Closing In, Opening Up II

I’ve never been keen on travel guides. Not that I object to the concept - and I read the appropriate sections when I get the chance - but their relative value seems outweighed by their sheer size, and the arbitrary nature of much of the information. It’s better to carry an extra pair of socks than unreliable advice. So I didn’t know that Doolin was a village renowned for its music, or that it was the closest village to the majestic Cliffs of Moher and an easy jumping off point to explore the standing stones and sculptured rockscapes of The Burren. All I knew when I booked into the hostel (creatively called Doolin Hostel, and the only one open at that time of year) was what I could see - a narrow ribbon of road skirting frost-tufted fields and a string of pearly houses gently unravelling into the sea.
The hostel was typical of Ireland - a whitewashed sod cottage with an open turf (peat) fire... and freezing cold. The fire, though stacked high with turf, hardly warmed the earthy sausage-logs, leaving you the difficult choice between sitting with a frozen back, or standing to adopt a rotisserie approach and slowly revolving in front of the smoky flicker.
Hostel owners seem to believe backpackers value experience over warmth. So while we struggled to coax lazy flames from the usually damp peat - receiving more warmth from carrying the turf than from burning it - they would invariably be sweating in front of a glowing coal sun. The discrepancy was always greatest in the YHA hostels, where wardens would flash smiling signals through foggy windows to let you know they weren’t opening the doors before five o’clock, no matter how miserable you looked standing saturated beneath that tree ... even when the hostel was twenty miles from the nearest village and you were the only guest. But they happily took your money once you discovered “We’re just baking potatoes, would you like one?” is actually wardenesque for “Do you want to buy an outrageously expensive baked potato?” And in the morning you’d still have to Mister Sheen the banisters or try to polish the swinging glass door in the foyer during the check-out rush.
After a few days exploring the local area, I decided this was a place I could imagine staying for a while. Apart from the area’s natural beauty, there was a regular trickle of backpackers passing through, and the local pub, Connolly’s, was everything an Irish pub should be - warm and cosy, filled with cloth-capped old men and music on those rare nights when the old men felt like playing (and they always felt like playing if there was a cold Guinness on offer). So I quizzed Paddy, the hostel owner, about local employment opportunities, and he eventually offered me a job painting the hostel for the grand sum of 25 Punt a week plus a pint of fresh milk per day. I accepted. The next day I began painting everything in pastel shades of yellow and green.
So the stage was now set. Coincidence had brought me here, when I’d been heading somewhere else. Coincidence now kept me here, when I should have been continuing my journey elsewhere.
A few days later I was sitting by the fire reading when Marion walked in... with her boyfriend, Arne. Not that I paid much attention at the time (new people had come and gone almost every night, so it didn’t pay to get too quickly attached to strangers), but I did notice her sparkling glacier-lake eyes and a crooked smile which seemed to generate more heat than the fire. But they weren’t passing through, they’d come to stay a while. Arne was an Ireland fan, and he’d been to Doolin several times to enjoy the music and the atmosphere. Marion had wanted to go skiing in Italy, so she was a little unenthusiastic to start, but was beginning to see its good points.
They stayed a week - a week of excursions and long walks on misty, foam-flecked beaches, music-filled nights at Connolly’s or swirling reels in Lisdoonvarna, steaming porridge and potatoes hauled from the fire, spicy hot whiskeys revealing hidden futures among the cloves, and laughing evenings basking in warm conversation. But soon, too soon, they left. The hostel felt even colder than usual that night, and no matter how high I stoked the fire, there was no heat to be wrung from the soggy turf or from the soggy strangers sitting beside me. But I threw myself into the painting (though not literally) and consoled myself with the thought that I was going to see them again, sooner or later...
...and, as it turned out, I only had to wait three days. After Doolin, everything had seemed pale and lifeless, though neither of them would admit it, and they would have continued north if they hadn’t befriended two backpackers (Rodney, a fellow Brisbanite... but no, I didn’t know him before I left Australia; and Dave, an American) in Galway who were heading south - to Doolin. It was all the excuse they needed to return. And for the next week there was five of us squeezing into Marion’s Renault 4 to drive to the cliffs, or cheering encouragement as Marion danced with a withered grey leprechaun, or stifling our laughter as Rodney almost convinced a young Canadian that AIDS originated in elephants (though I’ll skip the details of his complex theory, especially the bit relating to how the disease spread to humans...).
