Gimmicky Guinness

We were due to meet Carl's mum's gardener who Carl has inherited. We turned up at Insomnia in Dún Laoghaire but he didn't. Why? Because Carl got things mixed up and the meeting was for the next day. I had an okay hot chocolate,. I've tried their coffee before but didn't dare try it again.

Carl had brought a six-pack of the new-style Guinness cans as a birthday present. He's already invested in the gadget these are made for and tried it. His reaction was muted. Rather than have the cans feel lonely and unwanted, I blipped them in their bag.

Later, we went for a meal in what was the old post office in Blackrock. It's now an up-market Chinese restaurant (Rongcheng). It's certainly high-class. Beautiful décor. Crisp white linen tablecloths and gorgeous napkins. Very, very swish. The food? Good, but unadventurous, we thought. It was also very quiet — only three tables occupied from what we could see. The guests at one of the other tables were a Chinese couple. Judging from what they were digging into it looked as if they'd gone off-menu. We would have liked to be offered that option too.

We'd got our taxi to drop us off across the road at Conways pub beforehand. A great spot. Wonderfully old-fashioned. The extra is from there. MAGA becomes MBGA — good stuff!

Our taxi driver advised us to try The Blackrock. It was a fine pub a while ago but then Weatherspoon's bought it and it became a no-go area for us as a consequence. Ron the Taxi Driver told us to ask for Barry the Manager and to tell him to give us a drink on the house. We didn't get a chance to meet Barry. Great as it is to see the back of Weatherspoon's (yippee!), The Blackrock was too noisy for us. Ron was right that the place is doing well, but it's not somewhere we'd rush back to. Flash Harry's across the road got the thumbs down too for noise reasons. Back home for a dose of Netflix instead. Much better.