When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.
I’ve been on a few of those in my time.
And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.
For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.
Did I say ‘Iron Horse’? Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.
It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast
But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay. I’m sure it’s happened more than once.
Then…
Are you inclined to go?
A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.
An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?
There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation. Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.
But, you never know. Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.
Hang about. Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?
I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!
Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.
I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?
Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.
Right now.
I pick up the pen.
Character number one:
Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing. Still me, but with a twist. Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance. Yes, I like that.
We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.
He had a wife, which brings us to,
Character number two:
Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons. It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated. There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.
Character number three:
The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.
Oops, too much, that is my old boss. He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him. Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him. Last name Benton. He will play a small role in the story.
Character number four:
Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.
More on her later as the story unfolds.
So far so good.
What’s the plot?
Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers? No, that’s been done to death.
Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world. Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people. That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people! There will be guns, and there will be dead people.
There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around. That’s better.
Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.
All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.
Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work. He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks. The phone rings. Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down. He’s needed. A few terse words, but he relents.
When I first saw it I thought it was an old country estate, converted and expanded into a golf clubhouse.
It wasn’t. It is a purpose-built clubhouse and function center for corporate seminars and wedding receptions, as well as catering to the golfer, and golf tournaments.
It also has a very good outlook over the golf course.
But, in my writer’s mind, this will provide inspiration for a story that could be set in a large country house, with the central tower and lookout featuring in what might be a grisly death, and a group of guests who have gathered together to enact a mock murder that turns out to be very real.
Yes, the idea has been done to death over many many years, but I have a few new twists in mind.
Someone, many years ago, told me that once you turned 65 the weeks just flew, you know, like when a day was a long time, days will seem like hours, weeks like days, and years, well, it’s like watching the time clock on a time machine.
That last week went really fast, and now suddenly I’m 70. What happened to the last five years!
But…
I finally knuckled down and got some work done on the multitude of writing projects I’ve got going on.
I’ve recently been working on a story I’ve been calling ‘The helicopter story that’s been keeping me awake’, that got to the fifteenth episode, the end of what I now call part one, and as of the sixteenth episode is now under the ubiquitous title of ‘What happens after an action-packed start’.
Now written through to episode thirty, it starts on the third part and the climax of the story, and I may call it ‘What happens when you’re sent on a fool’s errand’.
The story will have three parts and will become a novella. The title, “Under the Cover of Darkness”, and Part 1 is called “Crash Landing”. More news on the other parts soon.
It has also become part of my “Cinema of my dreams” series, under the subtitle of ‘I never wanted to go to Africa.”
Another that I have been calling ‘I Always Wanted to go on a Treasure Hunt” was a whimsical idea that cropped up because I was stuck on an aeroplane, where the initial idea was formed, then home where it was a hot afternoon, and it reminded me of a desert island, just where you’d expect to find treasure.
Of course, the treasure isn’t on an island, it’s somewhere on the Florida coast, and there’s an intrepid adventurer who had the ‘real’ map, sought after by a variety of bad people.
It’s now rounded out into ninety-one episodes, and nothing like what I originally envisaged.
It too is one of the ‘Cinema of my dreams’ series, subtitled, naturally, ‘I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt’.
Last week I even began drawing up the treasure map, after all, you can’t have a treasure hunt without a map, can you?
Then there’s my war story, without a title. That might not happen until it is finished. It has forty-seven episodes so far, but we’re heading towards the end quite quickly.
It’s in WW2, and the Germans are about to discover all is not going their way.
Another of the ‘Cinema of my dreams’ series, it is subtitled ‘I always wanted to write a war story’.
There is a fourth story, under the title “Was it just another surveillance job’ that has surprisingly found a new life, and I’m having fun trying to work out the lies from the truth, except in the spy business, no one ever really knows which is which, do they?
It has just ended with 67 episodes and is finally at a conclusion.
There’s a fifth, a story that started out being fuelled by screenshots of planets in Skymap, that blossomed into my take on space travel and meeting alien races out on the edge of the galaxy. Fifty-one episodes on, it’s a miracle they haven’t been blasted out of the sky.
The fluorescent lights of the cardiology suite buzzed with the sterile hum of a greenhouse kept at absolute zero. Agatha sat on the examination table, her posture straight, wrapped in a pale blue paper gown that felt entirely too thin for the weight settling into her chest.
Across from her, Dr Harrison—a man whose salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses screamed “academic tenure”—swivelled a heavy monitor toward her. The screen was a chaotic scribble of green neon peaks and valleys, looking less like human biology and more like the visualizer from an illegal warehouse rave in 1996.
