Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Pedal (worn right down) to the metal...
I'm trying (yes, very) to get this bus back up and on the road again. Hopefully nothing major 'wrong' as such but one worrying issue has been the incorrectly aligned throttle linkage due to bodged (not by me I might add!) accelerator pedal repair.
You have to admire the cunning of the mind which thinks , "hmm, I know, I'll not bother my a**e trying to find a replacement, I'll just use a butt-hinge and move the whole thing back a wee bit." No, you really do have to admire it: it's done fine for us for over five years and has managed two round-Ireland trips.
Anyway, I've managed to locate a replacement from Volksheaven and have secured the services of our friendly mechanic to sort it all out for us.
Here's hoping. (I'm pretty sure I'll find a use for that book there on the left at some point too...)
I'm trying (yes, very) to get this bus back up and on the road again. Hopefully nothing major 'wrong' as such but one worrying issue has been the incorrectly aligned throttle linkage due to bodged (not by me I might add!) accelerator pedal repair.
You have to admire the cunning of the mind which thinks , "hmm, I know, I'll not bother my a**e trying to find a replacement, I'll just use a butt-hinge and move the whole thing back a wee bit." No, you really do have to admire it: it's done fine for us for over five years and has managed two round-Ireland trips.
Anyway, I've managed to locate a replacement from Volksheaven and have secured the services of our friendly mechanic to sort it all out for us.
Here's hoping. (I'm pretty sure I'll find a use for that book there on the left at some point too...)
Labels: accelerator, bodge, Ireland, pedal, throttle
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The eighth rule of travel...
...states "never pass a pub with your name on it." So, at least, said Pete McCarthy. I've just re-read the wonderful McCarthy's Bar for the umpteenth time and, as always, it made me want to decamp immediately to West Cork.
Any book with the line, "The barman was in his sixties and a cardigan" immediately deserves a prize.
Bill Bryson, in "Notes from a small island" said of Durham "Go! At once! Take my car!" and West Cork fits easily into the same category. Only more so. Durham's fine and dandy and having only visited once I shouldn't really comment but it can't possibly be a patch on West Cork.
Pete manages to make the place come alive to the extent that not only does the reader want to visit but in many ways one feels one already has. I realise that as a frequent visitor to Ireland over the years that it's a fairly existential concept for me to imagine that I'd not visited somewhere and clear my memory of it in order to imagine - through the book - that I'd somehow glimpsed these people and places through Pete's eyes. But a pint of Guinness certainly helps the process.
The book, essentially, is the story of Pete's quest to find some sense of belonging in a country he knows well through visits and family ties but in which he's never lived. He questions whether it's possible to have a "spiritual ancestry" or whether the Irish just make everyone feel welcome being, as they are, "expert havers of a good-time."
I don't know. I've always felt at home in Ireland, though not - strangely - in the North where, oddly enough, most of the relatives are. What does that say about the diaspora?
What the book mostly throws up is the value of human contact and right across the road from MacCarthy's Bar itself is the source of one of my favourite memories of Ireland...
July, 2001 my good lady and I were sitting down to breakfast in a B&B in a fuzzy-headed-too-much-Guinness-in-MacCarthy's way. The owner of the establishment - a ruddy faced man of indeterminate years - asked us if we'd like tea or coffee and then suggested "you'll have the full Irish?" No, thanks, we're fine. Just bacon and sausage for me please. "Ach sure, you'll manage the full Irish..." No, really. Coffee, bacon, sausage - magic, thanks.
Moments later it duly appeared...including the clearly non-optional eggs, black pudding, white pudding, fired bread and mushrooms that make up the "full Irish" version of bacon and sausage!
Labels: castletownbere, diaspora, Ireland, maccarthy's bar, mccarthy's bar, pete mccarthy
Monday, August 06, 2007
Well...over for another year.
We're back. Failed dismally to update the blog during the trip and lacking the wherewithal/inspiration/energy to do so now. Loads done/seen/photographed and perhaps I'll get around to getting it all down at some point soon. Who can say?
Tired children in County Kerry.
We're back. Failed dismally to update the blog during the trip and lacking the wherewithal/inspiration/energy to do so now. Loads done/seen/photographed and perhaps I'll get around to getting it all down at some point soon. Who can say?
Tired children in County Kerry.
Labels: holidays, Ireland, Kerry, update
