Some prefer Hawthorns (Practising Hanami on the Achill to Westport Greenway)

Tags

Bicycle cart, cherry blossoms, cycling, hanami, hawthorn blossoms, Mono no aware, Sakurayu, The Achill to Westport Greenway., The wild atlantic way, the yellow bicycle, Wagashi, wine, Yuugen

If I were to choose my favorite month for cycling it would be May because May is the month when the hawthorn is in bloom.

I try not to take life for granted but too often I don’t appreciate things until they have passed.

Mono no Aware is the Japanese term which describes the gentle wistfulness, or  the melancholic appreciation of the transiency of things.

Hanami is the Japanese term for cherry blossom viewing. These two go hand in hand as viewing the cherry blossom, which blooms so briefly in spring, is appreciated so much more because of its transience in a way that would be missing if it was always there.

But we have a native tree that would give the cherry blossom a run for its money.

It is the humble Hawthorn.

It was in the month of May when Penny and I finally found a day when both of us were free and we head off to cycle the Achill to Westport Greenway (Co Mayo) in search of Hawthorn blossoms and to practice Hanami .

After doing the ‘two car thingy’ (A technique I wrote about in a previous post) we arrived in my car at the starting point.

~~~~~

‘WILL YOU BE WEARING A HELMET?’ Penny shouts to make herself heard above the rattle (She has opened the boot and is trying to disentangle her bike from mine).

‘I WILL NOT!’ I shout back, pausing from my task of taking the panniers out from behind the front seat. ‘I’VE NEVER WORN ONE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, AS YOU WELL KNOW, AND HAVE NO INTENTION OF WEARING ONE TODAY!’

I shout so that she is also able to hear ME over the clattering of handlebars and metal mudguards but more because I am appalled that she would even suggest that I owned such a thing.

‘OK OK! she laughs ‘Keep your hair on’

At this stage She has extricated her bike from the clutches of mine and leaning it against the wall turns to me.

‘I wont wear one either so’

She watches me, daring me to look surprised.

I am surprised, shocked even.

The last time we cycled together on the Greenway, not only did she insist on wearing a helmet but a ‘High viz’ jacket as well. I remember thinking that if she fell off her bike there wasn’t much to hit her head off except some sheep wire. And that maybe she needed to wear high viz so that the sheep could see her coming.

‘Great’ I try to look as though its not important one way or the other but secretly I’m delighted  ‘Now you will be able to feel the gentle spring breeze in your hair.

(Nagokaze = the Japanese term for experiencing the gentle spring breeze)

Suddenly I am struck by a wistful longing for those days long ago when cycling were simpler.

Before helmets. Before fear.

Back then (could it be almost forty years ago) I cycled the wild Atlantic way (before it became famous) from Donegal to cape clear island without once worrying about falling.

My bike was a single speed black raleigh, complete with a small wooden bicycle cart (I had bought the cart in Holland the previous year whilst on a cycling trip in Europe).

This cart was of an ingenious design.

When not carrying my accoutrements (tent, spare clothing, pots and pans, Kelly kettle) the base could be taken out and used as a table.

And the sides, having a hinge at each corner, meant the remainder could then be folded flat for easy storage.

Looking back it was a much weightier affair than today’s versions, but I knew no better as, with the breeze tossing my (unhelmeted) hair,  I cruised down those Connemara hills, my feet off the pedals, the cart rattling gaily along behind.

Once when heading across the bog road to Scriob, (a road which undulated in such a measured fashion that the momentum of sailing down hill would almost carry you up the next hill without pedalling) the safety bolt loosened from the hitch on a down hill stretch and the cart disengaged.

Passing me out, it landed in a ditch upside down.

Luckily the only damage was a dint in a saucepan but I took more care after that by adding a loop of bailing twine around the hitch.

That was the only accident I can recall.

Suddenly I understand Mono no aware.

‘Come on’ A voice wakes me from my daydream.

Penny has my bicycle out too and wheels it over.

I buckle on my panniers and fix my picnic laden basket on the handle bars.

The traffic is heavy as we cycle up the main road and we are happy to take a left turn away from it and along a small gravel lane. We continue to climb slowly until finally it turns again before flattening out.

Then for a while it runs, not only fairly level, but straight as well, giving us the opportunity to look around.

