… and so, instead of busking in Strokestown I headed for Roscommon town where there is the shelter of an archway. Roscommon is twice the distance but on both previous occasions I’ve played there, people have been kind and I’ve more than covered my fuel for the trip - forty miles or thereabouts for the return journey.
Today though, there was an icy wind blowing right through and before I had even begun to sing, my case blew closed. I put my phone under the leading edge to tilt it back and witching a few minutes, it blew over and landed upside down and closed on itself.
I moved it back to the wall and put the phone under the front again but further down the tunnel and so apart from the fact that my hat was in serious danger of blowing away, I was set to go.
Sleet and wind and rain don’t do much for peoples humour and, while I did my best to create a sunny mood, after a very cold 45 minutes with my fingers finding it harder than usual to find the right strings and my voice blowing back into my lungs, I’d made a total of €1.05. I sang ‘Warm Hand’, the song I always close with and was just about to pack when someone dropped a two euro coin and, encouraged, I decided I’d do a few more songs although I didn’t think I’d make my petrol money for today - a first. Then a couple came by and wanted a photo and dropped in a few small coins.
A couple of minutes later an oriental girl came by and carefully placed a €10 note into my case which would have blown away if I hadn’t picked it up. My fuel covered, I thanked her and she gladly accepted a CD. Hanna is from South China and living in Ireland now and is perhaps the first Chinese person ever to have contributed to my busking. Thank you Hanna - I can go home and do some unpacking.
Roosky, Rooskey or just plain Rooske is about an hour and forty-five minutes North West of Dublin. It’s on the Shannon River on the Roscommon side of the bridge - Leitrim/Longford being on the other side. In quite recent times, there was a factory which employed around 600 people but now there are only a few shops and a couple of pubs.
I’m living about 2 miles out in the countryside and have a view across Lough Boffin of Drommad which is in Co. Leitrim on the road to Carrick on Shannon, the main town in the county. I passed through Letrim village today on the way to Drumshanbo - my busking destination. No doubt, sooner or later, I will learn how it came to be that the county is named after what is quite a small, if picturesque, place.
Prior to moving here, I was living in Dublin for about 10years, having moved from Birr (nice place, shame about the people), Co. Offaly and having moved there a couple of years earlier from Drumcullogher (another small place with several correct spellings), Co. Limerick. Roscommon is the 9th county I’ve have lived in - 23 to go - and with so many beautiful places a fairly short drive away, I wonder that many more people don’t up sticks and locate themselves here. These days it’s possible for many to earn their living working from home, why live in a suburban sprawl and spend your leisure hours cursing the traffic?
Yesterday, I went to have a look at Lanesborough having noticed that it’s even closer than Roscommon town where I spent an enjoyable and, by my standards, fairly lucrative few hours busking on Monday. On the 22 kilometre drive, I don’t think I met with 22 cars, trucks or tractors. Strangely enough though, I did meet with a little electric Renault Twizzy on the approach to the town. Open roads, Loughs around every bend, birdsong and more wild flowers and blossom than I’ve encountered anywhere else and it’s only April.
When I arrive to a village or town, I do a quick up and down the streets looking for a good spot with not too much traffic noise and reasonable footfall. In some places I’m spoilt for choice - Roscommon for example has a few pedestrian archways with a good acoustic and shelter should it rain, as well as it’s share of supermarkets. It also has it’s share of fine architecture, a decent town park with a magnificent castle. In Lanesborough though, the opposite is the case. The only place where a chance of being heard or seen playing was the Super Valu shop near the bridge over the Shannon and, being polite, I sought permission. Mr Keane, the owner, it appeared was not keen and had a strict ‘no collections or busking’ policy. I did play, just off the car park, and a few kind individuals walked over and dropped coins into my case but in a little over an hour it became clear to me that I wasn’t enjoying the busk and so I folded and went walking the dog.
No matter what direction I head of in from Roosky and no matter how good or bad the busking, the dog is always well catered for and Lanesborough was no different. Down by the bridge, there’s a beautiful walk along the river which eventually leads to a choice of two nature walks and there are ample opportunities for a hot dog to swim. After a good hour and a half here, I decided to busk again bunt in the middle of the town - there’s really only one street and on it, another very small supermarket.
