Somehow I wasn’t minding too much that I was out walking in Dublin on a warm, grey, wet, drivingly drizzly morning.
In order to maintain my daily nutritional requirements, kvetch had just treated me to a very tasty breakfast of a plateful of fried things with a side order of lard.
- You know, on some mornings, nothing else will do.
Wet Morning – Aprés Lard
This morning, as on many mornings in Dublin, the air near the River Liffey was especially tangy with that salty aroma of the sea at low tide.
Blinking against the rain splatting against the side of my face, I looked over the stone wall at the edge of the quay.
I saw a traffic cone.
Traffic Coneness
Now, in case any of you are wondering, Dublin has somehow actually managed to just about scrape its way into the 20th century.
What with all the building and road works and stuff that’s been going on around here over the last lot of years, traffic cones are not that uncommon a sight around these parts.
It’s just that I’m not aaaaaall that accustomed to seeing traffic cones deployed, well, y’know…
In rivers.
This one hadn’t been too well deployed, apparently, because it was lying on its side.
- Don’t worry, I’m getting to the part about why I’m droning on about this traffic cone.
Noticeable Coneness
The kind of noticeable thing about this particular traffic cone, and it being in the river, was that it wasn’t floating.
- This traffic cone was lying on its side on the bottom of the River Liffey, not floating, and most of it was visible.
Now, I don’t know about you, but mostly when I look at rivers flowing merrily along, and especially rivers such as the famous and noble River Liffy in the heart of Dublin, I kind of expect them to have a greater depth than, well, y’know, more than, like, um, actually…
Three inches.
I mean, what with all the literary and lyrical references to the River Liffey, it’s kind of hard for me to imagine romanticising a river in which even a seagull can barely splash about at ankle depth (at least at low tide).
- (do seagulls even have ankles? Oh, I guess they do.)
Getting Rained On
So anyhow, there I was, getting rained on, and looking over the edge of the quay at this traffic cone in the river.
So what did I do, you may ask?
Well, I’m a blogger, what do you think I did?
Go on, have a guess.
- Hint: a camera might be involved.
I got my camera out and took pictures to share with all you lovely people. :)
- didja guess?
I Wasn’t Really Interested In The Traffic Cone
Actually, to be perfectly honest, the part of this morning I was most interested in wasn’t really the traffic cone.
- I was reeeeeeeeeally mostly interested in my plateful of fried things with the side order of lard.
(howdja guess) :p
But no matter how much of a blogger I am, I just couldn’t stop to take pictures of that, what with all that blissful stuffing my face and everything.
So I hereby present you with pictures which do feature a rather unusual deployment of a traffic cone, but which unfortunately fail to feature even a hint of my side order of lard.
Non-Lard Images
The River Liffey and Traffic Cone - Broad View
The River Liffey and Traffic Cone - Closer View
The Quays of the River Liffey - People Being Rained On
The River Liffey - Not A Puddle With A Traffic Cone In It
Endingness
Y’know, some of my days are just the teensiest bit less interesting than others.
I bet you smart people already worked that out, dintcha. ;)
Lady Lubyanka 
Having never been to Dublin – needless to say Ireland for that matter – I found it very interesting :) But I was kind of expecting it to turn out that you jumped in and rescued the River Liffey – hahaha – but the lard and fried things must have been weighing you down to feel that spritely ;) Cheers!
I grew up on the banks of the Thames at Deptford. Hey, that makes me sound like some kind of algae, doesn’t it? Anyway, the thing is that living as close to the river as we did we’d get lecture after lecture at school about The Dangers of Low Tide. Seeing these pictures has brought it all back along with the warnings that class 1a in Grinling Gibbons school were given about not trusting perfidious gulls. Apparently, these cunning birds are able to walk unconcernedly over the flats of “quick mud” that lie on the river’s margins. This talent the gulls demonstrate frequently, so we were told, mainly to lure overly adventurous six-year-old boys to a watery grave. Even now I can here the lurid descriptions of the mud worms that would strip our flesh from our bones if we were foolish and went Too Near The Water. Evidently, the gulls in Dublin have learned a new trick, to use traffic cones to add credence to the solidity of the mud upon which they so blithely step.
Of course, if six year old boys were all made to wear jackets fabricated from seagull feet and the plastic that traffic cones are made of, there would be no danger and no need for the river police to tell such tales that no doubt leave the children of today as traumatised as they left me all those years ago. In many ways the scare stories are similar to those spread by those who don’t realise that the main food groups in a good breakfast are fat, stodge and the crunchy bits from the edge of the frying pan.
Soft grey days after hearty breakfasts might not be exciting but they are one of the joys of life.