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Donegal 2006

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Donegal view

We booked in February, just after I got back from Thailand – it was supposed to be our first and last holiday together, to attend my mother’s second wedding and to chill out in Ireland. Me and Sian. But my imminent emigration meant Sian had to find a new home more quickly than we’d planned, and Murphy’s law dictated that she would be moving into her new flat on the day we were supposed to fly.

So on Saturday I travelled alone to glamorous Luton Airport, for a week in rural Ireland when I was due to be emigrating in a little over a fortnight. I’ve always liked leaving things until the last minute though – or preferably later.

So perhaps it was fitting that my 1-hour flight was up on the boards as running two-and-a-half hours late. With a weary sigh, I settled myself into the secret smoking room hidden at Gate 11, and impatiently waited until departure was announced.

Got to Belfast soon enough, and the three hour drive back to Donegal passed without any incident more memorable than my state of utter shock when my mother’s in-car CD player started playing Morrissey. Nice one, Mum!

Sunday was the wedding party, in the pub at Maghery. Live music, dancing, and the chance to catch up with aunts and uncles I hadn’t seen in years. Smoking outside was an odd experience again, I’m glad that (assuming all goes to plan) I won’t be around when the same law comes into force in the UK.

After a heavy session for all involved, we retire to the house and crack open the wine, possibly a mistake in retrospect. I vaguely remember arguing etymology with Jim (my soon-to-be stepdad), smoking a pipe, and rambling incoherently in general.

Monday started a little later than most, and I stayed home while my mother drove to Derry airport to collect my brother, his fiancée and their daughter – Alan, Jess & Chloe.

Chloe’s six months old now, and is a real cutie. She hardly cries, and when she does it’s only briefly until she’s fed or changed. The baby-gurgles are endearing enough – I can only imagine how much fun it’ll be when she start to talk.

It’s funny, I have never been one for babies, never had much in the way of paternal pangs, and at 27 still don’t think I’ll ever really want to have kids, but I surprised myself this week in how well I seemed to connect with my tiny neice.

In the evening, Alan stars in the kitchen (my brother’s a chef) and produces roast lamb with an array of vegetables for thirteen. Exquisite.

Tuesday is the day of the wedding itself – up early, and it’s off with the stubble and on with the suit. Three weeks since I left my last job now, it’s funny seeing myself looking almost professional in the mirror again. The shiny shoes and a rose in the buttonhole finish the job off nicely, and we’re off to Ballybohey for the ceremony.

Mum & Jim are both nervous wrecks, naturally. It takes Jim forever to reverse his Shogun down the drive without veering into a ditch, me patiently directing him from the front. My mother is no better, but somehow we all get there, almost on time.

It’s about now, just as I’m about to walk in and sit down, that it’s sprung on me that I’m going to be walking my mother into the room. Not quite giving her away, but I hadn’t expected to be involved. At least I don’t have to say anything!

Everything goes smoothly, tears are evident in a few eyes, and after Alan and I sign as witnesses, they’re married and we can have lunch.

Fillet mignon is the obvious choice at the hotel restaurant, and alas discretion prevails when I’m asked how I’d like my steak cooked. I’d usually say “just cut its head off and wipe its arse”, but I’m on my best behaviour today, so just ask for it “raw”. It eventually arrives medium-rare, and that’s being generous, but it’s still a very nice steak. Bizarrely, the background music in the restaurant is Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds”, on endless repeat. Until we ask them to turn it off, anyway.

And then it’s goodbye to my aunts, to Jim’s three sisters, and to Mum & Jim, the happy couple. They’re off to Antrim for the honeymoon, so Alan drives Jess, Chloe and me back to the house in Donegal for three days of the wildest entertainment rural Donegal has to offer (ie. walks around the mountains and beaches, alternated with lolling on the sofa watching the snooker).

Donegal view

Wednesday I wake up and Jess makes us all boiled egg & soldiers. The internet access here is offensively slow (20kbps or so), so I wander out to Maghery and wander along the beach looking out over the Atlantic, and explore the rock pools further up the coast. Then it’s Arsenal v Villareal on telly and an early(ish) night.

