Home and Away

When I set up this blog, I chose the name Fourwheeler because I drive something with four wheels.  Although I have no intention of changing the name, I have to remember that I now possess eight wheels: four on the van, and four on the motorhome ... a fact of which I was reminded with financial force this week.

Now I'm only working some weeks and not others, I try to fit servicing and detractions of that sort into the weeks when I'm not working.  So I'd booked the van in for a service on Monday.  While the van was at the garage, I gave the bus pass some exercise and did a couple of errands.  One of these was the renewal of my passport, and once I'd got the pictures, I returned home to complete the form, which wasn't so formidable as it appeared.  While I exercised my body by walking to the post office with this, I learned that the van was now ready, so made a neat circuit to complete the day's business.

Tuesday was more practical.  A number of things had hit my 'to-do list' regarding preparing the motorhome for its first serious outing after Easter, so I took advantage of the warmer day to clean the roof vents, empty the water tank and fill it with fresh water, and generally clean up the interior. Then off to the tyre specialists.  I had noticed that the tread pattern on one of the front tyres didn't match the other three, although the treads looked OK on them all,  But you never know, appearances can be deceptive; it was well that I went.  Three of the wheels were found still to have the original tyres that were fitted when the vehicle was built in 1997/8 (and the fourth was on the spare wheel underneath).  The outcome was four new tyres.  At least I shall know what to expect if I still have the motorhome in four years' time (the recommended change interval for this class of vehicle)!

In the evening, I decided to visit nearby Hertford, our county town.  It's a pretty market town, with a long history (unlike my home town, founded in 1903), but, apart from work, I go there so rarely that I know little of it.  I had seen that the local museum's Friends were hosting a talk based on the diaries of a local dignitary around the end of the 18th century.  The first hurdle was coping with the car park, where a notice announced that, even though because of the hour parking was free, a ticket must be displayed. However, it wasn't clear how to persuade the machine to issue a ticket without first inserting a coin.  As I mused upon this problem, a kind-spirited local came along, pushed the green button, and said, 'Here, have this one!'

I then made my way to the nearby hall.  It's a modern building, with a partition across the main room, enabling it to be hired in two halves as required.  Unfortunately this was still in place, so there was considerable kerfuffle while it was skillfully removed by someone who was more familiar with this that I had been with the car park machine!  Then came the organisation's Annual General Meeting - unexpected, but efficiently executed - before the talk finally got under way about half an hour later than the advertised time.  I did find it well worth the adventure, though, and came home satisfied.

The highlight of Wednesday was, surprisingly, a funeral.  The daughter of one of our parishioners had died some weeks ago while abroad on holiday. At last the body had been recovered and all the official procedures completed, so at last the funeral could take place.  I was one of a number of representatives of our congregation who had gone along to support the mother of the deceased, a small, unimposing woman, whom one would sometimes see serving coffee, but otherwise was just another 'face in the crowd'.  I hadn't expected to find the church so full.  However, this lady was part of a large family, and the daughter had been a successful business-woman in earlier years.  There were many personal tributes, and much emotion, as one might expect, and amidst them came the moving rendition of an appropriate song by one of her daughters, possessed of a most powerful voice.

Perhaps the greatest moment of the event for me was emerging from the church to see waiting outside, with the coffin now inside it, the most magnificent hearse I have ever seen.  I wouldn't have been out of place on the stage for Snowhite or Cinderella: bright white and shining gold, a crystal coach, drawn by two great white horses with red plumes, the whole crowned by a top-hatted coachman to steer the way.  It was a fitting finish for someone so clearly dearly loved.

And finally ... earlier in the week my attention had been drawn to the re-showing by the BBC of a two-part journey around Ireland made at the time of his retirement by Sir Terry Wogan, and first broadcast in January 2011.  I had watched it at the time, but seeing it again now it had a greater impact because of two intervening events in my life that took place a week apart in the spring of 2013.  I have written about the actual trips on this blog here and here.

Because of the route Sir Terry had taken these were revealed to me in reverse order, but following the sequence of the BBC, the 'first' of these was the fact that he said that his father had been born in Enniskerry.  The name rang a bell at the time, but when he explained that the whole village worked for - indeed was owned by - Lord Powerscourt, and later visited the village and estate (episode 1, about 8 minutes in), I was sure that this was where I'd delivered early on a Monday morning, before venturing into the Wicklow Hills, and to Wicklow town itself.

The second event took place some six days previously, and is more personal. About 22 minutes into episode 2, after Sir Terry's visit to Derry, suddenly out of nowhere there emerged on the screen a picture that I have only secondhand, but instantly recognised.  The Wogan limo was driving around the war memorial in Enniskillen, made famous by the IRA bombing on Remembrance Day 1987.  I didn't get to see it when I visited the town in search of evidence of my great uncle's family, but I am assured that on it are inscribed the names two of my father's cousins, Henry, who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and his brother Samuel, who had been killed at Festubert in May 1915.  Both had served in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, successor to the 27th Regiment of Foot, which had taken my great uncle to Ireland in the 1870s.

Whatever you may think of Terry Wogan - I know he's a bit like Marmite - if you have any spark of interest in the Emerald Isle, I recommend these two hour-long programmes to you.  The scenery is beautiful and some of the commentary quite instructive and revealing.  They are available on i-Player for the next three-to-four weeks (but probably only in the UK).

Back to the road next week!