While making a living I found out I had a life !

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

I’ve just discovered that my life’s better than I thought it was!  Armed with thumb tacks, Blu-Tak and knee straps, I’ve been stomping the streets of Galway, putting up posters for my Craft of Writing Course.

What’s that? You haven’t heard of it?

Okay, let’s get the commercial out of the way and rush back to the story.

The course starts on Wednesday April 23, and runs every Wednesday from 7.30pm to 9pm for eight weeks, costing €100/€90 concessions. I like small classes, so to guarantee your place, contact the Galway Arts Centre at (091) 565886 or send an email to info@galwayartscentre.ie. For more information, visit my Facebook page.

Now, let’s return to those streets, those sweet streets of Galway; those newsagents, pubs and cafés, libraries, shops and community centres. Walking into each wearing my most charming smile, I asked if I might put up a poster. Then I respectfully scanned those already on display, searching for something out of date.

Time after time, while I was looking for a viable spot, the person working there walked over, saying something like: “I’ll just take this one here down, Charlie, because, well, it’s been there for months.”

Stepping backwards, I felt humbled and guiltless as they removed a poster.

“Now, Charlie, you can put yours there, now!”

I suppose it’d be reasonable to think that after 22 years in a place, I’d know a few people. After my first couple of years here I knew hordes, but ever since then I’ve been increasingly reclusive.

While the Snapper knows half the town and the other half know her, I sit at home, visit friends to drink tea and chat in their living rooms; and twice or thrice a year, I wander out on wet Tuesday evenings, for one of my organic Galway publy rambles.

More than any place I know, Galway repays richly what you put into her, but having invested so little in recent years, I imagined I might be invisible.

So what a delight it was to discover that I had so many friends out there. In a pub on Dominick Street, where they hung no posters, I was told I could put mine in pride of place by the front door.

In a restaurant on William Street, my poster was given prime position.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.