...in Paris

The Adventures of the Anonymous Two in Paris

A year after getting my travel note books from Husband, we were off to Paris again for my birthday. We had also decided to repeat the trip as a nice bookend to the events of the previous year which had of course presented its own issues and challenges – as well as reducing our travel and use of my travel note book.

We both spent hectic mornings at work before meeting at St Pancras International. Husband had had to travel up from the south coast after quickly escaping from meetings while I had had a short tube ride from the office. So it was too late we discovered the Paris forecast included rain and thunder. We had packed on the basis of the current heat wave. Although it would admittedly still be hot – even if wet,

At the passport check the man looked at me, then looked at my passport photo and the long hair pictured, then did a double take back at me and my almost bald head. ‘You’ve changed’ he said. I smiled. Little did he know.

After a short and uneventful Eurostar journey we arrived in a hot, stuffy and airless Paris. Now familiar with the city, we aimed for Metro, procured a book of tickets and set off towards the hotel. The journey required a change of Metro line and we walked through the wide, squat, dimly lit and oppressive underground link tunnels which were untiled, unpainted and liberally graffittied, echoing with bluesy rhythms from unseen sax and trumpet players. You could allow yourself to feel mournful.

 

We quickly found the hotel, nestled on the corner of a busy square in Le Marais. We later found out that this was the gay district so were literally in gap Paris. After a quick freshen up and unpack we went into the square in search of dinner. It was surrounded by cafes and restaurants whose tables spilled out onto the pavements, and were filled with diners. In the middle of the square, a small huddle of people gathered, watching all the restaurants from this central vantage point, like birds of prey, waiting for a table to become free so that they could pounce.

We went for the first place we could get into. As soon as their tables were full and a queue starting to form, they put out further tables. Somehow, that seemed like cheating.

A man came round selling what looked like dried pasta but turned out to be garlands of flowers. A subsequent seller was chased away by a barking dog –which seemed to be popular incident for the diners based on the audible cheer that this raised.

On the table next to us a woman had moules which she ate by sucking them out of the shells in the manner of a ravenous lesbian. She was pregnant and I wondered if she should be eating shellfish at all. I also had moules and tried to eat them in my usual style of using one empty shell as pincers to pull the mussel out of another shell. This was of limited success as the shells lost their spring remarkably quickly, and I needed to change pincers on a somewhat frequent basis. Perhaps the ravenous lesbian had already been through this process and rather given up.

After dinner we amble to Place des Vosges which was curiously absent in atmosphere, then wandered down to the river. The narrow embankment at water level was thronging with people, picnic blankets laid out with sumptuous feasts spread upon them. Other had adopted more simple arrangements. All involved bottles of wine and young people making the most of the warm evening. As we stood, overlooking the scene, couples (bottles of wine in hand) went down the steps intent on finding a space to sit, drink and watch the world go by. It was only a matter of time before the crowds were such that people started to be spilled into the river.

 

Notre Dame loomed, dimly lit in the evening sky. The stream of passing boats was constant, some lined with offensively bright spotlights to show tourists the view which lit up and momentarily exposed the bankside revellers before plunging them once again into the romantic dusk in which they could pretend to a privacy and seclusion that did not exist.

We walked past hoard of ice cream eaters on our return to the hotel before pausing for a final drink in a small bar where we watched an amusing interchange. A chap with crutches was resting his foot on a chair at an empty table. The American bar man didn’t like this and brought him a stool. One of the other tables filled up and the took the recently freed up chair. The bar man instead gave them the crutches man’s stool and put the chair back at the empty table. The crutches man put his foot back on the chair again. This entire debacle repeated a further two time before we left. The bar man was clearly obsessed about that particular empty table having an equally empty chair at it. The crutches chap did at one stage point out that no one was sitting there. The bar man admonished him with ‘no one’s sitting there because you keep putting your foot on the chair’.

We wandered back to the hotel via a chocolate shop in Rue Riudli with amazing chocolate creations – wonderfully coloured and stunningly created shoes, ladybirds, frogs and more.

That nigh we went to bed with the gentle hubbub of late night partying drifting in through the windows.

The following morning we foraged for breakfast in a nearby café which was decorated in white tiles in the style of a gentleman’s public lavatory. Husband went for un oeuf a la coque which turned out to be boiled egg and soldiers.

 

We decided to take the Metro out to our exploring area for the day, and walk back. There are no ‘mind the gap’ warnings on the Paris underground and given the slimness of the Pairs populace that gap is a genuine peril. We went to Place de Clichy and reasonably quickly found the objective of the morning – Monmartre cemetery. It covered a massive area in a sunken dip, surrounded by busy road yet maintaining a cemetery peace and stillness. A city of tall, narrow structures had been built to honour the dead that reminded me in structure of phone boxes. Husband said they were phone boxes to God. These varied in design and ornament. Some had stained glass, while others boasted decorative, gilded mosaic interiors. Husband wondered if this worship of their various musicians, poets, authors was due to the limited opportunity to celebrate their murdered monarchy. A number of the tombs were topped with a bust, presumably intended as a likeness to the deceased. In the main, these depicted bearded men. Beardy and distinguished, said Husband. A sculpture in Paris had obviously once done a roaring trade in beardy and distinguished, potentially irrespective of what the dead person actually looked like. The cemetery comprised wide tree lined boulevards with huge cobbled walkways, and then narrow, rarely trod paths between the tombs. Cats wandered freely, one of which – a ginger one – reminded me of the bully cat who lived in our road at home. No sooner had this thought occurred to me than he rubbed himself around my legs in what can only be fairly described as a friendly manner.

