Free 1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge by Tony Hawks, Prefers to remain anonymous Page A

scene.
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    Naturally by the time Jason let me off in what he called Bunbeg and what most of us would call a stretch of road, it had stopped raining completely. Around me there was a hotel, a couple of houses, a lot of open space and a lovely view of a sandy bay. My free accommodation had been offered at Bunbeg House which the radio people had told me was down by the harbour. Enquiries in the hotel produced directions and my first piece of bad news. In polite conversation I had allowed it to become known that I was headed for Tory Island and this was greeted with a shake of the head and, ‘But you won’t be able to get out there until Friday.’
    It turned out that once a year the ferry was taken down to Killybegs for a complete refurbishment, and it had gone for this year’s earlier that morning.
    The ferry was out of action for three days. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. A setback of substantial proportions. Getting to Tory Island was a condition of the bet and just at this moment, spending three days in a stretch of road seemed a bit too long. So I did what everyone should do when their nerves are tested, I sat down and had a good meal. Given the absence of mutton from the hotel’s lunch menu, I had pie and chips and followed it with jelly and ice cream, which was comforting in that it was the kind of treat my mother would have produced in a time of crisis. Jelly. I hadn’t had jelly since Mark Evershed’s party. A strange thing to find at a fortieth birthday bash, but life’s full of surprises. Not least the non-running ferry.
    The twenty-minute walk down a narrow tortuous lane to the harbour was to be the stiffest test so far for the fridge’s trolley. Until now it had coped adequately enough with everything that had been asked of it, but this was over a mile and hardly similar terrain to a station platform for which it had been designed. We set off, me and the team of rucksack, fridge and trolley, and soon created an intriguing and not altogether pleasant rattling sound as the wheels of the trolley rolled over the uneven surface of Bunbeg’s Highway #1. The fridge acted like a soundbox, amplifying the noise so as to draw more attention to someone, who without this extra assistance, was already quite a conspicuous figure. It prompted a reaction from an American tourist outside the hotel. At least I assumed he was an American tourist because he was wearing those check clothes that say to you ‘I’m an American tourist’.
    ‘You got your own fridge with you?’ he said in an accent which confirmed the accuracy of my assumption.
    ‘Yes, I have.’
    ‘That’s the way to travel.’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘I hadn’t thought of that. That’s real cool.’
    I trundled on, unmoved by his facetious approbation, and five minutes down the road reached a spot where the view of the bay to my right demanded a photo. I perched my camera on a fence and began organising myself for a self-timer photograph. This should have been straightforward given that the camera I have is a idiot-proof one on which everything is automatic. However, in the commercial marketplace, the need to produce a camera which is small and simple has run concomi-tantiy with the need to provide extra features. Extra features mean extra knobs and buttons. Consequently the best model on the market is the smallest, easiest camera to use with the most number of buttons and knobs on it. The one I have. So, when I pressed what I thought was the button for the self timer, the film rewound itself back to the beginning and in the ensuing confusion I managed to do something which erased all the photos I had taken so far. Since I’d just had a good meal and therefore had done what everyone should do when their nerves are tested, I did the next best thing and swore.
    ‘Bollocks!’ I shouted, at just enough volume for the distant American tourist to look over, to whom I responded rather ungenerously, ‘And bollocks to you too!’
    There had been no need for that, but the