That’s Entertainment?

When the ladies I was housesitting for returned from Italy, they treated me to a terrific dinner out, at a hotel near Wexford. The hotel was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

What a great finish to a great housesit.

The next morning, on to Kildare and my next housesit. It turned out that I could have taken a bus from Oylegate, but Anne was kind enough to take me to the bus stop in Wexford, since, when I made my travel arrangements, I hadn’t realised there were buses going through Oylgate. I got a big, comfortable bus to Waterford. From there, I got on a train directly to Kildare.

Begin rant

As I’ve been struggling to find a way around the $2000 per month cost of renting a car when I return to Canada in April for a few months, I’ve cursed the lack of good public transportation outside of the big cities there. Or for that matter, even within many of them. If you live in the suburbs of the nation’s capital, good luck getting anywhere by bus outside of rush hour. If you live in the little town of Prescott or Almonte as my sons do, you can’t even getting out of town without a car. I’ve been told it’s because our population is not large enough to sustain public transportation.

But the entire population of Ireland is less than that of Toronto. Dublin has half the number of people that Ottawa does. And yet Oylegate (population 401), has buses running frequently to Wexford and Dublin. And Dublin is crisscrossed with light rail, commuter trains, buses and three train stations. In 1966, Ottawa very cleverly got rid of its one and only train station in downtown, and the commuter trolleys that crossed the city. Well done urban planners.

End rant

However, nowhere is perfect, as I found when I ventured by train and bus from Kildare to Dublin to see a Christmas concert one fine Friday afternoon.

I set off, reasonably optimistic, about 12:15. The concert was at 3:00. The train was late, and very, very crowded. I found this out when the doors opened and I had to push past a horde of people in the vestibule, crammed together like sardines.

Another, smaller rant. I have come across this in the UK and it always maddens me. They oversell the trains, resulting in people without assigned seats standing throughout the journey in the aisles and connecting spaces. Gods help you negotiating that if you have a suitcase. Aside from that, how is this not a safety hazard? There are signs saying not to block the doors, but what choice do people have if the system sells them a ticket after all the seats are full?

I’m so, so unhappy to see it happening in Ireland.

End mini rant

I had an assigned seat, so I elbowed my way past all the people crammed into the entrance and all down the aisle, saying “Excuse me, I have a reserved seat”. When I got to the correct seat, there was someone in it. This happens. Names and the place where the occupant is getting on, are displayed above reserved seats. So if you got on the train at Waterford for example, without a reserved seat, and found an empty seat showing that the person it belonged to was not getting on until Newbridge, you could plunk down there and get up once that person got on. And sometimes people reserve seats and then aren’t on the train.

Okay, I had no problem, with any of that. But it was my seat.

Full of conscious rectitude, I said pityingly, “I think you are in my seat.” The young guy in the seat looked confused, and said politely that he didn’t think so. I then looked at the name above and saw it wasn’t mine. My confident smile crumbled when I asked if this was car B. Nope, D.

Had the aisles not been blocked, I could have walked back through the train to the proper car. No problem. A slight mixup is all. But noooooo, as we know, this was not the case. As I bulled my way back, I wrestled with deciding whether I had time to get off, hurry down the platform and get into the right car.

The train started to move just as I finally won through to the door. This was lucky I guess. Otherwise I might have made a really bad decision, gone out, and gotten left standing on the platform as the train pulled out.

In retrospect, maybe that would have been a good thing. I could have caught a movie in Newbridge rather than continuing.

I forced my way into the foyer, where I stood with my face crammed into the back of some other hapless person. At the next station. I got off and found the right car. Once again, I shouldered my way past the standees and this time when I booted the young guy from my seat, it was justified.

When we arrived at Heuston Station, I shuffled along with the mob from the train trying to get out of the platform area and into the station.

I thought I would find the washroom first, but, big surprise, there was a line a mile long for the ladies’. I gave that up and turned my attention to the next phase of what already felt like an interminable journey – getting a bus to the National Concert Hall.

The internet had already told me which bus to take and where to get it, which luckily was right outside the station. Having learned from experience that the forms of payment accepted on public transit are never the same in any two cities, I had also consulted the internet about how to pay. The buses in Dublin do not take credit cards, nor will the driver accept paper money, although coins were acceptable.

The easiest method is a LEAP card.

LEAP is the transit card that you put money on, and use on pretty much every form of public transportation in Dublin; even sometimes outside of Dublin. As a precaution, I also had two, 2€ coins for the bus up and back if I couldn’t find a place to buy a card.

But as it happened, the cards could be bought at the first machine I spied. Faint cheers.

Leaving the station, I walked into another almost impenetrable mob of people blocking the areas from the station doors to the bus stands. Turned out, most of them were trying to get on my bus. The only advantage to being old is that I have no qualms about shoving my way past the fit young things, if they don’t voluntarily give way to age.

