Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Scene 1:
It is the late afternoon. A young couple have been driving through the wilderness of Connemara all day. They approach a t-junction in the middle of nowhere, just past Roundstone on the R341. A Land Rover with a Horse-box sits at the side of the road. As the couple dither about which way to turn, there being a distinctly Irish number of signs on the road, a horn is sounded from the direction of the Land Rover. The driver within, on his mobile phone, beckons to the driver of the young couple's car. For some reason, this puts him into a state of readiness to take whatever is coming (rather than drive away quickly as he would do back in England). So both drivers exit vehicles and meet at the crossroads...
Land Rover Man: I need a lift to Ballyconneely
Me: Oh, ok. (to the missus) Are we going there?
She: Yeah, we are actually.
Me: Ok, do get in.
Land Rover Man: Hang on, i've just got to make a call to check about the keys.
And he stands there for 5 minutes talking away about keys an flicking through a keyring while we sit there wondering how this has happened. And then all our crap is cleared from the backseat as this grand old Galway country gent in full riding regalia gets his muddy self into our car and settles down for a short ride and a good chat.
Me: So what's up? is your car broken down then? Will your horse be alright there on it's own?
LRM: Ah no. I have to get over there to pick up some horses. There's no horse in the box yet. The car's not broken down at all. But there's 7 or 8 of my horses coming down this way and I have to get them. Have you seen them?
Me: I don't think so. Honey, did you notice some horses back there?
She: No I didn't see any.
LRM: I expect they'll be along. We may see them on the way. So... do you prefer Ireland to England now?
After our initial shock at being asked the 64,000 euro question at last after a year here (and as his opening question too) and giving our best answer (which im not giving away), there ensues a long conversation about england, ireland, dublin, galway blahdeblah. choice snippets of his include:
"I have 1600 acres of mountain and seven loughs down in Loughrea....I don't have time to fish for the lovely brown trout anymore...I run a horse museum....pop in sometime and i'll give you both a tea...see those rocks over there. they're seals, they're not rocks at all"
They are rocks
So anyway, we enter Ballyconneely and go up through some lane or another until we get to a house with a Land Rover parked outside. He gets out and thanks us profusely, then pulls out a set of keys and opens up the Land Rover and drives off. Bizarre.
So, to summarise...
He isnt broken down. He isn't in a hurry. He doesn't have a horse in the single horse-box. He has to pick up seven or eight horses that might be running wild. He needs a lift from one of his functioning Land Rovers to another of his functioning Land Rovers. He simply saw the first car that came across his path and expected it would be alright to grab a lift off them, no questions asked and no obligation to provide a consistent explanation. And d'you know, he was quite right.
I hope that's clear.
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It is the late afternoon. A young couple have been driving through the wilderness of Connemara all day. They approach a t-junction in the middle of nowhere, just past Roundstone on the R341. A Land Rover with a Horse-box sits at the side of the road. As the couple dither about which way to turn, there being a distinctly Irish number of signs on the road, a horn is sounded from the direction of the Land Rover. The driver within, on his mobile phone, beckons to the driver of the young couple's car. For some reason, this puts him into a state of readiness to take whatever is coming (rather than drive away quickly as he would do back in England). So both drivers exit vehicles and meet at the crossroads...
Land Rover Man: I need a lift to Ballyconneely
Me: Oh, ok. (to the missus) Are we going there?
She: Yeah, we are actually.
Me: Ok, do get in.
Land Rover Man: Hang on, i've just got to make a call to check about the keys.
And he stands there for 5 minutes talking away about keys an flicking through a keyring while we sit there wondering how this has happened. And then all our crap is cleared from the backseat as this grand old Galway country gent in full riding regalia gets his muddy self into our car and settles down for a short ride and a good chat.
Me: So what's up? is your car broken down then? Will your horse be alright there on it's own?
LRM: Ah no. I have to get over there to pick up some horses. There's no horse in the box yet. The car's not broken down at all. But there's 7 or 8 of my horses coming down this way and I have to get them. Have you seen them?
Me: I don't think so. Honey, did you notice some horses back there?
She: No I didn't see any.
LRM: I expect they'll be along. We may see them on the way. So... do you prefer Ireland to England now?
After our initial shock at being asked the 64,000 euro question at last after a year here (and as his opening question too) and giving our best answer (which im not giving away), there ensues a long conversation about england, ireland, dublin, galway blahdeblah. choice snippets of his include:
"I have 1600 acres of mountain and seven loughs down in Loughrea....I don't have time to fish for the lovely brown trout anymore...I run a horse museum....pop in sometime and i'll give you both a tea...see those rocks over there. they're seals, they're not rocks at all"
They are rocks
So anyway, we enter Ballyconneely and go up through some lane or another until we get to a house with a Land Rover parked outside. He gets out and thanks us profusely, then pulls out a set of keys and opens up the Land Rover and drives off. Bizarre.
So, to summarise...
He isnt broken down. He isn't in a hurry. He doesn't have a horse in the single horse-box. He has to pick up seven or eight horses that might be running wild. He needs a lift from one of his functioning Land Rovers to another of his functioning Land Rovers. He simply saw the first car that came across his path and expected it would be alright to grab a lift off them, no questions asked and no obligation to provide a consistent explanation. And d'you know, he was quite right.
I hope that's clear.
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