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Luckily, the rest of the assembled company are well Chablied and not shy about singing
After a hectic week, I accidentally brush my teeth with fungal nail cream. In my defence, the 10mg tube of Canespie Bifonazol has the exact same colour scheme as the well-known toothpaste brand I normally use.
And also in my defence it has been inadvertently placed in the toothpaste-holding receptacle on the bathroom windowsill. It could happen to anyone, really. The tube of cream was small, but I thought it was one of those miniature, travel-friendly tubes of toothpaste. It didn’t taste of anything much, which should have alerted me, but instead of realising my mistake I squeeze some more out of the tube and have another go.
Still no minty taste. I don’t generally bring my reading glasses to the bathroom in the morning but it appears I will have to start doing that. I wash my mouth out. Turns out fungal nail cream is relatively tasteless as these things go.
Then I search online for “what happens if I accidentally eat …”. I am surprised to discover the most common things people search for in this genre: “What happens if I accidentally eat ants/expired medicine/mouldy bread/fly eggs/silica gel” are the most popular queries. How does somebody accidentally eat fly eggs? I ponder this for a while but can’t think of any scenario where I’d accidentally swallow the eggs of a fly.
I suppose there are probably people who can’t imagine how somebody accidentally eats fungal nail cream.
“What happens if I accidentally eat fungal nail cream? ” doesn’t even feature in the top 10, disappointingly.
Then I go to Kilmore Quay in Co Wexford with my sister Rachael, making sure to pack actual toothpaste and leaving the fungal nail cream behind in the medicine cabinet where it should rightly have been. When Rach goes for a walk I decide to go to 6pm Mass with our host Jennifer – we’re staying in her thatched cottage.
I met the priest, Father Pat, in the pub at a surprise 70th birthday party the last time I was in Kilmore Quay. We chatted about the similarities in our jobs. Each week we have to come up with something to engage our audiences and we thrive under the unholy pressure of a deadline. At Mass I sing along with the three women on guitars and tambourine.
“What’s the final hymn? ” Father Pat asks them.
“This Little Light of Mine,” the women say. “It’s always This Little Light of Mine,” whispers Jennifer. It’s a banger, in fairness. We are here for the Write by the Sea Festival and we’ve been invited to dinner at the cottage of another woman called Róisín the night before my event.
Kilmore Quay is famed for its thatched cottages and more recently for its sauna by the sea and some of the best fish and chips in the country in Little Saltee’s takeaway. Soon after arriving, we realise that the dinner Jennifer’s friends have invited us to is, without any prior consultation, an Eat By the C dinner.
Everything involved in the dinner begins with the letter C. There is a giant plate of locally caught Crab and Crab Claws for the starter. Other Róisín’s Dad, Jim, is an actuary, deep sea diver, former publican and fisherman – a handy person in several scenarios – and spent hours preparing the crab for us. There is Chilli and Chicken Cacciatore for the main course. Crumble and Custard for dessert.
My sister and I brought Caramel Ice-Cream and Chocolate Cake. Someone else came with Chablis. What are the Chances? We are all blown away by the Coincidence of it all.
There is a singsong. I find singsongs more difficult in sobriety; my three-year dryaversary is coming up soon. Wine is a handy lubricant and giver of courage when it comes to the Noble Call. Luckily, the rest of the assembled company are well Chablied and not shy about singing.
Róisín’s mother Eleanor, who is in her 70s, stuns us all with a word-perfect rendition of The Rose. She does not need her phone to look at the lyrics, which puts us all to shame. Jennifer does an exuberant, hip-swinging version of Patricia The Stripper by Chris de Burgh. Every session should have one.
Eventually, my sister and I perform a Percy French medley kicking off with Are You Right There Michael? followed by Come Back Paddy Reilly and finishing up with The Woods of Gortnamona. There’s a ghost in the house, Other Róisín tells me. The cottage is more than 200 years old and in places has the original 4ft mud and stone walls.
It was a semaphore cottage back in the day, blinking messages over to the Saltee Islands where there once was a farming family. It’s half ship, half cottage, this home. Her father Jim, when renovating it in the 1980s, incorporated many of his seafaring artefacts uncovered on wrecks around the coast, including the Lismore, the Idaho and the Murchú. There are portholes and bells and rudder poles all over the gaff.
I go to sleep under Jennifer’s thatched roof, dreaming of ghosts and seafarers. I brush my teeth with minty toothpaste in the morning. It’s lashing rain but this annual trip is a balm. By the sea or by the C, it’s all good in Kilmore Quay.
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