The idea for the expedition was undoubtedly M’s; I don’t think he would disown it, even now, and certainly none of the rest of us would desire to take the credit. Some official body, The Northern Ireland Office for the Culling of English Incomers, or the like, had produced a new Activity Map of Lough Erne, and M, almost certainly the only person to have bought a copy with his own money, was anxious to get active.
We others were rather more of the Rory school of thought on the subject (as a baby he had been given an ‘activity mat’ with mirrors, jingly bits, and electronic buttons and had resolutely chosen sleeping as his sole activity thereon) but we were too lazy to do more than raise half-hearted meteorological objections. M and I had taken a couple of canoe lessons from a genial fellow named Stephen at the Enniskillen Canoe Centre and M, at least, had generally managed to point the thing in the right direction, so we imagined ourselves qualified for a gentle voyage.
Accordingly we arranged to hire two Old Town canoes from the Centre for a couple of days. We had decided on a modest return trip to Rossigh, a mere two stops up the Lough Erne Canoe Trail. The publicity information for the trail is festooned with photographs of smiling toddlers, beaming grandmas and young couples gazing into one another’s eyes with their paddles ethereally wafting through the still and shimmering water. It all looked so easy as to scarcely be worthy of the name of canoeing at all, requiring no more energy than the guiding of a rubber duck from one end of the bathtub to the other. Looking at those photographs, we felt little twinges of guilt that we should be embarking on an enterprise so soft and sybaritic.
(Later, of course, after the trip, a week or so older and many decades wiser, we looked more closely at the pictures and realised that they had all been taken on the Upper Lough, the southern part of the water, where the islands separate the lake into slow-moving streams. Rossigh, on the other hand, is on the Lower Lough.)
The thoughtful people who devised the trail had erected jolly signs around its perimeter advertising the wildlife to be seen along the lough and the estimated paddling times between one point and the next. Using the cord from my anorak as a makeshift tape measure, I was able to calculate that it should take us no more than two and a half hours to get from Enniskillen to Rossigh. Allowing a generous hour for lunch, I really didn’t know how we were going to fill in the rest of the day, and ensured that I had packed a fat thriller to while away the long hours.
With hindsight, either my anorak cord has Alice-in-Wonderland powers of enlargement and reduction, or the canoeing speeds were established by an Olympic athlete in an unusually calm swimming pool. I leave the reader to decide which. Suffice it to say, at this stage, that the problem of how to fill the long Rossigh afternoon never really arose, at least so far as Rory and I were concerned.
On the question of provisions, we decided to keep matters simple. We had, during our previous adventures, experienced quite enough picnics lovingly stocked with individually crafted sandwiches, dinky little sponge cakes and a healthly array of fruit, bursting with essential vitamins and nutrients. Bursting, in fact, is what they invariably did, congealing together to produce a strange and sinister lump of pale streaked grey, the kind of horror with which Mr. Edgar Allen Poe would chill his grandchildren. ‘Bread alone,’ I declaimed in my best Old Testament prophetess tones, ‘leavened only with chocolate, cheddar and crisps.’ Crisps, I was quite certain about, less so the brand, so that for several days before the trip we found ourselves buying several of the type of multipack designed for the sustenance of small armies over a five hundred mile yomp. Most of the rest of the provisions fitted in our rucksacks, so we trooped down the hill on that fateful Wednesday morning, a vision of order and restraint, only spoiled by the demotic rustling of sixty-seven packets of Smokey Bacon and the like.
M followed just behind, weighed down with an evening’s worth of wine and beer. One impatient can of beer actually exploded before he even reached the lake, allowing him and Gawain to christen their canoe in style).
At the lakeside the two boats were waiting for us, together with paddles and two sturdy barrels.
The barrels, Stephen had explained, were for our most essential equipment and to keep a spare set of clothes dry. We filled them with crisps. This trip, we began to realise, was really by way of a jolly excursion for the crisps; we sailors were merely present by way of guardians, in loco parentis as it were. Having ensured a pleasant and dry voyage for Walker’s Roast Chicken, McCoy’s Chili and Pringles’ Prawn Cocktail, M, Gawain, Aidan and Robbie (the dog, of whom more really should have been said before now) clambered into one canoe wherever they could squeeze amidst the first-class potatoid passengers, and Rory and I pushed them off.
