I apologise for the lateness of publishing this. I was sure I had put it up weeks ago. It is referencing the weekend of the 29th of September

And finally I rouse myself from the lazies.
Last weekend was a fun one. I went to Kilkenny for a Michaelmas fair in a place called Graiguenamanagh. It was a good gig. On the way up I had to go into Midleton to get some new tent pegs in the army surplus store. Luckily I got a lift from Shan' to the door of the shop. THen I had to walk from there to thee other side of Midleton with my excessively heavy bag. After a short while hitching I got a lift to Youghal from a rather unique person. An Englisman in the Irish army. :P
The next lift that I got was from Youghal to Piltown. A rather nice chunk of the journey which got me within 20min drive of my mate Pajo's place. Then I got a lift to Owning ad after only walking for a few seconds I got a lift as far as Killmoganny. As Pajo was already on the road he asked how far I was. As I was only 5 minutes away he picked me up.

Over the course of the weekend the pair of us were chatting about hitching, wierd experiences while hitching and who would/wouldn't pick us up. Ya see the both of us are rather hairy chaps. With long hair and rather noticeable beards. For some people this is a put off which means no lift. Or as Pajo rightly said can sometimes make more people pick ya up. This is because we're not hiding anything. Standing there quite often as Pajo said in a long black leather jacket and looking for a lift you are not going to be carrying anything dodgy. Now I mention all this for a very important reason. Well two in fact. I shall elaborate below.

At the end of the weekend I had to head home fairly late. The only problem was that the busses from Kilkenny to Cork stop very early in the day (GRRR ARRGH SMASH SMASH!!). So I had to head down to Waterford. Pajo drove me down and we literally chased the bus to the interior edge of Waterford City. I then sat back to figure out how I was going to get home from Midleton at 11pm. Yes. It was that late. So anyway I got dropped in Midleton and started walking. As soon as I got to the last street light in Ballinacurra. I had decided that if I was still there an hour later I would start to walk the 12 miles home. Around 15 minutes after I had started a car slowed down and stopped. I thought I was sorted. But no. For the first time in several years of hitching the Gardai stopped to have a chat. To be fair, there I was big hairy eejit standing on the side of the road at nearly 11:30pm. They asked what I was doing, where I was from, and very insistently was I carrying any drugs. Now as anyone who knows me well will tell you not once in my life have I had anything stronger than booze, caffeine or nicotine. I did tell them that there were several knoves in my bag as I had been camping and so they left. There I was standing in the middle of the night looking for a lift. And the next car that stopped was.......a woman on her own!!! Talk about madness. She said she lived in Ballymaloe but would drop me home. Turns out she was had the attitude that if I was looking as I did that she should be perfectly safe (Pajo was right). I jokingly told her that I had the various camping implements and she didn't mind.

Yet again all the above proves that there are some awesome people in the world. And as a friend of mine says. Just be awesome. :)