By
noeleenm on March 31st, 2006
Thursday of last week was the first opportunity Elke had of seeing anything of Donegal, but we did see most of the beautiful Innishowen Peninsula that day. So, if she never saw another piece of this lovely county, she would have been already under its spell, like many another visitor, from Ireland or abroad, before her.
We had travelled across Northern Ireland and on into Donegal the previous evening in darkness. Night had fallen as we ate dinner in Carrick, but it was a good road all the way to Letterkenny where we had booked bed and breakfast for the first night.
It’s a long, long time since I drove through the North of Ireland, and the difference in the Border crossing was immense. I remember our car being stopped by young British soldiers, armed to the teeth, who inspected the car while we were uncomfortably aware of eyes watching through slits in the towers above us. Barbed wire was everywhere. It was a terrible feeling in our own country.
This time the only way we knew we had crossed the Border was because the road signs became the A5 instead of the N2 as we entered Aughnacloy, and reverted to the N15 as we entered Lifford and the Republic of Ireland again. The absence of barriers was a good feeling…
Mind you, I got a little bit upset when we had already entered Donegal, to receive a text message from my mobile service provider welcoming me to Great Britain! Elke thought my explosion in reaction to this was funny enough, but she really fell about laughing when I told her about a friend of mine, who always turns off his mobile when he enters the North because of that message. His complaint that: “I can’t even text them back!†really finished her off…
Mostly, though, the increasingly intrusive mobile phone wasn’t a problem, as I’d told family and friends and our flood campaign group that I was going away for a few days: Elke, sensible girl, simply doesn’t carry one, most of the time. It meant that travelling became the joy it should be, with its feeling of leaving all of the problems of everyday life behind you along the road. I felt I should have been fined for littering, I seemed to be shedding so much hassle as I drove further away from the flood campaign, running a household, holding down a job, updating websites, and even writing a blog!
I always get this feeling of freedom when I travel, whether by car or bus or train: it’s a sensation of movement, of adventure, of not knowing what’s around the next corner, and of somehow being out of reach of everyday problems. All you have to worry about is following a map, or road signs, or a compass, and everything before you is new. I get the same feeling when I climb a mountain.
Whether it’s more fun to travel alone or in company, of course, depends on how much you are in tune with your companion(s), and on the mood you’re in yourself at the time. I don’t really like travelling with a big group. It cuts you off from the people and places you are going to see. Strangers will open to a single traveller, or even two or three, but, after that, you’re just part of a crowd. Equally, smells and quiet sounds and gentle beasts might remain undisturbed on a mountainside or in a valley by one or two quiet walkers, but you might as well march in armoured battalions as stroll in a chattering group.
We engaged with quite a few people in Donegal, mostly by getting consistently lost and having to repeatedly ask for directions, but also because of asking for music and vegetarian food and what else should we not miss around here…? Most people love showing off their own places, and Donegal people are no exception. It was worth losing time on the road to listen to their soft, singing accent, and to experience their patience and courtesy.
It was in the car itself that we were noisiest, ourselves, trying to find songs that we both knew the words of to sing away the road in the absence of a functioning radio/cassette in Caroline – until Elke decided to fix it. She tried in the normal way, patiently attempting to tune it in, until I excused myself, leaned across, and opened and slammed shut the ashtray. The radio came on immediately, and after a short shocked silence the music was drowned by the sound of helpless wheezing laughter from the passenger seat.
Radios started by dint of slamming ashtrays weren’t the only source of laughter, though. We were both high with freedom, and it wasn’t hard to reduce us to giggles.
As Elke was mostly reading the map (or supposed to be), and I was driving, I was naturally the one more inclined to notice oddities, or beautiful vistas, as we passed. Unfortunately, we had literally passed them mostly by the time I interrupted one or both of our chatter with a: “What’s that strange animal?†or “Is that a statue of a dalmation, or is it a real dog?†or “Isn’t that a beautiful skyline?†She usually caught the skyline, but the only reason she saw the alpacas (Would I lie? They were in a field just outside Greencastle on the north-east coast of the Innishowen Peninsula) and the dog (it was real, just sitting like a statue) was because we passed along that stretch of road three times, trying to find a high scenic road we were being directed to…
She swore she was going to return home and tell everyone she had seen nothing of Donegal because I kept making her look at the map every time anything interesting was coming up, so she missed it – including the sign posts, I pointed out.
But alpacas, and statuesque Dalmations still lay ahead of us that Wednesday night as we pulled into the drive of our bed and breakfast, and met our very welcoming hostess, Ann O’Donnell. She supplied us with our first set of directions – to pub and music. So we parked our bags in our rooms, and followed Ann’s directions. It turned out to be rock music, with a young female lead guitarist. But despite the volume, the musicianship was good, and we were far enough away not to be totally deafened by the sound.
“Tomorrow we’ll look for a pub with Irish musicâ€, I promised Elke – and myself – in this county that is home to so many famous Irish musicians.
Posted in House Family, Ireland, Italy | 1 Comment »
By
noeleenm on March 31st, 2006
It’s over a week since I’ve written a post for this blog, and it’s been a week of tumbling into each day and falling out at the other end.