I always believe that I’m busking for someone - regardless of how futile it can seem when there are few people around and fewer of them stopping. I wondered how this Gala store stayed in business as, at least in the hour I played there, I only saw three customers. There were about eight people in all passed by and three of those made up the €2,50 or so earned in that time - an elderly man with a stick, an ex-musician who’d found the lord and given up the rock ’n’ roll and lastly a young lady walking a black scottie dog and pushing a buggy with a very happy 6 month old on board. Catherine must to be the most stylish woman in Lanesborough - a black floppy brimmed hat matching the scottie and her her three quarter length faux raggy black skirt. She stopped and listened and then told me how amazing it was that I was there. On Monday night she’d been wondering why nobody ever came to Lanesborough to busk. Catherine, if you’re reading this, you’ll understand that we can’t often afford to.
Thanks for stopping by though, you made my day.
If you don't live in any of the places I'd be likely to be busking but would like to listen to a song - or even drop a few shillings into my virtual case, here's a useful link:
Captured on film by BBC, who were doing street interviews with potential voters in Enniskillen and broadcast on Tuesday last, My BBC debut - at the end of the video if you're busy or impatient.
I’m not sure if it’s down to the fact that I’m only playing my own songs or if it would be the same if I were playing ‘songs we know and love’ but I’m finding that I get much more interest when playing in smaller places than in large towns.
I have a friend staying with me since I moved and as she isn’t from Ireland, I’m doubling up as a tour guide and, as she’d expressed an interest in going to Sligo and as Friday was another beautiful sunny day, Sligo it was.
Aside from a few shillings in the bank - topped up by IMRO’s recent royalty distribution - busking is my only source of income right now and so most of the time I’m avoiding driving too far and, once I cover my fuel, food and a few bob toward next months rent, I’m happy.
It’s been quite a few years since I was in Sligo - a stunning county with mountains that look like mountains - and the last time I busked inhere was evening and every second car driving round and round the one way system seemed to be a souped up tin can with stuffed with sneering louts who can’t seem to decide whether they want to have the music system or exhaust to do the most peace disturbing (sorry about ‘Grumpy Old Man’ moment)
Friday, we arrived to a much improved Sligo. Got parking at a shopping centre with a max daily rate of €3 and had a quick wander around with the lady, leaving Clara minding the car - and my guitar. A nice vibe with a lot of people on the streets so it was looking very good for busking.
Short version: after about 3 hours, playing in a decent doorway of a shop with ‘To Let’ notices, just before a set of lights - so no noisy traffic - and withe the door set back and so a good acoustic and space for us not to be in the way, I roughly calculated that about one in 70 passers by would throw something into a busker’s case.
After paying for parking, I had a whopping €7.50 in my bag.
Out to Strandhill to walk/swim the dog and admire the scenery and maybe do an hour or so of busking - if it felt right - it did and the hour I did there covered fuel - the BEST fish and chips at ‘SHELLS’ cafe by the sea and probably even a day’s rent on my lovely house.
Disappointing discovery.
That was Friday and Saturday brought the tour to Granard, Co. Longford. It was a lovely drive and on arriving to a very quiet town, a short drive showed me that the only activity was at the top of the town - Super Value store. To be polite, I asked for permission but was told that they would only allow any sort of collections or busking by appointment and that today, there was a charity collection - who were gone to lunch. Fair enough.
I did play for around 45 minutes in the middle of the town - a passer by every third song. A woman dressed on the eccentric side of bo-ho stopped and listened to a couple of songs - dancing with herself - and then went fishing in her handbag and pulled out a toy squirrel and dropped it into my case and danced away smiling. The €1.20 dropped in over the next half hour may have covered the petrol to Longford where I did another couple of hours and discovered, though a nice young guy playing there, that Tesco don’t seem to take issue with buskers playing outside the store - one for the future.
Thursday for me is the farmer’s market in Carrick on Shannon of course. WRONG. The path of true love - and busking - never runs smoothly.
The market is on from 10-2 every Thursday and, while I was shooting for a 10 start, it was 11:30 when I arrived to find someone setting up - amp and microphone and all. I had a chat and got his number and hopefully in future we can split the 4 hours between us.
Having made the journey I decided I’d just do some busking on the street and played for about an hour with not a huge amount of passing trade. I did meet a German musician who’s been living in Carrick for about 10 years and he told me of a few local sessions I’d be welcome at so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
On my way back to the car - parked behind Bush’s Hotel (where the staff are lovely) - I thought that their archway through from the main street to the car park would be worth a shot and it was, until…… a nice lady came out and told me that there was a funeral party coming over from the church to their bar in about 10 minutes and that perhaps busking there today would not be appropriate. I did suggest I could play 'Too Many Funerals'
Off to Mohill so.
