As I said when I wrote yesterday about backing this horse, I am not a betting man, far from it. In fact I am still very unsure and insecure in a bookies office.
I don’t even have the right sort of stubby pencil and always receive contemptuous looks from the staff and the other punters.
Consequently about ten years ago I signed on to a telephone betting service so that should the whole betting thing be essential I could do it from the privacy of my home.
I think I used this exactly twice before I lost the card and the number.

Now the youngest daughter, a most ungrasping child, is basically putting herself through a Masters in Cardiff.
She had been instructed by me, as I have a horror of recent graduates starting life with huge debts, to come to Daddy if the going should prove tough.
On the phone the night before the Grand National she had admitted that a grand transferred to her bank account would find a happy home.

This factor was strongly in my mind when, at Síle’s suggestion, I looked at the list of runners yesterday.
All those with short odds, even with compelling names such as Irish Invader (surely a direct reference to our French venture) were immediately discarded.
I wasn’t prepared to put out more than twenty Euros and had to make a thousand Euro. The price had to be fifty to one or over.
The fact that Mon Mome’s name spoke directly to my skilled betting instinct was only half of the story.
(it means My Brat, or Kid and was obviously intended by the Gods to be a direct reference to France and the Grandson)
Equally relevant was that his price was sixty six to one.
Thus he would yield the thousand for the daughter with a small bit over for the holiday in France next week.

I rang the phone betting people and said could they take the bet for me,
Not without the number on the card said the man.
“If Mon Mome wins” said I to him “I’ll find you and haunt you”
He laughed easily, he wasn’t to know.

That was it then I thought. He has saved me twenty pounds. I won’t bother now.
I was also sure I didn’t want to beard the betting office.
As it happened I had to drop Síle into a rehearsal for her concert at 2.30 and driving back I had to pass William Hill’s in Barrack Street.
I suddenly realised that if the nag actually won the race I would not be able to live with myself.
I went in and did it.
The girl behind the counter asked did I want the price at sixty six to one or the starting price.
She wasn’t going to fool me.
I had done the sums.
Sixty six to one gave me exactly what I needed.

I then went home, alone, blogged about my bet and proceeded to watch the race.
Once Mon Mome came into the parade ring I felt I was doomed.
He was not at all as glossy or sprightly as the other horses, and kept his head down as if in shame.
His starting price instantly went to one hundred to one.
I felt that I would have had a better return from the twenty if I had thrown it out the window.

Then the race was on.
All the rejected horses immediately took over the running. I had plenty of time to think that I had made a stupid decision.
But, my horse did not fall, that I noted, and also, even though he was too far back to be mentioned, I felt that I could see his green shirt keeping up with the posse all the time.

Then after the last fence out he came, and into the lead.
At that stage, home alone as I was, I was kneeling with my face pressed to the tele,
COME ON MON MOME! COME ON YOU BUGGER !
(My neighbours may never recover their hearing)

It worked.

I rang the daughter in Wales, I had texted her before the race to tell her I was backing a horse for her.
Her screams of joy when I told her we had won reached across the Irish Sea to Waterford.

Within a half hour I was down at William Hills Bookies.
There the smiling staff (I was only one of two people who had backed the winner they told me) counted out one thousand three hundred and forty Euros for me (they had to clean out all their tills to do it)

And that concludes the betting history of Martin for at least a few years.
The daughter will get her thousand and I will easily spend the remaining three hundred in France next week.

I have a feeling somehow that it is one particular part of our culture that has caused this particular phemomenon to enter our lives.
I am referring here to the cult of friendship in this country which frequently demonstrates itself at times of weddings when both bride and groom, and the bride’s parents and those of the groom, would not contemplate giving a wedding without inviting at least some of their friends along with the compulsory relations.

First Wedding.

One has to shimmer back here to an incident which happened thirty seven years ago, and which refers back to a wedding which had happened at least twenty five years before that, sometime in the 1940’s.

