Day 269: The Good Samaritan

Tags

achilles tendon, Armadale, bicycle tour, Caledonian MacBrayne, Cycle tour of Scotland, Good Samaritan, Kyle of Lochalsh, Portree, Scotland

A Journey into Scotland … Part 33

 

My bicycle had hardly moved. It had wedged in gravel at the side of the road and finding itself, suddenly and unexpectedly, both riderless and stationary it had quietly fallen onto its side. Anything that wasn’t screwed or bolted had further to travel. I ended up seven yards from the point of impact. I don’t think I flew that far. I think I would have remembered and I think my injuries would have been a good deal worse. The four panniers had gone in four different directions. One ended up under my foot.

My elbow had taken a crack from the side of the bus and I couldn’t work out how this could have happened. If it had been a Loony Tunes cartoon there would be all sorts of explanations. The only one that fits is that the bus pulled out to pass me (There wasn’t a lot of room; it was essentially a single track road) and came back towards the kerb side before it was fully past me. I consider myself rather lucky. If he’d pulled in a second earlier he would have hit my bags and these would have swerved my bicycle in such a way as to make going under the back wheels of the coach a possibility. I was considerably shaken.

A quick assessment of my injuries told me I’d either been lucky or unlucky. My elbow hurt like the devil but the pain was already diminishing. This suggested a nasty crack on the humorous. I was pretty sure it wasn’t broken. I’d ended up on springy turf. There were scratches and some pieces of gravel to pick out of scrapes but I was outwardly OK. My concern was my ankle. And it was a serious concern. I could put weight on it so it probably wasn’t broken but it felt wrong.

When I was younger I’d smashed the same ankle to pieces pedalling on a big down and up slope  that we called  the big dipper. It was about a mile from where I lived and my ankle at that time, though badly injured, had allowed me to get back home. I ended up not being able to walk on it for weeks but I could walk on it for that first half hour or so. It hurt like the blazes but at the same time felt numb. It felt as though somehow large air bubbles had got inside the joint. On that occasion I’d torn the achilles tendon and done considerable ligament damage. On this occasion my ankle felt exactly the same.

I determined that plans to spend two days cycling around Skye and eventually catching a ferry out to Tarbert on the island of Harris were now out of the window. I knew there was a railway station at Kyle of Lochalsh. If I could get that far I would be able to get back home. I needed to make as much of the milage as I could before the ankle stiffened up. I could use some help.

And, at exactly that moment a fellow cyclist came into view behind me. She’d been on the ferry,  was my age and American and was the finest sight I had seen in the whole of my journey. At this moment I needed someone who was prepared to stop and help and to ride with me as far as the railhead just to make sure I got there. I got all of that and more. It’s another of the people from the journey whose address I lost. I can’t even remember her name and yet for two hours or more she was my Guardian Angel, my Good Samaritan and my bringer of good cheer.

The first thing she did was to bind my ankle. My own first aid kit was plasters and paracetemol. She had a crepe bandage and she knew how to tie it. Hobbling, I checked the bicycle for damage and found none. The bags hadn’t fared so well. The back bags had separated and the ties and clips that fastened them to the bike had been torn. Clumsy knots had to do at the bottom and the American girl had some string that worked at the top. It was a simple and effective cure that I determined would last only until I could make a proper repair. It was still holding the bags on when I got back to Exeter. The tent and sleeping mat had slid into a ditch and were easily restored.

I mounted and tried a few yards. So far so good. She was heading to the Kyle so I wasn’t putting her out of her way. I was slowing her down though. We’d looked at both of our maps. We reckoned between twelve an fifteen miles. It was going to take some time. I wasn’t at all sure the ankle wasn’t just going to seize up. It was hurting more and I didn’t know if that was a good thing.

“Don’t worry. Just get on as best you can. If you can’t get any further I’ll ride on until I find a phone box and I’ll get you an ambulance.”

I don’t know if that reassured me or stiffened my resolve but I kept on going and the longer I went the more sure I was that we were looking at a bang and a twist. I was now absolutely sure it wasn’t broken. I was pretty sure it wasn’t badly sprained but I couldn’t rule out tendon or ligament damage simply because of what had happened to me years earlier.

