Sombre

My great friend Robin died this morning. I'd visited him in hospital two weeks ago and again last week, and I'd also been visiting him regularly in the nursing home where he'd been for the last several months, and had planned to see him again this afternoon.

Before he moved to the nursing home we used meet on the first Wednesday of every month for coffee in Mayfield in Terenure, close to where he lived. His health had gradually disimproved over the past few years. A first sign of things going downhill was when he had to give up his car and switch to a mobility scooter which he really enjoyed driving along the pavements near home and terrifying innocent pedestrians. Being moved to the nursing home brought that to an end, until he was given a battery-powered wheelchair for whizzing around the corridors on (it took him a while to master the joystick control, until which several feet had been driven over).

Robin's nickname was VOIMS (the Voice of Irish Motor Sport), because he was the one who did the commentary at Mondello Park. He was wonderful at that (though Robins Nest, as it was called, didn't have a clear view of the entire track and he tended to make things up while the cars were hidden), and he was a regular at our Grand Prix lunches for many years until they fizzled out six or seven years ago.

Apart from a shared interest in motor sport, he and I became very close friends. It's been sad watching his health fail, but I did my best to visit him whenever I could. The last really good time we spent together was on Christmas Eve. Quite a gang gathered while Robin held court in the restaurant in the nursing home and we had a rare old time laughing and joking and reminiscing. I'll miss him. A lot.

The photo is of a wall in the beer garden at Goggin's pub in Monkstown where Carl and I met to raise a glass in memory of Robin. The image summed up my mood perfectly.