Tour of Lough Neagh

Much beloved by eels, ornithologists and Seamus Heaney, it’s the largest freshwater lake in these islands. The lough measures 150 square miles, is up to 80 feet deep and mythologically was formed from horse urine. Oddly enough it provides around forty percent of Ulster’s water supply and is also used as a sewage outfall. There is a cycle route around it called the Loughshore Trail. After I began to cycle again this route lodged in the back of my mind as a challenge that I would one day like to have a go at. After six months of regular cycling and encouraged by our Indian Autumn, that day came.

The night before my attempt on lapping the lough, I went to stay at T’s in order to be nearer the start. I got up at 7am and put my cycling clothes on. Trouble was I couldn’t find my leggings. I’d forgotten to pack them. I wouldn’t be able to do the ride in just my cycling knickers, so I wolfed down my porridge and drove hastily back to my house. After toast and tea there I set off for Portadown and parked up at Tesco by the Bann. I began the ride just before 10, over an hour late, knowing I would be up against time pressures for the rest of the day.

It was another calm Autumn day and a light wind was behind me for the first part of the ride. I sped out past Drumcree and crossed into Tyrone by the footbridge at Maghery. I made good time to Ardboe (23 miles) and stopped beside the high cross for a break and an invocation to the spirits for success in my attempt. Up to now, most of the way had been on small back roads and tracks but near Ballyronan I came out onto a busy road and stayed on it until approaching Toome. Here I found even busier roads, with large trucks roaring past. I was tired, hungry and drizzle began to fall.

The main street of Toome (37 miles) has many empty shops but one good wee cafe, Grans. After wolfing down a fine bowl of stew with wheaten bread I had no real time for a rest. Happily the drizzle had also stopped as I headed on. The route turned into the wind but also onto back roads towards Cranfield. My lunch was weighing on me but I pressed on to Randalstown (48 miles) with its impressive stone viaduct and castle gate. Then the route was alongside the main road into Antrim, after some miles of air pollution there were attractive park gardens down to the lough. I stopped at the Loughshore Cafe (54 miles) for coffee and a scone. I was feeling pretty tired, it was 3.30pm and I still had over 30 miles to go. The sun came out and I pressed on.

From the cafe the route followed a narrow trail through woodland. But only part of me enjoyed the verdant scene, I was also worried about getting a puncture and my stomach was a little sore. Coming out of the woods near Greenmount, I went along another busy road and turned down onto backroads again that followed the shore to Ardmore. My stomach was cramping up. I stopped but found it hard to drink or eat. I made myself eat half a banana and take a mouthful of water. I pressed on. The cramps got worse. There was something definitely wrong with that scone.

Near Crumlin I headed along a busy road with homegoing traffic then down on backroads to the shore again. My guts were rebelling on me. Groaning, I stopped for a call of nature in a field near Portmore but it gave me only temporary relief. My stomach still ached and my lungs were getting sore. I stopped again at Bartins Bay, the light was closing in. After that I limped along, my sore guts and lungs complaining, especially on the hills. I got to T’s house just before dark, parked the bike and flopped into the kitchen. She had made a big meal for me. My stomach was so sore it was several hours before I could eat anything. All I could manage at first were rehydration salts. She had also bought me a splendid bunch of celebration lilies, they had a marvellous scent.

After our late meal I conked out and slept fitfully but long. The next day I felt reasonably well, ate a lot and did a gentle walk with T around Brownlow Park. I’d cycled 85 miles with 2300 feet of climbing at 11.7 mph. The ride around the lough had taken me 9 hours and I’d visited five of the six counties of NI. This was the furthest I’d ridden for ten years, I was delighted with myself.

The Harvest

A sweet aroma began to assail my nostrils. Toast, I mused and continued searching the internet. The smell got stronger and more acrid. Something was burning. And I wasn’t making any toast. I leapt up and raced into the kitchen. The large pan on the hob was black at the edges. Apples, marrow and ginger were boiling madly. Making jam, I’d put the mixture on low. Then I’d completely forgotten it. And an unwatched pot always boils. I rescued what I could of the mixture and put it into a new pot. Adding more apples and ginger, I finished making the jam. It turned out bronze in colour with an intriguing smoky flavour. But there were only three jars.