There was also, to my pleasant surprise, plenty of time alone with Marion - much to Arne’s delight. (He was allergic to any symptom of what he perceived as undue ‘clingyness’. Such symptoms included Marion wanting to spend more than a few hours a week together, or objecting when he spent the night at one of his myriad ex-girlfriends’ apartments.) He wanted an open relationship between independent, self-sufficient individuals, and for once, Marion was quite happy to ‘do her own thing’ ... as long as it included me.
One night we even stayed up to watch the sunrise, tramping through a cow paddock and crouching beside each other in the shelter of a mossy stone wall as the darkness slowly dissolved around us. It could have been a romantic moment if Rodney hadn’t accompanied us (though we certainly didn’t begrudge his company), or if he hadn’t discovered he had so much in common with the cows. Their mutually (moo-tually?) enraptured moo-ing wasn’t exactly a dawn chorus to inspire romance. (Not so much a mood enhancement as a moo-ed interruption.) And besides, romance was the last thing I was looking for. So it was with mixed emotions that I watched them leave a few days later.
Two months later Raene and I met up again and both agreed it was time to head south again for a while. We looked for cheap flights to Spain or Portugal in London, but even the cheapest flight seemed an unwarranted extravagance, so we decided to hitch. Across the channel to visit friends in Belgium and to pick up the necessary visas. But trying to get a visa from the French embassy in Brussels was like trying to get pate from a live goose, so we opted to head to Turkey instead... stopping along the way to visit Marion and Arne.
Marion and I spent the next week talking and talking well into the early hours of each morning, continuing long after Raene had retired to the spare room (actually the storage room, since it was only a one-room apartment), and Arne had made a fleeting appearance. There seemed so much we wanted to say, so much we needed to say to each other, that it was simply impossible to stop until everything had been said. Until exhaustion began mugging each thought before it could take flight into words, and we had to surrender to sleep.
We knew we couldn’t maintain this level of intimacy without something happening. Our friendship had swollen with every word, every whisper of laughter, inflating like an emotional Zeppelin. I could feel it, now, tugging against its heavy anchor of indecision and fear. If I released the cables it would soar on the exhilarating winds, rising higher and higher, reaching heights as yet unimagined... but would it eventually crash into a mountain of doubt and despair, leaving only twisted wreckage and crumpled memories? But if I tried to deflate it, to pile on more ballast and keep it hovering sedately overhead, perhaps it would eventually collapse beneath the weight of its own sad inertia. I wanted to release it, but my hand was gripped firmly around the mooring line and refused to let go.
Until, early one morning as we reached another moment where words seemed too flimsy to carry the weight of meaning, Marion read a poem she’d written about me (well, about waiting for me). Suddenly I knew the feelings I had for her (she was wonderful, generous, beautiful, kind, funny ... perfect, in other words) were reciprocated... except, perhaps, for the beautiful part. Finally I could let go.
“I never had a girlfriend before,” I stammered as the enormity of the moment overwhelmed me. I’m still slightly embarrassed by my lack of worldliness at that moment. Was this the best I could come up with? If I’d only had a script and a few good rehearsals before a competent director, I could have been as nonchalant as Richard Gere. I could have said something seductive. Something cool. Something at least a little more memorable. Instead, I’d blurted out the innocent truth. What kind of a start to a relationship was that?
But it was the truth. I don’t know whether it was meant as a warning, or a plea for understanding, but it was the first thought which came into my head. Perhaps I was just letting Marion know that the ball was firmly in her court, that the next move was going to have to be hers, or there’d be no moves whatsoever. But Marion was a good mover, and she moved closer.
There followed joyful days. Each moment together brought new discoveries and a deepening contentment. I was in love! In love with Marion. In love with the world. In love with life.
There followed passion-filled nights. Of course I had nothing to compare it with - no ancient wisdom passed down from my father (in my family, sex was never mentioned, let alone the intricacies of relationships), no helpful institutional education (Banyo High School was hardly a holy shrine of late-70’s enlightenment), only a handful of movies, and the few furtive passages from The Joy of Sex Cameron got for his 21st birthday (from friends, not my parents ... so maybe I’d just been hanging around with the ‘wrong’ crowd?) - but once I stopped acting as though we were in some cheap Hollywood drama and began responding naturally, instinctively, it was wonderful.
