The salt, the spray and the wind.

I grew up watching those towers; always standing at the other end of the long, low tedious tide. With a tide that low and a beach that flat you could walk among the wet rippled sand out a mile or so, if you wanted, but I never did. I had a job to do.
First thing in the morning I'd be out there with a pile of newspapers draped over the bars delivering them to the news starved families of the strand road. I've smoked some of my best cigarettes there.
Woodbines, they were called. Orwell's brand. Rough and ready. Filterless. A bit like smoking a sweet turf fire. I could buy a pack of five when I was twelve. I'd buy them at work at Browns on the Merrion road on payday. Six days a week. Six thirty 'til eight thirty. Be in school by nine. Every friday Mr Brown would pay me my 60p and I'd get a pack of five for 10p. I felt like a real worker. I smoked one a day every day except Wednesdays. Mainly I'd just hold it in my mouth dragging and blowing whilst hanging on to the handlebars. On days with no wind I'd try to hang on to the ash for as long as I could. It's been one of my favorite roads in Dublin ever since and if given the chance I'd of lived there with the salt, the spray and the wind.