I suppose one way of getting ourselves through the current problems is to support other Irish industries and keep some money in circulation here. On the other hand a little break away can lift the spirits, so I combined both for a few days last week and went and visited a friend living in Carcassonne.
I was more than happy to contribute to the Ryanair profits, especially when I found a flight that cost €2 return, including taxes. I was feeling lucky and splashed out another €2 on a scratch card, but had no luck there. Still, my €4 should help O’Leary through the hard times.
I’m not sure if it’s the language barrier, but I didn’t get the feeling that the French were taking all this talk of recession as seriously as we are. Their house prices and general all round greed didn’t reach anything like the levels experienced here, so there’s less sign of an impact on everyday life.
I had expected my friend to have opened his new Irish bar called The Celt by now, but it’s still a few weeks before it will be ready to greet its first customers. It’s unusual for a city of this size not to have an Irish bar, but this will be soon rectified with the opening of the Celt. The owner, Patrick O’Sullivan, originally from Killarney, was sent a signed Kerry jersey while I was there, so I’ve promised to match it with a Kilkenny one. The whole project has taken almost a year, you need a lot of patience to steer your way through the various legal requirements in France.
All over France there are wine festivals taking place at this time of year and I just happened to arrive as they were setting up dozens of stalls in the main square. It kicked off on Thursday night with a Rockabilly band performing on a huge stage. I sampled the food and wine from the producers and got talking to a young winemaker called Benjamin Taillandier. It turned out that we were travelling to Ireland on the same flight, he’s visiting a couple from Killarney who had worked on the wine harvest. “Not very good for this work” he says, “they are engineers.”
I sampled a couple of different reds and he then showed me a bottle of Rose. The wine is called ‘6 Roses’. This is pronounced ‘see roses’ in French. “This is a little joke” he tells me, “it sounds the same as cyrrhosis, which you get from too much wine.”
After a few glasses of Benjamin’s wine I plucked up the courage to try something I’ve never done before. At the next stall there are two huge pots simmering away. Here goes, it was finally time to try a plate of snails. They tasted ok, the rich wine sauce helping them down, but I found it better not too look too closely at what I was eating. As I skewered one with a tooth pick I thought they just look too similar to those shellacky shellacky bookies we used to poke at as kids.
I know it’s popular to criticise Ryanair and their poor customer service, but I find they get you from A to B and generally do it on time. I don’t think we will hear the line, “Oh I never fly Ryanair/Shop at Lidl” too often over the next few years. Just as I was having these warm thoughts about Michael O’Leary and Ryanair the public address system announced that there would be a three hour delay, due to technical problems.
Seemingly the incoming flight had hit a few birds on landing and we had to wait for a technician to come from Stansted to check the aircraft out. There was just one woman practising her call of complaint to the Joe Duffy Show, bellowing on about ‘lack of information’, but otherwise the passengers just accepted the delay and took in an extra hour of sunshine.
Somehow, I don’t think there was much point in looking for my €2 back.
SOME EARLY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING?
While I was struggling with my plate of snails the launch of the Susie Long Hospice Fund CD was taking place in the Cellar Bar at the brewery. What will we do without this fantastic facility when the place closes in a couple of years time?
There’s 16 tracks in all featuring Kilkenny music legends Engine Alley and Kerbdog as well as material from some of the newer bands including RSAG, Good Tiger and Little Black Wren. I can give my personal seal of approval to the 14 bands that I’m familiar with and will be checking out the other two - Pello and Split Lip - as soon as I can.
It would make a nice Christmas present, especially for any Kilkenny music fans living abroad. The CD is available in Khan’s Bookshop and Rollercoaster Records, so shop early for Christmas and let’s have the CD winging it’s way around the globe.