Virtual reality, hyper reality. Why is reality never enough? It has to be super-charged, superfast, superloud, with a soundtrack and special effects. We’re too busy making movies instead of making love. Blockbuster sex full of ineffectual licking and groaning, but it only heightens our sense of unreality. How come Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger never ended up with a mouthful of short and curlies? No wonder we’re so easily disappointed. No wonder we’re all addicted to the lives of the rich and famous - surely they’re enjoying all this groaning and licking! If only we were richer or more attractive or funnier or more experienced - if we only had more - then we’d have a million dollar smile on our faces too. We’re forever stumbling through ignorant darkness across frozen fields of loneliness, searching for light in the blinding pyres of passion, searching for warmth in the consuming flames of lust. But it’s the constant flame which gives most light, the steady fire which gives most heat. Without the emotional and spiritual connection, sex remains just so much sweaty moaning.
I wanted to stay there ... forever, but I’d promised to travel south with Raene. Though I didn’t want to leave, I also thought leaving wasn’t such a bad idea. It would give us some distance, some perspective. I’d accompany Raene through the Eastern Bloc and meet Marion in Yugoslavia or Greece during her holidays.
After a long farewell at the autobahn petrol station, we headed south. But hitching was slow, and it took us all day to get to Munich. The success of hitching always seems to depend on your mood. The more optimistic and positive you are, the easier the rides. Or is it just that it all seems so much easier when you’re feeling good? I called Marion from Munich, secretly hoping she’d urge me to return, but she seemed somehow remote, wary... or maybe I was just misinterpreting it? Then we headed to Austria.
The route between Munich and Austria is a hitching blackspot of universal proportions. I’ve done it eight or nine times - in both directions - and my record is eight hours for the 135 kilometres. This time proved no exception, and by the time we arrived in Innsbruck, we were both exhausted.
I’d had enough. All I wanted to do was return to Marion. I called to ask her thoughts on the idea, and though she still seemed wary, she agreed. So after seeing Raene safely off on the early morning train to Greece, I walked out to the beginning of the northern motorway. I hoped the romantic nature of my journey (I was travelling from the land of Mozart along Germany’s famous ‘romantic street’ in order to live happily ever after with the love of my life) would prove a lucky talisman. (After all, didn’t Doris Day, no less, claim everybody loved a lover?)
But Austrians care as little for romance as they do for hitchers, and it took almost an entire day just to leave Austria. For much of the day I found myself walking along deserted back roads after some helpful soul had dropped me off on a ghost exit.
(I’ve become distrusting of anyone who claims to know a “good hitching spot”, because it inevitably turns out to be some weed-veined byway which hasn’t been used since the Nazi Occupation, or in the middle of a motorway junction where the slowest cars are travelling at 200km/h, except for the police car which cruises past to eject you into the forest - Do they think I want to be there? - and the next village is more than thirty kilometres away through crocodile-infested swamp ... But worst of all, you have to smile politely and thank them for their generosity, which feels very much like thanking Satan for delivering you to Hell).
Then I crossed at a border post normally reserved for smugglers and draft-dodgers, walked five kilometres to the first petrol station on the German side (always an encouraging development), then caught an interminable string of short lifts (none further than the next petrol station), finally climbing through Marion’s apartment window just after midnight (luckily the last lift had dropped me at the door) on the first of May. After she’d overcome her initial shock (I’d tried the buzzer but she was in the shower and hadn’t heard me, so she thought someone was breaking in), we fell into each others’ arms and ...
Hmmm, well, basically we weren’t out of each others’ sight for more than a couple of days after that. We spent long weekends exploring Paris and Amsterdam, New Year in Austria, outdoor pubs, winebars, long walks through the forest, swimming in a local waterhole, and generally developing a permanent, fulfilling, ecstatically happy relationship. We never argued (after I stopped leaving ‘brake-stripes’ in the toilet). We never disagreed about anything important. Life was truly carefree.
