This town (aw.... aw) is getting like a ghost town.

Gadjodilo

God be with the days when you'd have to queue for 2-3 minutes to get near the BoI ATM in Main Street on a Saturday. Now, it's rare to have to wait at all. Of course, I had my own little secret ATM belonging to one of the less known financial institutions. Down beside Newcourt, it was one that few people knew about and there were never any queues. It was like one of those twee little Spanish resorts that only Spanish people (and you) know about. Anyway, I don't need it now.

Those business parks out the Dublin Road are very quiet. I brought my mother out to Shoes Direct (beside Argos) yesterday and you could have parked the space shuttle there was so much space.

I was in the Imperial last night and while I love the extra space, the emptiness of the place was off-putting. There used to be a time when going to the loo was an epic journey that would have made Odysseus blink. Wading through hordes of drunken teenagers, avoiding the massive Bolshie and Kavanagh (or whatever) handbags, standing aside to allow the contra-flow to pass through only to realise that that it stretched all the way back to the entrance.....

Ordering a drink required strategies, choosing a weak link in the wall of bar hogs (damn their souls), spotting that person who was about to move away so you could nip in to that much craved place right at the bar where at some point in the following hour or so you might catch the eye of one of the overworked bar staff. Not any more. There were loads of space at the bar last night and the bar staff looked bored.

I miss the crowds. I miss the fuss. I miss the stress. I miss the traffic jams. Come back, congestion. All is forgiven.