Yesterday I made the long early morning drive to Cork Airport. Leaving the house at 5.30 there was a drizzle in the air but the sea was calm. The rain started to come down more heavily on the way back and all the way from Drimoleague it hammered in great welts across the windscreen. It was not going to be a day for water sports.

So we decided to drive out past Bantry to Ballylickey and try get some lunch at Manning’s Emporium. It was probably ten years since we had been there. On that occasion we had been on a walk in Glengarriff Woods which had ended in a torrential downpour. We had stopped off in Manning’s on the way back to Bantry for lunch.

This time we would do it the other way round and take the walk after lunch. Part of the attraction of Manning’s was that I had heard about a sherry bar. Salty dry sherry on a wet day seemed like a good idea.

The three glasses of Fino sherry I had worked a treat. I drank them with plates of local cheese, charcuterie and hummus. I should have paid more attention to the naming of the cheeses but I know they included Old Smoked Gubbeen. It all came with hunks of bread, chutneys, olives, tiny gherkins and dried tomatoes. There wasn’t much left. We got into the car with a box filled with pasta, brown sauce and apple juice from the shop.

The walk in Glengarriff Woods was a wash out. We arrived to find signs warning about floods and the car park under a metre of water picnic tables just about poking out through the surface.

Fortunately we were able to find a small dry corner to park the car near Lady Bantry’s Lookout and so we hauled ourselves up there. The river was in full spate and the woods an impossible green covered in mosses and water and wet everywhere.

At the top the hills roiled with cloud.

We stopped off in Bantry on the way back to get more food and spotted Tommy picking up fish heads from the fishmongers.

Last night and this morning the rain has been Biblical. It has come in great blasts up the bay. Slacking for ten minutes or so and then reaching new heights of intensity. The streams that lay quiet and dry a few weeks ago and now spilling over and filling the bay with dirty brown water.

The water round the pier which was clear and bright is now murky and covered with the detritus brought down from the hills.

With life getting tight in the Cottage we attempted an walk but were beaten back after five minutes all soaked to the skin. Even the Bear Grylls jacket was not up to the weather.

Time for a good lunch.

‘Brendan Daly was a mild man. If there was time to drink two pints he would be able to fill it just drinking the one. So far as anyone knew he had never spent time with cows and he worked behind the till in one of the shops in Bantry. But he had form in the Competition and was one of the four who had shared out the winnings the previous year. There was also talk that he’d done well on a side bet on the timing and had made more on that than he had on the main Competition.’

‘He walked to the centre of the field to take the envelope with his winnings from Curly, shaking his hand, as Foxtrot was encouraged to lay down another deposit for the benefit of a photographer from the Southern Star.’

‘Michael O’Hanratty was on his fifth pint now and the cold fury that had shaken him at first had now been replaced with a conviction that Brendan Daly had cheated and had been able to get at Foxtrot so as to be able to buy an ironed on certainty as to where she would lay her pat.’

‘That night as he lay in his bed and the pints lay heavy on his stomach he determined to prove that Brendan Daly had managed to get at the cow and so force a rerun of the competition.’

‘The next day he set his mind on a course of inquiry and he started the process by settling himself down on a seat in the pub and listening to the talk so as to pick up on the consensus. ‘

‘The consensus was that there was more than luck involved in Brendan Daly achieving an outright win in the competition that year. He wasn’t a cow man and had no means of studying the form but then if a cow is going to deposit a pat there is no telling of where and when it is going to do it. So the initial talk subsided. Any further suspicions in the pub were erased when Brendan Daly bought a bottle of Power’s and the men were invited to have themselves a small glass. ‘

‘But the suspicion continued to gnaw at Michael O’Hanratty and two days later he called on Curly Fitzpatrick and asked to be able to check on Foxtrot “for after the exertions with the pats I’d like see she’s right.” She was still being kept in a stall and Curly walked him there and left him alone with the cow.’

