Anniversaries

To be strictly accurate the anniversary that started me thinking along these lines was a couple of days ago, but it was only yesterday that I realised when I heard a piece on Radio 4.  It was ten years ago on the 29th March that Ireland banned smoking in all work places.   While smoking was banned in all working places it was the pubs and bars that made the news, I remember that  it was all over the papers and TV at the time.   The very idea of a smoking ban was so radical then that it is hardly surprising there was such a fuss.   At that time there were smoking restrictions right across the EU, the big difference was that in Ireland the ban was both total and enforced.

In 2004 I had already been a non smoker for over ten years so to me the idea was a very attractive one, what I hadn't anticipated was that I would end up having to sit in pub gardens in the middle of winter because my friend needed to smoke, I am so grateful that he has now also given up.

Well I had a look back at what I was writing about a year ago, on the 1st April 2013 I wrote about a dream I had and on the 1st of April 2012 it was a shopping trip that was occupying my mind.   I actually find it hard to believe that this little shopping trip was two years ago, the memory of it is still so fresh in my mind.   A year before that I had not started the Blog but my old diaries tells me that the previous couple of April the firsts were just ordinary working days.   The first of April is also the anniversary of Hitler's imprisonment, Wally Hammond's record breaking innings against New Zealand, the Hawker Harrier entering active service with the RAF and in the Netherlands same sex marriage became legal, in 2001!

Although Ireland led the world in 2004 when it came to smoking many, many countries and states have still to catch up with Holland when it comes to equality.