10 January Wednesday

Joe’s field stands two metres above the boreen. The boreen passes inches beside the house and the field sits above it. It is a peculiar situation. The machine cutting the hedges is roaring by at that height. It is necessary to look out the window and then to bend one’s neck upward in order to see the angled cutter crashing through the growth. The third time the tractor with its cutting machinery passes by, the side of the house is pelted with sticks and branches and thorny pieces of the hedges. It makes a racket. We can hear nothing in the big room until it passes. It feels like the house is under attack from something bigger than hail. The loud mechanical metallic chewing, tearing and spluttering makes it sound like something dangerous. Thwack. By the fourth time the tractor roars by, the sound is more even aggressive as the pieces being spewed at the house have been getting both smaller, and more plentiful. The hedge cutting man finishes the job in darkness with bright lights on the top and front of the tractor to guide him. After he departs, the silence is profound. I could go out with a torch and examine the scattered detritus, but I think I will wait until the morning.

12 January Friday

The man had only just been buried, so people were eager to say something good about him. The worst thing you can say about a man is that he was Harmless. That is a kind of insult. In the shop, I overheard several women reminding each other that Jack had been a great dancer in his day. When I reported this comment to Tommie, he told me Not To Believe A Word Of It. He said that Jack was not a good dancer, only that he himself thought he was. He said that Jack had spent his whole life two beats behind any music and that his wife learned to follow his lead even though she was well able to follow music properly herself.

20 January Saturday

The bathroom is cold. The entire house is cold but the bathroom is extremely cold. It is not a place to linger. The towel rack, made of copper pipes and built by our plumber friend, John, a long time ago, was intended to function as the radiator in the room. It is hooked up to the pipes where a radiator would have been. It is wide and generous, but it does not do much to spread warmth. I enjoy looking at it on the rare moments when there is not even one towel hanging upon it.

21 January Sunday

Two days of wild and battering wind. They are calling this storm Isha. There are multiple weather warnings as well as lots of rain. The rain is not falling but it is being blown in different directions by the endlessly gusting winds. Yesterday it was too wild to venture anywhere at all. Today I drove to the shop. On the way home, I had to stop the car twice to get out and drag large branches off the road. Neither branch had been on the road when I drove down to the village. Each had fallen while I was at the shop. One was large and heavy and I could scarcely shift it. The other one was not so big but it was large enough that I did not want to drive over it.

22 January Monday

All flights in and out of the country were cancelled yesterday because of the wind. Flights trying to land in both Dublin and in Belfast were re-directed to Paris. Thousands of people lost their electricity. We had our candles ready but we did not need them.

23 January Tuesday

Three plastic feed bags from the Italian firm Mazzoleni have been blown down from the farm over the last few days. They have arrived at different times. The bright white and red and black of the bags is cheerful and a stark contrast to the heavy grey sky.

24 January Wednesday

Today is calm. There is no wind. There is barely any sound at all. The world feels different. The sun is out, as are the snowdrops.

25 January Thursday

A letter for an appointment at the hospital always arrives in a sealed brown envelope with a piece of clear tape over the flap, for extra security.

26 January Friday

Another calm morning.  It would be beautiful except for the stench of slurry. I know when Slurry Spreading will happen because the big blue hose is visible in the farmyard.  I think it is used to bring the slurry from the holding tank into the mobile spreading unit. I do not really need to see the hose. The sharp smell tells me what is happening.

27 January Saturday

I repaired my cardigan. Again. This cardigan is old. It might be twenty five years old. It has stretched and drooped and it is now long and shapeless. It is big enough that I can wear it on top of any number of bulky garments. There are many small repairs. The sleeves were shredding a few years ago. I rolled the cuffs up a little bit and stitched them into position. Today I repaired another unraveling down the front that kept getting caught on things. It is not a beautiful repair but I am pleased with my efforts to keep the sweater going in this cold house.

28 January Sunday

Tommie had three outdoor hats laid out on the back of his armchair. He had three spectacle cases on the table in front of the television. He had three glasses of water beside him on the big table. One glass was half empty. He told me that he has been told to drink three big glasses of water every day but he does not enjoy drinking water so he avoids it. The three glasses were placed right beside him so that he could not forget.

