I live with Crazy Ladies

sourced from HERE

I wake up to the sound of the Faye, our crazy old lady dog, yelling for me to get up, which is not too unusual. But what is unusual is that there is a kettle of water boiling away on the stove and not a sign of my wife. I call out her name in case she is upstairs, nope, in the bedroom, nope. I check the back porch and call her name from the front door, not a trace. Only one thing for it; she was abducted by aliens.

So, I take advantage of the boiling kettle and make myself a cup of tea, turn on NPR and check Facebook, see if I can track her last known movements. Her trail is nine hours cold, she too complaining about old lady Faye's incessant talking. 

Just as I start contemplating my new bachelor life, she bursts into the kitchen talking a mile-a-minute announcing that she ran out to Sun Fresh to grab a few things for breakfast and food for her and the girls heading off to the lake.

"Rosalie said to not bring any food, but she doesn't eat and I'm not partying down there without something proper to eat." Minutes later she's ripping open bags of instant noodles and dumping them into a huge saucepan, now I know whys she boiled all that water, small broken bits of crispy noodles flying every where. 

She rips open a packet of bacon and starts lining some backing sheets with thick slabs it, tosses them all into the oven and then gets down on her hands and knees to try and light our vintage, ah that's a glamorous word, old as fuck is a better choice of words, oven. "Hate this oven, but shit me if I'll defend it to the last." I hate the thing.

Next she's got a chef's knife and she's chopping hot peppers, cilantro, tomatoes, slicing limes and throwing them all into our huge mortar and pestle and starts mashing the crap out of it all. There is now cilantro and peppers all over the counter, the cabinets and the floor.

She takes the big pot of noodles and dumps them into a colander in the sink, still with last night's dishes in it, then she tosses the strained noodles back into the pot and starts adding the dry mix packets from the instant noodles. "Ah shit" she says "think I've burned the noodles." She does that every time she makes this dish, I always tell her to turn down the heat and she does, only after she's burned the shit out of the bottom of the pan.

She dumps her creation into a giant Tupperware container and announces that she's got to take a shower and be out of here by 9:30am. It's now 9:12am. That's not gonna happen. "Don't worry, I'll clean up the mess." That too, is not gonna happen.

So, while listening to Car Talk I start running water, squeezing soap, slopping up pepper seeds and bits of cilantro, spray down the stove top and generally clean the shit out of the place: I have become the Anti-Linh. 

She's forgotten about the bacon, so I take over that too. The girls start arriving, it's like having four miniature tornadoes rolling through the house making tea, splashing breakfast pours of Jameson into their mugs, popping out the back to smoke, talking shit on their other girlfriends currently not present and dishing out shit on their husbands. I just keep on munching my bacon breakfast, which I've turn into a fried sandwich. 

Linh's not oblivious to my plight, but delights in it "How do you like your audience? THought you were going to have a nice quiet Saturday morning, huh?" Such a devil in that one.

Five minutes later all the crazy women are gone, like they never existed and I am left for the weekend with just myself, a big plate of bacon and old lady Faye.

Friend for a Day

By whatever twist of providence, science or the supernatural, you end up sitting beside yourself in a small coffee shop 5,000 miles from home.

You know it's you right away from the clothes, the computer bag, the broken glasses and the lame scar on your left eyebrow. Some people get cool scars, you get what looks like a botched nipple piercing.

You watch yourself for a while, absorbing the madness of the situation, waiting for the small adrenaline rush to dissipate. A rational mind would say "he's just some fella that looks like you." But you never had one of those. The other you is typing furiously on his laptop, working on the novel you know he hasn't finished.

After enough coffee and caffeine confidence you approach the doppelganger, even though you hate to use that word, juvenile, very X-Men comic book vocabulary.

You slouch into the chair at his table, toss your bag beside his and break-off the corner of his chocolate chunk cookie. He looks up from the laptop, fingers paused over the keys and says "Hey, I though that was you over there. Figured you'd come over when you were finished your coffee."

"Well you figured right. So, what do you think is going on?"

In near unison you make similar quotes about "inverse tachyon beams" and laugh at your own predictability.

"Seriously, though, there are a million ways to explain this, none which will prove satisfactory to the big "Why." And we've no idea whether this is temporary or permanent and which of us is the original to this point in the "space time continuum."

"So you're saying "let's get a pint"?

"Sure, aigh, yes."

"It's eleven now, we could hit O'Dowds or re:Verse?"

"Let's do O'Dowd's, better pint and you're buying since I'm sure that the cards in our wallets are connected to the same bank account."

