusion in the names of dishes made with the pearls.’

Quite fascinating, I think!