Just After
by ericavanhorn
23 January Saturday
The whole thing is made of heavy cardboard. It had been part of the 2013 Gathering which was an attempt to bring increased tourism to the country. It seemed to be a popular thing so it was left standing in Cork airport. The front of the cardboard has a shiny photographic image of a girl in Irish dance costume and beside her a man sits on a stone wall holding a fiddle. The colours suggest the bright sunlight of a John Hinde postcard. Neither the girl nor the man have heads. The idea was for people to put their own heads on the neck position and then to have their photograph taken. The whole thing is not very tall. Children can easily stand up to be photographed. Adults have to lean or squat down behind the cardboard. It has obviously been a popular as it is now 2016 and it is still there. It has been moved all around inside the main hall of the airport. The area around the necks of both the dancer and the musician are badly frayed. The exposed grey cardboard looks shabby and distressed. Each time I see it I think it must be nearly time for it to be retired, or at least to be replaced with a new version.
27 January Wednesday
Vans and vehicles with the names and faces of politicians are appearing here and there. Someone told me that these vehicles cannot be parked for more than two hours in any single location. After two hours the vehicle must be moved. I am not sure if maybe this is just to give someone else a chance to use the spot, or maybe it is simply to stop one corner becoming the the Fine Gael corner or the Labour corner. It would be easy to tow a non-functioning something to a spot and just leave it there for days or weeks on end. News and conversations about the upcoming elections are building up. Posters are not allowed to be posted on trees or poles until thirty days before the actual day of the election. These shifting vehicles as advertising remind people that even while everything is getting maneuvered into place, it is not really happening yet.
31 January Sunday
I am just after putting that in the oven.
I am just after getting that up on the screen.
I am just after visiting my grandmother in hospital.
I am still unable to use the word After like this. And I am not fully able to understand the function of the After in the sentence. In any of the sentences.