As you both stroll over the street, past Three Dog Bakery and the Better Cheddar,  to the bar, you let him walk a few feet in front to see what you look like in the world, as a member, not an observer.

You notice that you have a funny gait, almost a cocky swagger, but a little too fast, like you've got something stuck to your butt and can't quite keep the cool walk.

Identical twins could not be dressed more alike than the two of you, right down to the brown Tommy Hilfiger socks you bought on sale at Marshall's last Christmas, the ones that feel good with your Clark's, that have seen better days, but you like to wear shoes till they literally drop off your feet.

The bartender greats you both with a bewildered face and you answer "Ah, the brother over visiting. Two pints of Guinness Ken. Thanks."

You wait patiently, making faces and raising eyebrows at each other and then take your pints and grab a small nook, closed off from the main flow of the early lunch crowd.

"Want something to eat?"

"In a while, see how the pints go down first. So, don't you think it's weird  that we've jacked-off ourselves?"

"What?" you literally spit your Guinness out all over the mahogany table.

"Like I mean, I've spanked that monkey so many times, and I know that is way out of left field, but think about it. Totally gay."

"That's some question to ask yourself. No 'Who's the president of the United States in your World?' or 'Are you married?' or 'What's the name of the girl who sucked your dick at the back of the Tech when you were fourteen?'

"Which time?"

"First time."

"Catherine Turner."

"Correct."

"Still single and O'Bama is President."

"Huh, totally the same then. But now that I think of it, you're right, I know we're not gay or nothing, unless you are gay in your time-line, which I would be cool with."

"Nope. Sorry fag."

"Didn't think so, but yeah we've stroked this meat monster a million times. Fucking weird."

You banter on all through the lunch hour, pint after pint, orders of Shepard's Pie, fish and chips and more pints. You suggest to yourself, your other self at the table, that you take a walk down Brush Creek while you're both not too drunk and having a good buzz. A bit of fresh air to make the day last longer.

There is goose poop on the walk-way, you absentmindedly kick it into the brown liquid that passes as water in Brush Creek. Some mutant fish breaks the surface of the water to sample the treat you kicked in. Cyclists and joggers squeeze between as you meander along, almost pushing you into the creek.

"Obviously other people see both of us, so we know we aren't mental, no Sixth Sense trick ending here. Any ideas then?"

"Oh, I've been thinking it's the Universe showing us a big fat metaphor, that selfish bastards like us would rather hangout with ourselves and drink a pint than solve the world's problems, when confronted with a miracle of space, time travel, whatever have ya."

"Yeah, 'cause if this could physically happen, then any miracle could become a reality. No more poverty, no more hunger, just like that, gone. No more praying for rain in Africa like we did as children while pissing into the toilet, sword fighting with our piss streams."

"Let's walk as far as the Nelson."

The new wing at The Nelson-Atkins museum has been critically acclaimed by every major architecture magazine in the country, but you think it looks like Terminal 5 at Chicago, O'Hare, nothing special. And sure enough, yourself agrees.

The beer is leaving your systems now, feeling hot flashes and needing a bathroom break. You stand beside yourself at a urinal and peak over at his dick, he sees you and says "Fucking queer."

"I was just checking on size mate."

"Piss that, you were checking to see if I was circumcised or not. I've got me wee hat, ain't no wee Jewish boy standing outside a Synagogue looking for my pullover."

You both laugh so hard at your Dad's old joke that you piss on your own hands.

You grab some bottle water and sit down on the front steps of the original Nelson, looking down over the lawns at the great shuttlecocks, you see families picnicking and some kids throwing a Frisbee.

"You remember walking around here with Granny a few years back?"

"Yeah, she loved it."

"It's too fucking nice for this city. Hardly anyone knows they have this fucking place in their city."

"You're right there. But on a more serious note, you ready to do some serious drinking?"

"J.J's?"

"Yeah. Fuck the Guinness though at that price."

"Let's head."

From the novel that posses as a wine book you select a 2004 Ojai Syrah from Santa Barbara. Fuckin delish. Smoke and spice filling your senses, drunk on the memory of sipping this wine in a Los Olivos tasting room with some random girl you met in wine country.

Then a round of Jameson and water to cleanse the palate. You slap your pockets in unison looking for Rolaids to quiet the acid reflux kicking up in your chest.

The late Spring day is winding down, the brightness and heat of the day giving way to gray coolness.

"Let's go walk again."

"I could stay here for another."

"Exactly why we're leaving now and not after another."

