Dolphin Address 5 2003
23 juni 2003
Dear Car
Wake up with the screens in tears
wet feet walking on the grass
nothing doing, cold outside
rather snug up in my car.
A city concentrates a great number of activities, that often and even by preference are accessible by foot. That is different here. Dusty swims at Derreen, which is about 5 kilometer from the local shop in Fanore. The weekend meadow, only a few minutes downhill, serves as an escape when the dunes are overpowered by crude city people and other loudmouths who stink washed up fish nets on out of hand bonfires to the doubtful delight of breaking car radio's.
Ballyvaughn, where the 'Tuna-melt' rules, with the onrushing internet café 'The Rising Tide' and the detailed assorted grocering Spar supermarket, is reached from Fanore via Blackhead along 12 kilometers of infinitely accompanying stone walls, like crash barriers from the Stone Age.
To the south, to Doolin, where, night after night, McDermott filled my stomach with Beef Lasagna and my ears with Irish traditionals, 13 kilometer, and to Lisdoonvarna, 12 kilometers, good for a chemist's with a practically omniscient pharmacistee. There is a stretch of road with so many bends, that you are chiefly steering through the side windows. You even return before you know it. On top of that there is such a steep slope, that, at least according to the diesel reading, your tank is full.
Really far is Ennistymon, 23 kilometers, the nearest ATM, or Lahinch, which houses 'The Celtic T-shirt Shop'(where I buy nearly all my top clothes) and Mrs. O'Brien's Kitchen.
And if you want to buy 'everything', you have to go to Ennis, a 50 kilometer long and dull road, where the only thing funny might be that you are overtaken by a Ford Guinness.
Much nicer and more metropolitan is Galway on 70 kilometers. At Oranmore though, you see in all three rear view mirrors a wonderful panorama, but before you just an empty, hungry road.
Jan Ploeg, Poulsallagh, June 23rd 2003
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