Slane

‘Slane’ is on today.  I’m not going, unlike the rest of the country.  I’ve a big application form to get stuck into.  Although it’s for a music project, that doesn’t sound like a rock-and-rock excuse.   If I was in my Mam’s in Meath, there’s a good chance that I’d get an itch and try to find a ticket.  But the rain falling against my window in Kildare, dampens any such notions, even though I was a big Guns N’ Roses fan as a kid.  ‘Appetite for Destruction’ was one of the first albums that I got on tape.  My lovely nordie aunt Moira bought it for me.   Between my mother and my aunt, they got confused with my request and it appears that Moira asked the long-haired young fella in the record shop for ‘’Guns ‘N’ Daisies.’’ Oh, how they laughed.

Just knowing that Slane is on, fills me with nostalgia.  The castle set in the big field that doubles as a natural amphitheatre, along the River Boyne.  This pretty little village transformed for just one day.

It’s my aunt Olive, my father’s sister, in the ‘old kitchen’, in 1985 on her way to see Bruce Springsteen.  She’s wearing a bright blue jumpsuit, as only she could, with her long blonde hair.  Eleven-year-old me sits quietly and admires her style.  As she stands there with her hands in her pockets, laughing, she is unaware that I am watching.  I don’t have the word for it then, but she looks so confident.   None of us in the knowledge then that she would die so young and that Moira to follow just months later - The screech from my mother as I share the news from the phone call, standing in the middle of the farm yard.   

It’s Lord Henry Mount Charles on the Late Late Show.  He sounds too posh to live just the road from our house.  He takes all of the hob-nobbing with music royalty in his stride.

Impeccably dressed, but wearing odd socks. 

On the telly. 

Imagine. 

It’s seeing his distress on TV after the 1991 fire at the Castle.

It’s the post fire Guns N’Roses concert in Slane that I go to with my new-on-the-scene boyfriend.   He’s a biker and musician, a beautiful Jesus lookalike, with better hair than me.  He’s more of a heavy metal fan and tuts at the idea of being here.  It’s the first time I took a day off from my Saturday job and my boss isn’t best pleased.  The sun beats down and I get spectacularly sunburned, but only down one side of my face – nowhere to hide in this big field.  We meet Jesus’s friends, one more uber-cool than the next, who similarly tut about being here.  I am totally morto at my tomato face, but the bikers seem too cool to notice.   The skin on my face peels for weeks afterwards.  Any wonder then, that I turn into the ‘Have you got your sun screen on?’ Mammy type figure at other concerts I’ve been too, slathering unsuspecting young lads in cream.

I eventually make it back to Slane for Bon Jovi in 2013, only because my friend Maria gives me two tickets.  Conveniently, my cousins who are coach operators, are bringing bus loads to the concert.  The bus is full of neighbours and relations.  I hate queueing at concerts for a drink, so decide to do my drinking before we get inside the grounds.  Seems like everyone else has the same idea.  The Nurse’s bra is full of silicone-like pouches, substituting the intended medical liquid with alcohol.  I admire her Festival Fitness, as well as her impressive cleavage.  

We get inside the gates and my cousin who had said ‘Stay with me Lucy and you will be grand’, disappears within minutes and turns up the following day missing his jacket.  Truth be told, the concert is all a bit blurry, but maybe that’s how best to watch one of your childhood heart throbs after all these years.  Jon Bon is looking well all the same, but the music is pure cheese.  I’m tutting but singing along … wooo…. Ooooh …. Livin’ on a pray ……. yer…. 

Enjoy Slane today peeps.  I’ll be with ye in spirit x

Holding Hands in the Countryside: The Chastitute and a Senorita

It’s Saturday night and Mr Private wants to go to see the play, ‘The Chastitute’. ‘Seriously?’ I say, in the same high pitched voice that my daughter sometimes uses. He is serious. It’s part of his one-man-mission to convert me to all things Kerry – GAA, coastlines and now, John B. Keane. Friday night was ‘my choice’ (the rather excellent feature film ‘In View’ in the IFI), so I don’t protest. It’s all about compromise after all.