Of course I had a few visa problems - Germany wouldn’t be Germany without bureaucracy, the cornerstone of ‘efficiency’. I couldn’t get a visa unless I had a job. I couldn’t get a job unless I had a work permit. And I couldn’t get a work permit unless I found a job no German could do (understandable in a country which grants citizenship according to ‘blood lines’ - no German blood, no citizenship, no matter how many generations you live there). So I found a job teaching English in a private language school which only employed ‘native’ English speakers (which happened to be my only qualification for the job), but my application was turned down. I appealed and my hopeful employer protested (they were desperate for teachers, and I’d not only completed the intensive week-long instruction course - where we mainly discussed the World Cup - but had already been working ‘under-the-table’ for a month, so they were keen to make it official), and two weeks later I had my work permit.
I returned to the immigration department for my visa. Surely it was a mere formality ... so why were they ushering me into a back room? Because, a fuming bureaucrat tersely informed me, it was illegal for me to have a work permit when I didn’t even have a visa! How can I work when I’m not allowed to stay? I could be deported. I could be thrown in jail. But he was in a good mood, so he’d give me three days to leave the country instead!
Pale and disbelieving, I left and wandered into Marion’s office. She was incredulous - surely I must have misunderstood ...
But there was no misunderstanding. The bureaucrat was adamant.
OK, we’d get married. (Although we’d never actually discussed marriage, it seemed an entirely natural - and ultimately necessary - progression.)
The bureaucrat told us he frowned upon marriages of convenience.
We protested it may be a convenient marriage, but it certainly wasn’t a marriage of convenience.
He dismissed us. As long as I left the country within three days, he didn’t care what we did.

Chapter Six - Closing In, Opening Up

I’ve never been an early riser. Midnight has often been the most valuable time of the day for me, a time full of silences and opportunities. The early bird catches the worm, they say, but consider it from the worm’s perspective. I bet it’s not such a light-hearted expression in wormworld. “Remember the early worm,” they’ll whisper to each other as they slither past.
Not that worms whisper, of course ... at least I haven’t heard them... but maybe I just haven’t been listening ... Are worms actually capable of making any sound? If a worm on-looker noticed two worms speeding towards an icy intersection from opposite directions, and was convinced they would crash head on if they weren’t warned of the danger, would it simply watch on in aloof silence? Perhaps there is no other role for the worm to take than mute witness. Perhaps such questions are interminably - though silently - debated in worm ethics classes, yet remain obstinately unresolved. Of course, if the worm had a video camera - and we engaged in a little (h)armless anthropomorphism - the appropriate, socially-sanctioned course of action becomes clear - get it on tape! What is the value of two worms’ lives when compared to the priceless panacea of Funniest Home Tragedies? Maybe worms are cleverer than us. Maybe silence is golden. Or maybe silence just means not getting a mouthful of dirt.
But now the night held no promises. It was just darkness. A lonely vacuum of silence, emptiness, with too many hours to fill. It was to be endured until the first rays of sunshine brought not hope, but a sense of accomplishment. I had survived another day, another night, and surely each day must get easier ...
The days were slightly better. At least I still had the house to build. I still had something to do. At times I could even imagine nothing had changed. As long as I focused on the physical work, not thinking beyond the next nail, the next piece of the timber puzzle, I could believe, for a minute, that I was still moving forward. That there was still a goal I wanted to reach, a point at which life would somehow make sense. But at the end of each day, as I stood in front of the shed surveying my day’s work, the jumble of patchwork squares which would one day be a house - my house - seemed to offer more pain than hope. Its emptiness an almost physical burden, weighing me down. And it offered no protection from the encroaching night.
Marion came around to pick up her belongings. Anything she wanted, she could have. I didn’t care. Nothing meant anything anymore. They were just things cluttering up my life. Replaceable things. Things which would wear out one day, so what was the point of treasuring them? She’d moved into a house in Ettrick and wanted to make it ‘homey’. Fine, this house would never be a home, so why not?
We tried to settle things amicably. I would keep enough money to pay outstanding bills, she would take the rest. It was fair. It was reasonable. But I hated the fairness of it, the reasonableness. I envied her sudden freedom. Her bewildering choices. She could leave in any direction, go anywhere, do anything. I was trapped, and I felt I had been trapped ... by her! She had wanted to live here, despite my reservations. She had wanted kittens, despite my protests. Now she was leaving, while I had to go on building, go on living here, by myself. The house was valueless until it was a house, but I could no longer expect to finish now that I had no finances.
