THE JOURNAL

The Cough Bottle.

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 a shop to its customers. Cadbury’s Roses. Heroes. Quality Street. In the butcher shop in Ardfinnan, there is a tin of Celebrations. People take a chocolate and chew on it while they are waiting their turn. Then they take another one 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 chocolate 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 Saturday

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

24 December. Sunday. Christmas Eve.

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 one 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. He is dopey but noisy.  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 where there are usually sheep in the field.

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.

Harmless.

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.

A Fine Flat Acre

31 January Wednesday

The birds are voracious. The more frequently I fill the nut feeders the more they eat and the more quickly the feeders are emptied. I am always rushing to give them more even when it is raining and I should think they would want to be under cover.  They eat and eat and eat.

1 February Thursday-The first day of spring

I have walked greyhounds at PAWS, a local rescue facility for dogs. They sent each of us volunteers out with one dog at a time. On a normal morning, I walked four different greyhounds. There are a lot of homeless greyhounds because Coursing is a popular racing event in this country. I cannot call it a sport. After a dog passes his or her best racing days, it is retired. Cruel people cut off part of the dog’s ear where a number has been tattooed so that the dog cannot be tracked back to its owner. Many dogs get dumped on a road far from home, with or without a bleeding ear. Some of them get hit by cars.  A lot of them end up in rescue centers. The rescue places are full to overflowing with greyhounds. I have been told that some get sent abroad to live as pets. They are gentle and easy companions. The Italians love greyhounds. I love them too. I like to imagine a retired greyhound living out its life sleeping under the trees in a sunny olive grove. I miss having a dog. Each time I see the red van from the Greyhound Trust, I am tempted to give a home to an aging greyhound.

2 February Friday

Looking through the Farmers Journal is never dull. I enjoy seeing advertisements for machinery I have no use for and most of which I do not understand. I do like the idea of the Calving Cameras. It is not hard to figure out their function. A farmer can sit in the warm comfort of home while fully alert to a cow going into labour.

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3 February Saturday

Simon spent the entire day at the hospital. He was there for eleven hours. It was not so much that he was poorly as that the health system is broken and there are simply not enough people to make it work efficiently. He was surprised to see a priest moving around in the Accident and Emergency ward. The priest was a middle-aged black man wearing a long grey cassock and moving from person to person asking if they would like The Blessing of the Throat. He was carrying two fat white candles which he held crossed against a person’s throat as he said the blessing. Simon refused the blessing, but he watched with interest as every other person, including the nurses and porters on duty, accepted the offer. We are always reminded that this is remains a heavily Catholic country.

4 February Sunday

Breda, Siobhan and I drove up into the mountains.  We had decided on the route just off the Mount Mellary road, at the Tipperary-Waterford border. We could have walked right and climbed straight up but we went left, through a broken gate and continued up a just visible track and then circled around the hill in a large loop that took us off a recognizable track through thick heather and lots of mud. It was difficult and slow going with a strong wind against us on the uphill part, but the day was clear and dry and beautiful.

5 February Monday St Brigid’s Day Bank Holiday

This is only the second year of the new three day weekend celebrating St. Brigid. Her official Feast Day is 1 February which is the First Day of Spring. She is regarded as the patron saint of dairy farmers, cattle, midwives, babies, computers, blacksmiths, and beer. She is one of three patron saints of Ireland and the first female saint to be celebrated with a national holiday. It seemed an auspicious day to walk up to Lady’s Abbey.

6 February Tuesday

Torrential rain all day. It is difficult to think. The rain from inside the house sounds loud. When inside an automobile, the sound is impossible. The roads are running with water and floods are promised.

7 February Wednesday

The boreen is lined with dry stone walls on both sides. There is growth both over and through the walls. The stones are barely visible. When a rock falls out and onto the track, it is not possible to drive around it. The boreen is too narrow. It is too narrow for both a stone and an automobile. The only solution is to get out of the car and to move it, if I can. If it is too heavy, I roll it along to a gap where it might rest until someone stronger comes along. Stones tumble out for any number of reasons. A lot of heavy rain can cause a section of wall to loosen. A fox, a badger or a cat using a regular path through the hedge and wall as it moves into or out of a field can cause a stone to be dislodged. Today I walked up and found that a medium sized stone had rolled down, probably because of yesterday’s all day torrential downpours. I picked it up with two hands and lifted it up over my head to heave it over the hedge. It hit the thick dense branches, bounced back and hit me hard on the shoulder. I am lucky that it did not hit me in the head. I spent the rest of my walk, with a sore shoulder and upper arm, working on a murder mystery in my head. I was trying to figure out how the victim could be hit by a stone in a similar manner and killed, and the ensuing confusion about who threw it at them.  I gave up before I got back home. I decided that such a death would be considered a suicide, or perhaps a death by misadventure, rather than a murder.

8 February Thursday

Yesterday I drove Tommie into town for a shopping trip at Dunnes’.  The day was bright and dry.  It was as unlike the day before as it could be. Tommie was happy to be traveling out in such perfect weather but he was not prepared for the outside world nor did he remember a shopping list. Walking into the store made him feel confused. He forgot what he wanted to purchase and his legs were too weak for the necessary standing and walking. I ran around and up and down the aisles fetching the things he wanted and returning them when I got it wrong. It is hard to locate the right kind of foot cream in a brown container that starts with the letter A, or the correct kind of soup when he says that he likes all soup but really that does not include tomato soup or chicken soup. It means that he only wants leek and potato soup but how could I know that if he did not say it. It was an exhausting trip for both of us. I drove him home with a different and slightly meandering route so that he could view changes in the neighborhood and ask questions about things. We pulled over and watched the work being done around the land of the cottage once lived in by Liam Boyle’s mother.  He called the land A Fine Flat Acre and informed me that Liam had a piggery a corner of the land at one time.  When I got him back into his house with his messages unloaded and spread out on the counter in his kitchen, he announced that his Bad Knee is A Friend For Life. He said that he needs to give up any possibility of it ever getting better.

