Sanity lies in Killala Bay!

Thanks as always to Allan Cavanagh of caricatures-ireland.com

Fleeing the madness that has been Galway City for the past few weeks, I head for north Mayo, where I lived for three happy years.

My god, it's empty.

The road from Crossmolina to Killala takes in sweeping Big Sky vistas, and I feel more relaxed with every empty-road mile that goes by.

Stopping at the lisheen to visit a much-missed friend, I see another car drive up.

A stranger? Somebody to invade my new-found space? No, lovely, it's a close friend.

We hug, part, and I am alone again.

Even though I lived within it, I have forgotten the power of this silence.

There is no noise, save for the wind, the rain, the crows in the trees.

If it's not too Irish a suggestion from an Englishman, compared to the melée of Quay Street or the chaos of the Headford Road roundabout, these noises offer a heavenly silence.

North Mayo is Ireland's, and very possibly Europe's best kept secret, and I want it left that way.

So hear me now. Upon finishing this colyoom, you will forget you ever read about it.

Driving straight through the village and on, out westwards, I pass the houses of all the people I want to visit later, and head straight for the nearest beach.

Pulling into the car park, I notice straight away that this beach has changed once again. The long stretch of sand to my left has gone, doubtless washed away in a brutal summer storm.

Where footprints sat glowing there now lie bruising boulders, bladder and wrack, dead jellyfish and molluscs a-million.

Looking far across the bay, I can see the sand that was once here now lines an extended shore of Bartragh island.

Some day the beach will return.

Right now all I want to do is get out of the car and cavort, waddle and stumble in ecstasy at my return.

Out of sight of everyone, I head off to the wormcast meadows of soaking sand stretching out to the lowest of tide lines.

Suddenly overloaded with memories of many afternoons and many walks, just here, just me alone with my thoughts and North Mayo's Forty Shades of Grey, my heart fails to cope, and yikes, I'm leaking from the eyes.

As if to harden myself, I turn around so that I'm facing the westerly wind, which whips my face with wet lashes.

Up above on the clifftop is the long thin house, where windows are open... and yes, an alarm is ringing.

Ringing ringing; the pointless ringing of a burglar alarm, where no burglar has ever trod, taking over all I can hear, mocking our species.

Is that the best we can do?

Does that boring ugly noise represent the sum total of our contribution to this wondrous universe?

All around me nature is gently permanently splendidly doing its thing. Out there in the grey blue green waters of the bay, I have seen dolphins leaping, Brent geese resting and seals lazing, yet what do we have to offer the scene?

A noise that serves no purpose.

50 yards further on, and the noise has gone. The wind picks up, and I hide under my jacket's hood. 

Waves build and crash in the distance.

Gulls screech and dive, plummeting into the ocean to spear their dinner.

Inside my hood I hear the rain on the outside; my heart pumping after my rock-hopping exertions; my raspy breathing.

I can hear my breathing.

Smiling smugly, I feel so happy I could weep again - but I don't.

No need.

I have arrived at my place.

For a second, I think of the crowds back home. Right at this moment, there's many-a punter and a shed load of workers who'd give a limb to be here, listening to the sound of their own breath.

Hallelujah.


©Charlie Adley
19.07.07.

I'm seeing how the other half live, by living like my sister!

