17 March Patrick’s Day

I just watched the 6 o’clock news. This is my favorite television programme of the year. They show clips from the big and small Patrick’s Day parades taking place all over the country: farm machinery, little girls doing gymnastics, and every Ukrainian refugee who has arrived here was in a parade. The Ukrainians were put in front position in a great many of the parades. They led their parades with tears pouring down their faces. Blue and yellow pennants and flags and banners were everywhere. Green was not the predominant color. There were doctors and nurses from the Indian subcontinent, Jamaican musicians and a gay tractor convoy — the whole diversity of the country out in force. Tae kwon do and karate clubs in disheveled groups tried to keep moving down the street at the same time as they showed off their skills. One parade was led by the oldest woman in the country to survive Covid, at the age of 102. She waved cheerfully from an open topped red car. There were groups of children dribbling basketballs, and line dancers with cowboy hats. Troupes of Brazilian singers and dancers. A dozen eleven-year-old boy swimmers flapped along wearing flippers and masks and taking huge gasps of rhythmic breathing. Their feet flapped and slapped while their arms practiced the crawl. Each boy wore his swimming togs but most had long underwear underneath. It is still March after all.

20 March Sunday

It has been a wild morning. The winds are gusting and thrashing. Birds are flying into windows from all directions. Three have already knocked themselves out and one is dead.

21 March Monday

We were both waiting in the plastic chairs at the clinic. There were several empty places between us. I had never seen the woman before. She started talking and she just kept talking. She told me that she was a painter. She explained that her family had owned a fruit and vegetable shop when she was a child and she said the whole family lived upstairs. She began by painting pictures of fruit. People praised her. Everyone said that her fruit was so real that they could reach right into the paintings and take it out and eat it. She trained to be a primary school teacher. All the time that she was teaching, she never stopped painting. Each time she enrolled in an art class she was told to go away and paint. Each teacher told her that they could not tell her how to do what she was already doing so well. She thought to go to art college but was told that if she did get a place in art college, she would have to Go Abstract because her kind of painting was old fashioned and nobody would teach it and anyway no one wanted it. She did not want to Go Abstract so she continued painting fruit and vegetables, and sometimes landscapes. She was happy now that she was retired because she could paint all day. She had just begun to paint birds but she found them difficult because they always moved. Sadly, she now has a dislocated shoulder, or maybe it was a frozen shoulder, and that was making painting difficult for her. She was hoping that physiotherapy would solve the problem soon.

24 March Thursday

This time of year is full of firsts. Today the first sorrel arrived on our plates. We ate the young leaves in a delicate paste tasting like citrus and making a perfect omelet. The wild garlic is pushing its shiny leaves up all along the path and it is blanketing the orchard. Small flowers are in bloom everywhere: Primroses. Stitchwort. Dandelions. Forget-me-nots. Celandine. Robin Run The Hedge. And the blossom on the fruit trees….

28 March

We received the notice from the ESB promising that our electricity would be cut off for at least a few hours or maybe all day. We received the same notice three times in the post, although every time the address printed on the card was wrong. Usually when we are informed of this kind of power interruption it turns out that it is only for a few hours.  This time it was all day.  It is amazing how many things stop working when here is no electricity.  The water is always a surprise as the generator bringing our water from the well is an electric pump. No electricity means no water, except for whatever we have put aside in jugs and buckets.

30 March

There is a bee flying around up high. He bashes himself up against the skylight and buzzes loudly. He must have ridden in with the firewood. There are some bees, or maybe they are wasps, who sleep tucked into the crevices of the wood over the winter.  If I see a sleeping bee when I am loading up the wheelbarrow, I put that piece of wood aside and leave him or her to continue with their winter sleep. Sometimes I miss seeing one and I bring it in with the firewood by mistake. The warmth of the house wakes the bee up and soon there is a groggy banging on the window. If I catch the bee and take it outside it might be killed by the cold, but I do not want it in so it must go out. Today I found an earthworm, long and stretched out on the floor. I thought it was a piece of twine. I can only think that it came in with the firewood too.