Thursday brings much of the same, and I’m starting to go insane with worry about the fact that I’m due to be emigrating in ten days and have still managed to organise so little! Still, the snooker is a decent enough distraction. Come on Ronnie.

Friday is time for a mad tidy-up of the house before Mum & Jim arrive back in the afternoon, after which Alan and I play football appallingly in the garden. Roast chicken and veg for dinner with Mum and Jim, then Alan, Jess & I wander down to the pub for the evening. It’s not quite the same as back home – we have to take torches as there are no streetlights here, and we’re so remote that it’s pitch black outside after about 9pm. Still, the Guinness is fantastic and beating my brother at pool for the last time in who knows how long makes it more than worth the inconvenience, which is more like adventure to be honest.

Saturday brings a cooked Irish breakfast, then Mum drives Alan & Jess back to Derry airport to catch their flight back home to Liverpool. I might see Alan when I’m out in Southport just before I leave the UK, but who knows when I’ll see Jess & Chloe again? Probably at their wedding!

Jim argues that football (soccer, not Gaelic or American) is frankly a dull game, and that he doesn’t understand my enthusiasm for it. But as we witness Garcia’s wondergoal and a fraught final half-hour in the Liverpool v Chelsea FA Cup semi-final, even he is getting excited. What a match.

Then steak again, chat by the fire until late, and bed.

Sunday is my final day, so up early for breakfast and then the long drive to Belfast. Something of an emotional goodbye at the airport, who knows when I’ll be back here again? Will I next see Mum & Jim in Ireland? England? Thailand? This year? Next? Who knows…

I end the trip as I started it, with a Burger King meal in a dull airport, but at least I can smoke in the bar here. Eventually onto the plane, then home…

I’d love to expand on this at some point, but with just two whole days remaining now until I leave for Thailand, if I didn’t write this outline I’d forget what happened completely. It will have to stay as it is until I have time to make it a little more verbose. Possibly some time in 2009…

Ireland

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I’m writing this over a 20kbps dial-up connection from my mother’s house in Donegal, Ireland. I’ve never used the internet this slowly before – my first modem connected at 33.6kbps, and that was more than ten years ago. I’m used to at least 100x this speed, and even get frustrated by that on a regular basis. So if I get a little behind on emails etc, apologies.

The views are as magnificent as they were last year, and it was good to see most of my mother’s side of the family before I head for Thailand at the end of this month.

Sian moved into her new flat on Saturday, and with her leaving it has all started to seem real. My DVDs and CDs are all gone, but I still need to get rid of my guitars & furniture – once I get home, I’ll have just one week in which to do so. I’ve never been one for doing things the easy way though…

Next week: sporadic updates as I relinquish the last of my material posessions.

Next month: the next chapter of my life – it begins in Thailand…

Donegal

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View from Cleendra

As I mentioned some time ago, I visited Donegal for the first time back in late July.

I knew I would be starting my new job on August 1. So because of the strange way in which the salary system works, it was financially beneficial for me to stay in my old job until July 31, or as close to as possible. I managed to arrange for my resignation to be effective as of Sunday 31st, as opposed to Friday 29th, which ensured that I got paid for the last two days of the month, even though I didn’t work weekends. Crazy.

The other point was that if I’d left on Friday 29th, I wouldn’t have worked seven whole months in 2005, so wouldn’t have accrued as much paid holiday. “Leaving” on Sunday 31st ensured that I had another 1.75 (I think) days to take as paid leave, which allowed me to physically leave on Tuesday 26th, take Wednesday-Friday as paid holiday, then I was off Saturday and Sunday as usual (but still getting paid), and officially left the company at the end of Sunday, in order to start my new job on the Monday morning. Clear? No? Good.

So my final paycheck was going to be as (un)healthy as usual, and all of a sudden I had three days to kill. My mother bought the house in Donegal initially to be used as a holiday home while she still lived in Southport, but after retiring last year she sold the house I grew up in and emigrated to Donegal for a well-earned retirement early this year. And it was about time I visited.

I staggered out of work after lunch on the Tuesday, a couple of pints worse for wear, said a cheery goodbye to my now ex-colleagues, and weaved my way to Luton airport to catch my flight to Belfast.

