Home Again

Well, I'm home.

It's been a long ten months away, but it's already nice to be back. Some terribly sad news in the car from the port, but still, I'm glad that I was here to hear it.

The journey was a smooth one, and well-fuelled with a flask of tea, said flask having been excavated from the attic last night in a fit of thrift. A kind lift got me to the station in the proverbial nick of time, and then it was a train, a swankier train filled with luggage, and a peaceful journey on the boat, with plenty of reading done on the way. 

It made for quite a contrast with last December's Christmas return, in the dead of night in a train crammed with hundreds of exhausted and hopeful Irish people, struggling onto a boat that'd been delayed for us at Holyhead, and then befriending people and getting into uncharacteristic rounds with complete strangers on the boat, with thousands of us arriving home in Dublin, bright-eyed and rosy cheeked on a snow-blanketed Christmas Eve.

This time it was a gentle and mild affair, and hardly was I off to boat, looking around for my lift, when I met my accoutancy teacher from school, there to collect his daughter, who'd been behind me in the queue at Holyhead.

Because even if the world's not always a small place, Dublin is.