Blue or yellow, its the same difference. (What the bicycle saw)

Tags

bogs, Donegal, france, Galway, Malignant melanoma, mountains, the yellow bicycle, turf fire

The yellow bicycle is unwell.

Her wheel rims are rusted, her skirt guard held on with plastic cable ties.

She has suffered more punctures than she deserves (at one point there was more patches then original tyre on her back wheel)

Some of her spokes are missing and she has a distinct rattle of unknown origin.

My guess is it comes from the rear mudguard fixed many years ago by inserting a sponge between the stay and the actual guard.  Mr Monet Mends my Bike. 

But it may be something more sinister. Something internal. A cracked hub. A loose shimano brake cog.

And who knows what the creaking noise is when I turn the pedals! ( Though I suspect that noise might be more human in origin, emanating from my right knee, the one I have recently learned has no cartilage left in it).

Now there are those who feel I have been neglectful of the yellow bicycle’s maintenance.

But I have treated her no differently than I have treated myself.

We believe quality of life is better than quantity.

The yellow bicycle has lived a good life and seen many things that she may not have seen living with a more careful person

Cycling not only paved roads but mountain tracks and small boirins, across beaches and even along clifftops.

She has been hauled over ditches and dykes,

lowered into sea faring boats.

She has slept out under the stars, camped out by the sea.

She has lept across tree roots and swerved around potholes.

She has seen horses and donkeys close up, watched dolphins caper, Hawks in flight.

And once a man wandering naked through trees.

France 2010

It is early morning on a sunny autumn day.

The tree’s are letting go their leaves for another year.

Fluttering like a myriad of amber and yellow butterflies they float and drift, landing on the still water of the canal.

But not all.

Some don’t quite make it and instead form a golden covering on the uneven surface of the tow path.

A sort of yellow brick road.

And cycling along this yellow road is a woman on a heavy Dutch style bike. (which coincidentally is also yellow!)

She has been up since cockcrow and has quickly settled into her usual even pace which is only disturbed now and again when she is forced to swerve and avoid the roots of the trees.

These wayward gnarled ‘ropes’ have the habit of breaking the surface of the path as though doing so to make their way thirstily towards the water.

But mostly all she has to do is keep turning the pedals.

She hums contently to herself.

Without warning a twig, catching itself in the spoke of her bike causes her to brake and she dismounts and wrenches it free.

This gives some new leaves the opportunity to land on her head and entwine themselves in her hair.

As she is brushing them out with her fingers she sees a movement further along the canal.

A man walks out of the trees and crosses the path.

He is naked.

Without looking left or right, he poises for an instant on the canal bank before diving in.

The woman is stunned.  She pulls the last leaves from her hair while considering her dilemma.

Should she cycle quickly passing him before he starts scrambling out or should she wait where she is, her yellow bicycle camouflaged by the drifts of leaves, until he has finished his swim and gone?

Afraid that he might be planning to stay in the water awhile, she opts for the former, and cycling speedily,  bounces carelessly across the potholes and tree roots.

As she draws level with the man who is now swimming in a slow measured way, she calls out ‘Bonjour’.

Just to show she is not a prude.

And on she goes through the twirling leaves, leaving the man and his nakedness behind.

But as the canal path improves and a stretch of solid pale gravel comes under her wheels and she doesn’t have to concentrate on avoiding pot holes, she wonders at her reaction.

Why did she hesitate before passing him? Indeed why did she call out a greeting?

And then a memory from the past pops into her head.

July 1980

A young woman is cycling a black upright bicycle along the wild Atlantic way.

The small wooden trailer attached to her bicycle containing her tent and gear, bounces jauntily along behind.

Starting her journey in Donegal, a few weeks previously, she has many miles under her wheels by now and having already passed through four counties is presently in her fifth. Galway.

It is a pleasure to cycle these roads. They are mostly empty of traffic, with vast bogs that career off in each direction ending under the brooding mauve mountains.

At one point she spots a group of tiny figures. Bending and straightening as they cut and spread a bank of turf.