This year the harvest has been late and not very good. We picked the apples from my tree three weeks later than usual. The tree only produced about a third of its normal crop. And many of the apples were pecked by birds (mainly magpies I think), hence their use for jam. Added to this, the blackberries in the hedgerow were also late and few were ripe enough to eat. Whilst there were plenty of fruits on the briars, most were still green or red.  Despite the relatively mild autumn thus far, we are still suffering the legacy of the coldest summer for twenty years.

In such a year, our early ancestors would have been worrying about how to survive this oncoming winter and praying to whatever deities they could muster to help them. Their norm would be to feast on the harvest of fresh wild food, getting as fat as they could. They needed these extra layers to help them through a winter of cold, dwindling food stocks and privation. These were not called thin times for no reason.  

I was reminded of this practice by reading an article about a modern day hermit who had lived unseen in a tent in the woods of Maine. He managed to get through the very hard winters there for thirty years by using this ancient strategy. As he didn’t want to be discovered, he did not build a fire. During the freezing cold winter he became nocturnal. To be active at night was the best way to keep warm; he could sleep during the less cold days. To go to sleep at night would be dangerous, it might be a rest from which you would never wake.

Despite living this hard life, the hermit never got ill. Although, when he was discovered he looked much older than his years. This sort of outdoor life leaves its toll on the body. Our ancestors invariably died young. Reaching your thirties would have been considered old age. I finish reading the article, turn up the central heating, switch on the electric blanket and snack on toast with home-made jam. Modern life is easy in comparison.

Double Dose

Last Saturday T went down with a bad dose of flu. After several weeks in school with hundreds of children she wasn’t too surprised to pick up a bug. Having only just recovered from a dose myself, I was well practiced at administering soluble paracetamol, vitamins and minerals, so I sprang into action. By Sunday evening she had become so ill she begged me not to leave her alone in her house. So I packed her up in my car and took her home to Casa PJ, stopping at Tesco enroute to replenish supplies.

I installed her in the guest bedroom and brought in whatever she wanted: bowls of soup, toast, bars of chocolate and fizzing concoctions of over-the-counter medicines. The next day I noticed that my throat was getting sore. Just a coincidence, I thought, as my system must have plenty of antibodies from my own recent dose. Unfortunately, her virus proved to be different to the one I had taken and by that evening I was laid up again with a new dose of flu.

With both of us ill in bed, who was to be the nurse? As T seemed to be the worst off, it had to be me. For the next day or so I struggled to make us meals and keep up the regular medications. It was exhausting and stressful to be nursing her and myself at the same time. Then, as I began to significantly worsen, she started to improve. So the nursing duties switched.

This dose of flu was much more intensive than the last. For several days I was laid out flat with a heavy fever, headache and bad chest. Going down the corridor to the toilet was a major expedition from which I would come back to bed feeling exhausted. T presented me with porridge laced with whisky for breakfast, soup for lunch and a good evening meal. As the intensity of her dose receded, she was left with a dry cough, bouts of sneezing and waves of exhaustion. After a few days feeling that I would never get better, I began to join her on the winding road to recovery.

I suppose I could have called her Typhoid Mary. But as they so rightly say, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

The Dose

For the past week I’ve been down with the ‘flu. Stuck indoors and wrapped in bedclothes or a blanket, I’ve been hitting the drink. But my glass has only been fizzing with soluble paracetamol and vitamin C; I’ve never found hot whisky to work for me. Getting up late after a feverish night, I’d plonk in an armchair, blanket around me and consume a diet high in Film 4, live cycling and assorted documentaries (from Indian wildlife to Time Team).

A bad dose is a great leveller, in more ways than one. Not only does the virus make you feel unwell in the head, nose, throat and chest but it also leaves you feeling unhappy, frustrated and depressed. Because I lead a very active life, I always find this latter part of the dis-ease the most challenging. You just have to give in to it, I’ve been told many times. But that has never been my way of living.  Like Hamlet, I would always choose to take arms against a sea of troubles. However, this is a strategy that doesn’t seem to work very well with viruses.

In times gone by I would have done my best to ignore a virus and carry on regardless with whatever had been planned in my life. But more often than not this led to the virus lasting for several more weeks and/or an episode of bronchitis which would necessitate antibiotics to clear up. So I do now try to give in to it, but that is only on the surface. Underneath I’m seething with frustration at my unwanted confinement.

