Ups and Downs

Today's music session was devoted to one of our quarterly concerts, when two members take complete control and nobody else brings any music along. Usually this ends up along the lines of a normal symphony concert, with each member responsible for the content of one half, and this is all based on music or opera on CD or DVD. Today's team really pushed the boat out and treated us to a live concert of vocal and piano music. Paul is in the final throes of his music thesis and has been taking singing lessons for the past five years or so, while David plays piano, violin and viola and is a member of a Dublin-based orchestra. Between them, they put together a wonderful programme, nicely alternating between vocal and instrumental items. It's all too easy to become a bit jaded musically when you're as immersed as we are, but that doesn't mean that we still can't be surprised by something we're unfamiliar with. That was definitely the case today, as several of the items were unfamiliar, but turned out to be real finds. A terrific few hours, and well done Paul and David.

Carl and I had arranged to call in on the newly-weds to share some photographs of the big day. We met at Lansdowne Road DART station and were running a bit early, so we decided to call in to a local hostelry for a quick pint. Traffic was light because of the Bank Holiday weekend, so it was quite easy to find a parking spot on Shelbourne Road. For some reason I began to feed the parking machine with coin after coin, thinking in terms of covering ourselves right up to 7.00 pm, when the pay requirement ends. Carl wasn't quick enough to stop me pressing the Pay button, so we ended up with a ticket which covered parking until 6.40-something. The newly-weds live in an apartment complex off Shelbourne Road which has its own on-site parking, but I thought in the pub that it would be just as convenient to leave it where it was rather than bring it in. Then I remembered that the ticket didn't cover us fully and decided to return to the car and bring it in after all, rather than run the risk of being clamped for non-payment.

DISASTER ! It was Carl who spotted the sticker, though I thought he was mistaken, since I couldn't imagine any reason for clamping the car. The demon clampers were still there, busily immobilizing other cars near where mine was and they informed me that I'd been clamped for parking in a clearway. Sure enough, a clearway sign shared space on the same pole with a Pay & Display sign. The second sign didn't register at all with me when I parked, though it might have if the pay machine hadn't caught my eye on the far side of the road. The clampers refused to relent or to see sense, no matter how much I pointed out that (a) the clearway sign was far from obvious, (b) the two signs gave off contradictory signals and (c) it made no sense to clamp cars for being in a clearway when traffic was as light as it was and no obstruction was being caused. One of the clampers admitted that there was no particular problem at this time, but said the clearway was essential whenever anything was on in Lansdowne Road stadium. I had no choice but to cough up the exterminate fine of 80 euro there and then, so they could release the car while they were still around. The more reasonable of the clampers advised me to appeal to what he said is an independent arbitrator.

Our time with the newly-weds went well after all this and we enjoyed reminiscing about our holiday and their wedding day and cracking u looking at a video and a pile of photographs.