THE JOURNAL

31 July Wednesday

I am picking black currants. I pick one huge bucketful and then I pick another huge bucketful. Black currants. More black currants. I am not filling bowls. I am filling buckets. The branches are so heavy with the shiny berries that they are dragging on the ground. I have given away a lot and we have made a beautiful rich sauce that we are pouring onto everything. We eat fresh handfuls of the currants on our cereal in the morning. I only grow the black ones. The birds have no interest in them. Birds go mad for red currants and for white currants, but they ignore black currants.

We made the sauce and froze a lot of it in small containers to bring out and eat in the coming months. I have bags and bags full of currants in the freezer. It would be nice if I made jam, but I am not a jam-maker, but I consider this every year.

While picking the currants, I sit on a plastic box, with a cushion and I listen to a novel being read to me on my telephone.

Sometimes I do not listen to anything. I just think. Today I was reminded of a young man who was invited to house-sit for some friends one summer. He was told instructed by the couple that he should help himself to the fruit and vegetables all ripening in the garden. The lady of the house emphasized that the black currants would be ready any day now and that he should be sure to enjoy those.

When the couple returned from their holiday they saw that the black currant bushes were still heavily laden with fruit but that the branches had been stripped of every leaf. In the freezer was a large quantity of white sorbet made by the young man.  It tasted intensely of black currants. Apparently the taste of the currants is more intense from the leaves than it is from the fruit. I often think of this, but as well as not wanting to be a jam-maker, I am not interested in making sorbet, though I am happy to eat it if someone else makes it.

1 August Thursday

Simon has many medical tests scheduled. He is required to have bloods taken and analyzed before some of the tests can be done. He went this afternoon to the nurse, had his bloods taken and then he was told that he had to take the samples up to the hospital himself because the blood for the day had been collected in the morning and if he did not take his to the hospital himself it would not get there until tomorrow, which would hold up everything. After explaining where to go to deliver the blood inside the hospital, the nurse gave him a second sealed plastic bag and said, “Since you are after going up there, you can take this other lady’s blood too. She does not drive, so she was not able to deliver it to the hospital herself.”

2 August Friday

The electric stove is not working. We blow fuses each time we try to use it. The electrician is on holiday in Canada. Any and all cooking must be done on the barbecue.

3 August Saturday

Once again, the morning is warm and bright. Discussion on Tipp FM was on the subject of sun screen for tractor drivers. There were a lot of handy tips for both farm workers and tractor drivers. One was not to leave your bottle of sunscreen on the dashboard of the tractor, but to keep it in one of your pockets. Another was to wear a hat all day both inside and outside of the tractor’s cab. If it is too hot for a long sleeved shirt, it is important to keep the arms well coated all day long. I am not sure why this advice is targeted only for farmers.

4 August Sunday

The plums from the Apple Farm are reaching the end of their season. Sadly, it is a short season this year due to the long wet springtime. I took a bowlful to Tommie. He loves plums. He loves most fruit. In less than a minute of me placing the bowl on his table, he had one of the plums in his mouth. He held the second plum up in the air between his thumb and his finger and he said, “These plums are at the Top of Their Game!”
He says this every year about the plums from The Apple Farm. Each time he ate a plum he placed the stone into the left hand pocket of his old cardigan. The front of the cardigan looks pretty good but both elbows are completely worn through. His plaid shirt underneath is exposed both halfway up and halfway down his arm. He told me that the elbows are no longer good for much, but that the pockets are just fine.

5 August Bank Holiday Monday

I have been studying the apple trees below in the meadow. Every apple on the lower branches has been eaten as have the leaves. My first thought was to blame another break out of cows, but there are no dollops of manure nor any big holes from the heavy hooves of cattle. And there are no apples on the ground. I do not think cows even like apples. It took a while to realise that it was the work of deer. We have never had deer around until this year but I have seen one running in and out of Scully’s woods. It must be the one who is eating the apples.

