Glasses on my head, book in my hand, I can be found anywhere. I might be in my Mother's house of an evening, the prisoner of Azkaban in full flow, conjuring a spell beyond any number of dementors.
Or maybe you passed prefab 4 during the Great Gatsby? A foolish Nick Carraway living with morals while the Toms and Gatsby types do what they want?
Did you join me on the Metro when I read Catch 22? When I missed my stop to see what happened to Major Major? I laughed out loud and shuddered simultaneously. Remember Slaughterhouse 5? God, I was as flattened as Dresden after it. As flat as a moonscape. Did you join me on a journey through Spain in The Sun Also Rises? Did we have a beer in the square or fish together on the Factory river? Maybe you held the wine bag up as I drank? I honestly can't remember!
Remember reading Nesbo's The Snowman as snow fell outside? Jesus, I triple checked the doors were locked for a week. Did you ever read James Lee Burke? Imagining who you knew was just like Clete Purcell? And we all know someone that thinks they are Serpico, right?
So much of life is in a book. The thirst to beat all thirsts in Ice Cold in Alex. Life's shadows in Hogwarts. Our isolation in the New York trilogy. Sven Hassell's stark, glory-less war. The countless heroes and zeros of print; characters we embrace or run from.
I was Joyce strolling Dublin from the outside. I was Hemingway at the San Isidro bullfights. I may even have been Jeanette Winterson once, when lost in Venice. I've been Tim Krabbe more than I'd have liked and for sure I've been swallowed up by the system like Heller. And now I'm in the middle of the novel. My own. And it's damned hard to ignore the illustrious list above or to channel one of the characters that lit the way for me in the past. 116 pages so far, of steering clear of all the literature in my life imprinted like a tattoo on my soul. Maybe when its all over I'll be free. I won't be them. I'll be me.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Nobody gets outta here alive
Life kills. No doubt about it. So let's not fool ourselves, there's pressure out there. We need to deal with it. Blame whatever you like; heartless banks, societal expectations, Facebook, your genes, Roundup in your bread, dementors in your head from the cradle, your boss or yourself. It doesn't matter. But I want you well. I just want you to keep going and realise you are as vital and necessary a part of humanity as anyone. Of course we don't all deal with life head-on like a Hollywood hero. Some of us are quite beaten by the madness life flings, so we deal with it our own way. That can take on a number of forms and outcomes. What do we need to get through?
Could be a leopard print underpants on in front of the tv, using your belly as a beer mat. It might be the syringe with whatever opiates you crave, a slice of a Fentanyl patch tucked neatly between gum and cheek perhaps? Wine often worked for me. It makes other people interesting in social situations and is a key player in keeping you comfortably numb when life stops being a mill pond and instead sucks out your shoreline to come at you with tsunami proportions. Maybe you're one of the ghosts gliding around from pharmacy to pharmacy, bagging enough codeine to kill the pain, the one that isn't really there but won't go away.
Sometimes it just takes an hour of The Cube to right the ship. Or a Tele-evangelist saying that perfect phrase that seems to reach all the way from your flat-screen to your flat soul. An episode of Friends to kill the white noise? Maybe you could hurtle a car down lanes at break-neck speed or painstakingly paint in watercolours.
A cuppa doesn't work for me so I try to hit the road. The road talks to me and I talk back. Asphalt is a good listener. I let it all out; the anger, elation, brutality and euphoria of life. I transmit it all through my Bike to the road and it whispers sweet nothings back, dulcet tones of forgiveness. And the road has never betrayed me yet.
But cycling is nothing. I don't care as long as you do something. Jump around a stage, walk the impossibly-short-legged dog somewhere, take a stroll under amber street lights at midnight, drive with the window down or turn up the Ramones to eleven. Go to church, get stuck in, light enough candles for everyone that loves you. Read a book with the tv off. Watch the sky after dusk for bats or just stop and listen. Listen beyond the fridge-hum. Hear that? It's you listening. You are there.
Say hello to everyone. Feel the sun on the nape of your neck. Look up. Taste the food instead of just using it. Say sorry. To hell with the rain, go out in it. Smell the turned soil from a field. Get your hands dirty. Allow yourself to feel tired. If someone asks how you are, tell them the truth. Have the second coffee and stay awake. And say thanks. A lot. And don't waste your time on random bloggers trying to keep you switched on. But always, always hang in there for the next sun-up. Promise?
