St Patrick’s Day – and that means the Reception in Edinburgh given by the Irish Consul. A wonderful gathering of people -slightly flummoxed by being asked to sing the National Anthem. It’s people who don’t know each other but think they might – and then give themselves to the serious business of finding out about one another in the way that Irish people do everywhere.
Best bit of the evening for me was the receiving line. We were introduced to the Junior Minister, Sean Sherlock, from the Irish Government – what they used to call a ‘half car’. This of course was different. His greeting was ‘Sure didn’t I see you outside having a ‘conversation’ with your wife about why you weren’t answering your phone’.
A wonderful country indeed!
When driving to Dublin from Co Mayo the Guarda waved me to stop and cautioned about my speed. I thanked them but asked whether the speed limit was in km per hr or mph. They discussed it between them and answered ‘as you are from Scotland let’s call it mph!’