A wisp of smoke curls up, white against the dark blue of the mountains and the smell of burning turf reaches her. They must be stopping for lunch, she thinks, lighting a turf fire to boil the kettle on.

Feeling hungry she decides she’ll stop for her own picnic soon (the makings of it lie in her front basket),

She can see a flash of blue ahead appearing now and then as the road twists and turns.

The lakes at kylemore would be a good place.

A green Cortina car passes her slowly.

She pays no heed but rounding the bend, she notices the car pulled in on the side of the road just beyond a clump of rhododendrons.

Now she is a naive sort of woman. Seeing good in everyone  but her female instinct is strong and kicks in.

On high alert, she picks up speed. (not an easy task with the trailer) and keeping her eyes on the road ahead,  cycles as fast as she can.

As she draw level with the bushes, she catches a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, standing facing the road, his trousers down around his ankles.

She flies past so speedily that the flasher becomes a flash.

Continuing at a steady pace all the time listening for the sound of a car approaching from behind, she ditches the idea of having her picnic just yet and also forgoes the idea of camping that night and decides to instead to head for the hostel in killary harbour.

2019

It will be ten years ago this April since I was diagnosed with a metastatic malignant melanoma (it had metastasized to the lymph nodes in my groin)

That small mole removed from my calf five years previously was not benign (as histology had incorrectly shown at the time).

Oh the drama!

I thought I was going to die.

but I didn’t. (obviously)

And following successful surgery and treatment I decided to celebrate my recovery by I cycling across France. From the Atlantic to the Mediterranean

I thought I made the journey to prove my effected leg was still able to turn the pedals of the yellow bike.

But looking back I realize that I wasn’t good at taking time out for myself.

I needed an illness as an excuse.

And not just any old illness!

It needed to be a colorful one.

Don’t be a victim in your story telling. (I read somewhere)

Get your shit sorted before telling your story.

Come out the other side and begin to see the funny side.

I have decided that in my 62nd year and on the tenth anniversary of my diagnosis, that, even though I love bright colors, I don’t need them to prove myself.

Welcome to the dark blue bike on whom I hope to continue to have many journeys with colorful stories to tell.

P.S Of course the yellow bicycle and I will continue to limp along for many more years to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nana Pepper Pot steals a story.

Tags

apartments, Bóithríns, beer, mountains, realisation, stories, the sea, the yellow bicycle, wise women, yoga, yurts

Sometimes its only when something is taken away and then given back that we really appreciate it.

In my case it was my apartment, which I always considered small.

Until my daughter and family moved in that is, while their home was being renovated.

And as they filled my place with themselves, a child and dog and all the accoutrements that goes with a family of that number, I realised just how small it was and I feared for my sanity.

But then they left and I saw I had nothing to moan about in the first place.

Once they were gone my apartment appeared HUGE, and airy and very spacious.

This family upheaval reminded me of the old story which I have stolen and put my own twist on…

Nana Pepper Pot

Once upon a time there was a woman and her name was Nana Pepper Pot.

Now though Nana had loved many times and moved many times and lived in many places of many sizes, she finally ended up living on her own in a small apartment by the sea.

This was good because she enjoyed living alone.

She loved to write and paint and now could do so without interference, spreading her paints and writing equipment far and wide across the kitchen table and leaving them there for days on end if she so pleased.

She could come and go exactly when she wished.

She could leave her yellow bicycle beside the fire and hang her clothes out to dry on it.

She could cook or not cook depending on her appetite.

She could leave the books she was dipping in and out of strewn across her sofa.

She could place her house plants hither and thither.

She could be tidy or untidy depending on her humor.

Yes! she was very happy to live alone, but she was not so happy with the size of her  apartment.

And even though she could skip seven steps from one sitting room wall before arriving at the other,

And even though she could jump ten leaps from the kitchen before she arrived at the tall panes of glass that slid open to allow her onto her balcony. (On which she liked to spend her summer evenings, with a glass of wine, sitting hidden among her runner bean plants, gazing across at the mountain.)

