Scarleh' I wos

Not once today, but twice. I made a show of myself. 

It was the annual gathering of the cousins (Mrs Raheny's) in plush Foaksroak. 
As we approached Uncle Ted's bungalow, I was sort of expecting him to open the door, as he tends to like to greet his visitors in person but since we were quite late (Mimi was working till 3pm), I wasn't too surprised to see his cousin(?)/nephew(?)/friend(?) open the door. I shook his hand, flashed a big smile and walked in, asking where all the others were, noticing that the art work on the walls had been through a major overall since my last visit. It is only when I noticed the "cousin's" frantic glances towards the petrified Mrs Raheny, Mimi and Finn that I realised that I actually was half way down the entrance hall of the wrong house... Oops. Them posh bungalows in the leafy suburbs all look the same to me, with the same manicured lawns and premium cars in the driveway. 
Uncle Ted's poor old neighbour must have been wondering who the jolly nutter with the big camera on his shoulder was doing on his way to his kitchen... 

The cousin's gathering was good craic, with a lot of nattering, a lot of laughing (cousin Michelle on the left here, giving one of her more subdued smiles ) and some quality heckling during Pepe's slideshow. 

Then we all headed back home (I did not walk into Uncle Ted's neighbour's house to say goodbye) and I did a bit of editing of my photos. I then headed to Dalkey Hill around midnight, to try and catch some of the shooting stars action. 
And I did. I got myself a cool spot, on a bench in an alley in the wooded part. I saw about 12 shooting stars, 3 very bright and of a good size. 
While I was lying on my back on the bench in the pitch dark, I heard a small group (3 men and 2 women I think), who were walking back from trying to see shooting stars from the top of the hill, near the Aztec* pyramid. They were observing loudly that it was actually much darker here and stopped for a while to look up at the sky. They were not 2 meters from me. Still lying on my bench I just said "It's the trees. They help to block the light pollution" I literally felt a rush of wind from the woman standing closest to me as she jumped out of her skin. I guess she had not expected a franco-irish voice to come out of nowhere at very very close range. 
I hope that she had brought a change of underwear for her star gazing expedition. 
I apologised profusely but I guess that the damage was done by then...  

* The Aztec invasion of Dalkey was very short-lived.