....to Ireland and back.....

Well drugged with the travel sickness pills I would doze intermittently on an Irish ferry, my eyes almost too sore from cigarette smoke that engulfed those ferries in those days. I would blink at the morning light over the port and we would trundle our way slowly off the ship and along the concrete out into the real world of Ireland.

Sometimes we would follow the family tradition .'...on return to the homeland Mammy and Father....they would always celebrate ....a glass of champagne in The Gresham ...just the one to mark the ocassion if you understand.'......I could cope with that little tradition very well indeed ...lovely.

I was not however to follow the tourist routes, although I can say I have lain on the parched grass of St Stephen's Green in the sun trying unsucessfully to stop soft ice cream pouring through my fingers, have had coffee in Bewleys, walked the Cathedrals, counted the bullet holes in the Post Office wall, admired the Georgian architecture and gazed into the swirling dark green waters of the Liffey at night when the twinkling lights run like watercolours on wet paper. In later years I have returned and advanced my tourist education somewhat ...but not then, then there were things to do, places to go, people to see...

My mother back home on the Welsh border was not pleased. In fact she was absolutely hopping..'Havent you forgotten you are a mother now...tearing about the countriside with that ...that ...that....(on good days it would be long haired lout...on bad days there would be a list of drug smuggler, arms dealer, terrorist....need I go on? Irish and Catholic would appear somewhere in the tirade as well) It went over my head most of the time, I only headed out on the trips when N was away with his father and when I was in Ireland N was happily holidaying in France or similar so that argument never really held water. I know ...she was scared of the unknown, the unfamiliar, of me stretching my relatively clipped wings. My dear old dad quite liked the long haired lout, they would sit in the sun in the back garden of my cottage over mugs of tea and put the world to rights while she sat inside bristling like a Jack Russell with hackles. However even dad would quietly ask if I was sure I had enough to cover the fare home should I want to come back alone and slip me £20 but I bet mother was the instigator ...

The Ireland I saw included the vast lonely open spaces, where curlews mournfully wept in to the early morning and evening skies that opened above, milky, like opal, shot with glimpses of pink and gold tracery. The dark, dripping woods hiding streams and rivers, clean and fast flowing over brown and cream stones. We walked. The smell of wet earth after rain, of plants and wildflowers I had never seen before ...perhaps I just hadn't been looking. Evenings would find us in an out of the way bar perhaps listening to a yellow headed girl, her eyes closed as she sang, with a voice as clear and as sharp as Waterford crystal itself singing mournful tales of love lost, a group of toothless old men would hang on her every word as though hearing it for the first time. A fiddle would cry in the shadows. The fishing harbours, the scruffy boys with stand on end hair in odd wellies fishing with home made rods off the side at high tide. The ruins of houses, large and small, old donkeys waiting for a friendly voice that never returns.

Sometimes we would find the fire irons crossed on the floor and crotchety old men, all brown skinned from nicotine and hard work would leap about amazingly agile in complicated patterns for pints of Guinness or a couple of whiskies as a reward. The fiddle was very happy on those nights. I was in good company, I was made welcome ...he took me to the places he knew, where he was treated like royalty, the prodigal son back for the fatted calf ceremony. Long complicated enquiries of relations had to be exchanged and mulled over ...sometimes for hours at a time like a ritual...but I loved it and always had a bagful of questions for later. Later, in cheap and clean B and B's, with lino on the landing, with the mullioned window open to the stars when he would accentuate the Irish accent to tell me stories and sing songs that would have me shrieking hysterically until a knock would clump on the floor from the ceiling below.....

He taught me the history, of poverty, despair, of politics that lost their way when disaster struck, the infighting, the struggle to rise above adversity was like trying to climb a mountain barefoot, of a stuggling economy, the people that left to make new lives elsewhere and those that stuggled on to stay, the religion , the need for something secure to grasp on to, to provide a backbone in a community lost and alone.

I look at our dwindling congregations in Churches and Chapels and wonder that if today we were really at our wits end, against the wire, would we not be back in there clogging up the doors to get in? Hanging on a preacher's word to make sense of reality? Just a thought ...no need to answer.