There was a map which marked the locations of the tombs of the more well know occupants. More by luck than judgement, we found the tombs of Dumas and Sax – inventor of the saxophone.

Some graves were still well tended whilst others had been ignored for years and left to the care of the cemetery tenders who had seen fit to allow a small planted grave top shrub to grow into a fully blown tree, literally the tree of life, I mused, imagining its roots entangled in the owners rib cage.

Other graves had stunning bronze statues . On one there was a young girl curled up, with her arms around her head. Her uncovered shoulder felt real, the curvature and sculpted muscle was natural and the bronze was warm beneath the sun.

Although already sunken beneath the modern town which spread across the hill, the cemetery was on many level and someone had seen fit to build a socking great road across the top – the bridge girders plunging down into the cemetery beneath, with the base of the road scraping across the top of the monuments beneath.

 One large hunk of granite memorialised two people who died in 1944 and stated the words Birchenau and Auschwitz. Old graves lay side by side with new one and it was unclear how these spaces in between had been left available. The newly dead were crammed into any remaining nook and cranny. One stone tomb, for reasons that were unclear, seemed to attract and catch ladybirds, and the surface was covered with dead bugs.

Deciding to return to the world of the living we went back to the same lunch venue as last year – the Windmill in Monmartre and sat again in the small, quiet garden outside, in the shade of the windmill sails. While there a not insubstantial spider crawled into my handbag!

At a table next to us were some Americans who ordered snails. I amusing wondered whether, given the standard enormity of US portions, they would still be ravenous after this garlicy delicacy. Oddly French fries were on the menu. Surely here, in France, they were just fries?

Fully replete we wandered round the artist’s quarter where a handful of people cut out silhouettes of passers by as they stood there. It was an incredibly skilled feat and very clever. Just a few minutes with paper and scissors with no room for error.

We ambled back down the hill via a socking great church and then struggled to find the entrance to Galerie la Fayette. Having got inside, we then struggled to find its famous dome and were momentarily lost in what felt like the largest department store in the world. Eventually we happened across it by accident as I went in search of a loo. There was a large hot air balloon model suspended beneath it, with a statue of a man sitting on a platform beneath it and a slated walkway stretching tantalisingly from the balcony to the balloon. This seemed to be tempting an inevitable accident.

The store was packed, and having seen what we were interested in, then set about trying to leave as quickly as possible. Wandering along Boulevard Haussman we saw a shop called Le Plan B which gave Husband the idea of opening a flan shop called Flan B. If it became the victim of a fire presumably it then be the flambee Flan B.

It was a surprisingly long walk to Au Trappiste by which time we were much in need of a restorative beer. The new modern décor did not provide the same cosy atmosphere we had enjoyed on our first visit, but we were warming to it. We were given some olives in chilli oil, one of which had brown marks on that made it look like a small mouse face. And it had a stalk ‘tail’. There was an extensive menu of beers – hence our liking for this venue, and a large moules menu albeit much curtailed from our very first time here. The beers were listed by country. Under UK, it listed on – Newcastle Brown. Annoyingly, Indian Pale Ale was listed under the USA. Husband was tempted to bring over a crate of fine English ales and queried how to say ‘fucking indignant’ in French.

Husband chatted away merrily to the French waitress. He wanted to know the French for hops – as he likes hoppy beer. I warned him about the dual English meaning for this word and he may find himself asking for beers that allowed him to bounce around on one leg. He said that you would need to mindful if the French translation was plus de bouncier.

Gently working our way through the beer menu, Husband order a St Stephanus beer. This was served in a rather fine St Stephanus glass that he took a liking to so he practised saying ‘je m’appelle Stephanus. Je voudrais acheter la verre’. Miraculously the waitress understood and after disappearing for a minute or two to speak to the manager came back with the new ‘un cadeau’. His next beer, Cuvee de Trolles, came in an even better glass and for a moment he was close to saying to the waitress ’je m’appelle Stephanus and je suis un troll’. It seemed better to quit while we were ahead.

Looking through our phrase book – it had been needed a lot in the last few minutes – I noticed it didn’t include the French for I can or I need, but more usefully it did have eyebrow wax. Husband said that was fortunate as he wanted one and wasn’t sure how to tell me so thought it was best to say it in French.

We had many beers, including some mistakes. Gueuze, for example, is disgusting. Husband ate a whole pickle to disguise the flavour. Our attempts at soaking up the drink with a plate of meats and plate of cheese was not entirely successful. Husband said we needed to be able to walk out in a straight line – the reputation of England depended on it. So we ate more – moules and pudding. We took a picture of pudding – adorned with redcurrants. Then Husband ate the redcurrants and took another picture of the stalk – sans berries, he said. Which made us wonder why you could get berries in Sainsbury’s.

As so much of the beer was of monastic origin, Husband was proud to claim that a couple of monks had ruined him with their monk juice.

We saw a hotel conveniently placed directly opposite and took a note of its name before staggering back to our hotel and succumbing to alcohol infused oblivion.

The following day we rose late and navigated by the sun to Peres Laischelles – which was a fun in this day and age of modern technology. On the quiet streets we wandered down there was a pot bellied homeless man playing recorder – possibly the only useful thing his school had taught him. It was a long walk to the cemetery, which was bigger and more touristy than the one at Monmartre. But also slightly more unkempt. Perhaps because of its size, making neatness an impossible task. Weeds grew prolifically on and between the graves.