She was great. Sometimes she rode in front to reduce the wind resistance. At six or seven miles per hour this doesn’t have a great effect but it gave me something to aim at. Sometimes she rode behind to allow me to go at my own pace but mostly we rode side by side and took our minds off the painful (literally) progress of the ride by telling each other how we’d got there. She’d flown into Prestwick a week or so earlier and had been following pretty much the same route I had taken except she was stopping to climb the occasional mountain. She’d spent the day before scrambling up Ben Nevis and had intentions of adding Scafell Pike and Snowden to this achievement before she went home. She wasn’t going much further north but was heading towards the Great Glen and Inverness before turning back into the Grampians.

For a while the road ran by the sea with mainland Scotland seemingly within a good throw of a stone away. There were little settlements but I didn’t want to stop. There were no really big hills but one long rise where I wanted to get off and rest but clicked the gear into the biggest cogs I had and the pedals turned nearly as many rotations as the wheels. I got to the top.

By the mile I was feeling more confident. If it was serious there would be some deterioration. If anything there was an improvement.

The improvement continued and by the time we reached the main Lochalsh to Potree road at Broadford I was certain that I had had a dramatic tumble but had come out largely unscathed. Momentarily I even contemplated resuming my island hopping route but the sensible thing was to allow time to determine the damage. If I rode to Kyle of Lochalsh I had a railway station there and if I followed a route towards Achnasheen I was still on course for the north of Scotland while having a railway station every five or ten miles if I felt I had to abandon.

My biggest regret, looking back, is that I not only missed much of the beauty of the island but failed to really notice much of the loveliness that I did ride through. In those days there were a pair of small ferries that plied the stretch of water between Skye and the mainland. We stood together having completed our ride. To me one of the most important dozen miles I’d ever cycled, and the hardest. To her an unlooked for act of kindness. A proof to me and herself that she was made of the right stuff. That she cared enough to go that extra mile for someone she didn’t know.

When the boat docked, I said I’d stay for a while to rest and then see if I could get on. She would have stayed but I knew I was OK. Regardless of the state of my joints I was now able to get home if I had to. She rode off and I hoped that maybe our paths would cross again.

If, nearly thirty years on, you remember driving a silver coach that came from Surrey across the Isle of Skye and that you overtook a cyclist, who never appeared in your wing mirrors afterwards, then you might wish to get in touch. I don’t think, however, that I’ve got very much to say to you. If, on the other hand, you were from Berkeley California and bandaged a fellow’s ankle and rode slowly with him across the island then I really do wish you’d get in touch. It’s always a cheering thought to know that the world is enriched by the presence of good people (and you are one of the best) but I’d like to have a proper chance to say thank you.

 

 

Day 178: Fellow Traveller

Tags

bicycle tour, cycle tour of ireland, Horace Walpole, serendipity, Wexford

A Journey Around the British Isles … Part 72

And so we continue, in tandem when the road demands, side by side in the sunshine when traffic allows. I like serendipity. I like the word; one of the many beautiful things we have to thank Sri Lanka for. I like the meaning of the word. OED: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way:a fortunate stroke of serendipity. I like the fact that the word was first coined by Horace Walpole, a man who wrote a rather brilliant but entirely bizarre gothic novel (The Castle of Otranto) and was the son of Britain’s first ever prime minister. Most of all I like serendipitous events and meeting my fellow cyclist was entirely that. The modern word would be happenstance which is fine, but it isn’t serendipity.

If he hadn’t set off two hours later than his normal time; if I hadn’t decided to make a run for the coast; if the ladies in the New Ross tourist office had been either more (quite easy) or less (virtually impossible) helpful, I would have been either five minutes in front (in which case he would easily have caught me up) or five minutes behind (in which case he would have needed to suffer several punctures to allow me to catch up), we never would have met. I cannot remember his name; I obviously knew it well enough not to make a special note of it; and we haven’t kept in touch. It was an example of a friendship that sprang up out of common ground and disappeared as we went our separate ways. That’s perhaps the way it ought to be. But I include a photograph. If you read this I’d be delighted to say thank you for your companionship, your conversation, your insights into Ireland that I gained along the way and largely lost through fading powers of recall, and for your kind hospitality in Wexford.