“Well, Agatha,” Dr Harrison said, tapping a stylus against the desk. “The mystery of your palpitations is solved. Though I suspect you aren’t going to like the answer.”
Agatha offered a practised, reassuring smile—the same one she used when she had to deal with her more recalcitrant charities seeking more funds. “Try me. I have to deal with very difficult people daily. I’ve survived worse than medical jargon.”
“You have Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy, or HOCM,” Dr Harrison said, his tone shifting into clinical precision. “It’s a genetic condition. The muscular wall—the septum—between your left and right ventricles has grown abnormally thick. On top of that structural bottleneck, your telemetry shows intermittent Atrial Fibrillation. Your upper heart chambers are essentially quivering instead of beating effectively, and your thickened muscle is blocking the outflow of blood to the rest of your body.”
Agatha blinked. “Thickened. Like… a muscle getting stronger at the gym?”
“Not quite,” Dr Harrison said gently. “Think of it like a highway where the lanes have suddenly narrowed, and the engine is misfiring. Your heart is working overtime just to maintain basic output. That pressure, that fatigue you’ve been feeling—it’s your heart screaming for backup.”
Agatha looked down at her hands, resting in her lap. For nineteen years, she had traded neon mesh and strobe lights for cashmere cardigans and beige throw pillows. She had raised twins on her own in a hostile environment, earned a corner office, and mastered the art of quiet, predictable suburban grace. She had buried the girl who danced on speaker stacks until dawn so deep she almost forgot she ever existed.
And now, her own biology was staging a rebellion.
“Okay,” Agatha said, her voice remarkably steady. “What does the fix look like?”
Dr Harrison leaned forward, folding his hands. “First, we adjust your lifestyle. High-intensity cardio is out. Dehydration is your enemy. But pharmacologically, we need to slow your heart rate, allow those stiff ventricles time to fill properly, and strengthen the actual force of the contraction so you don’t pass out walking to your car.”
He tapped a few keys on his keyboard and printed out a prescription sheet, sliding it across the desk.
“We’re going to start you on Digoxin, commonly known as Digitalis,” Dr Harrison instructed, his eyes locking onto hers. “Your maintenance dose will be 0.25 mg taken orally, once daily.”
Agatha committed the numbers to memory. “Digitalis. Isn’t that derived from foxglove?”
“It is,” Dr Harrison nodded, looking mildly impressed. “A potent botanical turned pharmaceutical marvel. It works by inhibiting the sodium-potassium ATPase pump in your myocardial cells, which increases intracellular calcium. The result? Your heart beats slower, but with significantly more authority. It calms the erratic electrical chaos of the AFib and forces your thick heart muscle to coordinate its rhythm.”
“Sounds delicate,” Agatha murmured.
“It is a narrow-therapeutic-index drug, Agatha. Which means the line between helpful and toxic is razor thin. You cannot afford to be casual with this.” Dr Harrison’s voice dropped an octave, turning severe. “You need to understand the stakes. If you miss doses, your AFib will return with a vengeance, your heart rate will skyrocket, and your risk of a thromboembolic stroke climbs exponentially. But if you take too much, or if it accumulates dangerously in your bloodstream, Digoxin toxicity will set in.”
Agatha met his gaze, the old adrenaline junkie in her waking up, not with panic, but with a sudden, sharp clarity. “Define toxicity.”
“Nausea, profound vomiting, visual disturbances—specifically seeing a yellow-green halo around objects, or snowy vision,” Dr Harrison recited grimly. “And worse: severe, fatal arrhythmias. Complete heart block. If your serum potassium drops, the toxicity escalates rapidly. We will be doing routine blood draws to monitor your plasma levels.”
Dr Harrison tore the script off the printer and handed it to her. “Same time every day, Agatha. No doubling up if you miss a dose. No guessing. Treat this pill with absolute respect.”
Agatha took the paper. The white slip felt heavy, a tiny anchor tethering her erratic, wild heart to the rigid demands of survival.
She stood up, untied the paper gown, and began changing back into her sensible wool trousers and silk blouse. As she zipped her boots, she caught her reflection in the small vanity mirror by the sink. Her hair was pulled back in a neat, professional chignon; her expression was calm, composed, entirely suburban.
Nobody looking at her would ever guess the truth. Not the doctors, not her client, not even her children away at boarding school. But beneath her ribs, a fierce little engine was beating out a complex, dangerous rhythm—and Agatha was ready to take the wheel.