The cemetery was on a hill and at various intersections of the cobbled roads were larger memorials , monuments and chapels. We saw the tomb of Chopin – which was broadly ignored, and the tomb of Jim Morrison which was barricaded of and surrounded by substantial crowds. A grave opposite had a vast number of fresh bouquets, almost as a reminder that other dead people are available.

A number of graves marked deaths in 1914 with the bland statement ‘died for France’. It was unclear if the deceased was military or civilian casualties.

We looked in the door of a pyramid shaped tomb. The interior went deep below ground level and was a large chamber that looked like a container for coffins.

The newer section of the cemetery had more of the look of what you would expect from a modern cemetery, with smaller tombstones rather than the huge stone edifices of the older part. We saw the grave of Edith Piaf, again , largely ignored, and then went in search of Oscar Wilde. The crowds gave the clue of where he was. Pleasingly it was a substantially larger crowd than that surrounding Jim Morrison’s final resting place. The grave was surrounded by Perspex with a polite request not to desecrate the tomb. The statue behind the Perspex was adorned with a multitude of lipstick kisses, prior to its protective surround being installed. The testes of the monument’s statue had been broken off – it was unclear whether as a trophy or in protest. A poem engraved on the memorial ended poignantly with ‘his mourners will be outcast me, and outcasts always mourn’.

Our next objective was Gard de Lyon and Le Train Bleu restaurant. After a long, hot walk we arrived to find it closed for refurbishment. It was a baking hot day and we were tired and hungry but decided to head for Andy Pandy’s rather than settle for something mediocre. We went via Jardin de Plantes and lunched sumptuously at the same table we had sat at on our very first visit 11 years earlier.

We returned to the hotel, witnessing an unexpected fly past over Hotel de Ville, to shower and rest which ended up spending the evening in.

It rained in the night and the morning was cooler, with more showers threatened. I opened birthday cards and we pondered our plan for the day. It seemed like a good day to be indoors at Musee des Artes e Metiers. We had a pleasant walk through Le Marais. Inky black men started to pour out of shops with wheeled soft bags bulging with tat to try to flog to tourists. We passed a man who was either gay or had lost a bet very badly and shortly afterwards arrived at the museum, only to find that it was closed on Mondays. We had pondered between the museum or La Defense or Montparnasse. We decided to take the Metro to La Defense. The Metro station was decorated like the inside of a copper tun. The tube train will pulled in had no divisions between the carriages so it was like being inside a huge worm and you could see all the bends and winds and ups and downs as the train moved through the tunnels.

It was challenging to find a way out from the station at La Defense. It certainly seemed remarkably well defended. The stones of the steps leading up to the Grande Arche hadn’t been cemented in and were noticeably loose. ‘It’ll be nice when it’s finished’ said Husband.

We couldn’t go up it as the lifts were broken. So we decided to make for Montparnasse and sat right at the front of the Metro train, like a driver. Some children got on who wanted to be at the front, but we weren’t moving.

The guide books had been unflattering about Montparnasse, and we perhaps didn’t find the nicer bits. We did find the cemetery and visited Sautre-Beauvoir and Man Ray tombs before back towards St Germaine de Pres. We popped in to a large church on the way whose walls and ceilings were plain stone, or granite. No plaster or paint. And you could see where the rain had got in. We continued on to Les Deux Magot for lunch before coming back via Palais Royal where the fountain was blowing in the wind, soaking young children to the shrieking delight. Beneath one of the palace archways a violinist and cellist played in the echoing shadows.

We wandered alongside Jacques Tower. There were lots of statues with their breasts out which seemed a statutory requirement in times of great victory or great mourning.

That night we went to Julian’s for dinner via the Metro. Initially we went to the platform going in the wrong direction and as you couldn’t rectify this from inside the system, we had to exit and use another ticket to go to the correct side. It was scorching on the train and dancing people with a loudspeaker got on and were moving from carriage to carriage – which was clearly mortifying for repressed English people with a sense of public decorum. When we arrived at Julian’s it was closed. For some period of time. It had been that kind of day so we came back to the square by our hotel. We sat next to an Italian couple, which included a bald women. She looked at my attempt at hair. And we both wondered.

For pudding I had Le Fameux Cremaux which was a hard chocolate shell with mousse inside and I wondered how it was made. Husband said it would be done upside down. It had a biscuit base which Husband suggested was a hob nob.

The promised rain never came and the heat had built with the day. Finally, it was now cooling.

 

We woke on our final day and now it really did look like rain. We went to the brasserie round the corner for breakfast and then on to Au Trappiste – where else would you rather be. Initially the plan was just to have coffee but we decided to go for a final beer each – Hopus and Mont des Cats. Outside it was cool, grey and quiet.

As the time to leave approached we went to Chatelet Metro. Naturally both of the nearest entrances were closed!

As we arrived at Gard de Nord we realised that we hadn’t ever arrived here by Metro, we had always walked. We left a cool, grey France and came back to a hot and stuffy England. And a passport control woman who wished me happy birthday for yesterday.

... A pause in travel

There's a reason why there are very few entries in 2014 which is all made clear in http://leftbreastobituary.blogspot.com

... in Dublin

The Adventures of the Anonymous Two in Dublin

The flight time was changed from 8 am to 11am by the carrier which, in the event, was a good thing as it meant a considerably less early start. So, after finishing off the remnants of food left over from our Christmas lunch we left home at the civilised hour of 8am.