29 January Monday

The word Mind is used frequently. It is used in the sense of taking care and watching out: Mind the Child. Mind One Another. Mind Yourself.

30 January Tuesday

My egg sizing device is one of my favourite things.  It is a scale for measuring one egg at a time: Small. Medium. Large. Extra Large.  I have a rubber egg which I keep in position on the little curved hand.  I think the purpose of this egg is to be hidden in a nest to encourage a chicken to lay.  I have no chickens so I keep the rubber egg on my sizing machine. Because the egg is rubber and lightweight, it frequently gets knocked off the little curved platform , and then it bounces away.  Sometimes I have several spent days looking for it, but it always turns up again.

19 December Tuesday

In these weeks before Christmas, there is not a till nor counter in any shop without a bowl or tub of individually wrapped chocolates on offer for each and every customer. It is a little gift offered by each shop to its customers. Cadbury’s Roses. Heroes. Quality Street. In the butcher shop, there is a tin of Celebrations. People take a chocolate and chew on it while they are waiting their turn. Then they take another after they have paid. The same sentence is repeated in every shop: You can worry about The Waistline in the New Year!  The dentist did not offer me sweets today, but he did give me a pen with his name and telephone number on it.

20 December Wednesday

After not finding Tommie at home, I rang around to find him. It was not easy.  Eventually I located him. He is back in the hospital. Today I went to visit. He is in a ward with three other men. All of the men had visitors. Visiting hours are a lively and noisy time. The fluids support stand at the end of his bed was a free standing device. There were no bags hanging on it, so I hung my jacket on one of the empty hooks. Tommie reprimanded me and told me that the nurses would not be happy for me to be using the stand as a coat rack. The nurses were in and out of the ward and not one of them seemed to notice my jacket. Tommie is never happy to disobey rules nor to question authority. I left my coat where it was. After he told me three separate times to move it, I moved it.

21 December. Winter Solstice.The Shortest Day.

Another day of wild and noisy wind. The wind has been thrashing us for days and days.  It never stops. The noise is deafening. Today the label on the post box blew off. The label was a piece of duct tape with the word POST written in thick black letters. The lid of the post box blew off too, even though there was a rock holding it down. The rock and the lid blew off together but the lid did not go too far. I now have a larger rock on top of the box. The duct tape has been blown far away. It has disappeared completely.

22 December Friday

A tractor tooted its horn as it drove past me on the road. There was a length of blue and silver tinsel dangling from the side mirror.

23 December

Seamus has plenty of old batteries around the place. Some are car batteries and the other larger ones had been for his tractor. He uses two of them to hold up the drooping shed door and a few more are clustered around as a way to gather like with like.

24 December

Tommie has been moved to Rathkeevin. He is in a room with one other man. This man spends all day in the Day Room. Tommie does not go to the Day Room. He was in a cranky mood when I visited today. His legs are giving him a lot of discomfort. He said he hopes that no one comes to visit on Stephen’s Day as he wants to give the horse racing his full attention. I promised him that I would not be visiting on that day. He asked me to spread the word.

26 December. Tuesday. Stephens Day.

I walked out along the narrow road to Ladys Abbey in between downpours. Thick ivy has covered nearly every bit of the stone building.  The shapes of the ruined Abbey exist as things somewhere between topiary and architecture.

27 December Wednesday

A pigeon has been massacred and eaten outside the door to my workroom. It was the fox who killed, ate and left the mess.  There was nothing I could do except sweep up the remains so that I do not step in them. I threw the whole mess over the stone wall.

29 December Friday

Everything remains closed. Shops and businesses are locked up tight. Supermarkets, petrol stations and pharmacies are open, with restricted hours, but nothing else is open. The Twelve Days of Christmas go on for twelve days.

