The streets had that Sunday morning air of abandonment, a stark contrast to the night before, where throngs of drunken, belligerent, scantily clad females paraded around with gaping pizza boxes and mouths full of chips and curry sauce…

I was desperately trying to stop time and stay in the moment but as soon as you realise you’re clinging, you’ve already suffocated it and I was soon on my way to the airport.  It was too late then, i had to let go; the scenery was already whizzing past the car window and everything started to speed up.

The delightful Corrib River…

Now look at the first twelve months in the life of this building.

What a difference a year makes…

(I won’t bore you with the other 361 photos!)

London’s skyline is ever changing…

They’re the ‘half measure’ trolley’s.  Well those are the ones that our shopping trolley fits under.  It stores it out of the way so you don’ t have to be carrying it around while you are shopping.  Not many people know of this.  People watched me store it under there too and you could see that they were well impressed with my finding such a storage space for it.

I went over to the stack of trolley’s anyway, I had a pound coin in my hand. 

There was a man putting his back and he was kinda loitering there for longer than it takes. 

He turned to me in a gentlemanly manner and said something along the lines of “Here you go…  here is a trolley for you”  I was feeling a bit dozy and said ”Oh right, so how does this work, I give you the pound and you give me the trolley” and he said “you can give it to me for 50 pence if you like as it’s second hand” I laughed then and he smiled at me, I felt a connection with the man, as he too was Irish. 

I looked at him as he walked away across the zebra crossing and out of my life.  

I just kind of studied him for a split second, the way you do when you have an interaction with someone for the first time, you kinda take them in, don’t ya?  You kinda make a judgement about them based on the way the hold themselves in their skin, their clothes, their walk and their shoes…  you can tell a whole lot by someone’s choice of shoes. 

I snapped out of that anyway and got on with my grocery shopping.  I bought this lot with my money:

What you don’t see clearly in the above picture is my little chocolate collection for the week:

I have turned into a terrible chocolate snob altogether.  I spent £9.00 on the chocolate bars in the photograph above.  I never tasted any of them before and wanted to try them out.

I finished my shopping anyway and paid for what i bought.

When i tried to return the trolley to the stack I discovered that the pound coin was jammed in there and it wouldn’t let me take it out.  I swear to God, i was cursing that man.  What a sneak…

When I looked back in hindsight, I remembered that he was attempting to take his coin out of the slot before i came along.  Way down deep inside the bowels of my psyche, there was a part of me that twigged it too, but I never kind of allowed that feeling to surface.  I guess it was an instinct. 

He had a sneaky way about him too and he palmed it off on me, that gammy trolley.  He ripped me off… So out of principal, I decided to queue up at Customer Services to get my pound back.  I was waiting in line for about twenty minutes.  For all of those twenty minutes I was seething.  I was thinking evil thoughts about that man and was also thinking how strange it was that i walked into that situation all knowing.  There was a part of me that knew exactly what was happening… and that intrigued me. 

There was a Greek lady with a moustache in the queue in front of me. 

She turned around and we had a brief two way conversation about city life and she said she has been living next door to the same neighbours for twenty five years and she doesn’t know them and in Greece it isn’t like that.  The conversation then went into a one-way conversation and I just kept saying “yeah… yeah…. yeah….” but couldn’t tell you what she was saying, she was kinda hard to understand anyway. 

I wasn’t in the mood for chit chat.  I just wanted my pound back…

Well I don’t know if that’s true but I thought of that analogy when I experienced an overwhelming, almerciful craving after my run tonight and I just can’t shake it off…

My craving was for a slice of this:

A Slice of Lemon Meringue Pie

I still can’t get it out of my mind.  My mouth is watering at the thought of it.  I haven’t had a slice of it in years…

I remember where and when I had my last slice of it though, it was here:

Good ol’ Patsy’s Corner in the heart of Kinsale Town…  and the Lemon Meringue Pie was made with Patsy’s own hands.

I would kill for one of Patsy’s Lemon Meringue Pies now…

She makes the best Lemon Meringue Pie without a doubt…

If anyone knows where you can get good Lemon Meringue Pie in London, please drop me a line…

I decided to get a big stick and try to separate the hedgerow to see if i could find where the sound was coming from.  As I poked the bushes I heard another cat meowing and realised there was more than one in there somewhere.  I wondered if maybe a cat had given birth in there.