9 February Friday

Taking the walk up the Mass Path after so long has been wonderful.  It was so densely overgrown in the autumn that it was impassable. Now a lot of the brambles and tangles have died back.  Some hunters have been through and they whacked their way through the vegetation. There is a lot of deep mud as well as a few fallen trees to crawl underneath, but the favorite circuit that I call Going Around is an option once more. I took one heavy fall into the mud. Next time I must take a stick to do my own whacking and to avoid landing in the mud. Again.

10 February Saturday

I miss the presence of language which people in towns and cities take for granted, or perhaps they find it annoying. There are plenty of signs in nature but there are rarely words to read as I walk the fields and lanes. There is plenty of machinery to look at. I am curious about a lot of things because I do not know what they are being used for or what a covered trailer is carrying. I am curious about these functions but not curious enough to ask questions to find out about them. I just enjoy being curious and considering my own solutions.

Weather is Not Everything.

11 February Sunday

We stood in cold bright sunshine waiting for the bus. We were early. A school marching band was practicing for the St Patrick’s Day parade. We watched them through wide cast-iron gates. A clump of tiny girls with blue and gold pom-poms came first. It was good to know that they have another 5 or six weeks to get better. They were completely chaotic. They needed a lot more practice. Then came the band, followed by older girls with full sized flags. They twirled and waved their flags, marching with high knees, and sweeping the ground with the fabric of their flags. A woman stood beside me and pointed out her grandchildren, as well as assorted nieces and nephews. It appeared that she was related to half of everyone and proud of them all. They circled the old army barracks three times before the Dublin bus arrived and we all got on, leaving the marchers marching.

12 March Tuesday

Some bus journeys are noisy, with chatter and laughter and music and the pinging noises of mobile phones. Some bus drivers keep the radio turned up loud for the entire trip. Today’s bus was a quiet bus. The driver barely spoke to people as they boarded. He was neither a talkative nor a welcoming driver. There was not much conversation among the passengers either, and what conversation there was, was subdued. As we traveled south from Dublin airport, our driver pulled over at the side of a busy road. The place where he stopped was not a bus stop. He walked to the center of the bus, down two steps and into the teeny toilet.  He did not say a word.  We waited. We waited for a long time. The bus was completely silent. No one spoke. Eventually the driver came out of the toilet and he went back to the front of the bus, sat down and drove away. He never said a word. Neither did anyone else.

13 March Wednesday

Joe explained that the woman was a small woman and that she was Low to the Ground, but he added that she was a fierce lady with a dangerously quick temper. For emphasis, he added: She’d eat you without salt!

14 March Thursday

After making a house call, the doctor told him that he must go to the hospital, but Tommie said that he had had enough of hospitals and that he would prefer to stay at home. The doctor told him that he is Dancing Close to the Rim, but finally agreed to allow Tommie to stay at home. He has returned three times now to check up on his patient. Tommie told me that he is not a whole lot better, but that he is no worse.

15 March Friday

It had been a lovely day. The sun was out and there had been no rain and we all felt a bit of hopefulness. In this atmosphere of weather optimism, almost everyone had come out without wearing enough warm clothing. Michael Hickey died on Wednesday. We attended his wake in Cashel today. The line of people waiting to pay their respects stretched all the way up the street. The pavement was full. Everyone was talking quietly to the people around them. People left their place in the queue and went to speak to other people along the way. The forward movement into the building was slow. The late afternoon was cold and getting colder, but no one complained about the wait. The shock of Michael’s untimely death was foremost in every single conversation. He was too young. Too healthy. Too funny. Too full of life and vigor and plans and always full of his usual questioning manner. The word tragic was frequently used.

After an hour, we finally entered the hallway of the funeral home where we signed the book of condolences and we waited some more. I was distracted by a model of the funeral home itself. It had been built by a 92 year old man and painted by someone else who was related to the family of undertakers. There was a small sign on the front of the building explaining these facts. I was impressed by the model and I pointed it out to those around me. No one seemed particularly interested but I did feel that Michael himself would have had something both funny and appreciative to say about it. He would not have failed to acknowledge the model building. It had an extremely steep pitch on the roof. I made a note to myself to look at the actual roof of the building when I went outside. And I wondered if there was a tree beside the building, mirroring the one painted on the side of the model. When we finally entered the room where Michael was laid out in his coffin, we spoke with Ute and her two sons. She consoled and thanked every person graciously for coming. It was as though it were her job to give kindness and sympathy rather than to receive it. She gave each person a careful and personal amount of attention which is why the line was so slow to move. Not one person minded the wait.

16 March Saturday

I did not know what the structure was as I approached it. From afar, it looked like a bit of mad archway architecture but it had never been there before. It was not until I smelled the stench of the slurry that I understood. The hose for carrying the slurry from the tank to the fields where it was to be spread, had been lifted up and off the road with a digger extended upwards. Cars and people could pass under rather than driving over the hose. It was high enough that even the big milk tanker could pass underneath without a bother. Sometimes metal ramps are placed on the road to prevent and guide cars from driving over the actual hose. This was a much more exciting solution.

18 March Monday Bank Holiday

Everyone is weary of the rain.  It falls endlessly and even when a day begins clear, the dryness does not last. The rain arrives in gusts or drizzles or torrential downpours. It is soft or it is hard and noisy. It arrives in all forms but what it does not do is stop.  There is so much mud and there are such big puddles. As both a topic of conversation and a state of being, we are all tired of the rain.

19 March Tuesday

Burke’s Ironworks in Cahir has painted black gateposts on the outside of their building. On the wall, they then attach examples of their cast-iron gates. The real gate is attached to the illusion of a gatepost. Sometimes a gate is removed and delivered to a house or a farm and then the posts stay empty for a while until a new gate is fitted onto the wall.

20 March Wednesday

The doctor told me that she is originally from Iraq, but that she has been in this country for twenty-three years. She feels that this is a good and gentle place to be. There have been no wars and she feels certain that there will be no wars. She said Ireland is A Safe Place to Live. She said that safety is the best thing that anyone can hope for. She has never been back to Iraq and she said that she will never return. She has no family there any longer. She is happy to be here even though the weather is damp and often grim. She finished by saying that weather is not everything.