My notes simply say, “I’ll detail the conversation elsewhere”. The notes were written in the small hours of the night in a deserted Welsh ferry port after no sleep and an 80 mile fast cycle. The details were never written down and eighteen months have passed. I’ve tried to use a mixture of memory and imagination to re-capture it but it doesn’t work. This was a real conversation between two real people and I enjoyed it enormously because of that. I’ve written it out as an entertaining dialogue between two cyclists on the road across County Wexford but it is a work of fiction and I admired this man too much to put words into his mouth. The dialogue may have some future use but it won’t work here.

I do remember that we talked of our families, of both going through times of hardship and both finding that the supposed bottom was a lot better place to be than the top we had been cheated of. He’d been offered contracts that would have left him wealthy and then found wealth in his family and the charitable work he does with old people. He could tell a tale that had a wheezing cyclist bursting his sides with laughter. He had a bead on the Irish economy. He’d understood the tiger and withstood its demise.

If anything we covered the second part of the journey even faster than the first. “Follow me home if you fancy a hot cup of tea and a place to park your bicycle for an hour or two. You can have a walk around Wexford and add another city to your list. You’d be most welcome. If you don’t fancy it, just keep on this big road. It’ll bring you round to Rosslare Harbour. But you’re hours before your sailing, and I can tell you, there isn’t a great deal once you get out there.”

I take the only option I was ever going to take and follow him off the bypass and down a thunderingly fast descent towards the city centre. Or try to follow him. Before I’ve gone a hundred yards he’s disappeared out of sight and I’m wondering if I’ve been the victim of a practical joke when he bobs up again to my left.

“You took a wrong turning there. Follow me down this way.”

I wasn’t aware that I had taken any turning at all. But I followed him more closely this time. We were flying and the panniers were rattling fit to fall. Left, right, right, left and we’re passing a church with an elegant spire and a chip shop with a very Italian name and he’s pulling up and immediately finding himself in a fight with his daughters.

They’d been worried about him. He hadn’t told them he was away out on his bike and they hadn’t a clue where he was. The strong admonishments are a  sign of caring but the gormless twerp he’d brought home with him was an obvious target for their spleen. I feel a strong desire to be elsewhere. Daughter number one is curt and censorious. Daughter number two is quicker to see that there really are no villains in the situation. My cycling friend is unfussed, genial and calmly invites me in. The kettle goes on and daughter number one is able to get on with her day safe in the knowledge that her dad isn’t lying under a lorry on the side of a Wexford highway.

The tea is wonderful and the conversation rolls on. The youngest daughter, who is studying nursing in Leeds hand has just completed a placement at Huddersfield, makes me tea while yer man is busy with the stove and the grill and soon presents two plates of bacon, sausage and burger with rounds of bread and butter. I must admit that I feel a    hint of being a nuisance but the hospitality is so warm and natural. They both seem more than happy that I am there and in need of a spot of lunch.

“I was saying to Simon that he could leave his bicycle here and go and have a look around the town. His boat isn’t sailing until tonight.”

“He’s more than welcome. Now, would you like a nice shower while you’re here? I’ll look you out a towel.”

Once again the offer is without condition and the shower feels wonderful. I have new boxers and socks in my bag and they feel like putting on a new skin.The only drawback is having to put the dirty polo shirt back on afterwards. The brilliant yellow shirt, that proclaims my allegiance to Kilkenny, has lost some of its morning newness in looks and a great deal in texture. I’m waved off by two fine people as I make my way into the town of Wexford with directions to the nearest clothing store.

Day 151: Get Your Own Back Day

Tags

bicycle tour, George Hotel Huddersfield, Gleeson's Townhouse and restaurant, Ireland, Roscommon

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 51

It is just possible that they know what they are doing. The girls in the restaurant I mean. There are a good number of people in for breakfast which doesn’t surprise me at all. It seems a good value hotel. And you can’t beat it for the full Irish welcome.

Unless you want to be served breakfast and the two girls have taken against you.

They are both remarkably pretty. And they both are giving the appearance of being remarkably busy while finding time to do things at their own pace. I’m sure they’re playing a game I used to play in my bar tending days. A game you could call “getting society’s revenge”. I worked in The Tudor Bar of Huddersfield’s George Hotel. Being a town centre pub it drew in a busy lunch-time trade from all walks. A group of counsellors came in three days a week and made everyone else aware of their importance by blocking the bar and shouting conversations in the manner only perfected by fat Yorkshire tossers.

“Planning permission? Oh I think not.”

“Another half Roger?”

“Well, I’ve reached a convenient depth.”