I saw the Ireland of hard work, grit and determination, of generosity, kindness unsurpassed, loyalty and humility and of course humour.

I met his widowed mother one afternoon, a quietly spoken brown bird of a lady ooozing pride for her youngest son who worked hard and undoubtedly provided her with the little things to make life easier in her old age. His sister, a gentle eyed nun, smiled peacefully from beneath her grey veil, she was at one with her world and it showed. I saw the family album of black and white photographs of three happy smiling children in stages of play, at school and as they grew up.

I was to see those pictures, great canvases of oils, of dark rivers, night skies over London with skyscrapers, fingers piercing the hearts of the stars....moody almost threatening. Flooded Irish rivers, craggy Welsh mountains, and heartstoppingly ...my cottage and the jumbled layered garden falling down the higgledy piggledy terrace to the brook at the bottom. I think he loved that little house as much as I did.

Back in England, through the little stripey door that was not high enough for me never mind anybody else, we would sketch each other in the firelight...I doubt I would recognise myself now, and the sketch pads lie well hidden beneath years of collected detritus. he was almost biblical with the scrolls of coppery hair and the beard...the wild blue eyes, a John the Baptist or a Judas perhaps. Sometimes he would cook with strange and delicious ingredients from the Chinese shops in London...but he was a liver and bacon with onion gravy, mashed potatoes and cabbage person at heart. We would read, listen to music or he would be tapping away producing a mountain of typewriiten sheets to light the fire with because only about four would ever be saved.

The only sure thing in this life is change ...so someone said, and sadly there was to be change ....my father's sight began to fail and my mother already infirm due to arthritis was heading into panic mode. As a 'lonely only' I had to be nearer to them and so the For Sale sign went up and a rather larger tranny van was required to move me, five year old son, three cats, two rabbits and what appeared to be half of Toys R Us into a sterile brand new little bungalow on the approach road to the village I had grown up in ......the end of an era in the little house.

The phone calls lessened, the visits became more sporadic and eventually ceased as I took on more responsibilities of aging parents and a now school aged child ....I suppose I knew it would happen like that.......committment had never featured, had never even been discussed. One Christmas I had bought him a lovely deep blue jumper ....the colour that can only make blue eyes bluer...I found one of those silly badges and pinned it on the front ...he laughed at the words 'I am a confirmed batchelor ...a thing of beauty and a boy forever' ...he wore the badge!

At the outset, three years previously when the conveyancing was done and I had the letter from the solicitor, who is a dear friend, telling me the little cottage was mine he had added a poem ........

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dripping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now , for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Little did he know that I would indeed go to Innisfree with a red haired Irishman, who knew this poem and recited it to me right there in Co Sligo with the watery sun peeping from behind grey storm clouds with wet purple heather at our feet. A curlew cried mournful tears and so did I.

...now if you are sitting comfortably....

In 1981 I bought a cottage, with my share of the former matrimonial home. I arrived upon it by chance and loved it instantly. I think the neighbours thought of having the signature tune of 'My old man said follow the van...' as I tuned up with my belongings in a friend's rusty tranny van, clutching a petulant two year old, a spitting cat and a canary in a cage. Within an hour I had undressed the bedroom of the foulest purple cabbage wallpaper I had ever seen. I simply refused to sleep with gigantic purple cabbages peering at me and threw it all in the front garden. Other than that and horrible problems with the drainage I was 'home'. It was a terraced two up, two down with an extension that for 'an extension' had been done well and didnt leak. A former coal miners cottage, sometimes a whiff of damp coal would just linger ...even on a hot day. A small front room with a stone fireplace opened into a wonderful wonderful kitchen. It was huge! I have never before or since seen a window the size of the one in that kitchen.....it sort of rose up behind the sink and just kept going upwards .....bit of a b*gger to clean if I remember rightly. The light and space in that kitchen was wonderful...armchairs by the Parkray, a pine table in the middle ...the floor was beautifully tiled in terrazzo speckled tiles that scrubbed up a treat. There were actually real yellow roses and honeysuckle clambering around the little front door that cheekily wandered into the bedroom windows as if my accident.

