Guinness Withdrawal

I've been here in Scotland for three days now after a 5-day stint back home in Dublin, and I'm starting to notice that Guinness is no longer coursing through my system. It’s a disappointing realisation, I must say.

It’s great to see my family and friends when I’m back, it really is, but it’s an almost physical yearning for the black stuff that I feel as the day to fly home draws nearer. It’s nearly the first thing I do when I get off the plane. Straight into the airport bar, and order up a pint. Even writing this now I can feel the mouth-watering anticipation as I watch it settle. I fork over at least one-too-many Euro for the thing, and wait for it to settle to a defined black and white contrast. As soon as the first gulp passes my lips, I’m home again.

But now it’s over. Until Christmas, at least, I’ll have to sate my thirst with one of the many lagers they dole out by the pintful over here. They range from terrible to pretty damn good, but not one of them can reach the spot that the uncarbonated ebony and creamy white can reach.

I’ve tried drinking Guinness over here. I’ve tried hard. But despite the recent “Now Brewed in Dublin” campaigns that they’ve thrown at me, it just doesn’t seem the same. Maybe it’s in my head; an emotional attachment with my home country, but I don’t think so.

I’ve had very good pints of Guinness in very good countries across the world, but there’s only one country I’ve ever had a GREAT pint in…

A Rude Awakening...

Why this incident inspired me to start writing a blog again, I'll never know...

I had just got back on Monday night from a long weekend in Ireland. My flight was delayed a couple of hours, and I was starving by the time I got back to the flat. It was pushing midnight after a long day and I had work in the morning, but I was too hungry to hit the hay without making something to eat. (Chips and cheese, as that was the sum total of my fridge-freezers contents. Unless you count milk with "personality"). By the time I got to bed I was absolutely shattered and went out like a light. (Forgetting to set the alarm...)

---[edit bizarre dream sequence]---

...I awoke with a jolt, in that state of blind panic that only the (very) sudden realisation that you have slept late can bring about. Sure enough, the neon red "07:31" glaring at me confirmed my fears. I leapt out of bed, promptly standing on a shoe lying in wait at my bedside. I lurched forward in the dark, and put a hand out to brace myself on the wall. Instead of the wall, I found the door. It was ajar enough for the top of my left hand little finger to fit through the gap. In this gap it rested for a brief, happy time... until the rest of my hand met the rest of the door at some considerable speed. Consider for a moment the fact that I had been in a deep, comfortable sleep only 8 seconds previous to this. You should then be able to imagine the confusing contrast between this blissful state, and having the fingernail and tip of your little finger being slammed firmly in a door.

It's two days later now, and my long weekend in Ireland is fading to a distant memory, but I have a still-aching purple fingernail to remind me of the awful 8-seconds which overshadowed it completely.

Somehow that doesn't strike me as fair.