My sister is a wonderful and beautiful person, as are her two daughters, my nieces. Not only are they attractive, generous and warm-hearted, but also they enjoy a lifestyle that ranks them up there with the 'beautiful people'.
For the last nine days, while they are away in Beverly Hills on a working holiday, I have been living alone in their house, looking after their two cats and being around for my parents, who live just around the corner.
Thankfully my Dad is now back home, feeling generally better, and as far as he is concerned, altogether fine.
The rest of us are still living each day as it comes, because we, possibly more than him, are fully aware of the gravity of what happened.
Had I not offered to stay here, my sister would have cancelled her holiday, so it really was not a difficult decision to make.
These trips to southern California are vital to my sister, not only because they replenish her spirit and soul, but also because she is able to do vital business, as the most exclusive of high fashion companies come to sell their lines to her as she sunbathes by the hotel pool.
From one tiny clothes shop in north-west London, my sister has for the last 30 years financed the lifestyles to which she and her girls have become accustomed. My respect for her knows no bounds, especially as she has done with her life exactly what I have done with mine own: identify what it is she loves to do, and then made a living out of it.
The main difference between us is that while my lifestyle is full to the brim with the riches of humanity and love, it is not exactly stuffed with cash, whereas my sister's is, to use one of her favourite words, 'stunning.'
Each day during my stay I endeavour to do the two things that maintain my sanity; that is, to walk and to write.
The former has proved easy, although trailing along the pavements of polluted London roads serves only to make me really miss my view over Galway Bay to County Clare.
The latter, the writing, has proved more difficult. Even though the house is empty save for me and the cats, there flows through the place an incredible and seemingly endless torrent of staff who come to 'do' things.
In the last seven days, the house has been cleaned twice by Milla, who sings as she bangs around the house. After she left on the first day the place was immaculate, and the next day, as far as I could make out, she stripped the beds of the very same sheets she had cleaned the previous day, washed and ironed the sheets and then remade the same beds with the same sheets.
A few days later the lovely Yasmin came to wash down the paintwork and clean the house yet again.
By the time she arrived, the house had also been visited by the gardener; the pool man (who, as far as I could make out, did nothing but take a leaf blower to the leaves floating on top of the cover of the heated swimming pool in the back garden!); the car washers and the window cleaners.
How fantastic it must be to go off on holiday leaving your house messy and dirty, only to return to find it all shiny and sparkly, fluffed up pretty pillows sitting on pristine ironed sheets.
In the meantime, I am losing touch with reality. Life as I normally know it is but a distant memory. I have been home for 9 days in 5 weeks, and feel a little bewildered in my sister's world of luxury.
As I sit simultaneously recording and watching TV programmes on her Sky+ big screen TV, I watch the steam rising from her swimming pool, aware that under the pool cover, a wheeled droid patrols the pool bottom, cleaning algae and picking up leaves as it goes on its 24 hour a day journey.
Everywhere I go there are TV's. There is of course a TV in the TV room, but there is also one in the lounge-dining room, and one in each of the four bedroom upstairs. In bed at night, as I reach for the remote control to adjust the air-conditioning, I worry how this house leaves upon our planet a carbon footprint the size of Cyprus.
As I sit here scribbling, the dishwasher gurgles behind me, reminding me of a time 20 years ago when my lovely nieces visited me in my London flat.
I always took them both out on their birthdays, and the highlight of each trip would be a ride on a bus, because Uncle Charlie didn't have a car back then.
My nieces are heavenly creatures, but they never travelled on public transport, so I saw these treats as part of their education.
Anyway, on one such occasion, just before we were about to leave the flat, I was finishing off washing a few dishes that had been lying in the sink.
The older of my nieces suddenly frowned and looked plain scared.
"Ch-Ch-Charlie! What are you doing?" she spluttered.
"I'm just doing the dishes!" I replied, only to see her take a deep lungful of breath and scan every nook and cranny of my skanky old kitchen.
"But but but where is you dishwasher?" they chorused together.
"Don't have one, girls. Not everybody has a dishwasher, you know!"
But, quite simply, they didn't, and they still don't.
I begrudge my sister and her girls not one penny-pinching grote of their lovely life. I am happy that they can drive their Mercs and Beemers around the leafy suburbs. They work bloody hard and happen to sell a lot of very expensive clothes to exceedingly wealthy people.
All I wonder is that if they have never experienced any kind of real or relative financial hardship, how on earth do they fully appreciate what they have?
Personally, I love my life the way it is back in Salthill, and having lived way too close to several fiscal edges, am most thankful for everything I own and rent.
Obviously I never want my sister and her daughters to suffer in any way, but I hope that in their quest for the heights of style they do not miss the wonders of the true substance of life.
cadley1@eircom.net

She's harmless and innocent, so why do I want to kill her?

