Dazed and confused. We apologise for the interruption, normal service will be resumed....

Part I may have to go and look it up.

Ok, so I finally made it back to Ireland, or alternatively I actually did fall asleep on the motorway (despite opening the window, and indulging in loud tuneless singing) and am experiencing a Matrix-like dream while in a coma. Some moments have been sufficiently surreal to lend credence to this theory.

As usual my journey through the Irish countryside is a bit of a blur. I think it rained. My first stop (apart from a desperate dash across country to find a service station with the necessary facilities) was at Dunnes (for those who don’t know, it’s sort of the Irish M&S, but usually cheaper). Now I had great intentions of not overspending and sticking to a budget. This plan took less than a minute to get blown out of the water by a rather fabulous suede floor cushion at half price. So much for intentions. The dog has been most appreciative….ummmm….I guess I already knew who ruled the household.

Curious to see what changes Hurricane Darwin had wreaked upon the beach and dunes, the dog and I sallied forth on our first morning. It was generally overcast and gusty, with large alarmingly green pools dotted around the dunes. The walkway was occasionally submerged, but more alarmingly, was sometimes floating on a pool of green slime which had also distributed itself over the boards. Crampons might have been useful.

The floating pontoon which gives access to both parts of the beach had been removed before the storms could demolish it, or perhaps just after they did, so the dog and I had to content ourselves with a one sided walk. Just where we popped out of the dunes and onto the shore there was a large sinister looking rusty metal object. I cautiously approached for a closer inspection, but remained none the wiser. I did take photos for further reference. At the conclusion of our walk, I inspected it again, with some misgivings. Phoning a friend, I was assured that it was probably a harbour buoy which had detached itself and been washed up. I wasn’t entirely convinced. On showing the photos to a few more people we still had no idea what the mystery object was, although echoes of the old WW2 films I had watched as a child suggested that it might be a bomb of this vintage. Not wanting to be responsible for potential carnage, I elected to show the pictures to our local councillor and make it his responsibility. I emailed them to him for good measure.

The following morning dawned grey and damp, swathed in low cloud. With some reluctance I addressed myself to the garden and it’s tangle of weed suppressing fabric (whose main attribute seemed to be impersonating a parachute while unravelling) and brambles. The damp had forced me into my foul weather gear, to wit, belisha beacon orange kagoule which came to my knees, bright green waterproof trousers, red wellies and a beanie hat my mum crocheted for me as a child. As I laboured away I was startled by a loud boom. To be honest I thought it was an auditory hallucination (I get a lot of these, although they mostly feature things I think Himself has said, which he then vehemently denies). This was followed up a short time later by another louder  boom. Being swift on the uptake(?!?) I figured this must be something to do with my putative bomb, so I grabbed the dog, hurled myself into my slurry coated land rover  (there had been an incident on the way down, don’t ask) and hurtled down the mountain to have a nosey. When I arrived the car park was empty apart from two army jeeps and a Garda van. I set off in the direction of the ‘bomb’, reassured that there was no hazard tape, no warning signs and nobody shouting at me. As I got closer I could see khaki clad signs of activity. It was only the dog barking that prompted me to look behind. In hot pursuit was a red faced and breathless squaddie desperately trying to attract my attention without alerting his superiors to the fact that I had slipped past his cordon. It was at this moment that it dawned upon me that I was out in public dressed like an extremely scruffy but very patriotic gnome. The poor bloke must have thought I was a particularly unfortunate example of care in the community. Shortly after this the ‘bomb squad’ emerged, their job complete but with no suggestions as to what the object was or might have been.

I returned to the homestead and continued with the weeding. The weather continued to happen to me. The echoes of the winter storms persisted and the winds were tumultuous, I could hear the roar of the sea from the garden. Hoping that this weather might result in some worthwhile waves, I set off with my camera. In retrospect it may have been foolish to get THAT close…..

In the evenings I settled down for a spot of product development, making stuff from driftwood and old charts. When I brought the results down to my mate for appraisal, she was so enthusiastic that I ended up with a bottle of wine, a business plan and a lengthy list of stuff to make. She ended up with the products. Watch this space….