It started with Michele’s return home Wednesday of last week to have lunch with Elke and myself, before we set off for Donegal, and his staying on to have dinner with Gint and Gail before going back home to Italy the next day. Tanned and relaxed looking, he said he had a wonderful time in Thailand, and demonstrated photos of elephants and bungie jumping (Michele, not the elephants!) and reclining buddhas and a beautiful girl, about whom we were careful not to ask too many questions with only an hour to share with our ‘little brother’ before saying goodbye.
Thailand has an appalling reputation for ‘sex tourism’, and we have already had many rows in our house over this whole issue, divided unsurprisingly between men and women. Men seem to want to believe that prostitution is an ‘easy way’ for women to make money, particularly if the man treats the women ‘well’. They can’t seem to get it into their heads that ‘renting’ another human being, and having the ‘right’ then to decide what you’ll do together is intrinsically wrong: they can’t seem to understand that most women will only take this option of making money if they have absolutely no other choice.
So we skirted this issue, as we have skirted other issues at times, and Michele told us instead with great enthusiasm about the freedom speaking English had given him to talk to so many people of many different nationalities there. “If I could only speak Italian, I could not have talked with most of themâ€, he explained.
And he’s right. …Just as, if I only spoke my own language – Gaelic – I would be at a huge loss abroad, or even in Ireland. It’s the ultimate conquest, when you think about it – the conquest by language.
We talked, too, about his return to Italy, and how he wanted to work part-time there in his parents’ musical instrument factory, while continuing to study for the First Examination in English. But his parents need his labour full-time, as they are short-staffed at the moment. So he will have to continue to study in his spare time to get the exam. that will convince the banking world in Italy that he is a fluent English speaker, as well as a numbers fanatic.
It was odd, and hard, to say goodbye to him all over again, as we set off around 4pm for Donegal, but it was made easier by the fact that he was heading into our neighbour’s house to chat away the afternoon to their mutual satisfaction before returning for dinner with Gint and Gail.
My neighbour, Mrs. Carroll, has lived beside me all my life, and is one of the best neighbours anyone could possibly imagine. She keeps an eye on who comes and goes to my home, as well as keeping a spare key for which I have been grateful many a time, and took a particular liking to Michele (who, like me, managed to lock himself out on a couple of occasions) and the feeling was mutual. I knew that Michele would hear all about Mrs. Carroll’s grandson, who is teaching in Liberia for two years, and she would hear all about (well, some of it anyway..) Thailand. Photographs would be exchanged and mutually enjoyed. It’s one of Michele’s gifts, that he can cross age barriers. And it has always been a gift of Mrs. Carroll.
Meanwhile, ‘Thelma and Louise’ as Elke had christened us, set off for Donegal via the M11 and the M1 motorways in my 1991 Toyota Starlet, which was also named on this trip. I used to always give my cars names, but stopped some years ago when I drove a car I just could not like: in fairness, I think it had more to do with what was going on in my life then than it did with the car, but I was really glad to see the back of it. ‘Caroline’ had a nice ring to it (‘Baby’ was already taken), we both decided, and Niall Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ soon became one of the theme songs of our trip.
Discussions on how we would miss Michele, how Gint and Gail would settle down together (although Gail was going home to Monaghan on Friday night for the weekend), films like ‘Thelma and Louise’, and music of all kinds ate up the just over two hour drive to Carrickmacross in Co. Monaghan – Gail’s hometown – where we planned to stop for a meal before crossing the border into Northern Ireland.
Gail had recommended ‘The Fiddler’s Elbow’ pub for food, and it’s probably very good for food for carnivores. But the ‘wegetarian mafia’ took one look at the ubiquitous Vegetarian Lasagne and Vegetable Stirfry on offer, and decided to see if anything more exciting could be found. It was…
‘Mollie’s Restaurant’, a lovely two-storied stone building just as you enter Carrickmacross, had a much better selection of both vegetarian starters and main courses: in fairness, it’s a restaurant and the other was ‘pub grub’. Once inside Mollie’s, we were seated downstairs studying menus (which is half the fun of visiting a restaurant), offered a drink, and I texted Gail to let her know where we were eating…
Immediately, the reply came: “That’s where Trish, Sheila’s sister, works.†Sheila and her friend Martina stayed in our house last summer, when they did a ‘placement’ or ‘internship’ in the housekeeping department of the Marriot Hotel nearby, as part of their Hospitality Management course in Dundalk Institute of Technology. I looked up from Gail’s message towards the waitress, and immediately saw Sheila’s features in her sister’s face. Minutes later, we were chatting away, with Trish explaining that she had accompanied Sheila on her preliminary visit to our house, and that Sheila was also working part-time in Mollie’s and would be along later that evening!
By the time we had finished an excellent vegetarian meal, in the comfortable upstairs restaurant, Trish was adding: “There’s a surprise for you downstairs, but don’t say I told you!â€
Minutes later, we were hugging Sheila (whom Elke had met on a visit to our house while they lived here), who was busy explaining that herself and Martina had been talking about Bray earlier that same day and were thinking about coming down for a week over Easter… Was Michele still there, she wanted to know…? Did we hear anything from Jan…?
The welcome mat is out. Reunions – there’s nothing like them.
