The story so far: the big day has arrived. No, not that big day. Mammy doesn’t even know when that date is because Jennifer and Declan are being so mysterious about it. Leon St James, the proposed civil celebrant for Jennifer and Declan’s wedding, is coming to the Drumfeakle Convention Centre - actually a hall with a corrugated roof.

He’s supposed to do a talk, sorry, deliver a seminar. The seminar is called Disruption: Creating Synergies to Become a Better You, a one-day ‘growth-platform’ for Entrepreneurs in the Kilsudgeon-Drumfeakle Catchment Area.

It’s €200 for this one-day seminar. Mammy is debating what to do next. But she really needs to get a look at this Leon St James character.

What, €200 euro!? I can’t be spending that kind of money on this. But that soon changed. There was no uptake on it apparently and he had early bird tickets on sale all the way up until the day of the thing itself – €50 euro they were. It was the latest early bird you ever saw. As Denis said: “The worm’d be dead by the time that bird arrived.”

Even so, I thought it was a fierce price to pay and there was no lunch included or anything. I hung on until the very end to see would there be any free ones, but I suppose that would be fierce bad publicity for His Nibs. So on the day of the thing I bought my ticket online.

A fierce fiddly website altogether. And there were very odd questions asked when I was trying to buy them. Do you have a partner? Are you interested in meeting foreign professionals? I said no first, but then when Denis wasn’t looking over my shoulder I clicked ‘Yes’, and then there were all these photos of wans from abroad. What is going on with this crowd at all?

The seminar was of a Saturday. The first thing I checked was that Declan wouldn’t be there, but I knew he wouldn’t. Jennifer and him were going off on a weekend away.

“To clear the air,” says Jennifer in a text to me. I don’t know what that meant, but I was hoping for the best and that I wouldn’t have to do any more investigating because there’d be no more wedding.

Such a collection of characters that turned up! And all of them holding their early bird tickets too. I wasn’t sure if these were the entrepreneurs of the Drumfeakle-Kilsudgeon catchment area or just lads with a bit of time on their hands.

The actual entrepreneurs’d be out working on a fine spring Saturday like this.

Sally’s Donal was there, the cratur. He’s still trying to get his computer marketing company off the ground, but as far as I know he hasn’t had a single client.

All he seems to do, according to Freya, who’s tracking him (she’s worried about the Kilsudgeon’s alt-right movement of all things), is just put up stuff about ‘the Illuminati’ on Facebook.

And Shamie Lordan was there. I hadn’t seen him in the flesh in a good while.

He got early retirement there a few years back and he doesn’t have much to do. He mainly drives up and down the road flashing people if there’s a speed van up at Dempsey’s. Flash Lordan they call him, but he’s saved a good few.

Even that’s been taken away from him because people just put it up on Facebook now. Feckin computers will take away even the jobs that have just been invented. Poor oul Flash - he still does the road fair play to him, but people have already slowed down so he gets no kick out of it.

But that was all the people I knew. There were a few foreigners in too. Nigerians I suppose and fellas who looked Indian. I was the only woman. I was like yer wan on the Dragons Den, Meaden is it?

The room went dark and a voice came out the back of the room on a speaker:

“THE POWER TO BE IS THE POWER OF NOW. THE RICHEST PERSON IN THE ROOM IS INSIDE, IN YOU, WAITING TO GET OUT. DON’T STAND AT THE GATE OF OPPORTUNITY OILING THE PADLOCK.”

The lads in the room started cheering this oul guff so I suppose I had to join in.

And the next thing Tony St James arrives onto the stage …

To be continued. CL