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.
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