31 December. Sunday. New Years Eve.

The shelf in Marie’s sitting room was narrow. It was made out of a single piece of wood. The shelf was just wide enough for a single can. Lined up along this shelf were seven spray cans of air freshener. Each can offered a different scent, or flavour. The caps were all different colours.  Marie was proud of her selection of smells. She had them spread out with a little bit of space between each can, just to make certain that each could be individually admired. She waited for me to say something about the selection of cans but I found myself speechless.

1 January. New Years Day. Monday 2024

I brought in three wheelbarrow loads of firewood this afternoon. Already I can hear a wasp buzzing around the room. He came in with the wood. The heat has woken him up and now he floats around in a sleepy stupor.  If I can catch him I will toss him out the door.  The cold will probably kill him but perhaps he will find his way back to some timber for more sleep.

2 January Tuesday

There is water everywhere. From a distance it looks like the Knockmealdown mountains drop directly down into a lake. It is not possible to see the far edges of the lake. The river is no longer a river. The river is part of the huge lake that covers every field in sight. It is beautiful but it is not good. There are swans on the lake.

3 January Wednesday

I went to the pharmacy to get something for Simon’s cold and cough. I described his condition. The pharmacist said: “What you need is The Cough Bottle.” No one ever speaks of cough syrup. It is always The Cough Bottle.

4 January Thursday

I asked at the shop if they had any frozen spinach.  The woman at the till said No.  Not only did they have no frozen spinach but she said that they have never had any frozen spinach. She said I was the first person who had ever even asked for it.

6 January. Twelfth Night. Little Christmas. Nollaig na mBan. Women’s Christmas.

Today is the day for the tree to come down and the decorations and the cards and the wreathes to be put away or thrown away. If one has all of these jobs to do, the day is a busy one. The putting away and returning the house to how it was before the holidays can be a lot of work. At the end of this day, women are supposed to take time for themselves. To share food with other women and to have the evening off after doing so much work during the extended holiday. Clearing the way to take the evening off seems like a small reward indeed.

29 November Wednesday

The Aer Lingus flight from Boston was full of shoppers.  People might have gone over to celebrate Thanksgiving with family but it was obvious that the larger lure was for the long weekend of Black Friday shopping.  Every single person who boarded the plane was wearing new clothes.  Everyone was wearing new clothes and they were looking carefully at everyone else to see what they were wearing. New boots. New shoes. New trousers, belts and jackets.  New hats. The Must-Have item was  apparently a hooded sweatshirt. Two thirds of the passengers wore a brand new hooded sweatshirt. The passengers eyed one another, checking out purchases, as well as commenting and comparing places and prices.  There was a fair bit of bragging and oneupmanship. It was a hugely competitive atmosphere. And that was all before we sat down and fastened our seatbelts.

On arrival at Shannon at 5 am, the luggage carousel was full of enormous outsized suitcases.  The suitcases were so heavy that men had trouble dragging them off the carousel and pulling them up onto their trolleys. Some couples had four huge heavy cases between them, plus their carry-on bags. There was no doubt that the cases were full up with their shopping bounty. In comparison, our small lightweight cases looked like something made for dolls.

Shannon Airport is surrounded by its car parks. There is a short term car park and a long term car park.  Even at the furthest distance from the terminal building it is never more than a six minute walk to one’s car. For this trip, we decided to try the on-line car park because we thought it would be a cheaper option for the number of days away. When I am on my own I usually take the bus. After eating toast and drinking tea in the single restaurant in the terminal, I left Simon and walked out to the on-line car park.  Perhaps there is a courtesy bus that travels between this car park and the terminal but it was not visible when we parked, at about noon on the way into the airport for our outgoing flight, nor was it visible, if it does indeed exist, at that early hour.  I walked a kilometre to get to the car in the dark, seeing not a single person nor a  single vehicle. I was not surprised by the lack of bus service, the lack of outdoor lighting nor by the emptiness of the area. I was just glad that it was not raining. This is not an early morning kind of country.