6 August Tuesday

Mike is closing up his garage at the end of the month. He has lost interest in repairing cars and the increase of both digitally programmed cars and electric vehicles is making his work harder and harder. It is too expensive for a small garage to invest in all the necessary equipment.  He might train as a paramedic. Or he might drive a bus. I will miss going to his garage and looking at all the bits of things he has around. Next week someone is coming to take away all of the old wrecks he has used for parts. His neighbour used the stationary cars to position his beehives for a few summers.

8 August Thursday

The shallow water butt is empty. This is a rare state of affairs. The moss around its edges has died. The bottom was full of some manky old sludge. This morning I scooped all of the sludge out. There is nothing to do now but to wait for some rain to refill it.

9 August Friday

Dote is never used as a verb, but always as a noun. A Dote is a cute person. Someone who is adorable or at the very least in possession of a sweet temperament. A Dote is usually female though a young child is often A Dote, be it male or female.

10 August Saturday

I delivered fresh strawberries directly from the Farmers’ Market to Tommie today. Together we lamented the Passing of the Plums. Even while expressing sadness about the need to wait until next year for more of those perfect plums, he dove right into his punnet of strawberries. He pulled the green hull off each strawberry before he popped it into his mouth. He lined the green parts up along his left leg. They looked like a little parade. We discussed the Olympics and the many medals won by the Irish this year and about the events that we enjoyed as well as those that we did not enjoy. He thought the athletes were all amazing and wonderful, but said that he would not be happy to sit down to talk with any one of them. He said, “Sure, they have no conversation but for themselves.”

 

11 August Sunday

The first load of wood shavings have arrived to be moved and stored for the winter cattle platform. I can hear the sound of the tractor going back and forth. The smell when walking through the yard is wonderful.

12 August Monday

We neither exit nor enter the book barn without accelerating. The beehive in the roof and just above the door is home to a big and busy swarm of honeybees. They do not bother us, but the noise of their buzzing makes us rush to get past them. The doorway is no place to linger.

13 August Tuesday

Before Brexit, a great many second-hand cars were imported from the United Kingdom. It was easy to drive a British car into the country and then to re-register it here. Since Brexit, it is impossible. The process of importing is so convoluted and so expensive and must involve so very many different shipping and customs agents, that it is now cheaper and more direct to import used cars directly from Japan. Like the Irish and the British, the Japanese drive on the left so their cars are right-hand drive and fit easily into life here.

14 August Wednesday

I am still picking black currants. The bushes keep producing. I go out every morning and gather enough for our bowls of cereal or porridge. The sharp tartness is a great way to begin the day.  I will be sorry when they stop producing, but I will be relieved to stop picking them.

15 August Thursday

I thought it was just me. I was sitting in the plastic chair with my feet flat on the ground and the edge of the chair snug behind my knees. There was no way I could lean my back against the back of the seat. If my back was straight then my legs could not bend. They would stick out straight into the room. I thought it was just myself sitting in this slouch but as I looked around I saw that five of the six other people were also slouched in their seats. One small girl was sitting cross legged on her chair. Perhaps this is the solution I should try. The chairs are new as is the whole waiting area for the car inspection place. The seat of the chairs are too deep for most bodies. A lot has changed about the ritual and the waiting at the NCT but when the inspector set off in my car, he tooted the horn as he drove around the corner and into the inspection bays. As a constant, the tooting of one’s horn is a cheerful way to begin the National Car Test.

16 August Friday

On Wednesday, I had the car washed in Ardfinnan in preparation for my inspection on Thursday. The man who washed it for me was a Ukrainian from Odessa. He trained as a Vet but he works here on a farm and part-time at the car wash because his English is not yet good enough to to get qualified to work as a veterinarian here. He is glad to be in this country because it means that his family is safe. Yesterday evening, I was walking down the road and a man on a small moped stopped and started to talk with me. He was from Pakistan and he told me many things about the army and the strength and importance of community there. He took off his helmet so that he could converse better. He is working as a farm labourer at different farms and finding life in rural Ireland very lonely. He told me that he has begun stopping every time he sees someone on his journey home. He wants to practice his language and he wants to meet people. His name is Zamann. It is unusual to meet people from other countries when going about my daily business in Tipperary. After these recent conversations I feel like I live in the world, not just in my valley.