At this stage I remembered Stephen’s words from our final lesson the evening before, ‘Always try to make sure there’s an idiot on the bank to push you out.’ We had been the statutory idiots for the first boat; now how were we to cast away? As we were pondering the difficulty, and wondering half-heartedly who would have to wade out into the lake (Rory, in his Converse basketball boots, would take a good half hour to unlace himself to bare feet), a car drew up and Stephen himself got out. It was enough to restore one’s faith in the intrinsic bond between the universe and seven packets of steak and onion…
Chapter Two: Pirates and Other-ones
‘I say, Rory,’ I called over my shoulder, as we paddled out towards the first bridge, ‘we really ought to give our ship a decent name.’
‘Absolutely, Mother.’ he replied at the double, ‘I mean, aye aye sir. We’ll decide as we go along.’
Poor duffers that we were, we still imagined that we would have time to think about such trivialities. At least our ship had a proper flag, a skull-and-crossbones taken down from Rory’s bedroom wall, a standard that Nancy Blackett herself would view with a bit of respect.
‘A little starboard, please,’ I sang out to Rory on the rudder. Being proper sailors, we used the correct terms at all times, and didn’t waste our voices with mere chit-chat. The fellows in the other boat seemed to be calling out to one another quite a bit, but then they had Robbie as their cabin-boy which can’t have made things easy as he snuffled excitedly from starboard to port and back again.
Meanwhile on the pirate ship, we told oursleves that what we lacked in brute strength we made up for in harmony.
Unfortunately, pretty soon brute strength turned out to be what was needed, and we found ourselves blown into the reeds as the others forged ahead.
‘Never mind,’ said Rory, ‘it’s not really a race, and at least this way they can’t pinch our flag.’
We set our course nor-nor-west (or something like that, the Other-ones having the only compass) and followed the line of the grazing cows and the Sugar Puffs monster (which turned out to be two trees), making landfall with the enemy boat on Circle Hill.
Gawain slipped coming out of his boat, and suffered horrendous injuries but he was jolly brave about it all.
The ship’s dog, overjoyed at being on dry land again, made a valiant attempt to escape but was foiled by the eagle-eyed Aidan.
Captain Martin consulted the ship’s chart and plotted the next stage of the voyage,
while the rest of the crew explored the territory.
‘Well,’ we said to one another, slightly indistinctly through the munching of crisps, ‘this is a jolly decent spot but we really ought to be making tracks. We can’t stay gummocking here all day.’
‘Hear,hear,’ we replied, all but the ship’s dog, who thought gummocking here all day the best plan anyone had so far thought of.
So, with a final awed glimpse of Gawain’s feet, we cast off again.
Once more on the pirate ship, our two minds had but a single thought, a thought that was comprehensively out-paddled by the six brawny arms (ten if you include paws) of the Other-ones. Taking a breather, we almost suffered the most frightful calamity as our flag fell from the bow and in retrieving it we found ourselves wedged in a bay of bramble bushes.
After a little confusion involving a golf course and the position of a white van (these new-fangled mobile phones are all very well as a means of communication, but a pigeon might have been less liable to misinterpretation) we met again at the edge of a building site where we settled down to some jolly good grub (mainly crisps).
After a while a native (of County Kerry, to judge from his accent) came across to tell us that it was private property and we ought to push off, but he was pretty decent about the whole thing. Anyway, by then we were champing at the bit, ready to put our sea-legs back on (well, all except for Robbie….)
Chapter Three: Wobbly Stick
Call me Tanya. Some days ago – never mind how long precisely- I was out on the lough with my son Rory, following my husband and other sons across the wide expanse from Ely Lodge northwards towards Rossclare.
