… probably the reason why neoprene was invented.
The Irish Summer. It never fails to deliver.
Didn’t stop us from swimming though. Yep, we are hardcore.
Hardcore!
The Stunning, they were grand, like.
Ok, ok, they were good. Very good. Great fun (both on and off stage), great venue, good sound, great light show.
They were actually more than good. They were excellent.
Ah fuck it, they were true to their name.
They were stunning.
The Stunning – Leopardstown – 27 July 2017
Didn’t see many leopards, but I did see a few horses. Fleetingly.
The horses must have seen the leopards, because they were legging it !
Guess who backed a loser (clue: he is holding his head…)
How much did we win, honey? How much? How much?
Guess who picked a winner?
The Caps club
Leopardstown race course – 27 July 2017
One of the main reasons for this French trip, this swim upstream back to the source, was the deadline of going to see my granny before she sinks further into the slowsands of dementia.
She did recognise me. Or rather she did recognise a version of me in her muddled past-cum-present.
Poor Brigitte. She is not in a good place. Physically, she is in as good a place as could be expected, given the circumstances.
But in her mind, she is in distress.
She catches glimpses of her current state.
She can feel herself sinking ever deeper.
And she cannot put it into words.
She cannot demand relief.
Brigitte
The only thing that kept going through my mind.
The overwhelming trauma of the numbers.
The thousands upon thousands of white crosses.
Verdun.
11 months of systematic butchery. A French generation wiped. A German generation annihilated.
Verdun.
All these bones. So many of them. French and German mingled. Cells filled to the roof with bones. So many of them.
So many of them.
Young men who were born at the tail end of the old century. Born in pain and hope. Babies who survived the infantile diseases. Who turned into boys, who would turn into badly needed strong young arms for the farm work.
Babies, turned into toddlers, turned into boys, turned into men. Barely.
Turned into bones. With gruesome finality.
So many of them.
So many of them.
Verdun.
One battle. In one war. In the past.
Never forget.
So many of them
Three brothers
The three brothers R were all born in the house next to the cemetery, there, in the background.
And now they all rest side by side, here, in the foreground. Jean-Marie, André, Raymond.
Three lives closely entertwined, from start to finish, within a hundred yards.
Things were a lot more localised, back in the days.
This sort of thing could not happen nowadays. No way.
There is no WiFi in the old house…
