THREES

I just spent a few days on Anglesey, gadding about hither and yon, seeing the sights, spotting the birds and generally taking rather too many photographs to “inspire” more prattlings and mullings as the summer starts to fade into autumn over the next few weeks, although, as is normal when I spend a few days away from the keyboard and interacting with the real world again, suddenly those very prattlings and mullings acquire such an air of pointlessness, that I find it very difficult to resume them once more when I try to. So, the ironic dualism remains; I get away to recharge the batteries and having done so, there remains little reason for the batteries to have any charge in them.

Anyhow, despite the obvious risks involved, the idea of going there was to have a few days rest and relaxation pottering about the island in a bit of a carefree manner and, generally, that’s what we did. The weather cleared and, all-in-all, a relaxing few days were spent in some of the lovelier parts of the island with the weather even choosing not to drench us for the duration as we suspected it might.

It was, however, an “eventful” week, one not without incident, and designed to keep the stress levels ticking along nicely, just so I wouldn’t get ahead of myself and start to take things for granted. There is a theory that such things happen in threes, and it would seem that the essential truth of this was proven by those little incidents that didn’t manage to ruin our little break, but did keep us on our toes (or would have done if events hadn’t unfolded as they did…).

The first incident was pretty minor in the great scheme of things, but still one of those small, annoying developments designed to keep you guessing. As we passed across the border into the “Land of my Fathers” there was a rather alarming crash against the windscreen of the venerable vehicle we like to call “Blinky, the Wonder Car”. At first we thought that something had fallen off a passing wagon in the blatting rain, especially as a rusty bedspring seemed to be now nestling in the air intake channel right in front of me.

As the rain continued to pour, however, it became immediately clear that, whilst we were happy that the windscreen had not shattered, something untoward had happened to the wiper as it was now not so much removing the water from my field of view as smearing it around a bit in a rather ineffectual way.

We pulled up into a lay-by, and I decided to at least retrieve the spring so that it didn’t fly off and collide with yet another vehicle as it sped happily along. I became suddenly envious of all those people barreling along in their sleeker, newer transports without a care in the world for those of us rattling around in our aging jalopies, no doubt with their fingers forming that oh-so-caring “L” sign that I know so well. A quick examination of the wiper blade followed and it quickly turned out that the loud thud had been the tension pin on the wiper arm sheering and causing the spring to release and smack into the glass. Blinky’s getting old and metal fatigue is starting to creep in.

Anyway, with the showers being intermittent we were able to get on our way relatively safely, and made it to the island without incident. I stopped at a couple of car places that we happened to pass who were not really able to help much. In my head I had the idea that these tension pins might be the kind of thing that are lying around in repair shops but it seems that it is not so. There was much talk of far distant dealerships and possible scrapyards, but I really didn’t want to get involved in that sort of thing during my all-too-brief summer break and decided to MacGyver my way through the week with the help of some garden centre plastic wire and some duct tape, both acquired from places we happened to call in on as the week rattled on, and so we were able to bodge an adequate repair over the course of the next few days whilst the weather remained relatively kind.

Incident two occurred on the final day whilst we went for a walk around the headland in the glorious sunshine that it transpired was not much evident back home. It involved a badly sprained ankle, much hobbling to a rendezvous with the car, and various rearrangements of our planned “last night of the holiday” meal which we still managed to enjoy by means of some very helpful assistance from the local restaurant and the place we were staying.

I muttered something over our meal about things always happening in threes and the darker corners of my mind started to brew up all sorts of possibilities to nag at the edges of my thoughts and trouble me, but I really should have known better than to tempt fate that night, because, no sooner had we managed to manipulate our way back to our room than the phone rang with tales of incident number three which basically told of a relative now languishing in hospital, in fact the very same hospital that was currently splurged all over the news because of very bad things happening therein, and which would ultimately only leave the headlines because of even greater tragedies unfolding in other parts of the world.

So it seems that things do always happen in threes, and, thankfully, our particular three incidents were really just tiny irritants affecting only us really and certainly weren’t anything like as tragic as those being suffered so terribly in Norway, or China or by the family of a talented young musician in Camden. In fact, in comparison I think we got off very, very lightly and should be very grateful that our little holiday had so much to enjoy in it, and our tiny little moments of angst are probably barely worth mentioning…

Except of course that I just did.