Refreshment

I was booked in for an endoscopy this morning, in the dedicated unit in Beaumont hospital. Unlike the previous time when I opted for just a numbing spray and had difficulties with that, today I went the whole  sedation hog, which meant Carl needed to pick me up afterwards. I was booked in for 9am but several hospitalised patients skipped the queue and it was after 11 by the time I was rolled in. Sedation worked a treat, because the next thing I knew I woke up in the recovery ward. I'd been told beforehand that the sedation would 'make me more relaxed', but being fully knocked out was more than I'd expected and I was delighted not to have been aware of the procedure at all. One minor problem showed up, but I was told there was nothing to cause any serious concern. Another bonus was that all I had to pay this time was the statutory charge of €80, compared with ten times that when things had to be aborted the previous time.

We both had pictures that needed re-framing, so we went first from the hospital to a place in Drumcondra to sort that out. After that, the glorious weather made it more or less inevitable that we'd go on the hunt for somewhere for outdoor dining/drinking. All the likely places near my place had been really busy on Saturday when we went on a search, but things were much better today. We began at The Yacht in Clontarf, where most of the car park has been laid out with tables and benches and umbrellas. It was okay, but had a very definite air of impermanence about it. We were also a bit concerned that the food option was a matter of going inside to the carvery which the venue operates at non-pandemic times. We went in one at a time, but didn't feel the place had done as much as they could to ensure the safety of customers.

After The Yacht we moved on to Harry Byrne's on the Howth Road. It was 3:59 when we got there but the staff asked us to wait until their official opening time of 4:00 before showing us to a table. Once again, the car park (a generous one) has been transformed for outdoor eating and drinking, but much more enticingly than The Yacht. Lots of tables of varying shapes and sizes are scattered around, there's a wood-fired pizza truck also in the car park and this is the only food option available (so the only need to venture inside is for the toilet facilities), and the staff gather phone-contact details at each table for contact tracing purposes. We spent a wonderful time there, soaking up the sun in what is the best outdoor space we've seen anywhere so far. Well done Harry Byrne's!