I had brought my new girlfriend Síle down from Dublin to Cork to meet all my friends, in particular Siobhan and Sue, who’s parents had recently died, and who lived in the parental house in Magazine Road in the city.
All was going well, and then Síle spotted their parents wedding photograph on the mantlepiece.
She stood up, went closer to the photo and to our utter amazement announced that the woman next to the bride, carrying a bouquet of flowers and obviously the chief bridesmaid, was Síle’s mother!
And indeed we discovered this was the case, they were friends, both sets of parents, who had lost touch over the years, the only contact Síle noted had been through Christmas cards- which is the very last expression of Irish friendship to die.

Second Wedding

This one refers to something that happened the summer before last, and to a wedding which took place in the late seventies.

I was in an internet cafe in Cessanon, in the Languedoc, just a few miles down the road from our new house in Thezan les Beziers. This was before we had got an internet connection in our house there.
A man came into the cafe and was talking to the proprietor.
He was talking in English, not only that but to my “Professor Higgins” ear he was talking with a distinct Cork accent. He too, it seemed was trying to get an internet connection in his house, also in Thezan.

I grabbed his arm as he left the shop.
“You are not from Cork by any chance are you?” I asked him.
“No” says he “Mallow”.
” Well I’m from Cork” I said “And my name is Martin Dwyer”
I stuck out my hand.
“Martin Dwyer ” he said ” You are not anything to Ted by any chance?”
Ted I admitted was my brother.
“My god” he said “My wife Mary and Teds wife Mary were best friends in School, sure we were at his wedding!”

And that was how I met my now firm friend and neighbour in France, Barry Mac.

Third Wedding.

This incident happened just last night, the wedding, in this case must have occured about twenty years ago, in the early eighties.

Our friend Petra, from Germany, is in Síle’s choir Madrigallery.
Petra has a particular talent for friendship. (In fact Petra’s talent extends byond the Irish one for loyalty and also embraces a Germanic talent at making new friends)

The choir were giving a concert last night and Petra had asked lots of friends to come to the concert, so much so that her house was overflowing.
She asked us if we could put up Joan, a great friend of whom we had often heard her talk, her first Landlady in Dublin whom she had made a friend.
“No bother” we said.
And the charming Joan duly arrived after the concert and we proceeded to play the great Irish game of Degrees of Separation (aka find the connection) over tea.
Joan it turned out had teenaged boys and spent much time organising their GAA activities.
” I wonder” said I ” If you have ever come across Síle’s brother Conal in Skerries ”
Joan looked at us aghast.
“Not Conal Ronayne, married to Therese White ?” she said
We nodded, almost anticipating the next words.
“Therese was my best friend all through school ” she said “Sure I was at their wedding!”

I rest my case.

To anyone who read the last blog* and who watched the Grand National I have only that one word to say.

*Nota Bene: that Blog was written at 3.01, National was run more than an hour later.

My father was a betting man, every day there would be perusal of form books and “going” and the like before a bet, or several would be made on the phone.
I am the complete opposite, every Grand National-when I think of it- I study the names of the runners and then put a few bob on a name that seems to ring a relevant bell in our life.
As we have just bought a presbytery, Parson’s Legacy seemed a runner as did L’ami and Reveillez just because they are French.
Butler’s Cabin was an interesting choice, as the son in law is a Butler and they live in one, but the odds were far to short for an annual punter.
We eventually put the life savings on Mon Mome because it means My Brat and that seems to cover both the French expedition and the new Petit Fils.

Bonne Chance Mon Mome!!

It must have been at least a year ago when I noticed a piece in Kieran Murphy’s Ice Cream Ireland blog saying the Eoin Purcell of Mercier press was looking for Grannie’s recipes for a cookbook.
I sent him off two, one of my mothers and another of my Great Aunt Agnes’s.
Then I forgot all about it.
Yesterday in the cookery section of the library (my wife won’t let me buy any more cookbooks at the moment, she reckons my addiction is seriously out of hand and wants me to join Addicted Book Buyers Anonymous) and what did I find but that Our Grannies Cookbook was out.
Yes and there on pages 72 and 44 were the two recipes I had sent in.
Buy it yourselves and try them out:- Me ? I will just have to do with the library copy until I have gotten to step ten of the ABBA cure.