I 'played' with that house ....I sanded wooden floors, took the understairs coal cupboard out and the door from the foot of the stairs and lightened the whole place up with white walls, my paintings and pine bookshelves. Friends were always in and out and I would happily cook for the evening . Warm evenings would see us on the top terrace of the back garden looking down onto the tops of the trees along the brook at the bottom. Two year old found friends for the first time, a sandpit and a new rabbit....he was in paradise as well. I learned to ride at the local stables and painted furiously at evening classes, and upholstery I seem to remember vaguely....

Part of my job at that time entailed working with bailiffs and that included attending auctions and sales. I was watching a collection of articles being sold in Bridgnorth one hot summer afternoon noting the prices down and was far more interested in the other stuff being sold than what I was there for. A tall man with longish red hair ...mmm nice I thought...was studying his sale catalogue and writing furiously. I wondered if he was doing the same sort of job as me because he was not bidding as far as I could tell. I left for the day ...out into the sunshine and off to my little home.....

The following week I was back in the sale room....sitting at the side with my notebook and pen ...trying to look invisible but probably had a sign above me saying ...'This nosey woman works for the Bailiff department' everybody seemed to know anyway. Aha ...spotted man with red hair again ...but before I could peep through my curtain of long hair ..he was there ...in front of me asking me what was I looking for this week.....yikes...how I ever answered in sensible English I shall never know. He found us polysterene cups of foul coffee and we watched the sale sitting together...both noting in our notebooks ....he travelled up from London for these sales ..searching for something in the hunting, fishing, shooting articles.....can't remember if he ever found it.

We exchanged telephone numbers! Wow! Just how decadent did that feel! Sometimes the phone would ring late in the evening and we would natter away for hours...not often though..just enough. We met at other sales, wandered around the lovely towns of South Shropshire in the long summer evenings, ate at riverside pubs and talked books, art, films, history, houses and everything else besides. He was artistic and painted ....I was to see these pictures much later ...wonderful paintings of colour and depth..of townscapes, skyscrapers...lurid skies and seas.
He would be best described as a 'Jack of all Trades' flitting from one line of work to another as the mood took him and the chance of making money appeared. From writing articles to wiring a house, demolition, renovation, camera work ...he would talk himself into work ..but then the Irish accent was upon him and he could charm the very birds out of the branches.....except my mum!

When he wasn't rushing around to make a fortune he was researching and writing and if N was away as he often was on alternate weekends, I would leave the key with a neighbour with instructions to feed the livestock and catch the Friday evening train down to London......it was a dream......wandering around Hampstead Heath on hot summer evenings listening to the traffic hum in the distance, funny little bistro places with wonderful food, a small cinema to see a newly released film and of course the theatres. Then it was to Devon and Dartmoor, Wales....I was on home territory there and took over...was taught to fly fish in the River Dovey...not something I have done since I might add. Then of course there was Ireland...............

On books, babies and Ireland.....

Well these grandchildren are wonderful little chaps and chapesses but hell aren't they germ infested little heaps! Not having had a cold for 4 years I find myself rushing for the throat sweets and tissues for the 8th time since October.....arrgghhhh. It goes something like this .....'Muuuuuum....would it be OK if I dropped T off with you for a couple of hours this afternoon.....T's at work and I would like to play football .....and T's got a cold so it will be too cold for him up there......please?' .......No problem...and I get the fire stoked and the Olbas oil out and his fvourite green blanket with the frog on and we are away ......wonderful time!
Four days later ........I've got it! And who is there to stoke the fire and find me a blanket .....? You must be joking...its get on with it woman ...its only a cold! Oh great...well I will be the first grandma in a mask next time that call comes!

The wallpaper has arrived ....in a Securicor van ...he still has no idea....never mind, better he is left in blissful ignorance ...I wonder if he will notice that the walls will end up blue intead of yellow ..........we'll see....
A job for lambing time I reckon...two weeks to go and crossing the days off ...and the girls are nearly as wide as they are high.....some dry warm weather would be an enormous help if anybody in charge is reading this.....please....

