Our ash tree
Autumn 2005
The leaves are coming off the trees now, the huge ash is almost bare and the light is different in and around the house. Autumn has arrived. It’s been a year now since the furniture van struggled up our road only to halt at our neighbor’s and eject our load there. Now, like then there are squally showers, creating currents of rain across the yard. Now there is music in the house and the windows are tight against the elements.
Since I last wrote summer has gone and much has happened in the evolution of the house. For so long in the summer it seemed things were only progressing at a snail’s pace, for only a snail could go slower than our plumber. Or perhaps not. I mentioned before that our plumber seemed a nice man who had conflicting schedules. I was being too kind. Originally he had agreed to take on the job and start in May. We were away in Cornwall for part of May so it was understandable that he wouldn’t turn up immediately upon our return. I also should have taken some hint when people looked puzzled when I said who our plumber was. At first I thought it was because people only knew him by his nick name. Our neighbor is actually his contemporary and knew his real name but didn’t know about his plumbing skills. I thought it might have been because he had lived in England for 20 years and had only returned to the area about 9 years ago.
When he finally did start the plumbing he completely confused us by demanding that the drywall and plastering be done first. This contradicted the information we had from our builder and our books where “first fix” is done before any drywall or plastering (in the British Isles it’s customary to put a thin coat of plaster over drywall instead of taping joints and then putting on joint compound). The plumber indicated this was not the way he worked. So we tried to accommodate, but we couldn’t get the builder back just for a few walls in the new section. We pressed the our plumber to start work in the old part of the house, just to get something done.
The first day he showed up (at around 4 pm) he looked through all the material we had ordered and had delivered (we were largely responsible for the supplies). He tinkered with the radiators and put some valves on. Then oops, oaah “Must go home. The wife is waiting –it’s our anniversary.” Dumbfounded we watched the van disappear down the road. And so it went. If he came it was more likely around 3:30 and he would stay until about 6 or 7pm. During that time he managed at least 2 cups of tea ( NO! I’d scream in my head to my husband– don’t offer him another cup of tea). He’d install maybe a yard of two of pipe and if we were lucky, a radiator would be hung. He told us that his grandchildren were visiting; he was semi-retired ; he didn’t like to work more than 3 days a week.
His price was right. We were paying a set fee, not an hourly rate. I tried to cultivate Bhuddist like patience. Words like “yes grasshopper, when you can snatch this pebble from my hand, you will be truly ready” wondered through my head. Still I wanted to take that pebble and jam it down the plumber’s throat. I started to work madly on the old kitchen beams while he would pass through and comment on my patience and tenacity.
Finally, the man perhaps felt guilty, but he decided to install the downstairs toilet temporarily. He did emphasize its temporary nature. This was after he had put up dry wall in that room (2 walls) so he could hang a radiator there and just outside the downstairs bathroom. It took him d-a-y-s. My husband meanwhile had installed the sink that had been out in the porch into the utility (the converted piggery shed. The plumber chided my husband for doing it himself and said that he would have done it. We knew it would be Christmas if he had installed it. Then the toilet leaked—everywhere. My husband looked at the fitting and found it was the wrong fitting (he’d been doing a lot of reading about plumbing). The plumber came out specially on a Sunday and fixed it. My husband looked and found that it was still the wrong fitting. It leaked again. The electrician came to do some more work and raised his eyebrows and made a few oblique comments about the plumber’s work. It was days before we saw the plumber again, but when he showed, we were determined that he should fix the toilet with the right fitting and press on with installing the upstairs bathroom fitments. I had quizzed My husband's sister about another plumber she’d contacted for a small job, because I felt increasingly uneasy.
When the plumber finally came, my husband pointed out the leaking toilet and asked him about starting upstairs. Our builder had drywalled and plastered most of the area and it was ready for the tub, toilet and sink. He harumphed and said something about needing paint. My husband pressed him and the plumber became defensive. In the end he told us he had to do it his way. We left to go buy some materials for him, as he was leaning over our toilet . When we returned he was gone—all his tools cleared away and
removed. I couldn’t believe it. My husband spent the rest of the day phoning his home, but no reply.
My husband finally reached him from work and he told us he wouldn’t continue unless we had a contract. That night he showed up with the most ridiculous joke for a contract I’ve ever read. We’d already paid him a third of what we’d agreed. And he was demanding more and we’d not had a third of the work done, plus we’d bought materials. That was the final straw for me. In a way I was glad that he never got to the real serious stage of our plumbing and had only hung 5 radiators out of 9 and run some pipework that was visible.
Our builder showed up the next day and between him and a desperate run down to the library and a phone call to my sister in law, I was able to scare up a few names of plumbers. While I was at the library an woman came in and heard me talking to the librarian and explained her English ex-husband was a “plummer” and wrote down his name and phone number (later when he rang me back his Newcastle accent was so thick I thought he was speaking Irish and told him he had the wrong number). In the ensuing phone calls it wasn’t clear if I would be able to get anyone because of time commitments or inability to reach them. I rang my friend in Cleethorpes and talked to her husband, a retired plumber and he prepared to come to our rescue. Luckily we were able to get a local plumber in the end who came and completed the job in 6 consecutive days- more than the bulk of the job. It had taken the old plumber 6 weeks to do his part of the job. A few weeks later we got a letter claiming he had done 2/3 of the job and wanted payment for things done outside the agreement, like estimates, planning layout and other fairytales. Though many things like“gobshite” ran through our heads we decided silence was the best policy with him.
