The blogging world definitely suffers when The Toaster Man is on holiday.
I had to travel to Coleraine for a meeting today, I left early because of the roadworks, but made it to Ballymoney with 45 minutes to spare so I decided to take the road through Ballybogey that drops down to Whiterocks. I was driving into Portrush when I saw two hitchhikers trying to hitch on the other side. The looked really interesting characters, both wearing black duffel coats with big lapels and two rows of shiney silver buttons down the front, they looked like something from the American Civil War. Unusually they were carrying sticks with their belongings tied in handkerchiefs on the end, like in 'Puss in Boots'.
It was such an unusual site that it got me thinking about 'Round Ireland with a Fridge' by Tony Hawkes, one of the most inspiring books I have ever read.
I wished I was going the other way because I would have given them a lift, I made a pact with myself to pick up my first ever hitch hiker next time I passed one.
I drove along Crocknamack Rd and headed out passed the Metropole, just on the brow of the hill coming out of Portrush a lonely figure stood with thumb outstrecthed.
First impressions were not good,but I had made the pact with myself, so on went the indicator and I pulled over, and that is how I met Sean. Sean was about 35 years old, I thought he had perhaps escaped from a lunatic asylum, one where everyone has a 40 a day habit. He had that unmistakable smell of someone eho had been on the drink for a few days, rather like the inside of your student house the night after a big party.
His eyes were the last to loose the alcohol, one was pointing left and the other was trying to catch up by chasing it round the back of his head from the right.
I tried to instigate a conversation about having walked the road before and it being a long way, to which Sean answered with a nod and a grunt. He also had a nervous twitch, excentuated by the paranoia of his last few days drinking, he was making me very nervous. From what I gathered he was just back from England where he had been working on the sites, he had an Irish accent, he had only asked to get to Coleraine and I wasn't going to tell him I would be heading to Belfast after my meeting, the car was beginning to smell really bad and I wanted rid of him. You can imagine my relief at reaching the roundabout before the University where my last sight of Sean was him hobbling towards Coleraine on his disabled shoe in my rear view mirror.
I feel dirty of all the people in the world to take my hitchhiking virginity it had to be a drunken paranoid cross eyed Sean and his club foot shoe.