“How about you Rodney? Barman. Seven halves of IPA.”

“I’ve never voted for it in my life”.

“Not a lot of point if you ask me.”

“What about that new place. Have you tried that.”

“I said seven halves barman.”

“I’m not sure that he isn’t ignoring me.”

The game can only be played by the discerning and the put upon. The purpose is to make sure anyone with a redeeming feature is served and made happy before you even notice the self-important twerps holding court and holding forth. In the Tudor Bar there would be seven of them. And that meant seven different conversations as they all waited for a convenient pause to say their piece. There was no continuity or natural flow. Just a succession of monologues delivered with as much gravitas as being shaped like a conference pear (huge arse and no shoulders) and having more beer inside than you can cope with. The loudest was called Furness and the squirtiest was called Cock.

We took it in turns to see how many other drinkers we could serve while they waited. These girls were playing the same game and I am delighted to say that they found me a table (for five) within a minute of my arrival in the dining room. They then made a party of five loud English know-alls wait nearly twenty minutes because there was no table big enough to accommodate them. Ahead of them was an impatient little man who made the mistake of letting everybody near him know that he was not only in a hurry, but that he was far too important to be made to wait. He didn’t say it in so many words but he may as well have done.

It was get your own back day in the kitchens of Roscommon.

I’m pointed towards the fruit and yoghurt. The prunes and apricots are a welcome treat. The yoghurt is tangy and creamy and altogether exceptional. I don’t know if Gleeson’s have a dairy but if they don’t they know someone who keeps a very good one.

By the time I finish this, the group of five are being squeezed onto a table for four and the little man with the lifts in his shoes is tutting and toe-tapping and looking first at his watch and then at his phone and then at his watch again. I smile across to let him know that his efforts to gain attention have not been completely over-looked but I fail to use my sympathetic smile and I’m afraid he may have interpreted it as containing more than an element of schadenfreude.

I was encouraged to help myself to other treats but I had my mind set on the “house special breakfast”. I played a wait and see game on whether I’d have room enough for some extras afterwards. It was a rare treat. I may have become predictable in my breakfast orders and I was trying as hard as I could to avoid the big breakfast every morning. The fact was that I simply couldn’t.

And it was fabulous. A huge portion of perfectly cooked viands balanced with beans and eggs and mushrooms. There were white and black puddings which gave me a taste challenge. I preferred the white but it was close. The very best part was the bread. The whole balance of a British or Irish cooked breakfast is wrong. By all the rules of good eating the fried breakfast is a terrible meal. All the rules except a sense of feasting, a sense of treating and an abundance of taste and texture. If the ingredients are inferior, it isn’t worth eating. If the sausage and the bacon are of the best, it is a treat worth travelling for. Somerset Maugham’s famous advice rings true. “To to eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day.” The same holds true across the Irish Sea.

The little man finally gets seated in a corner where he is quietly ignored. He has made a big effort; ironed jeans with creases, colourful shirt outside his trousers, public school accent, bright red face. He was my age and I was very glad I wasn’t him. The girls had chosen their victim well. The great skill in playing this game is that no-one should be absolutely sure you are playing it. If they were, then these girls were brilliant. His pomposity had been both pricked and exposed but he was reeled in before he reached apoplexy.

I mop up the juices with chunks of sourdough. No, it isn’t sour-dough. It’s brown soda bread. It is delicious. I reckon the full Irish is even less healthy than the full English but the puddings, the potato scones and the soda breads make it a winner by a couple of lengths.

I spin out the whole experience for as long as I can. The rain is falling steadily and I’ve got a bag of clothes I’ve washed and dried overnight. I don’t want to drench them straight away. But there’s no putting off the departure. The young man who booked me in was as friendly a fellow as I had met on the island. I was hoping to meet him again on leaving so I could say thank you. I met his brother instead.

“Pleased to meet you Simon. I’m Eamon. I’m the son. Did you meet the folks? Well, you were staying in their old bedroom. Nice room isn’t it. Oh, me brother – the red head. Oh, we all call him the ginger ninja. Is it far you’re going? Now, that’s fantastic.”

All of this is delivered in an even broader accent than his brother. So strong that he made Stephen Roche sound like Peter Bowles.

“We went to Lone on the bikes once when we were younger, and you know, when you are younger you are supposed to be fitter.” At this point he lights the first of several cigarettes. “D’ye know where Lone is?”

