Playground

A busy but hugely enjoyable day.

I'd spoken to the Denon dealer yesterday to see what his latest excuse was for the non-arrival of my new music system. He told me the package had gone from depot to depot in the UK and had finally left there for Dublin in the afternoon. He said he usually gets courier deliveries around lunch time, and promised to phone me and arrange handover this afternoon. Not having heard anything by then, I emailed him at 3:30 wondering whether or not I should expect to see him today. He said he couldn't understand it, but that the courier still hadn't arrived, though he'd been told the package was 'in the van'. We agreed that things could wait until tomorrow morning if necessary, since I had other commitments later this evening.

The commitments involved my Chew & Chat mate Tom, who was breaking with our city-centre tradition and meeting Carl and me in Dún Laoghaire for the first C&C of the new year. We'd arranged to meet for aperitifs in the Cocktail Bar in the Royal Marine Hotel, to go from there to the restaurant, and to finish the night with a screening in Carl's Kino. Fortunately, I decided to check out the lie of the land in the hotel. Fortunately, because a quick visit there established that what was the Cocktail Bar (and very nice it was, too) is now a conference facility. Carl and I held our own tele-conference and agreed that the Forty Foot would be a better alternative than the other bar in the hotel, so I texted the change to Tom.

I managed to fit in a bit of a photo shoot while around the area of the Royal Marine. This is the play area which is part of the civic improvement below the Pavilion Centre in Dún Laoghaire. The jury is still out when it comes to the paved area which has been built atop the railway line and is now being extended further down The Metals. We'll see how it works out during the summer.

I'd promised carl that I'd do some cleaning and tidying in his place before he got home from work, so went there to don my rubber gloves and get down to work. I was in full clean-and-tidy flight when I got a call from the Denon guy to say the package had arrived and was there any way he could get it to me today rather than wait until tomorrow. I told him he'd have to come to Carl's place, which he did. Of course, that meant that I wouldn't even be able to unbox the new bit of kit until tomorrow evening after the weekly music session. Still, at least I finally got my hands on it.

Carl arrived home, we finished the cleaning and tidying, had a quick V&T and went out to meet Tom at 7:45 in the Forty Foot. From there we continued on to the restaurant -- The Bay, over Walters pub, which Carl and I have got to like a lot (and where we had our meal on New Year's Eve). Unfortunately, once again it was virtually empty (one table occupied when we got there, and then just we three). I didn't think the food was as good as previously, but Tom and Carl were happy. We spent a fair while over our meal and then suddenly it was time to introduce Tom to Dún Laoghaire drinking establishments. The grand plan was to include O'Loughlin's, but we actually only had one drink in the Kozie, virtually right beside The Bay.

Then it was back to Carl's place and Carl's Kino. One of my Christmas presents from Carl had been Tais Toi, which I'd seen some time ago in the Film Festival, had enjoyed enormously, and have always remembered since. Carl and I were about to watch it last weekend when we suddenly realised this would be the perfect choice for tonight instead. It was. Tom got a taxi home at 2:00 am after a wonderful evening and night.