A snatch and rescue

The empty yard at Clontarf boat club


Trailers waiting for the crane to lift the boats from the sea


What a super dawn, Mother nature must have worked all night long


Solicitors graduate. The class of 2010


The fountain in Jameses St


You get one wheel, then another comes along.


Fashion shoot


"Than a criminal in a three piece suit".



There was a fundraiser in the Westbury hotel with an auction and a fashion show.
Never saw so much fake tan in my life and you could see by the posture that there was a lot of bitching going on between the smokers outside.
I tell you those beauty socialites would carve anyone up and dice them in a few minutes.
Still with the auction and all money was collected.

The girls who sell flowers on Balfe St are an institution in Dublin. The 2 flower stands support 5 or 6 families and they come and go, its hard work standing there in rain and snow.
They have a cheery word for everyone and they are mostly in good spirits.
Then yesterday one of the girls was planning to go on holiday today, so she withdrew €4000 in cash from the bank.
Then in the blink of an eye she was robbed!

My heart goes out to her, someone must have heard her saying that she was going on holiday, just waiting like a Jackal they knew when to strike.

It will take a long time to build up that heap of money again.
I wrote that yesterday.
I met her today and got the full story. It was a certain ethnic group who are well known for stealing.
She had arranged to go to the bank to collect the money and when she got back to the flower stall she realized that the girl in he bank had given her e500 notes, so the thief must have heard her saying that she was going back to the bank to get smaller notes. When she came back the flower seller noticed her wallet gone in an instant. She did not panic. She stepped back to where a Roma girl was tidying the flowers and found the wallet under some papers. Luckily for her she checked inside only to find it empty. So she grabbed the girl and started banging her head against the wall and asking her for the money. There is a group of guys who carry billboards at that junction in Grafton St. They are mostly from Mauritius but in the middle of clattering the girl she saw the Roma boy flinch. She shouted at the other sellers that he has the money and the chase was on.
He was caught up past Mountjoy square heading for the Royal canal a good 2 miles away. The Roma was lucky he wasn't killed. One thing for sure their days of cleaning up around the flower sellers stalls are over.

The dealers may fight with each other.
But if you attack one of them you attack them all.
I hope she has a great holiday she flew out at 7 pm

We often become targets for hold-ups ourselves, but you have to carry very little money with you and you at any time and you must "Cull" your stash and only carry the minimum at any one time.
Not that carrying cash is a problem at present.


Ah the "Good old days"

Before we all get Dewey eyed about the past we must remember that time filters your thoughts, then it adds little bits of color until you look back from 30 years later you see a Rosie past. Times were very hard indeed. Though that for many now things are very bleak.
Just go back 20 years and watch that great film The Commitments, Dublin as we know it now can not be seen.
I remember 2 things that brings the past into context for me.
I was doing a job for a woman on Philipsburgh Ave. once, she spoke about her 2 daughters and how they were getting on. When school finished I had to collect my youngest kid and I brought him back with me while I finished off the job.

"God I thought that was little Billy for a second. He died when he was 6"
She went on to tell me how he got sick one day and the doctor came.
"I hope to God this is not what I think it is" the doctor said.
"He died of diphtheria a short time later, there was a lot of things going then"

I was in her house last week, she is in a nursing home now and they are clearing out the house to sell it.

We have come a long way since that time.

The one example came from an old guy who said "There were no good old times, it was bad and good for sure and the only thing I can say without fear of contradiction is that the times were just very very different".

So step forward,eyes looking to your guiding star and don't slip on the dog shit.

If you have to change your car.
Dream on