Could be a leopard print underpants on in front of the tv, using your belly as a beer mat. It might be the syringe with whatever opiates you crave, a slice of a Fentanyl patch tucked neatly between gum and cheek perhaps? Wine often worked for me. It makes other people interesting in social situations and is a key player in keeping you comfortably numb when life stops being a mill pond and instead sucks out your shoreline to come at you with tsunami proportions. Maybe you're one of the ghosts gliding around from pharmacy to pharmacy, bagging enough codeine to kill the pain, the one that isn't really there but won't go away.
Sometimes it just takes an hour of The Cube to right the ship. Or a Tele-evangelist saying that perfect phrase that seems to reach all the way from your flat-screen to your flat soul. An episode of Friends to kill the white noise? Maybe you could hurtle a car down lanes at break-neck speed or painstakingly paint in watercolours.
A cuppa doesn't work for me so I try to hit the road. The road talks to me and I talk back. Asphalt is a good listener. I let it all out; the anger, elation, brutality and euphoria of life. I transmit it all through my Bike to the road and it whispers sweet nothings back, dulcet tones of forgiveness. And the road has never betrayed me yet.
But cycling is nothing. I don't care as long as you do something. Jump around a stage, walk the impossibly-short-legged dog somewhere, take a stroll under amber street lights at midnight, drive with the window down or turn up the Ramones to eleven. Go to church, get stuck in, light enough candles for everyone that loves you. Read a book with the tv off. Watch the sky after dusk for bats or just stop and listen. Listen beyond the fridge-hum. Hear that? It's you listening. You are there.
Say hello to everyone. Feel the sun on the nape of your neck. Look up. Taste the food instead of just using it. Say sorry. To hell with the rain, go out in it. Smell the turned soil from a field. Get your hands dirty. Allow yourself to feel tired. If someone asks how you are, tell them the truth. Have the second coffee and stay awake. And say thanks. A lot. And don't waste your time on random bloggers trying to keep you switched on. But always, always hang in there for the next sun-up. Promise?
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Still here.
So I'm walking through the graveyard with four students. It's a field trip. I'm surrounded by the living and the dead. The living are the four lads, enjoying Spring weather, full of banter, stories and a lust for life. The dead are... well, I don't have to explain, do I?
Saint Stephen's cemetery has 'em all. The unmarked graves, the familiar plots of my loved ones and distant relations. And friends that broke my heart. It also has the marble mausoleums befitting Roman generals that can be seen from space. It's all irrelevant really. Those in the ground have left an impression on those above it. Those above it are wasting their time building monoliths. Of course my Father-in-law used to say 'there's no pockets in a shroud' so if you feel like emptying Tuscany of all it's marble, then go ahead!
Me personally, I'm kinda hoping for something small. And I'd really like to be alone in it for a very long time. I mean, I'd be hoping my missus and kids would have crazy-long lives and leave me to it for a while. They'd deserve a break anyway. Besides, somehow I can't see me being around, sarcastic and irreverent at 90. But then that's the beauty of life, ain't it? We have no clue! I might be around in forty years, a bitter old man and still smiling gummily. I may have won the lottery and decided on a crypt bigger than any warehouse. Or I might be laid to rest in a pauper's grave, forgotten, unknown, unloved. Who knows?
The main thing is I'm not worried. You see, I'm living right now. I feel life. I'm aware, still moving, thinking. Still HERE.
I walked between the rows of graves and headstones today in the balm of sunlight and fresh air. I had the great company of my students. They exude life. Have a healthy disdain for authority. Come from vastly different backgrounds and situations. There they were, eating ice-cream cones, as we strolled through a who's who of the loved and the damned, the revered and forgotten. And it felt important. Why? I think the living have a duty to be alive. I know that those I loved and lost and who now lie in graves we passed today did... they LIVED. And I know that taking a half-hour and traipsing around the graveyard with a group of happy-go-lucky young souls for company, reminded me that, yes, I am living, I'm still HERE, keeping good company. If "Every day above ground is a good one", then today was great.
Saint Stephen's cemetery has 'em all. The unmarked graves, the familiar plots of my loved ones and distant relations. And friends that broke my heart. It also has the marble mausoleums befitting Roman generals that can be seen from space. It's all irrelevant really. Those in the ground have left an impression on those above it. Those above it are wasting their time building monoliths. Of course my Father-in-law used to say 'there's no pockets in a shroud' so if you feel like emptying Tuscany of all it's marble, then go ahead!