Downstairs was full. I climbed upstairs and managed to snag what seemed to be the last seat. Luckily, it was right in front of the stairs, so when the aisle filled up with people, I figured I could still get out when my stop rolled around.

The weekend after this epic journey, I had some of my Irish friends over to the housesit for dinner (with the permission of the people I was housesitting for, of course). When I was telling them about my travails getting to the concert on a mobbed bus, both Sinéad and her eighteen year old daughter Abbie Mae, came to attention.

“Where was this seat?” Upstairs. “Upstairs?! “ They exchanged a shocked look. “Was it at the front or back?” Front. Well, they guessed that was okay.

I asked what was wrong with upstairs and the back of the bus and was told never to go upstairs if I didn’t have to and if I did, not to sit at the back. Rowdiness and assault and theft and general mayhem goes on back there. This surprised me, as I am not a complete stranger to Dublin buses and had never had a problem.

Later, Sinéad told a tale about her misadventures trying to navigate Dublin transport. She didn’t know the buses didn’t take bills or credit cards. She didn’t have a LEAP card. She had to plead with the driver that she was from the country and didn’t understand the system and tell him forcefully that she was not getting off no matter what.

So though being upstairs on the bus, I could apparently have been mugged or worse, at least I knew more than a local about forms of payment, and didn’t have to threaten the bus driver. Which was lucky. Because Sinéad is a lot younger and in better shape than me. I don’t think the driver would have taken any threat from me very seriously.

Must have been at least five minutes, maybe more, before every body that could possibly be crammed into the bus had pushed their way on and we finally trundled away. It took at least another five to get out of the bus stand, through the lights and across the river.

Traffic seemed to be bad everywhere. What the internet had told me would be maybe a ten or fifteen minute ride down the Liffey, turned out to be over half an hour from the time we left the station. That’s what I get for trying to travel on a Friday before Christmas.

When planning this trip, I had allowed an extra ninety minutes, figuring I might grab a quick lunch. Between the late train and the slow bus, I arrived at the concert hall with only about twenty minutes to spare before the performance.

The theatre was small – about the size of only the centre portion of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

My seats were in the very last row, a very short one. I thought I was near the aisle, but it turned out to be two in from the wall, not the aisle. Which developed into a bit of a problem later.

The hall was beautifully lit and decorated for Christmas.

The start time came and went and nothing. The auditorium was less than half full. There were lots of adults and children dressed in Christmas sweaters and hats.

They finally dimmed the lights and started about 3:15, but it kind of amazed me that even as late as an hour after the start time, people were still allowed to come in and make a whole row of people stand up to let them find their seats. I thought that was an ‘uncivilized Ecuador’ thing. No, apparently, it’s an ‘uncivilized modern life’ thing.

The Palestrina Choir turned out to be only men and boys.

A chirpy woman came out and made an unnecessarily long speech about how great everything was and was going to be. Chirpy told us, gasping with thrill of it all, that this was the first year they were having a matinee and an evening performance on the same day. Imagine!

The choir started up. Honestly, it was disappointing. In Dublin, I expected something more professional. The choir was wobbly in a lot of places and the tuning was often off. Merely okay. I was disappointed too that there was no orchestra, just an organ. I’m not a fan of organs in general. They have their place, but not as sole accompaniment.

Another disappointment – the music was unrecognizable and modern. No, I am not a music snob. But the name of the choir, invoking Palestrina (a renowned Renaissance Italian composer) had raised certain expectations.

I sang in a multitude of choirs for decades, including at Canada’s National Arts Centre. I know a lot of music, both classic and modern. I appreciate some modern compositions as much as older ones. But this, to borrow from the Irish, was shite. If I’m not getting Palestrina, than can’t I at least get ‘O Holy Night’? I’d have settled for ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’.

To add to my disappointment, there was a fair amount of chatter in the audience. Since this was a matinee, perhaps that explained all the kids.

 But there were a fair number of adults chattering away too.

There was also a disabled person in a wheelchair at the end of my row. Let me make it clear that I was very happy that he was able to be there and that his young woman caregiver was able to get out with him and attend this performance. But, he did vocalise throughout. His moaning attracted the attention of the little girl beside me, who kept leaning out past me to gawk.

Next was a girls’ choir from the Catholic cathedral. According to the nearly breathless Chirpy, this choir had been in existence for a whole fifteen years. A girls’ choir! My, isn’t the Catholic Church progressive?! I thought they were better than the boys and men, but maybe that was because they were accompanied by a cello. The music was modern, but better than what the men had sung. And the cello made it more interesting.

Following that, Chirpy told us to get ready for an ‘awwww’ moment. We had another girls’ choir, which Chirpy seemed to be calling the ‘probationary’ choir. They were certainly younger than the other girls’ choir. They sang ‘Away in a Manger’ and ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’ (finally something Christmas-y) and were duly adorable. Lots of oohing and awing from the audience.