So now we have plumbing and I can luxuriate in lovely warm baths and indoor toilets. I’ve done a mad bout of painting and most of the paintwork is now done and the place looks transformed. We’ve bought our flat pack kitchen and have assembled some of the cabinets, but we’re waiting for the final wiring to be completed before we can install them, get the sink and countertop in place, and have it functioning. I have moved the stove and fridge in there so I’m no longer cooking in the porch. I do still have to wash
dishes in the utility sink, though. But the camping feeling is pretty much gone from our home. We have a lovely wood burning stove in the sitting room and my husband's axles stand proudly on either side of it in the small rounded stone hearth he built out of the fireplace. I’ve even assembled book cases and unpacked some of the books so that it’s really feeling cosy. The furniture is completely out of the barn and only boxes of ornaments, pictures and kitchen gear and of course miscellaneous (what on earth is in them?) remain there.
Meanwhile whenever people ask about who our former plumber was, they say, “Him? I didn’t know he was a plumber.” “He’s not,” we say. “Ah,” they say and a little more after that. One should never underestimate the Irish capacity for irony. I think they can beat the upper crust English at it.
The past times of the old upper crust came back to the fore in Britain this summer with the hair-raising cricket match between England and Australia in August. I sort of wandered into the whole thing because we listen to BBC Radio 4 (Enlgish radio) on long wave. Cricket is the only game where they can give you the score and you still have no clue who’s winning. Well if you’re like me and clueless. The commentator sounded as though he’d stepped out of a PG Wodehouse book and all his friends were called Biffo and Bounder. In any case my husband enjoyed listening to the matches and managed to decipher it all. They only broadcast cricket on long wave, the English fans of Radio 4 get the station on FM and have the normal
programs.
I have long been a fan of Radio 4 and when I left England in 1984 it was one of the things I missed most. It is a station most akin to NPR (or actually NPR is most akin to it). It broadcasts interesting plays, stories, books, as well as programs of comedy, science, nature and current events. And of course The Archers, the longest running soap opera. I couldn’t really wean myself off Radio 4 and since we have no TV as yet (ours bit the dust in the crossing) it is on quite a bit.
Irish Radio is of a different ilk. On FM there are about 4 or 5 stations. One is RTE 1 which tends to be mostly talk radio. The Irish love to voice their opinion and they have all sorts on there talking about anything from the Taoiseach’s (pronounced tee-shuck-meaning prime minister) latest policy to Brad Pit’s latest fling. Saturday is devoted to sports on this station as it is on RTE2 who during the week will play a few bits of 70s,80s,90s music inbetween the DJ’s views on anything and everything. That goes for the
FM102 station who tends to play more recent music but will yap more inbetween them. Classic is Lyric FM and not bad. There is also Radio Na Gaeltachta, the Irish Language Radio station. Unless they’re playing music there’s little point in listening to it. Then there is Radio Kerry the local station (there’s also Radio Cork but that is physically farther away and not as eccentric. Radio Kerry broadcast things like the cattle prices and local events, as well as the death notices of the region. Its there you can find out what time the rosary or removal is for anyone who died in the village. Most recently we had a 76 year old man, John The Rookery, hit and killed by a car as he stepped off the pavement to cross the main street from his sister’s house to the café. We didn’t need the radio to tell us when his burial was—everyone knew—he was so well liked. My husband’s sister and her husband went, they knew him. The service was held up in Coolea and sung in Irish. Ownie Mikey sang a long traditional lament.
The leaves are coming off the trees now, the huge ash is almost bare and the light is different in and around the house. Autumn has arrived. It’s been a year now since the furniture van struggled up our road only to halt at our neighbor’s and eject our load there. Now, like then there are squally showers, creating currents of rain across the yard. Now there is music in the house and the windows are tight against the elements.
Since I last wrote summer has gone and much has happened in the evolution of the house. For so long in the summer it seemed things were only progressing at a snail’s pace, for only a snail could go slower than our plumber. Or perhaps not. I mentioned before that our plumber seemed a nice man who had conflicting schedules. I was being too kind. Originally he had agreed to take on the job and start in May. We were away in Cornwall for part of May so it was understandable that he wouldn’t turn up immediately upon our return. I also should have taken some hint when people looked puzzled when I said who our plumber was. At first I thought it was because people only knew him by his nick name. Our neighbor is actually his contemporary and knew his real name but didn’t know about his plumbing skills. I thought it might have been because he had lived in England for 20 years and had only returned to the area about 9 years ago.
When he finally did start the plumbing he completely confused us by demanding that the drywall and plastering be done first. This contradicted the information we had from our builder and our books where “first fix” is done before any drywall or plastering (in the British Isles it’s customary to put a thin coat of plaster over drywall instead of taping joints and then putting on joint compound). The plumber indicated this was not the way he worked. So we tried to accommodate, but we couldn’t get the builder back just for a few walls in the new section. We pressed the our plumber to start work in the old part of the house, just to get something done.