Now, when I say following, clearly it was our intention to trace the precise path of the forward boat, cleaving to its wake as faithfully as did the small boy in the Saint Wenceslas carol. Alas, those stage-managers, the Fates, had other ideas, and put us down for quite different parts in our own watery drama. Along the western edge of the island known as Inish Free ( a portentous name, no doubt cast by the Master of Ironies) we found ourselves quite unable to battle the turbulent wind. In vain we strove against it, but to no avail, and despite our most valiant efforts were blown backwards, yea even into the rushes and reeds at the isle’s southernmost tip. As we were dragged by the mighty breeze, as we might be Jonah himself and some companion swallowed by the gullet of the whale, we called to our brothers in the first boat. Alas, our cries were carried back to us unheard, and escaped mockingly into the vastness beyond. Even our efforts to use the ingenious device of the Viking Sony Ericsson came to naught, o’ermastered by the mighty roar of the wind and of the waves.
We pondered our predicament for some little time but fortunately the sturdy little Scandanavian Ericsson came to our aid, and enabled us to make communication with our mates in the leading boat. We agreed to seek a more peaceable channel along the east coast of Inish Free and thereafter to strive our utmost to join the main party as it passed Inish Divann and Inish Doney.
For a while the fickle gods smiled upon us, for the eastern channel was smooth and tranquil, and our paddles passed unhindered through the waters. Alas, though, as we made the tip of the island the lough came upon us once more, its fury redoubled. We spied our relatives ahead and to the west, but could make no headway towards them, as the prevailing wind pressed us ever to the south and east.
‘We may, if we must, consent to be driven east,’ said I, ‘for it is to the east coast that we are eventually bound, but we shall in no wise allow ourselves to be forced back to the south.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Rory through teeth clenched with noble effort, ‘not while our sinews are still to the smallest degree knit to our bones.’
And so we battled onwards, with but one thought in our minds, not to be swept back southwards and to strive north as far as might be possible before making landfall. Our eyes were distracted by the sight, to our right, of the Manor House Marina, but we were no mere holidaymakers to be seduced by comfort, by a peaceful harbour, shelter, food and rest. No, we were made of sterner stuff, and determined to prove it. In the same way did we turn our paddles, and our thoughts, from the sweet banks of Hay Island.
But look! Ahead now is a sterner landmass, a high hill offering not only the rest our bodies crave but the opportunity for a truer navigation through the turbulent lough.
‘Avast, Rory!’ I cried, or might have done, had I been at all sure of the meaning of the word, and with his skilful steering we contrived to draw near a mossy bank. At the edge of the water were great stones, and so, removing my shoes and socks, I stepped therein and pulled the canoe up onto the grass. We fell upon the sweet land with as much delight as though we were the most ancient and lost of mariners, or Ulysses himself, blown by the relentless bag of the untied winds.
‘Horse Island!’ I declared, and truly, though we were not to know until later the mysterious secrets of that equine land.
Chapter Four: In which Rory and Tanya consider the Expotition and fail to find a Horse
‘Mum,’ said Rory, stretching out on the mossy grass of Horse Island and then wishing he hadn’t, ‘this expotition-thingy doesn’t seem to be quite as simple as we thought.’
‘Mmm,’ said Tanya, which was nearly the same word as Mum except without such a variety of letters, ‘ I might be a mother of Very Small Brain, but I’m beginning to think you’re right. At least we’re safely at Horse Island now.’
Rory gave her an exactly-how-safe-is-safely-in-this-particular-context?-look. Unfortunately Tanya had turned round and missed it.
Rory decided to climb the hill and see what Interesting Things he could see from the top of it. Soon he came back.
‘It’s an odd thing, Mum,’ he said, in a thoughtful sort of a voice. ‘This island is called Horse Island, and there are a lot of horse footprints around….’
‘And a lot of other things that suggest horses live here,’ added Tanya, who had just trodden in a large green one.
‘… But I’ve looked all round from the top of the hill and I can’t see any Actual Horses.’
‘Oh.’ said Tanya and had a little think. ‘There are plenty of gorse bushes. Perhaps the island was supposed to be called Gorse Island and someone without much Education wrote it down wrong.’
‘But gorse bushes don’t make footprints.’
‘Or other smellier things.’
They had a Small Pondering Moment then got up and into the canoe.
A couple of minutes later they were back on Horse Island, a few yards further on.