I’d been through Mohill on the way to Enniskillen a week ago and it looked like a nice town. Very picturesque as you drive in downhill and see it rise again from the centre.
I’d also noticed a statue of the blind harper, Turlough Carolan opposite the church and so felt this would be a very appropriate town for a minstrel to wander too.
Between January 2000 and April 2006, when I did my door to door busk on the road to Gold with my debut album - Losers & Sinners -, Carolan’s name frequently came up in conversations though, as far as I know, he only did the big houses and castles.
Once again, it was outside the biggest supermarket (Centra in this case) where I set up and the good people of Mohill did not disappoint - and I hope the ghost of Carolan smiled.
Clara definitely smiled as, on the way home she got to try out a new lough.
On Tuesday morning - via a Facebook friend - I learnt that the dog and I weren’t edited out of the BBC Breakfast program feature, shot in Enniskillen last week. A nice start to the day.
I was planning to go to Elphin to do my couple of hours busking. Asking around about what sort of place it was, nobody seemed to have been there though it’s only a little down the road from Strokestown - which is only down the road from Roosky. Other business though brought me to Carrick on Shannon and quite early. The Thursday country market there will be a regular busk but Tuesday was cold and windy and I thought I’d be setting a new world record by playing for two hours and not earning a cent. I would have if, in the last 10 minutes, three ladies leaving a cafe hadn’t decided that I was worth a euro or two.
When I’m organised enough to register my live performances with IMRO, I’ll get a royalty four times a year and Wednesday’s good news is that one arrived into my bank and so I’ll be fine for this months rent. Today, is discover Elphin day thought it got off to a late start as my new friend, Martin, invited me down to have a look at a jetty on Lough Boderg where he was doing some work - and this before breakfast.
The trip to the jetty took us along a beautiful winding road with the hedgerows showing early signs of blossom and early signs of daffodils approaching their end of life for this year. Eventually we turned into a field and drove along a track punctuated with no less than five gates which, following the country code, we needed to open and close behind us. When we got to the lough, once again I was in awe of the beauty of the area I’m now living in and the sound of birds singing in the trees.
Back to a brunch of homemade Chinese beef and vegetable dumplings - the best I’ve had and then on to Elphin. As I said earlier, Elphin is just up the road from Strokestown but, coming from my house - according to both Google and O.S. maps - there’s a shorter, if infinitely more complicated way of getting there. Yes, that’s the one we took and, while it was a quite spectacular drive with hardly another car in sight for most of the way, and while we did actually get to Elphin without asking for directions or consulting the map - it was definitely not the quickest way and I suspect it was pure fluke that we arrived.
Elphin has a lot of history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elphin,_County_Roscommon) - even connections with St Patrick but no obviously good places to busk but I did about an hour to a sparse and, for the most part, disinterested footfall and found I wasn’t particularly enjoying it so moved on out and headed back for Strokestown and Eurospar - taking a dog swim break on the way.
I will write more about Strokestown in another piece and just say that today, it turned our day around. At the end of the busk, a walk around the grounds of Strokestown Park House ( http://www.strokestownpark.ie/house ) saw to Clara’s needs - with a bonus as Liam from the cafe was closing for the day and spotting the dog, gave me the left over cooked sausages - about 2 pounds in all - most are in the freezer and, though she thinks I’m a meany, she’s rationed to two a day - chopped up and put in with her morning and evening meal.
I wasn’t planning to busk yet again in Longford today but other business brought me there and, as I’m trying to keep my driving expenses to a minimum, Longford it was. Financially, both of the previous days busking there were the worst and also, I’m trying not to pop up anywhere more than once every ten days or so.
Today was also my first day in over 5 years busking with my Martin Cowboy IV (number 26 of only 250 made). My Avalon is in need of a service and I probably shouldn’t have been out playing it winter and summer and the beautiful spruce top and rosewood are sensitive to weather, temperature and humidity variation whereas, apart from being a very ‘cheerful’ looking guitar and sounding pretty good,(very good right now), is also made of some space age plastic and has a neck that’s laminated and very stable.