After she left, Dr Harrison wrote up his clinical notes and then slipped a piece of paper out from under the keyboard. Earlier in the day, the head of the practice called him in for a meeting. It was about the patient who was listed at 10 am, Agatha Montgomery.
He slid a piece of notepaper torn from a pharmaceutical company’s notepad with a telephone number. “After you have seen her, call this number.”
“Why?”
“That will be between you and the person on the end of the phone.”
“What about doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“Report, as requested, and then we shall speak of it no more.” That was all he said. The meeting was over.
Oslo’s Quiet Gems: 5 Distinctive Attractions That Skip the Tourist Crowds
Oslo is a city defined by breathtaking fjords, modern architectural marvels, and world-class museums. While favourites like the Opera House and the bustling Vigeland Sculpture Park deserve their accolades, sometimes the best travel memories are forged in the quiet corners—those distinctive spots overlooked by the masses.
If you are seeking authenticity, tranquillity, and attractions that offer a truly unique Norwegian flavour without the elbow-to-elbow experience, put down the guidebook and follow our list.
Here are five distinctive Oslo attractions where you can slow down and savour the discovery.
1. Ekebergparken (Ekeberg Sculpture Park)
While Oslo has many incredible viewpoints, few combine panoramic vistas with world-class contemporary art quite like Ekebergparken. Located on the hillside southeast of the city centre, this park is less of a museum and more of an experience.
What Makes it Distinctive? The park features works by international greats like James Turrell, Marina Abramović, and Louise Bourgeois, cleverly integrated into the natural forest landscape. Beyond the art, the site itself is historically significant, featuring ancient rock carvings and WWII bunkers. Critically, these park trails offer one of the best and least crowded settings for capturing the iconic view immortalised in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
Why It’s Uncrowded: It requires a short tram ride up the hill (Line 18 or 19 to Ekebergparken stop), which deters many tourists from sticking solely to the central harbour area.
2. The Emanuel Vigeland Mausoleum
Prepare yourself for a truly unique, slightly macabre, and deeply rewarding experience. While Gustav Vigeland’s towering statues draw millions, his highly eccentric brother Emanuel created a private, haunting masterpiece—his own mausoleum and final resting place.
What Makes it Distinctive? The entire interior of the small, unmarked structure is a dark, barrel-vaulted room adorned with frescoes collectively titled Vita (Life). The ceiling-to-floor artwork depicts dramatic, often heavy themes of human life, death, and sexuality. The atmosphere is deliberately intense: the lights are kept very low, and the acoustics are so sensitive that a caretaker politely requests silence to enhance the feeling of solemn isolation.
Why It’s Uncrowded: It has extremely limited opening hours (usually Sunday afternoons only), making it challenging to visit—which is exactly why it remains a hidden gem for dedicated travellers.
3. Hovedøya Island (The Main Island)
For an immediate escape from city life, hop on a short ferry ride (Boat B1, B2, B3, or B4) from Aker Brygge and head to Hovedøya, the largest and most historically rich island in the Oslo Fjord.
What Makes it Distinctive? Hovedøya offers a perfect blend of lush nature, bathing spots, and fascinating ruins. Within minutes of arriving, you can explore the preserved Cistercian monastery ruins dating back to 1147. Later, the island served as a military base, and you can still find remnants of old defensive structures. Wander the trails, enjoy a picnic by the water, or simply study the medieval stone walls, all while enjoying the crisp fjord air.
Why It’s Uncrowded: While popular with Oslo locals in the height of summer, international tourists often overlook the entire island system in favour of mainland attractions. The short boat journey feels like a genuine adventure but keeps the large tour groups away.
4. Damstredet and Telthusbakken
While Oslo is a modern capital, pockets of its wooden house past remain beautifully preserved. A short walk uphill from the central areas of the city brings you to the charming, picturesque streets of Damstredet and Telthusbakken.
What Makes it Distinctive? These two winding cobblestone streets feel like stepping into a storybook. Lined with perfectly maintained, brightly colored wooden houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, the whole atmosphere speaks of quiet history. Damstredet in particular offers splendid photo opportunities and a glimpse into how many Oslo residents lived before the major urban modernisation programs.
Why It’s Uncrowded: This attraction is purely residential and free. It requires no ticket and isn’t featured on organised group tours. It’s a perfect addition to a self-guided walking tour between the city centre and the tranquil Vår Frelser Cemetery (another quiet spot worth stopping at).
