Do the hokey pokey – that’s what it’s all about!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

Oh Adley, you silly beast. What on earth made you think you could make plans? Life happens: majestic, terrible and ecstatic, pushing far beyond the cosy confines of plans.

My tiny plan was beautiful in its simplicity. Despite a lifetime of experience informing me I should’ve known better, it also seemed eminently achievable.

Yesterday I rushed around like a manic depressive on the upswing (know thyself) trying to clear the decks, so that today I could have an entire day at home, doing nothing but writing.

I did the laundry, went to the supermarket, cooked a huge lamb and sweet potato stew that’d feed us for two days, made a fire and put down the first draft of a feature I hadn’t expected to write at all.

Bloody lovely. One of the great things about working for myself at home is that I can write at any time: on days off and while onions are sweating in the pan.

At this stage my plan didn’t even feel like a plan. It was just tomorrow. I was that confident.

Usually I get up at the same time as the Snapper, but last night I told her I was going to lie in. She said she had a big day at work coming up, so she’d be leaving early anyway. Sleep in my love. That’s what she said.

With my impending day tantalising me like a fat golden peach ripening on the tree, I am sleeping deeply and dreaming of other worlds when I hear a shout.

“Charlie! Charlie, my car’s dead.”

My ears and brain kick-start my voice. I seem to need to mumble out loud to myself, in some slurry muddy treacle way, to prove that I’m awake and therefore able of conscious thought.

“Wha-? Whassa the oh, ohhh, for Christ’s sake, I, ohhhhh, thusha musha geddup.”

A quick glance at my clock and I realise there’s no time to look under her car’s bonnet, no time for jump leads. She has to leave now.

No te0,a no banana, no time. I’m dressed and off we go.

Feeling simultaneously drunk and seasick, I point my car Bennett down the bohreen. The Snapper suggests I might like to put on the headlights, as it’s a bit of a dim morning. Of course she’s right, but I bark back that it’s a little early for me to be taking instructions, in a voice that sounds way too aggressive.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.