The previous day Dublin airport had been closed due to gales, but today was a beautiful, bright, clear morning. This was also the first time that the wig would get some serious wear – my chemotherapy treatment having finally seen off my hair.

We had the obligatory disrobing to get through security although Husband’s brother, Middle Bro (who now lived with us following the breakdown of his marriage) managed to arrange getting frisked as he left his phone in his pocket, thereby setting off the hypersensitive metal detectors. We had to pay a hideous amount of money to take the suitcase in the hold, which would have been much less had I been able to get the online pre-booking system to work.

It was a propeller plane, and we climbed to steps to board the boys were amused by the large energy rating certificate stuck on the outside. As we taxied to the runway it became clear that perhaps the energy efficiency was contributed to by the fact that one of the propellers didn’t seem to operate.

 

As our twosome trips would now occasionally be threesome trips, Husband and I realised we would need to re-write ‘The Only Travel Book You Will Ever Need’. This book was an idea we had come up with which would tell you how to say hello, goodbye, thank you, can I have the bill and 2 beers please in every language of the world on the basis that there wasn’t much else you needed to be able to say. We would now need to cover 3 beers please instead.

At Dublin airport our suitcase was the third bag off the plane, so we promptly located a taxi into town and to the apartments we were staying in. As we drove in it stuck me that Dublin comprised a strange mix of buildings. It had its fair share of nasty ‘new’ 60’s stuff but also shabby Victorian structures and scatterings of back to back alleys that were reminiscent of northern England slums of old. There were occasional feelings of baroque and terraces of small cottages which our taxi driver told us had been British Army owned. That was a bit awkward.

On a pub in the city I saw a sign which read ‘good times are coming, be it ever so far away’. It was a nice thought, given that I still had a fair way to go before my cancer treatment was finished.

The taxi dropped us off near to where we thought the apartment would be and we had the usual holiday initiative test of trying to find the accommodation. After a quick phone call to them and a bit of wandering up and down the street, we did find it and checked in. we were in apartment 33 – so had the amusement of the Irish receptionist telling us to go to ‘tirty tree’. The venue was now serviced apartments – this seemed the more sensible option given there were three of us, was more practical in terms of having a dining and living room area, rather than being confined to a single hotel bedroom and it gave me more flexibility in case I needed to rest. However, it seemed that it was once a hotel as the doors had key card arrangements on them, as well as an actual key hole. We had been given a key – which Husband kept putting into the key card slot and wondering why it wouldn’t work.

It was a nice apartment, two double rooms, a kitchen, a large table, sofa and TV, and a balcony overlooking Christchurch area. We dumped the suitcase and set off to Temple Bar. The guide book we had proudly advertised the wonderful food market that took place on Saturdays in one of the Temple Bar squares. This being the only Saturday we would be there, it seemed the appropriate opportunity to go and see it. It wasn’t easy to find the square. When we finally did there was no market and the ‘vibe’ of the square was much over rated. Although it was bright, there was a chill in the air so we found ourselves in a bar which had 38 different beers on tap as well as a menu which suggested a beer accompaniment for a number of the dishes.

The boys amusing suggested a ginger porter for me (at the time I was undergoing chemotherapy. Ginger is claimed to help with the nausea but as a result I was associating ginger with nausea and therefore really really wanted to avoid it). I scowled at them, and they started to refer to a grievance book that I must be compiling with all their various ‘offences’. I looked onto the pub’s free wi fi, informing Husband that I wasn’t as silly as I look. ‘That’s fortunate’ he said. (Reference previous comment about chemo – I was bald). Another entry for the grievance book!

 

We ordered some food which took a while to appear. By way of apology we were offered free puddings. Despite having not intended to have pudding, we felt that this was an offer which we couldn’t really refuse. On getting the bill we also wondered if they had added all the drinks on.

Suitably stuffed after our bargain lunch we meandered through the narrow, cobbled streets of Temple Bar, across Ha’penny bridge and along to O’Connell Street. The street is a large, wide boulevard and we were drawn to an imposing, pillar fronted building which turned out to be the post office. Inside it had old fashioned grille counters and information about its part in the 1916 rising.

 

Opposite the post office was is a very tall and rather impressive silver coloured spike, rising several hundred feet into the pale sky above before disappearing into a barely visible point. This took the place of the Nelson Monument before the Irish blew it up. 

 

O’Connell street is the only street in Dublin that it trying to be a boulevard. It is long, wide and lined with grand Georgian buildings. However once you looked more closely you could see that many of the shops in these buildings sold cheap tat and also that a vast number of premises were empty, with occasional gaps in the line of buildings from demolitions without replacement rebuilding apparent.

We wandered back to the apartment, finding a heraldry shops on the way so we bought a scroll alleging to show the family name coat of arms and history.

 Horse and carriages trotted through the streets, and went through the red lights. I wondered if there was a special Highway Code for horses whereby red lights didn't apply.

Back in the apartment it was nice to get the wig off.

We went to Ryan's bar, handily located just opposite the apartment and asked if they were doing any food. The kitchen hard-core closed but in true Irish friendly helpfulness we were told that they could do soup or toasted sandwiches. So we each had a round of toasties. Followed by a few beers, and then a sampling of some of the whiskers they had. We anticipated a large bill. I the event it was less than expected, partly because there had been no charge for the food. The Irish hospitality was even greater than anticipated.