Posted in English, House Family, Ireland, Italy | No Comments »
By
noeleenm on March 21st, 2006
Gail moved back ‘home’ last night. It was funny to see her back in her old room, putting up photographs and posters all over the walls and the wardrobe, bright colours everywhere, stamping her own very bubbly personality on the room, and squeaking with pleasure every so often: “This is like coming home to my Mammy!â€
She repeated that in a much less happy voice when I checked whether she was going to the swimming classes she is supposed to attend for a back problem, and informed her that I’d be escorting her if necessary to make sure she attends – and that I’d bring Gint along to throw her into the pool, if that’s what it takes. If you appoint someone as a surrogate mother, you have to live with the consequences…
Gint’s reaction was funny. We had forgotten how shy he was when he came to this house first, and I wondered what on earth was wrong when this monosyllabic person came back from the gym last night and barely exchanged two words with any of us. Then I went with Gail to check something in her room, and returned to the kitchen alone to find him chatting away, ninety to the dozen, with Elke.
“You’re shy with Gail!â€, we both accused him. He tried to deny it, but it was patently obvious that the rapport we had established between himself, Elke, Michele, and myself wasn’t so easily reproduced for Gint when one of the four was replaced. In ways, it’s perhaps unfortunate that Elke works quite closely with Gail in our local hotel – one in reservations and one on reception – so they have work and workmates in common, and I work – in a much more peripheral way – for the same hotel group.
In addition, we are three women… It seems that my loss of a fellow book-worm (never mind a fellow member of the Vegetarian Mafia – or Wegetarian Mafia – as Gint calls us) will have to be over-ridden, when Elke leaves, by the need for a replacement male ‘buddy’ for Gint. And, in truth, I agree. The balance in the house is better when we are male and female together, and the result is a richer humanity.
…But I don’t think an advertisement for a male (macho), who is also vegetarian and loves books and the joy of language, will bring many applicants for the room.
It’s strange, though, how surprising it felt that this young man who has become so much a part of my home now would feel shy with a young woman who seemed to me to be just ‘coming home’ for however long this time. Mind you, it didn’t take long for him to bounce back to clowning around when Gail had gone safely to her room, standing behind Elke to gesture at me about her ‘peruke’, and making remarks about good Italian glue!
It dawned on me then that, when Gint becomes comfortable around Gail, the pair of them together will have the house in an uproar… Elke, for all her passion when it comes to things she cares about, is generally a facilitator – as I am, except when Gint and myself disagree on politics or history. Michele would quietly slip away if a row developed. Gail isn’t remotely interested in politics or history, but, if a row broke out, she’d be right in the middle of it, somehow!
Maybe I should amend the advertisement to read: ‘Male (macho pacifist), with no sense of humour and absolutely no opinion on anything. Vegetarian book worm a bonus’.
Posted in House Family, Ireland, Italy, Latvia | No Comments »
By
noeleenm on March 20th, 2006
Gint has developed a new comic routine, which amuses him greatly. I’m not sure how funny Elke finds it at this stage…
It started when I was cleaning and touching up the room that Michele had vacated, before Gail arrives. I had re-grouted tiles that had become grubby and repainted the bathroom ceiling, and, in the following clean-up, I wanted to remove the ‘thingummy’, where the water runs out of the shower, to give it a good clean-out. It was stiff, so I asked Gint to try to remove it.
When he realised how much hair gets caught in such a pipe, he demanded in horror if it had all come from Michele. Well, yes, I replied. He must have become bald after losing so much hair, Gint decided, and be wearing a ‘peruke’ now. It was only because he was miming the business of putting on a wig that I realised what he meant.
Within minutes, he had developed a theory that all Italians probably wear wigs, that Italy is probably famous for its glue, and that Elke must wear one, too – as she is Italian and she has dark hair, like Michele. Gint is blonde – and logical…
Elke had just gone to bed across the landing during all of this, facing a 6am rising for the early shift at the hotel where she works, and was not amused to have Gint hammering on her door, demanding to know if she wore a ‘peruke’.
“Go awayâ€, she yelled. “Why would I be wearing a parrot?!â€
It’s difficult to shunt a very large man from a small landing down the stairs, but I did it in the interests of avoiding slaughter, and so it was the next night, when Gint went into his whole ‘Italian peruke’ mime again, that Elke informed him in no uncertain terms that, if he cleaned the house bathroom occasionally, he’d find plenty of blonde hairs there to show that everyone loses hair in the shower. We noticed him checking his head surreptitiously several times after that, but it didn’t stop the mutterings about “really good Italian glueâ€.
And today, when I went to my dictionary, I found to my surprise that the word ‘peruke’ is, in fact, an old word for wig! Score 1 for Gint.
The whole incident, though, reminded me of two things – one which I found hilarious, and the other which touched me deeply. A manager in the hotel where both Elke and Gail work was responsible for the former…
We were discussing pets, when he launched enthusiastically into a description of his African Grey parrot, which mimes the phone ringing so well that people are constantly trying to answer the purring instrument. Philip, the owner, swears the parrot laughs when they do this, but it was his follow-up remark that himself and the parrot watch television together that evoked a: “You should re-e-a-l-l-l-y go out more, Philip†from a horrified Gail.
The second memory it brought up for me was a recent conversation with one of my closest friends, who is at present going through chemotherapy. It’s more preventative than anything else, because the surgeons are confident they have removed any malignancy, but recommended it to avoid reoccurrence. Being preventative doesn’t make it any less effective, though, in wiping out the immune system, causing an all enveloping tiredness, and generally making it difficult to come back to normal after each cumulative treatment.