2 April Saturday

The first asparagus of the year. Or what I thought was the first asparagus of the year. Pat told me that he had a few bundles of it last week but it had disappeared before I got to his fish stall. He buys it from some people in Wexford. If they have any left at the end of the market day in Kilkenny, they sell it to him and he brings 12 or 18 small bundles to the Farmer’s Market in Cahir. It was tender and delicious. I cannot wait to get more next week, but I will have to get to the market early because I am not the only one who wants it.

6 April Wednesday

There are two bulls in Joe’s field. They have been there for a month or more. The was one bull all alone for a few months. These two seem to be both companionable and quiet.

10 April Sunday

We have changed our clocks. The stretch in the spring days has already been enormous but now it is still not dark at 9 in the evening. Dusk goes on for another forty minutes. Bird song goes on until nearly ten o’clock. Birdsong seems to never stop. Soon people will begin to use the expression Going To Bed in the Bright. No one likes to go to bed when it is still light outside but as the days stretch out lighter and brighter each week, very soon there will be no choice in the matter.

12 April Tuesday

It was cold and wet and the winds were the kind that cut right though you no matter what you are wearing. The waitress brought us a big pot of tea and as she put it onto the table she said: There is nothing like a pot of tea to Put the Heat Back Into You!

15 April Friday

The cable must have been tight up against the tree when the tree was small.  The tree kept growing and the cable was eventually embedded into the growth.  Now the tree has been cut down and the part of the tree that the cable is trapped in has been left to hang off the cable.  It is a curious thing. I enjoy seeing it each time I drive to the village.

 

20 April Wednesday

I jumped up on a chair to get something out of the bookshelf and then I jumped down again and I hit the floor at a bad angle and I fell and I rolled to a stop but I was not fast enough with my roll over the stone floor to avoid having hurt my foot.  I think it is a sprain. It is definitely not broken, but I cannot bend it. I can barely walk without a stick.  I am hobbling with the stick and when I am without the stick, I lurch. I cannot wear a shoe so if I go outside my heavy green wool sock gets wet in the grass. It has been three days now.  I have read three books while I rest the foot which is black and blue and swollen.  When I look up from whichever book I am reading, I see a cow looking down on me from Joe’s high field. I like to think it is the same cow keeping an eye on me but it is probably different ones who wander by. And I would like to think I have more sense. I am not 16.  As a short person, I have spent my entire life jumping up on things to reach high things. Jumping. Hopping. Climbing. Stretching on tiptoes. It is not easy to change the habits of a lifetime. I cannot go anywhere because I can barely walk and I can certainly not drive, so Derek the Post is the only person to have seen me lurching about.  He laughed with me at my predicament and declared that I am All to One Side Like The Town of Fermoy.

25 February Friday

I was on the bus traveling up from Cork. The man in the seat behind me talked eagerly to the young lad beside him. The boy was excited. He had just passed his driver’s test and he had a car at home that he had been fixing up. It was almost ready for the road. The man seemed to feel it was his job to give the boy some encouragement. Once he started talking I never heard another word from the boy.

“You’ll be off the buses for good when you’ve got your own motor car, lad.”

“Just go carefully. Take it sweet and easy. Whatever you do, you must never draw attention to yourself. That is the best advice I can give you.”

“Are you very good at the parking so?”

“I’ll take a spin in it with you if you like and I’ll tell you what kind of a driver you are.”

“I’ve never had a ticket for speeding or bad tires or anything at all. I’ve never had a single ticket. I’ve always been a driver Under The Radar me. That is the kind of driver you want to be.”

26 February Saturday

The weather has been wild. It changes every few minutes. I look out a window and see one thing coming down and by the time I turn to another window there is something else happening: RAIN. SUN. SLEET. RAIN. SUN. RAIN. SNOW. SUN. SLEET. SUN. HAIL. RAIN. SLEET. RAIN. SUN. HAIL. SUN. WIND WIND WIND WIND. RAINBOW. WIND. SNOW. SLEET. RAIN. SUN. WIND. WIND. Always the wind. Never stopping. WIND.