19 June Wednesday

The tortoise-shell farm cat has had kittens and they are living under the woodpile. Or in the bushes beside the lean-to, or in some section of the lean-to, but maybe not under the firewood. The kittens flee when I approach and the mother snarls and hisses at me. It is my lean-to full of my recycling buckets, paper piles and containers, as well as the firewood, but for now, this cat seems to think it is all hers.

20 June Thursday. Summer Solstice

Today is the Longest Day. The Shortest Night. There is a full moon promised.  The radio assures us all that we will not see another full moon on the Longest Day for seventy years.  I will miss this full moon because I will be asleep well before darkness falls. I will miss the next one too.

21 June Friday

Joe’s cows now wear collars. He told me that the cows have a chip embedded and that he can read all kinds of information about the cow and her health just by looking at his smartphone. He can measure how many kilometres the cow has walked, how much she is eating and if her tummy is giving her trouble. I am uncertain about the chip in the cow and about the function of the collar. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe the collar contains the chip. Some of the older cows do not have a chip so they have been given a second yellow number tag in their ear as well as a collar. It is modern technology. A farmer needs only a smartphone and he can be fully informed about his herd without going out in bad weather.

22 June Saturday

Mam is what children call their mothers. Not Mum or Mom. Not Mummy or Mommy. Here it is always Mam, or Mammy. Or more formally: The Mother. Today, while in town, I saw a display of colourful plasticised messages on fake slates to put on a grave. Even after many years in Ireland, the word Mam surprises me.

23 June Sunday

The grass roof on the book storage and studio shed is in full bloom.  There is a tall blue wild flower growing up there among a variety of grasses.  The birds must have dropped the seeds there and every year there are more of these flowers.   I never see them anywhere else in the area, so I must assume that the eco-system on the roof is exactly right for this plant.

24 June Monday

My annual elderflower cordial has been prepared. Two batches. Immediately after I finished labeling my bottles,  I began to worry that I might not have enough cordial to last us through the winter. This obsession repeats itself every year. There are hundreds of the huge creamy white blossoms visible everywhere in the landscape.  I wake up in the morning in a panic wondering if I really do need to make a third batch.

25 June Tuesday

The building was built into a hill. There was a small café on the first floor with tiny tables scattered around outside, mostly along a narrow stone patio and on down the hill. The tables hugged the side of the building. We found a table out of the wind and right next to a window. After we ordered our food from the waitress, we looked into the window and saw that the room we were seeing was not the interior of the café, but the kitchen. It was downstairs from the café. The kitchen was further down the hill, as we were. We watched as our waitress walked down some steps into the kitchen. She put on a net hat and a long apron. She prepared our toasted sandwiches and a pot of tea. When everything was arranged on a tray, she removed her apron and her hat and walked up the stairs from the kitchen and came out the front door of the cafe and down the hill to serve us.

26 June Wednesday

If he sees something—an open padlock on a gate or a faded hat on a car seat—he has to take it. He is well known in the village for his pilfering. He has to take a thing because he can, not because he wants or needs the thing. Anyone leaving their motor car close to where he lives is always careful to lock it. Anyone who keeps a jar for the small brown coins has come home at least one time to find the jar empty.  He is known to step into a kitchen through the back door and to pour the coins into his pocket, then leave the jar to be refilled. No one, except his brother, ever enters the house where he lives. I imagine the rooms piled high with the things he brings home, but for which he has no use.

 

27 June Thursday

The fields and roads are full of tractors and combines and large machinery that I cannot name. Silage is being cut and bundled into plastic-wrapped bales. Usually the bales are black but today I saw some bright white ones. The bales are piled in the middle of fields or on the edges of fields near to a road waiting for collection. Some of the bales are piled beside a shed, or inside a shed. There are bales everywhere.