It didn’t stop her losing her hair, either, which was the thing she most feared. Wisely, and courageously, she faced that first, going in to buy a wig, which she is now wearing. She has turned it into a comic routine as good as anything Gint has ever developed, and encouraged all of us to join in.
The need for the wig coincided with her catching a quite appalling cold, which, luckily, didn’t delay the treatment. It did, though, leave her almost completely without a voice for weeks.
She described her mornings thus in a high pitched squeak:-
“I get out and sit on the edge of the bed and I say ‘Good morning’ to myself to see what will come out. Then I catch sight of myself in the mirror on the wardrobe and I see this bald head, and it gets me off that bed so fast you wouldn’t believe it!â€
…And she laughs…
I can’t wait to tell her that what she’s really wearing is a peruke.
Posted in Friends, House Family, Ireland, Italy, Latvia | 1 Comment »
By
noeleenm on March 14th, 2006
In Ireland planning notices must be affixed on the outside of a proposed building development so that the public – particularly neighbours – are made aware of what is being proposed. The planning notices for Pizarro Development’s ‘vision’ for our flood plain have long since disappeared, as the original application was submitted last June, but new notices have now sprouted in the last few days.
They are revisions to the original applications. There are two applications for this land before our local planning authority – Bray Town Council. There are two others before the adjoining Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. The latter only cover a small area of land though in comparison to the 62 acres in Bray on which Pizarro originally proposed to put 968 apartments; 56,781 sq.m. of commercial development (mainly retail); 3,385 car park spaces; and 16.5 acres of public amenity space.
Our community in Little Bray, upriver from the proposed development, welcomed Pizarro’s proposals – provided the park and playing pitch proposed in the plans for the high ground were moved down to protect the flood plain that has saved our community from even worse devastation in the floods of 1986, 1965, 1931, and 1905. This 16.5 acres of land has protected us from being flooded more often, and has provided an escape route for the flood waters to the sea whenever the river has broken its banks in the past.
Now Pizarro are proposing to destroy the flood plain, and dam the escape route, by putting its ‘mixed development’ right there.
416 apartments were proposed on the flood plain and 552 in the rest of the development. The latter figure has been reduced by half in the revised plans, while the flood plain development has been reduced by a mere 69 apartments.
56,653 sq.m. of commercial development was proposed for the flood plain, and 128 sq.m. for the rest of the development. The latter remains untouched, while a pitiful 614 sq.m. (roughly 1 per cent) has been taken off the commercial development planned for the flood plain.
None of the car parking spaces have been reduced – 3,090 on the flood plain, all underground, and 295 in the rest of the development, 277 of them underground.
The park and playing pitch are still planned for the high ground.
A 7m wall surrounding Pizarro’s car park is still proposed, but the only opening on the river side of that amenity has been closed off: no flood water will ever enter even the car park in this development. The roads leading to the development from the high ground are still built to the same height: no flood water will ever get past it to escape from our homes.
And tonight we go to hear the Town Manager explain to the local councillors how Pizarro intend to ‘gift’ our town with flood protection works – provided they are allowed to build on the flood plain, as they plan.
Posted in Ireland | 1 Comment »
By
noeleenm on March 13th, 2006
Monday evening, and the weekend was a lot, lot better than I feared.
This is partly because we have had to finally accept that we’re not going to be able to participate in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I think that’s a shame on many levels, but, coming to terms with the fact that we just can’t do it – because we can’t get affordable insurance – has, at least, taken away the very stressful prospect of trying to put together a float at the last minute.
The other reason is that we raised 200 euro towards our campaign at the car boot sale on Sunday! We’re told by people who do this regularly that it’s quite a respectable sum, but it’s particularly good because it poured rain steadily all day Saturday, and all Sunday afternoon and today. Soon, we will be watching the height of the river again if this heavy rain keeps up…
It remained dry, though, from 8am. on Sunday morning, when we started to unpack in Tesco’s car park, through to 12 noon when most people had packed up and gone home, so we did the same. For a freezing cold morning that threatened rain for most of the time, we did well, and next Sunday we hope to sell our left-overs at another car boot sale in nearby Greystones, as none of us have space to store them.
I found the car boot sale was fun, in the long run, despite the fact that we were very, very cold and very tired, by the time it was over. Vincent didn’t enjoy it, though. He mentioned at one point that he’d prefer to go down to the seafront and sing for the money. When the rest of us promptly pointed out that we’d never raise funds with his singing voice, he suggested people might pay him to stop…
Adrian and Billy from our committee came along to help, too, and Adrian particularly turned out to be a natural for selling. He chatted up elderly people, made strange noises at small babies (they loved it!), and presided over the stall like a friendly bear.
It was one of those occasions, too, when we had plenty of time to chat in between customers. Normally these days, we’re trying to work our way through a packed agenda when we’re together. On Sunday, we had time to talk, and to tease. I’d managed to pack a lot into my small car, and found Adrian and Vincent staring in bemusement at one point as I produced yet more goodies from its innards: Vincent then turned to Adrian and said: “You know, I’m half afraid a football team is going to climb out of that car nextâ€! Tom, one of our neighbours, came along to support us, murmuring that his wife had threatened dire consequences if he brought home more ‘stuff’. As he collected wicker baskets, a cat carrier, two toy sheep, and several plants, we reminded him of her threat. He looked at us pityingly: “I wait till she goes to bed to unpack the vanâ€, he explained.