I read Edna O'brien's Country Girls .....the last time I read it I was probably 16ish ....I was quite ...shocked ...really. I do not remember being 'shocked' at 16...which is quite sad in a way I suppose...or perhaps I see more now ...I dont know ...but the brutality of a drunken father shocked me, then the behaviour of the men in the village had me wondering why they weren't on the Sex Offender Register...because they sure would be in this day and age! Mr Gentleman ....well!
But I loved it all over again ...the sadness, the poignancy, the innocence......Ireland...wonderful. I was back at the market bookstall...and found the next in the sequence ...'A Girl with Green Eyes' ..came home read it in 2 evenings ...loved it all over again...The West coast of Ireland, The Burren.....and this time I had actually been there..and could really see the soft green trees heavy under the weight of rain, the mist coming off the sea, the odd cow in a stone walled feild and a donkey peeping out of a shed or peeping in through an open front door...the big houses, the little painted houses, the streets and the bars......

I know the Welsh have a word 'Hireath' for that wrenching longing for Wales when away from it ...but Wales doesn't actually 'do' it fro me ...ducks at all the hurling missiles coming down on me from 4 miles away. Perhaps its because I remember wet weekends in Blaneau Ffestiniog, holidays in Tenby,,,(five minutes from the beach......as if I could abseil with 3 kids and a pushchair..and a dog!) Travel sickness in Dollgellau ....youngest son and I cannot get through Dollgellau without it! Being stopped on Anglesey by the flashing Police car and being accused of being New Age travellers and being told to 'go home' ...charming start to a week's BOOKED holiday! See what I mean?

However if I can run the gauntlet of Wales and scramble onto a ferry and leave the shores and head to The Emerald Isle...I am a very happy bunny. Even though some trips have had their 'moments' .....(finding the secluded country cottage we had booked was on a new housing estate and our neighbours were asylum seekers that spoke no English...who set fire to their rubbish in the parking bays...oh and the back wall was that of the local dog track) The last time we came home from Ireland on a mill pond sea in a glorious sunset I sat with a lump in my throat ...wondering when I would be able to get back.... ...so what is the Irish version of 'Hireath' please ?...Because I think I have got it...and its a lot more acceptable than a cold!

It all started with a red headed Irishman 26 years ago........................

On wallpaper, tiles and books.......

Firstly I have to say thank you to everybody for the comments re the tiles and the quandary I was in....after reading all those and a discussion with the artist herself which included an awful lot of giggling and laughing....I have redesigned my thoughts concerning my sterile bathroom. The yellow wallpaper is staying in the bag and if I can find a receipt it will be going back from whence it came. Standing in a hospital foyer last week ...a very nice hospital foyer I might add...I took a sharp intake of breath which caused himself to turn eyes wide open ....'whassamatter?' in a stage whisper of some decibels. 'The wallpaper!' I whispered back, 'that colour!' 'Oh for God's sake I thought you were in pain.....never mind the sodding wallpaper...lets just get out of here!'

I found an old fashioned wallper shop yesterday ...the type that has books of wall paper patterns...not just foot square pieces glued to high up boards. So I stood there and I think I must have been through twenty of these big heavy pattern books and suddenly there IT was. IT is blue....I dont like blue in decoration only in clothes. But IT is not one of those pale blues that always went in 1960's kitchens and bathroom ...this is a darker cornflower blue of vibrant summer skies and Mediterannean seas ..(off postcards ...coz I have never seen it for real I hasten to add.) So I ordered the required amount vowing never to disclose the price to himself who will have me tied up and horsewhipped for spending that amount on wallpaper....I can hear it ....'Good god woman have you taken leave of your senses we could buy a shed for that!' I know dear ...believe me I know. But one just has to get the right background for tiles from UPL doesn't one?

So the tiles ..well what we (UPL and I ...himself is not consulted) have decided is two strips of six tiles on hardboard to make a bold feature above the bath so when the door opens.....there they are! Being on hardboard I can take them to wherever we move to when we decide to get off this windy ridge, that has no soil for a decent garden, (I long for a garden again with veg and flowers to cut...although this will pass as the peonies and roses bloom and the long summer evenings turn to navy blue nights and we are still sitting outside watching the lights twinkling in the valley) So there we are ...sorted...on the bathroom front anyway....just waiting for said paper to arrive ...in a securicor van I hope!

