say something nice

I'm racking my brains. I've written several fairly tetchy blogs in the past few weeks and now I need to find the good things in life. Positive outlook and all that. Think on the right side and things will go right. Wish for things and they will come to you. Moan and they'll get worse. Yesterday was my birthday and I enjoyed it (I was well looked after!), in spite of the weather, and in spite of our first attempt at brunch, which took us to the Arc at the Liffey Valley Centre (Dublin) where the tables weren't cleared, we were ignored, and customers (all six of them) were complaining of cold food. Getting out of there as quickly as our legs would carry us, we found something more civilised round the corner in the Clarion Hotel, but we paid €16 each for a cooked breakfast that was, in spite of the fairly lush setting, cheap food. And so we both made comparisons and thought of our last Bob Evans in Delaware State, which cost $8 or so and was about 100 times nicer. Later we went to the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, which epitomises many of the things I hate about Ireland: its lack of flair and design skills, its cheapness, shoddy workmanship, indifference, lack of pride in what it does, fairly limited offerings, unfriendliness, complacency, etc. We then drove towards and into the Dublin Mountains where one's eyes are constantly affronted by tawdry, horrible new housing and office developments, and beyond them the serried ranks of non-native spruce plantations ruining a once lovely rolling rural landscape. Yet the view of Dublin Bay -- what little we could see through the rain and cloud as we ate our picnic in the car -- is as thrilling as ever. There is still hope for this sad little country, but it's fast running out and I've lost the power of positive thought where it's concerned. Very sad but true.