To the left the boggy fields bank easily down to the sea, where the ruins of  abandoned cottages lie.

‘Aw look! Aren’t the colours gorgeous?’ Penny points to the swathes of purple and pink rhododendrons dotted here and there.

The colours ARE gorgeous and I wonder is there a Japanese term for admiring things guiltily.

These invasive plants that thrive in our gentle soft rain were brought in by the Victorians and planted as exotics in the grounds of many estate houses and have now run a muck, causing huge ecological problems by threatening our native species which cannot compete for space against them.

But Penny loves them.

Brought up on the bare boggy mountains of mayo she see’s the purple and pinks as uplifting and striking.

We have the track to ourselves and we cycle along easily, stopping here and there to admire the small orchids growing along the road side and in a damp field, the pink of the ragged robin.

The ditches are full of primroses.

‘We’re Hamani-ing already’. I say

‘Save it for the hawthorn’ Penny says standing on her pedals and sniffing ‘I can smell them’.

Sure enough as we round the corner, there they are, in full bloom. Bent into shape by the prevailing northwest winds, they are spread over a field of ancient potato ridges which run down to the shore.

We catch a glimpse of water between their gnarled trunks.

Penny spreads our picnic on a nearby seat.

‘This is how they do it in Japan! They have picnics and wine while viewing the blossom’.

(Penny has been to Japan so I believe her, though we never find it too difficult to have the excuse of a glass of wine on our cycles).

‘Did you know that the leaves of the hawthorn are edible’ I say. ‘In fact they are very good for you and are a known tonic for the heart’? One up for our sturdy hawthorn blossom’!

‘Except’ she replies ‘The leaves AND flowers of the cherry blossom are edible also and more famously too. There is a wide variety of treats using sakura (cherry) leaves and blossoms. From being incorporated in Wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets)  to Sakurayu (cherry blossom tea)’.

‘We better chew on a few hawthorn leaves so’ I sigh resignedly ‘Mustn’t let the side down’.

We pick some of the young green leaves and insert them between the two halves of our baguettes french which already contain spinach and smoked salmon.

They taste good in the sandwich, a tougher texture than the spinach but with a pleasant nutty flavour.

Penny draws a line at making hawthorn blossom tea but I pop a few in my cup and pour some boiling water over them.

The tea has a lovely scent.

‘Here’s to Hawthorn blossoms’ Penny raises her glass.

To Hawthorn blossoms’ I echo her.

We sit for a while without talking and sip our wine, admiring the view, the blossoms, the gnarled trunks of the trees, the way the light defines one side of each potato ridge.

The air is so clear.

The fragrance of the Hawthorn envelopes us.

It’s beautiful and serene and all those things that I cannot find the words to describe.

There is another Japanese term.

Yuugen translates as An awareness of something in nature that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words.

THE END

 

The comparable cyclist Part two (Goats,Greenways and keeping on the straight and narrow)

Tags

a white bicycle, Achill, Anglo nubians, british saanens, Co Mayo, friends, goats, Greenways, Nephin, St Patricks well, the greenway, the yellow bicycle, toggenburgs, Westport

(Looking across at Mulranny strand from the Achill to Westport Greenway)

What have goats got to do with a Greenway I hear you ask.

Well not a lot! They sort of meandered into this story uninvited.

~~~~~~

It’s early morning. I am off to cycle the western Greenway.

I leave Dublin at cockcrow, my yellow bike in the back of my old car and drive speedily along the motor way which heads to Galway (Ireland has only four of these mindless roads but they ARE handy when you are in a hurry )

After 60 kms or so I leave it to cut cross country in a north westerly direction.

Though now on a ordinary road it is too early for traffic and I still manage to zip along making good time until finally I reach the town of Ballina (in the process of creating its own greenway).

Next I pass through Crossmalina and then hit that lovely web of small roads, more often than not unsignposted.

But I continue on confidently knowing that if I  keep Nephin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephin on my left and head southwest I will end up at my destination.

Around a corner, a brown OPW signpost points to a small road indicating the whereabouts of St Patricks well. (Did I mention that I am fascinated by holy wells)

Too late! before I even make the decision to indicate, I am gone past the sign.