21 March Thursday

I saw the first primrose today. My initial thought is that it is early but then I think that I think this every year. In spite of all the rain that has been falling almost without cease for three or maybe four months, a lot of things are suddenly in flower. The magnolia tree up at the farm is glorious. Primrose. Stitchwort. Gorse. Lesser Celandine. Dandelions. Flowering currants. Fruit trees are in blossom. There are many late daffodils. Wild garlic is everywhere with its shiny long leaves. No flowers yet but the fresh smell and taste is added to everything we eat.

23 March Saturday

The Madonna in the corner of the car park at the supermarket has been given several bunches of flowers wrapped in cellophane.

25 March Monday

Dalton’s Tyres have a waiting room that is made to look like a log cabin from the outside. Sometimes the door is wide open and sometimes it is closed to keep the heat inside for the person who is waiting to get their tyres replaced or for their wheel alignment to be completed. Inside, a small electric heater warms the cabin, and a television is always on, with or without any sound. There is a couch, a big chair and a stack of car magazines on the coffee table. It is bleak while it is trying to look like home.

26 March Tuesday

Siobhan and I drove past the field where Jackie Murphy’s lambs are grazing. We knew they were his sheep because there were two llamas in the field with the sheep. He is the only sheep farmer around here to have resident llamas. They are there to keep the foxes from attacking the baby lambs.  As a method, it works. He has not lost a single lamb since the pair of llamas have been on duty. I wonder if they will reproduce and that there will soon be more llamas.

27 March Wednesday

The Christmas poinsettia is now outside.  I had the idea that I could keep it going and growing in the house until the weather was warm enough to put it outdoors but I now accept that it is not meant to survive. A seasonal plant with built in limitations. I put it on the table near to Simon’s words.

28 March Thursday

“There’s going to be a Famine!” This is what Michael shouted to me across the passenger seat of his little van. The seat held a big green bucket that had recently held some form of animal feed. It was now empty, damp and needing a wash. I had pressed myself into the undergrowth to allow Michael’s van to pass but he did not pass, instead he had stopped and opened the window. He shouted some more. He said, “There is a crisis coming! The fields are too wet and the mud is so deep that machines cannot drive out over them. No one can plant potatoes. Or oats. Or grass for silage. No one can plant anything and if nothing is planted there will be nothing to eat. There will surely be a famine if this rain doesn’t stop!” He repeated his message about the impending famine a few more times, then he shook his head, saluted and drove on down the narrow lane.

30 March Saturday

We all hoped that Pat would have some asparagus on his table at the market today, but it is a bit early yet.  I came home with leeks and rhubarb.

After The Grand National

4 April Thursday

A second bright day. There is rain forecast for later but right now the day is bright and the sky is blue. The cows have been turned out and it appears that every field is full.

5 April Friday

I have received a summons to appear for jury duty. I sat on a jury some years ago and after that I was given a piece of paper saying that I need never do it again. The day that I was selected for that jury, I met an older woman in the car park who recognised me from the morning of jury selection. She had been among the initial group but she had not been chosen. She was deeply disappointed. The woman was nicely dressed. She wanted to appear tidy and respectable and reliable. I felt she was lonely and perhaps hoped for the activity of sitting on a jury with a group of people as a way to fill her days. She said that she was envious that I had been chosen. We talked for a few minutes and then she wished me luck.  As she turned away, the woman said, “And you, you are not even Irish.” I was not sure if I was meant to hear this. Nor was I certain if her comment was simply an observation or if she felt that someone born in the country should have priority in these situations.  I decided not to ask what she meant.

6 April Saturday

Storm Kathleen is bludgeoning us. We have been warned. The sound is endless and interrupted only by lashings of hard beating torrential rain. I watch the bird feeders being blown left and right and waving in the air fully horizontal. The birds hold on and they keep eating, no matter which way the feeders are blown.

8 April Monday

Forget-me-nots. Robin Run the Hedge. Honesty. Bluebells. Ferns. Harebells. Grape Hyacinths. Apple blossom. Wild Garlic flowers. Every day there are more spring flowers and plants to see. There are ones that I know and others that I do not have names for.  I am happy to see them all.

9 April Tuesday

The bright red board with yellow squares around the edges is in position to alert and to prevent anyone from backing into the structure behind it. I do not know what it is protecting but it is at the petrol station, so it is something to do with fuel.

10 April Wednesday

A shallykabukie is moving slowly across the window. I would not have noticed this snail in its striped shell except that I have been running to look out the window at the men above in Joe’s field. The men are replacing the utility pole. A few hours ago we lost our power. Looking on the ESB app, we found out that 452 houses had lost their electricity. The engineers were looking to locate the problem. Within the hour, 451 houses had their power restored. We remain without electricity. The pole beside us has fallen down. Its bottom is completely rotten and the weeks and weeks of unending rain meant that there was no way for it to remain standing. The afternoon is windy but dry. Eight men and two big JCBs arrived to do the job. Every so often, I run outside to watch and report on their progress.  Sometimes I just look out the window. The shallykabukie keeps making its way slowly across the window. By the time the electric is restored, it still has a long way to go.

11 April Thursday

The display for Signed Prayer Cards is large, and it is new. Twelve cards are on display for seven euros each. I asked Stacey why anyone would want to buy a card that is already signed by someone else. She explained that the cards are signed by the priest and also by the sender. The card is a guarantee to the recipient that the priest will mention the death or the illness of whoever the card is sent to during his next Mass. The priest will get everyone to pray together for that person. All for seven euro.

13 April Saturday

Breda told me that she saw the first swallow on the 9th. I have yet to see one myself, but I am on the look-out.

15 April Monday

Everyone is discussing The Grand National. Irish horses did very well on the day. Everyone is proud. The whole country is proud, even those who do not regularly follow the horses. A woman in the shop was thrilled that a horse named I am Maximus won Big. She announced to everyone in the shop that she should have bet on that horse. She was as excited as she might have been if she had actually bet on the horse. She said she should have bet on that horse because her dog is named Maximus. She said she would have bet on that horse if she had known his name and if she had someone to place a bet for her. She said that she had never before bet on a horse, not even once in her life and she did not even know how to place a bet but if she had known about this horse with the same name as her dog she would have surely bet on it and then she too would have won Big.

