In the unlikely event that you have been wondering how I am managing in retirement, the answer is that I have been managing very well.

I was 65 last month and my Translink Pass came thru and I have been using it twice a week. I have been to Cork three times, Thurles, Portlaoise, Portarlington as well as a lot of places along the DART line. Tonight I am just home from Enfield  (County Meath) and Malahide. I just look at the destination board in Connolly, Heuston and Busaras and go wherever I fancy.

It is a five year mission. Starting mostly on a train called the Enterprise, I boldly go. Ireland is the Final Frontier. And I never wear a red shirt….bad precedent. If I wear a red shirt, I will be vapourised by Romulans..

It is very much Back To The Future. In the 1970s, I liked to get away from West Belfast and weekend in Dublin or Bray. And the 1980s and 1990s, we liked to take our children around Ireland.

And of course some things stay the same, some things change. I expected that. What I under-estimated was how much I have stayed the same and how much I have changed. FitzjamesHorse at 25 spent weekend of  the Silver Jubilee of Mrs Elizabeth Windsor in Bray and one roasting hot evening walked from Bray to Greystones via a coastal path and climbing over rocks and got a bus back to Bray.

Most of what I see, I like. And some things I dont like.

But it’s better than Politics.