You know when you’ve been Galwayed!

 

 Artwork by the excellent Allan Cavanagh of Carictures Ireland

I’ve been Galwayed. Galwayed good and proper, that’s what I am right now.

I had a double Galway: both city and county.

If I’d mixed the county after the city, I might not be feeling so bewildered and crap.

But I didn’t.

So I do.

My head is crushed, my thoughts spinning in negative spirals that I know well to leave alone.

This is not about a hangover.

Being Galwayed is a combination of sleep deprivation, excess consumption, over-stimulation of sensory experience and a glut of social auld bollox that seems substantial at the time, yet fades into ephemera with the first snore of your sweaty comatose night.

Coming or going are concepts you abandon while truly Galwayed.

As I write this I know that it’s Monday, but it could be Saturday, Flipday or tomorrow.

I’m going to pin the guilt for the whole sad and wonderful day on the sun, which rises so early and sets so late over Galway at this time of year, you wake up three hours before you’ve gone to sleep.

So yesterday, Sunday morning, at 5am, I open my eyes, go for the middle-aged peeper, and realise to my horror that I am quite awake.

I go back to bed but I’m half thinking about herself getting home safely, and half thinking about how that’ll be fine, and half thinking about the blue sky and sunshine and how you can’t have three halves.

So I get up at silly o’clock on a Sunday, and walk the causeway to Mutton Island under blue skies before the shops are open, wondering how to fill my day off.

Even when you work for yourself, you have to have days off, where sloth is no crime.

But today is a day for action. Firing up Shiny Car, I do what I do most naturally, and head west, excited at the prospect of a very early very empty road to Clifden.

Connemara looks jaw-droppingly stunning, as piercing summer sunshine is hidden and released by towering tumultuous storm clouds.

The Maamturk Mountains themselves appear to move, as vast black shadows travel at speed above and across them.

Your scribbler arrives in Clifden at 10:15, and takes a most excellent breakfast in the Off The Square Restaurant.

Great service, fab food, followed by a stroll down to the bridge on the Ballyconneely road, to watch the river cascade a while and build a thirst.

All the serious pubs are shut.

Himself the Goat is not responding to texts, and why would he?

What am I doing in Clifden so bloomin’ early on a Sunday?

Well, now what?

Back in Shiny, to drive at a more leisurely pace back to Galway. I pick up a hitcher in Oughterrard.

We chat and laugh and then I’m back, aimless and hyper in Rahoon (never a good combination). I call round to Angel, but he’s not about, and Soldier Boy has been out since yesterday fortnight, so I’ll leave him be.

I go home and see her curtains upstairs still drawn. I sit and try to read the Sunday papers but no, not for me, not today.

Something is eating me up, so I drive into town not knowing if I really even want to go into town.

Instead of parking in the Claddagh, I drive down Henry Street and for some reason decide to pointlessly pootle in circles around the town centre.

Sitting alone outside Tigh Neactain, watching Sunday strangers throng with cameras, up pops the Artist Formerly Known As Snarly. 

We wander across to the Quays, where we talk of religion, fly fishing and zombies in dreams.

Then I wander up to God knows where looking for the Devil knows who, and stumble into Dalooney outside Tigh Coili, who persuades me to have a pint.

Half of me is still in Connemara, half of me still on the road, half of me in bed asleep and the other half suddenly holding a pint that somehow makes sense in a world with too many damnable halves in it.

But I’m driving and have to call it a day, so I walk over the bridge and bump into The Waistcoat, who thrusts a can of Apples into my hand, and feeling bad and reckless and boring and mediocre I sit and chat as we reminisce of 80’s London and great travels and watch the river flow past.

Then, knowing that this is one of only 3 occasions in my long life when I have driven whilst possibly over the limit, I drop the car back to Salthill.

Her bedroom curtains are still closed, so I go into the house, have a blissful peeper, and head off, again, into the city, feeling like Martin Sheen going into the jungle in ‘Apocalypse Now!’

Deadly black clouds are hanging huge and low. Me no walky, no be soaky.

Get a bus? But no, there’ll be an age to wait, but look at that cloud and ennyhoodyhoo, why are you going in when you haven’t any money you fool and look -Yahoo! - there’s a bus!

‘Tis a sign.

‘Tis meant to be.

‘Tis written.

Amen.

Quay Street again, where first I gorge myself on heavenly piping hot salty vinegary chips from McDonaghs, and then head towards the motley crew of eccentrics, musicians and gobshites (myself included) hanging outside Coili's.

Dalooney and the Waistcoat show great generosity with the drink, and I know I’m being Galwayed, but I don’t care, because at that moment I care about neither future happiness nor past pain.

Herself texts to say she is coming into town to pick up her car, left in town the night before, and would I like a lift home?

Finding myself incapable of texting properly, I realise that thanks to the beauty of Connemara and the kindness of friends, I've managed to get Galwayed.

Oh yes. Hallelujah! You know when you've been Galwayed.

Back home, wrapped entirely in the synthetic warmth of the Chelsea blanket, I sit mouth agape, dribbling staring unblinking at a procession of godawful Sunday evening white chocolate TV dramas.

 

©Charlie Adley

06.07.2009