from Rosslare to Provence
How did we get here? In a 2008 Volvo V50D is the answer, the short answer, accurate but not complete…as is often the case. Our departure from Graig was abrupt, chaotic and not without mishap. It played out as daylight gave way to darkness, when the frantic efforts to clear the house which had dominated our efforts finally gave way to a last minute pressurised bottleneck of decision making around what to bring, how much would we fit in the car. We had not only to pack possessions for two adults, but also for two dogs, and however much of Ali’s jewellery tools we could cram into the fore mentioned V50. To add some extra seasoning into our pressure cooker of a situation, the boot door of the V50 has been an on and off affair regarding opening for a long time, maybe a couple of years, and it just so happened that the week of our leaving it started acting up again, and there I was outside Ali’s studio, our final staging post, with a plethora of bags at my feet, heaving the car up and down, as I tugged and prayed, as only an atheist can, for that door latch to acquiesce, to give way, and allow us be on our way. It did, and we got out of town, leaving a rather dirty house and a lot of stuff, and set off for Roslare, and our ferry with a departure time of one minute to midnight, 23.59 Friday Feb 24, arrival time 8am Feb 26,Bilbao. We had a wait in Roslare of a few hours. We parked up at a filling station for a while, and I saw there a couple in a beat up old camper van, with a dog, and I thought, ok, we are not the only one travelling in an old vehicle with hounds. I knew it was a typical straw clutching thought process prompted by nerves, but was reassured that the very nature of that thought process reaffirmed that I was indeed on an adventure, plucked out of my comfort anxiety and into the anxiety of movement, sur la route. The car drove well to Rosslare. It had been going into limp mode on occasion, a state where engine power is reduced and the car has limited torque. I dreaded the thought of a fully loaded car going into limp mode on a single lane road, with no possibility to allow other cars to pass us. I had engine warning lights on, 3 to be precise, but the car motored on. My vehicle anxiety had been elevated by the drama that unfolded three days before departure when on applying the brakes our car made horrible metallic screeching sounds, the kind that cause teeth to recoil in pain. I brought it to Jurgen who would only see it two days later, Thursday, the day before departure. My passiveness was a problem and it was Ali who declared this vehicle situation unacceptable and who insisted that we look for an alternative mechanic. He was an older man and reassuring positive, possibly avuncular if that word means straight faced, kind and capable. He took the car for a spin, diagnosed the problem – disc pads – and then called his guy for the parts. ‘Will I get him before he’s out of New Ross’ he mused as I waited on tender hooks, fearing I’d missed the van and then possibly the day to have it fixed. This was Wednesday, departure Friday! My anxiety was relieved, the parts would arrive the same afternoon. About 30 minutes later, back at my house, my avuncular mechanic knocked on my door, how he knew where I lived I’m not sure, but anyway…, it was to inform me that the callipers were seizing and would also need replacing. Inward moans and rising anxiety again, another day delay loomed. My reading of the situation was undermined by the rather chatty and even toned manner in which he spoke. It was primarily bad news about worn parts and potential damage and all that with a final denouement of good news, or potentially good news, depending on the van man from New Ross. This time was no different, but by now we were deep into the afternoon and the shadows were lengthening as we stood outside our undersized front door, facing the Barrow on a quiet, windless, mild early evening where the light from earlier sun lingered behind white clouds creating a diffused atmospheric calm. I worried about the van and the man in New Ross – surely he had left and was on his way. Oh my god, think of the humanity! Not to worry my avuncular hero had matters in hand, he recommended I change the callipers, as, ‘once they go like that you can’t trust them, they could seize any time’. It would cost more, how much I said, internally calculating just how much my anxiety was willing to spend to make problems go away, ‘2 hundred’ he said, ‘grand’ I replied, I was definitely willing to spend that much. Later that evening, around 6pm – it was dark but time wise still evening so he had delivered on his estimation to get it done by the evening – he dropped the car down, job done. He then took the time for a chat pursuing some lines of neighbourly enquiry that he had poked at earlier in our more business like discussions. He’d seen us around with the dogs and wanted to know a little about us and our trip. He said the car had a good engine, the same as the Ford Focus, reliable, good to go; of course, there were the engine lights, not great but not a deal breaker the way cars these days are. It was a short conversation, less than five minutes, but all told, my interaction with this gentleman was among the most humanely satisfying I’d had in Ireland. Competence shot through with easy, gentle humanity. Almost made you sorry to be leaving… The only bum note were the parts boxes he’d left as proof of work in my front passenger wheel well. More rubbish was not what we needed at this juncture. So I was glad then as we sped at close to 100 km/h down the N25 to New Ross that there were no needs to inflame the anxiety levels of my passengers – my wife, Gertie and Giuseppe, our family, toutes sur la route.
We waited for quite a while in a car park/embarkation area for boarding to start. We were happy to have made the ferry, to be unencumbered by tasks related to packing, etc, and almost delighted to be so packed in by hounds and luggage that we were physically circumscribed from any kind of organisational activity. Our active anxiety at that moment was a missing muzzle. The woman at the check-in booth had said we would need our muzzles for the dogs. We had bought muzzles but one had gotten mislaid in the madness, so now we speculated about our one muzzle family and how we might move our hounds from car to cabin, muzzle-less. Maybe relay them, one muzzled hound at a time, or maybe carry one of our 20kg plus hounds. And how to get a muzzle on a hound that had never worn one, to be applied by someone who had never fixed one on before. The endless conundrums and challenges of movement, where novelty is an ongoing attribute to be managed and hopefully embraced. All the while, sitting in the car waiting for embarkation, I carried the thought that the caution from the lady in the booth had possibly been a tad performative, as if she was acting on a directive from management that had struggled to make itself fact on the ferry floor, as it were. And indeed that was born out by the reality of our boarding. The French staff who ushered us to our cabin never once asked for muzzles; they were intent on making sure that the correct number of passengers and hounds got matched with cabins, and so it was all grand and a nice experience after the dark of the parking lot and the ever so slightly stressful sensibility of being squeezed into a car which has essentially become your home. Of course the boot door didn’t want to open, so I was heaving the car up and down, willing the door to open, this time in the metal bowels of a medium sized, it seemed, ferry where the dominant colours were pleasing industrial grey and yellow – the door obliged after some seconds, before it were to become embarrassing, boosting my growing belief that the door with enough conviction could always be opened. When we got to our adjacent cabins, dogs secured, luggage secured, we were happy campers. Money buys relief on the road. It’s nice to sleep at sea.
Price of the day
Ferry ticket from Rosslare to Bilbao, one way, 2 adults, 2 dogs, one Volvo v50D. Two cabin required as limit of one dog per cabin, unless under 10kg. Ticket: €295 plus 2* €192 per cabin = €679. (Alternatively, could have kept dogs in kennel.)
Pic of the day