Me personally, I'm kinda hoping for something small. And I'd really like to be alone in it for a very long time. I mean, I'd be hoping my missus and kids would have crazy-long lives and leave me to it for a while. They'd deserve a break anyway. Besides, somehow I can't see me being around, sarcastic and irreverent at 90. But then that's the beauty of life, ain't it? We have no clue! I might be around in forty years, a bitter old man and still smiling gummily. I may have won the lottery and decided on a crypt bigger than any warehouse. Or I might be laid to rest in a pauper's grave, forgotten, unknown, unloved. Who knows?
The main thing is I'm not worried. You see, I'm living right now. I feel life. I'm aware, still moving, thinking. Still HERE.
I walked between the rows of graves and headstones today in the balm of sunlight and fresh air. I had the great company of my students. They exude life. Have a healthy disdain for authority. Come from vastly different backgrounds and situations. There they were, eating ice-cream cones, as we strolled through a who's who of the loved and the damned, the revered and forgotten. And it felt important. Why? I think the living have a duty to be alive. I know that those I loved and lost and who now lie in graves we passed today did... they LIVED. And I know that taking a half-hour and traipsing around the graveyard with a group of happy-go-lucky young souls for company, reminded me that, yes, I am living, I'm still HERE, keeping good company. If "Every day above ground is a good one", then today was great.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Missile Crisis
Oh Lord its April!!!! Time for Heidi to go skipping along through alpine pastures following a goat herd, intoxicated with flower perfumes and the new-air of the season. If you were farmer John you'd be sowing corn, the fine smell of green diesel, earth and hope in your nostrils. If you were fifteen again, life would be busting out of every corner, possibilities firing off like an electrical storm in your brain.
Ah... I must be dreaming!!! I'm a cyclist. So far Spring has hidden like Bin Laden, petrified to peek out. I never remember having a race cancelled because of snow. I never remember watching the weathergirl as she tells me the roads will be too dangerous to drive to an event. Even when she is dressed just this side of cute and gives a smile that has led people to do stupid things, she can't make the roads safe, can't melt snow. A decade ago I had sunburn behind my knees and arms on Paddy's day. What's going on????!
I've been looking for signs. Leafy trees. Grass growing. Ivory-legs in shorts. The need for sunglasses. Muffin-tops. Beer bellies cascading over waistlines. Pink foreheads from beer gardens. No chance! Instead I've trained in full winter gear until mid-april , managed to get to one race, disintegrated a rear-wheel, blown two sets of bearings, sucked up a whole damn month of Ozzy flu and it's aftermath, and nearly, not quite, but nearly... actually called it a day.
So what, I'm writing nature blogs now? No! I'm one of hundreds in the same situation... kindred souls hamstrung by a damn-near nuclear Winter in terms of length. So when I rock up to a race I'm up against it. Everyone is firing a salvo of what they've developed over the off-season. Missile after missile of strength, endurance, frustration. Serious energy and fire-power.
I've picked one hell of a year for a final season. On the grid, the joules bursting forth from likely, Lycra lads, would power a town. The season will be shorter, as will tempers, recovery, odds for a win and length between hospital/ Physio visits. And packed into that will be Joe the slice of Gouda cheese, looking razzled already before being placed in the sandwich of race-winners and hardy bucks that spit the likes of me out daily.
That long winter hit me hard. I am, in my fiftieth year, a finite element. Winter training is a beautiful thing with an endgame. The endgame is racing from March 1st. That's a reward for turning yourself inside-out in grey, S.A.D.-inducing dead months where the fields look the same and you are alone to test your will and sanity. So to not get to race hurts. And now, finally back racing, everyone is taking their frustration out in earnest. Closure, revenge, rage, catharsis... call it what you want... but it hurts real good. It seems I'll just have to get on with it. Make that hurt pay dividends.
Heidi would have skipped along, avoiding goat shite in her patent leather shoes and smiled up every mountain. Farmer John would look at the thunderheads gathering, spread slurry for soakage and laughed in the face of failure.
And the fifteen year old boy with a head and heart full of possibilities? Well, that was me. And it's been one helluva ride!
Ah... I must be dreaming!!! I'm a cyclist. So far Spring has hidden like Bin Laden, petrified to peek out. I never remember having a race cancelled because of snow. I never remember watching the weathergirl as she tells me the roads will be too dangerous to drive to an event. Even when she is dressed just this side of cute and gives a smile that has led people to do stupid things, she can't make the roads safe, can't melt snow. A decade ago I had sunburn behind my knees and arms on Paddy's day. What's going on????!
