“I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!”, W.B. Yeats.
MAYO-CATION
We sat together on a barren Mayo beach, cradling the hot soup in our hands, smiling as we watched the seabirds dance on the shore. Surfed out, Katie McAnena and I were on day something of a staycation that wasn’t planned but would be long remembered. When you forget what day of the week it is, the holiday is doing its job right. The relaxed pace was broken by the dirty hum of a diesel engine. Turning around, I saw a rusty tractor and burdened trailer lumbering slowly down the isolated road behind us. A playful black and white collie was nipping at the tractor’s weary tyres while a large set farmer in a thick felt coat and cap held the steering wheel firm with hands like spades. For a moment it looked like there would barely be enough room for him and his McMad Max convoy to pass, but with a wave of his hand he motioned my worries away, driving his vehicle with a smile onto the broken ground to the side of the road. As we suited up for some more waves, I couldn’t help but watch him work, his load he would probably call stones but they looked like boulders to me. Single handed, he lifted them like pebbles and set about his business for the day, making a wall. The wall was in a large field behind the shore, there didn’t seem any reason for it to be bounded but his purpose suggested more.