And though she had a separate bedroom, with a high wide bed in which she could lie and through the window, look across at that same mountain

and a bathroom with a full sized bath,

She longed for her home to be bigger.

“But look” her friends remarked when they called in for coffee, “Even with your yellow bicycle here by the fire, you still have plenty of space.”

And did some yoga stretches to prove it.

And even when Marcella knocked the tulips off the coffee table while executing the Downward Dog (Don’t ever try drinking coffee before yoga), there was still space enough for Nana to leap up safely from the cobra pose (her favourite) and catch the flowers before they hit the floor.

And though she noted how her friends were able to put on their coats and get past each other to reach their shoes, without stepping on each others toes,  she just felt if ONLY she had more space.

When her friends were gone, she mooched about moodily, straightening the rug, washing the coffee cups, (this was one of her tidier days), watering her plants, dusting the many stones she collected from the beach on her morning walks, and as she became lost in her chores, she suddenly had an idea and wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

The woman of much wisdom

The woman of much wisdom lives in a large yurt on the top of the mountain.

The same mountain Nana could see from her small apartment.

No one knew the woman’s real name (It was Ann! but she knew if she admitted to an name this simple it would cause much disappointment to those that came in search of her wisdom. And though wise, it never occurred to her that she could have taken on a more exotic name for herself, one that would suit her new station in life!) so people referred to her in short as ‘the wise woman’.

She was well known to the people of the village as someone who had an answer for everything.

She also dabbled in cures, which if truth be told rarely worked, but the locals continued to come with their ailments as they knew it was in-vogue to be seen attending a healer, and no one wanted to appear to the other as odd.

So it was a common sight to see the wise woman stumbling across the mountain in her long robes and hessian sack, picking wild herbs for her potions.

On this particular day, as she sits outside her yurt in the morning sun, drinking beer from a bottle, she glimpses something yellow wending its way along the small boíthrín* leading to the base of the mountain.

She takes another sip before hiding the still half full bottle in the folds of her flowing purple garments.

(sometimes, she feels that the expectations the villagers have of her, causes her much inconvenience).

When she looks again she sees the yellow thing, possibly a bicycle, leaning against the gate from which the path up the mountain led.

After a good twenty minutes, during which, she thinks grumpily, she could have easily finished her beer, a woman appears over the brow of the hill.

A red faced woman whose hair is tied up on top of her head in an untidy fashion.

It is Nana!

And Nana throws herself down on the grass in front of the wise woman, blowing her fringe off her hot forehead and sighing.

“Phew its hot, that’s some climb, I’m puffed”.

The wise woman does not reply but instead purses her lips.

She wishes people would take a more respectful stance on approach.

She always imagined that they should walk slowly towards her, hands clasped, eyes lowered in reverence.

“Well what can you expect!” The wise woman’s best friend, Mary, also a wise woman, remarked when Ann mentioned this to her.

“You do choose to hold your sessions on the top of a mountain,

It’s the reason why I live in the wood by the river, on the flat.

My clients are able to approach with respect! Your’s are so puffed out by that climb up the mountain, they need to lie down for a minute or two and catch their breath.

I know because I have to do the same when I come to visit you”.

She was a very insightful wise woman.

But our wise woman preferred her mountain top for obvious reasons.

“How many times” she pointed out to Mary “Have you complained about your lack of privacy,

How many times have you nearly been caught unawares?

Remember the time I came upon you and you were having a sneaky cigarette?.

Ha Ha  you nearly swallowed it in fright, thinking I was a client.”

She chortled at the memory before continuing.

“Nope! I would gladly give up my clients lack of  reverence in return for not being caught on the hop!”

“Or with a bottle of hop” Her friend had a mean streak when provoked.

But now she takes a deep cleansing breath and putting that memory and her friends nasty reply aside, turns to the red faced woman lying on the grass in front of her.

And Nana remembering who she is visiting, scrambles to her knees and bowing low clasps her hands in front of her chest and explains her problem.