The first day he showed up (at around 4 pm) he looked through all the material we had ordered and had delivered (we were largely responsible for the supplies). He tinkered with the radiators and put some valves on. Then oops, oaah “Must go home. The wife is waiting –it’s our anniversary.” Dumbfounded we watched the van disappear down the road. And so it went. If he came it was more likely around 3:30 and he would stay until about 6 or 7pm. During that time he managed at least 2 cups of tea ( NO! I’d scream in my head to my husband– don’t offer him another cup of tea). He’d install maybe a yard of two of pipe and if we were lucky, a radiator would be hung. He told us that his grandchildren were visiting; he was semi-retired ; he didn’t like to work more than 3 days a week.
His price was right. We were paying a set fee, not an hourly rate. I tried to cultivate Bhuddist like patience. Words like “yes grasshopper, when you can snatch this pebble from my hand, you will be truly ready” wondered through my head. Still I wanted to take that pebble and jam it down the plumber’s throat. I started to work madly on the old kitchen beams while he would pass through and comment on my patience and tenacity.
Finally, the man perhaps felt guilty, but he decided to install the downstairs toilet temporarily. He did emphasize its temporary nature. This was after he had put up dry wall in that room (2 walls) so he could hang a radiator there and just outside the downstairs bathroom. It took him d-a-y-s. My husband meanwhile had installed the sink that had been out in the porch into the utility (the converted piggery shed. The plumber chided my husband for doing it himself and said that he would have done it. We knew it would be Christmas if he had installed it. Then the toilet leaked—everywhere. My husband looked at the fitting and found it was the wrong fitting (he’d been doing a lot of reading about plumbing). The plumber came out specially on a Sunday and fixed it. My husband looked and found that it was still the wrong fitting. It leaked again. The electrician came to do some more work and raised his eyebrows and made a few oblique comments about the plumber’s work. It was days before we saw the plumber again, but when he showed, we were determined that he should fix the toilet with the right fitting and press on with installing the upstairs bathroom fitments. I had quizzed My husband's sister about another plumber she’d contacted for a small job, because I felt increasingly uneasy.
When the plumber finally came, my husband pointed out the leaking toilet and asked him about starting upstairs. Our builder had drywalled and plastered most of the area and it was ready for the tub, toilet and sink. He harumphed and said something about needing paint. My husband pressed him and the plumber became defensive. In the end he told us he had to do it his way. We left to go buy some materials for him, as he was leaning over our toilet . When we returned he was gone—all his tools cleared away and
removed. I couldn’t believe it. My husband spent the rest of the day phoning his home, but no reply.
My husband finally reached him from work and he told us he wouldn’t continue unless we had a contract. That night he showed up with the most ridiculous joke for a contract I’ve ever read. We’d already paid him a third of what we’d agreed. And he was demanding more and we’d not had a third of the work done, plus we’d bought materials. That was the final straw for me. In a way I was glad that he never got to the real serious stage of our plumbing and had only hung 5 radiators out of 9 and run some pipework that was visible.
Our builder showed up the next day and between him and a desperate run down to the library and a phone call to my sister in law, I was able to scare up a few names of plumbers. While I was at the library an woman came in and heard me talking to the librarian and explained her English ex-husband was a “plummer” and wrote down his name and phone number (later when he rang me back his Newcastle accent was so thick I thought he was speaking Irish and told him he had the wrong number). In the ensuing phone calls it wasn’t clear if I would be able to get anyone because of time commitments or inability to reach them. I rang my friend in Cleethorpes and talked to her husband, a retired plumber and he prepared to come to our rescue. Luckily we were able to get a local plumber in the end who came and completed the job in 6 consecutive days- more than the bulk of the job. It had taken the old plumber 6 weeks to do his part of the job. A few weeks later we got a letter claiming he had done 2/3 of the job and wanted payment for things done outside the agreement, like estimates, planning layout and other fairytales. Though many things like“gobshite” ran through our heads we decided silence was the best policy with him.
So now we have plumbing and I can luxuriate in lovely warm baths and indoor toilets. I’ve done a mad bout of painting and most of the paintwork is now done and the place looks transformed. We’ve bought our flat pack kitchen and have assembled some of the cabinets, but we’re waiting for the final wiring to be completed before we can install them, get the sink and countertop in place, and have it functioning. I have moved the stove and fridge in there so I’m no longer cooking in the porch. I do still have to wash
dishes in the utility sink, though. But the camping feeling is pretty much gone from our home. We have a lovely wood burning stove in the sitting room and my husband's axles stand proudly on either side of it in the small rounded stone hearth he built out of the fireplace. I’ve even assembled book cases and unpacked some of the books so that it’s really feeling cosy. The furniture is completely out of the barn and only boxes of ornaments, pictures and kitchen gear and of course miscellaneous (what on earth is in them?) remain there.
Meanwhile whenever people ask about who our former plumber was, they say, “Him? I didn’t know he was a plumber.” “He’s not,” we say. “Ah,” they say and a little more after that. One should never underestimate the Irish capacity for irony. I think they can beat the upper crust English at it.
The past times of the old upper crust came back to the fore in Britain this summer with the hair-raising cricket match between England and Australia in August. I sort of wandered into the whole thing because we listen to BBC Radio 4 (Enlgish radio) on long wave. Cricket is the only game where they can give you the score and you still have no clue who’s winning. Well if you’re like me and clueless. The commentator sounded as though he’d stepped out of a PG Wodehouse book and all his friends were called Biffo and Bounder. In any case my husband enjoyed listening to the matches and managed to decipher it all. They only broadcast cricket on long wave, the English fans of Radio 4 get the station on FM and have the normal
programs.