It should have moved me but didn’t, much. I mean, I appreciated it, but at this point, I was already in full ‘Bah, humbug’ territory.

Next up was a soprano who sang Handel’s “Let the Bright Seraphim”. She was very good, as far as I could hear it over the chatter from the audience and the increasingly agitated sounds from the handicapped man, who seemed to be disturbed by the piercing high notes.

Last time I heard this piece sung was at the wedding of Charles and Diana where Kiri Te Kanawa performed it. She had a full orchestra and the acoustics of St. Paul’s. This singer worked very hard, supported by just a piano and a trumpet. She was good. Not Dame Kiri good, but she was rocking a killer floaty red ballgown.

We were not allowed to take photos or to record, so Barbie will have to be a stand in.

When Chirpy came back and asked the kids in the front how they liked that, the answer was, they liked the dress.

Me too. That dress was honestly the highlight of the night.

I was ready to go, but hope triumphed over experience and I stayed put when Chirpy said that next up was the Dublin Brass. I love brass groups.

Sadly, they sat them at the back of the stage behind the now seated little girl choir. They tootled out an arrangement of Frosty the Snowman. For some inexplicable reason, it was paced at the speed of the ‘Dead March from Saul’. To add to my confusion, a person in a very limp Frosty costume who I had last seen harassing the theatre goers in the foyer, came out on the stage and proceeded to literally just shuffle around. Back and forth. Forth and back. I don’t know if it was supposed to be a soft shoe dance, but if so, wow, big time fail. It went on and on. And on. At one point Frosty channeled ‘The Exorcist’ and turned his head completely backwards. He then shuffled, monster style over to lurk behind the seated little girls, who seemed freaked out. I know I was. None of them were smiling or in the least amused. I know I wasn’t.

Finally the music slowed to an even more dirge like pace, and Frosty slowly crumpled down onto the stage where he finally fully collapsed, apparently dead. Was that supposed to be him melting? Alrighty then, very festive.

The members of the Dublin Brass left posthaste. I could almost see thought bubbles over their heads, screaming, “Get out, get out, before Frosty rises again!” At this point, the guy next to me escaped by climbing over the back of his chair. The advantage of being in the last row.

Chirpy bounced onto the stage as Frosty miraculously recovered to faint applause. She invited the kids in the front row to say how wonderful it all was. Crickets chirped and I may have seen a tumbleweed rolling across the stage.

Chirpy, giddy with excitement, announced that Aidan Gillen (Peter Baelish/Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, and Abarama Gold in Peaky Blinders for those still with me) was going to read from A Christmas Carol.

Look, I’m a fan and Mr. Gillen gave a nice rendition of the last chapter of the Scrooge book, but he was having to work very hard. Let’s face it. There are a lot more dramatic and enthralling parts to the book they could have picked. Any of the ghosts. The aftermath of the death of Tiny Tim.

In this chapter, all the good stuff is over. Scrooge basically gets out of bed and puts in a grocery order for Bob Crachit before making a charitable donation and going to dinner at his nephew’s. Thrilling stuff. Someone get the smelling salts. I think I’m going to faint from the excitement.

I allow I was distracted by my increasingly ardent desire to escape.

When the applause broke out, I made a break for it. Emulating my departed seat mate and trying to climb my way out would have most likely resulted in me falling on my ass onto the patrons still in their seats, or catching my leg in the folded up chair and breaking it. So I reluctantly decided to pursue the marginally less (but only marginally less) embarrassing alternative of asking the disabled person to move.

I made my way to the end of the row, leaned over, and said to the young woman beside the wheelchair, “I am so, so sorry, but I wonder if it is possible to get by?” She was very gracious and it was the work of a moment for her to roll the chair back.

It was just as well I left when I did. The bus back to the station was late. It was rainy and cold. The bus was again crowded, but I managed to get a seat.

And a few shots of Christmas lights in Dublin.

The bus trip back was almost as slow as the trip in. When the bus finally made it to the station, it stopped at a different place from where I had gotten on. I had to walk quite a way to get to the train, which was standing in the station by then. I had only fifteen minutes to spare.

At least it was not crowded.

Just before the Kildare station, the train stopped. After about ten minutes, an announcement came, saying there was a train in the station blocking us. When we did get going, we were taken to the arriving train platform, which meant a climb up the stairs and across a bridge over the tracks to get to the actual station building.

The train which had blocked us was still there. Ominously, there was a stretcher beside it and an ambulance in the parking lot. Someone was having an even worse afternoon than than I had had.

The walk back to where I was housesitting was rather nice. Not as cold, or perhaps just there was no wind. I got to see some of the local lights.

But verdict – the game was not worth the candle.