There were fairy lights a round the wall and I played with them, whereupon they immediately went off. Initially I panicked a little before realising that they were on a sequence and dimmed and lit by routine. So I hadn't broken them. Which was a relief.

What we had been finding in Dublin was a distinct lack of real ales. A lot of bars proudly advertised craft beers but they were bottled and fizzy. So Husband did some investigating. And the result was that real ales just don't feature here. There were two bars which apparently served it. All other hand pumps were merely decoration. Perhaps real ales were too associated with England and thrown out shortly after the English. The website research referred to real ales as being as common as an Irish summer. And poor cellar keeping meant that where they were available there was a risk they it would taste like arse flavoured vinegar. So it's little wonder that the Irish, having lost the English art of cellar maintenance, soon lost their taste for a good real ale. This explained the abundance of bottled fizzy piss. But for a nation known for being hearty drinkers, it seems a shame.

The Irish man in Ryan's had as much trouble understanding us as we did him. We tried tullimore whiskey and were going to try middleton but they pre warned us it was 60 euros a shot.

No wonder it was so expensive in Dublin if the local establishments kept not charging you. They must look at their end of month losses and, not realising how much has been given away for free, jack up their prices a little more.

That evening we had the TV on while we played obligatory rummy. The Italian job was on and in the early sequences there is footage inside a prison. Hang on, I thought. That looks familiar. I looked at our guide book. It looked very much like the inside of Kilmarnham gaol that we were planning to visit the following day.

We woke the next day to a bright morning and made our way to the Guinness museum via the antique quarter, which was closed on accounts of it being as Sunday. The roads we ambled through were again reminiscent of Northern England terraces and there was an undercurrent of poverty and neglect. Everything was in a mild state of disrepair.

At the Guinness storehouse the exhibition was arranged around a large pints glass reaching up through the centre of the building and which would apparently hold 14.3 million pints. Guinness has a 9000 year lease on the premises.

We worked our way round the exhibition up to the gravity bar at the top. Guinness is not black but in fact a rich dark red colour that is only apparent when held against a bright light. Like in the bar, which was a circular, glass room into which the morning sun beamed through, hot and brightly. ‘You need a hell of a bright light to see the ruby red’ said Middle Bro; fortunately we had such brightness as the morning sun burned through at us.

 

Realising we had no salt and pepper in the apartment; we grabbed a handful of sachets from the Guinness café. Now we just needed ketchup.

We walked around the perimeter. Of the bar looking out over the city. Dublin was small and you could see the surrounding hills and greenery beyond the limits of the buildings.

We walked on to Kilmarnham gaol and en route Husband rapidly lost faith in the reliability of the scale of the map. it seemed considerably further than the map implied.

Finally arriving at the gaol we joined the queue. A curious and unhelpful queuing system was in operation until eventually a younger man came out and shouted to the waiting crowd that tickets were now being sold for the 2.30 visit and reminding everyone that you cannot pre book. Until then, there had been an old man at the front explaining it to each group of people as they approached the front. The queue moved reasonably quickly and we got tickets for our allotted time, which handily gave us time to go and get some pie for lunch at patriots bar on the corner.

The gaol had two defined wings which were constructed in different eras. Initially we were shown round the older part which was cold and forbidding, reminiscent of what you would imagine from medieval times with large, padlocked doors and dark, stone corridors.

 

The newer wing had a large, central area with cells around the edge. A metal staircase rose up the middle to walkways on higher levels, and further cells. This was the room which had featured on The Italian Job. The gaol was used for a number of films – and pop concerts.

It had got particularly busy during the potato famine as prisoners did get fed – so people would deliberately commit a crime in order to get incarcerated and avoid starvation.

There was much talk of the 1916 risings. The key individuals involved had all been brought here – and we were shown the cells they had been held in. We were then taken outside and shown where they had been shot. While the rising had not been popular, and the initiators had been jeered at as they were led off to gaol, their shooting made them martyrs and changed relations between the English and Irish. This was helped by the young age of some of the men, one married in prison just prior to his execution. Another had been injured in the rising and was sat on a chair to be shot as he couldn’t stand. Even then, he fell off the chair and was put back on it to be killed. It was understandable why the actions of the English did not go down well. But given the year, it made me wonder why these men weren’t on the front line, being killed alongside other British men, martyrs for a different cause.

Leaving the inhospitable confines of the gaol, we walked up to the Wellington monument which was apparently the largest obelisk in Europe. The monument did not meet the same fate as that to Nelson because Wellington was born in Ireland. So that made him ok, or Irish.

As we walked out through Phoenix Park the boys admired the lamps which still appeared to be powered by gas. Thoroughly ‘walked out’ we caught a tram to Smithfield for the purpose of finding the Brazen Head – on the way passing a pub called the Nancy’s Hands. Well, we wouldn’t be drinking in there.

We waited to cross the road. In Dublin, when the green man comes up, rather than a gentle beep like in England, there is an initial noise which sounds like sniper fire.

The Brazen Head is a small, higgledy piggeldy pub, small cosy rooms linked together in a haphazard way. We found space in one room which had a bar and fire. In the room next door there was an Irish band. I went in to have a look – it was standing room only as a consequence of the band. In the corner a group of musicians were sitting, singing and playing. I returned to our space in the adjoining room, where we could at least hear the lilting strains of the music.