The play starts with the lead actor on stage with a thick Kerry accent and a pair of wellies. I sigh and resign myself to two hours of stage-Irish. It’s centred on bachelor farmer John Bosco McLaine and his endeavours to get a woman in 1960's Kerry. McLaine is a ‘chastitute’, which is described in the play as a person without holy orders who has never lain down with a woman… a rustic celibate by force of circumstance’. Whatever chance McLaine has of meeting his match is further hindered by Catholic guilt delivered with gusto from the pulpit. In fairness, the script is hilarious, with a wonderful turn-of-phrase. It’s hard not to look at it with my work hat on, wondering what the budget for a fine cast of 13 actors is, no half measures with the costume or set design. There is no shortage of guna deas's here either to lure McLaine.

There are poignant moments throughout the play when I got a real sense of the loneliness of men, just a few short decades ago in rural Ireland and I’m reminded of my father’s males acquaintances. The Protestant, who I would watch in wonder as he sat across our kitchen table, drunk as a skunk, balancing peas on a fork and somehow making it to his mouth without spilling them. In his posh accent, thanking my mother for dinner, always addressing her as ‘Mrs Russell’, despite her insistence that he call her Kay. I didn’t know that the Church of Ireland faith existed until he walked through our back door. The drink made him brave enough to talk, with a glint in his eye, of ‘senoritas’. For years, I took these creatures he spoke of as girls of another religion.

Shy Boy, who couldn’t look me in the eye, head down with his hands in his pockets, watching as his brothers and sisters married off and left, one by one. His father telling my father that I was a ‘grand lassie’ and wondered if Shy Boy would wait for me. My twelve-year-old cheeks burning as my father said it to me, half joking, but deadly serious. Shy Boy would later be the main carer for his dying father, the love between them a sight to behold, but a tenderness that he never shared with a life partner.

I remember too, talk, with lament, of fine men with good farms of land and overbearing mothers. No girlfriend good enough for her darling son, who in turn went wild with The Drink from loneliness after her death, the farm gone to ruin.

It’s easy to dismiss ‘The Chastitute’, or my childhood memories as a thing of the past, but my recent experiences of and stories exchanged through online dating would suggest otherwise. Loneliness is not peculiar to a time and place. The isolated rural farmer may be a rare breed today, but the modern day chastitute is there too. There’s many time-poor adults balancing busy work and complicated personal situations. The Catholic guilt, replaced now with the culpability of a failed relationship and the upheaval caused to children caught in the middle of a bad situation. The guilt associated with wanting to feel happy again. The anxious 40-something, her biological clock ticking like a time bomb, trying not to appear too desperate, not realising that her date is so grief stricken by his own situation that he can’t even hear what she is saying. Ironically maybe - all of this at a time when options for dating, civil marriages and gay marriage have never been so plentiful.

The end of the play is surprisingly dark. No happy ever after for McLaine.

Mr Private holds me tight as we walk to The Westbury for a drink and I feel like a senorita

Holding Hands in the Country Side : My Mr Snuffleupagus

Okay, so, I fancy myself as a Carrie Bradshaw, a la ‘Sex and The City’, with my ‘Holding Hands in the Countryside’ homage.  There are similarities – we both write about dating ... Actually, that’s where the similarities end.  She is a fictional character.  She wakes up looking fabulous and rocks the most bohemian outfit with coiffed hair, which typing away on her laptop with steaming coffee from her awesome, clean and tidy apartment in NYC.  

The wagon.  

Being a pretend person, she can describe at length every aspect of her relationships, including that with her no 1 guy, Big.  I, on the other hand, tend to jot my blogs on the ‘notes’ on my iPhone, often late at night, between two snoring children, with pjs that have seen better days and then upload to my blog, with little or no proofing, to my laptop.   The other rather big issue is that I am dating someone who is intensely private and therefore, not keen on any kind of exposure on the W W W, despite good wishes and comments from my readers who are only dying for the goss.  

