A day out

Reading uiscebot lately, so I just have to tell you about my day out on Wednesday. I had the day off, not a sicky or as a Canadian friend of mine calls 'A mental health day'. It was going to be a day of culture. Met up with a mate, in a hotel across the road from the National Gallery. We had coffee, we were going to be good. Went to see Turner, inspiring as usual, then to RHA for John Kelly, amazing. We passed O'Donoghues and that was the start of the slippery slope. We were being very civilised and had a glass of red wine and a lovely chat with this distinguised gentleman from Cork who was ex-army and full of stories. We strolled towards the Green and just had to go into the Shelbourne to have a look. Marble pillars and sicophantic staff who gave us posh nibbles with our very expensive red wine. We were heading down Dawson St. and the smallest pub in Dublin called out to us, the wine wasn't great and the acoustics did not encourage conversation so we headed for our local to see if anybody was there who we could boast about our cultural acivities to. We were sitting at the bar surrounded by friends and this tall, enigmatic, American man joined us. It was Sam Sheppard, he's in Dublin doing something in the Abbey. Later he sang me an old Muddy Waters' song, quietly, with his face pressed to my right ear, it was pure beauty. Of course I was dying the next day, nearly passed out in work, but got through the day. It was so worth it.