We decided to eat there. The boys had moules to start with and asked if I minded (certain food is off the menu while on chemo and having a compromised immune system). I told them I didn’t mind, but it would go in the grievance book. We then had a very scrummy Irish stew, the first one since being in Dublin.

We walked back to the apartment which was considerably closer than we had thought, via Ryan’s bar for a quick whiskey before finishing the day with the obligatory game of cards.

The following morning it was moist. We had been seeing people coming and going from the church opposite the apartment, so decided to go into it before our main objective of the morning – a visit to Jamieson’s. It was a Polish church, very austere. It was something you would expect from the Puritan’s, utterly devoid of any decoration or statuary.

We were second in the queue at Jamieson’s, which wasn’t yet open. However it was good to get there early as within the next few minutes the die hard alcoholics silently gathered. Through the window we could see a chandelier made from empty Jamieson’s bottle, as well as a Christmas tree. Finally the doors were opened and we secured our place in the first tour of the day – which was quickly sold out.

No distilling was done on site anymore, having been moved to Middleton. So the distillery museum was a fabricated mock up of how the process operated. And it was very similar to the process used to make Guinness. During the tour the guide gave out 8 tubes to whoever approached him first. Middle Bro and I secured a tube each. This allowed us to take part in a tasting session at the end. One interesting fact that we did discover was the Mr Jamieson was a Scotsman. Which was good to know.

When the tour finished we were all offered a sample of the product – either a shot or a long drink where the whiskey had been drowned by ginger ale. I went for the single shot although the boys joked that I should have had the ginger drink. Then we sat down to our tasting session. This included a sample of Jack Daniels, Jamieson’s and Black Label to show the difference between age as well as whether cask was new or used. Jack Daniels is distilled in new casks, hence its more flowery, oaky flavour. Once you knew, you could taste it. And I realised that was what was so unpleasant about JD.  A Croatian girl didn’t want to finish her tasting samples, so we shared them out between us. After all, it seemed a shame to waste a free drink.

Now having the taste for it, we repaired to the Jamieson’s bar and tried a number of whiskeys they had available before buying a bottle of the slightly pricey distillery special – which apparently you can only buy there.

By the time we left, we were a little tipsy. We took the tram all along the river Leffe to the Jeannie Johnston boat. As there wasn’t another tour until 2pm we wandered around the clean, futuristic, glass buildinged financial district in search of lunch. It was mostly shut, and eerily empty but then in the corner of a square we found an Italian/American diner for some well earned alcohol absorbent. It was already crammed with people, and the Ladies was amusingly behind a door marked Broads.

After a truly delicious lunch, we ventured back out into the bright but cool air where a chilling wind whipped through the empty streets and along the river.

The Jeannie Johnston was a replica of the original version, and the tour consisted mainly of stories about families who had travelled to America in cramped conditions in order to avoid starvation and death during the potato famine. The more embarrassing part of this history was that Ireland had plenty of food and could easily have fed everyone. But the English were exporting it all, leaving the Irish primarily with their potato crops to feed themselves with. So when these failed, they were left with nothing. And the English didn’t ease up or stop their exporting.

It was a beautifully build boat which rocked gently, but discernibly in the river. The original boat has the proud record of no life ever being lost.

After leaving the boat we crossed over the river and walked back towards town, passing the statue of the trawler man and the rather minimal Steyne stone, before making our way to Fleet Street and the Palace bar. This was one which the taxi driver had recommended and was also one the very few places, according to Husband’s research, which served real ale. There was only one working hand pump, from which we drank – the others being decorative. We sat in the large, quiet, wood panelled room at the back where we could hear the ticking of the pendulum clock on the wall which chimed 4 o’clock. The decorated glass ceiling allowed us to know as the daylight dimmed.

Husband chatted to an Irish couple who had never seen a hand pump before.

After a few pleasant beers at the Palace we made our way to Temple Bar, passing bars from which music filtered out into the street from the man, microphone and fiddle perched somewhere in the corner until we found the Porter House microbrewery which also was rumoured to serve hand pump ales. They certainly had plenty of pumps. But none were operational. Everything was bottled. And mildly unpleasant. The porter house opted for trendy over character and a surprising unpromotion of their onsite brewing. Given that the beer wasn’t great and someone had brought a crying baby into the pub, we decided to leave.

We pondered what to have to dinner. Lots of places seemed to have cabbage and bacon on the menu, which intrigued us, but we were concerned about repercussions. We saw one board outside a pub titled Specials, on which the patrons had proudly written ‘Nothing. Happy New Year’. Finally settling on somewhere for dinner, we had Irish stew – with a side order of bacon and cabbage. At an adjacent table sat two blonde, curly haired, heavily tattooed girls who were frighteningly butch. They reminded me of Hopper and Walker from Quins, and the fans chant of ‘there’s only two Charlie Walkers’. They looked like lesbians, but really scary ones.

I carried my travel notes book with me – which Husband had given me for my 40^th. Previously my notes from trips were scribbled on bits of paper and then typed afterwards. But now I had a handwritten record that I could keep. And I kept adding to it. The boys continued to refer to it as the grievance book and got concerned when I added extra notes between the lines of bits I had already written in case this meant I was remembering past grievances.

Pudding was served with tiny jugs of custard, most of which could be poured, but a lot was left inside the jug and the only way to retrieve it was to use a finger, and finger the jug. Bear in mind that I was in full view of the lesbians, and probably having my technique closely examined.

We returned to the apartment for our evening game of cards to allow dinner to go down before bed.