A slight inflection before the l told me that he meant Athlone. “We got there, and that’s only twenty miles. But, on the way back we had to call Connolly to come and pick us up in the car. It was too much for us.”

He checks my tyres and brakes and generally admires and ensures everything is as it should be. I’m sure a good ostler would have done the same for my horse in the old days.

On his third cigarette he adds, “Oh no, I’m cutting down. Just ten a day and then in four months I’ll make it nine a day.

“Well, fair play to ye.”

“What do you do if it starts to rain again?”

“Oh well, fair play to ye.”

And so, weighted down by the biggest breakfast yet, and full of admiration for the friendliness of the good people, I leave Roscommon. I’d come in on a main road. I left on the smallest road I could find.

Day 150: A Bath with No Water

Tags

bicycle tour, Gleeson's Townhouse, Harrison Hall, Roscommon, roscommon castle

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 50

I’m settled. I’ve got the best room in the house, a huge bed, a decent view of a town worth being in, complimentary tea and scones still to come, the friendliest and most helpful service from the people who actually own the place (well, the sons) and a bath big enough to float The British Admiral*.

In ten minutes the kettle will have brewed up a pint mug of tea, and I’ll be under a foaming mass of hot water. The aching limbs will sing for joy and the congested lungs will (literally) breathe a sigh of relief.

But there’s no water. I turn on the tap and not even a gurgle of trapped air comes out. I try the wash basin and that too is dry. The cold runs alright but the hot one may as well be for display.

I consider complaining but I’m prevented not only by the fact that I find complaining doesn’t come naturally, but also by the fact the the room is so comfortable and welcoming in every other respect. I cannot make a fuss about hot water to a man who not only carried my bags up the stairs, but who also offered me tea and scones. You can complain of someone who gives you Scampi in a basket but you cannot say a bad word against someone who offers you scones.

There is a shower over the bath and because it is heated independently, I am able to use this. It feels pretty good. I stretch out on the huge bed with thoughts of negotiating a reduction in my bill when I reach out and discover that the kilner jar on the bedside table contains a selection of cookies baked in the hotel’s own bakery. Gleeson’s Townhouse Hotel has a bakery and Delicatesan right next door. If the cookies are anything to go by, it will be worth a visit in the morning.

A second mug of tea and a chapter of Joseph O’Connor. My mind drifts away from Inishowen and to all the times I might have given up the jaunt. The bath doesn’t function but I’m pretty well set. Cork and Wexford both look a long way from Roscommon on the map but the distance looks bikeable. “I haven’t given up.” I tell myself. “It would have been easy to give up and no-one would have blamed me, but I’m still going. I’d like a bath but, so what, I’m contented. I’m more than contented. I’m downright happy.”

I’m dressing to see if it’s not too late for tea and scones when I give the bath tap a final twist … and gallons of piping hot water gush forth. All thoughts of being a tourist fly out of the open window. I immerse myself to a dangerous depth and am so perfectly at ease with the world that I saunter through the final 100 pages of a very good novel. The boy can write and I’m getting good at choosing what to read.

I miss the scones.

Roscommon is in evening mode by the time I go for a wander. I’ve left just about every item of clothing I possess soaking in the tub and take a walk around the town. Children are on the swings, teenagers are propping up walls and middle aged couples are making their way to the Trattoria on the high street or to the restaurant at my hotel.

I wander to the castle. Before Cromwell’s men did their wall removing trick with barrels of gunpowder, the castle would have resembled the toy fort that my brothers and I had as children. Square shaped, four straight walls with battlemented towers at each corner.  It had spent its time as a stronghold alternately for Irish and English forces. Once Cromwell’s demolition boys had removed its effectiveness as a defensible stronghold, it lasted a few more years as a residence before fire finished of in 1690. After that considerable quantities of stone found themselves in footings and load bearing walls throughout the town. What remains is nonetheless still impressive. The local council have landscaped a park around it with some pleasant features. There’s a crannog there but I didn’t see it. I’m not sure if it was built by the iron age people or by men in high visibility jackets and hard hats. If it was the former it will probably last another 3000 years. If the latter, I’d hurry up if you want to visit!

