Last weekend, full of my new-found freedom, Kilian Doyle loaded his battered old surfboards, ratty old wetsuit and even tattier old self into the Bavarian Princess.
I left at dawn, aiming to be in Clare and paddling into my first wave by noon. Nice and relaxed, no hurries, no worries. Some plan that turned out to be.
The Princess and I arrived at the approach road to an out of the way surf spot down a wee Clare boreen. The surf was cranking, and every surfer for miles around was there. A tractor blocked my path. No big deal. It's a public road, but I wasn't about to make a fuss. So I stopped and waited. And waited. And waited.
The tractor driver glared at me a few times before eventually deigning to move it a few feet, but not enough to get past. I rolled down the window and asked him, polite as can be, if he wouldn't mind moving it another yard. Bad move. He unleashed a torrent of abuse that'd make a drunken docker blush like a little girl. Think Father Jack with Tourette's Syndrome.
Exact phraseology I'll leave to your imaginations, but the gist of it was that my surfer chums and I were causing this fine gentleman an inordinate amount of undue stress by our passage. He strongly advised me to take my surfboards and stick them somewhere warm and dark.
To be fair, I could see his point. Here he was, trying to do a nixer fixing a neighbour's roof and earn a few extra quid on top of his subsidies, when layabouts like myself paying income tax at the top rate come along with our fully taxed and insured cars trying to use a public road that he is blocking illegally with his tractor. As I said, my heart went out to him.
Eventually, after some diplomacy, I got through. I was fuming. He'd ruined any chance I was going to have of a relaxed surf. I turned back.
While doing so, two friends - let's call them Tex and Sharpy - passed me in their vans. I followed. Soon, we were at a standstill as our friend refused to budge again. We waited. And waited. Eventually, I saw Sharpy jump out of his van. I hopped out too. Something odd was going on.
What did I see but tractor man swinging a shovel at Tex's head. He looked completely out of control, a man tipped over the edge. When we tried to reason with him, he hit the ground with such an almighty smack that he snapped the shovel handle - which was thick as a baby's leg - clean in half. I would have laughed, except he had fixed his beady eye on me. He lunged forwards, blunt end in one hand, sharp end in the other, gesticulating furiously.
I retreated to the safety of the Princess. Not quick enough. Shovelman swung at me, walloping the back wheel of his tractor with his weapon. It bounced up and nipped me sharply on the left cheek. The lower left cheek.
I was back in the car before I even felt the pain. This was getting too much, I thought. You read about this kind of thing in the papers. "Farmer snaps and lops head off stranger with scythe". I really didn't fancy making headlines that day.
We eventually got past. No damage done, except to our nerves. I went off and surfed a different spot and made a mess of every wave. Nothing new there, so.
Incidentally, shortly after our little contretemps with the Shovelman, a Garda squad car came along and gave parking tickets to half the cars and vans still parked along the lane, ostensibly for blocking access. I have been informed the two incidents were unrelated.
Curiously, not one of the English-registered vehicles attracted the attentions of the law.
Anyway, the moral of the story? Get yourself an English number plate. It seems to mean you can park wherever you like. Except, of course, in front of the Shovelman's house.