The law of unintended consequences
Posted on July 29, 2006
Filed Under Outside Dublin, Summer, characters, children, Dungarvan, family, holiday, odd, photography, relationships | Comments Off
I’m officially on holiday for the next two weeks and my main aim is not to wear any trousers for another fortnight. Seriously, that’s it. I have brought a pair of un-ironed trousers with me but if I want to wear them, I’ll have to iron them. And I hate ironing.
I don’t talk to my mother as often as I should so I phoned her as I was leaving Dublin. I couldn’t really think of anything to say so I told her about a co-worker in England who’s 6 months pregnant by her Irish boyfriend. I asked her if she could suggest a present. My mother likes that – spending money, that is, not getting pregnant! In (my) mother’s typical fashion, she asked, ‘did you get her pregnant?‘ She had two aims: (1) had I been naughty and (2) if not, how was my current love life. My brother and his wife live close to my mother and have to be very careful what they say during my mother’s frequent visits to them. She bought them a DIY self-install cat-flap (they’ve 3 cats) after they casually remarked one time how it was ‘a pain‘ to have to constantly let the cats in and out of the house. Another time my brother’s wife sighed about the poor condition of the flowers in her window boxes. The next visit brought a bag of ‘miracle-grow’ for the ailing flowers. Now, all you armchair psychologists may reply with ‘sympathetic’ explanations for her behaviour. I’m aware of all that but I’m also aware of the old saying, ‘when birds feather, they leave the nest’.
Anyway, it got me thinking about the law of unintended consequences. I had phoned her to do my good deed for the day but it turned out a completely different way. Now I’m faced with a several weeks of subtle, yet probing, questions about my love life. From my mammy. Maybe because of this strange turn of events, I noticed a few odds things on the drive down here. They were mostly road signs that meant to say one thing but could be interpretted in unexpected ways.
Community Alert Area: These signs are very common around rural Ireland. But apparently they freak out the tourists. Tourists think they’re entering a high crime area where the police are alerting the community to be careful. In reality, it means that the locals have banded together in a neighbourhood watch scheme and keep an eye out for crime etc.
Liscarroll U-14 girls are magic: I saw this home-made sign on a telephone pole in a tiny Co Cork village. Presumably, it’s meant to mean that the local football team, or whatever, are very good. But it could mean sooo much more (snigger, snigger). I’m thinking of the film, ‘The Witches of Eastwick‘ – what are you thinking!
I saw the sign ‘Temporary dwelling prohibitied by order‘ on the wall outside a graveyard. Does the council know something that we don’t? I thought that when you died, there was no coming back. In other words, it was permanent. Now, of course it’s meant to mean that campervans etc can’t camp there overnight but, surely, it would be better placed at the entrance to the carpark and not on the graveyard wall?
Here’s some photo’s of Dungarvan. I’m probably going to stay here for the fortnight and do a bit of gardening (and not wear any trousers!). Things have changed since I was last here. There’s now a McDonalds ‘restaurant‘ about 500m from my ‘Summer house’. Luckily, I can’t see or smell it from my house. Plus, people don’t have to drive by my house to get to it so that’s ok. It’s the first one within 80km of the town and the locals have gone crazy it. It’s constantly packed and, considering Dungarvan is agricultural etc, I can’t figure out why they would prefer McDonalds’ food rather than local produce. I drove by it last night and I wish I’d taken a photo. I was gobsmacked to see the car park empty but there was about 30 cars queued at the drive-thru. When you think about it, it’s kinda sad that they want to be sooo American. The highlight of their week is sitting in their car and buying a burger for 99c (approx 60pence).
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Two quicks points as I’m really against the clock.
– The photos probably look really bad. I’m on a bad (bluetooth) connection here so I’ve had to reduce the ‘real’ photos from 2Mb, 3,000 x 2,000px resolution down to 10kb, 250 x 180px resolution. Don’t know if it breaks some blogging law but I’ll stick in the proper photos at some stage.
– The top right picture of a sculpture featuring a boy sprawled on top of a large stone needs further explanation. I’ll do that tomorrow.
Update: Photos updated 13 August 2006
