Sleepers, Stephen's Green

At last, a belt of good weather, that great persian-grey stole slipping sideways for a day or so.

We took the wean into town on the LUAS, an outlet for his 'Thomas' obsession. He remained quiet and rather serious (moreso than on his first trip), perhaps still a little alarmed by the noises and general strangeness.

We sat up front, just behind the driver, and saw a fox step across the tracks ahead of us, too swift for me to blip it.

We got off at the last stop, conveniently Stephen's Green, where we took him on a little ramble to the playground on the far side. He darted ahead of course, as my mother tells me I used to, testing the limits, straining that invisible leash as far as possible. I took the above blip under some pressure, as my wife was pushing the empty buggy and trying to catch him before he sprang into the big fountain in the central garden-area.

Afterwards, we went for lunch in Wagamamas in King Street, a wonderfully plain and down to earth restaurant which caters excellently for families. A bevvy of kids nearby were busy making their happy racket and I was surprised at how relaxed I was with this. The days when I used to angle for a quiet chair at any cost are thoroughly in the past's museum of quaint memories. He really was very good, much quieter than the others. I almost used this bookish PORTRAIT as the main blip. But something about those sleepers, their oppositional symmetry, made me choose the above.