It’s been sleeping in it’s faux bearskin lined case since my Avalon Legacy arrived in December ’09 and when I decided to bring it back into service and took it out I was surprised at how good it sounded even though there were cobwebs AND a spider’s egg sack visible through the sound-hole - the strings even sounded bright and so I didn’t need to change them - or so I thought.
There’s a lane between the main street and the Tesco shopping centre which is narrow and has very little traffic but quite a good footfall. About half the shops on the street are closed down and so it was easy to find a semi sheltered spot to play and the acoustic was good. The strings, not so. Halfway through my third song, ‘PING’ went my first string - I never break strings and so had no spare but resolved to replace them all when back to base where I had a couple of new sets - done now - and continued with the five remaining strings rather than packing up to go and buy a replacement.
There was a steady trickle of coins and the Martin was sounding good enough. I’d been playing for an hour and a half when a boy of about 6 stopped and listened. He was on his own though I’d seen him pass from the opposite direction a short while before with family but he was now alone and listening while waiting for them to catch up. While listening, he started carefully looking through a fistful of football cards - the sort that came with a little piece of bubble gum when I was a kid - he carefully selected a few, held them up for my approval and so I nodded and he then carefully placed them down in my guitar case. His mother then passed and called, ‘Come on Dylan’ and, as I finished the song, I thanked him and asked if they were ‘Swaps’ as I didn’t want to take cards he only had one of. ‘Yes’ - thanks Dylan, it’s people like you who make busking such a pleasure.
A friend who is learning ukelele arrived and looked after my things so I ran around and got a new string to play for another hour with some uke accompaniment and finished as I usually do with my single form last year, A Warm Hand (to Hold), the last line of which is aptly, ‘That’s all there is….’ and on that very line, my D- string pinged.
You my hear or get a download here
You can’t beat country life and sunny weather. I’m not sure that I’m ‘settling in’ to my new home as, every morning while sitting outside, listening to birdsong and looking out at Lough Boffin, while enjoying my ‘whore’s breakfast’, a cup of tea and a cigarette, I feel like I’m on holiday. My work, for the moment is my busking and I don’t consider that to be work at all. In theory, if it covers my fuel and food, that’s all I expect and anything else is a bonus.
Today, for the first time ever, I went busking in Northern Ireland - Eniskillen in Co. Fermanagh. Google maps told me it was little over and hour away and, as I’ve been mostly playing locally - yesterday a farmer’s market in Carrick on Shannon and Wednesday, a return to Longford (no better - even in the sunshine), I haven’t been doing a whole lot of driving. Today’s trip was a sort of day out - sightseeing and driving along some beautiful country roads (and lanes too). I still don’t know where I went wrong - I need a paper map - but it took almost 2 hours to get there and 2 and a half back. The phone’s ‘sat-nav’ drops when the signal is poor and, I suspect, that’s where you should turn left or right or whatever. The ££££s I earned will just about cover about half the petrol - sigh. Still, in spite of the pessimistic forecast, the weather was beautiful.
I’m well used to my dog, Clara, being the star of the show but today took the biscuit. I was playing on Church Street - just after Darling Street coming into town. Not a penny earned in the first half hour and across the street, two guys were filming with a serious looking video camera and microphone. They looked like they were doing quick interviews with random pedestrians and showed no interest until….. they crossed the street down to my right and the camera man crouched down and focussed on Clara who had resigned herself to the fact that I was going to be playing for a couple of hours and was doing a great impression of a dead dog and zoned out to conserve her energy for the walk/swim that would inevitably follow.
The microphone man then dropped a few coins into my case and thanked me for allowing then to film Clara. They were from the BBC and filming opinions for the forthcoming Northern Ireland elections. The program goes out next Tuesday.
Evening now and it’s raining - maybe normal life will resume and leave me remembering our glorious summer in April 2015.
Many years ago when I was travelling the country promoting my album door to door, I met an old man somewhere in Dublin and he told me that I should get myself to Strokestown in Co. Roscommon where he said they would really appreciate what I was doing. I never got there - until yesterday - the Tuesday after Easter. A short drive from my new home and so my second busking outing since moving here last week.
I have a few neighbours here and, living in a small development of half a dozen or so houses, it hasn’t taken long to meet them. One of them, Mick, is a big music fan and told me he was delighted to see guitars arriving and I was also introduced to Martin - a guitar player who is also currently teaching himself ukelele - (something we have in common) - and when I mentioned my plan to go busking in Strokestown, they were surprised and told me there was really nothing there and that I’d be wasting my time.