I have long been a fan of Radio 4 and when I left England in 1984 it was one of the things I missed most. It is a station most akin to NPR (or actually NPR is most akin to it). It broadcasts interesting plays, stories, books, as well as programs of comedy, science, nature and current events. And of course The Archers, the longest running soap opera. I couldn’t really wean myself off Radio 4 and since we have no TV as yet (ours bit the dust in the crossing) it is on quite a bit.
Irish Radio is of a different ilk. On FM there are about 4 or 5 stations. One is RTE 1 which tends to be mostly talk radio. The Irish love to voice their opinion and they have all sorts on there talking about anything from the Taoiseach’s (pronounced tee-shuck-meaning prime minister) latest policy to Brad Pit’s latest fling. Saturday is devoted to sports on this station as it is on RTE2 who during the week will play a few bits of 70s,80s,90s music inbetween the DJ’s views on anything and everything. That goes for the
FM102 station who tends to play more recent music but will yap more inbetween them. Classic is Lyric FM and not bad. There is also Radio Na Gaeltachta, the Irish Language Radio station. Unless they’re playing music there’s little point in listening to it. Then there is Radio Kerry the local station (there’s also Radio Cork but that is physically farther away and not as eccentric. Radio Kerry broadcast things like the cattle prices and local events, as well as the death notices of the region. Its there you can find out what time the rosary or removal is for anyone who died in the village. Most recently we had a 76 year old man, John The Rookery, hit and killed by a car as he stepped off the pavement to cross the main street from his sister’s house to the café. We didn’t need the radio to tell us when his burial was—everyone knew—he was so well liked. My husband’s sister and her husband went, they knew him. The service was held up in Coolea and sung in Irish. Ownie Mikey sang a long traditional lament.
Beara Peninsula
Besides the cricket and practicing patience with the plumber I did manage to do some outdoor activities when my husband’s niece arrived with her two sons in tow in August. At 14 her oldest still found a visit to Ireland appealing, as did his younger brother. We spent most of the time with them on hikes outdoors. One hike was in
Killarney national park, which follows the many lakes that populate the area. The park is huge and you could never walk it all in a day. It’s full of many trails that lead through forests and by the various lakes and a bit in the Kerry Mountains. There is a lovely area where two of the lakes meet and provide tremendous views of the mountains. That was the best of the hikes we took.
Besides Killarney National park hikes, we also took a foray down the Beara Peninsula. My husband and I had been halfway down there before on one of our various jaunts with his sister, looking for potential properties. This time we went around the whole peninsula with a stop at the end to take the cable car across to Dursey Island. The weather was rather iffy on the way to the point, but we could see the Magillacuddy Reeks across on the ring of Kerry rise dramatically from the edge of the coast. Gulls and other seabirds scudded the waves across from the little bay where we stopped to have tea. By the time we reached the point it was belting down with rain, but his niece and the boys still were eager to take the cable car across to the island.
My sister in law and her husband declined to cross because they had heard about it swaying in the great winds that blow in between the cliffs of the point and the island. My sister in law was unconvinced the cable was sound (you could see rust and frayed bits I have to admit) and looked dubiously at the only cable car in use, but my husband and I agreed to accompany them across. With the wind whipping at our legs we waited as the first group went across and then elected to come right back again on the car’s return
journey. No hike around for them. We duly hopped in and the man said we could return on the same trip if we liked. The ride over was not as bad as we expected, though the drop to the sea was quite long. The rain slammed against the car and we all looked like drowned rats as drips found their way in the holes in the car’s roof. There were only two others able to fit in with us. When we arrived on the other side a group of Swedes? demanded/ pleaded with us to get out so that they could go back over. They had been hiking around and waiting at the hut for 2 ½ hours and were cold and wet. Despite their confused story we took pity and went out into the island where it was blowing such a gale you couldn’t see a thing. We went into the little hut to wait for the next cable car and then waited outside to be sure of a seat, only to find that when we climbed into the car more Swedes swarmed out of the hut and demanded we give way to them. Perhaps it was my ugly American side that took over, or I didn’t like the way these 20 year old Swedes behaved. But I looked at our niece’s youngest son’s bedraggled cold face and chattering teeth and told them nothing doing honey and stayed my ground. Our niece followed suit and eventually we won the day as the cable
started to move and we shut the door. I’m sure I helped international relations there.
Killarney national park, which follows the many lakes that populate the area. The park is huge and you could never walk it all in a day. It’s full of many trails that lead through forests and by the various lakes and a bit in the Kerry Mountains. There is a lovely area where two of the lakes meet and provide tremendous views of the mountains. That was the best of the hikes we took.
Besides Killarney National park hikes, we also took a foray down the Beara Peninsula. My husband and I had been halfway down there before on one of our various jaunts with his sister, looking for potential properties. This time we went around the whole peninsula with a stop at the end to take the cable car across to Dursey Island. The weather was rather iffy on the way to the point, but we could see the Magillacuddy Reeks across on the ring of Kerry rise dramatically from the edge of the coast. Gulls and other seabirds scudded the waves across from the little bay where we stopped to have tea. By the time we reached the point it was belting down with rain, but his niece and the boys still were eager to take the cable car across to the island.
