Summer has arrived on the emerald isle with the sun splitting the trees for 3 days solid. That is nearly 2.5 consecutive days more than last year! As repeatedly referred to in this blog, 2007 was the most miserable summer in (my) living memory. With any luck this beautiful spell will be sign of things to come, not like the blip we had last April. Anyway to mark the first instalment on this page in a long time I needed something to moan about.
It was so warm at lunchtime today that my brother Garrath and I decided to luncheon outside one of the restaurants in town. Not a cloud in the sky we thought it was the ideal time to embrace the true meaning of being European; Al fresco dining. I discovered however that we have created a new dark underworld of outdoor eaters. It transpires that those that eat outside on the pavements of our capital are not naturalists, sun worshipers or organic types; they are practically without exception: SMOKERS. The smoking ban drove them outside a couple of years ago and I suppose that it has been so miserable that we just never noticed where they had disappeared to. The shocking reality is that if you want to eat your lunch in a clean air environment in Dublin, you have to eat indoors! We were surrounded by them. Puffing to the left, smouldering to the right, nowhere to turn for a gasp of clean air. Where else would you get it?