Mr Private has met so few of my family and friends, that it’s quite possible that he doesn’t exist at all.  Like the character on the US children's TV series Sesame Street, Mr. Snuffleupagus, you will have to decide for yourself if Mr Private is real, or if this Big Bird imagined it all.  

Maybe if I could share a bit I could convince you?  What’s to know?  Interesting fact of the day?

He loves Rice Krispies.  

‘swear.  

I assumed when I was rummaging in his cupboards (as you do, when you are newly dating someone), that the crisped rice cereal was for pint sized visitors, but no, this grown man walked among with aisles of supermarket choice and opted for this culinary feast to start his day. 

I feel bound to stay with him long enough to adjust his taste buds to something more grown up.  He had his first pancake making lesson with me at the weekend.  It was messy, no one got hurt and we both got fed.  It’s one of those many bite-your-lip moments when you are getting to know someone, where you say NOTHING for fear that he thinks you are trying to change him ( … as if… ).  Like when he puts on THOSE SHOES again and in your head you are thinking ‘you are fucking kidding me’ and imagining them decommissioned to the bin. 

The alternative - I could throw in the Rice Krispie towel and buy him Superman pyjamas?

It’s strange how he has put his arm around me at football matches surrounded by thousands of people, kissed me on a train station platform packed with commuters and held my hand in city centres.  And yet, we remain largely invisible, but there in the moment, it all feels very real.

Glimpses of JR

It’s the folded piece of paper that I come across among the pages of my 2015 work diary yesterday in my office, when I’m searching for something else.  It reveals itself to be the receipt for food and drinks served on the day we buried you.  ‘John Russel funeral’.  Missing one ‘L’ in Russell. 

It’s the ‘beautiful day’ comment when I’m so distracted with work that I didn’t realise that the shining sun is welcoming the month of May.  You could never understand how I was so unaware of the weather when I would speak to you on my lunch break of sorts, eating a sandwich at my desk.    

It’s the man walking across the lobby today.  He has the cut of your jib, one hand in the pocket of his good trousers, walking along awkwardly, minding his back now, damaged over years of hard graft.  It’s the brightly checkered short-sleeved shirt, the copper magnetic bracelet, hair combed to one side making a good attempt to conceal the bald patch, the strong leather belt accentuating his soft pot-belly.  Either here to see his consultant, or accompanying his wife to see hers, but she’s nowhere to be seen.  He looks lost, but won’t ask for help.  He is jingling keys in his pocket.

It’s the receptionist as he registers my mother.  

The usual.  

Name.  

Address.  

Date of Birth.  

‘Single or married?’ he asks her.  

When she replies ‘widowed’, he doesn’t react and keeps typing, head down.  

Despite the fact that he has just punched me in the stomach.  

Me and Michael D

There’s some nice perks to my job – but there’d need to be.  Working for a local authority is tough at times, with Joe, or Josephine Bloggs channeling their frustrations about ‘the Council’/’the system’, or indeed, the world on you, as a public face of the organisation.  An invitation arrived on my desk recently.  ‘The OPW and The Royal Parks, London invites you to the launch of ‘Parks, Our Shared Heritage’ an exhibition showcasing three centuries of history at these magnificent Parks.  Farmleigh Gallery, Phoenix Park. 

The exhibition was to be opened by President Michael D Higgins.

Sold.

I’ve always been a fab of Michael D.  I don’t remember when I became aware of his existence, but when I did, I was struck by this uber intelligent man speaking passionately and unapologetically about the arts and culture.  Music to my ears.  