No longer buzzed but drunk, a twenty-minute walk up to Harry's in Westport is just what the doctor would have prescribed if he gave a fuck about drunks on a binge.

Going past Unity Temple, you make a smart remark to yourself about meetings there. But you don't take it the right way and a small scuffle ensues. You catch him over the eye and he takes you down to the ground and gives your face a nice road rash. It's all over before it began and the two of you are panting and bleeding and your matching green shirts are ripped and you know you could both go again so you break the moment.

"Well, that was fucking stupid."

"I guess so. Let's get the fuck out of here."

At Harry's you both go into the bathroom and freshen up before hitting the bar. The doorman nearly didn't let you in, but he recognized you from enough drunken nights that a bloody cheek is nothing.

You can't help but notice how old your face looks as you wash off the caking blood. The youth and vigor of the morning's creativity in the coffee shop now looks gaunt and puffy at the same time, like a bloated corpse.

Dave the bartender hands you both a shot "...and one for your brother too. Fuck, you two could be twins."

You each order a pint of Boddingtions, 'cause that what you drink at Harry's, and hook your bags under the bar. It's too early yet for the after work restaurant crowd, so you can still hear each other talking, without having to shout and spit into each other's ear.

"Hey. In the morning, if we, I, you, me are totally hungover and the other is gone. I want you to know that whatever magic happened here today for this to become, I loved it, I really got to know myself and I hope it happens again.

"Me too." You slur.

Just then some asshole bumps into you from behind and laughs causing your beer to spill down your front as you go to take a sip. He looks like a proper fucking douche, a strayed Plaza Rat, trying to be cool in Westport. You stand up and so does yourself and you've knocked the frat-fuck out-cold before his friends swing is blocked by your number 2 and his headbutt is lighting fast and the two douchebags are slumped on the ground beside each other.

Dave the bartender says "I know you didn't start it, but you better leave." So you do.

Stepping out to catch a cab you stop at the gyro truck and get lamb kebabs, they remind you of Abrakebabra in Galway, when you were young and dumb.

"Like the fucking American Abrakebabra" you say.

There is tiziki sauce all over your face and you're choking with laughter and the cab driver won't let you in till you finish your food.

As you both slump down on to the sofa with a glass of some super expensive bottle of wine that you'd been saving for a special night, you play some Halo and then find Point Break on Spike and toast each other "To Johnny-Fucking-Utah."

"Well man" you say "that was some fucking day."

You both pass out without finishing the bottle.

You awake late the next mooring, late for nothing. Still in your blood stained clothes from the night before, the skin on the knuckles of your right hand is busted open and you see the 2003 Quilceda Creek, Washington State, Cab opened and small flies coming out of the neck of the bottle. Two glasses barely touched on the coffee table. You realize yourself is gone and you've left your computer bag in Harry's and you have to deal with that mess by yourself.

Shark Fishing

Shark fishing is something most people only read about in National Geographic or see on the Discovery Channel in some exotic location like the Caribbean, South Africa or The Great Barrier Reef. It’s never somewhere average and plain such as the tepid waters of Great Britain and Ireland in the North Atlantic. With only the mid-Atlantic drift giving any warmth to those waters in the summer months. All the same, this is exactly where I’ve seen my fair share of shark fishing, deep-sea angling and all the life that goes with those watery sports.

The first memories I have of shark fishing are from when I was about eight-years-old during the Killybegs International Sea Angling Festival. The festival, held every year in either July or August, depending on the mood of the committee in residence at the time, is the absolute pinnacle of the calendar for any boy over the age of five and under eighteen in the Killybegs area. Hundreds of people enter the competition from Ireland and abroad. You’ll find English, Welsh, Scotch, German, Swedish, even the odd Yank and Aussie along with young boys, young girls, old men and old women and every demographic in between. The variety of competitors leads to an even greater variety of categories you are able to contest in.

When we were children we use to stare, mouths wide open, drooling, in the window of Michael Quinn’s electric shop at the prizes. There were new Penn fishing rods and reels, tackle boxes, silver trophies, crystal, china, boat equipment, cash and many other amazing treasures. Our little finger prints greased over the glass and we could only imagine what it must be like to win one of those treasures and get your name engraved on the silver trophies.

That first year I was not a competitor, either was my brother Derek and cousin Paddy, merely spectators, under the supposedly watchful eyes of my Dad and Uncle Aidan. We’d have to wait another year or two before we could actively take part in the events.

