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I don’t know why I hadn’t come across it before, but better late… Highly recommended, especially for those days, like today, when all drivers appear to be blithering idiots. I was forced off the road at lunchtime today by a farmer in a 4×4 (glossy Japanese one, not old Defender) pulling a trailer full of horned rams. He overtook me coming up to the (red) traffic lights, then as soon as the car was past me, pulled abruptly into the left so that the trailer swung in behind him. Luckily I was looking out and managed to scramble on to the pavement before my bike and I were crushed between the trailer wheels and the kerb, with the added excitement of being impaled by the horns sticking out between the bars. Ho hum. Yesterday another one (farmer, not ram) drove past as I was waiting to cross the road to the cycle lane, parped his horn, gave a thumbs-up sign and continued driving at seventy miles an hour with his horn playing like an Italian wedding party. Too much carbon monoxide, I guess.

M’s ordered a new bike, which we hope is going to be this – the men’s version of mine (Specialized Globe City with hub gears and dynamo). I hope so, as mine has been totally brilliant – wonderful not to have to stop en route to put a chain back on or fiddle about with batteries on dark evenings (or rather afternoons, this time of year). It’s on its way, so we should know soon…

‘Cycle on your bicycle – leave all this misery behind’ – great song, even if R. says they’re too poppy. (Turin Brakes, by the way: brilliant band, terrible name.) Although this might have been a bit of overload (the large rucksack is out of the picture) so there was always the potential for the misery,or the jeans, to fall right off and roll into the road, as the potatoes have been known to do. But thanks to providence and a couple of stout bungee cords, I got home from M&S, the library, the greengrocers and Oxfam in not many more pieces than when I had set out. More impressively, I managed to avoid being given any carrier bags except for the big green M&S one which I couldn’t have managed without, the jeans being an unexpected purchase. (Our youngest son has now reached the size at which boys are obviously expected to spend all day in bed, as there are virtually no trousers anywhere with a waist size between 26 and 30. ) And even that one (carrier bag) when the assistant fished it out from under his till, had obviously been used before and returned to the shop.


This morning I started teaching again, for the first time since we left Ennis two and a half years ago. I woke up at five racked with nerves, but it all turned out fine, albeit with only two students as not many people knew the classes were restarting. The lessons, for new immigrants to the area, are funded by the local council, who also provide the premises, now in Enniskillen Castle which is rather fun and atmospheric. What’s more, when I explained to the staff that I didn’t have a car, they gave me a corner in which to keep the textbooks, so the bike carrier (and I) had a short rest on the way home.

The end of Christmas, and, neatly this year, the beginning of the school term. It was really icy outside this morning so the boys left their bikes at home and walked to school. It’s over five miles there and back, a bit longer with a detour into town with their friends, not exactly I-were-brought-up-in-a-cardboard-box stuff but enough to get a decent bit of exercise. Talking of which, or its lack, I’ve only ventured out once today, to the park and postbox with the dog. If we’d had a car I would probably have drifted somewhere or other, but there wouldn’t have been any point; there’s enough food and more than enough work to be getting on with here.

I’ve been doing more proper cooking again recently. I used to do a fair amount when we got our weekly organic veggie box, but when they stopped delivering (I think we were the only customers within fifty miles) it gradually tailed off. Finally it got to the point, at the end of the autumn, when I’d convinced myself that my cooking was so utterly inedible (remember Wendy Craig in Butterflies?) that the rest of the family would be happier existing on bread, cheese and Lidl pizzas. Well, it turned out that they weren’t, so I’m back in the kitchen making a glorious mess with the garlic and nutmeg. I rather enjoy it, actually, especially while the cassette player still holds out (unabridged Hobbit at the moment) and it’s at least warm, which is saying a great deal at the moment.

I was reading yesterday about the abolition of slavery (as appropriate as anything else for New Year’s Day) and was struck by the fact that twenty million pounds was paid in ‘compensation’ to the plantation owners for the loss of their property, much to the disgust of anti-slavery campaigners and the British public. According to the rather useful website measuringworth.com, £20m in 1833, when the Act was passed is the equivalent of £1.5 billion now if you use the RPI, around £16 billion relative to average earnings or £61 billion as the equivalent share of GDP. Ring any New Year bells?

Sorry about the long hiatus there; I was away, then spending most of my time working at home (cowardly woman doesn’t like going out when there’s ice on the pavements) and so didn’t have much to say.

