K8 the GR8

I was kind of nervous at the prospect of meeting Jefferson Davis, I’ve heard his podcasts with BrianF and Dad and by the sounds of it, he is one intelligent guy.  I tend to steer clear of intelligent people as a rule, they have a habit of showing me up.  My half of the conversation seems to fill up with potholes of confused space, making life difficult for the other person who soon gets tired of prompting and goes in search of something more titillating.

This was not so with Jefferson though.  We hooked up at Headrambles Manor and I watched as Grandad slowly emptied can after can of Guinness into his and Jefferson’s belly and banter flowed free.  We skyped BrianF to make him jealous, spoke about things that are and things that should be, and watched Dustin honour Ireland in his own special way and it was good.  Jefferson’s a quiet bloke with an accepting presence and the skill of throwing out honesty that makes you feel like an old friend.  Seriously great company to be in, innit?

I brought him to Johnny Fox’s for five minutes because circumstances were unfavourable (this pub has seriously lost it’s people skills), then to Barracuda in Bray where we got some grub and got to watch the sky turn from purple to brown by the sea-shore. 

Today I dragged him all over the place, or at least to as many aesthetically interesting places in Wicklow as I could within reason.  We went to Lough Dan at the brink of the Sally Gap to gaze down into the valley for a bit, then strolled around Victoria’s Way to meditate and admire the statues (I was worried about bringing Puppychild to this as some of Victoria’s art is disturbing to say the least, but as it turned out, the butterfly season is here which kept her busy enough!).  Jefferson and I admired the statues, books and craftwork in the shop which was empty of any other living soul. He watched as I helped myself to some jewellery and left money under the brass monkey on the counter, and appreciated how truly Zen-like this Victoria character is.

We got an Avoca take-away (Avoca Foccaccia is the yummiest Foccaccia there is) and drove home to eat and wait for Laughingboy to return home from school.  I was dissapointed that the neighbours behaved themselves and denied Jefforson any scandal, but there you go.

I thought Powerscourt deserved a bit of a mooch, but we got there just as the gardens were closing which was a crying shame, so I brought him to Powerscourt waterfall instead.  Jefferson farted about with his camera over towards the waterfall itself while I brought the kids to the playground.

I say ‘I brought the kids’, but ashamedly I got pretty excited when I saw it and almost forgot to bring the children with me…  it’s one of those highly-sophisticated jobs with lever-controlled sand diggers and climbing towers and a most excellent roundabout with central controlling.  I -  sorry - we… had a ball and Jefferson had to drag the lot of us away kicking and screaming when it was time to go home.  It was quite embarrasing in hindsight.  To give an example of it’s excellence, I noticed that the entire bus of (adult) Croatian toursits were not over by the waterfall farting about with their cameras,  instead they were clambering all over the rope-bridges and photographing each other making tits of themselves by the monkey-bars, giggling away like four-year-olds.  It was quite amazing to watch.

Today was the best tourism epic since Gwen the French student of ‘03.  Thanks Jeffo :)