Stick it to the man, dessert edition.

RIYC?? In the early 90s, a couple of friends of my sister left the Woo of Findhorn to settle and make a living in Ireland. They bunked with us for a few weeks. But as soon as they got some gig work, they left our spare room and rented a teeny tiny flat in Dun Laoghaire. One Saturday a few weeks later, we piled into the car for a surprise visit to our new pals K&L. For a jape, we paused at the garden centre at the bottom of our rural Northside lane and bought a massive sack of spuds as a house-gift. They were delighted to see us, gave us tea and we all went on a promenade along the East Pier. That Winter, The Boy got well into D&D and wanted to attend a session in Dun Laoghaire after school on Tuesdays. K&L, well obvs, offered to give him a bed for the night and make sure he brushed his teeth before going back to school in the morning. And it was so.

For a while L was working the night shift as a waitron in the Royal Irish Yacht Club. It was a club, for rich people, so the tips didn't appear as a golden rain and the management paid only minimum wage. But, at the end of the shift, the staff could take home any unsold desserts as a gratuity. "rrrr, thank ye for my wages, marster". K&L, whose ancestors had left in the 20thC and 19thC respectively, worked real hard at re-anchoring their dynasty in Ireland. But it just didn't come together in pre-Tiger Dublin and so they pulled the plug and went on to British Columbia. When we went to help them pack for leaving, they presented us with a neat stack of 6 RCSI dessert bowls. L had never been in a hurry to return the receptacles for her dessert 'bonus'. I guess I was, wearing my épater les bougies bonnet, happy enough to fence her loot.

After they left, K&L borned and raised a chap together who was about the same age as Dau.I and Dau.II. And then, just before Christmas 20 years ago, K had a heart attack and died. We were bereft, it was as if his heart was too big for this world. The only time the three kids met was when L came back to Ireland with her Boy and his father's ashes to scatter at the Home Place in Tulla, County Clare. On that trip L revealed that the sack o' spuds which we'd dumped on them as a joke a decade earlier had been a lifesaver. After the rent was paid that month, they had literally no money left for food. Morto, I was! At the time I was on a crazy tax-free EU-funded gig in TCD and would happily have given them a pound of rashers and a cabbage as well as the spuds! And son-of-K&L? He turned out well.