Two months ago, after two and a half years of shelling out inordinate sums to Iarnrod Eireann (€75 twice a month for two and a half years... I shudder to calculate) and questionable hotels, the love of my life, let's call him Pablo, jacked in his job as a notable morning broadcaster in Cork to come live with me. No pressure. No pressure at all.

I'd just moved from The Battoh (AKA Stoneybatter) to Dun Laoghaire (AKA Dun Leary. AAKA Dunlaoire...), mostly because I believed living "sea adjacent" might make the transition slightly more palatable. As it turns out, living by the sea comes with its own perils. Namely the people. More about that in a moment.

It's funny to see your hometown through a new person's eyes. A week after his arrival, hauling our rather expensive weekly shop home, he slowed down on George's Street to say: "Lord, Sheena, have you moved me into a ghost town?" I looked up to see five shop fronts in a row boarded up. I make a habit of not looking up when trapsing down George's street, best keep the gaze downwards, lest you step on a rogue dog deposit.

A week later, I landed home to find him ashen in the sitting room(/kitchen/hall/bedroom). He had something awful to tell me. I thought the worst; either he'd made a mistake about leaving Cork and was heading home, or - worse still - he'd not been to the shops for dinner (I'm a complete loon when I arrive home, the only thing I can think about is dinner, dinner, dinner). It turned out to be the latter, but with good reason. Off to Tescos we went, when he informed me that we had "to go to the one in Bloomfields". True, Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre has left a lot to be desired since it opened its doors (except Farrell's. Farrell's is class... *recoils*). They tried doing it up (on the inside. The exterior still resembles a 70's redbrick ocean liner making its final stop before purgatory), but it's still got a bleak soul (of the average frequenter of Farrell's), especially now half the premises are shutting up shop. The only bustling hub remaining is Tescos. Why didn't he want to go there? After all, it was closer (I don't like walking. Or much movement at all, as it happens).

As it turns out, he'd been in that Tescos earlier in the  afternoon, pottering about. Next thing, he saw this large man, in his mid-30s, swaying by the bread counter. "Was he drunk?" I said. No, just someone who looked like he was "on day release." Suddenly, he bent over, shuffled to the left, and barfed a barrel load "of what seemed like soup" all over the shelves of bread - much to the shock of a nearby priest, secretly thrilled he'd inadvertently preformed an exorcism. Mr. Day Release then promptly made his exit. The boyfriend, constantly amused by spew for some warped reason, started giggling uncontrollably at the dripping display, before thinking it best to bring it to someone's attention. A flurry of quibbling then ensued: "Ugh, I'm not cleaning dat up... Neither am I, are ye well?... GARRY. GAAARREEYY! Somewan's after spewin' in deh bread aisle, yew've teh clean ihrrup... Would ya f*** off, I'm not cleaning darrup"... and so on.

So - between him witnessing special people vomiting in one of the only shops still functioning in the town; having to dodge dog doo whenever one leaves the house; endure petulant SoCoDu teens texting, shouting and flinging popcorn at each other during films in the IMC; face daily befuddlement regarding the abandonment of the Dun Laoghaire baths; the little feckers who infest the Forty Foot whenever there's a chink of sunshine; getting a door in the face when a scrap broke out in the local; repeatedly getting turned away from Blue Pool for constantly being the wrong age; and having to run out every morning before 8am to avoid being clamped 'cause my landlord's a regular Butch Cassidy who hasn't got the maturity to pay his apartment maintenance fees - it's been a pretty smooth settling in period for him.

Please don't get me wrong, there's a multitude of wonderment in Dun Laoghaire to make anyone feel privileged to live there: The Farmer's Market in the People's Park of a Sunday; both piers; the view just as you hit the junction of George's Street and Marine Road; Harry's Bar for breakfast, lunch and dinner; The Royal Marine Hotel; Hartleys; The Pavilion; The Purty; The Martello; Teddy's... I could go on and on. Shame he's after being molested.

He was off for a jog down the pier, when he bent over to tie his shoelace, only to have his left bum cheek promptly groped. Not playfully slapped, or pinched; it was a full hand grab followed by the usual motions for a hearty handshake. He turned around to see one teenage girl, a teenage boy, and a grown man. He looked hopefully at the teenage girl, "It wasn't me!" she squealed. It was then that he noticed the grown man was closest to him...

Granted, it's not the most unpleasant thing to happen to you while running. Mike's had far worse. To date, he's had all sorts hurled in his direction; tennis balls, a golf ball, some primate attached to a rock, and abuse from a cackling, pajama clad, landmass of a woman he ran past outside a chipper near the Five Lamps. But he's never had his arse felt by a grown man while exercising (to the best of my knowledge). Neither have I, come to think of it (had it felt up by a man who was selling me a coat - in Dun Laoghaire, as it happens - but that's about it). The closest I've had to being abused by a stranger in public - while in motion - was at Christmas. I was walking home, past the McDonalds on George's Street, when a twenty five-year-old 14-year-old in a hoodie, strode up to me and roared "BOOO!" in my face (my retort cannot be printed here).

What I mean to say is, had I been the one bending over to tie my shoe lace and had my arse grabbed by a stranger, they could be looking at an assault charge. Men don't have that luxury when their extremities attract uninvited attention, and that's just not fair in my book. Especially when he's moved a couple of hundred miles to shack up with his girlfriend by the sea...