If I was on my bicycle I would have been up that boreen without hesitation.  

But a car is a different matter. too often you have flown by a place of interest before you can stop.

Then, maybe a car on your tail forces you onward as there is nowhere to let it pass or you have to drive some distance before you find somewhere to turn and by then the curiosity has left you.

I am tempted to say ‘feck the Greenway’ and park and pull out my bike and explore this area but my friend Penny (Not her real name) will be waiting for me. (Did I mention that when I cycle greenways I do so with a friend and when I cycle boithrins I like to do so alone).

And finally I am sitting outside the Grainne Uaile pub in Newport Co Mayo.

But still I don’t take out my bicycle.

One of my gripes with Greenways is they do not form a circular route.

If you don’t want to cycle back the way you have come, here is a solution.

I call it the ‘TWO CAR THINGY’

But you need a companion.

This is how it works

• You meet your companion at the end of the journey. Which could be called the beginning
• Of course she must also have a car with her bike in it (or on it) or it doesn’t work.
• You then decide which car will go and which will stay.
• You then load the bike from the vehicle staying into the vehicle going. (size of bike and car and lack of bike carrier may be the deciding factor here)  
• You leave the now empty vehicle and drive the now full vehicle to the start.
• You park
• You unload the two bikes.
• You cycle the greenway to the end.
• If both bikes don’t fit in the returning car, you look for something to lock the bikes to, preferable a railing outside the pub (Interestingly you have spotted other cyclists downing delicious looking glasses of Guinness)
• You drive back to fetch the other car.
• Disappointingly, you realize how short the distance is when driven (30 mins) as opposed to the length of time cycling it (4/5 hours)thus minimizing the whole cycling experience.
• You get into your own car.
• You drive back to pick your waiting bicycle parked at the pub only to remember you cannot drink and drive 
• You settle for a cup of tea instead.

Confused?

I don’t blame you. I’m confused myself, and disgruntled too.

But here comes Penny.

Penny is neither disgruntled nor muddled. She is organized and jolly and knows exactly what she is doing

You see Penny is a teacher and after years of organizing unruly children, nothing confuses her.

Not least which car goes where with who or what on-board.

Before I know it, she has cheerfully squeezed her white bike in on top of my yellow one and off we go to the starting point of the Greenway at Achill Sound.

An addendum: As more greenways are created (there are a good few in the pipeline) they will hopefully link up and then we wont have to do the two car thingy anymore.

(The white bicycle and the yellow bicycle enjoying a break on the Achill to westport Greenway)

Friendship and Introducing those goats!

Before I go any further I would like tell you about my good friend Penny so you will understand why she is one of the few people I cycle with.

(Anyone who has no interest in goats may wish to leave now)

Penny and I met over the back of a goat.

Literally! A questionable British Saanen to be exact and about thirty two years ago.

Back then I was mad for a pair of milking goats. I dreamt of rearing my children on goats milk for and making cheese.

Over that summer I read up on goats avidly and studied the pros and cons of the different breeds.

My favorite were the Toggenburgs.

The Anglo Nubians, with their long noses and floppy ears came a close second.

But, having read about the ability of the former to escape and the delicate nature of the latter, I settled more sensibly on the docile Saanen.

I read up on what to look for. I studied photos of the supreme champions.

I noted the sleek coat, the gentle slope from hip to tail, the back legs set apart allowing for good udder capacity.

It seemed I would have to travel far, possibly as far as Northern Ireland, to obtain such creatures.

Then one day in early autumn my sister rang me in excitement. A couple she knew had just the pair and they were willing to part with them FOR FREE.

Was I interested?

Warning bells should have rung.

Instead I said that I would come and view them.

But before I had time to put on my coat, a battered estate car pulled up in my driveway (it must have been literally waiting around the corner)and the driver leapt from it and opened the boot.

Two goats jumped out, shot off into the orchard and with the agility of a pair of chimpanzees, scaled the nearest apple trees and began nibbling the branches and eating whatever apples remained unpicked.

Politeness prevailed. There was a human to be seen to first, and I turned to the owner of these tree climbing beasts.