16 April Tuesday

Anthony told me that Mena was away in France for The Bones of Two Weeks. She might have only been away for eight or nine or ten days but by saying The Bones of Two Weeks, he meant most of that time. The implication is that there is not much left of two weeks by the time she returns. He could have said that Mena was away for a little more than a week but he did not. Mena is short for Philomena.

17 April Wednesday

I set off up the Mass Path.  I was pleased at how much drier things were, but then I stepped on a mossy rock and it was too slippery to hold me. I fell flat into the mud. I landed hard with my whole body. It was a thump that took my breath away but I felt proud that I had been able to keep my face from landing in the mud. I turned around and went back home. I was too wet and cold and heavy with clumpy mud all over my clothes and my hands to continue.

18 April Thursday

Five, maybe six, days now without rain. We are all reeling with pleasure. It is cold. The wind is sharp. But it is dry. Ploughing is being done in all directions. The tractors race along the roads from field to field. Everyone is in a hurry. Every field without cows or sheep in it is being prepared for planting. The whole district feels busy.

19 April Friday

Today I received notice back from the Courts Department. The letter excused me from Jury Duty with the expression: “on foot of the summons served on you…” I have been thinking about this terminology all day.

20 April Saturday

In my life, there continues to be a mix-up between the words call and ring. I always make the mistake of saying that I will call someone and they respond by saying: “Oh, no need to call! Just give me a ring.”  To call is to drop by and visit. Calling in on someone means they will be obligated to offer tea and maybe some biscuits. A call demands etiquette. A quick chat by phone is something else. When someone says that they tried to ring and the phone Rang Out, it means that no one picked up the incoming call. It rang and rang and there was no answer. When a number Rings Foreign, the person ringing can tell that the telephone is out of the country. I seem to be the only one who does not understand how the dial tone sounds different when the person at the other end of a phone line is abroad.

The Egg in The Window

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.

Elderflower Cordial 2024

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.

 

 

 

The Passing of the Plums

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.

The New Door

19 August Monday

Buffaloes are being bred and raised in County Cork. This is not news.  It has been going on for some years now. The mozzarella cheese that is being produced from their milk is wonderful. Some Italian producers came over to advise and to see how the project was going when it was first starting up. They declared that the mozzarella produced here is superior to their own. They said that buffaloes are better suited to the climate of Cork than they are to the dry parts of Italy where they have been being raised for years. I have just discovered the yoghurt made from the buffalo milk. It is a bright white. It is whiter than any cow’s milk yoghurt. I wonder if more farmers will be interested to switch from cow to buffalo herds.

20 August Tuesday

The bad-tempered feral cat and one kitten have returned. I thought they had decamped up to the farm. There were four or five kittens in the litter, but now there is only the one. I do not know where the others went. Maybe the fox ate them. The one remaining kitten follows the mother wherever she goes. The mother hisses at me outside the kitchen door. She wants food but she cannot be civil in order to get it. The enormous black and white cat arrives every few days and beats up the mother. The noise of their fighting is terrible to hear. The kitten watches.

21 August Wednesday

Is he feeling better in Himself? This is a way of asking how someone is doing, especially if they have been unwell recently.

22 August Thursday

The old door came from the Car Boot Sale in Fethard. It was a normal door made of heavy wood. Simon bought it for 5 pounds in 1997. He sawed the door in half and cut out a square hole for a window. He did other adjustments to make it function as a two-part stable door. It has lasted all these years, but now it is rotting from the bottom up. It has been rotting away for several years. Each winter we expect an invasion of mice through the bottom of the door. Mounted over the door is a glass windscreen from an old Ford. We think it is from a Ford Cortina. We found it above at Johnnie Mackin’s, among his multiple old broken-down cars and his spare parts Held In Reserve. T.J., the blacksmith, made some brackets to hold the glass in place. The windscreen serves as small protection from the rain, but only if a person is standing right up close to the door. We are waiting for the new door to be completed and to arrive. It will be sad to see the old door depart, but it will be good to have a door that is not decomposing. The glass visor will stay exactly where it is.

23 August Friday

I found some old postcards at a newspaper shop. The shop was badly lit.  There was not any light at all except for what came through the front window and since it was an overcast day, there was not even a lot of that.  The cards were old, dusty, and curled up. The rack was old and dusty too. I had to wipe off the sticky dust off the cards with a damp cloth when I got home. I like that the men fishing on this boat are wearing shiny street shoes and the man steering the boat is wearing a dress white shirt. There is not a bit of waterproof protection on any of them. Wearing such shoes would be both ridiculous and dangerous on a fishing boat. I like this card too much to send it to anyone. I shall have to keep it.

When I went to pay for my postcards, I found the owner of the shop leaning over the counter. On first glance, I thought he had collapsed and that his head was resting face down on the counter. I thought there was something wrong.  Instead I saw that he was holding a magnifying glass that was as big as a dinner plate. It was an inch or two over the open newspaper and his head was an inch or two from the magnifying glass. He was reading.

24 August Saturday

The handle from the old door is made of cast iron. Tommie told me that it is part of a Pulper. He said that when he was Coming Up, every house had a Pulper. He explained that there was a heavy wheel that had to be turned in order to mash up the turnips for animal feed.  He said it was sometimes called a Masher or a Mangle. There were two handles like the one we have, one on each side. When the turnips had been thoroughly mashed, two people lifted the container out, one person on each handle and together they carried the mash out to the animals.  He enjoyed telling me about the work and about the pile of turnips waiting to be pulped.  He said this was a job for the young ones and that it was a job that had to be done every single day. For as long as we have had this door, this has been our handle.

25 August Sunday

At this time of year, we are plagued by tiny insect bites. We never see the insects. Nor do we hear them. The insects bite at night and their bites itch and itch for days. I am convinced that they are the bites of tiny spiders. After a few weeks of these bites, the season is over and there will not be another bite until next August. Last night I turned on the light and found a huge wood spider on my pillow. I trapped him in a cup and threw him out the window. These are the spiders that I usually find in the bathtub. They crawl up the drain from outdoors. I am used to that and it does not disturb me to find one in the bathtub. I was not happy to find such a large spider on the bed.

26 August Monday

Take it Handy! is the expression used instead of Take it Easy!