It’s been a bumper week for cycling on TV, with highlights of La Vuelta de Espana every evening and the Tour of Britain live every afternoon. I’ve been watching both avidly. The Tour of Britain has gone from North Wales, through the Pennines to Scotland and back. Each day the race has passed through beautiful countryside under unseasonably warm sunshine. I’ve enjoyed this increased diet of TV cycling, but I’ve also been itching to be out on the bike myself and deeply frustrated that I am presently unable to.

I’ve always been a doer rather than a spectator. The trouble with a dose is that it seems to make you into a sort of spectator on your own life. You are just watching and life seems to be passing you by. And for me that is never a happy place to be. Although, unlike Hamlet, I have no plans at present to murder my mother and uncle.

Wicklow

Hannah and Davide live on a hill near Rathdrum. They have two children under five and an eco-house that was built in a day. The house came in panels on the back of a lorry and was lifted into place by a crane. It’s highly insulated, with extra cladding inside and out, and sits on layers of gravel below the concrete foundations. Heating is under-floor and there is an air-conditioning system that works on heat exchange. It’s a comfortable dormer bungalow with a spacious open-plan kitchen and living room area. There are large triple-glazed windows and the views are spectacular.

We first went for a walk at Avondale, the former home of Parnell, which is now a forest park with giant redwoods and a great trail along the Avonmore river. The air was lush, the blackberries were plentiful and fungi abounded. To celebrate recent birthdays we drank white wine and headed for a meal at a local restaurant with a menu of Thai, Sri Lankan and Mediterranean dishes. The next day Hannah and T took the children blackberry picking, Davide went surfing and I went for a bike ride.

I headed up Glenmalur on a single-track road that meandered between steep wooded hillsides with streams cascading to the valley floor. The road ended at a bridge by a youth-hostel and I retuned back along the valley to Ballinaclash. I then took the long steady climb that traversed the side of Ballinacor Mountain. This climb was very like the Yellow Water road out of Rostrevor, and though a challenge was something I knew I could do. I reached the pass at 800 feet and descended steeply to Sheenamore.

Then the road steepened again and disappeared up through the trees. I wasn’t expecting this, and muttering began to climb again, legs and lungs already tired from my earlier efforts. I glanced down at my cycle-computer, the gradient was over 10% and increasing and I still couldn’t see the top. You could always get off and walk, I thought, but why not keep going as long as you can. The road curved up further still and the gradient increased to 15%. I was panting hard. I began to zigzag the bike across the narrow road to try and give my legs and lungs a bit of a rest. Coming around a bend, I saw the road rearing up to what seemed to be the top. I pushed my aching knees and lungs into a final effort. The gradient increased to 18%, then began to reduce. I stopped at the crown of the hill and panted for a good few minutes. That was the steepest hill I had climbed on a bike since before my illness.

I had come up a very steep 250 feet or so and was now at about 900 feet with heather clad hills spreading all around me. I had a huge sense of achievement. My lungs were much better than I thought they were. I didn’t set out to test myself so forcefully; I just hadn’t read the map carefully enough. After my rest I traversed through forestry plantations to Aghavannagh and descended the long river valley to Aughrim. I stopped for apple pie across the road from the 1798 memorial, and then headed back up the main road towards Rathdrum. Overall I did 40 miles with 2300 feet of climbing, the hardest ride of the year so far.

We all met up at the house for a roast dinner and related the tales of our days. The girls had picked a load of early blackberries that Hannah would make into jam. Davide had caught some good waves. And I was delighted to learn that my lungs (and knees) were more capable than I thought they were.

Tour of Britain

It was an eventful trip. The night before we left home I got a text from the ferry company telling us that the boat we were on was cancelled. They had booked us onto the next one. This meant we would arrive in Holyhead after midnight and wouldn’t get to the farmhouse B & B in Snowdonia until much later. We rang to tell them; our hostess wasn’t impressed as she had to get up at 5 to do the milking.

We arrived to find the farmhouse lights on and knocked the front door. No reply. We knocked again. All was quiet. I tried the door, it was unlocked. They’d probably gone to bed and left it open for us, we reasoned. Creeping in, we found an upstairs bedroom with the door open. We collapsed and slept deeply till 9. Going down for breakfast, we got a challenge. ‘Where were you last night?’ Our hostess bridled, ‘I stayed up waiting for you.’ I explained what had happened. She looked daggers, then she smiled; she must have fallen asleep in the chair in the back parlour and hadn’t heard a thing.

