Why was it so hard to write this colyoom?

Sitting in my car on the clifftop at Kilcummin Back Strand, I looked out at the sumptuous bay. The greenest of headlands deliver quintessential Ireland, as they fringe an empty beach sheltered by massive dunes.

I was about to walk this beloved beach, where my ashes will be scattered, and then watch the tide turn.

Call it meditation, mindfulness or mooky-mooky-moo.
I don’t care.

It’s what I do.
I’ve been watching tides turn for 35 years.

Find a rock or a piece of driftwood to sit on, breathe out and stare at a fixed point near the water’s edge.

A spiral of sandy wormcast.
A smooth black pebble.
The tip of a rock poking out above the ocean shallows.

Then watch that point until either it disappears, subsumed by the Atlantic Ocean, or is left high and dry as the waters recede.

Before I left the car my phone rang, and I’m told that my lovely mum’s care has cost the inheritance that might have bought me a house.

I’d never own a home, because my mum is still alive. Happy with that equation every day of the week.

18 months ago this was, after a 6 year tsunami of major life poop, including a divorce, two evictions and a rare bacterial infection that nearly killed me three times.

I’d lost all my savings, all my income, half a lung and my dog, alongside several lifetime friends, who chose my most vulnerable time to become angry with me.

Although the pain of those losses is indescribable, I give thanks that I still have many wonderful friends.

As the inimitable Dalooney put it:
“Jeeze Chazzer, I’ve never seen someone lose so many lifetime friends and have so many left!”

During those dark years I also discovered that my PRSI payments were a disaster, and when the time comes I’ll inherit just enough to exclude me from the means-tested pension.

Old age suddenly looked decidedly grim: no home, no income.

A couple of months after that clifftop call I had a terrible fallout with a close family member, which finished off whatever was left of my mental health.

I reached out to a close friend, unaware that they too were enduring mental health issues, and instead of comfort I was ridiculed in public.

Reach out, they say.
Let me tell you, reaching out is not always successful.

There then followed a hellish weekend I will never forget, chewing valium dawn 'til dawn, asking myself what is the point?

That’s when I discovered suicidal thoughts don't come with a fanfare.

No melodrama.
Not a scream in sight. Merely a deep sigh and fuck me, is it really worth it?
Life is such hard work.
Just too much hassle.

I’m blessed by the love of many, but nobody relies on me, so what difference would it make?

Then I thought of my beautiful friend who walked into the sea just the year before, and the pain I feel for her loss; that devastating grief of wishing I’d done more.

No. I wouldn’t put others through that.

Well, if I wasn't going to die, I had to sort my life out. After working all my life, I never imagined it ending homeless and penniless.

Loyal colyoomistas, be aware: none of us are far from that oblivion.

I thought about the guy who lived by the river. The weather forecast said that there was going to be a massive flood, but he prayed to God and felt safe.

Then a woman from the village come to tell him they were all evacuating, but our guy just smiled and said he trusted God to help him out.

When the rains came and the river flooded, a man came in a boat, but our guy just waved him past and prayed.

Then the flood came, so our guy was on the roof of his house when the helicopter arrived.

“No thanks, I’m not leaving. I trust in God.”

They flew off. Our guy drowned, and as soon as he arrived in Heaven he had a right go at God for abandoning him in his hour of need.

God shrugged and said:

“Oy! What more could I do? I sent you a weather forecast, and I sent a woman from the village. I sent a man in a boat, and I sent a team in a helicopter. I can’t help you if you refuse to help yourself.”

 

I can be a righteous pit-bull when I want to be. Like a dog with the scent of hare, I chased it.

I secured the signature of my lung consultant on my medical needs housing application form. He asserted that the old stables where I was holed up were mouldy and damp; lethal to a man with chronic lung conditions.

Then a local councillor agreed to be my advocate with Mayo County Council, and I enlisted another friend who has local political clout.

They both proved a massive help.

Six months ago I got the home, for which I gave thanks two colyooms ago, so take a look: click here to read it 

Around the same time a friend told me about a scheme that allowed me to pay retrospective contributions for a UK pension. I filled out the forms but doubted success, sure that my young hitching life was too peripatetic to qualify for any pension.

Fear is a powerful fuel, while the love of others offered me a whole heap of help.

I love being wrong. Like a rescue dog, I’m now in my forever home, and as of last week, after a rare miracle of bureaucratic efficiency, there’s the distinct possibility that I’ll qualify for an almost full UK pension.

I called the friend who encouraged me to apply for the scheme, and told him I will be forever grateful.

The vast majority of my life I have enjoyed swimming with the tide. From 2016 to 2024 that tide turned against me, and it was brutal.

Confession: I’ve been uncharacteristically nervous about hitting the right tone in this piece. Despite my fervent love for the passion of the First Draft with Capital Letters, there are rare colyooms such as this that leave your scribbler unable to whack it all down, as I usually do.

The first draft is the soul of writing, all subsequent efforts being editing, and it is my duty to preserve the passion and power of that first draft as I improve my work.

However this piece has been the opposite of a first draft. My emotions are still so raw that I managed only a series of short jabs to the keyboard, over weeks, as I came to terms with the profundity of safety.

This is not me telling you what you should do.
This is not me telling you to look at what a mighty man I am.
This is neither practical advice nor philosophical guidance.

This is simply the story of a process.
It’s what happened to me.
You might like to know.

15 months ago I had neither a home nor a pension.
Life was not worth living.
Now I’m safe.
My tide turned.



©Charlie Adley
28.07.2025

Backroads are best, but you do need cars to hitch!