My hotel is about as central as you can get. It faces Harrison Hall which in its time has been a sessions house, a court house (I’m not sure what the distinction is), a market house, a Catholic Church, a dancehall, a cinema and a theatre. Since the seventies it has housed The Bank of Ireland. It is in such a prominent position that all roads have been diverted around it. It is, in truth, an attractive building. Opposite it, to the north is the Old Gaol.This now houses the Trattoria aforementioned as well as a number of other businesses. It retains its original facade and  is consequently both historically in keeping while creating dissonance with all the other two storey buildings. The main street is a mix of chemists, smaller supermarkets, bookies and bars. The town is a good size. That is, it is small, but it doesn’t go short of shops. There is even a railway station and that is why I gave the town the nod over Knock. I don’t mind shoving the bicycle on a train but have no intention of leaving it on the runway while I fly off to Dubrovnik.

I wander back to my room. I’m tired and it’s too comfortable for me to be anywhere else. It’s only just nine o’clock when I climb into bed. By half past I had been asleep for exactly 29 minutes.

* World’s biggest oil tanker when launched in Barrow in 1966. We got half a day off school to watch the Queen launch it. I didn’t go.

Day 143: Simon the Navigator

Tags

bicycle tour, Budenell Social Club, Ireland, Leitrim, sat navs, Sligo

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 44

You can get sat navs for bicycles. I’ve never much seen the point of them for cars but each to their own. I was once driven to a concert in Leeds by someone who was over proud of their digital navigation device. Granted, I was impressed by him swinging up a few roads I never would have taken and parking on a piece of no-man’s land that the device announced as our destination. Credit where credit is due, we were right outside the Budenell Social Club in good time to listen to Sam Baker sing some of his excellent songs. I have nothing but respect for this. What I question is whether we had to have the bloody thing on from junction 26 of the M1 in order to find an enormous city at the top end of the same road.

I’m not much for the music of artificial voices whether it is a satellite system, Professor Stephen Hawking or Ken Bruce. I don’t listen to radio two in the morning because I find it inane and repetitive. Being told to continue straight on every thirty seconds for the best part of an hour was much the same experience. I suppose, like mobile phones, they are old hat now and don’t have to be used by borderline inadequates to bolster their perceived social status.

I rather like getting lost. My chest infection meant that I had to give more than usual consideration to the destination, but the natural shape created by me and a bicycle is a meander. I’d come to see Ireland, not get a glance at the view from the side of a big road. But I found myself on a big road anyway. The N4. In England this would be a terrible mistake. In Ireland it works out rather pleasantly. There is a wide section on the kerbside of smooth carriageway for the sole use of the cyclist. I don’t think that was the intention, but it was the result. The line painters had given me my own private motorway. Smooth and free from danger. The road itself carried only about a fifth of the traffic you would get in the west of England; be it Devon, Gloucestershire or Cumbria. The views were magnificent, with mountains rising on either side of the road. It was uphill, sure, but only uphill enough to give strong legs a proper warming up.

I was with the conundrum of having a chest infection that would make singing impossible and even a brisk walk unlikely, and yet I was still a strong cyclist, eating miles that two weeks earlier I had been struggling with. My legs looked like a professional cyclist’s legs. They had become shapely, strong and muscular in the first week and then, over the next week they simply became strong, thin and elegant.

The mystery of recent Tour de Frances was being answered. In the eighties and nineties you had to have legs like a rhino to get up the mountains, and now, we have riders like Bradley Wiggins and the Schleck brothers who were climbing cols with legs like pipe cleaners. I’d suspected something in the supplements, but here was I, fuelled with black pudding, bacon and a fried slice, carving up hills I couldn’t have managed at snail’s pace with bigger calves. And I was flying up these hills without the engine of my lungs.

There is no great mystery about the illness. I had a lung infection. Back home I was put on strong antibiotics and several courses of steroids. The cure took a long time. My doctor, cognisant of the fact I’d been a long term smoker until a few years ago, and aware of the schlocking I’d given my vascular system, said they were knackered and would take some time to recover. The mystery is partly solved by the levels of fitness I had reached before infection set in. The lungs may have only been working partially but they were working very efficiently. There was an awful lot more oxygen circulating than I had any right to expect.

Cycling is an amazing exercise. I couldn’t have jogged a mile yet I could cycle for eight or ten hours a day so long as I kept in the mid range.

