We talk about what we have done in the past rather than what we are going to do in the future
The General and I used to go boating. Now we sit on the patio like characters in a Beckett playI was foolish enough three years ago to buy a wet suit in Dunfanaghy, which has been hanging in a shed now for three winters. Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
Years ago we used to talk about all we could do in summer, such as climbing Sliabh Liag or Sheemore, or visiting some famous fairs. I always felt the climax of summer came in the middle of August, with festivals such as the Puck, the Lammas and the Fair of Muff, a horse fair in Cavan that the General liked to attend in the old days, although he didn’t do much but stand on the street, eating ice cream cones and getting stains all over his waistcoat.
Michael Harding: We had just finished the salmon when the row broke out. All had gone well until thenMy worries and anxieties dissolve when I hear the notes rise from a flute or a fiddle Sometimes we moored on an island and listened to the birds and cooked steaks on small trays of charcoal. We urinated in the wilderness and the General would quote from The Wind in the Willows, saying that there was nothing half so much pleasure as “messing about in boats”.
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