‘That was a big bit of wind.’ they said, trying to make themselves feel brave. ‘We’ll have to paddle harder than that to get round those rocks on the corner.’
They looked at the rocks. They were particularly rocky rocks and neither Rory nor Tanya felt especially as though they liked rocks very much that afternoon.
*
Meanwhile, in another part of the lough, Martin, Gawain, Aidan and Robbie-the-dog had been Very Strong and Very Determined and had got so far north that they could actually see Rossigh in front of them. They talked to the others on their Mobile Telephones.
‘We just need to get round this corner,’ said Tanya, trying quite hard not to think about the rocks, then we can get over to Rossclare.’ It sounded quite easy when you said it like that.
‘That’s good.’ said Martin in an Encouraging Tone, such as might Raise the Spirits of a Small Wife. ‘See you soon then.’
Chapter Five: Heart of Dankness
The lough stretched before us like the middle of an interminable dream. We had passed the rocks, paddling desperately against the buffeting wind, and now were out in the open water again. Ahead of us, on the eastern bank, stood Rossclare boathouse, soft, green and homely against the growing grey waves. We said little, conserving our energy for each painful stroke, working together without words to keep the little craft on its course. At one point, as we grew nearer, I estimated that a hundred strokes would bring us to the boathouse, but after a hundred and sixty I gave up counting. When we finally arrived, clinging to the jetty, we still said little.
Neither of us felt hungry, but knew that we needed energy, so we each ate a bar of Divine orange chocolate before setting off again. This time we were skirting the edge of the land, so expected the going to be easier. For a while it was, but as we grew near to Rossclare jetty, a change came over the wind, and it blew with a greater wildness and ferocity. To our left, jet skis and small speedboats swooped over the grey, but we were the only unengined craft visible across the wide sweep of churning water.
We reached the jetty, using our arms to keep the canoe from crashing against it, climbed out and tied her up. The plan had been to stop here only for moments, to rest our arms and necks and then to move on. But even as we watched, the wind grew in strength and in its unpredictable squalls, like a small child, angry and unsure of its own powers. There was nothing to do but wait for it to cry out its tantrum.
Together we sat on the jetty, listening to our iPods, sharing a bottle of orange squash and watching as the waves redoubled. The jet skis had retreated by now, the car park emptied and the lough was dark, dour and desolate.
When the change came we sensed rather than saw it, and the wind was still buffeting us hard as we clambered back down into the canoe. The boat was full of water, the previously dry tents all sodden and floating. We lay full-length and baled with the cut-down milk container until there was only an inch or two in the lowest lying part. At first we only set out to reach the end of the jetty, then, having achieved so much, ventured towards the private pier some yards further on.
We just made it, clinging with our fingertips, imagining the owner, enraged, thundering down the jetty and stamping on our hands. In any case, it was impossible to stay there. The next part was the hardest of all, as we were blown, helpless, into a clump of bankside reeds. For a while we were unable to disengage ourselves and began to imagine our spending the night there, sodden and shivering, as the canoe filled with water and the useless tents bobbed about, mocking us with their cheerful promises. We looked out across the metallic sky and the sombre water, and seemed to gaze into nothing but the heart of an immense dankness.
Chapter Six: The Wind and the Pillows
Oh, how bedraggled the two were, and how small they felt in the great lough! Presently, after Rory had said a few encouraging words, very few, but very encouraging, they made one more great effort, and succeeded in getting the canoe quite out of the reeds. The wind had the definite idea of blowing them straight back but they paddled as hard as they ever could, and not only kept out of the reeds, but right around Rossinnan Point and into the bay. Here the wind almost gave up altogether, passing his mischievous mission onto the rain, but as neither Rory nor Tanya could possibly get wetter, they hardly noticed it at all.
There were a few more islands to steer past, and a tricky corner coming into Rossigh itself, but soon they saw the cheerful sail of a moored yacht, the campsite toilet block and, joy of joys, Martin himself coming down the jetty with a rope to throw into the boat. Then the relief of being pulled safely into harbour, the luxury of dry clothes, the happiness of reunion after, surely it couldn’t have been merely hours? and the wonderful stability of dry land.