“Please can you advise me what to do”

The wise woman looks out across the valley as though in a trance and just as Nana, thinking the woman hasn’t heard her, is about to repeat her question, speaks.

“Is that your bicycle down at the gate?”

“It is” replies a puzzled Nana.

“Well bring it in to your apartment” the wise woman instructs.

“Oh I always do that” says Nana, wondering why the wise woman has an interest in her bicycle

“Well do you have another bicycle then?” The wise woman asks testily

“Yes” Nana replies surprised “I have a purple one. Unlike the yellow bicycle which I keep by the fire, the purple one it lives on my balcony. You see I don’t use it that often because sometimes it…”

“Bring it in too!” The wise woman snaps, cutting Nana short “and put it by the fire beside the yellow bicycle and come back to me next week,”

Still puzzled by this odd request, Nana heads off down the mountain to do as bid.

A week later, the wise woman sees the yellow bicycle approaching again, but this time she enjoys her beer a while longer before once again hiding it easily,  just as Nana appears.

“I don’t understand’ Nana exclaims when she has caught her breath, ‘Moving both bikes in has made my home smaller not larger!”

“Have you a dog?” The wise woman asks ignoring Nana’s obvious agitation.

“I don’t” replies Nana “But my daughter does.”

“Borrow your daughters dog” Instructs the wise woman “And bring the dog and her bed and her bowl into the apartment, and come back to me next week”

Nana stomps off down the mountain, very dubious of the wise woman’s advise but determined to go along with it as, everyone says she is very wise.

A week later the wise woman see’s the yellow bicycle approaching once more.

Nana, when she appears over the brow of the hill, looks so tired and tearful that the wise woman, who, unlike her friend, is actually really quite kind, has to stop herself offering Nana one of her bottles of beer.

“I really dont get it!”  whimpers Nana, when once again she has caught her breath “I now have a dog getting in my way. Her bed is taking up a lot of space and every night I step in her water bowl when I get out of bed to pee.”

The wise woman closes her eyes.

She wishes people wouldn’t use such crude words in her presence but she understands it is part of the healing process.

She also wishes she could take one gulp of the now warm bottle of beer hidden as usual in her garments just to sooth her nerves.

Really! people came to her with the oddest of requests, this being a particularly difficult one.

She takes a deep cleansing breath and opens her eyes again.

“Do you have any children?” She demands.

“Well Yes” replies Nana “I have the daughter who owns the dog and another daughter who is also married with three children. In fact it is my eldest daughter, who owns the dog, lives nearby and she is married  to my son in law and my grandson is two and really so sweet and they are renovating their house at the mo…”

Again the wise woman cuts her short

“Bring your daughter and grandson and their bedding and clothes and your grandsons toys into your house and come back in a week.”

So once again Nana trods down the mountain and goes home to do the wise woman’s bidding

And arrives back a week later.

This time her hair is on end and her eyes are red from lack of sleep and she doesn’t pause for breath.

“Really this is getting ridiculous” She shouts, sorry that she has ever come to see the wise woman. “My apartment is now so crowded you couldn’t swing a cat in it”

This gives the wise woman an idea and just as she is about to enquire if Nana knows anyone who owns a cat, Nana throws herself onto the grass and continues with a loud wail.

“AND my daughter is missing her husband and my grandson is crying for his father and they are keeping me awake at night”

“Well duh” says the wise woman “Bring your son in law in too so!”

‘Oh and come back in a week!’

These last words she has to shout after Nana’s departing figure.

The following week the Nana appears unexpectedly and the wise woman barely manages to hide her bottle in time.

“Where is your yellow bicycle?” She demands testily “I didn’t see it coming along the boithrin”

Nana is that cross, she can barely spit the words out in reply.

“My home is now so crowded with the two bikes, my daughter, grandson, son in law, the dog and their accoutrements, there was no room to manoeuvre  the yellow bicycle out the door. I had to walk all the way.”