I've been looking for signs. Leafy trees. Grass growing. Ivory-legs in shorts. The need for sunglasses. Muffin-tops. Beer bellies cascading over waistlines. Pink foreheads from beer gardens. No chance! Instead I've trained in full winter gear until mid-april , managed to get to one race, disintegrated a rear-wheel, blown two sets of bearings, sucked up a whole damn month of Ozzy flu and it's aftermath, and nearly, not quite, but nearly... actually called it a day.
So what, I'm writing nature blogs now? No! I'm one of hundreds in the same situation... kindred souls hamstrung by a damn-near nuclear Winter in terms of length. So when I rock up to a race I'm up against it. Everyone is firing a salvo of what they've developed over the off-season. Missile after missile of strength, endurance, frustration. Serious energy and fire-power.
I've picked one hell of a year for a final season. On the grid, the joules bursting forth from likely, Lycra lads, would power a town. The season will be shorter, as will tempers, recovery, odds for a win and length between hospital/ Physio visits. And packed into that will be Joe the slice of Gouda cheese, looking razzled already before being placed in the sandwich of race-winners and hardy bucks that spit the likes of me out daily.
That long winter hit me hard. I am, in my fiftieth year, a finite element. Winter training is a beautiful thing with an endgame. The endgame is racing from March 1st. That's a reward for turning yourself inside-out in grey, S.A.D.-inducing dead months where the fields look the same and you are alone to test your will and sanity. So to not get to race hurts. And now, finally back racing, everyone is taking their frustration out in earnest. Closure, revenge, rage, catharsis... call it what you want... but it hurts real good. It seems I'll just have to get on with it. Make that hurt pay dividends.
Heidi would have skipped along, avoiding goat shite in her patent leather shoes and smiled up every mountain. Farmer John would look at the thunderheads gathering, spread slurry for soakage and laughed in the face of failure.
And the fifteen year old boy with a head and heart full of possibilities? Well, that was me. And it's been one helluva ride!
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Creole Belle
Two days now and not a word. The phone is silent. Ironic that, silence. Down the strand just over the beaten fence of the beach house, the surf pounds. It should be beautiful, isolated, a refuge. Instead all I can think of is her wind-blown, shoulder-length hair as she left. It wasn't an argument, more a disagreement. I don't raise my voice and she doesn't hold her ground. She'd often take the car, get some air, come back an hour later as though nothing had happened.
Not this time. Her phone was resolutely OFF. I sat in the sunroom staring out. Bleached cushions, bleached cane furniture. A smell of heat off everything now in the height of Summer. But I felt cold. Was she gone back to him? Would I want her back now if she did show up? I sipped the almost-cold coffee and watched in the distance as kids played down by the water's edge. A car door slamming woke me from my daze. I jumped up. Whatever it was we would work it out. We would. I rushed to the screen door and pulled it open for her. Sergeant Williams faced me, hat in hand. "Hey John", he said, eyes lowered.
Not this time. Her phone was resolutely OFF. I sat in the sunroom staring out. Bleached cushions, bleached cane furniture. A smell of heat off everything now in the height of Summer. But I felt cold. Was she gone back to him? Would I want her back now if she did show up? I sipped the almost-cold coffee and watched in the distance as kids played down by the water's edge. A car door slamming woke me from my daze. I jumped up. Whatever it was we would work it out. We would. I rushed to the screen door and pulled it open for her. Sergeant Williams faced me, hat in hand. "Hey John", he said, eyes lowered.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Tempus Fugit
Time is an enemy. It catches up and breaks you down. All of a sudden you are having a conversation with your 87 year-old mother. You're engagement photo from Tunisia is 17 years old. You are counting down waiting for the few snatched play-times with your growing kids, caught between watching them grow into characters and wanting time to freeze-frame. What can we do? Look back and count the cost of time wasted aimlessly waiting, or, count the fewer memories of time lived fully? I remember dragging my ass through college, hours every day... gone. A lost boy. A faceless institution. But I took a love of words from it and met some incredible people along the way. Before that I can count the lost five years when I nomadically plodded about once I'd left school. Or I can recognise the character that came out of those lean times.