My sister in law and her husband declined to cross because they had heard about it swaying in the great winds that blow in between the cliffs of the point and the island. My sister in law was unconvinced the cable was sound (you could see rust and frayed bits I have to admit) and looked dubiously at the only cable car in use, but my husband and I agreed to accompany them across. With the wind whipping at our legs we waited as the first group went across and then elected to come right back again on the car’s return
journey. No hike around for them. We duly hopped in and the man said we could return on the same trip if we liked. The ride over was not as bad as we expected, though the drop to the sea was quite long. The rain slammed against the car and we all looked like drowned rats as drips found their way in the holes in the car’s roof. There were only two others able to fit in with us. When we arrived on the other side a group of Swedes? demanded/ pleaded with us to get out so that they could go back over. They had been hiking around and waiting at the hut for 2 ½ hours and were cold and wet. Despite their confused story we took pity and went out into the island where it was blowing such a gale you couldn’t see a thing. We went into the little hut to wait for the next cable car and then waited outside to be sure of a seat, only to find that when we climbed into the car more Swedes swarmed out of the hut and demanded we give way to them. Perhaps it was my ugly American side that took over, or I didn’t like the way these 20 year old Swedes behaved. But I looked at our niece’s youngest son’s bedraggled cold face and chattering teeth and told them nothing doing honey and stayed my ground. Our niece followed suit and eventually we won the day as the cable
started to move and we shut the door. I’m sure I helped international relations there.
Killarney National Park
It was soon after my husband’s niece’s visit that my husband and I started to realize that our 25thanniversary was coming up soon and we really hadn’t thought or settled on what to do. It was something that we’d had talked about in the abstract here and there in the past few years and my husband had always insisted that his dream was to go to Las Vegas and renew our vows in an Elvis Presley ceremony. Usually I would either ignore the comment or tell him he was welcome to go there, while I found my own renewal in the grand canyon, or some place equally remote from the likes of Vegas or Elvis
impersonations. Up to the bitter end he insisted that he truly wanted to do it since he knew I would never dream of calling his bluff. Besides, I could see him thinking it would be a good joke and do it anyway, even though it would not be his kind of thing.
Instead we decided to go to the Sheep’s Head Peninsula and the Mizen Head Peninsula and stay at a B&B.
Neither of us had ever been to these places. We couldn’t have picked a more glorious, clear weekend to visit
them. They are the most southerly peninsulas in Ireland and jut out into the Atlantic from the western corner of County Cork. The Sheep’s Head Peninsula is entered from the town of Bantry which perches by the sea at the northern side. The north side of the peninsula is more wild and sparsely populated still.
Across the bay you can see the Caher mountain range of the Beara Peninsula and in the large bay, the boats that leave the port of Castletownbere. The clouds were scattered around providing colors of purple and indigo mixed in the greens and browns on the mountains there. Near the point we found a little old pier down a windy road. It was a tiny little inlet with a weather beaten boat pulled up on the grass beside a rusted winch. We spread out a picnic on a little hummock then ate as we gazed out over the sea. Later, my husband took a swim and I explored over the hill to see more tremendous views of the Beara. Back in our car, just around the point we found the beginning to a trail I had in a little hiking book from the
library. Following the trail up and up we climbed the ridge to the highest point on the Sheep’s head, Seefin
Head. From there we had a 360 degree view, showing sea, mountains and hills nearly back to our own hills north of Dunmanway. After climbing back down we made our way along the south coast, a more
populated area and headed on towards the Mizen Head. We ended up in Schull for the night, a little town on the coast of the Mizen Head Peninsula that still has a few fishing boats as well as some sail boats moored at its long stone pier. We found ourselves a lovely B&B overlooking the sea that boasted Maeve Binchy among its regular customers. I was in heaven with the wonderful shower (this was before our own plumbing was finished) and Dave with the remote control TV. These luxuries we enjoyed after getting a bite to eat in one of the local pubs, The Black Sheep. We sat there enjoying our fish and chips (fancy meal for an anniversary, us) when we looked up and spied our neighbor who lives at the bottom of our hill. I think he was as surprised as we were. He had just returned from sailing with some friends.
The next morning we set off for the point of the Mizen Head where they have the lighthouse and you can get a ferry across to Fastnet Lighthouse (always featured on the shipping forecast on Radio 4). You reach the lighthouse by crossing a dramatic ravine which is spanned by a small walking bridge . The rocks are
huge and vault above you and then provide little peeks into the sea and other side. The weather held for
us here and the other areas around the Mizen head which were filled with little inlets and bays dotted with crumbling lookout towers from the 16th century onward. In some areas it’s like another world, another time and in others it could be the U.S. east coast/west coast.
Maybe because our meal sounded so pathetic, but my husband’s sister cooked us a grand 3 course event on our actual anniversary and instructed us to “dress up”. As a joke we almost went in costume, me in my wedding gear (too deeply buried in a box) and my husband in a Cornish kilt, but in the end we opted for more conservative wear. My husband put on a boiler suit on top of his clothes though, just for a wee bit of a wind up. We had fancy fish, butternut squash with cinnamon and other things, but for dessert an amazing plum tart (trust me to remember the dessert).