I was only going to be gone for a few days, so a rucksack would be enough to pack my things. Of course, you’re not allowed to take blades into an aircraft cabin any more, so I couldn’t pack my razor. I briefly considered also taking a large suitcase and placing a single safety razor inside it, but decided against the idea on the basis that the inconvenience of carrying the bloody thing would far outweigh the satisfaction of making my point…

Once through security, I became slowly infuriated by the incessant PA announcements informing me that I was not allowed to smoke anywhere outside the permitted smoking areas. There were no signposts for smoking areas, and I searched the departure lounge high and low in vain. Eventually I located the hidden smoking room behind gate 13 and slowly poisoned myself until my flight was called…

Reflections

One enjoyably brief flight later I touched down at Belfast International Airport just as the sun was setting. My mother met me at the airport and it was time for the long drive to Donegal. The sun was just setting as I arrived, and so as we drove I had all manner of areas of staggering natural beauty pointed out to me with the words “and if you look over there, that would be a terrific view if it wasn’t too dark to see anything”…

We crossed over the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, but aside from the road signs changing colour and the speed limits changing from miles per hour to kilometres per hour, very little else seemed to change. I still saw sectarian graffitti, flags flying from lampposts… The troubles may be in decline in terms of violence, but feelings still run strong.

Arrival at the house was swiftly met by a flurry of attention from Padjo and Chi, the dog and cat I hadn’t seen for the best part of a year.

A slurp of wine, some home-baked bread and butter, and the welcome sleep of a gentleman of leisure (for the next three days, at least).

I awoke in the spare bedroom to find a cow looking at me from the field behind the house. A far cry from suburbia, indeed. No bulls this time though.

Then around to the front for a cup of tea and a cigarette, and the view above – looking out across the moors to the Atlantic. After a hearty breakfast, we walked out with the dog around Maghery, the closest there is to a town in the vicinity. It has a shop. And a pub. What more do you need though, really? We take the dog up to the beach, where I get some great photos of the sky over the sea, and meet a couple of wandering dogs. My mother seems to be the only person in the area who believes in having the dog on a lead – everyone else seems to let their dogs roam free…

Later, we walk up to the famine wall – a superfluous structure built by the starving locals for a pittance of pay from the English invaders during the famine. Stirring stuff.

Ruined church, mountain

Then off to Glenveigh National Park, to take in ruined churches, rolling mountains, lakes and greenery as far as I can see.

A trip to the pub rounds off the day – I settle by the turf fire for a fine pint of Guinness, but then have to wander out into the night to smoke – smoking in pubs has been illegal across Ireland for just over a year…

Up again (eventually) on Thursday, we take another walk with the dog, then a trip into Dungloe, the nearest “proper” town. Everything is priced in Euros, just like in Rome last year. What exactly is wrong with a single European currency? I hate getting ripped of by paying commission every time I buy or sell foreign money…

Some food shopping, a visit to the market, and a general wander around the town, then back to the house for dinner. I take Mum through my Flickr photos, and show her the photoset from my trip to Rome. It took forever on dialup, but it was good to remember that (slightly insane) holiday…

Later we settle down for another great home-cooked meal, and watch an old video of Shallow Grave, which I’d somehow managed never to watch.

Finally Friday comes, and with an early start (okay, 9 o’clock), a swift breakfast, and then it’s already time to go. Quite how the time passed so quickly I have no idea – I did so very little, bar wandering around the beautiful scenery, eating home cooking, and chattering away with my mother. We get on incredibly well now that we live apart, it’s a far cry from the incessant yelling matches of my teens.

It’s been a thoroughly relaxing few days, and in a lot of ways I’m envious of my mother’s lifestyle out here. Early retirement, to the tranquil idyllic setting of rural Ireland, the country of her birth, with her days free to walk the dog to the ocean and back, read any book or watch any film she likes, and gaze out across some staggering natural landscapes at her leisure. Of course, I couldn’t cope for even a few days without broadband or fast food takeaways, let alone live in a new country, leaving all of my friends behind.

Mum, dog, Atlantic

On the drive back to the airport I can take in all of the views I missed in the dark on the way here, and as we laugh listening to Irish talk radio as Belfast draws near, it feels a little like leaving home again… I’ll be back though.