But no! he wouldn’t stay for a cup of tea thank you all the same… he had a lot of things to attend to…he was in an awful hurry!! (The marks his tyres left on my driveway attested to this).

To cut a long story short, when I finally managed to coax the goats down from the tree with a bucket of beet pulp and get near enough to them to examine them and ensure they were indeed goats (and not some variety of four legged monkey)I was left in no doubt of their questionable pedigree.

Disappointingly there was no similarity to those I had seen in my book. No sleek coat or the gentle tapering from hip to tail, nor could I catch sight, due to the length of their rough coats, of an udder, smooth or otherwise.

After finally enticing them further into their shed with the intention of bundling them into the boot of my own car and returning them, they looked at me with such love in their eyes (Its amazing the effect a bucket of beet-pulp can have) I gave in (I didn’t even know where this ‘friend’ lived).

The wonderful thing about animals is if you are kind to them they will love you and won’t give a fig for your obvious disappointment in them.

But just feeding my goats well will not make them pregnant and if I wanted to have kids (and therefore milk) in the spring I needed to work fast.

And that is how I met my now good friend Penny, the owner of a handsome Saanen pedigree buck.

I was first drawn to her kindness and inevitable friendship (We discovered more than just goats in common)by the fact that she didn’t laugh at my unkempt ladies (honestly all the brushing in the world did nothing to improve those rough long coats)but allowed a romance between them and himself to take place.

Then as if by magic in the late bloom of their ensuing pregnancy, the pair lost their rough coats and indeed began to look something like the goats I had dreamed of owning.

And though my ‘goat days’ are long gone, our friendship remains and she is there when I need a bicycling companion who is willing to put up with my cycling idiosyncrasies and keep me on the straight and narrow. 

(The start of my herd)

And now, due to those meandering goats, I have reached a word count of One thousand five hundred and ninty something and have probably lost most of my readers after eight hundred! So I will draw a halt to my ramblings as I have other things to do on this spring Sunday (cycling my bike for example).

Coming soon: When Penny and I actually cycle the Greenway and I promise to not to step off the beaten track …..

  

The comparable cyclist. (Bóithrín or Green way)

Tags

Achill, Bóithríns, bullocks, cycling, Deise greenway, Louisburg, peletons, the yellow bicycle, Westport

 

Every bicyclist has their reason or reasons for cycling.

From the Pelotons that fill the roads on a Sunday like brightly coloured parakeets to those who cycle from the sheer necessity of getting from A to B.

And all of us in between.

Whether we choose main roads, bóithríns or greenways, it boils down to the one thing!

We spend an inordinate amount of time on a strange two wheeled object which by forward propellant of its pedals (which in turn revolves its wheels) causes it not only to defy gravity and remain upright but also to move forward (and even backward if you are a circus cyclist) and once continuing to do so, will not keel over, dumping us to the ground (Unless of course it is leaning against something).

Greenway: a preserved car free trail often a disused railway line or a canal towpath (In Ireland) used for recreational purposes such as biking and hiking.

(A civilized place to rest on the Achill to Westport greenway)

Boreen/bohareen: derived from the Irish word bóithrín meaning little road. Usually single tracked, often with grass growing down the center. Banked by stone wall, hedgerow or ditch, they twist and turn and part ways around hills and over streams and generally find their own natural and interesting path through the country side.

(One of the many bóithríní crisscrossing the Irish countryside complete with bystander)

Recently a friend asked which of the above I would prefer most to cycle along and she had to wait for a day or so while I pondered over her question.

Now I think greenways are wonderful and I have four of the five Irish ones under my saddle with a plan to cycle the fifth http://www.deisegreenway.com/ when there is a break in the clouds (so to speak).

They have stunning scenery, are car free, for the most part flat, mostly straight (they usually follow a disused railway line or canal towpath) well organised, well signposted, well maintained.

In fact too good to be true!

Why therefore does the untidy and rarely signposted mishmash of tiny roads (Bóithríns) so common to our Irish country side, attract me more than the safe civilized well signposted cycling trail.

Well You see I don’t LIKE to know where I am going. (I enjoy getting home, pulling out the map and thinking THAT’S where I’ve been).