Meanwhile back in the market last Saturday I found a copy of Edna O'Brien's book 'The Country Girls' ...although I knew I did once own a copy I couldn't remember seeing it within the last few years ...so I bought it and couldn't wait to get it home to read it. The last time I read this book I must have been somewhere about 16 or 17 ...I knew that I had loved it then ..and the following books 'Girl with Green Eyes' and 'Girls in their Married Bliss'. I wonder what happened to mine ...must have lent them out never to be seen again ....isn't that aggravating?

So off to Ireland courtesy of Edna O'Brien and not a ferry in sight..........bliss.

Seven facts ........

Thank you Pondside.......

here goes ....

1 I loathe and detest Parmesan Cheese one whiff of the stuff and I am nauseous. Add the odd tomato and I'm off..........yuk!

2 I learned to ride when I was 28 because I wanted to get over a fear of horses. Now I can ride but am STILL scared of horses!

3 I love Ireland with a passion, it started with Edna O'Brien, then a mad, bad, red haired Irishman then took me by the hand to show me his 'home', since when I have been back...and back ...and back....totally addicted.

4 Have always suffered from travel sickness due to an ear imbalance thingy wotsit ...but it doesn't affect me on trains ....came to love train travel as a young child, still do ...now if I could just be sure i could get round the world by train .......

5 As a wayward teenager joined the local St John Ambulance Brigade and had the job of patching up MR Suzuki himself after a nasty spill at an international moto cross event. Also met Sandy Lyle and Tony Jacklin whilst dressed in my grey uniform.

6 I have three big strapping sons who I am proud to say I can also count as three of my bestest friends...although they can drive me to drink and prescribed drugs on ocassions...bless!

7. I can literally whimper over beautiful china.....you should have heard me in the Moorcroft factory shop in Stoke on Trent....I suppose it is a throw-back to when my Grandfather was a policeman in Coalport.....I think he was paid in china! Nothing like a nice bit of Aynsley to get me going ...........

So there you go ..seven random facts...if you havent done this by now ...off you go...

The above picture is a gorgeous tile from the Un Peu Lefoque collection, I love it to bits. So why has one tile caused so much upheaval, consternation, long discussions, soul searching silences and now ...stalemate?

We have been in this house 11 years on the 12th April...it was our second choice. We still look longingly at first choice but it was not meant to be. Second choice needed a lot of work and as I read the trials and tribulations of those undergoing building or renovation projects I sigh with relief to think we are through that bit ..got the tee shirt... seen the film. Yes... I came home to a kitchen that was renamed 'Beruit on a bad night', we still remember the winter nights with no heating when we all sat under one duvet ...five of us....and watched TV on a portable crackly thing, after washing up in the bath.....NEVER, NEVER AGAIN! There are still things to do ...a fireplace in the lounge to offset the log burner, the bedroom floors, a set of fitted cupboards..but we have come a long way in 10 years.

Anyway ...both bathrooms need decorating desperately. The downstairs one is more clinical than most hospital sluice rooms being simply basic white ...nice but cold...nice but clinical...I always expect to find a box of those vile rubber gloves that gynaecologists favour on the windowsill...the previous occupants wallpapered with masses of orange and yellow flowers to relieve it ...but they have gone thanks to middle son who is a whizz at wallpaper stripping. So what would brighten my sluice room I thought? ..Aha..a band of beach huts.....and after discussing mundane things like cost with UPL, miraculously and via North Wales a beach hut appeared! Wonderful! Sorted!

Until he stuck his oar in! He uttered one word.....'bookshelves'! I stood open mouthed.....'Remember what happened with the bookshelves and how distraught you were?'

Oh yes, I remember it well........

We lived in a lovely brand new house for 10 years before we arrived here....it was nice but we were a room short ...a decent dining room...and it eventually irritated me enough to want to move. A lovely man, a wonderful craftsman at his best, had worked out how we could incorporate bookshelves into the lounge, we always have so many books and never enough space for them. When it came to selling the house I wanted to take the bookshelves down and have them re-erected here.....but the buyers loved them as well and begged me to leave them in situ...so sadly I did. Three days later I had to go back for something and was horrified to see the whole wall of shelves had gone .....completely! I stood there open mouthed ...'errr I thought you wanted the shelves?' I croaked in horror...'We sold them!' she said proudly. I could have knocked her flat!