The wise woman thinks deeply

“Ok” she says after a few moments have passed.

“Go home and send the family back to their own house, along with their dog and all their accoutrements. Then, put the purple bike AND the yellow bicycle out on the balcony and come back to me next week”

Broken, Nana turns slowly and with head drooping goes back down the mountain.

She is actually looking forward to the long walk home, so dreading is she at the thought of trying to squeeze herself into her over crowded apartment.

A week later the wise woman smiles to herself and quickly tucks the just sipped at bottle into the folds of her garments.

She has just spotted the yellow bicycle jauntily wending its way along the boithrin.

Ten minutes later Nana hops up over the brow of the hill as sprightly as a daisy.

Her cheeks are glowing.

Her silky smooth hair is swinging tidily about her face.

“You are so WISE and so AMAZING” She says, not one bit out of breath.

“I did as you bid and sent everyone home and put both bicycles out on the balcony and now my home feels so spacious and roomy and LARGE.”

and with that she flings herself at the wise woman and gives her a big hug.

and if she feels a bottle of beer hidden among the folds of robes she gives no indication.

“But the people of the village say you take no payment?  I MUST bring you something in return for your wisdom”

The wise woman looks across across the valley

“Well” she says, after much thought.

“A six pack would be nice,”

THE END

*Boíthrín; small road or lane way, usually with grass growing down the center.

 

A barrel for my bed (A dreamhouse story.)

Tags

boats, cattle, cottages, dogs, hens eggs, milking cows, mountains, old people, philosophy, thich nhat hanh, vegetables

Thich nhat hahn said “The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on this green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.”

I will follow that with my own quote: “The miracle is not to raise lazarus from the dead. The miracle is to connect compassionately and altruistically with those alive around us”.

As I engage with others, especially the elderly, I find that though I may be alleviating their loneliness, what they give me in return is worth a hundred times more than I have given them. 

And even those living on the margins of society, with little material wealth are rich in humour and stories and dignity.

You have heard, no doubt, the nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in a shoe.

Well I once met a woman who slept in a barrel!

(It was only while taking care of her when she became ill that I realized this and it explained her reluctance to get out of the bed we had provided for her).

Charlotte (not her real name) I hope you don’t mind me telling your story.

A story I pieced together from the snippets you doled out to me on those quiet evenings when you couldn’t sleep.

I apologize if I have let my imagination run away with me. But sometimes you DID fall asleep and left unfinished sentences on your lips which I have taken the liberty of finishing.

Let me start at the beginning;

THE STORY OF THE OLD WOMEN WHO SLEPT IN A BARREL.

Charlotte was not in the habit of sleeping late.

Before the banty cockeral had given its first crow, she was already unfolding her long limbs and crawling out of the blue plastic barrel which, lying on its side in the corner of the room, was her bed.

The room itself was an enigma.

A strange mixture of poverty (It had no ceiling).

And wealth (there was a mismatched pile of delicate antique china cups and saucers heaped on an exquisite mahogany sideboard)

One leg of the sideboard was missing and the structure was supported on a cement block, which, though strong was not the same height as the existing legs so the whole structure leaned at a rakish angle.

The room was clean. The floor swept. A bucket stood strategically under a tear in the tarpaulin which acted as a replacement for the missing roof.

The basket beside the fire was well stocked with dry turf.

The ashes were cleared from the grate and a heap of kindling and twists of newspaper lay ready.

A blackened kettle hung from the crane which appeared to be still in good repair and a table and three wooden chairs stood under the window.

Other than these and the barrel, the room was bare.

A piece of rough hessian hung across a doorway which led into another room.

The entrance door to the cottage was also of hessian.

Pushing it aside Charlotte stepped out into the early morning light and stretched her spindly arms and gave a yawn.

Beauty the old sheep dog, its hair matted, followed her out and stretched too before lifting his leg against the fuchsia bush.

‘Lovely morning Beauty’ Charlotte reached down and gave the dogs head an affectionate pat.

