MY copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Ireland – a very old one, admittedly – describes Adrigole, Co Cork as a place where “not a lot happens”. I came upon this derogatory depiction after I had settled into a cottage on the slopes of the Caha Mountains, unpacked two weeks’ worth of stuff from the back of my car, and looked around for something to do next.
Actually it hadn’t occurred to me, until that very moment, that I’d need to do anything. I had come to the Beara Peninsula to walk; to spend time with the mountains; to get away. To be, in short. I hadn’t expected to be entertained or amused.
I was, therefore, pretty startled when, on the morning of day one – bright and early at 5am – I was awoken by a noise like a cross between a foghorn and that burst of offkey outrage which indicates that a contestant on QI has given a bum answer. What the . . .? I staggered out of bed and peered through the curtains. A cock pheasant had taken possession of the garden, raising his magnificent tail and tilting his crimson head as he sang. Muttering something unspeakable about what I’d do if in (legal) possession of a shotgun, I staggered back to bed.
The dawn chorus, however, was in full swing. You really ought to tape that, said a voice in my head. Arrrgh, I replied. No, honestly, said the voice. You’ll go back to Dublin and you’ll be really, really sorry you didn’t make the effort. A dawn chorus recording without any background traffic noise – imagine that. I stumbled downstairs, grabbed the tape recorder, put it out on the back step, switched it on, left it there and went back to bed.
By day two I was able to resist the lure of the morning recital, and ignore the pheasant foghorn. So there I was, sitting with a cup of coffee at the kitchen window, gazing out at the hazy light coming across the valley . . . actually, that’s not true. I was gazing in disbelief at my iPad, whose screen – like that of the phone – carried the stubbornly constant message “no service”. Even when you want to get away from it all, the concept of having no phone, no texts and definitely no Internet is quite difficult to get your head around.
Something moving outside the window snagged on my peripheral vision. I looked up to see three hares making stately progress across the lawn and up the primrose-laden steps where they sat, dreamily, as if they – rather than the pheasant, who was skulking on the driveway further down – owned the place. They, like himself, turned out to be daily visitors.
Day three dawned warm enough to have breakfast outdoors. Settled among the primroses with a bowl of yogurt and fruit, I was admiring the swifts zooming overhead when one bird executed a particularly elegant loop around the porch – and straight into my livingroom. There followed a soft but unmistakeable thump as it hit the inside of a window.
I put down my bowl and peered around the door. A tiny, stunned body was motionless on the windowsill. I snatched up a tea-towel, covered the creature and was rewarded by shrieks of outrage. Back in the garden it flew off at once, still protesting at the indignity.
After that, I was careful to close the door behind me when breakfasting outside. I swiftly learned to do the same at night when venturing out to enjoy a sky filled with white, gleaming stars. Just in case that discreet fistling and rustling underneath the roof of the porch really was a family of bats . . .
And then there was the day I was heading along the road, on my way to some glorious deserted valley or other, only to be greeted by a despairing “baaa”. This was, of course, not unusual. The Beara Peninsula is prime sheep country, and it’s early summer, and almost every field has its quota of woolly mammies (deep, warning “baaa”) and cute babies (high, panicky “baaa“).
In this case, however, there was clearly something amiss. Unlike cows, who love nothing better than to amble over for a chat, sheep don’t generally hang around to check out a passing stranger. This particular young chap, however, had stuck his head through the wire, and couldn’t – thanks to the curve of his cute little horns – get it back out again. I came closer. He wriggled and baaaed pitifully. I looked at him doubtfully. Then I looked around to see if there was any sign of anybody who might know what to do. There wasn’t.
Gingerly, I got hold of the wire and began to push and bend it away from his head. In his efforts to free himself he had done a terrific job of crocheting his horns into what was, needless to say, a particularly complicated bit of doubled-back fencing. I pushed harder.
He went limp.
For a dreadful moment I thought I’d killed him. But the soft eyes were still gazing up out of the black face with, I now imagined, a degree of hope. After another round of pushing and bending he suddenly shook his head, shot into reverse and zoomed up the field to his mates, tail waggling madly, baaaing in overdrive.
As I stooped to wash my hands in a nearby stream before continuing on my way, I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Adrigole. A place where not a lot happens? Yeah. Right.