Seven years ago this week, Michael D travelled to Athy to launch the Athy Film Club in Athy College. Hearing him speak with pride about his contribution to film development in Ireland was a reminder that people, politicians can, and do, make a difference.  He obliged me again, in the run up to his Presidential election, when he launched the Kildare Readers Festival in Newbridge.  There, he was presented with the ‘Dara Bronze’, a limited edition coin, designed by Mary Gregoiry and commissioned by Kildare County Council, in recognition of his contribution to the cultural life of the country.  The coin had previously been awarded to Dermot Earley.

In 2010, I was part of the organising committee of a conference in Limerick University ‘25/25 Arts and Culture in Local Development’, with the lovely Monica Corcoran and Sheila Deegan.  It was one of the most stressful projects I had been involved with, mainly because there were so many partners attached.  The day before the conference, we got word that the then Minister for Environment, John Gormley would not be joining us at the conference dinner in Thomond Park to formally open the conference.  We didn’t get an explanation, but there was Trouble in Dail Paradise at the time.  I got on the bat phone to Jack Wall, then Labour TD in South Kildare and asked (pleaded) if he could get us Michael D instead and that he did.  Bless your red socks Jack. 

I phoned Michael D who advised that he was launching a book in Kildare Street, Dublin at 6pm the following evening, but he hoped to be with us by the time dessert was being served in Limerick.  No pressure like.  I can’t say that I tasted any of the food I ate that evening, clock watching, as we looked over the rugby grounds, but true to his word, the Bat Mobile driver got Michael D to Thomond Park, just as the pavlova was being licked from the bowls.  Calm as anything.  He was on crutches, having broken his kneecap in a fall, while on a humanitarian mission in Columbia.  He later joked about his ‘famous Colombian knee’.  Some of the officials were concerned about how we would get Michael D on stage, without drawing attention to his injury.  With a link of my arm and a quick hoosh, he was good to go.  His speech was spot on.  He ‘got’ arts officers, understood the complexity of what we do within the complex local government structure and spoke with knowledge and understanding about the Arts Council and the cultural landscape in Ireland.  It was powerful, funny and emotional.  The day was saved.

Time moved on and Michael D was elected as President of Ireland.  

My then toddler son was playing with my work phone one Saturday morning.  Through my half-sleep, I heard the phone beep and I knew he had sent a text message.  It read ‘snfowqu4-dnlj1 u470r9’ and was delivered to Michael D Higgins. It was 7.34am.  I didn’t get a text back.

Notwithstanding this, My Boy has always had a curiosity with the President.  Both my children have met various elected representatives, while attending events with me and can see that they are accessible.  He knows the President is in that pool of people and doesn’t see why we can’t just knock on the door of Aras an Uachtarain and say ‘how’s it goin?’ when we are at the Zoo. 

The children didn’t have to be asked twice if they wanted to come to the exhibition launch in Farmleigh with me.  The Boy wanted to know if he needed to ‘wear a suit to meet the President’.  ‘You do’, I said, seeing this as an opportunity to upgrade his bland wardrobe.  50% off the Paul Costello communion/confirmation range at Doon-A’s Boutique, and he was suited and booted.

 

Over excitement on the day and not liking change, The Boy had a meltdown getting on the suits and boots.  Moving from beige chinos to suit trousers was a step too far and we compromised with grey chinos.  The jacket and suit were non-negotiable.  The Girl, usually glued into black leggings, thankfully didn’t resist her guna deas.  They brought pens and paper to get autographs for their friends.  I had the usual interrogation in the car journey. 

‘What does the D in Michael D stand for?’ ‘Where is his real house?’ ‘How small is he?’ 

The pair of them said that I was ‘embarrassing’ as I walked to Farmleigh, with my heels-high in my hand, ‘the guards are looking at you’.  ‘It’s my job to embarrass you, I’m your mother’, I said in defence, and ‘the Gardai are only admiring my dress’.

