It was yet another bank holiday weekend here in Ireland. We're endowed with nearly one a month during the summer and autumn -- though not as plentiful as some of our European neighbours; Austria, for example, has 13 in total (it's a wonder Ms. K. ever left) -- and it is a typical weekend for Irish people to get married, and so it was with my good friend Dan.
Of course, he had the audacity to tie the knot in Donegal, which is about as far away as you can get from Cork. So myself, Ian and Aidan piled into a car and drove a good seven hours from the very south of the country to the very north; guided entirely by an overly effeminate satellite navigation box -- 'In three hundred metres, turn right', 'Take the third exit on the next roundabout', and so on and so forth. It did most of the talking on that journey.
I had not been to Donegal for many years and the last time I was there it was the heart of winter, in a caravan on a beach, on some ill-conceived weekend away while studying in Belfast. Most of that trip had been spent trying to dry off in the local pub. This time round we were all situated near Mount Errigal in one of the most picturesque parts of the country. It is all rock and bog, and as such it is mostly untouched, practically empty and undeniably beautiful.
Here's a photo of Errigal to prove it.
The wedding went well; I met people I had not seen for a long time and I caught up with old friends. That's pretty much what wedding's are about. People gather and talk, and the next time you see them is usually at another wedding.
Then there was the seven hour drive home. Hats off to Ian who did all the driving; not that he'd let anyone else drive his sportly red car.
I fly out to London in a few hour's time. I have bits and pieces to do over there, and Ms. K. is demanding an audience, and who am I to ignore such a summons? It'll be the first real chance I've had to wander around London since I left there five years ago.
And I finished My Best Friend for Two Minutes; and like most of the short stories I write, it morphed into a very different thing along the way, and the comedy that I had envisaged is now something very different. It probably needs a new title as well.