I remember the boat was large and green, perhaps a sixty-footer, with wooden planks splitting the deck up into many sections, which we never tired of climbing over. There were nets piled up on the side of the deck, ideal for a rest and a place to lie down if you were getting a bit wheezy and feeling the need to get on ‘the big white telephone to God.’ There was a fair few people allotted to our boat, as I remember dozens of rods dangling over the edge of the boat, their taut lines disappearing down into the deep blue-green waters of the Atlantic.

Boat allocations are maybe something I should explain because you can’t just pick your boat, that would be an unfair advantage. First of all there is a deadline each year for entries, usually a day or two before the Sea Angling Festival, which always started on a Friday. Then a specific number of boats, usually with one or two in reserve just in case the numbers exceeded expectations, were designated for the competition. Individual names and group names were allotted to certain boats with a maximum number depending upon the size of the vessel. Like everything else in life, not all boats are created equal and sometimes it is the physical ability of the boat that holds the advantage and sometimes it’s the human element, the skipper himself. Skippers with names like Enda O’Callaghan, Smithy Campbell, Jim Parkinson, Tony Boyle, Brian McGilloway and vessels like The Bangor Crest, Persistence, Sinbad and The Girl Naoife. These were all names that held a certain amount of magic and if you were allotted to any one of these skippers or one of the boats, your chances just tripled of earning a prize.

Many sharks were caught on our boat and in others over the three days of the festival that year. Paddy and I found ourselves brave and ventured across the deck to touch the sharks. Their skin was surprisingly rough, it had always looked velvety in the water. We got quite a fright when one of the supposedly dead blues opened its mouth revealing an amazing array of razor sharp teeth. We both jumped back and found ourselves not so brave. Sharks can live out of water for a long time, just like their little cousin the dog fish that is often found dangling out of some fish box in the auction hall hours after a boat has landed.

There is a tale told that one year someone caught a small blue and when she was being weighed in the judges found her too small and had her thrown in the tide. The shark revived herself and swam around the bay for a long time, feeding on discarded fish from fishing boats and didn’t leave the harbor until she was big enough to face the open sea again. If this is true or not I don’t know, but I could well believe such a fisherman’s tale. Coastal town’s like Killybegs are rich in a special folklore all to themselves, unknown to inland towns and cities.

Some foreigner on our boat caught the biggest shark, a nine-foot blue. He had a wild time getting it on board, and the skipper had to gaff her a few times before it stuck. It wasn’t the best looking shark as it was rather skinny, but very long and its color was a gray-blue instead of the rich azure of the other sharks. After the weighing in of that fish, my first sea angling expedition was over.

A shark-fishing trip starts long before you ever set a land-lubberingDonegal Town to Dogherty’s was in order. Dogherty’s was a tackle shop with a twist. He sold all the things you needed for a deep sea-fishing trip, but also had the best array of pocketknives and torches for sale anywhere in County Donegal and all for under a fiver.

Granda Sharkey often brought us up there and while he would talk to Mr. Dogherty about something or other for eons, we would busy ourselves getting lost in dreams of owning this knife or that. Calculating at fifty pence a week pocket money, how many weeks it would take us to save up for it. All the time in hope that Granda would see how much we really wanted it and buy it for us as a little present. He was always giving us little presents that made our day, our week, our lives.

On our visit to Dogherty’s, Dad fitted Derek and I out with our own deep sea rod and reel, yards upon yards of eighty pound test and hooks that could have landed Jaws. Two of the most important things to take with you deep-sea fishing are feathers and lead weights. Without feathers you can’t jig for your bait and without lead weight you’re never going to get your hook to the bottom for the nice points fish.

Dad let us know that this first year we would not be fishing for shark ourselves, although he might have a wee go, but there were plenty of ling and congers, dogs and pollock to keep us busy. Considering I was only ten, I had no objection. Derek and I ended up with the same rod, but he got the better reel and I was in tears most of the way home, ‘cause mine looked like a giant fly reel and his was the proper shark fishing kind by Mitchell.

Next stop was to one of the chandlers in Killybegs to get our dappers or oilskins. These were to keep us dry while at sea. As these were our first ever set of oilskins it was really important because for years we had watched all the men down the pier wearing them and they were a sign of adulthood. My green pair dwarfed me and felt very heavy, Dad laughed saying I would grow into them. With that done, we had everything we needed for the sea angling festival, all we could do now was wait.