Besides September being our anniversary it was also time for things to start up again like school and various activities. My husband resumed a heavier tutoring schedule back in the evening and choir duly started again. The photo shoots had halted after the photographer had her fall—apparently she tore ligaments and required surgery—jees we’re dangerous lot. This year the choir are aiming to have enough of a performance piece for the Cork Folk Festival in May. The piece is Song of Songs in Irish and of course Peadar is composing it. The composition is pure inspiration of the moment as we stand there whispering to each other while he stares at his scribbled notes or plucks a few notes on the piano. A few moments later he comes up with several phrases in 4-6 part harmony. Although brilliant and beautiful in its results it is not the quickest method (is he related to our plumber? No no just a joke). We had to break of this creative endeavor for a few weeks to practice the O’Leary Lament for a performance in the beginning of Oct. at Neenagh in Tipperary.
The performance was in a Protestant church and we were hosted before hand in the rectory by the English female vicar. It was interesting to see how the choir members found it fascinating, their own contact with anything of the Protestant faith being very limited. They whispered how it was amazingly like the films—so classic with the piano in the dining room and the straw hats in the bathroom (??). I had to admit that
the cook book on a stand in the kitchen opened to a recipe of Christmas mince meat did look a little staged. But the vicar was lovely, yes and a bit like the Vicar of Dibley as SHE welcomed us with tea and scones.
The performance went well despite the fact that Peadar had rushed his severely disabled son to Cork Hospital that morning and then drove straight to the church. We were also down 4 altos but managed to carry off a strong performance. Afterwards, before the gathering at the pub, there was a quick assignment
of sleeping arrangements with various families in the area. I was partnered with the woman who won the sean nos last July. She had worked in Neenagh for a few years and I thought, great I can relax, she’ll know the way back from the pub. Yes, well, we all make assumptions. After a great sing song in the pub ( I managed to remember the words of 500 miles after they sang this Texan thing I’d never heard of) it was 3 am and we were finally tossed out of the pub (very gently of course). Very difficult finding a taxi at that time. Most of the choir members could walk to their assigned homes with their little piece of paper of directions. My roomie didn’t think it was walkable for us, and though she’d been there, she wasn’t certain where it was.
Finally we got a taxi and at first he was reluctant to take us, but at the insistence of one of the other choir members who was getting a ride to another place, he conceded. Before then I’d asked her if we could go with her, because at least we knew where that was, but she said it would not do, we must go where we were
expected. Eventually we made it. The next morning my roomie decided to text that other choir member and tell her we were at some hotel 6 miles away and could she pick us up (they all love a good joke).
The people we stayed with were lovely. They were fluent Irish speakers, but they spoke English in front of me. He does a lot of research on Irish literature, plays and songs at the National Archives in Dublin. He had two pieces to show my roomie that he’d dug out from our area. One was a song written in the 1930s about a poor bootmaker and another was recitation about a potato found in the drains in Macroom in 1917. They were hilarious.
We had a lovely few hours with them on Sunday and then we left for home. I was supposed to go back
with someone else, but my roomie, in her inimitable laid-back manner had gabbed away the time and forgot (despite a gentle prodding from me) to drive to the pub where they were all gathered before departing. “Never mind, says she, “I’ll take you, it’ll be company." Many hours later I arrived home after a “slight detour” to visit her neighbor who was in a sanitarium to overcome his drinking. We toured the gardens inside and out over looking for him, until I suggested we check in reception to find out where he was.
He was a lovely man and full of good humor, so I tried to suppress my growling stomach and enjoy the experience. By the time I arrived home though I was car sick and starving and my husband could only take pity on me.
As well as the choir starting up the teen book club resumed its meetings. We have new members this
time but we’ve also lost old ones to jobs and exams. So we’re about the same numbers but with some new faces. Though some are as old as 17, many still are loyal to Harry Potter and have extracted a promise for a book club outing to the film premier in Nov. (My husband laughed because he took a school class to the second HP film when we lived in Cheltenham—boring he thought).
The teen book club started requests for an adult one for which I agreed to be facilitator. We had our
first meeting the first week in Oct. and had 5 women there with a promise of 2-3 more in the next meeting.
One woman is an artist and promptly announced that she reads only poetry. HMMMM. Later she conceded to reading Maeve Binchy and I thought, well she might enjoy this book club. The fifth
woman who breezed in a half hour late (she lives next door and she hadn’t seen the notices, so the librarian went at that moment and told her), saw the two selections on the table and promptly gave me the third degree about it. Why were there two (number of books available) who would keep track of who was reading what –what if everyone read the one book and no one read the other—it just wouldn’t work—we need to have commitment in this book club to read the books you just can’t waltzing in….. We all of us blinked. After several careful explanations I could see that she was going to be an interesting addition.
Later the librarian told me that another woman, an American was joining the book club. Was she the wheezy emphesemic who lumbered in with her stick and bag of books complaining about everything? A slight cough and a nodded head was the reply. Hmmm. I can only laugh.
Besides keeping myself busy with bookclubs and choir meetings I now have a harp student. It was more by
accident than by design that I acquired her. I was attending the painting class in Inchigeela when one of the members who commented on my harp playing in the summer mentioned that her granddaughter had a harp but had no one to teach her. She more or less said it was a shame that I lived so far from her that I couldn’t teach her, but would I? I said I would if she lived closer. The next thing I knew they were phoning me asking if I would consider it. They didn’t mind the distance since there was no one else. They live
about 1 hour away near Cork City. She is 17 and has had some lessons before and can read music so it is
really a pleasure to teach her. I am not really ready to receive harp students in our home, but since her last
teacher was a new age traveler, she says our home is fine. Meanwhile I’m trying to connect with someone who teaches harp in Ireland who can tell me where to get music for her. Till then she has to use my old
stuff.
