Lost In Kilkenny!

With the papers, quite rightly, giving blanket coverage to #GE16, and journalists and their editors writing many column inches debating the rights and wrongs of the possible makeup of the next Government. I thought that it would be appropriate to stay away from such political commentary this week and besides it has become very clear that I not great at making predications. I had tipped Scotland to win the Six Nations!

I did get three out of the four candidate selections right, but admittedly in the wrong order, and I did suggest that a large cohort of the population were not engaged with politics and therefore they would not be voting. The 36.3% of the electorate or 30,000 people in the Waterford constituency who did not vote could have made a substantial difference to the final results, but as they did not engage or were not engaged, through what was after all a very sterile campaign, we returned two new candidates and two existing candidates. Clearly there was something for everyone from #GE16.

Having decided to stay away from the politics over the weekend, though still receiving regular updates directly from the count centre on the auld smart phone, I squeezed into the Lycra, packed the unicycle into the Mini and headed to Clonmel to take part in a charity cycle for Down Syndrome Ireland and specifically the Cycle for Sarah.

Around 100 Lycra clad people took part in the 130km Cycle for Sarah and there were six plucky members of the Waterford Biscuit Club who made the trip on a very, very cold and wintery Saturday morning. Suitably dressed in our unique Cookie Monster cycling tops we headed out of Clonmel shortly after 10:00 and cycled straight into a freezing cold Arctic wind as we set our sights on getting to the pit stop in Kilkenny as fast as possible.

Once out of Clonmel the large group naturally began to fracture into smaller packets of biscuits and being the competitive Scotsman that I am I chased down the guys at the front and soon we were a small selection of six, six men that really had no idea what so ever where we were actually going.

Spotted hiding in Kilkenny. 

As we ploughed on, counting down the kilometres, one of the marshals directed us right, off the main road, and straight up a rather steep hill and onto some very quiet back roads that seemed to be taking us in an easterly direction. We eventually decided to turn left cycling a few more kilometres, up some more steep hills, through some very small hamlets and onto the ubiquitous single track roads you inevitably come across in Ireland when you take a wrong turn.

Clearly we were lost in Kilkenny.

But no man worth his salt would ever admit to being lost, so we continued battling the wind and cold and then “BANG”! No were not shot by some Deliverance cast member we had a puncture that took an eternity to fix due to a very finicky valve that would not play ball. We had stopped in the middle of nowhere and the silence was only broken by the sound of the odd gunshot, crows calling and the cackle of male pheasant who was no doubt laughing at us. Eventually, we got moving once again and steered roughly in the direction of Kilkenny.

SPEEEEEEED!

Arriving with hypothermia in Kilkenny we stopped for a warm cup of coffee and some soup, where I checked the election update and knew that there was every possibility of some shock results on the way. I jumped back onto the bike for a quick flat-out blast back to Clonmel to get home to see if I needed to buy yet another wooden spoon!

It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning and to stay somewhat remote from all the #GE16 results. The company was great and the scenery was not too bad either.