Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

On wednesday, you know the black day when I lost and then recovered my laptop I heard about a ship in harbour that was a sailing book-shop of 6000+ books. Well being a bibliophile I took my daughter (her mom having gone to a hair-dressing appointment) to visit the ship in Dublin harbour. I could not remember the ships name but it was not hard to find and it is called “Logos Hope”. To my surprise its is a christian evangelical ship crewed by Chrisitians following God’s will and doing great work amongst the poor and suffering of the world; and its a pleasure having them here in Ireland. After recent revelations about the non-christian behaviour of the Catholic Church over the last 60 years in Irelands reform schools we need some “positive” christianity.

Yes there is a large selection of books (mostly christian related) on the ship – something like a visit to Veritas and Maeve and I spent a nice couple of hours in the bookship and cafe. Well worth a visit and donating too.

What a bloody awful evening it has been. It started after work at 17:00 in Dun Laoighaire in the pouring rain. I managed to get to the train-station in time for the 17:06 train to Donabate – my usual train. But not today. Today the train was canceled because “flooding on the track between Glenagery and Dun Laoighaire”… OK its an inconvience but I can deal with it. Had a 15 minute wait before a northbound train left for the city centre where I would change trains at Pearce station for one which would drop me off in my home town of Donabate.

What happend was one simple mistake that made the 1 hour 15 minute trip home into a 5 hour one. What was the mistake? the mistake was leaving my laptop on the original train which was going onto Longford and getting off at Pearce. It took me 5 minutes waiting on the platform to realize that I “was a bit light” and at that point the full impact hit me – I had left my laptop on the train!!! a laptop apart from the cost contains a couple of days work I have yet to check in and my boss today emphasised to everyone that we are around 5 days behind schedule. I felt almost physically sick. I managed to contact the station master but the train had already left connolly station and the next “manned” station was Maynooth a number of stops and 50 minutes later. I waited drinking coffee in the small cafe on the platform – thank God and Apple for the iPhone which let me talk to the wife and to twitter my consternation to one and all. It was 18:45 when the station master manager found me and said “its your lucky day” the station master in Maynooth has recovered your computer. Phew was my immediate reaction. The Station Master (a nice chap) said the fastest way for me to get the laptop was to go to Maynooth and pick it up, and the next train left at 19:00.

Hence was the long trip to and from Maynooth – which is a very pretty line that follows the old grand canal and then back onto the Northern line home to Donabate and the arms of an understanding wife.

I arrived home at 22:00.

I would like to thank all the staff at Irish Rail – and particularly those  at Pearce and Maynooth. They were all friendly and helpful in the recovery of my laptop – which I had pretty much given up on the second I had realized I had left it behind – with comments such as “ahh – your the man looking for your laptop”.

Thanks guys and gals.

Life as a father of a one year old, as many of you will understand, is a tiring thing. You never get enough sleep and you always sleep lightly so you can keep an ear out for any cries in the night. I have to admit to thinking I am handling this well. Well not today and tiredness caught up to me.

My wife and I get up between 6am and 6:30am during the week to start the days work – getting baby ready for the creche and hopefully missing the morning rush-hour. My wife dropped my off at the local train station at 07:30 and I could the one hour train journey to Dun Laoghaire where my client is based. Around two thirds of the way I must dropped off for a second and I did not wake up until I had missed my intended stop and had carried on for an extra 20 minutes. I remember waking up and being startled at looking out the window to be greeted by unusual and excellent views over Bray head from Dalkey.

To cut a long story short I was an hour late for work.

I must get more sleep.

My – our  beloved daughter Maeve today is one years old; and what a treasure she is, and what joy she brings to each and every day of our lives. Today is Friday and apart from work we spent it quietly together as a family. Maeves first party is on Sunday with the family decending for a big shindig.

We have been looking at photographs of Maeve taken over this past year and are amazed at the change. In the beginning she was a small quiet bundle of joy who would fit lightly in my hand and arm. Now a year later she is a heavy boistrous bundle of laughing energy soaking up information at a phenominal rate and her physical coordination is excellent – knows how to use a spoon and can walk a couple of steps.

Everyone who meets her is bowled over by her and “how beautiful she is”. We are truely blessed.

You know the Gods are out to get you when …

1. On the way to work the train in front of you breaks down and you are stuck for an hour (yesterday morning).
2. On the way home another train breaks down and you are stuck for 30 minutes (Conolly yesterday evening).
3. The toilet seat breaks when you are sitting on it- this evening.
4. You work late to fix a critical bug because we mis-understood the requirements (all day today).
5. Your daughter’s bed falls apart because the screws have for some inexplicable reason come undone (today).

As you can see, the God’s of fate and having some fun.