From Clare to Here

It's a long, long way from Clare to here, it's a long, long way, and it gets further day by day, it's a long, long way from Clare to here. Tell that to Liam, as he did all the driving. We've had our excursion all around the fair isle of Eireann, or Ireland to the foreigners, and the blood is just about coming back into my nether regions, just around the corner of my hip. I suggested we go down to Clare and this intuition was confirmed for the inspiration that it was whenever a waitress in Belleek, Fermanagh, asked us where we were thinking of going. She asked this as I was wearing my pink top and plaid suncap doing my best to look like an American tourist. I said we were like just coasting man, catching the admiration in her eye as I spoke these words, and she said she had been in Ennis, Clare, a while before and she had thought it lovely. Good enough for me, words from heaven straight from the horses mouth - if the waitress would forgive such an analogy - and off to Clare we were. By the time we got there we had seen some of the rocky Ox mountains in Sligo and visited Cong, of The Quiet Man fame. Liam did his best John Wayne impression by remaining silent most of the time. Peter was just glad to get back in the car out of the mid-afternoon sun. Onwards and southwards and by jimminy if it wasn't Ennis before we knew where we were, just a mere 10 hours after our leaving of Baile Menach, or Ballymena to the English in the audience. Liam was sad to stop, but I said no, enough's enough, and practically had to force him to stop ... hitting me.

I did my thing with the Spanish receptionist of the Hotel California and before we had decided whom she liked best she had shown us to our hostel quarters in a room with several other nationalities. We seized the moment for international cultural exchange by popping off for a wee siesta, uniting an irish word and a Spanish word in a blessed action. We horserode the next morning, me getting the right pony as always! Peter's one didn't want him to fall off so it provided him with a back the size of a sofa to sit on. Liam's was male and didn't take orders well. Liam had his little boy lost look, the boy that Santa Claus forgot, the boy with a sore thumb that no one could ever kiss better, and the horse duly threw Liam's head against a leafy branch on the way down a stoney path. He held on for dear life, but at least this time the safety hat he was wearing fitted him. There was that time last year in Carlingford ... but that's another story. Thank God I didn't kill him then ... it was close. This time he stayed on the vehicle of choice.

We spent a few nights cruising the local bars looking for the best Irish music, and I had the pleasure of a number of moments of solitude as the dynamic duo left me to go outside to smoke de temps en temps, much in a sophisticated continental sort of way. Then on up through The Burren in Clare, through the wonder that is Connemara, and settling, for a night, in Ballyshannon. We had intended to go up as far as Carndonagh, but Liam got to Castlebar, took a look at where Carndonagh was on the map and began to cry. A waitress in a pub in Castlebar came over and maternally gave him and me extra coffee and we looked at her like lambs who had just been rounded up. But by Ballyshannon we were back in the saddle again, ready to kiss or fight dependent on the sex. I put up the tent, Peter put the tea on, both the liquid and solid varieties, by gas, and Liam was given a well earned rest. He complained at a three year old child who threw a rock at his car; he was happy. Some more alone time for me in the pub ensued and then we played hard to get for five nice girls who joined our table, but one. They didn't understand our game and hardly got us. Then we went to Glencolmcille up around the coast of Dun na Gall, or Donegal for everyone I know, and we were allowed to pitch our tent behind a hotel. They also let us recharge our phones. We paid them back by getting horribly drunk, except the driver. We listened to a lovely couple playing songs, who seemed married - we look out for these things - and who sat with us at the interval. During the second half they sang 'From Clare to Here', Liam looked at me, I looked at him, and I felt his pain. But their consideration made up for his efforts and he's thinking of retiring there any day now.

We got home and I went into an oxygen tent for a night to get over the smokey ride we'd been on, smoke machines copyright of P and L. Ash actually flew into my mouth at one stage! So there it is, we're still alive after travelling the country and falling in love with three girls each as per normal. None of them stuck, so we kept on our merry way, loosening our load, easying our road, can't re-mem-ber the rest ... But the road took us away and brought us home again. What more can you want? But the scenery was awefull, spelt appropriately, but tonight it is my bed that seems wonderful tonight.