Read Online 1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge by Tony Hawks, Prefers to remain anonymous - Free Book Online Page B

added.
    ‘A hundred and thirty pounds.’
    ‘Ah, we paid roughly the same. We have one like that upstairs in the flat.’
    ‘Are you happy with it?’
    ‘Oh Jesus, yeah. They’re great for a wee place.’
    Before we could become involved in the kind of conversation about fridges that motorcycle enthusiasts have about motorcycles, I bad him farewell and he wished me luck, happily reassured that the Donegal branch of Fridges ‘R Us hadn’t ripped him off. I hoped that this knowledge would give him the extra tonic he’d need to make it through another stressful day as Donegal Town’s premier butcher, and watched him as he disappeared out the back to carry on doing whatever butchers do when they’re not out the front.
    Brendan, brilliant Brendan, waited patiently in his car whilst, from a phonebox in the square, I gave The Gerry Ryatt Show a quick update on my first day. He was most impressed by my progress so far and declared that Donegal Town by the end of Day One was ‘absolutely bloody marvellous’. I explained my plans to reach Bunbeg and then Tory Island and he told drivers to look out for me just north of Letterkenny in around an hour’s time. This really was most kind of him, and given the threatening rain clouds above, could make the difference between good health and a lengthy hospital stay for pneumonia. At the end of our interview, I was told that someone had called in whilst we’d been on air and offered me free accommodation in Bunbeg, and I took down the details, staggered that my quest was being greeted with such a positive response. I hung up the phone and looked nonplussed, but with underlying gratification. It was a difficult face to do.
    I read somewhere that Letterkenny has the only set of traffic lights in the county of Donegal, which is either a measure of the remoteness and tranquillity of this province or yet another example of the denial of basic human rights to people in side roads. If it was the former, which could be more likely, then hitching around these parts mightn’t be that easy. When Brendan dropped me on the roadside just north of Letterkenny, I was mightily relieved that it coincided with a temporary respite in the continuous heavy rain which had accompanied the drive there. Having already rehearsed the goodbyes once, they were performed proficiently, and Brendan said he’d come back to see if I was still stranded there after he’d finished his business in town. Quite what he was going to do if I was still there other than offer commiserations, I didn’t know.
    Fortunately I never found out. I had just arranged myself in an appropriate position for hitching and was considering what course of action to take in the event of the next imminent downpour, when a huge truck, and I mean huge, slammed on its brakes and came to a standstill forty yards ahead. Leaving my stuff, I ran ahead to see if it was stopping for me or to avoid running something over. The truck was so big, I could only just reach the handle of the cabin door. I opened it and the driver said, ‘Are you Tony?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, go and get your fridge.’
    Things were going rather well.

6
    Bunbeg
    I t was a long way up into that truck, and the cabin was surprisingly small, its crampedness compounded by a fridge wedged behind my seat The lack of space seemed a little ironic given that we were pulling a forty-five-foot trailer behind us.
    After formal introductions (well, as formal as they could be in this situation), I learned that I was in the company of Jason, a man beaming with excitement, in his early twenties who wasted no time in peppering me with questions.
    ‘What are you doing with that fridge anyways?’
    ‘Well, I’m travelling with it to win a bet with someone.’
    ‘You’re mad. I was listening to you on the radio this morning and I was in stretches.’
    I wasn’t sure what stretches were, but Jason was smiling so I assumed they were good.
    ‘I was just on the way down to Donegal Town when