Artwork as always from the excellent Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures Ireland.com

 

I’m watching the sun rise, vast and slow, through the glass wall of my friend’s West Cork clifftop eyrie.

A silver morning haze hangs over the ocean.
That sky will be blue within the hour.
A perfect day to hitch back to Galway.

My friend drops me on the Bandon Road. I’ve looked at the map, and decided that getting through Cork City might be tricky. Cut up to Mallow, a few backroads, sure, what’s the rush boy? You’re in Cork, d’ja’know?

My first lift comes from a nice guy in a Citroen Van, who wants to talk about my accent.

Then a lawnmower man pulls over, almost crashing into the transit van who also decides to stop for me.

My friend Susan reckons it’s something to do with my relationship with the Goddess of the Road. Whatever it is, I’m glad it works. Yer man tells me I should go to Cork City, but I feel it’s time to leave the main road, time to walk a few miles in the early morning sun.

A little old lady takes me three miles, saying “Oh I know!" over and over again. She drops me by a hedge, where I marvel at the beauty available to the hitcher.

What other form of transport offers you such a place? A gentle rush of flowing water from invisible grassy depths; birdsong; all the time in the world.

And then some.
No cars.

A farmer with the hairiest nose in the world stops his ancient Nissan Bluebird, tells me I should have gone to Cork City, and drives me one mile.

I never walk and hitch,. What’s the point? But I do walk until I find a good place to hitch. After a few miles around bends where the road is lined with hedgerows, I come finally to a small straight stretch.

Hitching is only empathy. Think like a driver.
The first car stops, and I am in a metal box with a mad woman. 

"Don’t mind me - I’m late. Where are you going? Mallow? Oh I am going to Macroom. I can take you to Macroom. Mallow? But I am not going to Mallow? Why are you on this road? Where are you going? I am turning for Macroom. Don’t mind me, I am very late. Why are you going to Macroom?”

She lets me out.
Ahhh.

As she wends her crazy way, I laugh out loud. I am in the most glorious place.

A river deep and blue
rolling verdant hills of velvet pasture
meadowsweet and cow parsley
crows cawing in the tall trees
wild cherry blossoms and bumble bees.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A woman approaches, walking. I smile, and understate the obvious.

"Lovely day!" to which she replies in a way that only a very small number of exclusively Irish are able

"We’ve got it too soon, so. Too soon, that’s what it is!"

She passes me, no eye contact, no hint of a smile. Astonishing attitude, yet a catalyst for me to enjoy the sunshine all the more.

Another short lift, from a charming man who talks of childhood bacon and cabbage. After he drops me off, I eat a chocolate bar watched by a herd of cows who come to make me feel guilty.

Horror of horrors, a truck crawls up the hill towards me, engine screaming in the redline howl of second gear.

Please don’t let him stop.

Please please, ple - oh shit. The truck is going so slowly, I'm walking along beside the open door, as it crawls along with its load of grit.

"Where you going? Mallow? Well, throw your bag on boy."

Over the next twenty minutes I employ various Zen techniques to turn this nightmare into a, like, positive experience, man.

Oh look how well I can see over the hedges, and how much time I have to watch the cows ruminating.

All life is the scream.
The engine scream.

And the rattle.

The scream and the rattle and the fact that he insists on shouting at me over this cacophonic duet.

I’m left at a dusty crossroads, where I stand for hours and hours and hours. There are two pubs (closed), a garage (who knows?) and a hair salon (closed), but apart from a woman in slippers and a very friendly dog, I see nobody.

No people. No Cars.

I begin gently hallucinating in shadeless sunshine.

Maybe I'm tripping.
Maybe Ireland is Spain.

After decades hitching, I know not to feel despair, but that crossroads pushes me close to it.

It’s taken me six hours not to get to Mallow.

A fast car with a yellow-shirted builder takes me to the outskirts of Mallow, where I climb up a steep bank and scramble onto the edge of the N20.

Aharrr, Jim Lad, look ye at all them cars!

A walk to the next exit ramp, and a lift to Charleville immediately.

"In all fairness, now, in all fairness, I have to say, I have to. How old do you think, in all fairness, a turkey might live for, as much as you can say, in all fairness?"

Maybe I am mad, and they are all wonderfully sane.

A sales rep wants to turn a bad day into a good one, so he takes me to pick up his child and girlfriend, and then drives me all the way over to the other side of Limerick, just so that I can swiftly pick up a ride.

I do, in a transit with a guy who tells me he’s not slept for three days. He decides to drop me at Shannon Airport, (what is that socks smell?) where Victor picks me up, and tells me of Nigeria as he whisks me to Ennis.

The sun is drooping a little, my legs are falling off me, and it’s a long old walk through Ennis. I pray, just in case Susan is right about my Goddess.

She’s right. A car suddenly pulls over, blocking the traffic, and the lady in it asks me if I know the road to Gort. I tell her I am hitching on it. She tells me to jump in.

I’ll be in Galway before dark. That pint...

The very amiable Philip picks me up from Gort, whisking me around, to buy a wheelbarrow and borrow an electric planer.

From Kilcolgan I am delivered to Galway by a man with a fixed babyface smile, who speaks of pouring the concrete for his house tomorrow, and how since yesterday he is the proud father of Rebecca.

Finally, I’m walking along the Eglington Canal, towards that Galway City pint.

As I enter Taylor’s Bar on Dominic Street, the last drop of light drifts from a long day’s sky.

 

 

 

©Charlie Adley

 22.07.2025