Dreadful Nonsense

Last night, you will have noted, was New Years Eve. Did you note that? Excellent. I, like many of the other people I traveled to Cavan with, spent last night (which was New Years Eve) in Killykeen Forest Park. I did this for a number of reasons, but the main one was because Mrs Bishop a while back caught me by surprise by mumbling something incoherent into my ear a number of times, while flapping something shiny in front of me, but just out of my reach. In my haste to reach the shiny thing, I agreed to do whatever it was she was asking me to do. I therefore found myself yesterday speeding along a road that took us out of Dublin, and in to Cavan.

Ah, Cavan. What is there to say about Cavan?

Nothing. Let's move on.

I've just done a search for Killykeen, so that I could link to pretty pictures of the log cabins we were staying in. I wasn't allowed to take my Dad's digital camera with me to Cavan, due to there being a very strong chance that the locals would burn me as a witch if they laid eyes on such technology. Instead of pictures, though, I found this brilliant factoid: "When the site was excavated in 1987 human remains were found from the last Cromwellian siege of 1653." Dude! I should have done some research! Had the rest of our party realised there were remains of dead British people to be found out and about in the woodlands, I'm sure we wouldn't have wasted so much time drinking, smoking and raising a wild racket in Chalet Number Five, aka The Party Hut.

New Year's Eve for me, as for everyone in the world, is always a disaster and a disappointment, and I was braced for both, especially considering the pattern the last few months have had of being either spectacularly brilliant or bitterly horrible, quite often on the same day. As it turned out, all was well.

The cabin was quite frankly freezing, but we somehow found a way to warm ourselves. The party was initially quite slow to start up as some of the female members of the group - those staying in Chalet Number Four at least - felt it necessary to use such things as hair straighteners and make up, and also change clothes and watch Coronation Street. I tried standing with some gentlemen while they talked about football, but soon slipped into a mild coma and had to go find some ladies to wake me up again. Thankfully once the music was turned on and turned up - way, way, way up - the party got, as Pink so often demands that it does, started.

After midnight - which we managed to celebrate 10 minutes late - people from the other cabins came wandering by, clutching drinks or party hats, covered in mud and alcohol and with big sloppy grins on their faces. Some brought more alcohol with them, some helped themselves to ours, all were merry and jolly, and one particularly brilliant group had ice cubes in their glasses that lit up and glowed in the dark, all the better to go wandering around a pitch black forest with. Chalet Number Five was definitely the loudest Chalet in all of Killykeen. This was later confirmed by people in Killashandra, which is 14km away, who heard the faint strains of The Beastie Boys coming over Lough Oughter at 3 in the morning.

This entry was posted on 01 January 2005 at 11:09 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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