The exhibition was fabulous, but also jam packed.  Guest speaker was gastronome-turned-preservationist and Chairman of Hyde Park Lloyd Grossman.   The chances of meeting the Pres were looking slim, never mind the Q&A’s or the autographs.  After the speeches, I made a bee-line for the Pres, who was surrounded by people.  I patted nice-OPW-person on the shoulder and pointed to the two expectant faces.  ‘They’re only 9.  Would love to meet Michael D’.

Handing my camera to a random stranger, I introduced Michael D to the children.  He shook their hands and we got a rushed photograph, with little time for small talk – everyone in the room wanted a part of the President.

We meet Jack L and I tell him that the first event I attended at was an amazing concert with Jack and the National Concert Orchestra - It was part of the launch programme for Farmleigh, when the public were complaining that the State had bought and refurbished the facility, somehow missing that Farmleigh was for the public.

On the way home, the children agreed that Michael D wasn’t as short as they had expected. Disappointed that they didn’t get the presidential signature on paper, they discussed faking his signature,but decided against it.  

The Boy said ‘I don’t think he really remembered you Mam’, further deflating my delicate ego.  ‘Doesn’t matter son, I’ll immortalise ‘‘us’’ in a blog’

I Believe in the Easter Bunny

I was patting myself on the back for being organised for my Easter Sunday Hunt this year, while also adopting a new what-will-get-done-will-get-done attitude.  As a result, I decided against cleaning under the beds and washing the windows.  I resigned myself to the fact that my garden was overrun with dandelions, reminding myself that a ‘weed is just a flower in the wrong place’ and that there was only so much grass mowing I would get around to.

The main tasks got done though.  An almighty stash of chocolate, sweets and goodies for a clatter of children were purchased in dribs and drabs to ease the financial outlay.  My glamorous assistant, My Girl wrote out the list of invitees and counted out the number of attendees, if everyone invited came to the Hunt.  88 children, not including adults.  I only have one toilet.  And a Hobbit House.  And rain was forecast.  I breathed a sigh of relief when the ‘regrets’ came through and the expected number of guests halved. 

I brought my Mam from Co Meath so she could see what it was I was doing and to meet my ‘Athy friends’.  Easter could have been a lonely time for her.  Her sister Aine always came for dinner in my parents’ house on Easter Sunday, my Dad and herself sniping at each other over the roast, Mam keeping the peace in the middle and somehow, each of them enjoying the day.  Wherever their spirits are now, I’m sure they looked down on my Mam on the day, Queen Bee in the middle of the madness.

The night before, I was wrecked tired and knew I had to be up at the crack of dawn to do the last few bits of preparation.  Mam, as Guest of Honour, was promoted to my bed and I slept in with My Boy.  My Girl, with her friend on a sleepover, shared the bunks.   It was a proper Walton Family set up.  ‘G’night Jim Bob’.

But My Boy was having none of it.  It was Christmas Eve déjà vu, when he had a wibble over another hairy lad, Santa creeping around the house, but this time, it's the feckin’ Easter Bunny.  Thing is, I have never mentioned the Easter Bunny in the house and never ‘encouraged’ notions about him/it.  

Despite this, earlier that evening, My Girl had wondered aloud about what the Easter Bunny might bring.  I discouraged her, saying that the Easter Bunny would surely know how many sweets we had in the house and would pass us by (yes, Dear Reader, I had 100% forgotten to buy anything worthy of the EB).  She put on her strong-sense-of-injustice face and said ‘The Easter Bunny wouldn’t be THAT mean.  Most of what YOU bought is for OTHER children’.  Darn it.  Fair point, if you believe in the Bunny.  I could see by her face that she did.  I left the children in the care of their Nana and scoured the town looking for cheap, but fabulous eggs for my pair and the sleep-over-friend.  The only decent eggs left were e18.  I wasn’t feeling that generous.  I scrapped up a random selection of bits, buried them in a bag and headed for home.

