>grinding halt on a lonely country road not far from Sneem, Co Kerry.

Ah, and a lovely town it is. In fact, when I went through there, it had just been named the prettiest village or town in Ireland, according to an Irish tourist board sign. Right on the outskirts of town I watched two Americans driving on the wrong side of the road smash into a stone bridge, badly mangling a tyre and a wing.

After offering up a prayer that I had not been on the bridge on my bicycle at the time, I offered to assist them. They had rented this little car, an English Ford of some tipe (if tire is spelled tyre, type should be spelled tipe, shouldn't it?) Anyway, I spent 20 minutes pulling at the bottom of the boot to see if there was a hidden compartment, crawling under the car, etc., searching in vain for the spare. Eventually, we found it mounted on top of the engine!!!

And something occurs to me totally off the wall. Has anyone noticed Father Steve about? I don't think we've heard from him in a week or thereabouts.



TEd