The uphill lasted ten miles. I’ve always found that once I’ve done ten miles the rest of the day is relatively easy. Anything over ten miles is perfectly respectable so you can stop where you want to  and say, “Well, I’ve done thirteen miles. That’s enough for today.” You find when you are cycling that you can very easily become addicted to covering distance. Not is a maniacal way, but you get the groove. The same thing happens when you strike up the guitars with the right company. You may only have intended to sing a couple of songs but you’re still belting out favourites two and three hours later.

At the ten mile reach there is a big petrol station with a Mace mini mart attached. There’s a toilet, and they serve coffee. It was two hours since I finished breakfast; another Full Irish; and I was ready to celebrate the top of the climb. The view of the mountains had gone but a packet of Maryland Cookies seemed the order of the day. It is also on the corner of the little road I’d been looking for since I left Sligo. I had miles of rolling Irish countryside and a gentler road all the way to Carrick-on-Shannon. If I’d had a sat nav I could have saved myself five or six miles. I tend to think of it as gaining some miles I would otherwise have missed.

I put this to a man I met later in Roscommon and he said it was a glass half empty thing. I agreed with him because he was an amiable fellow and he was sure he was right. It’s not about an outlook on life, it’s about how you consider the journey. Is it the journey itself or is that just a means to the destination. I ride as I try to live. Enjoying the moment, the freedom and chosen-ness of it. The passing view, the people that you meet. I try not to repeat things and that is perhaps the main reason I felt I’d drunk enough from the bottle and the barrel. There really aren’t that many ways of being drunk. Cigarettes went because I finally wanted to be a non-smoker more than I wanted to be a smoker. I wanted the sensation of having clean lungs and gulping down litres of air. I’ll probably never experience that feeling. The legacy of my previous smoking is too strong. I was gulping down enough to keep me going.

Suddenly I’m the only sound I can hear. Cows chew cud lazily in the same fields as sheep. I see my first hay stacks since the sixties. Swallows dance in the skies, the sun comes out and the world feels just about the way I want it to feel. There is a feel of the timelessness I had sought. You can find it in parts of England. I found it in Upper Wharfedale and the higher reaches of the Eden. I’ve encountered it in parts of rural Kent and Dorset. You find it in France and Northern Spain. This is why we walk and cycle and head to be renewed in the countryside.. Hardly a car passes. There is no rush on the pedals. The warm air and the smells of summer waft me across county borders; Sligo then Roscommon, then Leitrim, then Roscommon, then Leitrim again. I am almost completely happy.

 

Day 124: Have You Ever Been Across the Sea to Ireland?

Tags

bicycle tour, Cairnryan, Curran Court Hotel, Ferry, Larne, Northern Ireland

A Cycle on the Celtic fringe … Part 31

I cycle into Ferry Ports often enough to know that there is nothing to worry about in taking a bicycle across the sea, but not often enough to stop me worrying. I’ve actually got a host of emotions. The first is simple relief that I’m there, the second is also relief, but this time because I don’t have to contend with any more lorries for a while. The third feeling is one of immense regret that I’m leaving Scotland behind. I’m soaked and seeped in Scottish culture and beauty and friendliness, and I haven’t seen a single kilt or heard the swirl of a single bagpipe. The fourth feeling is a bagful of worries;  will there be a place on the sailing? Will it arrive in daylight? Will there be anywhere to stay in Larne? Will I go to the right place to get on the boat? Will I be able to afford it?

Cairnryan is a small town on the eastern shore of Loch Ryan. It’s had a significant role to play in British maritime history and played a key role in the second world war. Much of the current port owes its structure and existence to military operations from that time, and though the three piers of the forties have been reduced to one redundant and fenced off pier, the terminal is largely as it was. Mulberry harbours for the D Day landings were built here and the German U boat fleet was brought into the loch before being towed out and scuttled at sea. Much of the surplus ammunition from the war was also taken from the port for sea burial. The ecological case for this means of disposal is now seen to be much weaker. Those who scoff at health and safety issues may wish to contemplate the many who died in disposing of the ordnance. An entire pier was destroyed in one unintended explosion.

Today it is a simple and efficient port. It’s the quickest of the sea routes to Ireland and is popular with lorries and cars alike. There are even enough of us foot passengers to almost fill the minibus that drove us right onto the ferry. The ticket man sold me a ticket for £30 and told me to wait for the bus. The security man asked me to wait on the side. A second security man then waved me through and the bus driver helped me to strap the bicycle to the rack provided for bicycles and the next thing I know, the ferry is making good headway up the loch towards the open sea.

