WELL, what do ye think of me now? Rugged, aged, decrepit, vaguely handsome, the relics of auld decency or just plain older me?

The thing is, I wanted to travel next month - I often go for a kind of recharge of the spiritual batteries around this time of year. I’ve done it now for over a decade and get great solace from it. Being alone, on my own, for five or six days is such a rewarding experience.

I know, people always say to me, ‘You, silent for a week, that’s impossible’. And maybe that’s a miracle too because I do love, indeed yearn, for company most of the time.

A day where I haven’t met someone with a sceal or a story to tell seems a wasted day. Storytelling and story-gathering are important to me.

Ye all know I never really knew my father so I still cry salty tears when I hear Phil Coulter sing the lines; As a boy, he’d take me walking, By mountain, field, and stream, And he’d show me things, Not known to kids, A secret between him and me.

Like the colours on a pheasant, As heresies in the dawn, Or how to fish, or make a wish, Beside a fairy tree.

I never will forget him, For he made me what I am….

So ye can understand why, from an early age, I was always asking questions about him and got into the habit of talking as a youngster, and in reality I’ve never stopped.

I love gathering snippets of information about my father and mother and their kith and kin. Strange that, though he’s gone 60 years, I still often meet a very old person somewhere, near or far, and when they hear my name they’d say ‘I knew your father’.

So that’s the background to my incessant need to make conversation.

They........

© Evening Echo