Helen and myself after much Bordelaise bidding decided to take a springtime trip to Bordeaux to see an old friend and the hutch he lives in.  Our flight was booked on Sunday out of Dublin and has Ianrod Eireann only do reduced journeys of a Sabbath we travelled up to Dublin on the Saturday.  A pleasant journey with my free travel pass granted to all who have lived for sufficient years.  It did entail a 35 minute delay at Mostrim or Edgeworthstown, as it is known today, because of a train failure in the Mullingar region.  It was no discomfort for the new trains are so comfortable and I had my Kindle at hand.

Disembarked at Connolly Station we took a short walk down to the Abbey Theatre to meet our daughter, Paddy, at her place of work.  Although we had been before, I am always struck by the friendliness of the staff and how helpful they always are.  You do not meet this sincerity often in corporative life but these young people from the lad selling programmes at the door, to the young girl in the cloak room and the staff at the bar, welcomed us and directed us in such a pleasant fashion that it took my breath away.  So well done management for picking and training a decent bunch of youngsters in the fine art of front of house.  I will be back again for Tom Murphy’s play The House in June and O’Casey’s masterpiece The Plough and the Stars at its revised location at the Belvedere in the Summer.

The three of us decided to eat at a Moroccan restaurant, Dada’s, on South William Street.  I would recommend it to everyone, especially the Merguez sausages, the salads, the Tagines and the Argentinian Malbec which we consumed in more than sufficient quantity.  Then off to Paddy’s abode by the Grand Canal, to chew the cud and where we tucked into more vino, Sangria de Toro from the house of Torres in Spain, a most economic and lovely wine at 7 euro per bottle.  Who said it was expensive in Dublin.

Next morning, Sunday, we were up at sparrow fart and away to the airport giving ourselves plenty of time in case of delay.  However the journey went like clockwork through deserted Dublin.  No sooner had we reached the Luas stop at the top of Harcourt Street then a tram came along to whisk us into Stephen’s Green.  A short walk across to Dawson Street to pick up the airport bus escorted by a friendly man who was in charge of the tourist horses and carriages.  30 seconds later a bright and breezy young taxi driver seizing his opportunity stopped and said he would carry us to the airport for the same price as the bus, 7 euro each.  Helen and I jumped in followed by two Californian girls who had just finished doing Europe in three days and could not believe their luck.  They remained dumbstruck for the entire journey.

Thus we were at the airport 30 minutes after leaving Paddy and leaving us well over two hours to wait for our plane.  However a full Irish breakfast and people watching soon passed the time.  On journeys I  love waiting and watching and I hate being just on time and rushing.  We had booked to travel by Aer Lingus and I do not know what it is about this airline, they are as cheap as Ryanair but they seem to retain the old world gentility and friendliness that is sadly lacking in its rival airline.  One hour and thirty minutes later we were 10 degrees warmer in Bordeaux, an airport similar to Knock but with two terminals and more runway and apron.  We were in Terminal A which is very quiet traffic wise and we were soon outside in the sun looking out for my friend Monsieur R and then I saw a flash of blue in the distance.  It was half time in the Manchester City game against Newcastle which more or less determined the Premier League for them, R had dashed out on the referee’s whistle and hurtled down the road from his pad in St Jean d’Illac, a mile or so from the airport.

We darted back so that no football would be lost by mine host who was in such a state of nervousness he could not watch but remained in earshot.  He had deposited us outside this sprawling mansion, I was looking round for the gardeners cottage but this was the only residence.  He said it was his, so I had to believe him.  The house was modern, with an extensive open plan layout.  You could have a decent 5-a-side foot ball match in the kitchen with room to park a few spectators cars.  The living room could seat 30 people and still leave room for dancing.  A short walk along a glazed corridor to bedrooms and the obligatory indoor swimming pool, sauna and spa, all superfluously  heated to withstand the permanent tropical temperature of Bordeaux.  Up the open plan staircase which was a feature of the living space past the dazzling chandelier to a full sized snooker table, bar and relaxing sofas.  This arena led off to further bedrooms and bathroom.  Only one word sums it all up, palatial.  Two years R and Madame P spent designing it themselves, they then found a portugoose builder who spent 15 months building it.

