Night-time arches

It wasn't the best-ever Hollyoaks omnibus this morning, but a bit of wine helped compensate for that before we headed out to meet up with friends for lunch. They live in Ballsbridge, and are close neighbours to the Berkeley Court Hotel, so that's where we ate. This and Jurys, its sister hotel, share a large block of hugely valuable real estate in this up-market part of Dublin's south side, and both are due to close next month. There have been many rumours about plans for the site, and we heard yet another from the friendly barman who served us our pre-lunch drinks. He's worked there for fifteen years and isn't looking forward to the change in his personal circumstances when the closure comes. His story is that the Berkeley Court will re-open in October, which our friends thought could indeed happen, with new staff taken on without the trappings of long-term employment entitlements. A sad, sorry story.

Lunch was enjoyable, though the service was really quite slipshod at best. We had a pleasant time with our friends, though. Conversation was non-stop, the wine was nice and the dessert wine was even nicer. We retired to their apartment afterwards for further drinks, chat and TV-watching. We dragged ourselves away around 9.45 pm or so. Carl got the DART southwards and I headed off in the opposite direction to walk in to town. I stopped off at a Filipino restaurant en route, the highlight of which was the entertainment provided by a 3-man music group who specialised in '70s music and proved a great hit with the diners.

I braved the light rain which began while I ate, persevered with my walk, caught my blip as I approached one of the old railway bridges along the way, and caught the last bus home.