So we parted. Soon she had found someone to replace me, someone to stave off the loneliness. She wanted to escape, but she couldn’t do it alone. Though we still saw each other occasionally, an unbearable distance had opened between us. We were two strangers suddenly introduced at a party by a well-meaning host who thought we had so much in common. But we had too much in common, and there was only an awkward silence. My building tales were painful reminders of the life she had abandoned. Her half-hearted tales of her new life were unbearably sad. So, gradually, we stopped seeing each other, and eventually she left to Dunedin.
Meanwhile, there was still a house to be built. I’d come too far to abandon it just yet. Once it was closed in, I could reconsider my options. Not that I could name any option at that moment, but I was sure they would eventually present themselves. After all, I had had a life before Marion. A good life. We had only been together five years, and the last couple hadn’t been wonderful ones, so there was no reason to expect my future to be any less rosy than my past (especially my immediate past). No reason at all ... except for the all-pervading feeling that half of me had wilted and died.
We’d thought we were destined to be together - forever. After all, an entire world had lain between us, and yet Fate, masquerading as free choice, had somehow, magically, contrived to bring us both to a small village in Ireland at the same time. Not that we’d ever believed in happy endings or Hollywood fairytales, but the sheer improbability of our meeting - the million paths foregone, the untold obstacles overcome, the bewildering kaleidoscope of choices ignored to create that moment - had always made us feel it had been pre-ordained. That it was simply meant to be.
What could I believe now? Could the building blocks of destiny be assembled in an infinite number of patterns, or was it a cosmic jigsaw where every piece had its allotted place? Was Fate truly fickle, allowing us a single opportunity to grasp our true destiny, or was opportunity’s twin always waiting around the next corner? Were we all riding the rails aboard our own karma train, throwing random switches at every junction until we reached the end of the line, or was chance waiting patiently at every station?
If our meeting had been pre-ordained, then this must also have been pre-ordained. But I couldn’t believe this was somehow meant to be. That there was some greater purpose to all this misery. That eventually I’d come to realise it had all been a valuable ‘learning experience’. What value was experiencing emptiness? What value was learning what happens once your tears have run dry? How could this make me a better person, when I hardly believed I’d ever be more than half a person again?
No, this wasn’t Fate, this was Life catching us unaware. This was us making mistakes, taking each other for granted, taking the future for granted. So sure we were supposed to be together, that we’d ignored every sign that it was all coming apart. We were two pieces cut from the same fabric then sewn together to form a single, seamless garment - no longer you and me, but a mystical, eternal WE. Who could blame us for believing all those loose threads were simply frayed edges - entirely normal wear and tear?
So when had it all started to unravel?
Raene and I had been travelling together for a year when we decided to celebrate our anniversary by splitting up for a few months. Ireland seemed like the perfect place for a holiday apart. It was a relatively easy hitching country (often more a case of waiting for a car to come than waiting for one to stop, and no long walks to the beginning of some motorway... though such walks can be quite educational, offering rare insights in the worst a city has to offer), and apart from having to listen to the private troubles of male drivers, a relatively safe country for women to hitch alone.
Raene quickly found a job as a nanny with the Dingle doctor’s family Dingle being the name of a small fishing village north of Killarney, not some peculiar Irish affliction or a Celtic witch doctor. But even though I’m a Pisces, working in the local fish factory held no appeal whatsoever, so I headed north.
In summer, Ireland is full of Americans rediscovering their lost heritage, all dressed in green with feet tapping in clumsy pursuit of the local rhythm. In winter, when the world has scurried back to its warm cities, the countryside is deathly quiet, with only the grey bowron sea and the tin-whistle wind marking time with my passing as I hugged the coast. It was slow progress, and despite my usual aversion to walking, I often found myself enjoyably ambling along stone-walled lanes, urged on by slit-eyed sheep.
Walking while hitching is like accepting lifts while tramping - you still get to where you’re going, but it’s missing the point. Hitching is all about hitching. It’s about putting your destiny in the slim hands of chance and playing the odds. There are no definites, no guarantees, no timetables, only the certainty that you’re going to get somewhere ... eventually. Sometimes even that can begin to look shaky.
After three days hitching beneath the midnight sun, high up in the Arctic Circle where cars are scarcer than red-nosed reindeer, having managed to travel less than thirty kilometres, most of it through sparse, golden tundra, before coming to an ignominious, and seemingly permanent, fullstop in a patch of forest just across the Finnish border, we could have been forgiven had we opted to trade-in our thumbs for bus tickets, especially since two days earlier we’d left the sanctity of the highway to enjoy a brief respite from the unrelenting glare at the precise moment the elderly German couple we’d accompanied for three days through Norway decided to pass by heading south.