And in recent years I've awoken to another fact. I always felt my Dad passed on too soon. I was twenty-three. He was seventy one. Since my daughters arrived in my life I've seen it differently. I was too caught up in myself at the time to see that those were twenty three years where we were really lucky to have each other and to share whatever we did. I never saw that perspective after his death. Felt hard done by for a while. Life is fleeting, harsh and nail-biting stuff with zero warranty. He taught me that. I have a feeling he enjoyed those years just as much as I'd like to replay them.
I look at how green I was in the late eighties/early nineties. I rode my bike with no coach or clue, putting myself to sleep at night dreaming about Belgian toothpaste, epic battles and success. Sure, at the time I wasn't happy when I couldn't win jack sh*t but now I'm so happy turning the pedals. I look at young fellas being coached and equipped and mentored and I can only feel pleased for them. Cycling has probably contributed to my being here right now, more than any other thing. Yes I could have ridden and finished the RAS in the early nineties [and most definitely NOT in the last 20 years] but sure, in the grand scheme of things I've smiled a lot through cycling. I didn't burn like a flare. I wasn't extinguished in the dark times either.
In a nutshell, I've managed to get a handle on time and it's effects. I know it's value. Despite what my wife may sometimes vocalise, I spend a huge amount of time not cycling! There's the time with that aforesaid 87 year-old, there's the crazy times around the town with the kids, in the café, chasing them around the fruit and veg in ALDI, staying up reading with them or having cheeky snuggles on the couch. I cycle probably 6 hours a week. And I enjoy it. Most of that is done out of the school gate. Sunday spins have me back in time to do the shopping and look out the supermarket window at local clubs cycling by.
I don't have a great routine. I just try to turn the stereo up. Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" is sublime when turned up to eleven. I drive quickly. I train harder. Or pick harder routes. I jettison anyone that tears time away from me. I read hard-boiled stuff like Raymond Chandler instead of literature. The coffee machine in my classroom is always on as I try to teach at a million miles an hour. I pitch my life experiences at 30 students every 40 minutes. At home Lavazza is the pout pourri replacement. I have repetitive strain injuries in my sense of humour from messaging the good mates I have. If they were in a quiz they'd be the quick-fire round!
I try desperately to kick chronology in the gut and buy more time. I'm trying to log this blog [written over lunch] before putting the sprogs to bed!! But I'll be back down the stairs to write a page of the novel.
Andy Dufresne gets the last words though; "Get busy living or get busy dying."
And in recent years I've awoken to another fact. I always felt my Dad passed on too soon. I was twenty-three. He was seventy one. Since my daughters arrived in my life I've seen it differently. I was too caught up in myself at the time to see that those were twenty three years where we were really lucky to have each other and to share whatever we did. I never saw that perspective after his death. Felt hard done by for a while. Life is fleeting, harsh and nail-biting stuff with zero warranty. He taught me that. I have a feeling he enjoyed those years just as much as I'd like to replay them.
I look at how green I was in the late eighties/early nineties. I rode my bike with no coach or clue, putting myself to sleep at night dreaming about Belgian toothpaste, epic battles and success. Sure, at the time I wasn't happy when I couldn't win jack sh*t but now I'm so happy turning the pedals. I look at young fellas being coached and equipped and mentored and I can only feel pleased for them. Cycling has probably contributed to my being here right now, more than any other thing. Yes I could have ridden and finished the RAS in the early nineties [and most definitely NOT in the last 20 years] but sure, in the grand scheme of things I've smiled a lot through cycling. I didn't burn like a flare. I wasn't extinguished in the dark times either.
In a nutshell, I've managed to get a handle on time and it's effects. I know it's value. Despite what my wife may sometimes vocalise, I spend a huge amount of time not cycling! There's the time with that aforesaid 87 year-old, there's the crazy times around the town with the kids, in the café, chasing them around the fruit and veg in ALDI, staying up reading with them or having cheeky snuggles on the couch. I cycle probably 6 hours a week. And I enjoy it. Most of that is done out of the school gate. Sunday spins have me back in time to do the shopping and look out the supermarket window at local clubs cycling by.
I don't have a great routine. I just try to turn the stereo up. Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" is sublime when turned up to eleven. I drive quickly. I train harder. Or pick harder routes. I jettison anyone that tears time away from me. I read hard-boiled stuff like Raymond Chandler instead of literature. The coffee machine in my classroom is always on as I try to teach at a million miles an hour. I pitch my life experiences at 30 students every 40 minutes. At home Lavazza is the pout pourri replacement. I have repetitive strain injuries in my sense of humour from messaging the good mates I have. If they were in a quiz they'd be the quick-fire round!
