As a child in Mayo, I always had a great sense of the potential for hope that comes with this time of the year. We had three wooden lake boats for fishing on Lough Mask, and every winter, they were upturned in our garden and allowed to hibernate against the harsh winds and rain while the fishing season remained shut. And then in late January, the boats would be turned again and the process of getting them ready for a new season would begin.
The old and weathered paint would be stripped off with scrapers and gas torches, gaps in the wood were filled with Isopon and putty. The ribs of the boat would be checked for cracks and if needed, new ribs would be created, heating them until they bent in a rubber pipe, and then bolted in with copper bolts and washers. When it was all sanded down and washed, it would be time to apply three coats of thick gloss, normally blue, with a different colour picked every year for the top board. The seat knees would be varnished, the floorboards and oars put in place, and the engines, a three or four horsepower Seagull that you’d start with a knotted rope, would be geared up and ready for the lake.
With the lake fishing season almost upon us again dates wise, my thoughts this week went to those activities but not so much for what they were, but for what they represented. For us, the boats on the lake would shape the excitement of the Spring, the summer, the autumn. With anglers coming far and wide for my late Dad to gilly for them, to guide them to the best places to fish, to avoid the rocks, to advise them on flies such as Green Peters and the Golden Olives, dapping and trolling.
Painting the boats in February also represented a welcome few bob for the house in times that were far leaner than now. They represented exotic visitors to the house, friendly Germans, austere French, personable Swiss and of course many from the four corners of our nearest neighbours. When we painted those boats and made them ready, we did not know what lay ahead on the lakes each year. Whether they would bring camaraderie and joy, or tragedy and sadness?
But in February, they represented hope.
And it is that lifelong appreciation of hope that I engendered that stays with me this week as we look forward to the long exit from this pandemic. Hope in the knowledge that we are two-thirds of the way through the battle, and at this time in any game or match, it is very easy to be distracted from the objective and lose course.
It is possible to get too frustrated and to waste valuable energy on anger at those selfish people who broke the rules over the last month or more and took advantage on the lax restrictions. To the thousands who gathered in restricted numbers in hotels to watch matches and to socialise, to those who held parties (and yes, they were all over this city too ).
It is frustrating to think of all the efforts we are all making to stay safe and to keep others safe, and then see just how irresponsible people were in the search for “a meaningful Christmas.” It is easy to vent our ire on those who jumped the vaccine queue, both as individuals or as nations.
Perhaps the hardest thing to do is to remain hopeful, but that we must.
In history, there have always been scuffles before the arrival of the coveted prize, and so it is this week with the EU/Astra spat and the half-in half out travel restrictions that are to be introduced in this country.
2021 will be a different year again, but one we face with the knowledge of 2020 behind us. The old certainties will almost certainly not happen, so we have to be creative. The vast majority of us have been wonderful citizens. Let us not lose focus on the big prize as we enter a month that will see the most vulnerable vaccinated...and then the rest of us, bit by patient bit until we are able once again to do the things that define us as members of a united community.