Down the road, at the Cedars Guesthouse, Gawain and Aidan were waiting, and the whole family (with Robbie just outside getting the occasional tidbit) sat down to the most delicious dinner in a wonderfully warm and friendly restaurant. The room seemed to all of them to be swaying quite oddly, and they were careful not to choose the soup, which would have needed far too much by way of arm movements, but none of their aches and pains mattered one whit now.
At the end of the meal, tired but replete and happy, they walked through the gentle rain back to the campsite, finished putting up the tents, and filled up any remaining corners with chocolate and biscuits.
And pillows? Oh, there weren’t any of those, except the inflatable one that Aidan had sat upon in the canoe, but no one really minded, being grateful for a tent and bit of ground that didn’t sway up and down, or at least only in one’s imagination, in those delicious last moments before falling quite, quite asleep.
Chapter Seven: The Book of Rain
For behold, it had come to pass many centuries before that the Lord had created the County of Fermanagh, and had decreed that it should be made in the proportions two-thirds land and one-third water. But in his great wisdom the Lord changed his mind thereafter and decided that two-thirds water would make a prettier pattern. The place wherein the Lord began this new work was the tent of the woman, on the night of the sixteenth of July, or it might have been the early morning of the seventeenth. For behold a great miracle: the woman lay down with her hair dry, and arose, sometime around three o’clock, with it sopping wet, also the articles which she had placed beside her in the tent. And the woman bethought herself that she would place all the things that were not yet soaking wet inside her sleeping-bag with her, and so she did, only to discover that the end of her sleeping-bag had likewise been blessed with the new waters that the Lord had sent. And the woman spake unto herself words that were not good in the Lord’s sight, such as ‘bother’ and ‘what a pity’. And then cometh the wind, and bloweth the little drops of rain that adhered to the inside of the tent, and flicketh the small drops onto the neck and the ear of the woman, as she had almost got back to sleep again and they were exceedingly cold. Then the woman spake again unto herself, saying ‘Let me count the blessings that the Lord has given me,’ but she could only think of one, which was ‘My mouth works’ which in the circumstances was not passing helpful. But indeed, the woman had received another great blessing, which was a wind-up torch from her husband, and by the light of this torch she was able to read the first chapter of the People of Smiley by the prophet Le Carre, and so the rain that the Lord had sent was not really altogether so abominable after all.
Chapter Eight: The Tale of the Five and a half Joneses
Once upon a time, last Thursday to be precise, a family set out in two canoes to come home from Rossigh to Enniskillen.
They all had special waistcoats to keep them upright if they fell in the water, except for Robbie the dog, who hadn’t had time to get one from the Internet, and had to make do with a harness and a long piece of cord.
They all had clothes that were a little bit damp, except for Robbie the dog, who had a coat of dryish fur and an orange jacket for emergencies, and they were all rather tired, except for Robbie the dog, who was completely exhausted.
They packed all their things into the canoes: five tents, five sleeping-bags, a lot of very wet clothes and a quantity of potato crisps.
Then they paddled out into the lough, a bit gingerly, for their arms were aching in several different places.
‘Can we stop for a rest soon?’ asked Mrs Jones.
The rain was plippetty-plopping on their heads, and the wind was whooshing against their paddles.
‘Hang on a minute, I need to get my coat.’ said Mrs Jones.
They passed the Sally Islands and headed towards Rossinnan Point.
‘I’m too hot; I need to take off my fleece.’ said Mrs Jones.
They paddled past Rossclare Jetty where Mrs Jones and Rory had spent such an unconscionable time the day before.
‘I’m very tired,’ said Mrs Jones.
After a while they came in sight of Horse Island. The day before, just beside the island, a mother duck had quacked quite angrily at a heron hovering near her offspring. But she had not been as ill-tempered as Mrs Jones.
‘I’m feeling faint.’ said Mrs Jones. Rory proceeded to throw packets of crisps at her, some of which, on more than one occasion, fell into the lough.
Mrs Jones ceased to moan quite so much; it being more difficult to moan convincingly with one’s mouth full of potato crisps.
