The incident with the Garda

 

The Garda thing was funny  with the benefit of hindsight!

 

They have sort of "hard shoulder" lines on many main roads in Ireland - almost big enough for a vehicle but never quite. They seem to be designed as lanes for slow moving vehicles; bikes; tractors; that sort of thing.

 

We were on the main road from Athlone to Dublin - the A4 I believe.

A lorry pulled over to let me pass.

We were not that far from a brow of a hill, but would have had plenty of time except for the fact that someone else had the same idea coming in the opposite direction. . . . . . . .

There is something disturbing about having a police car coming at you in the space you had anticipated using!

We missed each other comfortably.

However he was obviously having a slack morning.

I watched him in my rear view mirror as he stopped, did a U turn and then caught me up and pulled me over.

By now my inner child had emerged to take over the situation.

 

His opening gambit was, predictably, "How are you doing?" 

 

Whether through fear or what, I answered, "Fine until I saw a police car coming towards me just now"!

 

Careful Malc, I thought, don't push your luck!

 

"That wasn't a very clever manoeuvre you did back there was it Sir", he said

 

He accused me of forcing him off the road, which was clearly an exaggeration.

I thought it wise not to tell him he was mistaken and that I had two witnesses to the fact that he was just as much to blame as I was for overtaking on a brow.

I toyed with asking if he'd had his video camera rolling and could we go and watch the footage.

 

I then struggled to locate my driver's licence - so long in fact that he gave up!

He wished me a safe journey - hmmm!

 

We stopped shortly after that and I devoured a full Irish breakfast.

A mixture of fear, anger, calls for justice - me that is, not the breakfast.

 

Needless to say Sally Ann drove to the airport having assured me that "You handled that very graciously"