The kitchen was a gem and the food better.  He had a couple of hens that looked more like feather dusters patrolling the back of the house and they supplemented the plentiful supply of eggs.  Our first feed was ouefs mimosa ( boiled eggs sliced in half with a topping of crab meat, mayonnaise, paprika and pepper), simple but lovely.  The main course was magret with cooked apples and figs washed down with local illicit plonk from the over-producing excellent local vineyards.  A local bonus for local people which I think is well deserved.  An early night followed after the journey and the excesses of the previous night in Dublin but not before we had welcomed in France’s new president, Monsieur Hollande, who had just beaten the previous pantomime dwarf Monsieur Sarkozy by 4% of the vote.  I suppose a close run thing and not really welcomed around St Jean d’Illac.

I was up early at 5.00am and sat in front of the ever present computer screen and answered my overnight e-mails and made notes for this scruffy little piece.  Shortly Madame P arises and within no time sticks a welcoming cafe creme in front of me.  The day has started.  Madame P runs a music school in St Jean which she started 20 years previously and works a tremendous amount of hours.  It shows you what the community think, with a population of 6500 people the school have 700 pupils of all ages.  We breakfasted on eggs, ham, left over magret, home made bread and fig compote before she left for work.  Monsieur R and Helen slept fashionably late but they eventually arose to a grim permanently sunny morning with a temperature at 9.ooam, a balmy 20C. and it eventually peaking in mid-afternoon at 26C.

A quiet day is planned while Dublin wears off, not the wonders of historic Bordeaux and the recent extensive works along the River Garonne, we have seen it all before and we are not an inquisitive couple.  We spent the morning pottering about, I made a visit to the boulanger and returned with pain et canneles.  Cannele is a Bordeaux speciality, little almost cone shaped cakes made with flour and butter and honey.  Here they make them by the thousand every day and they are delicious.  Within a short time we prepared lunch.  Smoked salmon, ham, tomatoes of strange shape and variety and the rest of the magret, nothing is wasted here.  In the afternoon we took a short trip out to Andernos on the northern shore of the Bassin D’Arcachon.  It is a little resort town at one time famous for its oysters and now just at the start of its busy season.

We returned to the mansion at 4.00pm for a well earned siesta before settling in to a couple of aperos around 7.00am whilst waiting for Madame P to return from her work.  As we wait for her return I look around the house and notice  the flaw.  There is no central heating, no radiators.  “How can you make such a basic error”, I said.  “Because we don’t need it” was the reply.  However after further investigation I did discover that there was an under floor heating system, that they do switch on for a month round Christmas.

That evening off we went to Madame’s sister’s house in Cestas to the south of Bordeaux, for more aperos and the biggest homemade pizzas I have ever seen, washed down by a very palatable local wine.  The sister’s boyfriend was Monsieur Chef and while I was on pastis, the chef and R were guzzling whiskey as though it was going out of fashion.  It is amazing how popular whiskey is over here, most men I met on this trip drank it before and after meals.  Monsieur Chef made the pastry bases in between slurps, which he covered with a tomato and basilique sauce, then lashings of mozzarella and parmigiano cheese and ham and then dropped two eggs into the middle of each one and then into the oven.  Impossible to finish so into a doggy bag for tomorrow’s breakfast.  We returned home at 12.45am to an alcoholic night cap and then to bed.

Day 2 in Bordeaux was a Bank Holiday, we all slept in.  Madame P was out for 10.00am because they have had so many Bank Holidays recently The Music School had to open in order to catch up.  We are off to a local 7-aside football competition where we will have lunch and a few aperos before watching Jeremy and his mates take on other local teams.  Jeremy is Madame P’s son from a previous arrangement, a very nice well mannered young man with mates the same and they all think Ireland is the best country in the world.  I have got to say that the ordinary French person has no liking at all for England and its people but they think the sun shines out of the Irish man and woman’s arse

As soon as we arrived at the Stade and on a wink from Monsieur R, a plastic cup brimming with whiskey was put into my hand and a big lump of bellypork squashed between two halves of a baguette pushed into my face.  Basic but very, very tasty.  We then sat down because it was half time in the competition and our team lunched on pastis and pork filled baguettes, just the foundation to a hard afternoon’s football.  You could see who the winners were, a team of African lads were warming up, no lunch or aperos for them.  They were passing the ball about and showing off their individual skills while the French lads were enjoying their Bank Holiday.  The African lads who no doubt will appear in the Premier League one day wiped the floor with their white opposition, but it was all in good fun.