It turned out to be a good opportunity to sell our arguments about the flood plain, too, as well as raising funds, as we put up our flood campaign banner, and some people were happy enough to engage in chat about it. …An interesting side benefit…
…But it was the community aspect again that engaged me. Some of my family, as well as friends and neighbours, had become involved in gathering together ‘treasures’ to be sold, so on Saturday afternoon I found myself in the middle of the car boot booty holding a far more important treasure – Saoirse.
Saoirse is eleven weeks old, and has come to live with my niece’s family. Everyone is besotted with her, including her ten year old foster brother, Martin, and me. I abandoned all preparations for the chance to hold her for a while, getting an occasional peep at her navy blue eyes as she stirred before going back to sleep again. There’s something very comforting about holding a sleeping baby.
Then on Sunday, two of my grand-nieces appeared with their respective parents at the car boot sale – one (Hannah) to donate toys she had been encouraged to part with for our sale, and the other (Cliona) to beg her Dad to buy some of them! From each I got the loving hug of a child, which warmed me right through the cold wind.
A little more money in the bank for our campaign, and the warmth of my arms around little children made the weekend a good one, after all. And today I received confirmation that one of my closest friends from my days in Ecuador – Janeth – is coming to Ireland for the first time for a few days in May, and an e-mail arrived from Michele to tell us he’s enjoying his holidays in Thailand.
Life’s not bad after all…
Posted in Friends, Ireland, McManus Family | No Comments »
By
noeleenm on March 10th, 2006
It’s Friday afternoon at the end of what seems to have been a very long week. The weekend ahead is already ‘hairy’, and next week is looking even more chaotic, culminating as it does, with St. Patrick’s Day on Friday, 17th March.
My attic reflects this state of chaos. Converted, as it is, into a spare room for visitors, it has the last pile of Christmas things still sitting in the middle of the floor, due for the last two months to be put neatly away. Pushing them for room is much of Gail’s luggage, in temporary accommodation as she is, awaiting Michele’s old room to be touched up before she moves in. Michele has left some of his things, to save carrying them around Thailand.
He took with him, though, the Thai guidebook and the CD of ‘Definitive Irish Rock’ that we gave him as a going-way present, his gift of flowers graces the living room and his gift of wine is safely tucked away in the press. We never fail to immediately ‘home’ either flowers or alcohol in this house.
Now the attic is completely over-whelmed with the addition of donations to the car boot sale that our flood campaign group is participating in on Sunday. Fighting development, even when it’s planned for a flood plain against all international advice, is an expensive business, as we’ve already realised.
So, on Sunday, two of our committee are going along to the car park of a local supermarket to sell the excess treasures of families and friends from the boots of our cars. We’ve been told it’s a great way to make some money – provided it doesn’t rain – but, unfortunately, the two of us who are free to go are the worst possible people to put in charge of such an endeavour. Neither one of us has ever been to a car boot sale, never mind participated in one, and, if Vincent is as bad at bargaining on price as I am, then I can’t see our group, SWAP, emerging all that much richer than when we go in, even if people are sunbathing around us…
But we need money to pay for expert help. It’s not enough to know the land around you, to have lived through floods, to see the water rising through the flood plain every time there’s heavy rain…
Maybe I should have sold off Elke and Gint on Sunday, after all.
Campaigns like this are expensive, too, in terms of time. All of our committee work full-time, and it’s difficult to fit in all that needs to be done in between. Vincent and myself are taking responsibility for Sunday, but on Monday two other members of our core group will be attending a meeting organised by the developers for the residents who live nearest to the part of the flood plain they propose destroying. Those people would not only be in greater danger of flooding if this plan is not changed to the sanity of putting the buildings on the high ground, but they’ll lose most of the natural daylight they now enjoy and their foundations will be under pressure, too. It seems to us, though, that inviting them separately to a meeting is the developers’ way of trying to ‘divide and conquer’.
We’re quite a strong community, though, and we’re not stupid…
On Tuesday night, another couple of the core group will be attending the local authority meeting as observers, while the Town Manager explains to our elected representatives just what kind of flood protection work is being proposed in order to cure our present problems with flooding, along with the additional problem that will be created if the developers are allowed to build on the flood plain. These flood protection works will be funded by the local authority, he has already decreed, and then the money will be refunded by the developers – provided they are allowed to build on the flood plain…
We had planned to use the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in our town as a vehicle to demonstrate our alternative to this plan – a float with a Noah’s Ark (the first structure to be built on a flood plain, as one of our group pointed out, and “it was designed to take people out of the way of the waters, not to stop them escapingâ€) in the middle of two developments, both built sensibly on the high ground to either side.
The cost of insurance looks like putting paid to this chance to showcase our ‘vision’ in our own town, though. So far it has proved impossible, although there is still a hope that we might get a quote that we can afford today. But today is just one week away from St. Patrick’s Day and its parade…
There is a certain irony about the chaos in my attic. When it was being converted, I smiled at the thoughts of friends coming to stay there: now I have nightmares that even my dearest friends would decide to visit. But the real rub lies in what I had planned for it in between visits from friends – a quiet, uncluttered light filled airy space where I would do yoga…
I wish I could just enjoy Michele’s lovely flowers, and stop thinking about the wine in the cupboard.