Beauty wagged his tail lazily and sniffed under the bush, disturbing an indignant hen.

Charlotte bided her time by dipping her hands into a bucket of water and splashing her face.

By the time she had dried her face in the hessian sacking, the hen was gone noisily off around the gable of the house.

Crouching down in a movement that belied her eighty five years and ignoring the stings of the nettles, she trust her bare arm into the shrubbery, pulling out four warm eggs.

She put three of them gently into a cracked mug that sat on the windowsill

The forth she broke into a battered enamel bowl and beauty lapped it up without delay.

She rooted in the pocket of her dress (a shift like affaire fashioned out of a clarinda bag with a pocket sewn roughly across the front) and pulling out a comb, ran it through her long white hair.

Then twisting her hair up into a bun with one hand, she snapped a fuschia twig off the bush with the other and jammed it through the newly made bun, pinning it into place.

The two fuschia flowers on the twig lent a decorative air to the makeshift head piece.

The hessian was pulled aside once more and the youngest of her two brothers stepped out blinking in the sunlight.

‘Grand morning’ He grunted and leaning against the gatepost busied himself filling his pipe.

He was tall like his sister, with a thatch of white hair growing through the moth eaten holes of an ancient tweed cap.

‘It is that’ replied Charlotte.

The two of them fell into companionable silence. The tall man puffing on his now lit pipe and the woman perching herself on a fishbox.

They gazed across the sloping fields with their zigzagged pattern of stone walls.

Where the fields eventually slid into the sea, if you squinted, you could just make out a few grazing cows.

But charlotte and her brother, so accustomed to years of spotting sheep as small as rain drops on the side of the mountain, did not need to squint.

Nor did their ears miss the ‘phutting’ sound of a distant engine.

‘Tom’s out early’. Charlottes brother remarked nodding his head in the direction of a small boat coming into view from around the headland.

The sea was so calm, with a dash of morning mist over it, that the boat appeared suspended mid air.

‘Who’s out early?’

The hessian was pulled aside once again as the third and final occupant of the house emerged.

He was so tall he had to duck low to avoid clobbering his head off the lintil.

Without waiting for an answer he turned to charlotte, ‘I’ve lit the fire and put the kettle on! Did ye find where she’s laying?’

‘I did indeed’ charlotte replied nodding to the mug ‘and right under our noses too’.

‘What’! her brother joked ‘She laid her eggs in the cup on the window sill?’

Charlotte laughed so hard at his suggestion that she doubled over clutching her skinny stomach.

The fuschia flowers in her hair jangled.

‘Of course not’ She gulped, when at last she caught her breath and wiped her eyes, ‘She laid them here under the bush! I put them in the cup’.

She started to laugh again.

Her brother, caught by her giddiness, smilingly lifted the eggs from the mug and went back inside.

Steam was coming from the spout of the kettle and he used a straight piece of timber to lift off the lid.

Avoiding the steam he dropped the eggs one by one into the kettle of boiling water.

A few minutes passed and she followed him in and took a china teapot off the sideboard, flinging a handful of tea leaves into it.

‘I’ll do that’ Her brother finished lifting out the eggs.

He took the pot from her and poured the used egg water into it.

‘Don’t want you getting another scalding and ending up in hospital again. They might not be so quick to let you home next time’,

Charlotte examined the red puckered area on the inside of her arm before turning her attention to a loaf of bread.

She held it firmly and cut three straight slices.

The butter was kept in willow pattern butter dish with the cover still intact.

Beauty crept under the table as the three ate their breakfast in silence and Charlotte threw her crusts to the old dog.

‘You’ll make him fat’ Her brother remarked, but he threw his down also.

‘I’m off so’ Charlotte stood shaking the crumbs of bread and egg from her dress.

She lifted a sack off a nail in the wall and picked up an empty bucket.

‘Don’t be seen’ Her youngest brother warned her anxiously.

But she had already disappeared through the doorway.

Beauty lifted his head and thumped his tail. He was busy licking up the crumbs plus he was too lazy to follow her.

