Drenched to the bone

Dublin after the downpours - from RTE.ie website
Dorota and I were cycling home yesterday as Croke Park fans were also making their way back down and up the country.

1st calamity. One of the bolts and nuts on the carrier of my bike fell out after I went into a pothole. It was either that or get nailed by crazy, thoughtless Dublin drivers. The sidebar wedged into the spokes and I can count my blessings that I reacted quickly enough not to lose control.

Bicycle angels. Within a minute of stopping and pulling the bike to one side, a local woman (it was Ballybough area) came over and asked if I had a puncture. After explaining the situation to her, she then asked if we needed any help, that she lived nearby and was an avid cyclist. I thanked her but said that it was ok. I'm stubborn and wanted to figure it out myself.

It took a few minutes to get the bar out without breaking any of the spokes. The back wheel seemed a little buckled and displaced by the scenario, so I was cursing the unavoidable pothole for my bad luck.

Then another local, a father of 3 young boys, whose house we parked alongside came over to have a look. He went inside to get some tools in order to loosen the brakes and the axel so we could move the wheel back into place. While he was using the vice grips out popped another neighbour, he seemed Eastern European, who knew a lot about bikes and gave us some advice and help. 3 bicycle angels came to save the day with their tools, expertise, and concern. It lifted my spirits. Off we set for Coolock.

Grev clouds loomed as we approached the Luke Kelly bridge en route to Gracepark road. We decided to take refuge at the Mace garage just at the bottom of the turn-off near Tolka park. Lo and behold, the skies opened up. It was like the Ganges, finding no where to deposit it's volumes suddenly soared above the city and let loose. It shot down en masse, and even the canopy we were sheltering under couldn't prevent the rain from getting through. Waiting, waiting, and more waiting. 45 minutes after we pre-emptively took shelter, while it was back in drizzling mode, we decided to venture out and head for home.

Gracepark road was like the dodder, streaming down the left side of the road and heading straight into the poor unfortunate owners of the house at the bottom of the hill.

We did our best to stop drivers from splashing us. Most were driving slowly anways to avoid flooding their cars. By the time we got to Collins avenue junction it started up again, as if the clouds suffered from amnesia and had forgotten that they had already pissed down upon us all moments earlier. We trudged through swathes of water, mini lakes, and by the time we got to Beaumont the danger of heavy traffic had passed. It was quite an enjoyable feeling having your clothes washed for free, your boots carrying a litre of rainwater each.

Our front garden yesterday evening

Then we got to our house. It was like a crannog! All of our neighbours and our own temporary setting were surrounded by water. 2 more inches and it would be time to move up stairs. We had no sandbags, Dublin corporation weren't answering - understandably as they had worse hit places elsewhere in the capital.

But little by little, the sky-spitting stopped, the water receded, and mother earth soaked it all up.

I know we are always mouthing off about the weather, but God almighty, that sure was a brutal downpour yesterday, My bones are still ringing wet!