I’ve finally heaved myself out of the front door and across town to our (bitterly cold) business unit. On the way back yesterday I called at Tesco, which is next to Asda, and squeezed my bike between the solid traffic. A large part of it was cars with Irish Republic plates, taking advantage of the plummeting pound despite the pleas of the Mayor of Dublin for them to do their shopping at home.

Just a couple of lines to finish off the car hire bit. Russell Howard was surprisingly brilliant, far more substantial in every way (biceps, satire and extraordinary creative energy) than the winsome West Country boy on the box. Highly recommended, if you get the chance to see him live. I took back the car the next day, driving through real snow, which I don’t like, on the country roads and handing over the keys with elated relief. I celebrated with a bowl of sludgy soup and the beginning of Rose Macaulay’s Letters to A Friend (why do I always type ‘fiend’ the first time?) and felt gloriously free. Going home on the bus, after bank & book things in Belfast, was sheer delight; so wonderful to have someone else doing the driving so the only tricky choice is between the book and the iPod.

Talking of books, I’ve just read a wonderful one: The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall. It was published last year, and is set around twenty years in the future, in a post-oil, post-economic collapse Britain. A thrilling story, a bit like a feminist John Wyndham, but very very terrifyingly plausible. Looking it up now, I see that it won several prizes, as did her earlier books. I don’t read very much contemporary writing; am a bit stuck in the middle of last century, but sometimes something gets up and kicks me into the present.

A bit like music, really; it wasn’t until I got the idea of going to Glastonbury next year that I thought I ought to listen to someone who isn’t dead yet. And so to many contented hours wandering around with the Kings of Convenience and Turin Brakes (though I do wish the silent bit in the middle of Rain City could be a bit shorter, it not doing much to while away the drizzling wait at the traffic lights).

Talking of which (quite a little babble of consciousness this morning) I wrote a long email to the entity called Roads Western last month to have a little moan about the woeful pedestrian crossings in Enniskillen. I got a reply the other day, in which they said that pedestrians never have to wait more than two minutes to cross. This may or may not be the case (I need to go out with a stopwatch) but two minutes of standing at the roadside in the pouring rain, watching the cars sweep through the puddles before you, can feel like quite some time. More on this to follow…

Finally, a joyful note. I went to the film club last night (Gerard Depardieu, Quand j’etais un chanteur – beautiful) and walked home by myself under a couple of stars and a space in the clouds with the moon shining through. No one was out, except for a trio of teenage boys, and even the barbed wire outside the Territorial Army was shining. You don’t get that in a car.

To continue (after a break for jubilant elation at the American election result…)

Back at the maths & physics department the car was sitting demurely beneath a street light, safe and solitary, though a lecturer-type man was sidling out of the door carrying a briefcase. I imagined the scene at home, as Sunday supper ended,

‘Er, I think I’ll just pop down…’

Silent sigh. Sometimes she half-wishes it could be a mistress.

Anyway, with only one major circlar tour and map consultation, we found ourselves back on the motorway and with a good chunk of Mitchell and Webb on the CD player made it home without incident by half-past twelve. At three o’clock I woke with the feeling that someone was using a brace and bit drill from school workwork lessons to remove half of my head. I don’t normally get headaches, so was perplexed for quite a few seconds before I remembered.

It didn’t happen for the first year or so of being without a car but lately, every time I’m in one for more than an hour or so, as a driver or passenger, I get this kind of headache. It’s usually quite specific, extending from my forehead backwards, on the left hand side, although later it gets weaker and more diffuse. Compared to the sort of headaches and migraines lots of people get it’s utterly pathetic and wouldn’t be worth mentioning at all except for the circumstances. It seems unlikely that it’s psychosomatic, as it’s so particular, and I never anticipate it, I never get it after travelling on buses or trains, and M gets a similar thing after being in a car. So it appears quite likely that over the years we’ve simply lost our immunity to carbon monoxide and the rest of the exhaust gases, particulates and general nasty stuff emitted by the infernal machine.

As I say, it wasn’t anything dramatic; by lunchtime it had modulated into a general hangoverish feeling (ironic, given my very rare teetotal evening before) and I drove off merrily to fill the car with second-hand books. It does, though, make you wonder about the reality behind the ubiquitous drive-the-baby-around-to-get-it-off-to-sleep remedy. A hundred years ago it was laudanum…