‘Michael O’Hanratty ran his hands all over the animal and whispered in her ear for some clue. But she kept her peace, chewing quietly on her cud. He cast his eyes over the stall looking for anything out of place. He was about to give up when saw something red and blue stuck behind a bale in the corner. It was an empty packet of Tayto’s Cheese and Onions Crips. As he held the packet the cow paused in her chewing, stamped her back foot and as if on cue laid a pat.’

‘Michael O’Hanratty felt exultant. He had his first clue. Curly Fitzpatrick was a Salt and Vinegar man. There could be no other explanation. Brendan Daly had nobbled the cow with the crisps.’

He put the empty packet in his pocket and left the cow and went to say good bye to Curly determined to pursue his line of inquiry.’

‘His next stop was the pub. There he had a pint to give time for his thoughts to settle. To help with the process he had two packets of the crisps and he pondered on the taste of them for some way how the wretched Daly had been able to execute his scheme.’

‘Daly had only bought three squares. That was too few. He had to have bought himself some further certainty. He had cheated the feck! And he had to prove it! He had the piece of evidence with the empty packet of crisps and in his mind that gave him the certainty he needed. But the certainty he now knew in his heart fought against his inability to find the final piece of the jigsaw that would enable him to show how the man Daly had got the cow to position its backside and deliver its pat on square B4 so he could collect all the winnings.’

‘As he finished the pint and chewed the last crisp it came to him and he rushed out of the pub without nodding a good bye to any of the men that sat there.’

‘He made his way to the field where the competition had been held. It was raining and the field was flat with wet but the white lines of the of the squares were still clear and the winning pat still stood proud in square B4. Ignoring the wet he got down on his knees and starting to inch his way round pushing away at the grass with his fingers and then at last he found it. A small pile of crushed soggy crisps. He put his nose to them and caught the unmistakable taint of cheese and onion.’

‘He was triumphant and there in the wet field let out a quiet shout of victory. Here was the final piece of proof that he needed. The coincidence was too much. Daly had somehow got access to the cow and had been feeding it the crisps until it had developed a good taste for them. Then he must have slipped into the field on the night before the competition and after the squares were marked out and set up a small pile of the crisps.’

‘He’d then be secure in the knowledge that once Foxtrot was in the field she would make her way round it until such time as she picked up the whiff of the crisps.  She would then have been bound to show her appreciation by lifting her tail and depositing her pat. O’Hanratty had his man!’

The day after we ate the eight lobsters Hugh and I did the long walk to Kilcrohane. We agreed on the walk towards the end of the evening as with the good food and white wine something to clear the head would be good.

I had to haul myself out of bed in the morning having successfully set the alarm clock. Before putting on my clothes I walked out into the garden to look at the weather. It was grey and overcast but the top of Rosskerring was clear. The walk would be on.

Walking up to Cotton’s Cottage I wandered if he would be up. I suspect he was wandering, perhaps with more justification, if I would be arriving. Having established that we were both awake and that the top of Rosskerrig could no longer be seen because it was obscured by trees we set off.

The first part of the walk was easy going up the hill past Hillcrest Farm and onto the old Kilcrohane Road. We then turned a sharp right and started the steeper ascent.

As we got higher the cloud came down and the light drizzle turned into a heavier rain. We carried on stomping up the hill, following the wooden posts marked with the yellow walking man of The Sheep’s Head Way. We paused at every third or fourth post to get our breathe back and look at the view. As we got higher there was less and less view to look at.

The last few hundred yards to the top felt like hard going. The wind had picked up with the height and it blew the rain hard into our faces so that each drop coming in felt sharp quick prick of a needle. The was a dispiriting feel to the walk at this point as the hill is broken up into a series of ridges. Having got to the top of a ridge there was an immediate and steep drop into a valley before having to make your way up the next ridge. Fortunately the rain eased as we got to the top. The cloud cleared so we could see the valley in which Ahakista lies and the extent to which it runs back into the hills.

We didn’t stop for long but carried to get to the top of Seefin. The way here was slightly confusing and there were a couple of alternative routs which would have taken us back to Ahakista and even the way to Seefin seemed to double back on itself.

Although we were still going up hill the walking was easier. The rain had stopped now but the wind was picking up. The view over Bantry Bay was all but obscured but looking back to Durrus we could just about make out the cut of the fills against the clouds.