Posted in Ireland | No Comments »
By
noeleenm on March 9th, 2006
It’s a ‘soft Irish day’ here, which suits farewells, with its misty, drizzling rain. Today Michele leaves for Thailand on holidays. He will be back in Ireland for a day (22nd March), but then heads home to Italy. So last night Elke, Gint and myself went to the local Indian restaurant with him for a ‘goodbye’ meal on the last evening he will spend in our house.
Michele chose the restaurant, wanting to try Indian food, with Elke and myself happily compliant, but Gint going only because it was Michele’s last night: he hates spicy food, while Michele loves it.
It wasn’t long, though, before the two lads were in agreement on something – the food took too long to arrive. The initial delay was certainly our own fault.
Gint pored over the menu, muttering that he didn’t understand any of it, despite the fact that the contents of each dish were clearly displayed under each exotic name. He didn’t want rice, he announced, but he turned up his nose at the availability of pizza (obviously on the menu for just such people as him). “I’m in an Indian restaurantâ€, he said, reprovingly. “I can’t eat pizza!†So we all searched for potato dishes for him, but as they also had to be ‘mild’, the search was restricted. Finally, he settled on Kashmir Chicken, with chips. Thus, his cosmopolitan reputation was preserved, but he could still eat.
For the two ‘veggies’, it was a rare treat to have a menu with enough choice on it to enjoy browsing, so we both took a while also. Eastern cuisine, like Italian, lends itself to vegetarianism, while in English speaking countries in most ‘normal’ restaurants you won’t die of hunger, but you may well die of boredom. France and Spain are even worse. I love both countries, but I only need to book a flight one way: the number of omelettes I consume there ensures I can fly home myself.
Michele decided on a very hot dish - Chili Chicken – quite quickly, which is possibly why he got tired of waiting for his food. As I sat facing him, I worried about him breathing dragon-like flames in my direction. Elke also chose a hot dish – Vegetable Jalfrezi – but she was going to set fire to Gint, whom she faced, if anybody, and I chose ‘medium’ Saag Aloo. All three of us opted for Pileau rice, and we ordered delicious Nan bread, on which we were all agreed.
During this debate, the waiter had come, initially producing poppadoms with mint yoghurt, mango chutney and, I think, peppers, before suggesting we might like to order drinks. Because of Lent, I asked for spring water. Elke chose iced tea. And Michele and Gint decided they would share a bottle of the house wine.
The choosing of the meals, though, despite much help from Elke, who knows and loves Indian food from two years she spent in London, took ages, so we were almost having to recover the lads from under the table from tossing back the wine before they finally got to their main courses.
They – the carnivores – had decided to share an appetizer (as did the veggies), on the grounds that the big meals to follow, plus Nan bread, would be very filling. As appetizers they certainly worked for Michele and Gint. The appetite they both had leaving the house increased a thousandfold, and they had to be restrained from entering the kitchen to urge the cooks on.
In vain, the women at the table tried to explain about the difference between sitting down to enjoy a meal and simply packing food in as fast as you can. They should have gone to MacDonalds, we explained. This Tandoori restaurant wasn’t about ‘fast food’. It was about good food, prepared fresh, cooked well, and served with the serene courtesy that seems to be a hallmark of the Indian people I have met.
I tried to think why I had never noticed this impatience with sitting over a meal before: we have often sat down together to eat in the house. Then I realised that both of them can control what and how much and when they eat in the house, so second helpings and top-ups and even an odd intermediate course can be thrown in at home. Here they couldn’t go to the fridge – and they couldn’t cope…
When the dish-warmers – those metal plate stands containing candles – were placed on the table, Gint suddenly went into one of his routines. The longer he stays here, the more the funny, imaginative little boy that lives inside this thirty-plus year old muscular Latvian frame seems to come out to play. Within minutes he was putting together a list of ingredients that he would fetch from our nearby house, along with a saucepan, so that he could ‘whip together’ something for us all to eat while we waited to be served. His hands flew as he mimed breaking eggs into the pot, stirring in something else (probably beetroot), with Michele cheering him on, and me keeping a wary eye on the waiter, for fear he would take offence. He seemed as amused as we were, though!
A sacred silence settled over the table when the main courses arrived – once Elke had claimed each one for us, as none of the rest of us could remember the Indian names of our dishes! Then grunts and whistling noises started coming from my right, and I looked to see Gint turning a bright red! “It’s hot!â€, he mumbled, gulping water down after each mouthful. It couldn’t be, we insisted, fascinated, but the physiological proof was hard to argue with – for Gint, it was indeed too spicy.
My Saag Aloo, on the other hand, was hot, but pleasantly so, and the fire-eaters on the other side of the table professed themselves well pleased with their dishes also. Because of the baby potatoes in my dish, and because of Gint’s normal ability to hoover up any dishes left over, I encouraged him to try my Saag Aloo. I forgot it was hotter than his dish.
The tips of his ears began to burn against his fair hair and skin, and his eyes watered over the top of the napkin he had raised to his face, like a yashmak. I think he was holding it at the ready to extinguish the flames.
Eventually, we cooled him down, eating ice-cream in sympathy with his distress, but he was still turning his face up to the softly falling rain as we walked home together near midnight.
Reluctant to end Michele’s last day, we sat with our gentle Italian while he had one last glass of Irish whiskey to help him sleep well on his last night, and, finally, went slowly to our beds.
