DA 2007: Rich and poor alike (readers under 15 only with parental guidance)
Dolphin Address 23
December 30th 2007
Most people who read me think I lead the life of a bird of paradise. And that is quite true too. When I look around me here, sometimes tears of beauty well up in the corners of my eyes. Then I don’t mind at all having to clean my hair on my knees at a cold water tap with washing-up liquid.
Rich and poor alike.
Last night for instance, or rather early in the morning. The sea was roaring like a runaway freight train. I had looked up in my tide table that at 08.36 am the water would be at its highest, 4.8 metres, but this is calculated without taking the direction of the wind into account (which drove the waves into Galway Bay) or a high-pressure area (which weighs down the water, so it is higher at the shores). At 7 o’clock I had to pee and in the light of a watery moon I saw a savage horde of waves coming my way at eye level. Usually they break on the shallows and the backwash, but my usual fascination with such forces of nature at that moment was annihilated by my turmoil. The rising tide still had one and a half hour to go and whatever happened, I knew for sure I was not going to close my eyes this way. So in my pyjamas I went behind the wheel and with a running start I went over ‘Funny Lane’ and parked behind the shop. And slept in luxuriously.
Rich and poor alike.
Once awake, I had to shit. That is very normal, everyone has done this. Now over half a year ago, some local yokel put a lock on the toilet door behind the shop. When I am on the meadow this is hardly a problem. Normally I look for a large, about knee-high boulder in the zone under the high-water line and sit down on the edge on one buttock. This works fine and the view is brilliant, no birthday calendar can beat that.
Flushing is no problem either, eventually this goes of itself with thousands of litres of water and there is always a handful of seaweed nearby to camouflage it for the time being. However, there are doubtful cases. Sometimes the water rises to a point that there is a chance that a wave washes on and then you are a s(h)itting duck in the water. It happened to me a number of times and it is not really funny. On the other hand it does give a thrill. At high tide or heavy rainfall I just put it on hold and if need be I always have my bucket with a homemade neatly-fitting seat I once made from a leftover sheet of plywood. And so this morning I walked in waterproof wrapping to the meadow in the pouring rain and did my do on the bucket in the kitchen hole. Exceptionally stylish, sheltered from the wind and the rain that was flying over the kitchen roof and accompanied by blockbuster waves.
Rich and poor alike.
With stone-cold hands I walked back and bought myself a coffee in the shop. That is literally handy. First you hold the paper cup in one hand and let it warm a bit, while the other hand is on top of the first. Then you switch them around and put the slightly warmed hand on top of the cold one, so this hand is warmed on the inside by the coffee and on the outside by the first hand. This you alternate a few times and in no time your hands have been warmed step-by-step.
Rich and poor alike.
Jan Ploeg, meadow, December 30th 2007
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