1 December Friday

The same man who arrived a few weeks ago as the messenger from The Master of the Ardfinnan Hunt came again today. He told me that The Hunt will be around on Saturday. He said that they will be in the area, but that this time they will be without the horses.  It is difficult to imagine how this might work.  The dozens of beagles and other assorted dogs will run and rush around in their excited and frenzied pack but I cannot imagine how the men will be able to keep up with them on foot. The dogs are trained to come to the sound of the horn. I always dread the arrival of The Hunt but this time I am kind of curious as to how it will work.  I am wondering if the men will be wearing their snug fitting hunt jackets, jodphurs, high boots and their little helmets, or will they be in jeans and fleeces and wellie boots? I think that there is less chance than ever that they will catch the fox.

2 December Saturday

I took Tommie some of the small German stollen cakes that he loves.  It is only at this time of year that I can buy them. I try to take them to him as often as I can. The marzipan inside the stollen reminds him of Knocklofty House. He enjoys an excuse to talk about Knocklofty House. He was remembering the IRA kidnapping of Lord and Lady Donoughmore from the Big House in 1974. He said that there was no harm to anyone out of it all and that there was never even a ransom demand.  He told me that the couple were dropped off in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, still in their pyjamas after five days, and they had to be driven back home to Tipperary.  Lady Donoughmore had claimed that it was a wonderfully exciting adventure and she recounted the story about it for years.  Tommie said that she was a fine and spirited woman and that she smoked cigarettes.  He said that was the done thing at the time.

3 December Sunday

Once again the threat of the arrival of The Hunt came to nothing.  I heard the dogs in the distance up the hill in the direction of Donal Keating’s fields, but we saw nothing.

4 December Monday

Croan is going to bring us some firewood. He is our new source of timber.  He was not certain about exactly where we live so he asked me to text him our Eircode. When we were first assigned an Eircode, in 2015, the government was very polite about the new post code system.  Every house and every business was given its own seven letters and numbers.  We were assigned the code but we were told in the most agreeable way possible that we did not have to use it at all if we did not want to use it. So no one used it. It appeared that there was no reason to use it.  Slowly the Eircode has become essential.  Couriers as well as the post office, require it to locate addresses and increasingly the Eircode is typed into a phone or a GPS system to locate any business or home. We are less apt to find people driving around the roads in desperation looking for a person to ask about another person so that they can deliver something. The Eircode gets everyone to wherever they need to go. And now we are using it to get a double load of firewood delivered.

5 December Tuesday

Róisín paints Brown Furniture. It is what she does for a living. She goes to car boot sales and second hand shops and she buys up the old dark furniture that she says no one wants anymore. Sometimes the furniture is heavy and cumbersome, but sometimes it is just cheap lightweight stuff that has been heavily varnished to make it look sturdy and imposing. She tells anyone who will listen that no one wants Brown Furniture any more. She says it sucks the air out of a room. She is scornful when she speaks of Brown Furniture. Sometimes she strips the varnish off a piece and sometimes she merely sands it a bit, before she paints it in light pastel tones.

6 December Wednesday

It is raining hard. It has been raining hard all day.  The downpour is torrential.  There are rivers of water running down the road. There is news of flooding. We wanted peas with our supper.  The peas were in the freezer. The freezer is out in the shed.  I put on my rubber boots and a raincoat and a hat. I walked outside with a flashlight and an enamel cup.  The cup was for the peas.  I could fill the cup in the shed while standing beside the open freezer and that way I would not have to make two trips to the shed and back. If I did not take a cup with me I would have to bring the bag of frozen peas into the house and then walk back out again to return the bag to the freezer. Saving one round trip was an imperative considering the deluge.

8 December Friday

Pascal is the retired Garda who drives around the area delivering medicines and prescriptions for O’Brien’s pharmacy.  He delivers to people who cannot get out or to those who do not drive.  Everyone knows him and everyone trusts him. He knows everyone and if he does not know them, he knows how to find them. He is also always willing to do other errands if people need things.

11 December Monday

Every year the post office offers a free national stamp with every ten stamps purchased. This year there is a special booklet of twenty stamps with two free stamps in it.  In addition to the free stamp, there is also a free Christmas card with every ten stamps purchased. These are small gifts from the government.