Fao Fionnuala

Just a few words from the front over tea and biscuits. So I have entered the hallowed demense of you and Damian, Fionnuala - thirtyfiefdom. A horse, a horse, my fiefdom for a horse to escape from such a demesne! Yes, I feel as if I missed the growing up stage. I've been pretty prepubescent most of my life I think! I was just about getting use to hair on my face, and now thirty-five?! Ah well, that was a nice life. Maybe get it right the next time round. What, no next time around? Uh oh. But I suppose it's never too late to grow up. Though I'm starting to wonder if anyone ever does. Perhaps they just begin to have more responsibilities andor problems and stop being able to play football and stuff. (That's a new word by the way, and I'm thinking of aspirating the beginning to be proper English - Hhandor.) Yes, the more I think about it the more I think psychological development is over-rated. I heard these children running around at the train station and I felt jealous! Then again, two seconds later they were crying the bit out, as was prédictable. Is life just a series of getting the wind knocked out of us, and us getting back up again a little slower than before until we finally, just say - ah well, I'll just stay here then, might even lie back this way? I think I'm having a mid-life Crisis, but with a small c.

Anyway, just to fill you in on what you were sadly absent for. Peter and Liam, Damian, Sarah and I went to The Wok and a good meal was had by all but for Pepe le Peu, aka Liam. I asked him not to get Chicken Fried Rice for the fiftieth time in a row as it was my birthday and a time for festivity and merriment and speciality. So he went for the soup noodle, as did I, but he got the thick noodles and couldn't pick them up with the spoon or the fork. He had chopsticks, but he wouldn't even try them - which I put down to cultural racism. Anyway, I showed how to twirl the noodle, but he insisted eating after I twirled and it looked to the restaurant and the world like I was feeding him my child. And he was wearing a napkin like a bib at the time, I shiit you not. Anyway, it was good otherwise, and Liam, for Liam, was not too bad for one whose spirit normally lives and dies with the quality, and more importantly the amount, of food he eats! (Only joking, Monsieur Pepe, if you're reading.)

Then we went down towards a quietish pub, if such were possible on a Saturday night before Christmas, but then my wish was granted, and the wheel was still open and the famous five were having their adventure two hundred feet in the air in the Belfast night. We saw the lights in every dircetion and the nearby skyscape. I did enjoy it. We eventually got in the Duke of York - very crowded getting in, but eventually a table did transpire before we expired. Then, we went to meet Bernadette's son Emmet at Laverys; he was just back from England that night. We danced to the Charlatans, Stone Roses, The Cure and The Smiths and I relived university first time around, but it's a really mixed crowd there now. We left Sarah to get home with Emmet, and Damian kindly drove us home. Home? Yes, home. Geraldine and Jerome had been out from about five and then went to Bruce Springsteen's for some some drinks and craic, and by that time they were wasted to their collars, had they but had the sense to wear collars. So we didn't see them or stay over that night.

There we are, and that's all she wrote, as the saying is. I hope you are feeling a bit better again, and eating. Don't go back too soon, and we'll hope to see you this weekend, if you're well.