It was the weekend before the festival and we were stood on the grass across the road from Arundel’s Pub. We stood in bright clear sunlight blue sky in front of and it was raining. Great drops being blown in from a cloud that hung over the hill behind.

‘Are you here for the festival?’ the man with the black beard asked me.

‘We are,’ I said ‘And I guess it is going to be busy this year?’

‘Oh it will be, it will be. There’s your famous neighbor doing the pub quiz on Friday night and there will be all sorts on Saturday and Sunday. But you know for the eighth year running they won’t be holding the Cow Pat Competition.’

We both drew on our pints. The rain had stopped now and I could feel the sun prickling against my skin where it was wet. The man carried on.

‘There had already been a disaster that year. Bridget Cronin’s Jack Russell had eaten the crabs for the crab race. It didn’t have name at the time. She was so angry she could hardly talk to herself again. Three of her grandchildren had spent a day catching the little green fecks off the pier using her best bacon. Then she herself used her best pink nail varnish to write out their numbers of their backs. Thirty of them he ate in less than five minutes. She could only call it That Feckin’ Thing after that.’

‘The Catching the Duck went off okay although by the time the poor feckin’ duck had been caught it was near enough drowned and someone had to blow some air through its beak before it revived.’

‘The Cow Pat Competition was to finish off the afternoon. The field was marked out with squares about a yard across and then each square was marked so that it has its own number. The cow needed to be a good cow and the man whose cow it was had to be sure it was fed up well. The game was played by letting the cow into the field and waiting for it to drop its first pat. As most men will tell you if a cow goes into a new field it likes to start manuring it early as it starts to eat the grass but there is normally time for a couple of pints before it completes the business.’

‘Now the competition is in paying your five-euro for one of the marked out squares and when they are all sold if the cow drops its pat on your square then you take all the money. There was some money to be won even if you marked the field out with a hundred squares. Of course there were also various side bets to be had on the squares and the timing of her dropped pat. There were a lot of notes that would be passed around before she was done. There was even two men who liked to bet on how many pints they would drink before the game was finished.’

‘Now this year a cow called Foxtrot was chosen for the job. She belonged to Curly Fitzpatrick. As the owner of the cow he was excluded from the game in case he should tamper with her or have a better hold of her habits.’

‘So Foxtrot was led down and once the bets had concluded she was given a prod on her arse and into the field she went and then the men settled down with their pints. All was quiet for a while, Foxtrot sniffed the air, and the only sound was the pints going down and the soft grumble from the men as they settled their feet on the ground. Having sniffed the air the cow put her head and pulled at a few tufts of grass and she chewed on those for a while.’

‘There was a release of air from some of the men. Those who had bet on a longer time were still in the money and she was not going to drop an early pat and spoil the chance for a second pint.’

‘Foxtrot made her way round the field, sniffing the air and chewing at the grass and as she did so there were murmurs of encouragement from the spectators for her to move towards their particular part of the field.’

‘Into the third pint Foxtrot paused for a while and a sense of disquiet settled over the spectators. If she was to sit down and start chewing her cud then it could be a long evening. There was talk of more pints.’

‘But there would be no need for floodlights, Foxtrot lifted her tail and dropped her pat. She was in the middle of the field and people were craning their necks to see if it was a clean hit and which square it was. The previous year her pat had been on the corner of four squares and after some discussion the winnings had to be quartered.’

‘Curly Fitzpatrick walked into the field to claim back his cow and declare the winner. He had with him a list of the squares with the names against them and it was then that the trouble started.’

Second Friday in and we were all back at Bantry Market. It was less busy than the previous week but every year there seem to be more stalls finding space for themselves amongst the displays of ancient farm equipment, pub paraphernalia  and dodgy DVDs.

We made our way slowly to the corner where the food stalls are and bought bread, olives, small mozzarella balls in olive oil and sun dried tomato and cheeses, including a great hard chunk of Desmond cheese. I was particularly pleased with the Desmond as I thought they had stopped making it.

I bought salami and chorizo from the Gubbeen stall and a small round smoked ham

After a dispiriting trawl round the SuperValu to make good on essentials there was time for a quick couple of pints for which we chose to go to Ma Murphy’s. It is a shop pub with a room at the front with shelves for bottles of beer and chocolate and then through an old and battered yellow door into the bar.

As we sat drinking the owner came in and thanked us for our custom as it now meant he was able to buy the two new wheels he was needing for his car. He let slip that he really needed a full set of four so it seemed churlish not to order another round.

We had some difficulty placing his accent and so we asked him.

‘Swansea. South Wales I am from and now you will be asking how I ended up here. Well my parents were from Cork. They were both born on Clear Island and they moved then to Swansea. When we were children we came back for the summers. Can you imagine it then for a seven year old. There were no cars on the Island but for one taxi. There was no electricity and the toilet was outside and mostly we got about on a horse. But we spent all our time on the outside there and it was a place to spend time when growing up. Then I married a girl from Dublin and we came here to live and I worked the bar here for six years until I had enough money to buy it. That was thirty two years ago and I am still here. So there you have it.’

