Every year it
rains buckets throughout July and August, yet every year everyone says
“Sure
isn’t it terrible, we’ve had no Summer at all, no Summer to speak of at all!”
Well I’m not
disappointed, because that was a typical Galway Summer.
Being a
pedantic old sod, I was much more irritated by the little sponsorship identitag
Avonmore showed before the Summer weather forecast on RTE.
“Add some
plant sterols to your daily routine” or somesuch it said, as we were shown a
glass of Avonmore Heart Active milk being poured into a bowl of cereal,
blueberries, peaches and other fresh fruit.
You’re eating
blueberries, peaches and other fresh fruit? So why in the name of all good
things in the Universe do you need plant sterols in your milk?
Harrumph and
middle aged man’s pathetic little grumble over, I’m looking forward to that
reversal of weather we in the West of Ireland enjoy in Spring and Autumn, with
high pressure bringing dry easterly winds.
I love those
sunny Autumn Galway days, where there’s a nip in the air under clear blue skies
and the tourists have all gone home thinking it does nothing but rain in Ireland.
Time to sit in
your garden, if you’re lucky enough to have one, and look at the withered
plants that once dared to impose colour onto those wet Summer days. So don’t be
in a rush to put away your garden furniture.
I’d be sitting
on mine, were it not for the misguided generosity of Soldier Boy.
‘Twas years
ago, a few days before the Snapper and I were to be married, that Soldier Boy
headed out to buy our wedding present. He’d asked, so we said any help with
garden furniture would be brilliant. We were living in a terraced house with a
tiny patio garden, where a small table and chairs would do the job.
So off he went
to B&Q to buy just that. His intentions were more than honourable but he
was still physically attached to his testicles, so as soon as he entered the
shop his Alpha Male eyes were drawn to exactly where B&Q wanted them: a
massive gas barbeque on display, pure cool, with shelves for your kebabs,
scrapy area for your scrapy bits, handles for your tools and skewers, hangy
hooks for your cold bottles of beer and pepper spray canisters, and an area
underneath big enough to store the smoke-infused wood chippings of four giant
redwoods.
Best of all, it had a huge lid with a built-in dial that had a needle
that had a Red Zone.
I imagine
Soldier Boy coming over all wobbly.
This was a
barbeque with a Red Zone.
Man oh man oh
man! How could they not want this?
Wasn’t it the best thing anyone could ever
buy anyone for a wedding present?
A few hours
later the Snapper came home and jumped out of her skin when she saw two people
crouched down in the back garden. To make the best ever barbeque the best ever
surprise, Soldier Boy had secretly recruited the Snapper's friend, climbed over
our back wall, opened the gate and assembled the barbeque for our delectation
and delight.
We all stood
back with our hands on our hips and looked at it. The air was roasting from the
glowing smile burning off Soldier Boy’s proud face.
“It’s great
mate! Massive. Let’s sit down and look at it. Oh we can’t. We’ve got no garden
furniture!”
Now we had a
vast new barbeque but nowhere to put it where we might not see it. We moved it
over to the fence, where after a few weeks it started to become one with the
clematis. When it threatened to become more hedge than barbeque, I went back to
B&Q and paid 40 quid for its own special made-to-measure plastic cover.
Then a chefly
friend of the Snapper asked us he if he could borrow it for his annual summer
bash, so off it went to Knocknacarra, where he had to spend 25 quid on an
adapter so that it could run off an Irish gas cylinder. Then he had to buy a
gas cylinder, and then he cooked up a storm on it, using all the jangles and
mangles and blowers and stowers because he’s a chef and knows how to.
He has it
still. We don’t need it, but ironically now have a garden big enough to swallow
it up and spit it out, as if it were merely an insignificant little pipsqueak
of a barbeque.
So that
friends and family visiting for the wedding might sit somewhere, the Snapper
and I nipped off yet again to the dreaded B&Q and bought a table and four
chairs for the patio.
The set proved perfect, so of course, years later, we
bought it with us the day we moved house.
Solider Boy
arrived to help early that day, eager and happy to start shifting all our
stuff, for which I was truly grateful.
In fact so
great was his spirit and enthusiasm that I still smiled and never said a word
as I saw him unload the garden table out of the back of the van, and slam it
onto the gravel of our new driveway. I smiled even as I watched the fittings
and rivets fly off the table into the distance, knowing that he had no idea the
table was truly broken.
A small
strangely poetic part of my soul saw the irony in it; thought it was funny. I
waited a long time (in truth - until I needed to have one over on him!) to tell
Soldier Boy that while he’d acted with generosity in his soul, thanks to his
unique efforts, we now had neither a table nor a barbeque.
Enjoy the
sunshine when it comes. I’ll be lying on the grass.
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