Mattress With A View

Saw this on the way back from dropping off my friend Ronan and his partner Roz who are over from Canada for a couple of weeks. Lovely to see them again. We spent about an hour in Queens in Dalkey, reminiscing about our schooldays and recent vicissitudes in Ronan's life. As Ronan put it, we're at the business end of life, which reminds me of Larkin's 'Extinction's Alp', that 'stays in view wherever we go,' but (for those at the end of the business end) is 'rising ground' and therefore hard to distinguish in its entirety. So, the foothills of Extinction's Alp then. But the conversation was far from gloomy. We had a good few laughs. He's a very old friend and I wish I saw him more often, and Roz too. I've only been over to their wonderful house on Gabriola Island once, in 1999, a very memorable visit.

I left them off at Ronan's brother Owen's place on Killiney Hill, just around the corner from where the family lived (for a little while) while we were in school together in the 70s.

That mattress is at the business end of life too, but at least the pasture it's been put out to comes with one of the best views in Dublin: billionaire's row, on the foothills of you know what.