I always look forward to travelling on ferries but rarely find the journey enjoyable. Those who travel regularly have lost the joy and magic of a sea crossing between two countries and spread themselves and their boots across five seats of the lounge. The bar is crowded with coach travellers knocking back industrial quantities of beer and cider. Women gather round the tables while men stand in clusters, and usually in the way, and hold forth in that way men do in bars. Not a great deal of listening going on but an awful lot of posing and joining in with the bursts of over-loud laughter and jokes that don’t deserve it. There are also easy pickings for anyone entering a spot the Van Morrison lookalike competition.

Neglected and out of place children get up to things you might expect neglected and out of place children to get up to and then get loudly rebuked by careless and increasingly drunken parents.

I go out on deck to watch Scotland fade and Ireland take it’s place. The views are stunning. The decks have their share of pint holding pontificators and a whole band of smokers. There is almost as much cigarette smoke trailing the ship as engine smoke. I cannot quite get my bearings but know that various lumps may by Ailsa Craig, the Mull of Galloway, the distant Isle of Arran and various parts of the Antrim coast. At one point I notice a pod of marine mammals but am not expert enough to know if they were porpoise, dolphin or whales. I do know it was quite a thing to see.

Within two hours we are all being called to our vehicles. A big power station marks the start of Larne Lough and the sun is beginning to head westwards as the ferry docks. Getting off the boat is as easy as getting off a bus. I’m on the island of Ireland again, tired, hungry and wanting somewhere to spend the night. I make the mistake of satisfying the hunger first.

There was nothing wrong with the fish and chips I bought in the town. I was as sober as three of the other people in the queue. The fourth had been to a funeral and was more drunk than you’d expect a mourner to be. He was drunker than he had any right to be. It transpired that he barely knew the deceased but had been locked out of the house by his wife. I ate up the supper by my bicycle feeling increasingly out of place as the Friday night crowd began to take over the streets. I headed in a vaguely northerly direction.

The woman at the B&B was very helpful. She was full, “But, if you’ll take a seat, I’ll see if I can find you somewhere.”

I was glad of the assistance. I’d already wasted most of the remaining daylight finding this guest house. I sat for a while and studied a very colourful map of Canada. I could hear her in the background. “Oh, hello Julie. We’re full tonight. I was wondering if you are full as well… oh, you are. That’s fine. No. Yes. We’re full tonight and we’re full tomorrow night, and Sunday night as well. No. Don’t worry. I’m pleased you’re full as well… Young fella… he’s on a bicycle … well I would but I’ve had some very bad reports from there. Oh, I have. Really quite shocking. I wouldn’t like to send anyone there… and it’s up such a big hill and himself on a bicycle.”

I’m really grateful for the effort she is making on my behalf though I couldn’t help thinking she was using it as an opportunity to let people know her little hotel was doing very nicely and there are others who are no better than they should be. My concern is that she is taking an awful long time over it and night is falling outside. She makes five calls and the loud clock in the residents lounge ticks. She has one last suggestion. It’s a B&B by the harbour called The Manor. She can’t get through on the phone “She’s not after answering. She’ll be having a gas so she will”.

I’m relieved to be riding again but I’m getting seriously worried what I’ll do if this guest house is full. I don’t have lights on the bike and have no idea how far it is to the next town. I contemplate asking at the police station and even consider bunking down at the ferry terminal. This does’t exactly appeal and it being Friday night makes it appeal even less.

I try to follow the lady’s instructions but soon become hopelessly lost. Larne isn’t large so getting lost was quite an achievement. I’m heading straight back towards the ferry when a mirage looms up in front of me. A warm, welcoming hotel called The Curran Court. Why hadn’t she mentioned this?

“Rooms from £55” blazons at me. The car park is busy but not full. The girl at the desk is welcoming and patient. Of course they have a room. There is no worry about the bicycle. “You can leave it at the bottom of the stairs.” The room is big and smells of new carpet and clean linen. The bathroom is bigger than any bedroom I’d stayed in so far on the trip. I double check the price. Yes £55. It’s luxury. It’s more than welcome. After contemplating a night on a bench it is the bargain of the month.