5. The Tøyen Botanical Garden (Botanisk Hage)
Located just outside the buzzing central districts in the Tøyen neighbourhood, Oslo’s Botanical Garden is a serene and scientifically significant outdoor museum that most tourists walk right past on their way to the newer attractions.
What Makes it Distinctive? Managed by the Natural History Museum, the garden is Norway’s oldest and most diverse living collection. Visitors can explore various climate zones within the beautiful Palm House and the Victoria House (home to massive water lilies). The highlight is often the peaceful Scent Garden, designed specifically for the visually impaired, and the historic Old Garden, showcasing plants used for food and medicine throughout Norwegian history.
Why It’s Uncrowded: Despite its beauty and central location near the Munch Museum, the garden offers ample space and shaded trails, meaning the large foot traffic in the area quickly dissipates once you enter the gates. It’s a perfect green lung for contemplation.
Seeking the Authentic Oslo
By prioritizing these five distinctive, yet uncrowded, locations, you gain a deeper understanding of Oslo’s rich history, its commitment to art integration, and the beautiful relationship Norwegians have with their surrounding nature.
Skip the queue, find your quiet corner, and enjoy the authentic pulse of this incredible Nordic capital.
Have you discovered a quiet spot in Oslo that you love? Share your hidden gem in the comments below!
Yes, this is exactly what a dog does, sometimes annoyingly all night, that sharp explosive cry of a dog or, believe it or not, a seal
Much better if the dog is a guard dog, because then you need it to bark when there is intruders
Then there’s another form of bark, that which grows on a tree, and makes excelled burning material, if not a little smoky, for a BBQ.
Ot that the bark of some trees can be used as material for carving, and of others, like the paperbark, to make was seems like paper to write on.
Then there are expressions that start to make you think, concerning this word, such as:
He was a boss that liked to bark orders. I had one like that, almost looked like a dog too. Never could ask someone kindly.
He was barking up the wrong tree. Never seen a dog do this, but many people gave so the literal meaning is to waste your time looking in the wrong place
Then there’s bark or barque, the name of a certain type of boat or masted ship with three or more masts, dating back to sailing days
And then, just top it all off, someone goes and says your barking mad. Probably just after you were barking up the wrong tree, looking for the barking dog on a barque.
This case has everything: red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
…
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone, one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much; it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there were several sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and a costly mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt, he would soon find out.
His mother and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time, he couldn’t help himself, and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation that ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days, he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, it literally made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head, trying to prevent a recurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact that his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall, cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile that Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticised trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
Escape the Crowds: Dublin’s Top 5 Hidden Gem Attractions
Dublin is a city of undeniable charm, buzzing with energy, history, and a legendary pub scene. While iconic spots like the Guinness Storehouse, Trinity College, and Dublin Castle are must-sees, they often come with lengthy queues and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds.
But what if you long for a taste of authentic Dublin culture and history without the tourist rush?
Luckily, the Irish capital is brimming with distinctive features tucked away in quieter corners. We’ve compiled a list of the top five visitor attractions in Dublin that offer unique experiences, fascinating stories, and, best of all, a peaceful respite from the throngs.
1. The Chester Beatty Library
Nestled within the walls of Dublin Castle (but often overlooked by those rushing to the main courtyard), the Chester Beatty is a true global treasure. This museum and library holds the collected works of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, one of the greatest collectors of the 20th century.
Why it’s distinctive: This isn’t just a collection of old books. You’ll find exquisite manuscripts, rare books, miniature paintings, and decorative arts from across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. It houses some of the world’s most important holdings of Islamic, East Asian, and Western printed materials.
The Quiet Factor: While the Dublin Castle grounds can be busy, the library itself offers a tranquil, dimly lit haven perfect for quiet reflection. Best of all? Admission is free. Don’t forget to visit the rooftop garden café for stunning views over the city.
2. The Dublin Writers Museum (Temporarily Closed – See Alternative Below)
Note: While the original Dublin Writers Museum building is currently closed for relocation, the spirit of literary Dublin is still alive and accessible in less-crowded formats.
The Alternative: The Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI)
Located in UCD’s stately Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green, MoLI is a beautiful, modern museum dedicated to the rich tapestry of Irish writing, from James Joyce to contemporary voices.
Why it’s distinctive: Set in the beautiful historic home where literary giants like Gerard Manley Hopkins and James Joyce once studied, MoLI offers interactive displays, beautiful exhibitions (including the original ‘Copy No. 1’ of Joyce’s Ulysses), and stunning period rooms.
