A Saturday. So far.

Got up. Drove wife to daughter's. Drove daughter to town. Drove back to daughter's. Took daughter's daughter for a walk/push in Fairview Park. Brought daughter's daughter back to daughter's. Gave daughter's daughter to wife to babysit. Left car outside daughter's for use of wife later. Got bus back to apartment. Read nice new review of my book The Colour of Her Eyes. Had shower. Drove a different car to son's. Had lunch. Wife turned up in first car. Left son's in second car. Drove to southside of Dublin. Visited bookshops to talk to bookshop owners. Got tired of all that. Went to Mass in St Michaels Church. Prayed. Left. Got in car (second car). Drove to apartment. Drank wine with wife. Drank more wine with wife. And realised I was living in a game of chess. Not quite sure which piece. Pawn? Bishop? The jury is out.

Bono's day off.

Oops. Sorry about that. Vanishing. Had to edit a book. The thing has to be ready by New Year. No time available to be writing blogs. Yes of course I know if you don't continually update your musings you will lose all your followers. Just like that. Fickle bunch, followers. But, being fickle, they'll come right back again just as quick. It's a fast moving situation.

The editing job almost complete I decided to visit Dublin. City Break sort of thing. Though if one can take a city break in one's native city is another point. A philosophical one. Whatever. I visited. By car rather than Ryanair.

It was a beautiful weekend. Weatherwise. And there hasn't been many of them. (Thinks: I'm writing about the weather. Pull yourself together man.)

People were out and about. The weather has been so bad. (I'm still writing about it. Stop.). There were hordes of us. All along the beaches and promenades and piers on the north and south side of the city. In  the city parks and up the hills on the outskirts.  

I went for the hills myself. I would've brought the wife. But she doesn't really do hills. And we'd been cooped up together in a house (in the rain) in the west of Ireland for a month. Twenty four seven. And needed to be apart. To realise how much we missed each other. That sort of thing.

But I didn't want to go up the hills alone in case I had a heart attack. So I called on my friend Michael the Mystic. Not that he'd be any good if I had a heart attack. Though I suppose he'd call an  ambulance. Whereas strangers up the hills would walk around me. That's the modern world.

MtheM was planting daffodil bulbs when I called. And he said they're going to be beautiful in Spring. I said if there is a Spring. What with the Euro, and that.

He agreed.

We went up Dalkey Hillon the southside of Dublin.

I was born up there. Well, not in the woods,in a house on the lower slopes.

It's kind of my place.

Yesterday it was also the place of hordes of fellow Dubliners. The weather. And it was Sunday. Not that the day of the week would make much difference. What with half of Ireland  being unemployed.

We parked at the top of the Burma. (Placenames coming up). We walked along the Green Lane. It was built for the visit of Queen Victoria. So's she could see the view from her carriage. And then we went up the hill itself from the Torca. Passed a house I designed. Bloke had built a big fence around it. But we peered through gaps. See that patio (I said). MtheM saw it.

Well (I added), bloke had an Indian wife. She lolled on that patio.

That's what they do (said MtheM), Indian women, they loll.

I didn't say a word. My new novel what I've just finished editing is called The Snake Dancer of Sati Chowra. And the character does not loll at all. She dances. And works for the Zurich Insurance Company. But I suppose there's Indian women and Indian women.

We continued the climb. And it is a climb. One side of the hill is a hill, so to speak, and the other sheer drops, hundreds of feet into old quarries. They dug away the hill on that side to get stone for DunLaoghaire Harbour. It's all very interesting. Topographically. We discussed these matters, and admired the view of the city spread out in the distance. The city has got huge. MtheM said there were now seven billion people on the planet, and the rats were getting worried. I told him that as a teenager I used come up here with an air rifle and shoot down at people in the quarry. There were no computer games then. Kids had to do things in real time.

A pleasant conversation. Then we were interrupted.

Three men passed us by. Two small balding middleaged blokes and one small Bono.

Hey that's Bono, said MtheM.

I didn't really notice, because I was transfixed...one of the small balding blokes was carrying an almost full glass of red wine. A crystal glass.

What's all that about, I asked MandM.

Well, he said, they were having sunday dinner down in Bono's house. And they got an urge to climb the hill. Simple.

No it's not simple, I averred. (Averred? Weather?) It's not simple at all. Bono's house is a mile or so away, down through woods and precipitous paths. As is every other nearest house.

Maybe they drove to the carpark?

But the carpark is also down through woods by precipitous paths.

So why the wine in the glass?

Because they're plonkers throwing shapes?

Could be, anything is possible.

But sure as hell one thing, that's not plonk in  that crystal glass.

We walked on.

The day somehow spoiled in its innocence.

Back down in the carpark there was a police car, the guards looking out for antisocial behaviour. People drinking in public parks, that sort of thing.

We were tempted.