Always up for a challenge and having nothing else to do, I headed for Strokestown on a glorious day that would pass for summer if I didn’t know it was early April. The drive was a really pleasant 10 miles or so, during which I hardly met no more than six or seven cars and soon I was on the approach to Strokestown with Clara and a brand new set of strings on my guitar. I did notice a group of newish bungalows set back from the road - all boarded up and also passed a notice advertising a receiver sale of a new housing estate of 20-30 pretty looking houses. Hmmm. not good. Still, what’s a couple of hours?
Driving in, the village is set in a valley and at the centre there’s a road to the left and one to the right. We took the left and, within a couple of hundred yards realised that it was simply going out of town and so wheeled around and back at the main road to a left and up the hill and after a short distance saw that it fizzled out and that I’d pretty much seen Strokestown.
Turning the car around, I went into the car park of a Centre store but the four or five cars in it were the only signs of life and, as the shop also had a front door to the main street, I figured that this was not the place and headed back down the hill to the cross where I’d noticed a Eurospar supermarket and wheeled around left and saw that this also had two entrances. The main road one wasn’t really an option as the noise of the many cars passing through would have been too much and besides, the side entrance had a spacee where cars could pull in and SUNSHINE.
It’s around 12 noon and I’m looking forward to playing for a couple of hours and enjoying the new strings. Big mistake. While I had stretched and pulled the strings before leaving home, before I got to the 2nd verse of my usual opening song - When it Rains - before my strings started to let me know that I should probably have done the changing the night before. The sunshine didn’t help either as the electronic tuner that’s turned my ears into lazy things on either side of my head that will let me know that my guitar is out of tune but not how to address it, has a fairly dim display that’s impossible to read in the sun.
Anyway, I had a not so enjoyable half hour of retuning after each song - crouching down to tune in the shade of my guitar case and….. not a single cent earned and a seemingly unreceptive local population. Busking is a bit like fishing and like fishing, doing what you want to do can be just as important as getting a catch and luck in both cases can turn on a sixpence.
Once the guitar eventually settled down, the dog stopped cringing and looking embarrassed to be seen with me and coins began to land in my case and during the last 90 minutes, my takings were more than double the Saturday session in Longford town.
My most memorable moment was when an ancient Ford fiesta pulled up close to where I was standing. The driver’s eyes lit up and he dropped the window and said, ‘Fair play to you.’ He was a farmer in his late seventies and it took him a good five minutes to get out of the car and then he came over and dropped €5 into my case and said, ’Thank you.’ He wasn’t a well man and had recently been let out of hospital and his travelling companion was a ventilator with tubes coming from it and into his nose.
When he came out with his bit of shopping, he sat back into the car and listened to a few more songs and then asked me if it was recordings I was selling. I had some CDs and he insisted on buying one.
As I was packing up around 2, several people came over and asked me if I'd be back. I will.
After the busking and just up from Eurospar, I found Strokestown Park and Famine museum - and Clara got a decent walk.
Nothing in Strokestown? Yeah, right.
Moving to a place I’ve passed through 2 or 3 times in about 40 years may seem foolhardy to some but I’m always open to a new adventure and am lucky to be blessed with a fairly gregarious nature and my music. Co. Roscommon is the 9th county in Ireland I have lived in. Dublin, Kildare, Cork, Wexford, Clare, Galway, Limerick and Offaly being the other eight and, with the exception of Offaly, I’ve managed to ‘connect’ in all - being barred for life from the grounds of Birr Castle put an end to my two year stint in Offaly but that’s another story.
Roosky is on the Shannon river - the longest in Ireland and while in Roscommon, is also close to the Leitrim and Longford borders. Within a short driving distance, there are many towns and villages where not a lot happens. Places where there’s nothing much going on, in my experience, are quite receptive to a stranger with a guitar singing songs for a couple of hours outside the local supermarket and, over the next few months, I hope to visit many.
I moved on Tuesday, 31st March, had to return for last few boxes and to tidy the house on April Fools Day which left me pretty tired on Thursday - my first full day here - and so a bit of shopping in Carrick on Shannon, some unpacking and walking the dog is about all I was good for. Good Friday is not a day I’d go busking and so it was Saturday before I said ‘Hello’ to Longford Town. Saturday was pretty grey and miserable and so after a quick look around, I picked an archway that looked acoustically good - leading off the main street to a few rows of small houses but with no access for cars.