It was a bright sunny day with clear blue skies. We did a hillwalk on the LLeyn peninsula to an extensive iron-age settlement on a hill-top. But unused to this weather, we got sunburnt. The next day we toured around North Wales visiting Portmeirion, The Great Orme, castles and gastropubs. Then we moved on to my cousin’s in Birmingham, enduring long motorway queues for a great foodie night out with Mike and Esther in the Chinese Quarter.

Next we went to Ross on Wye and the Forest of Dean, visiting Tewkesbury Abbey and its splendid vaulting on the way. After a lot of detective work we found the old cottage in which T’s grandfather had been born. It was built in the 1740’s and was just up the road from an old cider pub with an apple press in the yard. Then we went on to Stonehouse and walked along the Stroudwater canal past the old house, built in 1760, where I grew up.

Afterwards we drove to the New Forest to stay with my old schoolpal Phil. We went on some great walks: to Hurst Castle, where Charles the First was incarcerated prior to his trial, and in Rhinefield to see the magnificent tall trees. We also had a day out in Southampton by train, a shopping mecca where all the twinkling sheds that you normally have on the edge of town have been built on brownfield sites in the city centre. We finished off with a great meal at an upmarket restaurant in a country house near Brockenhurst – The Pig.

Our return journey began with a trip to Salisbury Cathedral, famous for its tall spire and copy of Magna Carta and Avebury for its fine circles of standing stones. We arrived in Bristol for my brother Allan’s 60th birthday do: a big family get-together in a local church hall with four generations present. A splendid occasion with plenty to eat and much cake, then we headed back to Allan and Christine’s for more. And the next day we all went out again for a big Sunday lunch. We also had plenty of walks with their hyper-active dog across the common.

The last leg of the journey was to drive back to North Wales to again stay in our first farmhouse. We arrived earlier, around 10, to find our hostess safely tucked up in bed. We let ourselves in to the same bedroom. The last day of the trip was again bright, cloudless and very sunny. We spent it on Anglesey at the beach near Aberffraw and at low tide walked out along the causeway to the small 12th Century church on the little island. There I was bitten on the hip by an Alsatian. We shouted at the owners, who mumbled sorry. T bathed my wound in antiseptic and in the kerfuffle the screen on her brand new mobile got broken. Nothing for it but to drive the short distance to the ferry, which took us smoothly to Dublin in just two hours. As we got back home I checked the milometer. We had travelled 1200 miles in 12 days and visited 14 different counties. It had been a very eventful tour; the sort of trip that leaves you ready for another holiday.

Naturally

My partner has a screensaver app on her smartphone which shows a forest that becomes populated by different animals. One day there is a woodpecker, the next a rabbit or a hedgehog. It makes her happy. I think it’s odd. I grew up in the country, whereas she’s a city girl. From childhood, I’ve regularly seen these animals in real life.

Living in an environment that is shared with wild native animals is not always easy. At present, from dusk to dawn, a plaintive whistling resounds from the trees at the bottom of my garden. It is a young long-eared owl that has fledged but hasn’t yet learnt to hunt for its own food. The young owl sits in a tree and whistles, so the parents know where to bring the mice or voles they catch. During the daytime the owls sit high up in the branches of a tall tree and rest. If you are lucky you may be able to spot them.

The old graveyard across the lane, a favourite haunt of owls and bats, is also home to a colony of badgers and several feral cats. The badgers are very wary and difficult to see, but if the wind is in the right direction you might catch them at dusk coming out of the sett. One evening I saw four of them scurrying across the lane.

Half a mile away is a foxes earth; T and I once saw a cub playing outside in the daytime. Late evening is a good time to see the adults, when they go out hunting. Recently, T and I spotted one in the barley-field beside the earth. The fox saw us first and bounded away through the green field, its red fur shining in the golden light of the setting sun. A powerful and strangely cinematic experience.

In the midst of this life is always death. A couple of days ago, when cycling, I came across a badly injured wild ferret. They are black, whereas the domesticated ones are sandy coloured. The ferret was lying beside the towpath not far from Scarva. I imagine it had been hit by a bike or attacked by a dog. On its last legs, it could hardly crawl. When I got home I rang the USPCA, but they don’t seem to be too interested in injured wild animals. It must have gone to meet its maker and given sustenance to a buzzard or raven.