28 June Friday

I feel sad each year when the Cow Parsley passes. The white froth of the blossoms lines the roads and makes every journey feel thrilling. Now we are left with a dry, skeletal look to the verges. The Giant Hogweed grows taller by the minute. It is an invasive and horrible weed and if the sap from the stems gets on skin in the sunlight, it causes a painful blistering and weeping rash that takes many months to go away. The wide white flowers have none of the delicacy of Cow Parsley. People call it The Russian Weed because it is understood to have moved across Europe from Russia. It is tall. It looms on thick sturdy stems. It is threatening. Russia is blamed for this invasion.

Bog Cotton is another name always used in place of a proper name. While Russian Weed is mentioned with distaste, Bog Cotton is said with delight. It looks like a small tuft of sheep’s wool caught on a stem. I am told people used to collect the Bog Cotton to stuff their pillows. I can see that it would take a lot of Bog Cotton to fill up a pillow, even a small pillow. Cotton Sedge or Cotton Grass is the actual name and the name is not so different, but because Bog Cotton grows in the dampness of a peaty bog, it is always called Bog Cotton.

29 June Saturday

There was a busload of German tourists at the Farmers Market today. At first I thought they were Dutch but when I heard them talking I knew they were German. Their bus was a small bus. A mini-bus. But it was a full bus and the Germans had already been to the castle and for thirty or forty minutes before they all got back on their bus, they walked around the market admiring, discussing and photographing things. They called to one another and pointed out things not to be missed.  They all spent a long time looking at Ned Lonergan’s carved wooden bowls and egg cups.  Then one woman shouted and they all ran over to where she was. They were photographing the two nettles growing out of each side of the back of my car.  One is small but the other one has grown long and leggy. Every single person was checked before they got back on the bus.  If they did not yet have a photograph of my nettles they were sent back to get one. It had become a requirement that they each have this same souvenir photo.

30 June Sunday

I heard Simon shouting.  He was shouting at the cattle in the yard.  There were seven of them.  We thought that they had broken in from the adjoining field, but we were wrong. They had jumped over a fence from Joe’s upper field and through a space that had been opened up by yesterday’s enormous messy clearing of the ditches. They hopped down a steep banking onto the track. From there, they went with gravity, running downhill and into our garden.  The drop from their field was more than a meter.  I do not know why they did not break legs on the jump down, but they were young, frisky and nimble. We chased them up the boreen and I left Simon with a stick to guard the break-out place with orders not to let any more of the cattle jump.  They were mooing and moaning and shrieking at one another from the herd  in the field of one Joe across to the herd in the field of the other Joe. I reached the farm with the seven rushing ahead of me. They took off toward the road.  I was dialing numbers and trying to reach someone anyone on several phones, leaving messages and quickly dialing another number.  I ran in and knocked the door and went shouting into the open doors of the barns. There was no one anywhere.  I rushed back to try to distract the cattle from running to the road where they might be hit by a car.  They had already come back, perhaps to find me. As a group, they jumped up on a shelf of mowed grass about a metre off the ground and huddled there waiting to see what we might do next. I opened one gate into a field and closed off two other gates to try to contain and direct them. Cows do not come when called.  It is better to be behind them than in front of them. I knew this much. I hid off to the side in some bushes to encourage them to go through the open gate.  After about thirty minutes of this game, Joe appeared and he directed me and together we drove them through the open gate.  I walked him down and showed him where they had broken out and left him to sort out his fencing problem.

1 July Monday

Twice a day, the local radio station, Tipp FM, reads out the Public Service Announcements. These announcements are the reporting of deaths in the county. Each name and place of residence is read out, followed by the time and location of the wake and then the location of the funeral and burial on the following day. Married women are always listed first by their married name, and then by the name they were born with. This is done using the French word Née: Lily Crosse Née Tully, but the word Née is never pronounced like the French Née. It is pronounced strongly like KNEE, as if the word is capitalised and must be said loud: Lily Crosse KNEE Tully.