I just checked out Mercier’s website to link to the book and found that the book is sold out. Amazon UK however say they have 7 new and used copies here.

I have found on the whole that it is somewhat cheaper to buy my white electrical goods here than in France. Having shopped around Waterford, I have found that in one particular store, where the prices are much as the others, there is a very pleasant and efficient saleslady who looks after my needs with courtesy so I have tended to go back there.
From her, over the last twelve months, I have bought quite a lot of stuff both for home and away.
Yesterday I went in to try and buy an extractor for the French cooker.
I immediately discovered that it was my friends day off.
The shop was empty of customers.
Two salesladies were behind the counter doing something to two tills.
One of them looked up at me as I stood waiting for attention and said “I’ll be a few minutes”.
“OK” said I (my dander starting to rise) “then I will come back in a few minutes, “and walked out of the shop.
A few minutes later back I came.
Still fiddling with the till the one turned to the other and said “Will you deal with this gentleman”
Other says “Can’t you see I’m busy ” but then reluctantly leaves her till and says “How can I help you”
I’m afraid at this stage the dander was up so I very rudely said “I want to buy something ! Can I do that here?”
She then fairly reluctantly dealt with me but we discovered that the item I wanted was not available so I left the shop.
Later I went to another electrical shop where the young salesman, having discovered that the hood I wanted was no longer made, spent about a half hour on the internet and the phone trying to discover a suitable alternative.
I thanked him profusely for going the extra mile and vowed never to return to the store I had visited in the morning again.

I furthermore detirmined that I was going to name names and blog about the two stores.

This morning I got a call from my friend in store one, the lady who had been out the day before, wanting to know if everything was alright.

I’m afraid I told her that I felt my treatment the day before was not acceptable.
“If ” I said “tills have to be reconciled , this should be done behind closed doors”

My friend was horrified and extremely apologetic.
Ten minutes later I got another phone call, this time from the manager of store one.
He was very upset and extremely apologetic, asked me to go through what had happened, said they had no business to be at the tills anyway and was disgusted with the way I had been treated.

I promise you he gained a whole heap of brownie points from me.
I decided to not name names after all in the blog.

I imagine there are two ladies in his store now vowing vengeance on yours truly.

Being lucky enough to be part of a large family (one of seven) and an even larger extended family (around 70 and growing fast- on my side alone!) and having married into another baby boomer clan (Síle is one of six) and being lucky enough to have a huge circle of close friends we quickly realised that for me to hold a sixtieth birthday for everyone (the count was well over a hundred)was absolutely impossible, and anyway would be no fun.
So the decision was made to have several small ones, dinner parties.
The first was in Berlin which adds a nice cosmopolitan touch, the second was in our house here in Waterford , next one is only for the daughters and their blokes and of course The Grandson and will be in France on Easter Sunday.
There are at least two more decided, one here for Sile’s siblings and another in Cork for mine.
There is I hope still scope for at least two more which will bring the grand total up to seven which is an altogether enchanting prospect for one who regards a dinner party as the one of the high points of civilization (I do, after all, intend to make my living out of them from September)

The only sad thing about all this is that I will have to wait another ten years before I start celebrating my seventieth.

When we bought the house in Griffith Place in 2004 there was an old outhouse in ruins in the bottom of the garden.

We have over the five years made various plans for doing things to it, re roofing, tearing down anything really to make it less of an eyesore.

A couple of years ago I planted a clematis by it and Sile put some wild ivy plants by the front and so……

……..little by little… It is starting to disappear

On Easter Sunday 1972 a beautiful girl of just 20 years old came to a party my friend Michael Healy was giving in Baile na hAbhainn in Connemara.
She totally swept me off my feet, and I havn’t hit the ground since.
That was 37 years ago on this day.

Thanks Síle.

This is not the first church I have seen in France which shows the results some of the excesses of the 1798 Revolution.
I am sure the mob were thoroughly justified in getting back at the clergy of the time by smashing the heads off a few icons.
(Also note that Jesus was spared, iconoclasm but within boundries)