Other music pleasures occurred in September too when the Ionad Cultura started up its musical season with Liam O’Flynn appearing with the uillean pipes. My husband, his sister and brother in law and I all went and I thoroughly enjoyed it. He is in the old style playing and has appeared with Christy Moore,
Seamus Ennis, the Chieftains as well as being one of the founder members of Planxty. I also took my own foray out on the harp that week when I went over to Kilgarvan and played the harp at a fundraiser marathon of music in the pubs there. It was a strange eclectic group ranging from little Irish girl dancers to men playing hurdy gurdys, a jazz saxophonist, Danish women imitating Edith Piaf (badly) and some bluegrass, country and western with a little bit of English folk thrown in. Among that I managed to play a few Cornish tunes while people crowded and jostled by me with their Guinness in their hands. Very strange but never mind.
impersonations. Up to the bitter end he insisted that he truly wanted to do it since he knew I would never dream of calling his bluff. Besides, I could see him thinking it would be a good joke and do it anyway, even though it would not be his kind of thing.
Instead we decided to go to the Sheep’s Head Peninsula and the Mizen Head Peninsula and stay at a B&B.
Neither of us had ever been to these places. We couldn’t have picked a more glorious, clear weekend to visit
them. They are the most southerly peninsulas in Ireland and jut out into the Atlantic from the western corner of County Cork. The Sheep’s Head Peninsula is entered from the town of Bantry which perches by the sea at the northern side. The north side of the peninsula is more wild and sparsely populated still.
Across the bay you can see the Caher mountain range of the Beara Peninsula and in the large bay, the boats that leave the port of Castletownbere. The clouds were scattered around providing colors of purple and indigo mixed in the greens and browns on the mountains there. Near the point we found a little old pier down a windy road. It was a tiny little inlet with a weather beaten boat pulled up on the grass beside a rusted winch. We spread out a picnic on a little hummock then ate as we gazed out over the sea. Later, my husband took a swim and I explored over the hill to see more tremendous views of the Beara. Back in our car, just around the point we found the beginning to a trail I had in a little hiking book from the
library. Following the trail up and up we climbed the ridge to the highest point on the Sheep’s head, Seefin
Head. From there we had a 360 degree view, showing sea, mountains and hills nearly back to our own hills north of Dunmanway. After climbing back down we made our way along the south coast, a more
populated area and headed on towards the Mizen Head. We ended up in Schull for the night, a little town on the coast of the Mizen Head Peninsula that still has a few fishing boats as well as some sail boats moored at its long stone pier. We found ourselves a lovely B&B overlooking the sea that boasted Maeve Binchy among its regular customers. I was in heaven with the wonderful shower (this was before our own plumbing was finished) and Dave with the remote control TV. These luxuries we enjoyed after getting a bite to eat in one of the local pubs, The Black Sheep. We sat there enjoying our fish and chips (fancy meal for an anniversary, us) when we looked up and spied our neighbor who lives at the bottom of our hill. I think he was as surprised as we were. He had just returned from sailing with some friends.
The next morning we set off for the point of the Mizen Head where they have the lighthouse and you can get a ferry across to Fastnet Lighthouse (always featured on the shipping forecast on Radio 4). You reach the lighthouse by crossing a dramatic ravine which is spanned by a small walking bridge . The rocks are
huge and vault above you and then provide little peeks into the sea and other side. The weather held for
us here and the other areas around the Mizen head which were filled with little inlets and bays dotted with crumbling lookout towers from the 16th century onward. In some areas it’s like another world, another time and in others it could be the U.S. east coast/west coast.
Maybe because our meal sounded so pathetic, but my husband’s sister cooked us a grand 3 course event on our actual anniversary and instructed us to “dress up”. As a joke we almost went in costume, me in my wedding gear (too deeply buried in a box) and my husband in a Cornish kilt, but in the end we opted for more conservative wear. My husband put on a boiler suit on top of his clothes though, just for a wee bit of a wind up. We had fancy fish, butternut squash with cinnamon and other things, but for dessert an amazing plum tart (trust me to remember the dessert).
Besides September being our anniversary it was also time for things to start up again like school and various activities. My husband resumed a heavier tutoring schedule back in the evening and choir duly started again. The photo shoots had halted after the photographer had her fall—apparently she tore ligaments and required surgery—jees we’re dangerous lot. This year the choir are aiming to have enough of a performance piece for the Cork Folk Festival in May. The piece is Song of Songs in Irish and of course Peadar is composing it. The composition is pure inspiration of the moment as we stand there whispering to each other while he stares at his scribbled notes or plucks a few notes on the piano. A few moments later he comes up with several phrases in 4-6 part harmony. Although brilliant and beautiful in its results it is not the quickest method (is he related to our plumber? No no just a joke). We had to break of this creative endeavor for a few weeks to practice the O’Leary Lament for a performance in the beginning of Oct. at Neenagh in Tipperary.
The performance was in a Protestant church and we were hosted before hand in the rectory by the English female vicar. It was interesting to see how the choir members found it fascinating, their own contact with anything of the Protestant faith being very limited. They whispered how it was amazingly like the films—so classic with the piano in the dining room and the straw hats in the bathroom (??). I had to admit that
the cook book on a stand in the kitchen opened to a recipe of Christmas mince meat did look a little staged. But the vicar was lovely, yes and a bit like the Vicar of Dibley as SHE welcomed us with tea and scones.