27 February Sunday

People were gathered around and talking in the space between the church and the shop. Mass had just ended.  I usually try to avoid this time. I try to be either earlier or later going to the village on a Sunday. I prefer to miss the muddle of people congregating and conversing while they leave the church. As I came out of the shop, I heard one man ask another: “Well, Johnny, How are ye? I heard you had lost your mind. Tell me now, is there any truth in it?”

28 February Monday

Andrzej has cleared the sides of the path and moved the fallen branches. Wind toppled trees have been sawn up and stacked in the lean-to for firewood. There is a lot of deep mud to struggle through but the walk up past Johnnie Mackin’s is more clear than it has been for over a year. It feels like a walk to a whole new place.

I March Tuesday

Ardfinnan is a village chock full of homemade seats in public places. Wherever one walks there is a bench or chair or something rigged up so that a brief rest is possible. Some of the seats offer a view but many are just dropped down in a random location. Views do not seem especially important. There are tables too. There are not as many tables as there are chairs and benches but there are several tables if a person is looking to sit down, eat a sandwich and listen to the birds. One table surprises me each time I see it. It has four legs encased in blocks of concrete. The concrete on the base of the legs is to ensure that the table cannot tip over, nor can it be stolen or pushed into the stream by hooligans. But there are no seats anywhere near to the table so it is not there for the eating of a sandwich or chatting with a friend over coffee. I am not sure what it is for.

2 March Wednesday

I saw Lena in the shop. She called out, “Hello Sally!” I answered, “I am not Sally.” She was wearing her mask but even so I could still see that her face registered shock. “Of course you are Sally. You have always been Sally.” I told her that I have never been Sally even though she has been calling me Sally for years. I told her that I never felt like correcting her but today I decided to just tell her that my name is not Sally. She screwed up her face and looked at me carefully, before she asked, “Why today?”

4 March Friday

Weather is the main topic of discussion. Weather rules our lives. This week has been cold. Very cold. Temperatures drop very low at night and every morning is frosty. The daffodils begin the day lying down flat on white crunchy grass. When the sun finally breaks through, the rest of the daylight hours are bright and cold and green. The daffodils stand up. The cows are in the fields. They are out from under cover during the afternoons. The winds are bitter and unrelenting but the blue sky makes everyone feel better. They say: “Well, at least it is dry.” Any day that is not wet is considered A Good Day.

5 March Saturday

Council workers with shovels and diggers have moved through the area. They made gashes in the grass and lumpy earth beside the roads to allow for the run-off of excess rainwater. The hopeful idea is to prevent flooding on the roads. There is no rain now and there has been no rain for a week or more, but they know it will come so it is important to be ready. It is an annual precaution and it always looks ugly.

9 March Wednesday

It is snowing. All night and all morning, and all day yesterday, it has been raining. Water has been gushing down the boreen and down the path, only taking a sharp right turn just before it reaches the kitchen door. Torrents of water have fallen. The noise from the beating rain was so loud that it was not possible for us to talk to each other over breakfast.  The noise of the rain hitting the roof was too loud. Now it is noon and the rain has turned to snow. I know it is too wet for snow to accumulate but even so the big fat wet flakes are beginning to pile up on surfaces. It is the ninth of March. Local opinion is that we have had our spring before our winter.

24 January Monday

The first time I saw the fox, it had been freshly killed by a car. It was splayed across the road close to the grassy verge. Every day since then, the fox has been pushed more and more off the road and into the rough grass. Day by day the body is more damaged. I think birds have been pecking at it. I do not want to look at the fox but it is on my regular route and I cannot stop myself from turning my head to see where it lies. It has gone from being a fox to being a corpse and now it is simply remains, lying stretched out in a bedraggled fox shape in bright green grass.

25 January Tuesday

Seeing the Galtees covered with fresh snow this morning made me feel like I have woken up in Switzerland.

26 January Wednesday

The eye surgery is located in a bungalow. For years, there were two doors for entering the building. The right-hand door was for the eye specialist and the left-hand door was for her husband’s practice. He was a General Practitioner. There was one desk in the middle of the first room entered. The woman who sat at the desk had two big black books open in front of  her. If you entered by the left hand door, you were there to see the doctor and the receptionist noted your appointment in one book. If you entered by the right hand door you had an appointment with the eye specialist. Her appointments were listed in the other book. The system worked fine. The system worked perfectly until one day the receptionist was out walking and she was hit by a car and killed. The replacement receptionist never juggled the two books with the same ease.

