From God to Mammon

Sunday morning is the only time in the week that Newry is quiet.  

When the children were little I'd get them up early and take them to the quay to feed the swans. The Dublin Road would be clear, cars parked up alongside the church and the bells silent during mass. 
 
When the bells rang at midday, you could simultaneously hear the shops shutters opening.  

The great and the good didn't go back for a sunday roast en famille, they went shopping.
Lured by memories of the sabbath quays and swayed also by a tendinitis in the knee, which had been exacerbated by our South Amagh shenanigans and the 1000 miles walked in Belfast, Mu and I opted for the Greenway; a slim spit of a path running between the river estuary and the canal. 

It's flat and long and there's no room for deviation unless you want to swim, which weirdly I didn't.  

Mu plugged an airpod into my right ear and we walked 5 kms out listening to Mark Steel's in Town (Paris) and 5 kms back listening to Mark Steel's in Town (Derry/Londonderry - it seemed seemly). 

By the time we got back into town, the end-of-mass bells were ringing and the shop shutters were opening.