Housebound

Having been given strict instructions to stay off my foot for as long as possible – to give the cortisone time to tackle the crystals accumulated in my ankle joint – I decided to make a quick shopping trip, to buy some lunch.

It’s a warm day but, it being Ireland, there’s sunshine, now clouds, now sunshine, what was that? I felt that, was that rain, no, here’s the sun again.

Shopping was fun. Everyone’s flying tricolours and talking about the match. It’s not every day an Irish football team advances to the knock out stages of a big tournament. The Irish supporters in France have been dubbed the greatest supporters in the world, because wherever they go, the drink, they sing, they help out.

So far, they’ve been recorded singing a lullaby for a baby on the metro, singing ‘Dancing Queen’ with Swedish fans, changing a flat tire for an elderly couple in the streets of Bordeaux and even repairing a dent in the roof of another person’s car. They’ve serenaded the French police in Marseilles and Paris and generally, spread the happiness, wherever they’ve gone.

So I wish I was out there with them. But I can’t. So I’m back at my apartment, plotting the next episode of Starman in my head, while listening to The Foundations sing, ‘Baby, Now that I’ve Found You’ and writing this. But then there was lunch and what the hell, I’m going to barbecue because I bought a seabass.