Day 3 - Kilcullen > Exit 3 on the M9 > Augharue > Dublin + Day 4 - Dublin > Augharue > Dublin
by Katie Watchorn
Day 3 - Kilcullen > Exit 3 on the M9 > Augharue > Dublin
Nightmare morning. Car breaks down just as I get on the motorway. I have to nurse her to the next exit and my long suffering father has to come and help me. Alternator belt went. My poor car. The water tank is bubbling furiously when I turn the engine off. I can tell from this moment that today’s food diary is going to be a mess, my stomach twisting anxiously. The porridge I had at my brothers a half hour ago sits like a brick in my belly. (Didn’t photograph it either, the images are dire for today’s dispatch, mostly car things, soz)
Dad attempts replacing the fan belt on the side of the road and I stand next to him anxiously, hoping there’s nothing else wrong, Googling “can an alternator just fly off” “fan belt tensioner Opel Astra location” and “battery light dash fan belt meaning?” He can’t fix it and we free wheel her into a local mechanic for the night. I feel ill.
At home post mechanic sitting at the kitchen table catching up with my mother quickly before I get back in my borrowed parents car to go to Dublin. I wolf down three chocolate digestives in quick succession hoping that they will alleviate my headache. Then I realise the reason I have a headache is because I usually have about three coffees a day and today I’ve had none yet. Bad sign.
You might think I planted this magnum stick in my parents car on account of my recollection yesterday but alas I did not. Trigger warning for filthy car.
1:30 pm another service station (I promise I don’t usually frequent this many service stations) I get diesel, crap coffee, banana, some kind of awful mint high protein bar that I picked up in leu of a chocolate bar and I’m now questioning why I did that, and a charging cable. Strong suspicion a steaming bag of chips is on my horizon this evening.
Day 4- Dublin > Augharue > Dublin
My poor lovely car is fixed! And I get the holy grail of breakfasts, a hotel breakfast. Look at it.
‘B’ button on the lift is where you go for breakfast. My half awake brain is contemplating how ‘B’ must stand for ‘Breakfast’ how clever, but then I realise ‘B’ usually stands for basement in these things, so not that clever. The breakfast is just in the basement, and they both happen to start with B.
I get so overwhelmed by continental buffet style breakfasts and try to make a game plan of how I will manage a bit of everything so that’s how I end up with a plate like this. Car anxiety is clean gone and I revel in what feels like free food. There is a royalty free piano cover of “All You Need is Love” playing at just a slightly higher volume than absolutely necessary at 8.30am which is what eventually drives me out of the Breakfast Basement.
Just home and I give our senior dog copious amounts of treats. Finally a cooked lunch (first cooked lunch of the week and not in the car?) with Mam in town. Chef’s Special: Stuffed cabbage roll in tomato sauce with ciabatta. I forego the bread in favour of my mam’s chips. A coke zero. I feel renewed. Afterwards a long awaited trip to Aldi (no Aldi’s in Northern Ireland). Mam gets the knock off of discontinued Wibbly Wobby Wonders - Jiggly Pops.
Back in my car and grapes and pretzels (prime food for losing between the seats). I drive with my left hand in the bag taking alternate bites of salty pretzel/sweet grape. Second last car journey of the week.
Katie Watchorn (@katiewatchorn) is an Irish visual artist who primarily makes sculpture. She is currently living in Belfast.