For the past five years I have done a regular Saturday busk at Dublin Food Co-op and this was one of the things that I felt I would miss most. I’ve always looked on this as a sort of musical gymnasium - my practice for the week - and made many friends there. I believe that busking is a good way to ‘meet’ a place, that people will either ignore or talk with you. The ones who do stop and chat are more likely to be the ones I’d get on with and get the lowdown on the local music scene.
I’d only opened my case and was tuning my guitar when a man came over and suggested I’d picked a bad place to busk. Clara, the dog, had settled herself down for the session and had a bowl of water and, as I was only planning on doing a couple of hours, upping and moving somewhere else wasn’t really something I wanted to do. I asked what the problem was and the man told me that Garvey’s Yard (the archway) was where ‘the Boyos hung out’. I pointed to my ‘guard dog’ and said I’d take my chances. He was my first ‘customer’ and said it was great to have a bit of music in the town.
While I got my practice in and enjoyed watching the street scene, the Boyos were notable by their absence and financially I made about basic minimum wage for my two hours. A first for me though was when a newish Toyota Avensis, with 5 young men on board, pulled up and parked alongside the arch. They sat there for a while - a couple of them going into a nearby shop for their crisps and cola and, while they looked more like they’d be Techno/House music fans, one of them shouted over asking how much were my CDs. I told him and he said to give hime two. He threw a crumpled note into my case and, to my surprise as there wasn’t much wind, it blew straight out and onto the pavement. He picked it up and handed it to me and immediately, it flew from my hand. Maybe they were the Boyos - it was attached to a fine fishing line and oh, how they laughed. Not much to do in Longford.
Whenever I do a busking session, I always hope that for at least one person, I’m making a difference to their day. As I was finishing up and closing my case, a young mother came over and handed me a €2 coin. I told her that I was sorry she’d missed the gig and she pointed to her 3 year old son and told me that they’d passed by twice and heard me playing and that her son had insisted she came back and put some money down. Kids are great.
Having relocated from sunny Rialto in Dublin to somewhere West of Roosky in Co. Roscommon just a week ago, and having a bit of time on my hands, I’m beginning this blog in case anyone out there is interested.
Rialto, for those who don’t know, is about a 30 minute walk from Dublin city centre and while it has the usual urban problems - anti social behaviour, drugs, violence, sirens day and night etc., in the six years I lived there I had made many friends, had many places where I could go and play my songs without travelling too far and was also living rent-free as caretaker of a house that was accurately described as a natural fridge - there were actually times during really cold weather when I would climb into the fridge for a bit of heat.
I also have a large friendly dog. I call her a Golden Deceiver as, while she looks a lot like a retriever, she’s farm dog through and through with a lot of Collie in the mix. Hence, Clara seems to think the Retriever to be a bit bimbo-ish and seldom will give them the time of day. Labradors are tolerable once not to bolshie but Collies, she’ll run with them all day long.
Close to Rialto there were many parks where I got my fix of nature and Clara her fix of swimming and squirrels and all in all I enjoyed my time there more than I had initially expected to and moving to the sticks was a necessity rather than a choice.
Just over 12 months ago, the lovely old lady whose house I was baby-sitting shuffled off to play her piano in heaven and a few months back the house was sold. Rents and telephone numbers in Dublin are becoming more and more difficult to tell apart and, as I have only sporadic work in addition to my music to cover my living expenses, I had to look beyond the Pale and even beyond the commuter belt as the high rise rents are extending in all directions. Roosky beckoned - or Leitrim?
I hope that by creating this blog I’m not shooting myself in the foot by enticing half the population of Dublin to moving to the BMW region and that I don’t find myself facing a 2000% rent review this time next year but, since arriving, I feel like I’m on holiday and Clara is in dog heaven with more lakes than you can throw a stick into and a freedom she has never known in her 10 years. By the way, for anyone from abroad reading this and under the misapprehension that the ‘BMW region’ is where the population have more than their fair share of ultimate driving machines, I’ll point out that the opposite is more likely the case in the under populated and under developed ‘Border, Midland and Western Region’ and that, when I say ‘under developed’, with regard to the number of new houses built during the BOOM, the opposite of that is also true and, with the laws of supply and demand at work, I have a decent modern house where my dog is welcome for less than the price of a room in a dingy house-share in Dublin - NO PETS.
