Head Rambles

Grandad April 6th, 2007

Dario Sanchez just wrote an angry article.

It is angry, and he is right.  He is talking about the idiocy of drivers, speed and drink.

Some years ago, I was driving from Belfast to Dublin.  It was a lovely day.  I had a CD on [quietly] and was enjoying the drive.

It was the day of the Dublin to Belfast Maracycle, so there were dozens, if not hundreds of cyclists heading north.  They too were happy, and waving to us as we headed south.  I waved back.  It was a happy day.

I had to slow down at one stage, because there was a large group of cyclists on the far side of the road.  They were a happy bunch.  Someone had just told a joke, and they were all laughing.

A car, travelling at very high speed suddenly drove through the group.

There was an explosion of debris. My car was showered with bits of bicycle and other things I won’t mention. There was mayhem. Two cyclists were killed, and several others seriously injured.  The road was covered in debris.  The car never even slowed down.  It just kept going as if nothing had happened.

I got out of my car and wandered around along with a lot of other people.  We were silent.  We didn’t know what to do or even where we were. We were all in deep shock.

My shock was so deep, I just got back in my car and drove home.  Fortunately it rained at Dundalk, and that washed the blood off the car.  When I got home, I cried.  I kept seeing bodies flying through the air.

I realised only then that I had left the scene of an accident, and that I was a prime witness.  I phoned the police in Newry the next day and faxed them a statement.  They were very understanding.

The driver of the car was caught.  He was drunk. I don’t know what happened to him, and I don’t care.  I hope he rots in hell.

The point to the story though is that an accident gives no warning.  It can happen at any moment.  You may think you are safe, but two seconds later, you can be dead. You may think it will never happen to you, but the odds are higher than you think.

I knew the parents of the girl who was killed in the fog the other week.  They thought it was just another Spring day, just like any other day.  But in an instant, their lives were forever changed.  They will never be quite the same again.

So, for God’s sake take care.

Please.

• On the road
• Comments(13)

Grandad April 6th, 2007

The County Council are driving me mad.

For some reason, best known to themselves, they’ve gone crazy digging the place up. They are digging holes in the road. They are digging trenches in the road. They are digging slots in the road.

The holes are round, square, oblong and rectangular. They are in no particular pattern. They are scattered at random along a half mile stretch outside my house.

Now each time they dig a hole, they look into it, and then fill it up again. And they finish it off perfectly, before moving on to the next one. And they’re not moving gradually down, or up the road. When they finish one, they might move 3 yards or 300 yards before starting again. There is no pattern at all to it.

The thing that is bugging me [apart from the noise and the fact that I can't get out of my lane half the time] is the reason for it. I have been trying to work it out. I have come up with the following possible reasons….

They are looking for something. Maybe the last time they resurfaced the road, someone dropped something precious like a wedding ring or a mobile phone or a sandwich? And now they are digging in all the spots where he remembers standing? That can’t be it, because they are going down very deep, and the bloke must have done a lot of standing around [there again...?]

It’s a Government Plot. They are looking for my Interweb connection so that they can silence me? If so, they’ll have a job because all the wiring here is overhead and I use wireless anyway.

It’s a Government Plot. Prior to the upcoming election, they are culling schoolchildren, the unemployed, the sick and homeless people, so that they can produce nice statistics. And they are burying the body parts under my road? Could be?

They are mining. They are finally laying the land mines I requested, to keep the tourists away. I requested this a long time ago as I’m sick of giving lost tourists directions up onto the bogs. This is a definite possibility.

It’s a FÃ?S training thing. This has definite possibilities. It’s all part of a training scheme. They are sending the trainees out to my stretch of road to practice their hole digging skills. They are also being taught how to set up temporary traffic lights to cause maximum disruption.

At the moment, they are filling in the holes and doing a perfect job. You’d hardly know they’d been there. So the next lesson is how to finish the job with a hump or a hole.

Yes. That one looks like a runner.

• On the road
• Comments(8)