The performance went well despite the fact that Peadar had rushed his severely disabled son to Cork Hospital that morning and then drove straight to the church. We were also down 4 altos but managed to carry off a strong performance. Afterwards, before the gathering at the pub, there was a quick assignment
of sleeping arrangements with various families in the area. I was partnered with the woman who won the sean nos last July. She had worked in Neenagh for a few years and I thought, great I can relax, she’ll know the way back from the pub. Yes, well, we all make assumptions. After a great sing song in the pub ( I managed to remember the words of 500 miles after they sang this Texan thing I’d never heard of) it was 3 am and we were finally tossed out of the pub (very gently of course). Very difficult finding a taxi at that time. Most of the choir members could walk to their assigned homes with their little piece of paper of directions. My roomie didn’t think it was walkable for us, and though she’d been there, she wasn’t certain where it was.
Finally we got a taxi and at first he was reluctant to take us, but at the insistence of one of the other choir members who was getting a ride to another place, he conceded. Before then I’d asked her if we could go with her, because at least we knew where that was, but she said it would not do, we must go where we were
expected. Eventually we made it. The next morning my roomie decided to text that other choir member and tell her we were at some hotel 6 miles away and could she pick us up (they all love a good joke).
The people we stayed with were lovely. They were fluent Irish speakers, but they spoke English in front of me. He does a lot of research on Irish literature, plays and songs at the National Archives in Dublin. He had two pieces to show my roomie that he’d dug out from our area. One was a song written in the 1930s about a poor bootmaker and another was recitation about a potato found in the drains in Macroom in 1917. They were hilarious.
We had a lovely few hours with them on Sunday and then we left for home. I was supposed to go back
with someone else, but my roomie, in her inimitable laid-back manner had gabbed away the time and forgot (despite a gentle prodding from me) to drive to the pub where they were all gathered before departing. “Never mind, says she, “I’ll take you, it’ll be company." Many hours later I arrived home after a “slight detour” to visit her neighbor who was in a sanitarium to overcome his drinking. We toured the gardens inside and out over looking for him, until I suggested we check in reception to find out where he was.
He was a lovely man and full of good humor, so I tried to suppress my growling stomach and enjoy the experience. By the time I arrived home though I was car sick and starving and my husband could only take pity on me.
As well as the choir starting up the teen book club resumed its meetings. We have new members this
time but we’ve also lost old ones to jobs and exams. So we’re about the same numbers but with some new faces. Though some are as old as 17, many still are loyal to Harry Potter and have extracted a promise for a book club outing to the film premier in Nov. (My husband laughed because he took a school class to the second HP film when we lived in Cheltenham—boring he thought).
The teen book club started requests for an adult one for which I agreed to be facilitator. We had our
first meeting the first week in Oct. and had 5 women there with a promise of 2-3 more in the next meeting.
One woman is an artist and promptly announced that she reads only poetry. HMMMM. Later she conceded to reading Maeve Binchy and I thought, well she might enjoy this book club. The fifth
woman who breezed in a half hour late (she lives next door and she hadn’t seen the notices, so the librarian went at that moment and told her), saw the two selections on the table and promptly gave me the third degree about it. Why were there two (number of books available) who would keep track of who was reading what –what if everyone read the one book and no one read the other—it just wouldn’t work—we need to have commitment in this book club to read the books you just can’t waltzing in….. We all of us blinked. After several careful explanations I could see that she was going to be an interesting addition.
Later the librarian told me that another woman, an American was joining the book club. Was she the wheezy emphesemic who lumbered in with her stick and bag of books complaining about everything? A slight cough and a nodded head was the reply. Hmmm. I can only laugh.
Besides keeping myself busy with bookclubs and choir meetings I now have a harp student. It was more by
accident than by design that I acquired her. I was attending the painting class in Inchigeela when one of the members who commented on my harp playing in the summer mentioned that her granddaughter had a harp but had no one to teach her. She more or less said it was a shame that I lived so far from her that I couldn’t teach her, but would I? I said I would if she lived closer. The next thing I knew they were phoning me asking if I would consider it. They didn’t mind the distance since there was no one else. They live
about 1 hour away near Cork City. She is 17 and has had some lessons before and can read music so it is
really a pleasure to teach her. I am not really ready to receive harp students in our home, but since her last
teacher was a new age traveler, she says our home is fine. Meanwhile I’m trying to connect with someone who teaches harp in Ireland who can tell me where to get music for her. Till then she has to use my old
stuff.
Other music pleasures occurred in September too when the Ionad Cultura started up its musical season with Liam O’Flynn appearing with the uillean pipes. My husband, his sister and brother in law and I all went and I thoroughly enjoyed it. He is in the old style playing and has appeared with Christy Moore,
Seamus Ennis, the Chieftains as well as being one of the founder members of Planxty. I also took my own foray out on the harp that week when I went over to Kilgarvan and played the harp at a fundraiser marathon of music in the pubs there. It was a strange eclectic group ranging from little Irish girl dancers to men playing hurdy gurdys, a jazz saxophonist, Danish women imitating Edith Piaf (badly) and some bluegrass, country and western with a little bit of English folk thrown in. Among that I managed to play a few Cornish tunes while people crowded and jostled by me with their Guinness in their hands. Very strange but never mind.
