A car trip, a dog with a dodgy tum and a stressed-out hubby made for a memorable day out recently.
• HEADING into the Bank Holiday Weekend and my thoughts aren’t centred around getting the boat out (mainly because I don’t have a boat), but are down to the fact that I’m entirely preoccupied by how fast the year is going. It blows my mind that we’re already into May. I’ve only one word: how?
Now, having said that I’m a firm believer in having something planned (maritime or otherwise) for the bank holidays, especially the summer ones, as otherwise the bonus day gets sucked up into the general business of life (laundry) and loses all value.
Tragically, I have to overcome that principle this particular bank holiday weekend as I’ll be mainly panic-buying bedding plants (apparently you can’t go wrong with begonias ... or can you?) in a last ditch effort to spruce the place up before the ‘Big C’ (yes, I’m still on about the communion), googling ways to zap back fat (I mean, isn’t middle age hard enough without also having to deal with back fat?) and frantically counting my plates, glasses and cutlery and so on and so forth until I most likely lose my teeny tiny little mind.
Luckily, we had a superb day out on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, which will sustain me as I try and figure out if 19 wine glasses, 13 tumblers and an assortment of those little glasses that came with Nutella will be enough. Sod it .... paper cups all round,
right?
Anyway, back to the day out. We headed to Gougane Barra, a place I hadn’t been to in over four decades. It was always a popular destination for us to visit as a family when we were kids, but I think the last time I was there was on a school tour when I was in fourth class. You can do the math.
I remember that earlier, we had been to Dunmanway Swimming Pool and then it was on to Gougane. We could hardly cope with the excitement and this time round we were buzzing just as much!
There was only one slight quandary to overcome before we could head off and that was what to do with Billy (the puppy). Some of us (husband and I) figured he’d be fine on his own and that he would even enjoy some time to himself (sure he’s even putting himself to bed at this stage). Others (the nine-year-old) were thinking the exact opposite: how could we have a family day out and leave one member behind? When she put it like that, there was nothing for it – Billy was on board.
My main reason for leaving him behind is that like lots of dogs he suffers from travel sickness and it’s all very ... unpleasant. I’ll spare you the details, but the stains on the car seats are there to remind me.
My mother advised sitting him on newspapers which is supposed to be a good remedy for animals and humans who suffer from motion sickness, and as an added precaution, we had him riding shotgun. All he was missing was a pair of sunglasses, he looked that delighted with life as we headed off.
I’ll admit to being a bit put out initially at being relegated to the back, but once my travelling companion (the nine-year-old) sorted the playlist (APT on repeat), and I opened some snacks, it wasn’t just Billy who was living their best lives. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for our driver (husband, especially when poor Billy started making these funny gaggy, gurgly noises around Inchigeelagh where the road gets very twisty.
We had a big roll of that blue tissue paper with us in the back in case of such an emergency and tossed it to the front, but only after we made a sort of makeshift curtain with it, blocking the gap between the two seats, to protect us from any ... unpleasantness. We were in the first class seats after all!
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I can see now how that wasn’t too helpful: leaving my husband to navigate the windy road, a gagging doggy and two giddy passengers in the back singing along to Bruno Mars. Giving it Billy-o so to speak. It might explain how even though Billy actually made it from Timoleague to Gougane without incident (a minor miracle), our driver abandoned the car in the first available parking spot and bolted straight to the gorgeous little chapel.
When we caught up, he was just sitting there with his head in his hands – it looked like he was deep in prayer but he told me afterwards he was wondering how he was going to face the journey back. Ah sure, it was nothing a few Hail Marys and some lunch in the local hotel didn’t sort before we headed off on a walk in the stunning national forest which stretches to a splendid 300-plus acres.
There were so many tourists, of so many different nationalities there the day we visited and dare I say it, Billy was as much of an attraction as anything else. We couldn’t take five steps without someone stopping to pat his head or admire him, which was just as well as Billy doesn’t like taking more than five steps on the lead anyway! I was nearly getting a bit jealous in the end ... I mean what’s Billy got that I haven’t? (less back fat perhaps for starters?).
Anyway, after a gorgeous day out we had two choices: check into the hotel (husband contemplated it I swear), or drive home. No amount of coaxing could encourage a poo from Billy but we hit the road and he slept like a baby the whole way home. Must have been all those Hail Marys. If you haven’t been to this part of West Cork in a while I’d encourage it and while we only drove through Inchigeelagh, its charm was off the scale. We’ll be back (although maybe without Billy who savaged a Barbie on his return after his epic nap). We had another fabulous afternoon out over Easter taking in the attractions of Rosscarbery and Castlefreke, reminding me that at a time when so much of the world is accessible, we can sometimes forget what’s on our doorstep. What’s local is lovely. Next on my list of my never-before-visited spots are Heir and Dursey Islands.
Hopefully I’ll remember that. I should make a list but I’d probably only lose it. My memory is gone to pot in a most alarming way – entirely evaporated, a bit like the water on the vegetables I routinely forget to switch off. Just recently I left eggs boiling for a good 50 minutes on the hob. I wouldn’t recommend it but they didn’t taste too bad.
Last Sunday morning I asked Alexa to turn on Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ Radio 1 – maybe it was my diction or the background commotion but she misheard me as asking for Brandan Shine and it honestly took me around 15 minutes to even cop. My ‘to do’ list the other day says it all: it featured ‘hospital’ and ‘Finbarr’ and I had absolutely no idea what either meant. So far there hasn’t been any fall-out but if I was meant to take a Finbarr to hospital, I do apologise.