Back to My Boy.  It was obvious that he too 100% believes in the rabbit.  As soon as the lights went off, the tears started, in the belief that soon after his eyelids closed, that a furry animal would be breathing over his head.  Two glasses of water, four trips to the toilet, multiple hugs, back massages and random stories later, My Boy was becoming more distraught.  The rest of the house meanwhile, was filled with peaceful sleeping sounds.  I too was getting distraught as I craved sleep.  I thought about spilling the beans on the Tooth Fairy/Santa/the Bunny there and then, but of course I didn't.  In the end, I told him that the Easter Bunny only wanted to make children happy and that the Bunny had made a deal with parents who knew their children would get upset with his visit - He had given the goodies to the parents for distribution instead.  For the first time in two hours, My Boy appeared calm.  ‘Really Mam?’ ‘Yes, really son’.  ‘Show me’.  I pulled a bag out of chocolate out of the cupboard and he helped me to display them on the table. Within minutes, we were both fast asleep.

On Easter Sunday morning, the children arose to see what treasures had been left for them.  The Boy marveled at the miniature golden eggs, wondering if they could be eaten, or if they were metal.  It was as if he was seeing them for the first time.  He told the girls that ‘The Easter Bunny is magic’. I look at him and see, that despite our discussion the night before, that he really believes too, or perhaps, has chosen to believe. 

There wasn’t much time to think about our overnight visitor after that.  By 11.00am, 40 children and their grown ups had descended on Poppy Cottage and are hard to contain.  By 11.05am, they scatter to every nook of the garden.  By 11.20am, the clothes line of popcorn packets was empty, the candy canes whipped from the fences, the marshmallow sticks, plucked from the ground.  The various tins dotted around the garden, emptied of their wares and the sherbet string jellies, no longer dangling from the trees.  Even the rain had disappeared.  The kettle was boiled and reboiled.  The smell of coffee wafted.  Cups washed and rewashed.  The trays of homemade cookies and cupcakes brought by friends wolfed down, with the croissants and pastries.  The recently scrubbed kitchen floor and bathroom floor now scattered with cut grass. No matter, clean dirt.  By 1pm, the visitors have said their goodbyes, heading off to family dinners and other celebrations; I make a Loaves and Fishes dinner for my mother, brother and family and we do a post mortem on proceedings.

My little, falling down Hobbit House is a testimony that it doesn’t matter what the bricks and mortar look like, just what you create with them.

A Game of Two Halves: The IFTA's and Croker

Mr Private has the privilege of spending Friday evening with me wrapped in a towel, smothered in fake tan and walking around like John Wayne until the lotion dried - A sight that my new squeeze could probably have done without seeing, now, or ever.  I break it to him on Thursday, that not alone am I working on Saturday morning, I will be abandoning him that evening, as I, quite frankly, got a better offer -  a much coveted, last minute, ticket for the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA’s).  He won’t be home alone though, as a carload of Kerry men are due to arrive, in advance of the Dublin V Kerry Football League Final the following day. 

Saturday morning, I have booked a hair and eyebrow appointment before I go to work.  I arrive at my meeting with a group of teenagers with ringlets a la Shirley Temple and eyebrows on fire.  I feel as self-conscious as the 15-year-olds look.  We discuss that we have to discuss and I vamoose, my curls starting to flop already. 

Mr Private encourages me to place a bet on the main race in The Grand National.  I go for the horse trained by Lucinda Russell, my nemesis of sorts, as my forename acquires that sneaky ‘D’ as least 3 times a week. I'm disappointed that I won't get to watch the race with Mr P, but my posh do awaits.

I get dressed for the IFTA’s in Mr Private’s house.  He’s standing at the bottom of his stairs when I saunter down in my guna nua, feeling like I’m off to my Debs, Pretty in Pink, with blushing cheeks to match as he takes my photograph and tells me that he is proud of me.  