27 August Tuesday

I walked around Cahir yesterday while the last few things were done for the car re-test. I have spent a lot of time in Cahir. The endless tweaking of the car’s problems and the rapidly evaporating state of Mike’s garage have not made things easier. I had to go to Dalton’s to get my tyres checked and to get my headlamps aligned before the re-test. I wandered around the Old Church and saw a good, though damaged, head carving that I had never noticed before. The head has huge ears. I passed the test and drove home relieved.

29 August Thursday

The new door was installed today. It was a difficult job because nothing in this house is straight or even. The old frame was as rotten as the door itself. It took from 8.00 in the morning until 6 o’clock, and still the inside edging has not yet been fitted. That will be done later. There was a large amount of cement cutting done to make the new frame fit. The dust was terrible. Philippe and Shane put up a curtain of blankets to stop the dust from going everywhere but it managed to travel anyway.

The new door is again a stable door in two parts, this time made of French Oak, and it has the same old locks and the same window glass as the old door. One handle has been re-installed. We re-used what could be re-used. The Pulper handle may or may not get put back into service.

30 August Friday

Bunny spent years as a lorry driver. He claims that he has driven every inch of every road on this entire island.  He refuses to take his holidays here because he does not want to go somewhere that he could drive to and back home in one day.  He does not consider that Getting Away.  I mentioned Donegal as being far away and a very long drive, but he scoffed at that and claimed he could drive there in four and a half hours, and four and a half hours back. By his standards, that was not far away enough to be A Holiday. This year he is going to Germany and he is traveling on an airplane.  He cannot go by boat because he gets seasick.

31 August Saturday

Years ago, Tom Browne did a lot of work for us.  One day, he wrote our initials in a piece of concrete: S.E.  Tom has been dead for at least 15 years. Finding that piece of concrete wedged in a bit of the old wall today made me think of him.

1 September Sunday

There are more black currants to pick every morning for breakfast. They never stop. Now the raspberries are ripening daily and with increasing speed, as are the figs. I check the figs every day, sometimes twice a day, because if they show the smallest suggestion of softening, the birds attack them. It is better for me to bring them indoors to ripen than to leave them outside where they will be ripped open.  I am also cutting back the lavender. I have two buckets full that I am tossing and turning to help it to dry, and so far I have barely made a dent in the crop.

2 September Monday

I had one of those days when I used the word CALL when I should have said RING and the use of the wrong word got me into trouble. Poor Tommie waited all day for my visit. Sometimes the incorrect word just slips out of my mouth. When we spoke on the phone at the end of the afternoon, he was petulant and told me that I have lived here long enough to know the difference between the two words. It is not up to him to know how people speak elsewhere. This is where he lives and this is where CALL means to drop in or to make a visit. RING is the word to use when speaking of a telephone conversation. A few minutes later, he apologized. He said that he has slept badly for two nights so he is feeling peevish. He said that he should not take his fatigue out on me.

Minced and Moist.

19 September Thursday

On every day that is bright and clear and dry, the roads are teeming with farm machinery. Everyone is busy cutting and bringing in their silage and hay and working to get all of the harvest work done.  Every road is full of large machines all traveling at fearsome speeds. And there are a fair amount of small spills.

 

20 September Friday

The young feral cat is no longer looking so much like a kitten.  It now arrives frequently without its miserable mother. This is a new development. It sits on the bench outside waiting and hoping for something to eat.

21 September Saturday

There is always yet another discussion on the radio about Birthday Cards.  There continue to be grandparents who post a card to a grandchild and include some cash in the envelope, but the child never receives the card nor the money.  The grandparent phones in to the radio in a state of outrage. There is an understanding that birthday cards posted in brightly coloured or shiny envelopes look like exactly what they are and if the handwriting looks like that of an older person, these envelopes are intercepted by unscrupulous people, maybe people who work at the post office or maybe not. The thieves throw the card away and keep the cash.  Talk show hosts on the radio have been discussing this problem for years and years, but it seems that every person sending cash forgets the advice not to enclose cash in a colorful envelope or else they do not listen to the radio anyway, so they think that they are the only ones who are sending a small amount of paper cash to a child.

22 September Sunday

I enjoy a line up of things at the far edge of a field:  a parade of cows heading toward the milking shed or a row of plastic wrapped bales looking like punctuation.

23 September Monday

There is a dead bird on the path.

24 September Tuesday

The days remain warm but the mornings are cold, as are the nights. The mixture of hot and cold causes misty pockets of fog to settle into low places. Sometimes these pockets are so dense that it is impossible to see for even a few metres in front of yourself. By mid-morning, the fog pockets have burned off but in the early morning the radio warns us to be careful of Clutches of Mist.

27 September Friday

We do not purchase sliced white bread often. When we do it is because there is no bread in the house and because Brennan’s TODAY’S BREAD TODAY is the only remaining choice in the village shop. This kind of squishy white bread is suited to some meals like Beans on Toast or French Toast or a Bacon Sandwich. When we have to buy this bread our menu adjusts accordingly. Since we do not really want this bread at all, the good thing about it is that we can buy a half a loaf. Or a HALF PAN as it is called. A HALF PAN is exactly that. It is a half a loaf of bread, or half of what came out of the pan. Today is the first time I noticed that A HALF PAN contains TEN slices of bread. By the time I noticed this the bread was nearly gone. The next time we buy this sliced white bread might be a long time from now. I hope that I remember to count the slices to see if it is really exactly ten slices. The flimsy white cardboard in the shape of a piece of bread is always in position exactly where the half is determined to be. Which I now know is between the tenth and the eleventh slices.

28 September Saturday

Including the woman behind the counter, there were three people in the shop, besides me. Both of the customers ahead of me discussed their cold or virus or flu with the woman. Everyone has this disease and no one can shake free of it. We do not even know what to call it. It is debilitating but not in a way that knocks one into bed. It just means we are all functioning well below par and we are complaining and comparing symptoms a lot, which does not make us feel better but it is all we can do. The older man in front turned to me as the woman at the counter went to get some paracetamol for him. He asked, “Are you a Quinn?” When I said, “No, I am not a Quinn, ” he squinted at me more carefully and said: “You’re not the one I thought you’d be.”

