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 149: Knocked Off and Dropped On

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Gleeson's Townhouse and restaurant, Roscommon

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 49

At which point I have no choice but to join the red road for the best part of twenty miles. The pull of a town I’ve known about for over forty years but never been near is strong. The hope of a hotel with a deep, deep bath is stronger. Under twenty miles can be a dawdle. Today it turned into something of a dash.

I have no idea if you increase or reduce the odds of something unfortunate happening to you on a big road by riding as fast as you can. To put the obvious case first. You are going to be on the road for less time and this must reduce the chance of accidents. On the other hand, you are going at a faster speed, so any accident is likely to be of a more severe nature. To counter this is the fact that you are unlikely to be hit head on. However, being hit from behind, or, more likely, clipped from the side will send you spinning if you are going around twenty miles per hour.

The biggest factor is chance. Which part of the road you happen to be on when the careless or dangerous driver comes along. If it is a stretch with a decent gap between verge and the painted white line then you are going to be ok. If there is no such space you are going to get white knuckles. If there is a car or, worse, lorry, coming the other way at the same time it is, to quote Sir Alex Ferguson, “Squeaky bum time”.

It is mere chance. Going faster or slower merely means you are going to be at a different point on the road when the life endangering idiot grazes your panniers, often with a raucous hoot of the horn just to show you how tough and brave he can be with someone else’s safety. of course he will say, “I never even touched you”. And this will serve his conscience. It ignores the three facts that the jet stream from the vehicle is likely to blow you into either the vehicle or the hedge or wall. That natural reactions are likely to make the cyclist twist either one way or the other and that it is a seriously frightening thing to experience. One that I am sure would give the driver pause if he had ever experienced it himself.

The first lorry to push me into the verge was carrying logs. I don’t think he was aware that a log protruded nearly eighteen inches from the side of his truck. The second was a Guinness wagon. A long and low Guinness wagon. I’d been warned a time or two to wear a helmet. It wouldn’t have made a great deal of difference. The lorry was close enough for me to blow the head off a pint. Two inches further to the left and I would have been dead.

Being a fellow of frayed nerves and little imagination I put my head down and pedalled eyeballs out for most of the distance to Roscommon.

It’s a great county for flags. the colours are good. Deep blue and a strong yellow with a cross, a crown a ram and a sprig of something green. It’s a good flag. There are also signs saying things like “Good Luck Lads 2012”. I presume they’ve got themselves into the later stages of an All Ireland thing. I feel my total ignorance of Irish sport. I used to watch Gaelic Football and Hurling on World of Sport but we were programmed to laugh at the way they got the rules wrong. They couldn’t even seem to decide if they were using football or rugby posts. We were always impressed with the physicality. Here are two sports with a fair dose of biff involved.

The flags are interspersed with the orange and the green. Of all the English counties, only Yorkshire with its rose and Warwickshire with its bear baiting can compare. There is a fellow who lives near the village of Shirebrook who displays the Derbyshire flag atop a full sized flagpole in his garden, but I always presumed this is the home of a very sick man.

Just when it seems the danger of the road is diminishing it begins to rain. I re-double my efforts and arrive in the rather pleasant town of Roscommon at about half past five. My chest infection is worsening. The exertion and the rain have me seeking privacy for a coughing fit that threatens to turn me inside out. I need some medicines even if they are only to have a placebo effect. I need bubble bath. I need a hotel room  with a bath. I need to get off this bicycle.

Shops first. There’s a Boots. It seems a terrible thing to cycle fro near Nottingham to the other side of Ireland to visit Jesse’s emporium, but the fact remains that his Soap and glory bubble bath is the best on the market. I’ve tried beer as a way of unwinding and I’ve tried cigarettes. Both held me in their grasp for many a long day. I was late coming to bubble bath as an alternative. I’ve never fancied a pint or a cigarette since. I also but cough mixture and Full Strength things that are supposed to ward off things that make you wheeze and groan.

I do my usual ride up and down the main street. There doesn’t seem to be a chain hotel. I wouldn’t choose one as my first resort. But there is a busy looking place right in the centre. The accent of the young man serving me is as thick as treacle. I understand his affability and this cuts through the brogue.

“Oi’ve a single at 50 and a double at 60.”

“Do either of them have a bath?”

“No. Dare showers only. Now, wait a minute. I think Oi got a room on de second floor. Up in de roof. Dat’s got a bath.” He’s been drawn out of a busy bar to see to me but still finds time to add, “Come on. Oi’ll show ye den all. Ye can choose the one ye loike the best.”

He adds a little currency exchange information to help me make up my mind. “60 is about £50. 50 is about £43”.

The first two rooms are pleasant enough. The double is decidedly comfortable. The room up in the attic though is in a whole league above. The biggest bed I’ve seen in a hotel and a separate bathroom with a bath that would empty a reservoir. There is no contest. This is the baby for Simon. He helps me get my bags in, helps me lock my bicycle away in the outbuilding he used to use to keep his bike in as a boy.

“And does the price include breakfast?”

“Oh yes. There’s a range of things you can choose from and you can have the full Irish as well.”

“As well?”

“Oh yes. You don’t have to stint here.”

He pauses as he carries one of my panniers up the last flight of stairs. “Oh, and you’re entitled to tea and scones in the coffee room once you’re settled in. We’ll make sure you’re full of food before you leave here.”

What can you buy for £50 in the world these days? I’d just bought happiness.

 

 

* I cannot do justice to the accent. I gave up attempts at phonetic spelling mid-way. I may come back to it.

Day 147: Who Tied My Dog Loose?

Tags

border collies, cliffs of moher, cycle tour or Ireland, magnum, mivi, Roscommon

A Cycle on the Celtic Fringe … Part 47

All along the road between Ballygawley and Carrick-on-Shannon I was kept alert by the local security agents. Most rural properties seemed to have a guard dog. At least half had the guard dog that takes its duties more seriously than any other: the border collie.