The Quiet Factor: While popular with writers and literature lovers, MoLI rarely reaches the peak capacity of the larger city museums. It offers spacious exhibition rooms and one of the finest cultural gift shops in the city. The tranquil, hidden courtyard garden is a perfect spot to enjoy a coffee and escape the city noise.
3. Richmond Barracks, Inchicore
Stepping slightly outside the immediate city centre opens up historical venues of immense importance. Richmond Barracks, located in the Inchicore area, offers a deep dive into pivotal moments of Irish history, particularly the 1916 Easter Rising.
Why it’s distinctive: This site served as the primary holding place for over 3,000 men arrested after the 1916 Rising. It was here that Pádraig Pearse and the other executed leaders were court-martialed. Today, it operates as a heritage centre and a community hub, offering moving and highly informative tours detailing the barracks’ role through the centuries, including its post-independence use as housing for local families.
The Quiet Factor: Because it requires a short tram ride (the Luas Red Line to Suir Road), it naturally filters out the casual tourist crowd. You’ll likely enjoy a small, intimate guided tour that allows for detailed questions and reflection.
4. The Marsh’s Library
For those who crave the smell of old paper and the feeling of stepping back in time, Marsh’s Library is an essential visit. Dating back to 1707, it is one of the oldest public libraries in Ireland.
Why it’s distinctive: This library remains virtually unchanged since it opened its doors in the early 18th century. It features beautiful dark oak bookcases, wire cages (used to prevent the theft of valuable texts), and over 25,000 rare and fascinating books. You can walk the very aisles where writers like Bram Stoker and James Joyce once studied.
The Quiet Factor: Tucked away behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Marsh’s charges a small entrance fee, which helps keep visitor numbers manageable. The atmosphere is hushed and reverential—it’s an ideal place to spend an hour truly absorbing Dublin’s intellectual history without jostling for space.
5. The Botanic Gardens (National Botanic Gardens of Ireland)
While not entirely undiscovered, Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin offers such a vast, sprawling space that crowds simply melt away amongst the lush greenery.
Why it’s distinctive: Spread across nearly 50 acres, the gardens feature stunning Victorian glasshouses (including the curvilinear range designed by Richard Turner), extensive plant collections, a tranquil arboretum, and historically significant grounds. It’s an essential centre for conservation and research.
The Quiet Factor: Located a short bus ride north of the city centre (near the Glasnevin Cemetery, another excellent, quiet spot), the gardens provide endless walking paths, hidden benches, and quiet corners. You can easily spend an entire afternoon wandering the grounds and enjoying the peace, particularly once you move past the main entrance and glasshouses.
Trade the Noise for Narrative
Dublin’s biggest attractions tell a powerful story, but sometimes the best narratives are found off the beaten path. By seeking out these quieter, distinctive attractions, you can enjoy a more personal, profound, and peaceful encounter with the heart and history of the Irish capital. Happy Exploring!
There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself, as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters, Harry and Alison, other issues are driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact that he has a beautiful and desirable wife, his belief that she is the object of other men’s desires, and, in particular, his immediate superior’s.
Between observation, the less-than-honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, and she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, is that nothing is ever what it seems.
The fluorescent lights of the cardiology suite buzzed with the sterile hum of a greenhouse kept at absolute zero. Agatha sat on the examination table, her posture straight, wrapped in a pale blue paper gown that felt entirely too thin for the weight settling into her chest.
Across from her, Dr Harrison—a man whose salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses screamed “academic tenure”—swivelled a heavy monitor toward her. The screen was a chaotic scribble of green neon peaks and valleys, looking less like human biology and more like the visualizer from an illegal warehouse rave in 1996.
“Well, Agatha,” Dr Harrison said, tapping a stylus against the desk. “The mystery of your palpitations is solved. Though I suspect you aren’t going to like the answer.”
Agatha offered a practised, reassuring smile—the same one she used when she had to deal with her more recalcitrant charities seeking more funds. “Try me. I have to deal with very difficult people daily. I’ve survived worse than medical jargon.”
“You have Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy, or HOCM,” Dr Harrison said, his tone shifting into clinical precision. “It’s a genetic condition. The muscular wall—the septum—between your left and right ventricles has grown abnormally thick. On top of that structural bottleneck, your telemetry shows intermittent Atrial Fibrillation. Your upper heart chambers are essentially quivering instead of beating effectively, and your thickened muscle is blocking the outflow of blood to the rest of your body.”