29 September Sunday

Torrential desperate lashing blustery rain. All day.  It does not matter how well protected one is. This rain comes from every direction and it is soaking. It is a good day to stay indoors.  In between the days or hours of heavy rain, there is bright warm sunshine.  I continue to collect a good bowlful of raspberries daily as well as cutting and trimming back endless amounts of lavender.

30 September Monday

Three pieces of enormous farm machinery meeting up on the narrow road make for a traffic jam. There is nothing to do but wait.

1 October Tuesday

A man stood in front of me at the supermarket. He placed five large heads of iceberg lettuce on the counter. The clerk looked at him and said, “You’re making a salad?”  He said “No. Rabbits. I have fifteen rabbits.They are the ones eating salad.”

3 October Thursday

The two cars were destroyed. No one was hurt. Ambulances arrived from both Cahir and Clonmel. Later the occupants of one of the cars received a bill for 1500 euro. It was a call out fee for the ambulances. They rang the ambulance office and said that they did not ring for the ambulances and luckily for them, they had not needed the ambulances. The question they had is Why do we have to pay? The woman on the phone asked if they were over 65. She explained that if so, they were okay because OAPs do not have to pay the call out fee anyway.

4 October Friday

I went to visit Tommie at the hospital. He was told he would be there only for three days, but it has now been three weeks. He is in the newly opened Slievenamon Ward. Slievenamon is a nearby mountain. We see it in the distance every day.  The name means The Mountain of Women. Tommie says he does not mind being in a ward named for women because he knows that this mountain is a fine mountain. Then he informed me that Women Are Important In A Society. This conversation and every conversation was interrupted by the horse racing playing on an enormous television screen in the corner. The sound was loud. As each race began, we had to stop talking so that Tommie and the two other men in the ward could watch the outcome. I took him a bag of tiny grapes from the Farmer’s Market.  He ate a few handfuls then he told me to hide them. He said that he is not allowed sugar in any form. He said he is not allowed much of anything. He told me that he is longing for a piece of toast but he is not allowed any of that either. Above his bed is a notice directing that his diet be Minced and Moist.

5 October Saturday

There are several places on the road down to the village with clumps of sheep wool all over the bushes. It is not like the old dirty wool hanging from a gate.  I have been driving past this wool all week. I cannot figure out where it came from. Maybe there was a truck loaded with freshly sheared wool and it blew out as the truck passed?  Sheep lose a little wool as they wander around but not as much as I am seeing.  There are never any sheep walking down that road either as it is much too busy. Each time I pass the wool on the ditch I think I will ask someone, but then I forget about it when I get to wherever I am going.

Hoof Proof Buckets

8 October Tuesday

The leaves on the corner of the grass roofed shed are turning yellow.  I call this the Potato Vine but I know it is not the proper name. It is a climbing plant in the Solanum Jasminoides family but I never remember its exact title. The white blossoms are my reason to grow it. The official name does not matter much to me.

10 October Thursday

“I’ll take a cup of Tea In the Hand.” This is what a person says when they are in a hurry, particularly if they are working. Or he or she might say, “A cup Out of the Hand.” In the Hand or Out of the Hand, both mean that the cup of tea will be accepted, but that it will be drunk from its mug while standing up. This is not a take away tea in a cardboard cup.  Nor is it a cup of tea accompanied by a biscuit or with a slice of bread and butter. This is not sitting down for a cup of tea.

11 October Friday

Cate told me about a sheep farmer who died recently. She said that before the burial, his family filled his coffin with wool.

12 October Saturday

Last Saturday, the food and health inspectors were at the Farmers’ Market. They went from stall to stall asking questions. They examined each refrigeration device. While I was at the organic vegetable stall, the man even asked to look underneath the table. He carefully took down the names of the two young French girls on duty. I wondered if he understood that they were part of the WWOOFER (World Wide Organisation of Organic Farms) scheme and might well be somewhere else working with a different organic farmer in a different county or even another country by next week. There were two or maybe three inspectors with clipboards and pens going around and each time I reached a table ready to purchase something there seemed to be an interrogation going on so I wandered away and hoped that a different table would have already been examined so that I could buy my vegetables or fish in an uninterrupted interaction. This Saturday the vendors are still talking about the awkwardness of last week’s inspections.  And one of the inspectors was there as usual.  Today she was there as an ordinary shopper with her market basket, and without a clipboard.

13 October Sunday

There is always a new version of a product that I would not have considered. Yesterday I saw a display of Hoof Proof Buckets at the Coop. They are on sale.

14 October Monday

The Whitworth Hospital is in Waterford. People go there for specialised treatments and diagnoses. A lot of people attend for cancer treatments. The car park is always full. It is always full and every car has someone sitting in it. Everyone who goes to Whitfield is driven there by someone else because they are usually not well enough to drive themselves home after whatever treatment they have. I say They but I include myself in this grouping of drivers. Us drivers could go somewhere else but we tend to stay nearby. We none of us know how long our passenger will be and we want to be ready for when they need to be driven home. We go into the entrance hall of the hospital and we use the toilets and we get ourselves a cup of tea or coffee and then we return to our cars to wait. Some people read a book. Some read a newspaper. Some sleep. A lot of people look at their phones. In fine weather, an older man will lean on his car with his tummy pressed against the door, and his elbows on the roof. Standing out of his car like that shows that he is available if anyone cares to have a chat.

16 October Wednesday

Walker and I have been out together three times this week.  When I open the gate, he races out of the yard and then turns to look back at me. I stretch my arms and point first left and then right. He decides and swings first his head and then his body in his choice of direction. Today it was right. We headed for Tom Cooney’s fields. Walker was distracted on the way down hill by a dead rabbit on the verge in front of Sean and Elvira’s house. We left the rabbit and walked up the farm track as far as the green barn. The fields all around had been ploughed and planted, so I did not think we should go any further. Walker was unusually eager to go back the way we had come. I could not understand his rush to turn around. When we walked back up the small slope I understood. It was the rabbit. He was rushing back to check on the dead rabbit. He did no more than to sniff the corpse up and down several times. He did not try to eat any part of it. He just needed to know it was there and that no one had disturbed it in his brief absence.