So...will I want to move once all the work has finished? mmmmmm might do. Will I be putting a band of beach huts into the bathroom only for some moron to demolish as soon as my back is turned? A moron who doesnt recognise the work of a craftsman when it jumps up and pokes them in the eye? Have I got the ten year itch to move? He wants to move nearer to the Welsh coast ..well he is Welsh. I'm not sure about that, a market town like Bishops Castle beckons....or a cottage with an orchard and ten acres....so when anybody asks ...'Why have you got a tile of a beach hut in the middle of the china on the dresser?' The answer comes back in stereo...'Don't ask!' The bathroom is stripped of its orange daisies, the ceiling is painted, the paintwork and tiles are scrubbed.....and its now stalemate!

That was the week that was

Is it just me or has this last week whizzed past much faster than normal? One minute I was sitting here last Sunday and now I'm back and my goodness the middle bit passed in a veritable blur!

On a foray into Welshpool yesterday I thought I really do need a new pair of work shoes.....should be a two minute task ...how difficult could it be to find a pair of plain black court shoes with a heel.....VERY difficult as it happens! The comments ranged from....'sorry not in your size' to ' we are waiting for our new stock to come in but there wont be any court shoes' I muttered and mumbled, forced my feet into shoes that made me feel like I had been impaled on a railing or visibly stunted.....helpful husband pointed out a pair of lace up boots....I gave him one of those 'looks' usually given to errant children which roughly translated means ...'just you wait 'til I get you home 'cause you are for IT...... BIGSTYLE!

Saturday evening found a friend and I happily ensconsed in Marton Village Hall watching Atonement by courtesy of 'Flicks in the Sticks'. The 'usherette' wandered about selling popcorn. crisps and drinks from her proper usherette's tray which we thought was wonderful. Cups of tea at half time and a natter with Mountainear in what was a very full hall. I loved the film all over again and drooled over that green dress all over again as well.

Now cast your minds back to the summer months when we had daily doses of Mme Grognonne from UPL.....remember the political upheavals and the gentleman who featured with the name of Fartoocozy? Well on Friday night as I sat helping to mark sheets at a heat of the Village Hall we were just having a go at answering the questions....to the question 'Who was elected president of France in August 2007?' One guess who scribbled 'Fartoocozy' and sat there all righteous......thank you UPL! Your ears were burning when I realised I had just made a total plonker of myself!

Thursday was a lovely day spent with Moutainear walking the hills, pottery shards and old bottles under tree roots tempted us ...was this the cottage rubbish heap...a large piece of eathenware stein surfaced. We wondered what had been stored in it. We found the twisty privvy, sadly a tree has fallen across it damaging the wall.........the natural elements are running in front of us ...ashes to ashes, dust to dust...taking these little settlements back to the grassy mounds from whence they came. A skylark sang ...its years since I heard one so clearly.

Tuesday was a complete get together of our local history/writing group with some celebration....of the alcoholic sort...have we ever been apart? Well yes we have ...but all back together now for some new and really exciting projects. The last one nearly turned us into an unruly bunch of alcoholics ...surprising how much wine we needed to imbibe to get the written word out ....I suppose it helped our confidence? Ha Ha! Hic!

Monday was Parish Council ....rumblings of discontent, did you know the fine for disturbing a bat roost has gone up drastically? Our recyling skip for plastic has never appeared ...its got lost...Oh yeah! Three very different wards all competing for funding for projects, noting planning applications and begging for drains to be cleaned, roads to be repaired and church yard gates to be paid for...a melting pot of rural issues.

So that was the week that was.....Wednesday I think I had an early night .....recovering from the night before.....

Sunday afternoons I wander round the pool while himself plays fishing ...I have tried and tried to get a picture of the barn owl that flits above the rough grass ......this is the best I have got so far ...the white blob is him sitting on the branch ......and then he flew off ...a pice of paper turning in the wind....