A new chapter

Posted on by unironedman
Hawthorn in the park this week

I think anyone who titles a blog post ‘a new chapter’ should probably get slapped across the back of the neck with a wet fish. Now, if you’d caught me about an hour ago, we could probably have obliged, but all the fish has now gone into a fish pie and is currently sitting on the sideboard waiting to be tossed into the oven. The Famsquad are convening for food to celebrate our son Dallan’s 29th birthday, and once we’ve scoffed all the pie, it will be a movie of choice from the birthday boy.

The above pic is the pie, pre-assembly. Note the eggs. This is the Jamie Oliver recipe, more or less, so we’ll see how that goes. There’s plenty of cream, mustard, Parmesan cheese and other goodies in there, so I am hoping it will taste good.

The new chapter nonsense refers to me starting a month-long course tomorrow where I hope to qualify as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). With this, I plan to get out and start teaching some first aid and CPR, and a few other bits and bobs. I might pick up some work at events and festivals too. So it is, in a sense, a new chapter, though I do apologise for such banality. I will do better.

As I was shopping for this fish pie extravaganza, I noted, when I popped the shopping bags up on the table in the kitchen, that there was a French baguette sticking out of the bag beside a pot of fresh parsley. This made me smile; I must have been transported into a Manhattan romcom by some strange twist of time travel.

Rest assured, dear reader, that I remain your faithful, middle-aged, tired runner, and will not be appearing on Netflix anytime soon alongside Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lopez. I have made this very clear with my agent, and they need to stop sending me scripts.

Today, I met up with Gary. It’s been a while since we took to the towpaths of Maynooth, so we headed off around 8am and tipped away as far as Ferrans Lock and back. It’s a neat 20k, and we managed to keep it at a decent pace and came in under two hours, even with a few stoppages. Pretty good for Gary too, considering he did the Dublin marathon last Sunday, whereas I, on the other hand (foot?) have done nothing as exciting, or indeed, strenuous.

And so, to finish, some photos:

My fave tree in the park
Not my fave spot in the park, but I liked the symmetree (geddit?)
I think this is a form of coral fungus, but I need to do some more digging…
‘Bottoms up!’
A spooky tree the other night, on a late dog walk
Odi the Handsome
Bonnie the Beautiful

And finally, I spotted this up at our local Lidl store. I’d like to think the graphic designer was having a little joke, but the truth is that they probably had no idea that they had just created the tallest man in Ireland. It didn’t bother me; I bought a pair anyway, and it turns out they were (rather disappointingly) normal size and fit me perfectly. 🙂

11 thoughts on “A new chapter”

    1. I see what you did there; tap and die, very good!

      As regards the film… well, there are plenty of options:
      ‘When Harry Met Sally at parkrun’
      ‘You’ve Got Mail (about your marathon programme)’
      ’27 Dresses, and 56 running T-shirts’
      ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s Should be Light Enough (before running the New York Marathon)’

      Please feel free to add to this list!

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  5. What fun! It’s been a while, I think, since you’ve been in the mood to dazzle us with a charming, sassy, tongue-in-cheek, thoroughly amusing post. Glad you’re feeling so chipper! I’m giving most of the credit to Dallan (29? Are you feckin’ kidding?!?). Well done, lad, clearly a birthday bash was exactly the tonic your old man needed. The rest of it goes to you, heading off in an exciting, new EMT direction. Suits you perfectly, I’d say. Best of luck, may the path to full EMT-ness rise before you.
    Also — terrific pics once again, especially the elegant (not) swans.
    I thought The Omil was asking what film DALLAN picked. If he wasn’t, I am. And the closest I can get to suburban Dublin is Dublin itself: LEAP YEAR (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216492/). Haven’t seen it myself, but by all appearances, it’s a good cast in a mediocre film.

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    1. Well, having read your comment (with many thanks!), and then re-read OMIL, I see the error of my ways. Dallan picked one of the all-time classics: Goodfellas. I have seen it many a time, but it’s hard to tire of a Scorcese and in particular, Joe Pesci’s monologues. Though he did dirty his bib here in Ireland when his comments about Sinéad O’Connor surfaced again, following her death.
      I enjoyed Leap Year at the time. I like Amy Adams, and as I recall, the Irish accents, where required, weren’t awful. And you can play the ‘spot the location’ game too, if you’re Irish (or well-travelled), so needless to say, I’ve been at most if not all of those places. The Irish hero is also called Declan. So there’s that!

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