Coming Home to Story

Captain Midnight here reporting from Tipperary.

Yes, I know it’s a long, long way.

It’s raining outside and I’m dreaming of the riverbank and open fields. Today is Day 15 in Rosie the Campervan and she’s beginning to get a bit claustrophobic. I don’t mind it most of the time because it means Himself can’t get away when I feel like sitting on his head. On the other hand, there’s not much room to stretch out and we do seem to be running out of conversation.

I can hear him now, sitting at the table bashing something out on the laptop. I suspect that it’s just another attempt to stave off the maudlin self-pity that overtakes him when he thinks he’s got nothing worthwhile to say.

“Write what you know,” I tell him.

“But I don’t know anything,” he says.

“Then write what you don’t know,” I cunningly respond.

“I’ll try,” he whimpers.

“There is no try, young Padawan,” I declare. “Only write or not write.”

Sometimes, I think Himself will never make it as a Jedi. He doesn’t seem to understand that the Force won’t hang around while he agonises about whether or not he’s ever going to be a real writer. Meanwhile, the Dark Side is calling me. Just imagine how terrifying I would be dressed in black and wielding a light sabre as Commander Midnight.

Don’t worry, dear reader. It’s not going to happen.

I never come when I am called.

Captain Midnight here reporting from my berth in Rosie.

For reasons which I have yet to understand, Himself seems to feel entitled to share my bed. As you can see, I’m not going to make this easy for him. Yes, he’s bigger than me and has opposable thumbs but possession is nine points of the law and I’ve got much bigger teeth than he has.

He’s going to have to be awfully nice (chicken comes to mind) for me to move over and let him crawl in. Outside, the trees are waving and creaking in the wind. Himself has checked the weather forecast and apparently it’s going to blow a hoolie, whatever that means. All I know is there will be lots of new sticks lying around in the morning.

We’re as snug as two bugs in a rug in here and I confidently predict a good night’s sleep. I’ve got a PhD in sleeping and he’s getting better every night we spend in the great outdoors. He says it’s the fresh air but I think it’s because I make him feel relaxed.

I suppose that means that I’ll have to let him get in.

I just wish he didn’t snore.

Captain Midnight here, reporting from the wilds of Munster

Himself and I are staying in Rosie for a couple of nights beside the River Blackwater so that he can have a day’s salmon fishing. You may recall that we tried this last year but Himself took sick and ended up in Cork Hospital for 24 hours with a bout of gastro-enteritis from eating dodgy bangers.

So we’re giving it another go this year.

The trouble is that Himself has watched Salmon Fishing in the Yemen too many times and fancies that he is Ewan McGregor. He’s kidding himself, of course. Ewan McGregor’s grandfather, maybe. Mind you, in a certain light, our lovely guide Glenda does bear a passing resemblance to Emily Blunt.

Also, Ewan McGregor looks like he can fish. As far as I can see, Himself thrashes around with the rod until the fly drops into the water from sheer exhaustion. Salmon fishing seems to require a great deal of skill and a large helping of luck followed by a lot more skill. Skill to choose the right fly and cast it in the right direction; luck because it’s pure chance that a passing fish might snap at the lure; and more skill because hooking a salmon is one thing but landing it is another.

Skill and fisherman’s luck: two attributes I can’t help noticing that Himself does not possess in abundance. Even so, he managed to get a salmon on the end of his line. Not for long, of course. The wee beastie felt the spring of the rod tip, shook its head and dropped the hook in a matter of seconds.

From the fuss Himself made you’d think he’d harpooned Moby Dick and then let it get away. Still, it brought a smile to his weary chops for a few moments. I did ask him what he was so happy about. He looked at me ruefully.

“Getting a take gives me hope,” he said. “If I can get a take in only the second year of trying, there’s a real possibility that if I come back every year until I’m 80, I might actually catch one.”

I wouldn’t mind that at all. I get to run up and down the bank, barking encouragement and occasionally diving into the water to look for sticks and make sure that he’s OK out there. Salmon fishing is great fun!

Who needs fish?

Photo credits and thanks to our guide Glenda Powell: glendapowellguiding.com

Captain Midnight here from over the border.

We only just made it out. Himself messed up the papers so the guards on the ferry wouldn’t let me into the Commodore Lounge where I usually take my ease on the crossing to Ireland. Instead, I was obliged to do some time: four hours of solitary, locked into a tin box like escaped P.O.W. Steve McQueen after failing to cross the German border on a motorbike.

There was a very nice Red Setter in the adjoining kennel, but I kept my mouth shut. She was obviously waiting to catch me out if I barked with an English accent. A honey-trap if ever I saw one! Himself left me a bowl of water and a chew. So kind of him to think of my needs before he hot-footed it to the luxury accommodation on the Top Deck, to mix with the enemy and avail himself liberally of the free canapés and wine. Generous to a fault.

But the vicissitudes of temporary incarceration only made our eventual freedom taste even sweeter when we finally gave them the slip at Rosslare and drove an hour up the coast to Morriscastle Sands.

I took Himself for a walk on the beach when we arrived, to celebrate our great escape from the humdrum of everyday work. We’ve got two weeks in the fair country in Rosie, our VW Campervan, for Himself to write and me to scamper by the sea before we surrender to the authorities and get deported back to Blighty.

Hurrah!

Captain Midnight here, freelance academic and public intellectual.

Himself (or Herr Professor Doktor as he likes to be known these days) and I spent last Thursday morning at Ashridge House with a delightful bunch of ADOC research students, doing stuff about storytelling.

He goes there often and calls it his ‘office’. I think it’s supposed to be a joke but you can never be quite sure with his jejune sense of humour. Here’s a picture of the place in case you’re not familiar with it.

We did our usual double act: me snoozing under the table while he banged on about point of view and narrative arcs and so forth. He’s coming on quite well under my supervision and he needs to find his own voice, so I tend to take a back seat these days and give him a chance to shine. It didn’t go too badly until he laid out his books on the floor to demonstrate his prowess as a writer.

No mention of the deathless prose I contributed to the books, needless to say.

You’d think he’d know better by now, after all it was pretty clear from the welcome we got that it was me the students had been waiting for. They were polite of course, did their best to look interested in what Herr Professor Doktor had to say, but he wasn’t the one who got tickled behind the ears and had his belly rubbed, if you know what I mean.

The students were wonderful, of course: thoughtful, testing questions; great stories; significant inquiries. In short, they put him to the test. Anyway, he got through it without making too much of an idiot of himself, so to celebrate I took him outside and let him off the lead for a bit of ball chucking before bundling him back in the car to go home.

Just another day at the office.