I had not been for an eye check-up for three years. I was surprised to see only one entrance. The front of the building had been re-done, as had the interior. The GP died and his wife, the eye specialist, retired. There was no longer a GP sharing the bungalow and except for all of the small rooms and funny turns, the inside looked like a different place. Everything was painted white and new lights had made the whole place bright but evenly dull. There were no rows of old dining room chairs in the waiting area. It is now more of a regular optometrist’s office with an eye specialist as an extra part of the operation.

When I went to pick out some frames for my new driving glasses, I was not allowed to touch the frames randomly. Everything had to be overseen. Any pair I touched had to be set aside for Covid disinfecting. The optician assisting me pointed to things but she did not touch anything herself.  I mentioned to the woman how Dr. Bernie, the previous occupant of the practice, always told me to bring in any old pair of spectacles I had lying around and they could put new lenses into them. She felt that there was no reason to buy new frames, especially for reading or for driving, if you had perfectly serviceable ones laying around in a drawer. The optician said nothing but looked horrified by this idea.

27 January Thursday

Margaret took her aunt out for a drive. It was a way to get the ninety year old Lillian out of the house and into the fresh air, and of course, it was a chance to see what was happening in the world. The primary purpose of the drive was a hunt for Whooper Swans. This year the Whooper Swans have not been as visible as they usually are. Often we see 40 or 50 of them gathering in the middle of a field looking from a distance like white plastic carrier bags tied at the top, full and heavy and  slumped on the grass. Then  a few days later the whole flock will have moved to another field.  I have only seen two of the migrating swans this year and that is not normal. Lillian has always harbored a great love for Whooper Swans. She loves the way they cheer up the winter. She knows all of the places where they stop to rest. Margaret drove in and out of small quiet roads for an hour before they found a sizeable flock. Then they went home, drank a cup of tea and discussed their find.

28 January Friday

The radio up-dates throughout the week gave us more and more details of the young man in Carlow who went to the post office to collect the pension of an elderly neighbor. He was told that the man himself had to come in to collect his own pension. The post-mistress said that the young man could not collect unless he was officially registered to do so. He went away and came back later with another man. They walked into the post office holding both arms of the pensioner. When the pensioner did not respond to questions from the post-mistress, the two men propped him up against the counter and they ran out of the post office. An ambulance was called but the man was already dead. He had been dead for several hours. He was not elderly. He was only 66. He had had a heart attack and died. The man who tried to get his pension is in jail. Had he succeeded in his fraud he would have received only 240 euro for all of his trouble. Adrian is threatening to put up a sign at his own post office counter announcing: No Pulse. No Pension.

29 January Saturday

The act of making a bed look fresh and tidy, with clean sheets, or simply with some pulling and tucking and smoothing, is To Dress The Bed. When someone has been sleeping in a bed and it has not yet been dressed, the expression to describe the disheveled bed is that It Has Been Tossed

30 January Sunday

Around mid-day I went to meet Breda, Fiona and Siobhan at the boulders for a walk on Barranacullia. There was a lot of mud underfoot and a steady  drizzle. It was not enough to call real rain but it was soaking and it was miserable. it was miserable but we had met up to walk so we walked.  It looked like there were even more sheep up on the top than the last time I was up there and the farmer had once again spilled out a long path of smashed root vegetables for the sheep to eat.  Once again I wondered what it was. Mangel is what it is called. Mangel beet is a kind of beet grown for wintering animals so calling it mangel might mean that is exactly what it is, or it might be a generic term for whatever kind of root vegetable is being used today.  The sheep were enjoying it.

31 January Monday

The birds cannot get enough nuts.  I fill the feeders and they empty them.  I fill them again and they are emptied immediately.  I mentioned this to Tommie when we spoke this morning. He is scornful about feeding birds. He says you should never feed a bird unless you are planning to eat it. In his opinion anything else is a waste of food and time.