The whole football experience was quite exhausting, whiskey diluted with ice cubes attentively replenished by Gerard, Madame P’s brother in law, who was one of the competition organizers, the barbecue firing out al sorts of tasty bits washed dow by pastis and local beer.  Jeremy’s team were great guys and stood the pressure well ably aided by their girlfriends who ate and drank what the boys could not finish and we the toast of the team because we were Irish.  I did not like to disavow them.  We returned once more for a well earned siesta and then a game of snooker that made me think I had forgotten more about the game than I had ever learnt but I still beat mine host.  The evening meal was a simple affair of meat loaf prepared by ourselves, mashed potato configured by R and washed down by bottles of Bordeaux rose and rouge.

Day 3 was Wednesday and a day off school for the kids but not the musicians.  Late morning we tootle off to the Medoc and spend time in Margaux, too pricey for our pockets so we retire to the little town of Macau on the Garonne where we lunch in a splendid restaurant renminiscent of France long ago.  We had a three course meal with half a litre of wine each for 12 euro, excellent value.  It was now touching 26C so home James, stopping off at a massive LeClerc supermarket in St Medard.  This was the biggest store I was ever in with an unbelievable display of wines from Bordeaux and half a shelf of Vins Etrangeres.  The poisonnerie was  incroyable, if that is how you spell it, with every known fish and a few more on display.  I could still be at the boucherie if let.  The French cuts look so much nicer than our own.

Home to pintade and peas.  I was given the honour of cutting off its head before it went into the pot.  Monsieur Gerard came round, so six of us sat down for dinner.  After numerous aperos, vino by the litre and digestifs to fill a distillery, the piano cranked up and Helen started the ball rolling followed by Madame on the keys giving it Killarney.  Jeremy who is big into jazz piano and Gerard who is a Charles Aznavour look alike and devotee finished off the evening in style.  Plans were made for a similar meeting in Boyle in September after the vintage.  I was told in no uncertain French to look out for Roscommon ladies with similar dispositions to Gerard And Jeremy before I slipped off my stool about eight hours after I had first sat on it.

I woke at nine with a splitting head but after cafe and petite dejeuner, I was fit enough for a hectic return game of snooker, a very small apero and the thought of lunch which is to be bread, boudin noir et pommes.  It is 11.30am and the temperature 29.5C in the cool interior, God knows what it must be outside.  Our plane is scheduled for4.10pm by which time it had reached 35C and I am not looking forward to the journey.  Off the plane in shirt sleeves in Dublin to a freezing 10C and by the time we made it home to Boyle it was a festering 7C.  How clever we are to pick the Arctic to live in.

On 19th January 2010 I wrote a piece called The Reality of Retirement the intrepid reader should hunt it out and read it, it is awfully good and amazingly short for me at 850 words but each word and idea is a gem.  I was reminded of this posting only the other day, thinking I must have written it a few months back and in fact it was two years since I started to realise the beauties of being unwaged.  If time flies that quickly in this nirvanic state I find myself in, they will soon be carrying me out the door feet first.

Yes I was reminded of this literary gem the other evening, when a chap called by at 7.00pm on his way home, frazzled from a long hard day at work.  He related the events of his stressful day and then asked what I had got up to.  It made me think, “do you know Jack” I said “I don’t think I’ve done anything and I have not been bored but enjoyed every minute of my day”.  On uttering those words I knew I had already reached the liberating state that the world’s population strives for.