****

The track to the well was overgrown with hawthorn, willow and elder.

Summer gossamer hung bejewelled across her path.

The smell of the elderflower was intoxicating and as she passed under it, tiny petals floated down and landed on her hair.

A bee came to investigate and another until it looked like she had a moving halo around her head.

She waited quietly, unafraid, until at last they moved off again.

On reaching the well, she took the enamel cup from its place on a rocky shelf and kneeling on the moss covered stones, pushed aside the ferns and dipped it in.

She took a long drink.

When the ripples had settled, she smiled at her watery reflection, turning her head this way and that to admire her hair piece.

The gate to Mattie’s field lay beyond the well

Content that there was no sign of her neighbour, Charlotte scaled it within seconds, swinging her long legs over, her wellingtons, two sizes too big did not in anyway impede her agility.

Beyond the gate a cluster of sleepy cows lifted their heads and watched her.

She made her way between them making soft ‘shushing’ sounds and giving the odd cheeky bullock a slap on it’s rump.

In the center stood a large cream colored cow with calf at foot.

The cow stood calmly, appearing unperturbed by Charlottes approach, but the calf backed away in fear.

‘Suck suck suck suck’ Charlotte coaxed it and reached to scratch behind its silken ear.

It came forward and gaining some confidence tried to stick its head in the bucket. Charlotte laughed softly and turning started to stroke the neck of the cow.

The cows eyes began to droop and as they did, Charlotte crouched down below its udder and quickly began to milk.

The cow turned its head drowsily and sniffed the back of charlottes head but didn’t move off.

The only sounds heard now were the odd buzzing of a horse fly, the irritated thud of a hoof striking the ground and the rhythmic hiss of milk hitting the inside of the pail.

The smell of warm milk rose and mingled with the smell of the nearby elderflowers.

Charlotte, completing her task straightened up, give the cow a pat and climbed the gate again.

*****

Mattie also grew a fine field of spuds, carrots, cabbages and onions, and this field was Charlottes next target.

Leaving the pail of milk in the shadow of an elderflower bush and tucking the hessian sack firmly under her arm, she marched boldly up to the first row of spuds.

A fork lay carelessly on the ground but she ignored it and scrabbled with her hands into the soil pulling out a few choice potatoes and throwing them into the sack before gently pushing the soil back into place.

She did the same with the carrots.

Her hair loosened and her hair piece fell between the rows.

The two fuschia flowers withered and forlorn looking.

She pulled an onion and head of fine cabbage.

As she cross back the field, she twisted the cabbage off its stalk and threw the roots in the ditch.

The cabbage joined the other vegetables in the sack.

She was up and over the gate in a flash and collecting the milk, headed back to the well.

****

Charlotte left the sack and the bucket at the well and pushing through a gap in the hedge made her way out into open countryside, to the edge of the mountain where the hedgerow gave way to stone walls and cows to sheep.

She headed up the soft slope.

Half way up she stood letting the breeze lift her hair and turned her face to it.

(She told me she called this ‘wind bathing’)

Far below her a single car made its way along the winding road, the faint purr of the engine barely reaching her.

The swifts flew high overhead.

Against the cliffs the black splashes of a pair of ravens appeared to be tumbling to their death only to recover and soar up the cliff face again.

A flock of finches flew by and landed in the nearby hawthorn trees.

A startled hare took off out of a clump of rushes and bounded away.

Tom’s boat was now making for the islands.

She stood feeling a sense of contentment before turning and starting to make her way parallel to the mountain.

A tall skinny figure dressed in a clarinda bag.

She began running, slowly at first, but gradually picking up speed.

She cleared the first wall.

She folded her arms across her chest. The second wall was lower and easier.

Someone had pulled down the third, probably to drive the flock of sheep through.

The sheep lifted their heads momentarily to watch her and then losing interest returned to their grazing.

At the fourth wall she feared she would fly so she hugged her spindly arms tighter around her chest.

Her white hair flew out behind her like a cape.

