Seeking a Gone Upriver state of mind!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

I’m not just bad. I’m doubly bad. Bad once, because for the second week I’m unable to write about anything beyond my tiny unwell existence. Bad twice, as this inadequacy is wholly due to me being that pain in the backside bloke who doesn’t take his own advice. Don’t tell me you’ve got the flu. You’ll only receive a long lecture about how viruses are pernicious little bastards who trick you into thinking you’re over them, so you go and do stuff, only for the lurgy to return, slamming you down on the bed like a leaden lump.

On and on I preach. Be careful. See how you feel when you step out the front door. If you feel oddly disoriented don’t do it.

Blah blah blah advice which turns into pure nonsense, as before you can say “Hypocritical gobshite!” I’ve gone and done exactly what I tell everyone not to.

After two days rest and gallons of water drunk those vile symptoms (that doubtless turned the stomachs of brave colyoomistas last week) had gone.

Overjoyed that I was getting better, I remembered my mistakes of the past and tried to take it easy, but life in its wonder and insistence does keep happening.

At the moment there is nothing small on my life agenda. Only the major stuff, most of which is, by its very nature, out of my control.

Trouble is, I’m a bit of control freak. Even though I truly accept that just about everything that happens is out of my control, I fail to resist the urge to influence the minuscule crumbs I might control.

Instead of resting and recuperating, I flee home and drive north, and stay here, where I am today, a few hundred yards from a splendid beach. There’s neither tv nor internet and I so don’t care.

On the drive up here yesterday I thought about how great it’d be to do an old favourite beach walk I haven’t done for years, but ’twas not to be. I may be foolish but I ain’t stupid. Stopping for supplies I suddenly found myself breaking into a raging sweat while merely ambling around a shop.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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