Pat decided to go sea angling for the weekend with his best buddy, Mick. As arranged, at 9.00pm on a Friday evening they loaded up Mick’s old mini-van with tent equipment, sleeping bags, fishing gear and a few crates of beer, then leaving Thurles, they headed west for the Galway coast.
After driving for about an hour and shortly just after 10.00pm, on a badly potholed quiet rural road, two worn tyres on the tired old cramped mini-van got punctured.
Forced now to stop and with rain coming down in bucketfuls, both men decided their best plan was to walk to seek help. They were soon attracted towards bright lights emanating from the windows of a nearby large farmhouse.
Wet to the skin, they explained their plight to the farmhouse owner, a very attractive, curvy, middle aged, blonde lady. They asked her if they could possibly perhaps spend the night on a chair and dry their soaked clothes in front of her log fire, latter which was invitingly visible from the open door.
“I am afraid not,” she replied somewhat apologetically. “I do realize it’s terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to myself, but understand I’m recently widowed,” she explained. “With my husband dead only a month ago, I’m afraid the neighbours would only start to gossip, if I were to let you in to stay in the house.”
“Not to worry,” Pat said in calm desperation. “But we’ll be happy to sleep in your hay-barn and sure we’ll both be gone at first light in search of the nearest garage.” The lady thought for a moment, then reluctantly agreed and so both men made their way to her barn and out of the downpour to settle in for the night.
As promised the following morning, with the weather now clear, they quickly located a garage which repaired their tyres and got them on their way before 9.30am. They enjoyed a great weekend of quiet fishing, thankfully without any further mishap, and returned to Thurles on the Sunday night, fully refreshed from their quiet weekend break.
Indeed the weekend was almost a distant memory when, around nine months later, Jack got this unexpected letter from a Galway solicitor. The correspondence took him a few minutes to figure out, but he finally determined that it was forwarded by a solicitor on behalf of the aforementioned attractive blonde widow, whose hay-barn he and Mick had used during their weekend fishing trip.
Having fully digested the correspondence, Pat dropped down to his good friend Mick. “Mick,” says he, “Do you remember that good-looking blonde widow woman, who owned the farm we stayed at, during our fishing trip about 9 months ago?”
“Yes by God I certainly, I do.” said Mick. “Sure how could I ever forget it ?”
“Did you, by any stretch of the imagination, er, happen to get up in the middle of the night, maybe go up to the house to perhaps present your credentials ?” asked Pat
“Well, now that you mention it, yes,” Mick replied, somewhat a little embarrassed about having being found out, “Sure I have to admit that I did.”
“And during the course of your visit, did you happen to give her my name instead of telling her your own name ?”
Mick’s face turned bright crimson, “Yeah, to be totally honest I’m afraid I did, but look I’m sorry I shouldn’t have lied,” Mick confessed, “ But look here, why all the interrogation ?”
“I got a letter from her solicitor this morning, it seems she just died last week and left me everything.” replied Pat.
I’ll be on a fishing trip myself as soon as possible.