In saying I had done nothing, I was obviously telling little porkies, because I had showered and dressed myself, had a leisurely breakfast, sauntered through my e-mails and written 1100 words on the ridiculous Irish Government custom of buying communion dresses for little girls.  I followed this up with an equally leisurely and fashionably late lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading a very interesting novel cum biography of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife.  The book called The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, I can recommend to anybody, it tells of their life in Paris and the gifted people who filled this place  after the Great War and during the liberated 1920s.  People like James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, all megastars of the 20th century.  I did all all this at my own pace and enjoyed myself so much it felt as though I had done nothing.

The beauty of this senile exisatence is that since last February, the Queen of England, her glorious majesty, has given me a few hundred drinking vouchers every week, I get free medical care courtesy of my medical card, costs of which in Ireland, which does not have a National Health Service, can be worth an arm and a leg,  perhaps that is why the government here can give out free communion dresses.  On top of all this from next week I am entitled to a free travel card which allows me to travel anywhere in the British Isles for nix on public transport which includes trains, boats and buses.  I am, as they say, on the pigs back.

In my previous posting on this subject I stressed the need for peace of mind being the epitomy of the retired state and how on retirement you should relax in the beginning and slowly find your way to this peacefulness.  Well I reached it by throwing off the man made psychological shackles that the Catholic Church had bound me in all my working and married life and in my freethinking state exposed the bunkum and downright lies that the Church had told in their bid to keep a lid on the clerical abuse scandal that has shattered most of the western world’s religious ideologies and which is only now coming home to roost in England and Wales.  I really enjoyed jousting with the nincompoops of Safeguarding Commissions that the Church in their fat, mindless state had left in charge of this most important of roles.  As these obsequious and obfuscating hurdles, put in place by the Church, were blown away, the younger and more energetic I became.  I was like a youth again, scared of nothing, roaming the internet, like Spartacus in revolt.

When you are mindful of nobody, peace of mind comes easy and your relaxed state takes care of the boundaries you could easily tip yourself over.  So to come down from this buzz, a well written book, a few hours watching test match cricket and a glass of Malbec act as balm on a totally fulfilled life.  I recommend it to everybody who has been round long enough.

Hello and it is so good to return to the land of the living to meet you all again after three and a half months of researching the life of a 62 year old dead man who passed from this world 42 years ago and who caused great grief to many young boys in Manchester, that he pastored for 16 long years all that time ago. Readers of this column will know of whom I speak and I just wonder whether it was the manner of his humble birth which made young, intelligent and gifted boys such an anathema to him.

Anyway, I am back amongst you, but not in a joyful or carefree mood, although I should be with that pair of burgeoning boys, born to my daughter in June this summer and winking at me from the wallpaper put on my computer screen and also another birth in August, in Bradford, of my sixth grand child, Hamzah, which means I think, Lion. Slightly built but with long fingers, he has time to grow tall and I expect him to play for Yorkshire one day and hopefully for Bangladesh or England, he has the choice and anybody with choice is half way there. I should be joyful after seeing the twins suck Northern France dry on our holidays there last month and I am not carefree because only just over a week ago, a man I held in the highest regard, a man who, more than anyone I know, kept his hometown of Boyle, in North Roscommon, in the artistic and intellectual spotlights of Ireland, died suddenly. It was his management and organization of the Boyle Arts Festival, an annual event of some magnitude, that kept the modern day artists of Ireland on their toes and it was him, alone, who captured the imagination of the Arts media. Except for him, Boyle would have been some little backwater bypassed on the road to Sligo and dreaming of its military and musical past.

I watched the blaze and pageantry of his funeral service, the blaze and pageantry that only the Catholic Church with the help of the local community can throw on occasions such as these and accepted that that is what they do well to bigfish in small ponds. I started thinking would he have liked all this hype, he went so quickly, he might not have left a protocol to be followed but knowing the man, I would suggest his favourite modus mortatis would have been in a blaze of glory, so he would not have been upset by his requiem.

Continuing along with that train of thought I realised that that kind of celebration would not be for me, not the pageantry or a blaze of anything other than the gas fired jets of a burner in some damp crematorium. I am no big fish in any kind of pond, I am not even plankton, possibly a minor diatom drifting around in a puddle caused by an imprint in the soil of some well worn wellington boot . When I go I want to be treated as such, first of all pinched for reaction, to ensure my mortality and when satisfied that life no longer exists, shovelled into some form of container, a body bag or even a shopping bag and taken to the firing chamber as soon as possible once all legal niceties are resolved, and there turned into clinker or ashes and when cooled, placed in some humble container. A cardboard box will do.

