Anything can happen. We learn this simple truth early, if we are fortunate. We prepare ourselves for life by realising there is no possible preparation; we learn to accept uncertainty.
Try telling this to a 23-year-old attempting to backpack alone all over Europe with very little money and no itinerary though. Try telling me this.
I am convinced that there is a Masterplan for me, that life has anointed me for greater things.
Or I was. Then I realise the train I had arrived on is over half an hour late. Damn. What life has actually anointed me for is missing my ferry from Stranraer to Belfast.
How do I know this? The grizzled Scotsman whom I had stopped outside a 7-Eleven to ask for directions cheerfully shares this bit of Gaelic rail lore with me. My look of dismay is interrupted by the Scotsman calling up his wife. She is looking for parking nearby. Instead, he has a better idea: “Honey? Can you take this kid I found to the ferry?”
I am about to get rescued.
Five minutes later, I am in a Volkswagen Beetle hurtling for the ferry port.
“Malaysia? Isn’t that near Bali?” my rescuer asks.
“Not really, though Indonesia and Malaysia are neighbours…”
“Terrible isn’t it, the bombing?”
What do I say? This is a year after 9/11 and everyone is still a little paranoid. Who could blame us?
I am saved by my Good Samaritan driver, who continues without waiting for my reply: “My niece Barbara, she was backpacking, just like you are, in Bali. She flew back three days before the Kuta attack. God bless her.”
I nod, grateful for the reprieve.
“Barbara plans to go back, you know. She loves the islands, she said. Where else should she go, you reckon? Does Malaysia have any nice islands? I bet it does.”
I reach the port and get on my ferry with barely minutes to spare. As the ferry edges slowly towards Northern Ireland, the only thing on my mind isn’t relief at not wasting my ticket but astonishment at the kindness and generosity of two complete strangers.
Maybe there was a Masterplan after all. Maybe it’s simply being gentle and kind, wherever and however you may find yourself.
| Ferry Terminal, Stranraer, Dumfries And Galloway DG9 8EL, Scotland |
| Getting There It takes 45 minutes from Glasgow and an hour from Edinburgh to reach Stanraer by rail. There are two types of ferries from Stranraer to Belfast: a fast one which takes two hours and a slower one that takes just over three hours. Fast is better, no? Yet if you have the time, there is something about taking the slower route. As Noel Gallagher sings on one of my favourite songs, the Oasis B-side “The Masterplan”: Take the time to make some sense Sometimes it’s not about the speed with which we reach a destination but the minutes and hours in between where we leave behind and where we end up that matters. |
| Don’t piss off the faerie Not far from Stranraer are the cliffs of Clanyard Bay, where one may find caves that lead all the way to the Cove of Grennan. Good folks believed that the faerie dwell deep within these caves and leave them well alone. That was, till one day a piper decided to penetrate its dark depths. The cacophony of his bagpipes was loud and long, hours and hours of it. And then nothing. Years later, sailors would swear they could hear the fading songs of a phantom piper as their ships passed by. Perhaps the piper wasn’t very talented and the good folks living nearby were well glad to be rid of him. Never say the faerie aren’t a helpful sort. |