Agatha blinked. “Thickened. Like… a muscle getting stronger at the gym?”
“Not quite,” Dr Harrison said gently. “Think of it like a highway where the lanes have suddenly narrowed, and the engine is misfiring. Your heart is working overtime just to maintain basic output. That pressure, that fatigue you’ve been feeling—it’s your heart screaming for backup.”
Agatha looked down at her hands, resting in her lap. For nineteen years, she had traded neon mesh and strobe lights for cashmere cardigans and beige throw pillows. She had raised twins on her own in a hostile environment, earned a corner office, and mastered the art of quiet, predictable suburban grace. She had buried the girl who danced on speaker stacks until dawn so deep she almost forgot she ever existed.
And now, her own biology was staging a rebellion.
“Okay,” Agatha said, her voice remarkably steady. “What does the fix look like?”
Dr Harrison leaned forward, folding his hands. “First, we adjust your lifestyle. High-intensity cardio is out. Dehydration is your enemy. But pharmacologically, we need to slow your heart rate, allow those stiff ventricles time to fill properly, and strengthen the actual force of the contraction so you don’t pass out walking to your car.”
He tapped a few keys on his keyboard and printed out a prescription sheet, sliding it across the desk.
“We’re going to start you on Digoxin, commonly known as Digitalis,” Dr Harrison instructed, his eyes locking onto hers. “Your maintenance dose will be 0.25 mg taken orally, once daily.”
Agatha committed the numbers to memory. “Digitalis. Isn’t that derived from foxglove?”
“It is,” Dr Harrison nodded, looking mildly impressed. “A potent botanical turned pharmaceutical marvel. It works by inhibiting the sodium-potassium ATPase pump in your myocardial cells, which increases intracellular calcium. The result? Your heart beats slower, but with significantly more authority. It calms the erratic electrical chaos of the AFib and forces your thick heart muscle to coordinate its rhythm.”
“Sounds delicate,” Agatha murmured.
“It is a narrow-therapeutic-index drug, Agatha. Which means the line between helpful and toxic is razor thin. You cannot afford to be casual with this.” Dr Harrison’s voice dropped an octave, turning severe. “You need to understand the stakes. If you miss doses, your AFib will return with a vengeance, your heart rate will skyrocket, and your risk of a thromboembolic stroke climbs exponentially. But if you take too much, or if it accumulates dangerously in your bloodstream, Digoxin toxicity will set in.”
Agatha met his gaze, the old adrenaline junkie in her waking up, not with panic, but with a sudden, sharp clarity. “Define toxicity.”
“Nausea, profound vomiting, visual disturbances—specifically seeing a yellow-green halo around objects, or snowy vision,” Dr Harrison recited grimly. “And worse: severe, fatal arrhythmias. Complete heart block. If your serum potassium drops, the toxicity escalates rapidly. We will be doing routine blood draws to monitor your plasma levels.”
Dr Harrison tore the script off the printer and handed it to her. “Same time every day, Agatha. No doubling up if you miss a dose. No guessing. Treat this pill with absolute respect.”
Agatha took the paper. The white slip felt heavy, a tiny anchor tethering her erratic, wild heart to the rigid demands of survival.
She stood up, untied the paper gown, and began changing back into her sensible wool trousers and silk blouse. As she zipped her boots, she caught her reflection in the small vanity mirror by the sink. Her hair was pulled back in a neat, professional chignon; her expression was calm, composed, entirely suburban.
Nobody looking at her would ever guess the truth. Not the doctors, not her client, not even her children away at boarding school. But beneath her ribs, a fierce little engine was beating out a complex, dangerous rhythm—and Agatha was ready to take the wheel.
After she left, Dr Harrison wrote up his clinical notes and then slipped a piece of paper out from under the keyboard. Earlier in the day, the head of the practice called him in for a meeting. It was about the patient who was listed at 10 am, Agatha Montgomery.
He slid a piece of notepaper torn from a pharmaceutical company’s notepad with a telephone number. “After you have seen her, call this number.”
“Why?”
“That will be between you and the person on the end of the phone.”
“What about doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“Report, as requested, and then we shall speak of it no more.” That was all he said. The meeting was over.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from the eye socket to the mouth, and he was wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologised as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognise later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side, and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I went towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tyres.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high-powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed, and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
Next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realised I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger was a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long, cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave through the back door if there were one.