On Friday morning of the contest we were up at about seven a.m., God knows when Dad had risen. He was a real early bird and was fond of saying “when you’ve the name of an earlier riser you can sleep all day.” A great debate emerged between Derek and I as to whether or not we should eat a big breakfast. Dad was in the mind that we should, as a full stomach would keep us from getting seasick. I had never been seasick and knew not the pain or misery of it. Derek did and he would rather have less in his belly to throw up. Dad was in charge of making a flask of tea and putting the lunch together: ham sandwiches, egg sandwiches and smoked salmon, off course, was the fair de jour and a few pieces of fruit completed the seagoing picnic.

After registering and finding our birth, The Sinbad, we had a few minutes to kill and this was spent running back up the town to Gallagher’s to buy chocolate and sweets and the last few bits of tackle that suddenly came to mind. Paddy was with us, but he was not going fishing this year, as his aul fella was in the pub. We begged Dad to let him come along and reluctantly he agreed. His dad sobered up the next day and came out with us for the last two.

Our boat was birthed alongside a few others and as the clock slowly ticked towards eleven we got to know our boat mates and skipper. Jim Parkinson was the skipper, we knew him since we were very little and this put us at a great ease. Our mates were mostly Northerners and English lads and one fella from Finner Camp, the army training camp between Bundoran and Ballyshannon that we passed every time we went to Sligo with Granny and Granda to do the shopping.

The diesel engine cranked over loudly and the fumes were making us a little wheezy even at the harbor. Dad showed us a basic knot to tie our hooks and clips, we called it the double hoop and under, it was easily achieved and held with great strength. With our clips attached we jigged at the edge of the boat, sheans gathered around our hooks, but much too little to take a bite. We were suppose to draw for places around the boat but it seemed like it had become a first come first served basis and all the Juniors ended up with the places nobody else wanted.

At the stroke of eleven all the boats began their exodus of the pier towards the open ocean and into the Atlantic. Soon, we were passing Mooney’s Boat Yard, with the fishing boat graveyard beside, where several boats Dad had fished on as a young man lay wasting in skeletal decay, up to their keels in green sludge, lying at embarrassing angles to their once glorious and dangerous lives as fishing vessels in the Irish fleet. The town was growing smaller behind us and the mountain of Conerad began to come into view, the constant sentential of Killybegs. The town always looked so much smaller from the water. Nature seemed to cradle her on both sides, protecting her in a little pocket where man was allowed to be civilized and not disturb her peace.

We watched Dad and the other men get their gear ready and imitated them the best we could. I think we had Dad’s head wrecked with questions about fishing, and the how far, how long, what time, when, how many? Basically all the annoying questions ten and eleven-year-olds can ask. This was a whole new part of life for us; no longer just the quiet observers of our childhood’s, we had become cogs in the machinery that made our community a living, breathing entity.

Once past the Smooth Point and Rotten Island lighthouse we were into the open sea with St. John’s Point on our port side and Drumanoo Head on the starboard. We looked to the land, picking out the spots were we had fished off the rocks in the past and looking out for the house at Scottish Hill, it was haunted and once lived in by the Murphy’s, our cousins. Soon Fintragh beach was in sight, looking like a golden streak between the land and the sea. Many birds had begun to follow us, but there was nothing for them to scavenge yet, until we caught our first mackerel.

The Sinbad was a steel hauled vessel, about twenty-five feet in length that Jim used for piloting in larger vessels to the harbor and diving for wrecks and salvage. She was making great steam out the bay and easily overtook the boats that had set out a few minutes before us, with a nice steady cruise of 13 knots according to Dad. She wasn’t ideal for angling as her sides were very low and had few places to get a comfortable seat. Fish boxes were annexed into seats and one beside for your catch. This was The Sinbad’s first trip as an angling vessel and Derek, Paddy and I were disappointed that we were not in one of the sixty-footers like we had been in before.

The engines slowed and Dad let us know Jim picked up some fish on the sonar and it was time to start jigging for mackerel. I was amazed how quickly the fish began to hit. Usually on land you could be fishing for hours before anything even smelled your hook. Now we had six feathers attached and all around the boat people were pulling in full jigs. Mackerel give a great fight and when you have four or five on at time you feel like you’re about to land a great fish, not the little mackerel that you eventually pull of your hook and toss absentmindedly into the bait box. A few gannets now joined the gulls as if they knew we were into some good fish. When we had enough mackerel for bait it was decided we would steam ahead just a little and anchor off Inish Duff, where Paul Callaghan caught the thirteen-foot conger last year.

I was afraid of using a wire trace and felt comfortable with my feathers. So Dad helped me bait the feathers and showed me how to lower them all the way down, feel the bottom with the lead weight and then take her up about a fathom and keep her there.