There is a strange mis-perception of this breed of dogs. They are seen as intelligent, obedient and friendly. If you are known to the collie and liked by the collie this is undoubtedly and abundantly true. If the dog doesn’t know you, it will treat you with suspicion. If you come inside the area it regards as its demesne, then it will attack you with a ferocity that few other dogs can muster.

They take their work very seriously. They have a loyalty to their owner that is seldom matched elsewhere in nature. Other animals will show this sort of protection to their young or even to their mate, but the collie will protect with equal diligence anything and anyone that they regard as coming under their jurisdiction.

Out on a wild and windy country lane, not far from the Cliffs of Moher, we cycled past the most remote and tumbledown croft we’d yet seen. It was 1976. The cliffs were well known and well visited. Not yet the most visited tourist destination in Ireland that they have since become, but a place where buskers would expect to top up the weekly earnings, and tea and coffee vans would ply a decent trade. They are magnificent. They tower 700 feet above the Atlantic and are hit by waves that can make quite an impression on many of those feet.

Away from the cliffs themselves the lanes ran free of tourists, cars or bicycles; with the exception of mine and Laurence’s. To our surprise the dwelling was inhabited, and out from the yard shot a border collie of extreme ferocity. It didn’t get many walkers to terrify nor many cars to bark at. Two cyclists were perfection. A cyclist can manage 30 miles per hour for short bursts if really pushed. So can a border collie. A cyclist has very little to defend him or herself with. A border collie is amply supplied with guile, teeth and supreme athleticism. An escaping cyclist is motivated by self-preservation. A border collie is motivated by doing their job well, keeping everyone and everything safe from intruders. You don’t mess with a border collie at work.

This one had lost the use of its hind legs. It chased us anyway. Barking like the devil’s wish hounds and snarling like a leopard. The entire back end of the dog was being dragged yet it still kept pace with us for the  fifty yards it regarded as its own. Once it considered us out of its territory, it quietly went back to its life of dedicated indolence. It was a very impressive guard dog indeed.

The collies of Roscommon were out in force on this early August morning. They always caught me by surprise. There I’d be, gently pedalling along in the sunshine, thinking thoughts of universal significance or about whether I’d prefer a Magnum or a Mivi at the next shop I passed when, suddenly, and without warning, I’d have a set of ravaging snappers bearing down on my ankles and calves. I only got bitten once; a bite that drew blood and an enormous bruise. I wasn’t after getting bitten again.

Over the course of the morning I developed a turn of speed that would have put Mark Cavendish and Djamolidine Abdoujaparov (Rather fast cyclists) in my wake. Some houses were protected by Alsatians, some by altogether more ferocious looking dogs. But, none was as well protected as the house with the black and white sheepdogs.

I like collies. I’ve kept collies since I got married. Our first took upon herself to be nursemaid, nanny and bodyguard to the three children. She was kindness and gentleness personified. She slept at the foot of the cot of the children when they were babies and at the foot of the bed when they were ill. She counted us all out of the house when we went shopping and counted us all back in on our return. She welcomed visitors she knew and enjoyed the company of the neighbour’s dogs. She also terrified two intruders, had some visiting friends hiding in the bathroom and ate our post on more than one occasion. You didn’t mess with our Sally.

Our second collie was  counsellor,  doctor, advisor and  friend. She was more independent. She had a casual, relaxed manner with guests and visitors. Enjoyed a game of football and regularly scored with dramatic diving headers. Her presence on the pitch was usually welcomed for ten minutes or so as the players marvelled at her skills. She didn’t like giving up possession though, and didn’t much mind which direction she was playing in. After ten minutes we usually got a request to substitute her. In being brought off the pitch she resembled the disappointment famously shown by Paul Gascoigne in the 1990 Italian World Cup semi-final. There was also usually some player in the background with the Gary Linacre concerned expression.

  

Bella didn’t bark very much, never sought fights and showed a tolerance to those who don’t understand dogs that exceeded anything ever demonstrated by Sally. If however, she was attacked by an aggressive dog she would respond. The fights never lasted more than a second or two. A single fierce nip to the back legs of her attacker invariably was enough. These dogs are bred to hold their own. They have to stand up and face down sheep, rams, tups that are five time their bulk. Bella never looked for a single fight and never lost one. There was something of Clint Eastwood’s man with no name about our middle dog.

Jolly is our current collie. She came from a difficult background. She has known what it is like to be subjected to being treated badly. When she came to us she was an extremely troubled and nervous young dog. She bonded with the love and care she was experiencing for the first time in her life and has gradually settled down. She is mightily protective of us though. She hates children and alpha males. (She has been tormented by the former and abused by the latter). It would have been a simple thing to walk away from this dog and leave her troubles to someone else. We couldn’t. She is the most loving and caring of the three and the one most in need of love and care.

It has been a long, slow process but she is settling down. She gets so excited when one of the children comes round that she almost tap dances with joy. She can be easily introduced to new people and, so long as she is able to invite them into the house, she makes them very welcome. She has a long way still to go. She still doesn’t really know how to relax. Her development has been seriously retarded by twelve months of abuse.

But, she is a happy dog now  and the most enthusiastic animal of any sort I have ever met. She spends her days going on long walks, sitting quietly while we read or write, or herding our two cats. The task is one that Sysyphus would find trying. It is an endless pursuit of unreliable felines. Jolly has the patience of a saint when with the cats and will pursue this job until she has those cats trained to heel.

There are some things that make life better and some things that make life much, much better. Border Collies are in the second category. As I pedal along, I practice my sprints and think well of the Collies of Roscommon who are simply doing their job.