17 October Thursday

The woman in front of me had an enormous box to post at the Post Office counter. The postmistress assumed that the woman was sending eggs again. She confirmed that she was indeed posting eggs. The woman explained that the eggs were peacock eggs and that people who want to raise peacocks are willing to pay a high price for them. The eggs need a large amount of padding inside the package so that they do not break on route. Her parcels are always large but always light .

18 October Friday

There are terms that evolve and everyone knows what they mean so the rest of the information can be left out. Lately, I have noticed the use of  The Middle Aisle. Lidl and Aldi are discount supermarkets owned by two German brothers. In the two central aisles there are specials on offer, stacked high. The offers change every week. It might be tools or back to school equipment or maybe gardening or kitchen or welding equipment. Whatever is there is there in a finite amount and when it is gone there will probably not be any more of that thing. People rush to buy electrical tools when they are announced. If an item has been purchased from The Middle Aisle it is just that. It is a bargain. There is no need to mention the name of the store.

19 October Saturday

It is good to have a new cheese stall at the Farmers’ Market. Most of the cheeses on sale are Irish cheeses, from small producers, including many that we have not seen before. The people who run the stall live in Lismore. They drive over the mountains to do the market. The Lismore Market is now closed for the winter, but they do one in Dungarvan and maybe another one in Youghal. It has been a long time since there was a woman who did a cheese stall at our market, but she always told people that she did not like cheese and that she never ate it herself. She was not a good advertisement for her products. On her final day at the Farmers’ Market, she said she was retiring because she preferred to play golf on a Saturday morning. On that last day, she told me that her name was Catherine not Kathleen. I had been calling her Kathleen for years. I do not know why she waited so long to correct me.

20 October Sunday

There are many jobs to do before the winter sets in. Firewood has been delivered so it must be stacked in the lean to and in the house. It is all ash, good and dry, but heavy to handle. I must snap off all but the tiniest figs from the branches. The raspberries are nearly gone. I continue to get a small bowlful every other day but they are not sweet. The acidity gives a different pleasure.  Soon I will need to put out some mouse traps and maybe some poison too. The small cat and his mother and the big black and white one skulk around the kitchen door all day. I wonder if they will serve as a deterrent to the mice.

21 October Monday

Storm Ashley hit the country yesterday. Counties on the Atlantic coast were hit the hardest, but even here we had an Amber warning in place until three in the morning. Everyone hunkered down. Lawn furniture was put away, as was anything else that might be snatched up by the wind and smashed into something else. Candles, matches and torches were placed on tables in easy-to-reach locations. The winds were wild and noisy all day, and well into the night. The rain came in gusts and it pelted in every direction. What it was not doing was falling from up to down. The rain was everywhere and during the intervals when it stopped the sun came out and there were rainbows. Sometimes there were rain and rainbows at the same time. There was always wind. The wind never paused. Coastal locations were warned of surges. By this morning the radio was full of reports of flooding and of the number of houses that lost electricity. We did not lose electricity nor trees nor slates off the roof. There are a lot of branches to pick up and there are odd things to be found in odd places.

22 October Tuesday

I went to visit Tommie in the Rehabilitation Unit of St Patrick’s Hospital in Cashel. He was in the physical therapy room when I arrived. They allowed him out to have a brief visit with me. We sat together in the bright sunny visiting room Wearing a bright red sweater, he looked much better than he had in the hospital. He is no longer on oxygen, but he still is not allowed toast. I do not understand this diet he is on and he does not understand it well enough to explain it to me. Tommie told me that the food served on The Unit is very good but he explained that “When you share food with Strangers, they‘ve got a little bit of you.” By strangers, he means anyone who is not family, but he said that at his age his whole life is already in the control of others. He also explained to me that being old means saying Thank You a lot.He was interested to know if I found the driving difficult going through the various roundabouts needed to drive to Cashel. He considered the journey a massive undertaking and could not believe I had come so far and all alone just to see him. It is only about twenty kilometres but to his mind, it was far. He was eager to discuss a possible trip to Dunnes’ together after he returns home, so that he can buy some Christmas chocolates for gifts and a bottle of whiskey for Pat Flan. At that point the physiotherapist arrived to collect him. She said that he would have to keep working on his leg exercises if he is planning a shopping trip to Dunnes’.

23 October Wednesday

As well as walking Walker, I have been taking Jessie out. We go up the track that Breda and I call Murphy’s Lane although I am not sure that it has anything to do with anyone named Murphy these days.  Jessie loves to race through the stubble and to scout around the edges of the fields for rabbit holes.  I like examining the old wreck of a house and the shed with the triangular windows.

25 October Friday

People arrive at one of the two shops in the village and they load something into the boot of their car or into the back of a truck. Bags of coal or bags of potatoes.  Gas canisters. Kindling. Blocks. Fence posts. Then they might have a conversation with someone else who has stopped to get something.  And then with another person. Eventually they make their way into the shop and tell someone behind the counter what they have taken and they pay for it. Farming can be a lonely life.  For a lot of people, not only for the farmers, coming to the village to buy petrol is as much about meeting someone to talk to as it is about replenishing supplies.

Out From Under

28 October Bank Holiday Monday

Twelve or thirteen hounds ran down the track.  They raced around the house three times and then around the book barn and the tool shed another two times. They were barking and baying as they ran. As a mass, they jumped up the banking and disappeared into Joe’s field. We neither saw nor heard them again. We never saw a hunter nor anyone with a gun. We did not see any humans all day.

 

29 October Tuesday

The herd of young cattle in Joe’s top field rushed over to look at me as I walked by. The noise of that many large animals running was thunderous. Running as a crowd made them appear strong and fearless, but they stopped abruptly when they neared the gate where I was standing.

30 November Wednesday

I went to the Chinese acupuncturists. The man and woman work together. She speaks English and he does not. After having me explain things to her, she repeats everything to him in Chinese. He inserted needles and left me in a darkened room for about an hour. He hummed a little as he worked but the only thing he said was: “Okay Lady?” After removing the needles he gave me a vigorous massage and then repeated: “Okay Lady?” giving me a little tap on my foot to let me know that he was finished.

31 October 2024 Thursday

Walker and I walked up to the Green Barn. Whatever has been planted in the the fields is growing fast.