A little while later, I spotted a plastic bag off to the left.  I poked it with the stick and it felt like there was some meat or something in there.  I began to climb down the wall so I could get closer to the bag.

I was then joined by some tourists who asked me what i was doing.  They got involved and held onto my arm while I fished out the plastic bag.

I managed to hook it with the stick and put it on the wall.  One of the girls opened the knot on top.  There were two sheets of newspaper inside which we unwrapped to reveal two tiny kittens clutching onto each other for dear life.

I asked the tourists if there was anywhere we could take them but they said there would be no such place in Gozo.  We found a clearing within the hedgerow and lay the newspaper out flat so they could at least breathe freely. 

I made the decision to walk away then as I didn’t know what else I could do.

I don’t know their fate after that…

We saw the breadman out on his daily delivery. 

He drives his van around the town and beeps at every street corner . 

The people come out of their houses with bags and buy fresh bread and cakes from him.

Some people didn’t come out, they had left empty bags hanging on a nail outside their front doors and the Breadman filled it up with bread for them to bring inside later.

When I was in Gozo I found myself taking more photos of the dogs than of the scenery.  Most of the dogs used to hang out on the roofs of the houses and they would look down at you and give you a few barks as you were walking past just to show who’s boss.

Good Guard Dog - Angry Bark - Xaghra, Gozo

Dog at Dusk - Xaghra, Gozo

The envy of all dogs - Xaghra, Gozo

Best looking dog in the neighbourhood - Xaghra, Gozo

Feisty Dog from afar - Xaghra, Gozo

Cute little dog - Xaghra, Gozo

Dog on Balcony - Xaghra, Gozo

Dog on Balcony, Gozo

Dog on distant Roof - On way to Ramla Bay, Gozo

Clean up after your dog!

It’s one of the Maltese Islands, south of Sicily… I would definitely recommend visiting the island if you are looking for a quiet getaway. 

The first thing that I pointed at after I hopped off the plane were the giant cacti…

Cacti in Gozo

It is everywhere!

You would expect the land to be barren when you see all the cacti growing and it is in places, but it is surprisingly green everywhere else.  Every corner of every field is blooming with cabbage, potatoes, figs, lemons, artichokes and other things I didn’t recognise.  

The roads are quiet and perfect for long meandering walks, all you can hear are birds, loads of birds and would you blame them for hanging around Gozo when the land looks like this:

Gozo Fields

This is a very Catholic island…  The first give-away are the names of the houses; they are all named after Saints.  I passed this house which was called “St Joseph” and another called ”In God we trust” and they often have a plagues like this on the front of the house too… 

Holy Plaque in Gozo

One thing you sense immediately is how safe the place is.  I passed several cars with the keys left in the ignition.  The front doors of houses had keys left in them too…  even the shops… 

Keys left in the door - Gozo

 Wherever you have Catholism in large doses, you have supressed sexuality; I found this torn porno magazine discarded in a hedge at the side of the road.  Torn up in shame I imagine; guilt and shame… 

Porno Mag in Gozo

The people of Gozo are warm and friendly. 

Gozo (Malta) joined the EU in 2004 and they are now using the euro so it’s handy for the other countries in Europe.

English is their second language and all of the signs are in english.  This makes it easy for dopey tourists like myself.  The food is outstanding…  They are fond of eating rabbits.  I reckon they should start eating cats as the island is rampant with them…  rampant!

Saw him on Old Kent Road…

He had a dog that sat on the ground and repeatedly scratched his snout with his paw. 

The man stood in front of me and was chatting on a mobile phone.  I heard him tell his friend that he was “just sittin’ on a bench having a drink,  just chillin… ”

His eyes told me that he had been doing that for a very long time.

He said his ‘Key Worker’ just passed by and saw him with a drink and gave him grief.  He said the Key worker nagged him saying ”what are you doing with your life and you shouldn’t be drinking and blah blah blah”… 

I then heard him say that he was just a bloke and that’s what blokes do…

And would you believe that up until about six weeks ago, on the mornings that the tide would be in, I would see a seal on the thames as I cycled up the path.  He was there like clockwork, just chilling out on a floating wooden palette, having the time of his life… I swear to God, no word of a lie …I have been seeing him most mornings for like four months now, he even recognises me and kinda nods his head when i turn the corner… I always stop for a minute and just stay a while in the quiet…listening to the water lapping and looking at him, but since the mornings have been getting brighter I’ve not seen him at all… 

(and can I remind you, this is London…Zone 2, I am talking about…)