I had persuaded an unsuspecting friend that he wanted to come over and visit, painting pictures of bucolic bliss (think ‘The Good Life’ but more extreme). After a brief discussion on the advisability or otherwise of hiring a car, I agreed to pick him up from the airport… Just a small matter of a hundred and sixty mile round trip. It was on the morning of my departure to collect him that I discovered that my rear axle was pissing oil out. The lever which Himself had generously provided, and which he swore was half inch, was nothing of the sort, I could have used it to remove a tractor tyre! Thus I could not remove the plug in order to check and top up the oil level… so I just had to hope (and pray). As soon as my guest emerged from the airport terminal, he was instructed to ‘get down there and have a feel of that axle… is it very hot?’ Oh well, start as you mean to go on.

Having stopped on the way back to stock up with food and drink (sorry, DRINK!!!), I lost no time in putting him to work (although I did take the scenic route home… shame the windows were too slurry coated to see through). I introduced him to my tool collection, which was of course found wanting. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of his face when I introduced him to the expanse of brambles I hoped he would clear….

As a reward for flaying himself alive on my brambles, we went to the beach for a walk. He suggested we should walk down rather than drive. This is a noble aspiration, but one I normally eschew as home is uphill all the way and the weather is on the unreasonable side of unpredictable. So we walked. We explored. He admired the scenery and the freshness of the air. We scrambled over a few rocks and narrowly avoided the quicksand. We attained the lay-by high above the beach, where we encountered one of my neighbours.

This lay-by is often populated by a collection of older men of the parish (you rarely if ever see a woman…. draw your own conclusions). They sit in their cars, or in each other’s cars and admire the view (taking careful note of any activity in the area, it’s an outstanding vantage point) and gossiping. It’s a bit like a cross between dogging and an ICA (Irish Countrywomen’s association, WI with attitude) meeting, but without the sex, or the tea and buns. 

I said hello to my neighbour and we had a little chat. I introduced my Guest while discreetly trying to make it clear that no Hanky Panky was involved…. My Guest was looking a little footsore and weary, so we were offered a lift home, which was accepted with alacrity. Before we could get in the car though, the shotgun had to be removed from the front seat… Ummmmm… that is for rabbits, isn’t it???? On the drive home we were regaled with tales of his prowess with said shotgun (at least I was, my Guest found it unintelligible)… Cue banjo music…..

The weather surprised us by being sunny, so we grabbed the opportunity for a bit of sightseeing. There’s an extraordinary place a few miles up the road, at the very furthest tip of the peninsula. After a rather soggy scramble through fields and bogs, startling numerous sheep as we went, we came upon the spot, the ruins of an ancient fortification. The atmosphere there is always tangible, apparently it is the site of some significant Ley lines. There are artificial lakes and precipitous drops down to the sea (which don’t seem to bother the sheep). The ruins are atmospheric and crumbling, surrounded by raucous choughs and wheeling seagulls. Lizards scuttle through the heather and in warmer weather the lake shores teem with iridescent dragonflies.

Just by the entrance to this extraordinary place, there is a small treacherous pier/landing and an alarmingly steep slipway. As we descended across the fields from the ruins we could see the spray from waves breaking on the rocks below. 

Just as I was settling into my role as tour guide I was offered some work… Painting. Oh joy, just what I always wanted. I can’t afford to say no though, so I donned my painting gear, abandoned my Guest and got stuck in.

In the meantime I had been offered some compost, which my garden sorely needs, so I went in search of a trailer, which I eventually tracked down and collected. I had hoped my Guest would turn up in the course of his afternoon constitutional so we could load the huge bins of smelly stuff onto the trailer. He must have had a premonition, he never turned up. I was having visions of him cowering in a ditch with a broken leg having been mown down by a tractor, slowly succumbing to hypothermia, or legless in the pub trying to avoid hypothermia (it was a day of exceptionally vicious showers and biting winds). In the end I found him at home, in bed. 

I dragged him with me the following day and we attempted to load The Stuff. On opening the first bin I discovered that the ‘compost’ was in fact slurry. A runny black mixture with unnameable stuff floating in it and a stink from Hell’s cesspit.

The bin was far to heavy to move, so I had to shovel the noisome mixture into a barrow…. while my Guest looked on and offered helpful suggestions. Revenge is sweet though… I had managed to distribute a fair amount of The Stuff about my person, he then had to sit next to me while I drove home…very slowly indeed in order to avoid any incidence of impromptu muck spreading. Even the dog, who is normally entranced by the odour of decay, studiously avoided The Stuff. I am assured that it will give me great vegetables… in a few years, once the toxicity has worn off. I’m using horse manure for the time being, it smells so much better!