We go to a place called The Lost City some weekends. It’s not actually called The Lost City but I did lose one of my children there once. (A few answers to the questions regular readers might be asking at this point: Yes, I make a monthly habit of temporarily losing one of them. No, they’ve still not been taken away from me. And yes, I’m not going to disagree with you, it’s probably only a matter of time.)
We named this place The Lost City even before we mislaid the child (it's always the same child) we eventually found trying to play It's A Hard Knock Life on a wonky piano. Our children gave the place the name because it reminded them of an episode of Dora The Explorer , the one where she has an adventure in the city where all the lost things live. I'll just take a moment to acknowledge that unfortunately we are almost out of the Dora/Peppa phase and by unfortunately, what I actually mean is: Woo!!!!! Marathon Wizard of Oz sessions here we come. I don't mind admitting that being able to watch The Wizard of Oz at least once a day for legitimate reasons was one of my main motivators for having children. That and all the money I save on chimney sweeping bills.
The Lost City is a car boot sale in a huge warehouse a few streets behind the Point in Dublin. Some of us still call it the Point, you know. We’re the people who occasionally call the council the corpo and fondly remember the Screen cinema as The Metropole. And we have difficulty calling Marathon bars Snickers.
So The Lost City is a sprawling market behind the Point on East Wall Road. And it's heaven. Well, it's heaven if your idea of heaven is rummaging through other people's discarded gear, from super-sized television remote controls to one-legged china dolls, to still-unopened 1,000 piece Coronation Street jigsaws. I'm not recommending it as an experience to share with children, sadly. Well not mine anyway. For some reason they are reluctant to stand for half an hour in front of a stall bursting with quality bric-a-brac deciding whether there's too much rust on that ancient bread bin to justify taking it home. As a diversion, there is a crepe stall in The Lost City but there are only so many Nutella pancakes they can eat before things get hairy.
Our latest visit coincided with us getting rid of eight black plastic sacks of rubbish from the house. Out with the old, in with the even older is my motto. I am in the throes of one of my domestic purges. To borrow from The Incredible Hulk: you wouldn't like me when I'm house purging. I think this one has been precipitated by the children starting school on Thursday. They are beginning a brand new bit of their life and I want the house to reflect this new start. Mostly this involves looking at everything in the house, including the floors, and being overcome with the urge to paint it all in diverting colours and add vintage bread bins.
I’m binge-watching Transform Your House For Half Nothing programmes and getting misty-eyed over upcycled sideboards painted orange with lavender accents. I’m conscious that in the coming years the house is going to be open to a more diverse range of people, small ones mostly, who will form impressions based on the same criteria I used as a child visiting the homes of friends. They might think our house has a funny smell. And wonder about that crack in the tile in front of the sink. I think the key to winning them over will be a supply of home-made pizza and apple crumble, in the style of my mother. That’s what my friends seemed to remember best, not the holes in the lino.
The Lost City is actually called Merchant’s Market. It’s open every Saturday and Sunday. There is trash and there is treasure and free parking and friendly stall holders who you can haggle with to your heart’s content. On good days you can sit outside and watch people furrow their brows over furniture and knick-knacks wondering if this is the thing that’s going to make their house a home. Or you can just sit there knowing that orange or lavender paint is not going to change anything. That the house is pretty much ok as it is. That there’s no panic and if it has a funny smell, it’s our funny smell and that everything’s going to be all right.
roisin@irishtimes.com