I am accompanied to the IFTA’s by some of my best film buddies, two giants of men, in tuxedos.  They'd pass as my bodyguards, if I was a some one.  We walk up the red carpeted steps of the Mansion House in the glorious sunshine, as crowds of people and an army of photographers gather, to catch a glimpse of the Beautiful People.  The IFTA’s are MC’ed by Deirdre O’Kane and the show is super.   The Kildare interest in the IFTA’s are ‘Gridlock’, nominated for Best Short Film and Caoilfhionn Dunne, nominated for Best Actress in ‘In View’.  Neither win in their category, but the nominations are a huge boost for film promotion in the county and something that gives me great personal satisfaction.   Mr Private texts me and tells me that I have won e75 on the Grand National.  My scientific approach to gambling has paid off, go Lucinda.  Cinderella eventually leaves the ball and returns to a house full of mountain men, burning the midnight oil.

There are negotiations on the best route to Croke Park.  I direct Mr Private via my familiar haunts when I lived in Dublin.  Kilmainham, along the walls of the Phoenix Park, turning left up Infirmary Road, right onto the North Circular Road, past my old flat and O’Devaney Gardens where I worked.   No 63 NCR, my half way house for strays from Meath, en route to the airport, a concert, the Mater Hospital or looking for a flat.  The boys from O’Devaney that I tried to teach art to, but failed, mostly because their greater need was for a hot meal and a warm bed.  I think of A.C. one of my past pupils there, then a violent 16 year old.   A tall, handsome lad, who had bowel problems because no one ever bothered to toilet train him.  He couldn’t read or write either, but carved his initials everywhere.  Curious as to what had become of A.C. since those days, I Googled his name recently and found that he was doing a long stretch in Mountjoy Prison for Grievous Bodily Harm, that latent anger manifesting itself.

The Kerry men follow us up the NCR towards Phibsborough.  They phone Mr Private on the way, annoyed that there are no parking spaces available.  I regret suggesting the route and wishes that they had made their own way there.  Mr Private has lost the cool.  F’ing and blinding about Dublin and Ireland, comparing here to other European cities.  I feel like suggesting that Mr Private buys himself a one-way ticket out of ‘this shit hole’.  I retort saying, ‘The only thing wrong with the parking spaces that I suggested is that cars were already in them’.  The two-car entourage meander across the North Side and into a multi storey car park off Abbey Street.  Mr Private very nearly hits his very nice car off the very large, very yellow pillar.  He’s cursing again.  ‘It’s a pity the pillar wasn’t a bit bigger’, I quip and burst out laughing.  He's laughing now too. 

Kerry Man 1, Mr Private Junior is mumbling about a ‘better route’.  Kerry Man 2, the diplomat, says that he could see why I suggested that way.  Kerry Man 3 is smiling, keeping his head down and his hands in his pockets.   I’m relieved that we are not all sitting together in Croker.

Although we are freezing cold at the match, Mr Private has thawed out on me.  He’s tells me that he’s happy I’m there.  I’m glad that he is there too – our seats are so high in the Cusack Stand that I’m feeling dizzy and I need someone to cling onto.  Anto on my other side doesn’t look like he would take kindly to a non-Dub clutching his beefcake arm, although he is ‘bleedin’ poxy freezin’ too, wearing bleedin’ poxy shorts.  I wish he would stop roaring in my ear.  You would swear that ‘DeeeeannnnoooOOOO' was the only player on the pitch.

 

We are surrounded by a sea of uber-confident Dubs and the Kerry team needs all of the support they can muster, even from me.  The match is nail-biting til the end and Kerry get a well deserved win, by one point, 1-16 to 0-20.  I’m under pressure to get home, so we don’t get to say goodbye to the Kerry men.  Hopefully they will remember me for the Domestic Goddess breakfast I prepared for them and not our tour of Dublin City.

I text Mr Private and tell him that I am writing about cranky Kerry men and car parks.  He texts back saying ‘Will you mention how things have changed since Meath were last in a final?’  

Hit me where it hurts Mr Private, hit me where it hurts.