This week, I was fortunate to spend time with my brother on the journey to and from Dublin, and around the city before a gig. On the drive up, we caught up and chatted about what we were both doing in the coming weeks. We also talked about how Dad was coping since Mum’s passing. After the gig, I drove down in the early morning. We started our long drive around 12:30 am after getting off the LUAS that we took out of the city. He helped me stay awake as I’d been up since 6:30 am the previous day. We started talking about the old estate where our Dad still lives now, and what it was like growing up there in the eighties, well primarily the nineties. He was part of the ‘smallies’ group, and then there were me and my friends above them, and above us were the older kids, so it was interesting to hear what he remembered. We both had really fond memories of the place and he said I was the best ‘rounders’ player so when all the kids played in the green area, everyone wanted me on their team, which I thought was really interesting. He also said there were over thirty ‘dens' dotted around the estate, and he knew this because he counted them, and how one of my friends had made a movie. I had no knowledge of this, but it made sense since that person is now a director, and we both wondered if he still had his debut film that he made when he was ten.

We both remembered climbing all over the parked fruit truck in the evenings and weekends during summer. It was filthy too, with black dirt from driving all day, and we’d write our names, or ‘Wash Me’ on the back. He said about the time kids from another estate set a hay bale on fire in the farmers’ field close to ours. I admitted to him it was great remembering that time, which he felt and I echoed, was a pure childhood where we were allowed to roam around outside unsupervised and safe for hours. It was really good to chat to him because I think a lot about that time and him saying that all our friends said I was ‘best at rounders’ was uplifting to hear. And I hope we talk about those times again.