The following morning – New Year’s Day – we woke to a bright, crisp day. The sunshine was gleaming off the damp streets, blinding us as we walked to Christchurch cathedral. We weren’t prepared to pay to go in, so peaked round the corner a from the pay desk, and then left. We did the same at the castle, which was more of a Georgian square than a castle. You were meant to pay go into the chapel, but as it was small, you could see the entire thing from the doorway. Bizarre planning rules had allowed a hideous 60’s structure to be built right next to the chapel and remaining Norman tower. It was the same story with the concrete monolith overshadowing Temple Bar. Although apparently that was built prior to anyone realising that the trendy and artificially bohemian Temple Bar would be created in its shadow.

Work was underway to set up for the evening concert outside the Bank of Ireland, but we were still able to go in and see the old House of Lords room.

We then crossed over the road to Trinity College and wandered around the extensive campus before going in search of the Phil Lynott statue. On the way we passed the Molly Malone – or tart with a cart – sculpture. Phil was just off the main road, positioned outside a pub. As it was past 11 and cold we ventured into said pub, where we noticed for the first time that half a pint cost considerably more than half the cost of a whole pint. Which frankly seemed a bit cheeky. The pub was just off a wide, pedestrianized road, lined with shiny fashionable shops and eateries.

 

Now having ‘done’ Dublin, we contemplated what to have for lunch. The plan had been to have a gentle day and return to the apartment for an afternoon nap so that we were fresh and alert enough to stay up for the New Year party. Davy Byrne’s was nearby so we ate there, indulging in potato soup as unfortunately it was the wrong season for oysters and Guinness. Well, not the Guinness part obviously.

As planned, we then returned to the apartment and played cards for far too long before going for a nap. We old folk can’t cope with late nights out anymore.

Mildly rested, we returned to town for the light procession. I had managed to find a map of the route and we had selected our vantage point. On the way there, we saw man sitting on the pavement, settling down with marshmallows for dinner, while another had two bottles of vodka.

There were few other people lining the street and no barricades. Initially I wondered if the procession was happening. Or perhaps the people of Dublin weren’t really interested. But then, at the last minute, crowds started to form, and we could hear the rumble of drums from the oncoming carnival.

It was spectacularly badly organised. The road, which had still been open to traffic, was suddenly closed off by a policy car and motorbike. The queue of traffic at the junction was given no information or warning and was left to wait there, in the small, narrow side road for the best part of an hour. Initially there was some frustrated hooting, but then, like the people who leapt from the Titanic, the noise eased and in time, fell silent. Or perhaps we just couldn’t hear it over the sound of the procession with its drums and blaring music.

 

Floats and people wearing elaborate, electrically lit costumes danced and performed their way slowly along the street. In another example of the poor planning, some floats were too high and became entangled in the cobweb of fairy lights that were draped along the top of the ones the streets that the procession passed along. This necessitated the use of a man with a long device to lift the fairy lights as the taller structures came along. It wasn’t entirely successful, but was extremely amusing.

 

After the more professionally put together outfits, the general populace of Dublin followed, with small green homemade lanterns of their own.

With about an hour to kill before the evening concert began, we found our way into a bar. This was actually more of a result than it sounds. It was New Year’s Eve in Dublin. The bars were rammed. But we squeezed in, and even managed to get a seat.

After a while, inevitably, I needed a pee. The barman informed me that it was upstairs, at the back. After I left, he commented to the boys that there was band on upstairs. Consequently it was mental up there, and the simple task of getting to the back of the room was likely to be tricky, and time consuming. He ‘jokingly’ informed them that if needed to go, he used the small sink behind the bar.

It was indeed busy upstairs. Over in one corner, two lads perched on bar stools, played their guitars and sang popular rousing rock tunes into the microphone in front of them. I looked with trepidation at the sea of people between me and my intended objective. Then, with a deep breath, I set forth with a firm shoulder and sharp elbow. It was easier than I had anticipated. Returning was easier again as the singing duo had paused for a break, which caused an immediate thinning out of the crowd.

We were sharing a table – well, upturned wooden cask – with a couple from Lancashire who had driven over as a last minute idea, which seemed rather sporting.

Shortly after the gates to the concert opened, we made our way there. This was partly to ensure we could find somewhere comfortable to settle ourselves. By superb good luck and good timing, we found a raised bicycle park which has been barricaded off. Therefore we could gain a bit of height by standing on the higher kerb, lean on the barricade and have no one standing directly in front of us to crowd us or block our view of the stage. Within minutes the barrier was lined with people, but our place was secure.

On the front of Trinity College laser lights made pictures of flowers and happy new messages. Ireland has a lot of musically minded people, and churns out a reasonable number of bands. The support performers at the concert were local bands, and each one was extremely good. We were pleased to have arrived early to see them all.

There was a strange, uncommunicative DJ who played tracks between each band, while one left and the next set up. But there was no plan or attempt to rally the crowd. Tracks started mid way through and were cut off as soon as the next band was ready. She never spoke to us, and the music was night clubby, a bit heavy rave. Once she played a more sensible track which the crowd noisily sang along to, dancing. The DJ did not seem to pick up on this or respond to it by playing more of the same. Instead she went back to her disjointed rave and not entirely satisfactory use of the bass volume levels.

