Unwinding

I have this regular(ish) arrangement with a mate of mine. We meet each month for an evening of food and drink and chat and generally have a great old time together. He's a professor in Dublin's Institute of Technology, so manages to fit in a fair bit of away time during the long summer break. He'd been to Turin, Sicily, Paris, Nice and Marseilles over the course of a few different trips spread over several weeks and had only returned on Thursday. We arranged our get-together while he was away, I mulled over whether or not it was a good idea to bring my broken wrist for a night on the tiles but finally decided Why Not.

We met at 7.45 for pre-meal drinks in the Octagon Bar in the Clarence Hotel (owned by U2) and went on for a meal in a Nepalese restaurant where I brought him up to speed about my accident and he made me jealous with tales of his travels. We finished the night in the bar in the Morrison Hotel and I got a Nitelink bus home at 2.00 am. Another brilliant get-together, with non-stop, unflagging conversation and comforting companionship from start to finish. The very thing I needed to get my mind off my stupid wrist.

As I made my way from the bus to walk along the Quays to the Clarence I had to use my arm to shield my eyes from the blast of the bright evening sun. Crossing O'Connell Bridge I was struck by the strangely fantastic architecture of this building which sits on the corner formed by the acute angle where D'Olier Street meets Westmoreland Street. I couldn't help thinking of it as 'A Castle in the City'.