Posted in House Family, Ireland, Italy, Latvia | 1 Comment »
By
noeleenm on March 7th, 2006
I forgot to bring my camera with me on the Wicklow Way on Sunday, and over and over again I regretted it. Although you need to have a very good camera, and be a very good photographer, to do any kind of justice to that kind of landscape, photographs with a background of snow dusted mountains still look beautiful. And they preserve memories…
For me, some of the happiest days of my life have been spent on mountains. Despite the fact that I’m often unfit, and consequently end up red-faced and breathing like a steam engine, inside I’m ethereal and at peace. Photographs taken on the mountains remind me of that feeling.
A climber called Peter Boardman, who disappeared during an ascent of the North East Ridge of Everest in 1982, explained this experience (sans the red-face and the breathing) a thousand times more beautifully than I ever could in ‘Sacred Summits’.
Following ‘The Shining Mountain’ which won him the John Llewelyn Rhys memorial prize for literature in 1979, Peter’s account of his three 1979 expeditions was published posthumously.
During each expedition, there is a parallel journey going on inside him. He climbed in the Snow Mountains of New Guinea with the woman who was to become his wife for three short years before his death. His second expedition with Joe Tasker to Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas was, he said himself, an attempt to “purge” the experiences of the year before when the eight-man climbing team had lost Nick Estcourt in an avalanche on K2, the second highest mountain in the world. Peter’s beloved father was dying during the last expedition he chronicles, to Gauri Sanker in Nepal, and Peter didn’t know if he’d still be alive on their return.
In none of the three expeditions did the climbers walk on the actual summits, because, in each case, the mountain was sacred to the local people. And he mentions his objections to climbers talking about ‘bagging’ a peak (claimed, for instance, by people ascending mountains over 3000 feet – 914.4 m – known as ‘Munros’ in Scotland). It’s a phrase that has always fallen on my ears, too, as arrogant and disrespectful, like an ant standing on top of a bear and talking about ‘bagging’ the bear. I liked the respect with which Peter Boardman talked about the majestic mountains that he adored, while the (translated, I think) poem by Eunic Tietjens which prefaces his book has to be one of the most sparsely and elegantly crafted pieces ever written about a climb.
Called ‘The Most-Sacred Mountain’, its final verse is:-
 ’But I shall go down from this airy space, this swift white peace, this stinging exulatation;
And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm of the daily round.
Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time ravel thing about me;
For once I stood
In the white windy presence of eternity.’
Every time I go up into the mountains, whether in France, Spain, Italy, Fuerteventura, Ecuador, Donegal or Wicklow, or our own sacred mountain, Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, I come back wondering why I don’t do it more often. The answer is, I suppose, a complex mixture of a lot of things – laziness, lack of time, lack of fitness, friends becoming older too and less fit, and that strange trait of needing a deadline that besets more than me.
That’s one of the reasons why I like walking in other countries: I have to plan my trip to the mountains or else I’ll find myself on a plane home, dissatisfied. It’s one of the many reasons, too, why having visitors to Ireland is good for me. I know they’ll only be here for a limited time, and I want them to see the vista that keeps me constantly in love with my country, hoping that they will fall under its enchantment, too.
In that sense Gint was perfectly right. I was trying to enslave them – to memories of Ireland.
I have lots of photos taken in the hills with various friends (including the four-legged variety), but no day there can ever be repeated. Seasons, weather, health, fitness, moods, cloud formation and forest growth all change too much.
So I’m sorry I forgot my camera last Sunday. I would have liked to have had yet another few photos that would take me back from wherever I’m sitting to the clean open spaces of the mountainside – and the people who walked with me there.
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By
noeleenm on March 6th, 2006
On the last Sunday of Michele’s time in our house, he had to work all day, but the rest of us were off – and didn’t know when we’d be so again on a bright, dry day made for walking – so we decided to do my favourite piece of the Wicklow Way together.
We set off in the two cars for the car park above Lough Tay and the Guinness estate, in a world where ice still covered bog puddles and dustings of snow could be seen all over the hills. It’s wild, isolated country, beloved of film makers – ‘Excalibur’, ‘Braveheart’, ‘Reign of Fire’, among many others – because here only the weather and the seasons change (and they seem to change in a minute). Over the centuries, though, time seems to stand still.
Nonetheless, on the access roads into these wild hills, we kept meeting groups of hikers, parking their cars in lay-bys and getting ready to take to different trails themselves. Hill-walking has become hugely popular, and fashionable, in Ireland over the last ten or so years. Fortunately, the Wicklow mountains are big enough to absorb us all, so that you can create the illusion that you’re alone in the hills much of the time.
…Not on the roads, though, and so I was amazed, when Gint parked his car for him and Elke to join me on the trip back to where we’d start the walk, to hear why Elke was literally crying with laughter. Apparently, Gint had been so impressed with the increasing isolation of these mountains that he’d invented an entire conspiracy theory about the Wicklow hills, the slave trade – and me.