1 November Friday

I went into a shop in Cahir to buy a newspaper. There were two young priests waiting for toasted bacon sandwiches.  They also ordered coffee and picked out a selection of chocolate bars. They were wearing long white robes and sneakers. One priest said to the other that he loved the big pockets of their robes because he is always hungry.  He likes to carry a supply of chocolate.

2 November Saturday

The feral cats scream when the kitchen door is opened. The feral cats scream when the kitchen door is closed. The young one, who is no longer a kitten but not yet a full grown cat, is omnipresent. The big black and white bruiser arrives frequently, but the young cat’s mother rarely makes an appearance. I was on the verge of giving the small cat a name. I have grown fond of her. I think of it as a she but I have no idea of her sex. She sits on the pillow and she sleeps on the pillow and she is rarely not on the pillow on the bench. But now this screeching has begun. I thought it was a demand for food but once it has started the screaming and pushing at my legs and the door do not stop. The small cat screams as though it is in danger or in pain. She should be up at the farm catching rodents and drinking milk.

5 November Tuesday

We visited Tommie at St Patrick’s. He was not looking as robust as the last time I saw him. Maybe it was just because he was not wearing his bright red sweater. He was happy for a visit though he told us that he had had a niece down from Dublin earlier and he said she wore him out. He claimed that she never stopped talking for two solid hours. He told us a long rambling story about having worked under a bus for his whole life. He said he was never once Out From Under The Bus, not until the very last day of his job. He said he was happy to know that he need never again work under a bus. I knew he had worked as a farm labourer from the time he left school at 14. I could not make the connection with the word Bus. I am certain that Tommie has never ridden on a bus. He told me that once. It took time for me to understand that he was not saying BUS but BOSS. He was glad to be Out From Under the Boss.

6 November Wednesday

The day began grey and overcast. It promised to continue like this. The weather would not improve. Heavy cloud cover made everything feel sad. I did not know what to do with myself. The one thing I knew that I did not want to do was to talk to anyone. I did not want to talk and I did not want to listen. I decided to walk up the Mass Path. I have been unable to get through there since the spring because it has been heavily overgrown, and branches and trees have blown down. I decided the struggle of trying to go up there would be a good distraction from the ongoing and endless reports of results and analysis. Taking work gloves, secauters and a thorn-proof jacket, I pulled on my wellie boots and set off. Right away at the bottom, by the stream, I had to climb over and through a fallen tree. There were a few moments of clear walking but most of the journey was slow and difficult. I cut brambles and boughs out of my way in order to keep moving uphill. I got as far as Johnnie Mackin’s orchard, or to the part of the path that runs alongside the orchard. The path ahead was blocked for as far as I could see. There were apples on the ground, some rotting and some looking still good enough to collect. I thought I might return with a big bag. The smell was fetid. I could not go any further. The way was heavily tangled and overgrown. I considered climbing up the banking and into the orchard and continuing that way, but I quickly saw that that option was almost as bad. I turned around and started back down the hill towards home. I stepped on a mossy rock and crashed to the ground. I wrenched my shoulder trying to break my fall and I fell heavily onto my hip. I lay in the wet leaves and mud and I caught my breath. I wondered if I had broken my hip even while I knew that I had not. I burst into tears. I was not crying about the physical pain. I was crying about everything else. I was weeping in fear and disappointment and rage. I cried. I sobbed. Eventually, shaking with the cold and the wet mud soaking through my trousers, I stopped crying. I got up and continued my way back down the treacherous path.

 7 November Thursday

While grabbing a clump of purple sage, a bee stung my left index finger. The bees and their activities are dying back but some are still flying around to get what they can from the plants. They stop and rest often. Which is why the bee was in among the sage leaves. It stung me when I grabbed it. My finger is now swollen and tight and it feels like it might explode.

8 November Friday

I thought it would be my hip or my thigh that would hurt but it is my shoulder that has retained the memory of my fall. Today, I can barely lift my right arm. It must have taken the whole weight of my body falling as my arm reached out to catch myself.

9 November Saturday

The geese are all over the castle car park at the market. Some days, like today, they refuse to go back into the water. By the time they have returned to the river the tarmac is a slippery mess.

11 November Tuesday

The light is terrible. It is the same white light all day. There is no sun and there are no shadows and there is no variation from morning until the end of the afternoon. Day after day. Every day is the same. A heavy white cloud cover sits over everything. It is bitterly cold. We cannot see any further than the fence through the fog. There is neither background nor any view behind even the most familiar things. Night falls early and the darkness is complete. There are no clouds, no stars and no moon. The dense fog sits heavily on the land and on our spirits. The cold and the fog are the only topics of conversation.

12 November Tuesday

I continue to sand the table. Over many years, the light from the skylight has made the varnish break down into a gummy surface. Newspapers stick on the table and they tear as they are lifted.  Kieran tells me that this is what happens when the surface has been exposed to too much sun over a long time. The top surface has mostly come off but now I am trying to make it all into an even tone. Some of the old varnish is hard to remove. I keep thinking I will get an electric sander on the job, but I only think about it. I do not get around to getting one. I just keep working away at small mottled areas. I am now using the Japanese sanding device which is made of a lot of bristles tightly bound together with strong cotton rope. The working method is to hold the bundle in both hands, one hand on top of the other and to push and pull along with the grain of the wood. It is satisfying work, but it is slow. Maybe in the spring I will finish the surface off with an electric sander, but for now I continue to push and pull.

13 November Wednesday

Fergal sent Vinnie to collect the book shipment. The door to my workroom was open while he loaded 27 boxes from the room to his van. When he was finished, I closed the door and went into the house for lunch. Later I took a walk with Breda in the bitterly cold white fog. We wore reflective vests over our jackets. The few cars or tractors passing us all had their head lamps on and they drove slowly. It was 6.30 before I went back up to my room to look for something. The small cat, who I am now calling Ruth, was in there. She started screeching the minute I walked in. Had I not left something behind she would have been in there all night, warm but even hungrier than usual. She knocked a box of nails and a lot of papers onto the floor. As soon as I go outdoors she follows me from building to building and waits patiently outdoors.  Maybe she thinks she is a dog, but dogs do not scream.