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It's time for another of our irregular car trips up to Dublin to visit
family and friends. My mother, brother and sister-in-law all live in Dublin,
as do many of my oldest friends from my college days. E-mail, Skype and the
rest serve their purpose but sometimes you have hit the road and do the
rounds in person.
To my daughter's great delight and anticipation, our trip coincides with a
street party this weekend that will be held on the street where my mother
lives. At this party there will be a BOUNCY CASTLE. Rowan's joys were
unconfined. I only hope that it lives up to its promise.
So now we're on the road out of Cork heading for Fermoy, this first sizable
town on the Cork-Dublin road. Fermoy is famous (in my mind at least) for its
bottleneck and the endlessly delayed by-pass. I also recall the story of an
unfortunate lad from Fermoy who was the subject of a long and disgraceful
campaign of gay-bashing, so I'm afraid the town doesn't rate highly on my
list of the urban jewels of our republic.
After Fermoy there's Mitchelstown, famed for its cheese and, at last, its
brand-new by-pass. This will be our first encounter with this new wonder of
roads technology and I wait with bated breath to experience this marvel.
By-passes are a popular subject of conversation for the driving classes.
Cork and Dublin are separated by 261km according to my road map, but the
journey routinely takes 4 hours, in no small part due to the quality of the
roads and the number of towns that have to be passed through[1]. This means
that every working by-pass is welcomed by drivers, if hated by the merchants
of the newly by-passed towns, who can longer rely on a regular passing
trade.
We also like to talk[2] about house prices.
[1] The traffic doesn't help either, to be honest.
[2] I say talk. I mean complain.
family and friends. My mother, brother and sister-in-law all live in Dublin,
as do many of my oldest friends from my college days. E-mail, Skype and the
rest serve their purpose but sometimes you have hit the road and do the
rounds in person.
To my daughter's great delight and anticipation, our trip coincides with a
street party this weekend that will be held on the street where my mother
lives. At this party there will be a BOUNCY CASTLE. Rowan's joys were
unconfined. I only hope that it lives up to its promise.
So now we're on the road out of Cork heading for Fermoy, this first sizable
town on the Cork-Dublin road. Fermoy is famous (in my mind at least) for its
bottleneck and the endlessly delayed by-pass. I also recall the story of an
unfortunate lad from Fermoy who was the subject of a long and disgraceful
campaign of gay-bashing, so I'm afraid the town doesn't rate highly on my
list of the urban jewels of our republic.
After Fermoy there's Mitchelstown, famed for its cheese and, at last, its
brand-new by-pass. This will be our first encounter with this new wonder of
roads technology and I wait with bated breath to experience this marvel.
By-passes are a popular subject of conversation for the driving classes.
Cork and Dublin are separated by 261km according to my road map, but the
journey routinely takes 4 hours, in no small part due to the quality of the
roads and the number of towns that have to be passed through[1]. This means
that every working by-pass is welcomed by drivers, if hated by the merchants
of the newly by-passed towns, who can longer rely on a regular passing
trade.
We also like to talk[2] about house prices.
[1] The traffic doesn't help either, to be honest.
[2] I say talk. I mean complain.
(no subject)
2) Hey, people inn New England like to talk [1] about traffic and housing prices too! Isn't that something.
[1] by talk, I mean bitch incessently, throw up our hands and weep in dispair. This is why I have no intention of leaving our current house.
(no subject)
We also bitch, moan, complain and gnash our teeth at the state of the housing market, the roads, inflation, immigration, emigration, and many other modern woes. We somehow seem to avoid electing anyone who would do anything positive about any of these problems.