Just back from Kilkenny

I'm just back from Kilkenny - the first time I've been down home and seen the family since myself and my sis Ali did Victor and Gord, Ali and Michael in June. We talk alot about growing up in the show and it was important to have a little trip down memory lane before setting off on Victor and Gord Cubed for the Fringe.

Our parents are coming up to see the show this time around. They threatened to wear disguises and not tell us which night they were coming to. It wouldn't be unlike them and it's good to see them getting into the spirit of it all.

I brought Jaime and Sailor for a lurk around where I grew up - the railway and river, old dens - all the places we used to spend so much time running around as a kid, and drink as teenagers.
Getting to the river wasn't as easy as it once was. Fields with no gates? What's the story with that?

So many places are now all overgrown. There's no railway at all anymore - it's just brambles. We used to play there all the time as kids with our neighbours Kevin and Ciara - who feature in the show. We would walk home from school that way and listened to Thriller down there for the first time with Ben Dolan - the Punk who's parents made jewellery. As teenagers we'd get a bus from a disco in Waterford as far as Pink Rock Bridge and take hours making our way up the railway to home, eating takeaway from the Vietnamese Boat People caravan and drinking cans that we'd stashed there for the occasion.

Our parents have done yet another job on the house. Gone is the flock wallpaper in the sitting room (I Loved it!) and it's now all about the sanded original floorboards instead of floral carpet. I probably would do the same if I was living there, but I liked it as it was.

I hope the family like the show. Ali and Michael is all about particular memories, most of which they probably don't share, or at least have a different perspective on. We've been away for so long that we're nostalgic about patterned wallpaper, but I guess if you had to look at it everyday a nice painted white wall would be a lot more attractive.