Mr Jones attached Robbie’s cord to Mrs Jones’s canoe, and pulled her through the windy place around the jetty at Trory.
Mrs Jones ceased to moan altogether, except to comment that she wished they had thought of that before.
Presently, with no further mishaps, they reached Devenish Island.
They lifted the canoes onto the jetty and unpacked the picnic things. There were bread rolls and cheese and biscuits and chocolate. Oh, and I nearly forgot – a few packets of potato crisps. Despite everything, they remained remarkably partial to potato crisps. I do not care for them myself; but then I have never been on a pleasure-trip along Lough Erne in the company of the Jones family.
Chapter Nine: The Devenish Tales
When that July, with his showers not so sweet
Hath thoroughly sodden the sailors’ feet,
Then seek they rest and succour heavenish
And land their boats on the Isle of Devenish.
For many a monk did here reside
In ages past; they lived and dyed
Upon the island; built a tower
From which our boyes did flee that hour
(Methinks they saw a frightful ghost
Still chomping his medieval toaste.)
Then came a great and mighty fuss
As hither chugged the waterbusse
And from it trooped a motley crew
In anoraks of garish hue,
Both men and women, all alive,
Though few were less than sixty-five.
They bustled up to see the tower
(The boat would leave in half an hour)
And having soothed their tourist yen,
They bustled to the ship again.
But Rob the hound, who likes the old,
(They’d never leave him wet and cold)
Contrived his lead to trip them up
Then gazed out, saying ‘I’m a puppe
So winsome, so misunderstood,
A holiday would do me good,
On some drye craft along with you
And joye of joyes, an engine too.’
But tho’ they smile and pat his head
Each turns away, and each one’s tread
Echoes down the wooden pier,
Till only Jones are standing here.
And such is all the worlde’s woe,
That by canoe he still must goe.
Chapter Ten: Joy in the Moaning
It was like this. Having viewed the jolly old medieval monastic remains, and visited the, thankfully non-Gothic conveniences, we decided it was time to heave-ho and remove ourselves back to civilisation. Life on the ocean wave is all very well, but there comes a time when a chap tires of death-defying adventure and would be quite content with a pair of bedroom slippers and a drop of decent claret, preferably not served in a plastic beaker.
So we hove to in our best naval manner and soon found ourselves paddling through the small channel known as Friars’ Leap. Now I’m no expert on friars, not one of these fellows who can’t pass a pile of ruined stones without leaping upon it with a magnifying glass and a copy of the Magna Carta, but I had the distinct impression that they were ordinary sort of chaps, possibly more religious than you or I, but nothing much to write home about on the physique stakes. Not like that cove Finn, who littered the lake with gigantic stones he’d picked up in an idle moment then got called to strap on his pads or pour out the Pimms and dropped them on the spot, forgetting to go back and tidy them up later, just like Nanny always said he would.
Where was I? Oh yes, the friars. All I can say is, they must have spent more time practising the long jump than reciting the jolly old psalms if they managed to leap over that chunk of water without soaking their habits. Not that I’m altogether clear as to why they’d be wanting to leap across there at all, unless it was for a bet, after they’d had one or two snifters with the Devenish monks. In my experience that could well happen. Ah well. Pondering the mysteries of pre-Reformation sports days brought us quite contentedly poodling along into the main lake again, after which there was only the lock to negotiate (preferring not to conclude the expedition with a spot of self-immolation on the underwater sluice gates) and then we were into the home stretch.
The younger members of the crew, lacking the staying power of us old-timers, decided to disembark at the Round O jetty after which Martin and I displayed our solo canoeing skills by paddling the boats back to the Centre on the island. Judging from the pitying expressions of the onlookers, my own solo skills were less than overwhelming, but after a little mild zig-zagging (no more than one might experience along the pavement after a small celebration) we finally made landfall. We handed the canoes back to Stephen with a modicum of ceremony and more than a soupcon of relief, and made our way, a touch wearily, back home.
Life, after its brief interruption, was returning to normal service, with a gentle apology for any inconvenience caused.
And yes, there were one or two remaining packets of crisps
THE END