I try desperately to kick chronology in the gut and buy more time. I'm trying to log this blog [written over lunch] before putting the sprogs to bed!! But I'll be back down the stairs to write a page of the novel.
Andy Dufresne gets the last words though; "Get busy living or get busy dying."
Sunday, March 11, 2018
New tattoo
I'd like to think I move to the beat of a different drum. Doesn't everyone? A tattooed beat all of our own making. We all have a different reality deep in our subconscious. It's back there where we were little, hairy, hunter-gatherer types. Our way of being is decided for us long before we ever became aware of it. So though I'd like to think my slightly incessant sense of humour, my love of the outdoors and an awful disrespect for authority is a personal project and journey that I alone forged... the truth says different.
I have no idea who I am in reality. If I write drunk and edit sober then I'm of Norman descent via Flanders, farmers, educators, emigrants and tradesmen. I don't feel as though I belong to any of that bar the Flandrian part. 800 years ago that's where my namesake hailed from. A small region that prides itself on directness, a stubborn streak, and a sarcasm unparalleled in western Europe. Plus an affinity with the hard outdoors.
Today I coughed and spluttered and sounded like an East German female weight lifter every time I spoke. I belted out to the Saturday time trial league only to find that there were no other competitors. I had a chat about soccer with timekeeper/photographer/organiser/bastion of cycling Sean, then we called it a day. But somewhere in my sub-sub-conscious a troglodyte Norman with the unibrow and B.O. started to suggest I race anyway. So I couldn't breathe properly (hey maybe it was lack of oxygen to my brain?), knew I was racing myself only, and said flip it, let's do it! Would you believe it if I said I got a shudder down my spine as I started the stopwatch? I know, I know, it was probably just the Veno's cough syrup, Sinutab and vitamin D coursing through my oxygen-depleted veins.... But I'd like to think it was that inkling of ancestry, a dot of soil from a North Sea buffeted field.
Off I set, a sorry sight hurtling down the inclines and struggling up the drags with a stubborness and angst that belonged in De Panne instead of a rural corner of Wexford. I could have taken a shortcut, or turned around on the road. After all its not as if there was a witness. Hell I could have called a taxi! I was pumping amoebic horrors from my nose, leaving a trail Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of. And all to race myself because some glitch in my DNA bade me keep going. My ego would like to think I was tough to finish but really I didn't want to admit I'm sicker than my wife thinks. And there was that feeling that a little bit of cycling here and there keeps my hopes of having a decent season alive. My personal image now stands at 'Tough Flandrian skin wrapped around a soft, chocolate-fondant body'.
I have no idea who I am in reality. If I write drunk and edit sober then I'm of Norman descent via Flanders, farmers, educators, emigrants and tradesmen. I don't feel as though I belong to any of that bar the Flandrian part. 800 years ago that's where my namesake hailed from. A small region that prides itself on directness, a stubborn streak, and a sarcasm unparalleled in western Europe. Plus an affinity with the hard outdoors.
Today I coughed and spluttered and sounded like an East German female weight lifter every time I spoke. I belted out to the Saturday time trial league only to find that there were no other competitors. I had a chat about soccer with timekeeper/photographer/organiser/bastion of cycling Sean, then we called it a day. But somewhere in my sub-sub-conscious a troglodyte Norman with the unibrow and B.O. started to suggest I race anyway. So I couldn't breathe properly (hey maybe it was lack of oxygen to my brain?), knew I was racing myself only, and said flip it, let's do it! Would you believe it if I said I got a shudder down my spine as I started the stopwatch? I know, I know, it was probably just the Veno's cough syrup, Sinutab and vitamin D coursing through my oxygen-depleted veins.... But I'd like to think it was that inkling of ancestry, a dot of soil from a North Sea buffeted field.
Off I set, a sorry sight hurtling down the inclines and struggling up the drags with a stubborness and angst that belonged in De Panne instead of a rural corner of Wexford. I could have taken a shortcut, or turned around on the road. After all its not as if there was a witness. Hell I could have called a taxi! I was pumping amoebic horrors from my nose, leaving a trail Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of. And all to race myself because some glitch in my DNA bade me keep going. My ego would like to think I was tough to finish but really I didn't want to admit I'm sicker than my wife thinks. And there was that feeling that a little bit of cycling here and there keeps my hopes of having a decent season alive. My personal image now stands at 'Tough Flandrian skin wrapped around a soft, chocolate-fondant body'.
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