But although hitching relies on the unfaithful marriage between luck and perseverance, you can improve the odds through technique (though being a woman is often all the technique you need). Motorists can be divided into three categories - those who always stop (about 1%); those who occasionally stop depending on the situation, their mood, or the hitcher’s appearance (about 9%); and those who never stop (an overwhelming 90%).
So, at the most, you’ve only got a 1-in-10 chance that the driver of the next car is even open to consider your proposal. There’s nothing you can do to entice the nevers to stop, and the always will stop even if you’ve fallen asleep on the side of the road. But there’s an entire encyclopedia of reasons why an occasional doesn’t stop ... this time.
It’s a question of neutralising as many as possible.
By wearing bright/light clothes. Black is a sinister colour for many, often indicating a dark or gloomy character; and army camouflage gear indicates no character at all.
By looking clean and tidy. Even the suspicion they might be spending the next two hours in a cramped cabin with one of the great unwashed is enough to deter even the most regular of occasionals.
By looking friendly. Most occasionals pick up hitchers for the conversation, not for an argument.
By resisting displays of aggression or anger. Smiling and waving - even while cursing them with pain and pestilence under your breath - is a more productive strategy than hurling stones or abuse simply because of the guilt and/or goodwill it may engender. It has been known to cause guilt-ridden drivers to return, or to influence the decision of approaching drivers to stop, and it may predispose drivers to stop next time, or even for the next hitcher ... which may not be a comfort at that moment, but it may influence the overall odds.
By standing in a convenient spot. Ideally on a flat, straight stretch of road, where traffic has to slow down, with enough space for a car to pull off the road without rolling down an embankment or parking illegally. Police in most countries seem to consider hitchers a traffic hazard, but because it is seldom illegal, they often take out their frustrations on any driver foolish enough to infringe minor traffic regulations while stopping.
And by ensuring you’re clearly visible. Giving the drivers ample time to assess your adherence to the above standards, and to peruse their excuse portfolio. An occasional likes to have an excuse for not picking you up - even when that excuse is simply that they don’t feel like stopping - and there’s a bewildering array of signals they use to ensure you understand the particular excuse they’ve selected. There’s the lateral “I’m-taking-the-next-turn-off” wave. The over-the-shoulder “We’re-full-and-the-children-bite-and-the-dog-is-carsick” thumb jerk. The furtive “My-husband/wife/mother/father-doesn’t-let-me-pick-up-strangers” finger-point. And the slow “I-can’t-think-of-a-single-reason-why-I’m-not-stopping-but-I’m-not” shrug.
Some nevers use false signals in a misguided attempt to seem like occasionals, but these are rarely successful as they are usually wildly inappropriate to the situation - such as signalling a turn-off when the only exit possible is via submarine; impossible to accurately interpret - such as the grinning “I’m-so-happy-I’ve-got-a-car / What-a-clown-for-thinking-I-might-stop” head nod; or just plain stupid - such as the exuberant “Good-on-you-for-trying-something-so-futile” raised thumb.
I’ve never found walking much use when hitch-hiking, so I long ago dropped the hiking part. Not only doesn’t it get you to your destination any faster (unless your destination is less than a day’s walk away), but under normal circumstances, it tends to seriously undermine your liftability. Because the only car in an hour invariably appears after you’re past that long, clear straight and just as the road starts dodging between shadow-encrusted curves - so there’s not enough time for the occasionals to size you up. If it does miraculously appear on the straight, it’s usually the first passing opportunity they’ve had after three hours stuck behind seven lorries, two tractors and a gypsy caravan, so unless there’s a perfect place to make a pit stop, there’s no way any driver’s going to risk losing pole position. So it’s usually better to find the most ideal location available, and wait. And often the best place is, coincidentally, within metres of where your last lift dropped you.
But Ireland was different. Traffic was sparse (and the few cars passing by were never going far), the scenery was breathtaking, and because I had no destination in mind, I was always within walking distance of where I wanted to go. The longest trips were usually no further than the next village (often perched on coughing tractors or squeezed between bales of hay), with many journeys prolonged by rambling detours and generous Guinness sojourns. And it was on one such detour that I ended up in Doolin.