Then came MKS – formerly the original Sugar Babes. None of the played instruments, so they were singing along to backing tracks. This straight aware set them apart from the bands who had entertained us this far. It is also far to say that they couldn’t actually sing in tune. This also marked deterioration in the quality of entertainment. They were rarely in sync with their backing tape. The most amusing moment was when they needed to stop a backing track and start again as they hadn’t been able to hear it themselves, so had missed the moment when they were meant to start singing. ‘At least you know we’re singing live’ they announced, with an undertone of pride. We would have expected nothing less. However, the crowd at large was rather hoping they wouldn’t sing live. Or at all. But on they went. Song after song. It seemed a shame that some of the previous bands had been given so little time to perform in order to give greater audience to this utter dross.

College Green was now quite full and we were getting pushed from behind. Husband wanted to go the loo before Madness came on, leaving Middle Bro and I to try and hold onto his space at the barrier. Some time later he returned, armed with hot whiskey and hot port. This was very welcome as we were getting colder.

I noticed two women next to Middle Bro who appeared to be a mother and daughter. The daughter seemed to be eyeing Middle Bro up – and I let him know. When he struck up a conversation with them it transpired that they were German.

And then Madness came on. And were unspeakably fantastic. And funny. Suggs informed us that the bank was open so that they could use it as there changing room. ‘Last time I was in a bank at 11 o’clock at night, I came in through the floor’ he joked.

 

There was a countdown clock on the laser light images on Trinity College, except that the seconds went down at a rate far quicker than standard seconds. Time clearly passes considerably more quickly in Dublin. As we reached midnight, or a time that was close enough, a large number of identical, small and uninteresting fireworks were set off from the rook of the bank and Trinity College. They were unimpressive in all aspects, except the sheer number of them. Then Madness continued playing, and proudly told us that we were at a record breaking length of gig, as it had begun last year. But he felt that they were better this year.

After they finished the DJ put on always look on the bright side of life. The crowd sang along gleefully. And then she turned it off, to calls of ‘ohh’ and ‘boo’. The crowd carried on singing anyway.

We turned to go, and wandered back towards the apartment through the streets of bottles and broken glass.

The following morning, our last day, it was raining. Seriously, comprehensively, sideways raining. Following the debacle of paying over the odds to add a suitcase on the flight out, I phoned the call centre to book it for the return journey – which would be cheaper than paying at the airport. This proved to be an interesting call to Fly Be. I asked to add a bag and pay over the phone. He asked me for my name – which I gave him. Then he asked for the flight number – which I gave him. Then he said that as I had booked it via Explore he didn’t have any information about me and therefore couldn’t verify he was speaking to the person I claimed to be. He said it was to do with data security.

I told him that I fully understood about data security arrangements, but that as I had given my name and flight number and actually wanted to give him money, rather than request any information or data at all about the passenger I was claiming to be, then there wasn’t actually a data security issue.

Finally he seemed to accept my point and let me pay. Uh oh, I thought. My card was in my married name. However the flight was in my maiden name – because my passport was still in my maiden name. Knowing that I had the most data security conscious man in Christendom, to make the payment for the passenger I had now convinced him I was with a card in the name of someone else could prove interesting. Surprisingly, and somewhat confusingly, this presented him with absolutely no problem at all. It had been a surreal few minutes.

Although it was only a ten minute walk to the Meeting House Square where the morning after the night before brunch was being held, we took a taxi given the deeply unpleasant weather. The square disappointed, yet again. There was no brunch. A band was setting up on a stage, face painting arrangements were being made and there was a mobile coffee outlet. Huge misunderstanding of the meaning of brunch on behalf of the Dubliners. So we happened across a steamy windowed café in Brick Lane which was serving cooked breakfasts. We sat together on chairs around large wooden tables. It was very student. But just the ticket for a chilly, wet morning.

It had brightened up by the time we finished, so we had a couple of beers in a nearby pub before getting the bus to the airport. A girl on the bus was eating Tayto Crisps, which rather amused us. As did the Abrakebabra kebab house. And the grown up girl who ate a Kinder egg and was suitably surprised and delighted by the toy inside. Due to the rain, we went through some significant puddles at pace, causing huge tidal waves over the fortunately empty pavements.

At the airport we killed time in a bar where I watched the ‘chef’ – or heaterer upperer of pre-packaged food – wipe her nose multiple times with her hand while preparing and serving up food. At no point did she attempt to wash her hands. Wipe – touch food. Wipe – put salad on a plate. Wipe – add garlic bread. And so it went on. Note to self. Do not eat at the bar/restaurant at Dublin airport. Unless you like the added topping of someone else’s snot.

When our gate was announced we toddled off through some doors that warned us there was no return from that point. As soon as we had got through them the screens informed us that the flight was delayed by an hour. And now we were stuck in the cold, dreary, empty holding pen by the gate. There were a multitude of uncomfortable metal seats and one café selling cheap coffee and tired sandwiches. As the flight continued to be delayed, we killed time by getting some food from the café. Minutes later the airline gave out food vouchers. It was going to be that kind of evening.

I kept looking up the flight details on my mobile. It hadn’t yet left Southampton. Until it did, we weren’t going anywhere and I wondered if this was weather induced. Finally, after a three hour delay, we were airborne. Arriving back in Southampton after the airport had technically closed had its advantages – the bags appeared remarkably quickly and the long stay car park bus was waiting outside for us.

Tired and partied out, we arrived home late after an enjoyable few days away, which – in light of my medical situation – we hadn’t even been sure we would have been able to do. Here’s to 2014, which can surely only get better.