I am not organised and I cycle in a most haphazard manner, choosing my route spontaneously.

And maybe I just like getting lost (easy to do on a bóithrín but impossible on a greenway)

Scenario One: The bóithrín

A yellow bicycle complete with occupant is moving slowly but surely up to the top of a low hill. The rain has finally stopped and the scent of meadow sweet, dog roses and hawthorn lies heavy on the air.

The bicycle is an old fashioned upright type making it difficult for the rider to stand on the pedals and gain any momentum.

Equipped with just three gears, she is now in first and smiles triumphantly. The crest of the hill is about to be hers. But just as she makes that final effort, a voice from the ditch startles her.

‘You’d be better off with one of them electric yokes’.

Losing concentration (and momentum) she wobbles towards the owner of the voice and just about manages to dismount awkwardly, preventing the bike from toppling over.

A middle aged man with a sally rod under his arm hops out in front of her over the low ditch.

‘I’m perfectly able to get up hills under my own steam’ she says haughtily.

Ignoring her obvious annoyance he pulls open a nearby gate.

‘Would ya ever mind standing there for a moment and put a halt to the cattle if they try to head down the hill’  He motions with his stick in the direction she has come from ‘They’re mad for the river’

He has barely finished his sentence when a herd of unruly bullocks shove through the gate and turn towards her.

‘I’ll stand by the lower gate’ and without waiting for her reply he is off over the hill, disappearing down the other side, leaving her alone with her charges.

The bullocks snort and bellow and lower their heads looking at her and the bike with suspicion

One tries to make a dash past.

Still smarting from her now questionable ability to cycle up and over a hill, she has a good mind to let him go his merry way and the others too if they should wish.

But she holds her ground and does as the farmer has bid.

‘Shoo’ Waving one arm up and down, the other holding the bike in front of her for protection she glares at him.

The bullock knowing instinctively he has met his match, backs into the herd who realizing they are defeated turn and, with much snorting, butting and mounting each other, make their way up the hill after the farmer and down the other side out of view.

She follows them (after all she is going in that direction) keeping her distance in case they change their minds.

They don’t, but in revenge one or two lift their tails and splatter the road with dung.

‘Yuck! great!’ She swerves to avoid running her tyre through the mess.

At the bottom of the hill the farmer is standing guarding the road.  The gate to another field lying open. He raises his stick and the cattle who, despite constant stops to snatch mouthfuls of grass, have reached him, swing in unison into the new field where they proceed to charge around madly trampling the fresh luscious grass.

‘Don’t forget to think about that electric yoke or better still, get a car’. The man calls out as he ties the gate shut with a piece of baling twine.

Throwing her eyes up to heaven, she doesn’t bother to reply but mounts her bike and whizzes down the hill past him.

At the bottom of the hill the bóithrín forks. She hesitates momentarily before turning left.

As she sails along her wheels hissing on the still wet road, small finches scoot from the gnarled and wind-shaped hawthorn trees to the stands of willow lining the bóithrín.

Like dolphins with a boat they keep apace with her.

The bóithrín twists and turns, dips and climbs, its appearance ever changing.

Here a bit of stone wall, there a low ditch, here a flower entangled hedgerow, again those low hawthorns and all interspersed with gates of some kind.  Some large and galvanized, others shaped from old pallets keeping livestock off the road.

At one point a solitary horse, alerted by the sound of her wheels, meanders over, she stops to stroke his nose. Then she is off again.

Its peaceful.

They only sound she hears apart from the wind and the odd call of a sheep are the far off cars on the Westport to Louisburg road and even they fade as the road swings further south.

Another fork! again she decides to take the left turn. At this stage she has lost track of where she is or what sort of distance she has covered.

All she is aware of is that the far of sound of traffic has been replaced with the sound of running water and she is getting hungry and is keeping an eye out for a suitable picnic place.

Rounding another corner she finds that the river has either done a full loop or maybe she has backtracked.

Jumping down from the saddle and leaning her bike against the low stone bridge she unstraps her basket from the handle bars and lays her picnic out on a flat area of the bridge

Wine, some bread and cheese and an apple.

She settles herself comfortably on the wall in the late afternoon sun.

Coming next ; The greenway.