At the top of Seefin the wind had gathered itself up into gale. We both lay down under the cairn and closing our eyes it felt as if the whole hill was shuddering with the force of the wind.

We then made our way down to Fin Mac Cool’s seat and the road down to Kilcrohane. The wind was now unnerving. It flattened the grass against the ground and unsteadied our feet as we tried to make our way down. It was strong enough to be able to lean back into it without falling over. I had a hat to hold onto my head which further unbalanced me. The wind was coming hard from the southwest and as we passed over onto the north side of the hill it quietened although we could still hear the noise it made in the grass, a hard angry rustle.

We made it to the road and as we did so the wind eased. The walk down the road was easier than I remembered it from previous times and we got to Eileen’s pub just three hours after we had left the Cottage. Eileen was in there and worried over how wet we looked. We each had a pint to put us right and organized a lift back to Ahakista. Eileen also offered us a lift back.

Rather than wait we finished out pints and started back on the road. We made it almost half way back before a car pulled up to take us back. We should have done it all on foot.

‘Michael O’Hanratty drove an old green Mini Metro. When in drink he claimed it was the last Mini Metro still on the road in County Cork “and if it wasn’t then it was the last feckin’ green one!”’

‘The green was indistinct and murky and had about it a shade of goose shit but the colour was difficult to find under the rust stains, mud and silver gaffer tape he used to hold odd parts of the bodywork together. He kept a pile of old newspapers and magazines on the back seats for when it stopped and it needed a time of rest before starting again.’

‘He liked to take his lunch over pints in the pub which meant spending time waiting for it to open. He spent that time with the car parked and stopped on the concrete skirt at the top of the pier looking out over the boats and the water. He preferred it when it was quiet and there no people and he could wait watching and counting the seagulls move from the lampposts.’

‘He lost the car one year somewhere in the hills behind Durrus. Because of its colour it took him 6 weeks to find so well disguised it was against the rocks and the heather and the course grass.’

‘“Started first feckin’ time,’’ he said. “And if I lose it again I will have a radio fitted and keep it playing so I can find it again.”’

‘Before he bought the car he was a stockman and he had worked with cows for most of his life. He had even spent time working with Curly Fitzpatrick and he knew his cows and the fields that they lived in. He had never worked with Foxtrot but it was no secret that she was the cow chosen for that year’s competition and so Michael O’Hanratty had time to study the form. He took time to observe her in a field and watched as she went about her business.’

‘He took careful notes and with all that preparation he thought he had a pretty good idea where Foxtrot would pause to lay her first pat.’

‘He had been putting the work in because he needed new tyres for his car. With its scarcity value he saw the car as an investment and if it needed new tyres he would have to invest further and the Cow Pat Competition seemed the perfect vehicle for him to do so. Provided he studied the form and made good and proper use of the knowledge he had built up over the years as to where Curly Fitzpatrick’s cows laid their pats.’

‘So with the help of Dennis O’Driscoll and Tom Hayes, who fronted some of the buying for him, he bought up a total of fifteen squares, as no man was allowed to buy more than five, all picked on the basis of his carful observation.’

‘So having invested  his forty-five euro plus the pints that he had promised to Dennis O’Driscoll and Tom Hayes he settled himself with a pint at the start of the competition confident that when Foxtrot came to lay her pat it would be on one of his squares and the winnings would be his. His nerves were rattled a few times as the cow passed over one of his squares but he remained sure that she would stop for her business on one of his.’

‘He was cheered as he took his second pint and passed out two more to Dennis O’Driscoll and Tom Hayes. Time, he thought, was on his side and the more that Foxtrot delayed the more confident he became that one of his squares would be the winner.’

‘When at last she deposited her pat he was not able to place, from where he was standing, the exact spot that it had landed. He studied the scribbled notes he had in his hand and for moment was sure that the pat had landed right. But doubt started to creep in as Curly Fitzpatrick walked out to the spot and a cold fury rose in his chest when the name of the winner was announced, “Brendan Daly has it this year.”’