2 July Tuesday

Bernadette and Noel love toast. They do not eat bread unless it is toasted. Even bread that has been baked fresh in the morning and that is still warm and fragrant from the oven is toasted. So great is their dislike of eating untoasted bread that they own two toasters. The two toasters sit side by side on the counter top. They are terrified that if their toaster breaks they will have no toast. By owning two toasters, they can rest assured that they will not be caught short.

3 July Wednesday

The mother cat and her three, four or five kittens may have decamped. Up until now, each time I went under the lean-to to put things into bins or to deposit newspapers, cardboard, bottles, or plastics for recycling, the mother has bared her teeth and snarled at me. This is the same mother who comes whining and screeching at the kitchen door looking for food two or three times a day. This is the mother who have I resisted giving a name because I just do not like her enough to name her. I call her Mother, but I do not use the name in a friendly nor encouraging way.

5 July Friday

The weather continues to be unsettled. It is grey and overcast. It is not cold but it is certainly not hot. It does not feel like July. I took a bowl outside this morning and filled it with raspberries. I was wearing my pyjamas, determined to pretend to myself that this was a lovely early summer morning. Reaching deep into the leafy canes to get the ripest berries, I touched the back of both hands with nettles. All day I have been miserable with the tingling of nettle stings. The raspberries were gone by the end of breakfast, but the stinging lasted all day.

 

 

 

17 May Friday

I was feeling deeply exhausted with a terrible headache and all kinds of muscle aches.  I finally decided that I was suffering from more than ordinary jet lag. I took a test and discovered that I had Covid. It seems unfair that I strolled all the way through the many months and years of the entire pandemic in Full Health and now I get this nasty variant that is making the rounds. I cannot write more. I must go and lie down.

20 May Monday

Simon has it too. No wonder we all worked so hard to avoid Covid during all of those many weeks. We are both feeling horrible and not really knowing how to identify one kind of discomfort from another. I must go and lie down.

22 May Wednesday

It is a month ago today that we heard the cuckoo. I had taken Barbara up into the Knockmealdowns to walk across to the Mass Rock and I promised her that if we were lucky we might hear the Cuckoo. We were lucky. Over the next few days, we told every single person we saw about hearing the cuckoo, and everyone we told was pleased and a little bit envious. There is an extremely short period of time in which to hear the cuckoo. Increasingly one needs to be far away from people and civilization, preferably in the mountains at the exact right time. Tommie told us that he had not heard one for fifteen years, or more.

24 May Friday

Each morning, I am woken up by birdsong. This is a good thing. They are busy and noisy all day long.

25 May Saturday

I am finally able to read again. It was impossible to read much of anything with the throbbing Covid headache. As always, I turn to the Maigret books of Georges Simenon when I am feeling fragile. I have devoured six in the last three days. It does not matter how many times I have read or re-read them. They always engage me. I must go and lie down.

27 May Monday

Other victims of this strain of Covid told us that we must expect that it will take at least three weeks to get over the deep fatigue. I did not believe them. Or I did not believe that I would fall victim to such debilitating exhaustion. Now I believe it. I am forced to believe it. I must go and lie down.

28 May Tuesday

Jacinta brought us a bottle of Vitamin Tonic from Maher’s Pharmacy. The owners make their own tonic from a special family recipe.  I have no idea what is in it but it tastes like root beer.  Jacinta promises that it will help to Put Us Right.  I am willing to believe anything if it makes me feel better.

31 May Friday

We have slowly been crawling up and out of the endless feeling of weakness. A small wander around the garden is plenty.  I can accomplish a few short jobs and that is all. Every day is punctuated with naps. Every time I feel that I am fully back to normal, I am overwhelmed with both physical and mental fatigue. It is an uphill battle. I must go and lie down.

1 June Saturday

The gooseberries are not ripe, but they are ripening. They are hard and not ready to pick yet. I hope they do not ripen too quickly. I know that I must watch them carefully. Last year the birds had many more of them than I had. I do not have the energy yet to go out and fight for my share.