Paddy with nothing to do was just bounding all over the place, taking it all in for when he got his rod and reel. Derek on the other hand was already beginning to get seasick and was hardly taking any notice of his rod in the water.

I felt my first real bite and the line got heavy. I wound my giant fly reel with all my might, making sure to guide the line on evenly as not to have it bank up and fall and after what felt like a life time I landed my first points fish in the 1988 Killybegs International Sea Angling Festival. It was a dogfish, a lesser spotted one to be precise, or jimmy-dog as all the adults called it.

The Sinbad bobbed up and down all afternoon and I had a great time fishing off Inish Duff. When it was decided to go on a little further and put out some rubby-dubby, I had a full box of dogs and two good sized pollock. I was feeling very pleased with myself and even more so when one of the other young fellas on the boat came to me for advice on where to catch the fish. I gave him the same advice that Dad had given me, but off course making those words sound like mine and not his.

I didn’t do so well further out, but was very intrigued with the baiting of the shark hooks, the blowing up of the balloons as floats and the importance of not running over your rubby-dubby trail. Rubby-dubby is a mixture of mashed mackerel and fish oil that is poured overboard to attract any sharks in the area to our boat. It smelled terrible and looked even worse. It had the effect of turning Derek’s stomach even more and soon he was lying down sleeping the rest of the day away. We fished for shark off Slieve League for a few hours without landing any. Lying there in the water off such beautiful cliffs more than made up for the lack of sport. The cliffs rose nearly two thousand feet out of the water and falls of spring water could be seen dashing off into the sea below. When you are this far out into the Atlantic you can look off into the distant horizon and see the curvature of the world. Your mind runs and you can imagine that if you kept going straight for thousands of miles you’d eventually reach Nova Scotia in north eastern Canada. You realize that we are not separated by oceans, but merely connected by a constantly changing liquid.

We commenced our steam home when Jim announced “Lines up, six o’clock.” There were a few grumbles to be heard from the Germans, then all lines were in. We ate the rest of our lunch on the way home feeling at ease, even Derek was revitalized by the turn about in our direction. We began to play and feel like children again, throwing the guts of mackerel at the gulls and watching the gannets diving for whole mackerel. We even looked at the sea and surrounding coastline like tourist, noticing houses near Bunglass and people climbing the cliff-face. We even remembered the stories Granda would tell us about Ben Bulbin way off in the distance towards County Sligo. Stories about Finn and the Fianna, Witch de Vanny and Queen Maeve’s grave.

As the town came in to view I felt a great feeling of home and joy. A feeling of coming back after being away a very long time, even though it had been only eight or so hours since we left.

Jim let us stow our gear on the boat until the next day, so we didn’t have to drag much back onto the pier. My first few steps on dry land were funny, it felt as if the earth was still swaying like the deck of the boat out on the ocean. Dad helped me weigh-in my fish and with all my dogs and two pollock, I managed to amass forty-five points. I found out the next morning forty-five points placed me in first position in the Junior category.

I slept well that night and was eager to get out on the boat again. However, my luck was to change and after getting my feathers stuck on the bottom with my first drop, I lost heart. Seasickness took over and I spent the next two days as a sick bystander.

Our boat managed to land two blue sharks and lost another “must have been a fair size” as it snapped the rod belonging the army fella from Finner adding to the proverbial one that got away. I had great empathy with Derek during those two days as we shared in the miseries of seasickness, probably the most I ever had with him in my life. And when the last line was hauled in on Sunday evening I was the happiest lad in Ireland.

That night we went to the prize giving in Fawlty’s Bar and I received twenty pounds for Best Junior on Friday. I had hoped for one of the bigger prizes that had been in Quinn’s Window, but was very content with the money. Dad didn’t go to the prize giving as he didn’t drink anymore, but Uncle Aidan was there to check on us.

I repeated the ritual of the Angling Festival for many years changing boats and skippers, always hoping to catch a shark myself, but the best I ever did was just more dogs and pollock. I did manage to win a big silver trophy for the heaviest whiting one year, but that’s not an exciting fish you can brag about. The best thing about the festival is there is always next year and the dream of landing your shark.

Now that I live twelve hundred miles from the nearest coast, I miss the sea; its feel and its smell and its unique way of life. Right now I’d give anything for a good dose of seasickness, mackerel guts and the feel of a fish biting at my line twenty fathoms below in the dark, unknown depths of the Atlantic Ocean. To see that curvature once more and feel the mystery of a world yet discovered.