It is at this moment my family, if any still hold me in regard and a friend or friends can gather and drink my supernatural health and think of days when I did my best and there were not many of those. It would be a pleasure at this time if some kind burgher would dribble a few drops of life giving nectar over my cardboard contained dust. Just on the off chance so to speak. My mate, Charly’s, hooch would be just the thing. When satisfied that this elixir is only snake oil then take me off to South Sligo.

I want what is left of me to be bisected, roughly will do, if no scales are to be had, and the first half taken to the top of the Bricklieves, the Speckled Mountains, a place my ancestors of 5500 years ago held in high regard and it is there that my acolytes will await a gentle westerly breeze and allow this moiety of my roasted powder to slip away and be carried by this zephyr, over Dunaveragh, that ancient resting place of pilgrims and on over the latter day N4, to rest on the calm waters of Loch Arbhach with the lightest haze finally stopping on the walls of Ballindoon Abbey, where the Dominicans held sway 500 years ago.

Back in the car again with care being taken of my final remnants, a zephyr up there can soon turn into a tempest and this final grit has another place to go. To the historic Plains of Boyle we will be destined. Here on this vibrant pasture land, Irish cattle have been fattened up for thousands of years. In this much prized upland plateau is the townland of Eastersnow. It is here John Mcgahern, my most favourite wordsmith, in his much praised book “Amongst Women” buries the first fictional mother of the family. I can only say that he did this for the beauty of its name, certainly to me a better sound than, Aghawillin in Leitrim where his own mother lies and it has the added advantage of being within walking distance of Cootehall where he lived as a boy.

The graveyard at Eastersnow is a pleasant site, quadrangular in shape with the four walls of an old chapel standing in its centre. It has been the home of rich man and poor man for a long time and I would like my remaining bits scattered within these four walls. If John McGahern had high regard, so do I and it has the added advantage of being close to Byrne’s Public House. If any mourner ravished with the drouth, after so long a pilgrimage, would just knock on the door, I am sure Mrs. Byrne would offer them a drink.

So my time will be over and I hope there is great merry making in the community as one more thorn is picked out of people’s lives and the lovely Helen can settle down to an old age with little to worry about except for the untidiness of the kitchen. I, unfortunately will not be there to keep everything shipshape and Bristol fashion.

But before I go for today, I want to reiterate the thoughts in my first paragraph and thank you all once again for your support throughout the Summer. There was a steady flow of people logging on every day for, even though I say it myself, a better read than the newspapers.

The various events of June have dried my mind out, it is now a sere mass of grey matter and I have come to a full stop. Every morning for the last two weeks, i have come down the stairs at the crack of sparrow fart, dawn to the unpoetic, sat at the keyboard and nothing, not even a sentence.

It normally takes me about four hours to write a 1000 words, think, edit, rewrite, edit and type out, but these last two weeks nothing, in fact for the most of June, nothing. I might have been bothered about two major areas of research I have set myself, but nothing there either, only indolence, torpor and langour. I cannot set my mind to churn the way it has for the past seven months. So I have decided to rest up until the 1st October, concentrate on the research subjects and hope that I can get them out of the way for the Autumn.

It was not just that the words would not come although that was my Becher’s Brook, but there are so many other fences to jump. The glorious weather, a fascinating series of one day cricket against the Australians, a lake more or less outside the front door which had a 24 hour shimmer in that glorious June, the planning of a continental trip later in the year, the garden and vegetable plot that seems to want care evey five minutes with its burgeoning crop brought to fruition by the finest June on record, the thoughts of the twins thriving in Manchester and thinking of the life in front of them, I am sure and I hope that it will not be as hard as the past 60 years.