It's just as well that security is so tight at airports these days. The bloke at the baggage X-ray machine told me my Olbas Oil and Anti-Snoring spray had to go.
I shrugged and didn't bother to ask how eucalyptus oil in two differing forms might constitute a threat to mankind, while my snoring might well do just that.
Anyway, in retrospect, I am pleased that he was on the case, and I am delighted that I do not at this moment have a gun in my possession.
Because if I did I would most certainly use it. A pistol would do, but ideally a nice Uzi would be more pleasing. Seeing her shplattered with bullets and riddled with holes.
Then again, probably not such a good idea to shoot too many rounds when you're 33,000 feet up in a pressurised metal box.
One good shot to the head. A deadly blow delivered with cold-blooded venom. That'd do it.
The worst thing is, I'm sure she's a really lovely woman. She absolutely does not deserve to be ruthlessly murdered for anything she has done in the last hour. But I can't help it. I want her dead, gone out of the Universe.
I was the first person to board this Ryanair flight. As a passenger carrying only hand luggage, I had scored the right to check-in online, when I booked my ticket, and printed my own boarding pass at home.
This meant that not only could I go straight through to security and my departure gate, avoiding long queues in the main Departures Hall, but also I was able to join the Priority Boarding queue for the plane.
Mind you, as you might imagine, I didn't feel too great when a young woman with three tiny kids was told she could not join the Priority Boarding queue. She protested that people with small children could always board early.
The sad, embarrassed and harassed ServisAir worker explained that it was not up to her; it was Ryanair's choice; there was nothing she could do; contact the airline; sorry.
Ryanair changed everything about flying.
What was once an expensive and special treat has now become a cheap and dehumanising chore.
Last week on the radio I listened to a mother giving out about how Ryanair had taken her off a flight because she refused to pay ¤75.00 for a wheelchair and helper for her son to board the plane.
Despite explaining to ground crew that she had her own wheelchair, and that she could carry her six year-old cerebral palsied son herself, they told her neither was possible.
Ryanair owner Michael O'Leary has performed miracles. This year his airline will carry over 50 million passengers (more than British Airways) on 454 routes over 24 countries. In tandem, his airline regularly scores humanitarian own-goals, and often makes its passengers feel like miserable cattle.
O'Leary takes the stand declaring that you get what you pay for. On this particular occasion, I have secured a return flight to London for only 85 quid all-in, and now, because my only bag is on my shoulder, I fit Ryanair's' Perfect Passenger profile, and get to board early.
So there I am, sitting smug and sound at my window seat when she comes along, tapping me on the shoulder, asking if there is anyone sitting in the other two seats.
An innocent and perfectly reasonable request, but her tone and style make me want to throw my hands up in the air and declare
"Ja! Ich bin Jude! Ich bin Jude! Point me to your death camp! I'll come quietly!"
As to exactly why she elicits this reaction I cannot tell you. She's in her fifties, of medium height and build, with grey hair, a white blouse and brown trousers. She's a completely typical west of Ireland farmer's wife. Abrupt she was, but nasty, no. Not a bone of her body was evil, and yet, a hour later, I wanted to kill her.
Having secured permission to sit, she brought along her slightly larger friend, who sat next to me, and placed herself on the aisle seat.
She could have been one of those souls you see on RTE when the Angelus sounds, hesitating whilst doing some kind of inane task to look contemplative and heavenward as the bells rang out over the Haemorrhoid Isle.
From the moment the plane's wheels left the ground her mouth did not stop farting words.
When she talked, every single sentence was prefixed with that stalwart of Joe Duffy listeners
'Wayll ennyweh...'
and when I say every sentence I mean every single sentence.
'Wayll ennyweh...''Wayll ennyweh...''Wayll ennyweh...''Wayll ennyweh...''Wayll ennyweh...'
Thankfully she was polite and respectful enough to allow her friend to do most of the talking, but even then she managed to turn your friendly neighbourhood colyoomist from an accepting and liberal human into a nascent insane killer.
Every two words, not three, not five, but every two words spoken by her companion were accompanied by
'Yes yes yes.'
Sometimes she gave in to the rebellious nonconformist nutter insider her, and varied her song to sing
'Yes yes yeh.'
Hence the soundtrack ran something like this: 'So Bridget-'
'Yes yes yes.'
'-told Tom-'
'Yes yes yeh.'
'-that she-'
'Yes yes yes.'
'-was cooking-'
'Yes yes yeh.'
And so it went. The two harmless women chatted away in easy patter, of topics jam and Am-Dram, while the bloke to their right went silently and seriously apoplectic.
Was she like this all the time? Did she not realise how annoying, and indeed rude it was?
Had not one person in her life admonished her, or ever pointed out that it really kind of helps to be able to get at least half a sentence out of your mouth without the person you are speaking to doubling your words for theirs.
Or maybe it's just me. Maybe somebody should accuse me of being an intolerant grumpy old bastard from wayback, who has lost the ability to enjoy the company of his fellow human.
'Yes yes yeh.'
cadley1@eircom.net
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