3 June Monday

The day has been in and out with every kind of weather. Believing it to be a great drying day, I hung out a laundry. Torrential rain fell in the middle of the afternoon. The rain stopped and then the wind began gusting. The washing line snapped with the combination of the extra weight of sodden garments and turbulent surges of wind.

4 June Tuesday

Mary, the black cat, never comes down from the farm looking for food any more. The big black and white cat who used to fight her for scraps arrives, as does a bad-tempered tortoise shell cat who is happy to fight with the black and white one. I do not have names for these two. I do not like them well enough to give them names. I rarely put out food for them anymore. They can go up and drink milk and catch mice at the farm which is what they are supposed to do anyway. Two magpies swoop down to check out any dish that is left outside. When one of the magpies eats, the other one sits on the table watching and then they change places. Simon is as delighted with them as I was with Mary. He wants to make a bread and butter pudding for the magpies.

5 June Wednesday

Maura is old and she is not very well.  Her two younger brothers came to visit her recently because she might not live much longer. They wanted to say their goodbyes.  One of the brothers lives somewhere in England. Near Gloucester, I think.  The other brother has lived as a missionary priest somewhere in Africa for forty-six years. One morning the priest cooked breakfast for Maura.  It was an egg fried in a square hole that had been cut out of a slice of white bread. He called it The Egg in The Window. It is the only thing he knows how to cook.  Maura said the egg was overcooked, but she ate it and pretended that it was delicious.

6 June Thursday

Applications forms are now available for anyone wishing to enter the Clonmel Show. As always, I peruse the categories eagerly. My favorite is No. 21. 6 Fruit Scones

7 June Friday

Today is election day all over Europe. We are voting for local councilors, as well as for Members of the European Parliament. I knew there were a large number of people running for these offices. We have received pieces of paper every day. Each piece of paper has been the exact same size with a photograph of the candidate as well as information about their party, or their independence from any political party. Some times the information was in both Irish and English. Sometimes the piece of paper was delivered to the door by a candidate, but most of them arrived with the postman. With two voters in the house we received two of everything. Signs with faces have been posted on trees and on telephone poles. Their presence changes our landscape. I am ready for these faces to be gone. We went down to the grade school in the village to cast our votes. There were at least 25 names on the MEP ballot paper. It was printed on a very long sheet of paper. I liked that each person’s profession was listed: Nursing Lecturer, Architect, Bricklayer, Barrister, Farmer, etc.

8 June Saturday

I am feeling better and stronger every day. I am taking fewer naps. I do not feel all the way well, but the terrible weariness is finally fading.

11 June Tuesday

Last night, Breda convinced me to join herself, Siobhán and Jean for a walk in the mountains. She promised that it would be a gentle walk, and not too long. I said yes. I fell asleep wondering what I might take with me for my lunch. I knew we had no more bread, so I could not make myself a sandwich. In the morning, I changed my mind and said no. I did not know if I could make a two and a half hour walk. I did not want to slow the others with my weakness. Then I said yes, and off we went. We started at The Vee, just to the right of the painted arrow, and we climbed steeply for a bit.  When the path evened out, we walked along the side of Sugarloaf. We passed close by the Grubb Monument, which is the tomb of Samuel Grubb, a lapsed Quaker, who died in 1921. Before he died, at the age of 65, he designed a beehive shaped stone grave for himself. He said that he wanted to be buried standing up straight so that he could keep watch over ‘his people’ and ‘his fields’. He was indeed buried vertically, but locals claim that the men doing the entombing placed him into his grave upside down, so that his head is at the bottom, not at the top. He was not as popular with the masses as he thought he was. It is said that his dog is buried with him.

We continued down as far as Bay Lough and ate our lunch by the lake, the hills covered by masses of rhododendrons just coming into blossom. I returned home completely exhausted, but for the first time in weeks, it was a good kind of tired not the debilitating kind.

14 June Friday

Rain. Hail. Sun. Rain. Cloud. Rain. Hail. Hail. Sun. Hail.  Another day full of rapidly changing weather. It is not the same for more than a few minutes at a time.