So there it is and apologies to all my readers who have been waiting patiently for most of June to pick up the glowing pearls that emanate from my keyboard every morning. A full stop will clear my mind, let me enjoy my enjoyment and stop making me feel guilty about taking time off. All my working life I have felt guilty at taking time off, even when working seven days a week. A weeks holiday, a round of golf made me a nervous wreck, it really was not worth it, but now I am retired, I am master of all I survey. So full stop until October and thank you for having me.

Doesn’t time fly?  It only seems a couple of weeks ago when I was 40 and running around Manchester, at the height of my powers, worried about nothing and scared of no-one.  Happily married with at that time four children and starting to realize that there was still a long way to go in life.  As I said that seems only a couple of weeks ago when I was 40.  This week I am 64, still happily married thank God, but with an extra two children to manage and three and a half grandchildren to consider but not now at the height of my powers, worried about everything and scared of a few and starting to realize that if those 24 years went so quickly, I should probably be dead by the time March comes along, having lived to a very grand 88 years of age.  Doesn’t time fly?  My first 18 years felt as though it was a tortoise propelling me, the next 46 was by Concorde.

I am telling you this because I just wanted to warn all you thrusting 40 year olds out there that you have only just got two weeks to go before retirement, so if there is anything in your life that needs improvement, get out this afternoon and start the process.  The Queen (or possibly King by then) and her £200 per week is nigh, prepare yourself for a humbling experience.  For you people have possibly noticed how the population prostrates themselves before you, in two weeks time they will be spitting at you and kicking your arse.

Here is me making plans for you vibrant ones and what I should be really doing is making plans for myself because that chronological equation tells me that I have only two weeks myself.  So what do I want to happen to the former me in that first week of March.

Well for a start I do not want some hole in some dauby hillside, I want to be as free as a bird, I want to be able to fly like I did in my twenties, I want to be scared of nothing, I want to feel the sun on my back and the wind in my hair.  I want to be cremated.  A much more civilized and a much older way of saying goodbye, than a hole in the ground.  The folk round here were burning their lifeless ones 5000 years ago so it is not a passing fancy.  Also I am remembering the words of the old Tipperary priest, Fr. Denis Maher I think is name was, parish priest of St. Paul’s in Hyde, Cheshire, who speaking after Dr. Harold Shipman’s life sentence was passed in 2000, said that if grieving relatives could see the condition of their loved ones after a year in the ground, nobody would be buried.  Harold Shipman was the good doctor who murdered his patients.  The authorities proved by exhumation and scientific examination that he had killed 218  of these people, with the big possibility that there was another 200  as well.  By a requirement of law Fr. Maher had to attend about half these exhumations and was horrified by the state of decay he witnessed.  Just as a passing thought my Aunty Betty, a stout hearted farming lady, was thrown off her horse when she was about 70 and damaged her hip and eventually had to have a hip replacement. If it was not for her agricultural heritage of trusting her vet, who looked after her both before and after her operation, she might have been dead now as Shipman was her doctor.

So to get back on course and with this in mind it is the crematoriam for me.  Of course I would love a funeral pyre on the top of some high mountain with the gathered multitude singing Nearer My God To Thee, but practicality was always a subject close to my heart therefore some holocaustic oven in a Dublin back street will have to do.  From whence my gathered dust, having first of all been placed in a suitable container, will be taken up onto the Speckled Mountains or the Bricklieves as they call them round here, handily situated in South Sligo and 50% of my remains will be thrown into the air and let wander down the mountain, wafted by a warm westerly breeze in the direction of Lough Arrow and let mingle and blend with the myths and legends of this astounding place.  Our ancestors certainly knew how to let go.

The other 50% of my clinker I want taken to another calm place, the graveyard of Eastersnow, high up on the plains of Boyle and etched on my memory by John McGahern’s book Amongst Women.  It is to this place he brought his mother in this work of fiction walking her coffin from Cootehall Church to this graveyard.  His real mother was buried in Aughawillan in Leitrim but he must have found something beautiful about the name and place of this quiet graveyard with it’s centuries old ruined chuch.  After this second scattering my life’s purpose will be over and condemned to distant memory.

By the way before you do any of the above give me a kick, if I flinch you will know that I am not quite ready for the oven.