Greetings from Ireland's only overseas colony

It's no place to be if you are on the run or having an affair. You could meet anyone here from back home. There's a sort of an Irish holiday tradition of talking to people you have only just met who are fast-tracked to friends in no time at all. We all have our stories to tell and as the holidaymakers are a little bit older, the stories are many and varied. The few drinks helps with the telling. I heard stories of grief for lost loved ones, of homes under threat and health scares, but there was no cribbing, just telling and sharing. I am sitting on the veranda, writing away, but I'm distracted. The fake pigeon over the wall is wrecking my head. He's there to frighten off other pigeons and birds in general, but the birds of Lanzarote are having a right old laugh. They're flying in and out of the garden in their hundreds. Two tiny little yellow-breasted birds just flew on to the veranda and started to peck away at the few grains of sugar spilled on a glass table. They'd nearly eat yourself if you dozed off. Still, though, you'd be hoping the little yellow birds won't get diabetes. I'm here pretending to play golf. This is a sort of a busman's holiday. I go to the Irish pubs nearly every night. The loved ones have no problem with their man going off out foreign playing golf, as it's something they regard as a form of torture when the golfers start moaning about how badly they played and groaning when they bend down with the pain of the bad back. The golf provides great cover for those who just want have a few beers at night and arse about by the pool all day doing nothing much, except nothing much. I know of four lads who pack up the clubs in the boot of the car and there they stay. Then when the phantoms come back home they take a few shots in the grass margin just to make the clubs look used with bits of mud and scrawl in the grooves. The age profile here is older than in the summer. A good few retired people come out for weeks on end to escape the winter at home and they seem to know how to enjoy life. The Swedish government send their older people out to Gran Canaria for the winter and it seems to be cost effective and a good result health wise. The weather has been pretty decent but not stone splitting. I go for long walks along by the sea. The bright, blue, big sky light triggers enough serotonin to keep us in good spirits. I'm a bit of a worrier and just this morning I asked one of my pals "what day have we?" A sure sign of good form. But this place isn't perfect. I saw several young African girls who were sex workers. I found it very sad. An Irish woman who got talking to the girls told me the girls had been flown in from the UK for five days at a time. Our paradise was their hell. One girl had a bad scar on her arm and I was told this was part of a tribal initiation. There was a hardness about her and that's what happens to these girls who have to be hard to survive. The Irish women are not judgmental and they really feel for the young girls. The Irish talk and talk. It's as if the airing of our troubles is a form of self-healing. The Irish pubs are the best of the lot. There's the cutting loose with everyone up dancing when the band sings songs like 'The Hills of Donegal'. The 80-year-old, double-jointed jiver said, "Billy, we love making eejits out of ourselves". There are people from other countries watching the madness of it all. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but it seems to me they wish they were us. I hope we never turn in to them, in these days when the Irish have to work far too hard with long commutes and too much drinking at home. There's a cure for being too sensible in letting rip every now and then. So now I'm looking out from the veranda over the Atlantic to the next island of Fuerteventura. And I'm trying to figure it all out. The five days have flown. It's home tomorrow. I have promises to keep and pints to fill before I sleep. The frigging fake pigeon is still swirling. I hope he gets vertigo. The small birds land on his head, which is only poetic justice seeing as the pigeons poo all over the statues' heads back home. We all worry too much. Even if it's just going out for a drive or a walk to your favourite place near home, there is a time for and a way of making space. The trick is to tell yourself the good story and clear away the clutter of every-day cares. We must try to stop the thoughts crashing in to each other like hundreds of mad shopping trolleys. That's the best way. For me, anyway. I'm just back from another walk. One toenail grew too long and too thick. It hurt. So I buy a clippers in a Chinese shop. The Chinese shopkeeper sees me struggle to decapitate the nail, which has curled up like a pig's tail. He offers to pare it for a fiver. The amateur Chinese chiropodist did an excellent job. I still have the 10 toes. He's a survivor. I'm trying to sort out in my head all I have to do when I get back. I had to put the brakes on the shopping trolleys. Back out for another walk. I'm not one for lying by the pool waiting for a tan. I meet a friend from my home place. She tells me to tell her brother "not to be telling her about funerals". The beach is quiet and the waves are no more than a soft whoosh. The rotund man who wears socks inside his sandals, which is the uniform here, enquires if I heard of any news from back home. "No," I say. "Although hold on," I say, just to wind him up, "they put the pint up by 50 cent." "We'll never go home now," is his answer. He puts down the head and grimly walks up the steps from the beach towards base camp. "It's time for the Happy Hour," he says. "When is the Happy Hour?" I ask him. "Every hour," he replies. The man has it figured.

Greetings from Ireland's only overseas colony

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