Well, Sunday didn't go as smoothly as one might have hoped. Those brownies, for instance:
shattered into a thousand pieces when you tried to cut them, and yet, inside, remained strangely uncooked and damp. Undeterred by this omen though, we set forth on a big cycling adventure to a party in [Remote Unknown Place near Dublin Mountains], a place we have never set our innocent collective foot before. It's raining lightly as we come to the top of Haddington Rd. but this seems part of the marvellous fun adventure we are about to have. By Ranelagh, only 10 mins later, it's bucketing, and tempers are getting short. We shelter under the LUAS bridge and watch the rain bouncing thickly off the tarmac. Able-bodied seaman JB is becoming mutinous. The weasel words "I'd be for going home now" slip from his treacherous lips, and, "We could go for one of those good burritos around the corner and get the paper".
I stick out my lip and say I am going to the party, he can go home if he likes.
"That seems a bit sad," muses ABS JB, fishing for permission to abandon ship.
I stare unresponsively into the rain and finally we agree to go on as far as the supermarket and reassess the situation. I buy a carrot cake in the fancymarket to replace the turncoat brownies. I stare out at the rain through the shop window waiting for it to clear up. Dark clouds press downward, hurrying to cover over the one brighter patch in the sky. JB reluctantly agrees to come to Rathmines, once he knows that is not far away, and get the bus to [Remote Unknown Place near Dublin Mountains]. I am secretly pleased. Of course he'd never leave me in the rain!
We pedal quickly to Rathmines and wait for the bus. The rain is becoming more sparse. More plink, plink-plink, than sustained loud static. Bus comes. Get on bus. Sit on bus, looking at massive fancy houses, with magnolia trees and golden gravel in the front. Try to dry off a bit. Feel a bit travel sick. Ask driver to let us know when we get to Sch*larstown Rd in [Remote Unknown Place near Dublin Mountains]. Driver presumes we mean the other end. We don't.
We alight from bus in [Remote Unknown Place near Dublin Mountains] although it could be either Outer Mongolia or Timbuctoo (for these are the archetypal Unknown Places) for all we know.
It is now what JB refers to as dry. A relative term, learnt from years of denial of the Kerry climate - spontaneously formed rivers are rushing by at the roadside, leaves overhead are dripping generously. All is verdant. We plunge bravely onward, into suburbia. After a long, demoralising walk and sociological study of how the middle class in [Remote Unknown Place near Dublin Mountains] really live, we stumble upon Beverly Housing Estate. Can I say, I would love to make the acquaintance of whatever comedian thought of that one, so I could throttle congratulate him/her on his/her spirited humour. Beverly Crescent, Beverly Hills, Beverly Close, Beverly Rise, Beverly Downs, Lawns, Park, Drive, Dip, Depths, Levels, Curve, Turn, Round, Square and Semi-circle, we pounded them all before we found Heights, and verily that was a wondrous sight and the end to our troubles.
Angels sang. (Or angles, as JB texted me once: "You kiss like an angle". I didn't know how to take it).
Brian's wife, M had made vegetarian lasagne (for me, I like to think) - the kids were romping happily, and eating jelly like there was no tomorrow - and everyone was well. I even made a recording for my MA. Paul (Overseas Development friend) had wonderful fascinating stories from Ethiopia, and Afganistan, and we recovered our good humour, ate Banoffi with no irony and thought all was well, after all.