With that he thanked us again for our custom and walked into the back of the pub.

We ate our lunch outside in the garden watching the weather come in down the bay. We could see it in great sheets of rain and we took bets on if it would pass or if we would have to run inside. There were moments when a small break would appear in the clouds and the sun would shine on a patch of water and one of the kids told us that that was where Jesus should appear. The rain then came and it came in great heavy drops that were so thick they soaked us to the skin even as we ran the short distance to come inside.

After it cleared I went fishing for mackerel. They came as soon as I put the line into the water. There were six on the one line all fighting against each other and the pull of the hook. As I hauled them into the boat a couple of them got looses and slapped their way across the bottom of the boat. I unhooked the rest and then took each of them in turn in my left hand and with my right holding the priest I tapped them still on the back of the head. Holding them so tight I could feel through my fingers the press of blood through their bodies.

I then had another four as soon as the line went into the water and in the space of fifteen minutes I had twenty or so fish in the green bucket.

We had some of them on the beach that evening cooked on the barbeque together with a plate of prawns, split and cooked in garlic and olive oil.  That was then followed with a paella cooked by Hugh on the fire on the beach.

As we ate we watched gannets over Kitchen Cove. They were close in diving between the boats to get at the fish.

Writing this now in the café in The Heron Gallery to whom many thanks should go for their good coffee and the use of Wi-fi!!

Jones spent days walking the hills following the movement of his four sheep. The sheep kept together and walked where the green grass took them and if there was a hard wind blowing in from the Atlantic they crouched behind a rock and let the air blow over them. Jones sat with them keeping himself warm against their wool.

The wind blew worst from over the Mizen and then as it drove through the gaps in the hills. Sometimes it blew so strong the sheep’s legs were blown from under them and if he stood up he could hold out his arms and lean into it as if he was learning to fly. Walking into it he could feel it flattening his cheeks and his ears filled with the sound of it. The grass lay flat across the hills as it blew over and as he bent down to shelter from its blast he could hear the noise of the grass moving against itself and if he closed his eyes he could feel the hill move under him and it would shake in the thick of it.

There were days when was it still and in summer the heat would suck the air and water out of the hills so they were dry and brittle to walk on.

He would not swim in the sea. But deep in pockets of ground in the hills brown lakes had filled in the land. They were thick with vegetation and weed but there were clear patches of water he could wade through his bare feet stirring up the mud.   He kept on his shirt as he swam his pale white legs kicking behind him. The water was cool in the sun. Afterwards he would sit by the side looking over the hills for his sheep. Bubbles rose and popped in the water from the layers of rotted vegetation and other things that formed the bed of the lake.

The hills and the green valleys that lay between had their names but all he knew of them was drawn from what he could see and smell. Some of the names had been forgotten when the people had died or the places had gone. As he walked the hills he still came across the places were the people had lived. They might only have been a scattering of stones on the ground, or a change in the colour and the thickness of the grass. But some of the houses were still standing with their roofs of earth intact. They had about them the smell of death and twice he found inside a pile of white bones held together by torn pieces of the clothes they had worn still lying where the people had died. He pulled those houses down pushing in the stones so no one else would have to come across the bodies.

Once those houses were down he went back to his walking and his mind turned more sharply to the colours in the air.

During lunch in Schull we were given a present of a half drunk bottle of white wine. We were down by the pier eating our way through three large helpings of scampi and chips. All morning it had been threatening to rain and on the drive over the top of Mount Gabriel had been shrouded in low cloud. We had walked slowly up the High Street, stopping in shops and buying books. I had been allowed a wistful look into the open door of Hackett’s. It was a new door. The old one must have suffered the consequences of too many years being barged open rather than having the handle turned. It was dark and inviting inside but we walked on for cups of coffee and hot chocolate in The Courtyard.

There was then more slow walking until we made our way down to the pier for lunch. There was a van with its back door open parked up near the door of the fish market. A scruffy heron stalked up to it looking out for scraps of fish.

It was busy and there was a queue to order so I slipped into the tackle shop next door to buy a new line, some feathers and a weight.

We had a bottle of rose with the scampi. We were finishing our first glass when a man walked up to the table holding a half bottle of wine.  He put it on the table. ‘ Here you have this. I’m too old to be finishing it now.’ He clapped a hand on my shoulder as I thanked him. I had kept the cork for the rose so that went on and we finished the white. It was still chilled.

Later that afternoon we took the boats out. Unexpectedly  I fould myself sailing a dinghy across the bay. There were a couple of near misses and I almost took a chunk out of Tommy’s boat as I tried to sail and negotiate the purchase of lobsters but I didn’t capsize.

That evening we finished off the rose and ate brill with a cream sauce, tomatoes and pasta.

Of course there was a certain stiffness in my back this morning. We can put that down to the gift of a half bottle of white wine.