Three shiney Harleys outside le Presbytere, my old friend Gaff and two other bikers have arrived. The roar as they drove up through the old village was quite amazing.

Nephew John, great nephew Conor, and great nephew Ronan with their Uncle.

As Le Presbytere is oriented North/ South- which of course gives us the sun where it matters, on our south facing terrace. As a result the front of the house rarely gets full sun, in fact it only happens early in the morning,between the middle and the end of June, in the fortnight around the Mid Summer Solstice. So here we are, I was up with the lark this morning to take a few full frontals of my beloved building.

This was an entry in my blog eleven years ago, the picture came from another 34 years before that. This shows my much lamented friend Clive with Sue and a miniscule Naoise hidden under his coat heading to Inis Oirr.

My friend Clive Nunn was celebrating his 60th birthday a couple of weeks ago and, as we going up to help him celebrate we realised that, as per usual, we had forgotten to get a card.
I went to the old photo albums and found a shot of Sue, Clive and I with Naoise (aged about 12 months and sheltering under Clives raincoat.)
This was taken by Sile as we went across to Inis Oirr in the Aran Islands in the summer of 1974, all of 31 years ago. I remember it was a fairly tiny boat and we all got soaked on the way across, but we had had a lovely few days holiday.
With a little judicious scanning and then cropping to lose myself I managed to produce a passible if blurred image.

Clive and Sue were suitably polite about it.
It however left me with a nagging feeling that I had seen an image like it before.
The mind eventually dredged up;
“The Last of England” a typical Sentimental Victorian picture by Ford Madox Brown.

The same windswept boat, the same child under the coat.
Snap!

He was wild bearded and white haired and he lived in a shabby old cottage in between the restaurants just on the beach outside our window in Kokkari on Samos. Once, we reckoned, he had been a fisherman- now he was a scavanger and went out at first light to hunt for treasure. At 8.30 am, while we ate breakfast in the port he would arrive back with his gleanings :- An old chair leg covered with barnacles, a large mussel shell, and sell these in his “shop” in the front room of his cottage. He would sit outside all day keeping an eye on what he called his “Exhibition”- I never saw anybody in the shop but he never seemed to mind..

Since 31st of May, we have been on the Greek Island of Samos attending the wedding of his nephew Owen Dwyer to the lovely Marina Limberis.

Marina’s dad was born on the island so this was a true Greek Wedding and absolutely marvellous from start to finish.

This is a picture , one I took of the lovely couple outside the church when, the formal shots all taken, the bestman’s daughter stole her Dad’s camera and asked the long posing couple to pose again, as you can see from their expressions they did, and with a heart and a half.

Long life and happiness to this lovely pair.

Back row Aonghus, Ano, Deirdre , Phil
Caitriona, Síle, Martin, Eileen on sofa
With Fionn and Ruadhán on our knees

I love the way the dawn creeps in in the summer, lighting the woods in the Pech and the higher vinyards before it reaches the valley in between.

Síle’s ladder being appropriately used by the clematis to climb heavenwards

Here is a blog from May 2006, a tale from 1990, 26 years ago now about the first visit from the late author ( he died in 2009) , playwright, journo Hugh Leonard to my restaurant in Waterford.

The Running Chef

I opened my restaurant, Dwyers in Mary Street in Waterford, in October of 1989, and it was a few months after it opened, in the Spring of 1990 that my running skills were put to the test.
I had become involved with a local restaurant association and the decision was made to have a meeting at 6.00, on a Monday evening, a time when most restaurants would be either closed or at least extremely quiet.
I left the kitchen in the hands of my very young assistant chef and headed to the meeting which was being held in the foyer of the Granville hotel on Waterford’s quayside.
We had hardly begun the meeting when I noticed Hugh Leonard come across the reception to the foyer.
Not only was Hugh Leonard probably Irelands most successful playwright at the time, he had won a Tony a few years previously with his play “Da”, but he also wrote a weekly column in the Sunday Independent, our best selling newspaper, which he liberally peppered with remarks about restaurants which he enjoyed.
Thinking “Lucky Granville-they are sure to get a mention next Sunday” I shamelessly eavesdropped to his conversation with the receptionist, it turned to be just as well I did.
“Would you mind ” said Mr Leonard “Booking me a table for two in Dwyers Restaurant , Tell them I want to dine straight away as I have to be out to go to a play at 8.00”
“Fine I’ll do that Mr Leonard” said the receptionist, and Hugh Leonard headed out to his car to drive the half mile to my restaurant.
He was no sooner out the door than he was followed by an extremely agitated chef/restaurateur who proceeded to run at his very top speed to Dwyers Restaurant.
It is a tribute to my then fitness, to say that I arrived in the back door (to face a pale and petrified assistant!) at just the same time as Mr. Leonard rang the front door bell.
The race was worth it though.
I got an extremely flattering review of the restaurant from Hugh Leonard in the following Sunday’s paper and he remained a great fan and loyal customer of Dwyers until his wife died some years later.