IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:Greyness becomes all pervasive as the floods add to gloom
IT’S ALL going on. The gods are angered and venting in a wet rage. Cork is sodden and riled, and the kids, on my case thanks to striking teachers, are encouraging me to drive faster through flood-plain puddles.
There’s a shopping back alley in Clonakilty called Spiller’s Lane. It houses an eclectic little mix of shops, each representative of the slightly bohemian vibe the place wants to give off. The day we arrived down here, before the elder started school, we came across a kid wearing a new uniform like the elder’s in a charity bookshop in the lane.
We approached and investigated and the other kid’s mother, wondering what her daughter was doing chatting to a strange man, got involved and gave us a hearty welcome on hearing we were newly blown in.
It’s that kind of a lane. Aside from books, you can buy Asian spices, take music lessons, arrange surfing tuition and find the necessary kit. Cake and coffee is available, as are hardwood cabinets and designer shoes.
When the soles of your new shoes wear out, you can have them repaired by the locksmith across the way. Really, how come guys who cut keys also know how to fix shoes? The healthfood shop is here, too. Where else would it be?
Over the past year, about a quarter of these shops have closed. You could now rent a boho shop/office space in this enclave for the price of a cappuccino and croissant each morning. Because, unfortunately, that’s what these shops are. They’re outlets (apart from the cost-saving locksmith) for the extras in life, the niceties.
You could survive without anything that’s for sale down the lane, you could live instead on the gear sold in either of the discount stores that have sprung up side by side on the main street. You could – you might have to – and that’s a pity.
When the floods came, one of the first spots to be washed through was, of course, Spiller’s Lane. It was as if nature resented the splash of colour the lane provided and was determined to wipe it off the map.
The convenience stores, the banks and the building societies went largely unscathed.
Today, as I waded around town with kids hanging from me, kids who should be in school, I passed a number of pickets. It was hard not to smirk at the rain pelting on strikers as they shuffled together for warmth outside bright, centrally heated, half-empty government buildings.
Here’s a grey cohort shouting to be left alone, insisting that tax should not be burdened on their shoulders, that it’s unfair to expect them to fork out to keep us all afloat. What about the rich, they say, what about the profiteers?
And they’re right. They probably shouldn’t be penalised while (insert your choice of banker, minister or developer) continues to swan through his or her other-people-sponsored lifestyle. But it’s hard to feel sympathy when so many other people, people without the safety nets our government-
paid friends have, are left staring at an empty shop, in the knowledge that they don’t even qualify for social welfare.
What about the risk-takers who went out on their own because they believed that their product or service would benefit others, even though, when all else was pared back, they probably didn’t really need it?
Most of them didn’t make much money, but they supplied most of the colour.
They supplied an alternative to the parade of high street brands up and down the country, they encouraged us to taste new foods, they even got us to read something other than Dan Brown or JK Rowling.
Ireland in the winter has always been hard work, grey sky on grey brick. Now it seems only our grey civil servants have the gumption to rise up and snarl. The greyness is becoming all pervasive, colour is fading on the walls as flood water rises up and strips them back.
For years I fought with the missus not to waste our tight household budget on inflated “small shop” products, but fortunately she ignored me and went and bought them anyway.
Now there are fewer and fewer alternative places left to go and spend what little money we have. By the time my girls grow up, there might be only three employers left standing: the government, a single bank and Lidl, all insisting on employees wearing grey slacks and shirts.
Without the colour, this could be anywhere. Without the colour, I’d have the kids grow up and live anywhere else.
- abrophy@irishtimes.com