Almost as soon as we’d turned off the main Glendalough road, and started to climb up towards the Sally Gap, he had suggested that perhaps I was a secret slave trader. Renting rooms in my home to young foreigners (especially those who hadn’t very good English) was a great way to find young slaves, he explained seriously, and my proposal to show them the Wicklow Way was the ideal method to lead them into the ‘camps’ in these isolated glens, where they’d be sold, and forced to work for years in the mines, or in the sex trade. I pointed out that it was a bit chilly up here for that…
The theory was embroidered further as the three of us bowled along back roads (“Where we going?†“Where my car now?!â€) to Crone Wood. Elke suggested that Michele’s enforced absence from the trip provided them with a safety net, and that some of her work colleagues knew that her plans also. I pointed out that a suitably forged note from her and Gint, explaining that they had run away together, would cover all eventualities, especially as I had thoroughly cleaned the kitchen the day before, so a few fingerprints now would be easy enough to remove.
All their belongings could be easily, and profitably, disposed of in the forthcoming Car Boot sale for our flood campaign group, adding nicely to the profits I’d make on selling the two of them.
They decided then that I would probably decide to offer Michele a lift to the airport on Wednesday, and capture him that way. When I felt Gint’s biceps with my free hand and remarked that I thought I’d get quite a lot for a fit young specimen like him, I think he was beginning to worry about his own theory!
By the time we reached Crone Wood, they were looking forward to meeting Jan and Lettie, and all the other young people they had heard about who had once stayed in my house, and whom they now realised hadn’t really gone back to their homes.
They solemnly embraced at the car before setting off on our climb, and wished each other well in case they were sold separately and might never meet again. I promptly led them onto a shortcut through dark overhanging pine trees to reach the trail: Gint nearly had hysterics.
We alternatively laughed our way, or stood in wondering silence breathing in clean air and listening to the birds as we feasted our eyes on the views, up the forest trail along the side of Maulin until we reached the open view out over Powerscourt demesne and waterfall. That silenced us again for a while, but we had barely moved off when Gint started to plan a slave rebellion and explained to Elke how they would go down in history as the male and female Spartacus of the Wicklow mountains. High above the valley of the Sika deer, they discussed seriously whether it would be better, if making a run for it wasn’t a success, that they should throw themselves off the cliff, and at least die together with honour.
Elke decided against this when Gint asked what she had in her sandwiches and advised her not to take her bag with her when she jumped.
Into the forest we moved again for a short while and then descended to cross the Dargle River (with Gint deciding that a man sitting admiring the river had to be a ‘scout’ for the slavers – everyone we’d met so far had been assessed in that way) before beginning the long slow climb up towards the saddle of Djouce. Before leaving the outskirts of the forest, we decided – in light of the announcement made by one man descending that it was “at least 8 degrees colder†up on top – that we’d eat our sandwiches in some shelter here before tackling the final climb.
We were glad of the extra heat of the food and drink in our bodies when we finally climbed up out of the valley. Seacapes stretched from Lambay island beyond Howth Head to way beyond the Black Castle outside Wicklow town all the way up the saddle to where the path skirts below the summit of Djouce. At that point, Gint left us to climb to the summit, as we strolled along the path below to meet up with him at the top.
There, the whole of the Wicklow mountains open up before you, in one of the most glorious views of the whole Way – but the wind would skin you as you tread the boardwalk that protects the bogland from the increasing number of walkers that take to these hills each year. The wind eased as we dropped down towards Lough Tay, with its magnificent backdrop of the cliffs of Luggala. Appropriately, this black lake is topped by a white beach, like the froth on a pint of Guinness – appropriately, because it is part of the estate of the Rt. Hon. Garech deBrun, heir to the Guinness fortune and responsible for the foundation of ‘The Chieftains’, whom he signed up for his Clannad traditional Irish music label.
Explanations about the Guinness family brought on another flight of fancy from Gint, this time about Michele, who we had missed all day. (“He really would have enjoyed this.â€) For some reason, Gint decided that Michele’s slave role would be running in front of the carriage of ‘the MacGuinness’, ringing a bell…
When we stopped at the rock monument to J. B. Malone, the “pioneer of the Wicklow Wayâ€, overlooking the lake, Gint could once more see his car. His relief was boundless, not because he was too worried about his own captivity as a slave, but Elke and my remarks about his ‘baby’ having a paint-spray job performed on it and being sold abroad really upset him.
Before we reached the car, I broke the news to them both that I had been in touch with my prospective purchasers and that they had been rejected. Nobody wanted slaves that troublesome…
Another slave rebellion broke out immediately. Weren’t they good enough…? They were going to insist on being taken on, and that was it! They could already see themselves leading a slave rebellion – what would happen to Jan and the others if they didn’t go there…?
Finally, Elke decided that this had to be the ultimate in mind manipulation. Not only had I persuaded them up into the lonely Wicklow mountains to be slaves, but I was now managing to get them to give themselves up voluntarily.
Nonetheless, we drove back in harmony to collect my car from Crone Wood car park and then went on to Enniskerry village for Irish coffees for them, and a cappuccino for me.
Gint wanted to know what the word ‘Probably’ on the table coasters meant. I explained that it was a favourite word in advertisements because claiming something like a particular brand of lager was the ‘best in the world’ left them open to false advertising accusations: ‘probably’ neatly removed the problem.
We went on to talk of the day, and I asked them both had they enjoyed the Wicklow mountains. They had, they said, and, as Gint went on to say how lucky we were with our proximity to both sea and mountains, I rose to the bait and said, mock-modestly, that I had already told him we lived in the most beautiful spot on earth.
He fixed me with a stern gaze. “Probablyâ€, he said.
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