At last tired, she sat on a rock to catch her breath.

~~~

Mattie stood in his field scratching his head in puzzlement. This wasn’t the first time he had noticed the newly disturbed soil where his prize winning carrots were growing and here it was again.

‘Damn rabbits’ He muttered.

He hoped it was rabbits, the other option was unthinkable and he would be the laughing stock if he brought it up over a pint. Though nobody laughed when Johnjo told the story of how the faeries had led him astray coming home from the pub one night.

A twig with two withered fuschia flowers lay on the ground.

He was about to stoop for a closer look when a movement on the side of the mountain caught his eye.

A sheep jumping the wall? hardly!

It looked like a human, a woman.

Was it his mad auld neighbour? How could she be lepping walls at her age.

But then they did call her Mad lottie.

A sort of witch, living in that ruin of a cottage with her two brothers.

That cottage should be condemned!  Though he had heard that the brothers, big tall lads, had run the social workers off the land there recently.

Chased them down the boreen with pitch forks someone said!

He’d have liked to have seen that alright.

He looked towards the mountain again but all he could see now were the sheep.

He must have imagined her.

Jaysus he’d better get his eyes tested.

~~~~

When Charlotte arrived home her younger brother was washing the carrots in a bucket by the door.

‘Spuds are on! you did good!’ He looked up at her. ‘I brought the milk back too for ya and Hughie has caught three nice trout’.

Later sitting at the table between her two brothers. Charlotte threw the skin of the trout to beauty and began to laugh.

‘Whats so funny?’ Her brothers looked at her.

‘I keep seeing them social workers running down the boreen’ she gasped catching her breath ‘I bet they have never run so fast in their lives.

The end.

Dream Reader (Blogging101, 4th assignment)

Tags

Blogging101 4th assignment, hens, letters, mountains, neighbours, stories, tibet, tradition

Instead of carrying out out my fourth assignment in the way suggested, I put a slight twist to it. I remembered an incident which happened to me a few years ago involving (in a round about way) such a person (A dream reader)Someone whom I would love to have read my posts or  letters.

THE DREAM READER:

A SMALL VILLAGE SOMEWHERE IN TIBET (PART ONE)

The sun was just a red line above the mist covered hills when Dechen opened the door of her small house.

She had slept well despite her excitement and as she walked down the dirt track to let the hens out and gather their eggs, she cheerfully wound a colored scarf around her head tucking stray bits of her dark hair in tidily and humming to herself.

Godi, her old dog stirred himself and followed her a few steps but realising there was no titbits for him he lay down again out of the chill breeze.

At the henhouse, the cockerel made a go at her legs but for once instead of banging a stick at him she just laughed.

His attempts were half hearted anyway. He was clever and recognised the hand that fed him and his harem and he knew to do just enough to let her know who was in charge. The bunch of hens ran out after him and he strutted off loudly, picking here and there and at the grain she had thrown for them, giving her a chance to duck inside.

As she picked the still warm eggs, her thoughts turned to her tall strong son.

She hoped he was eating well.

Her eyes filled with tears but she brushed them off and with her pocket filled with the warm eggs made her way back to the house. Today was a happy day she reminded herself.

Old Dorgie was sitting outside his house in the morning sun for an hour when she threaded her way down towards the village, stepping lightly over yak dung.

‘Your sprightly this morning Dechen’ He called out hoping she would stop for a chat.

He would be ninety eight this summer! No longer good on his feet, he depended on friendly neighbours to give him the news as he sat there passing the time of day.

Despite his inability to walk too far, his eyes and ears were as sharp as razors and he had heard her coming from a long way off.

But today instead of stopping as she would normally do and giving him one of her warm ‘Kasai’ straight from the oven and wrapped in a clean piece of cloth, she just waved a greeting to him and hurried on.

Rounding the corner she nearly knocked over a woman carrying two buckets of water.

‘Hey Dechen!’ the woman stopped and put the buckets down, slopping water over the sides onto her felt shoes.

‘Choden! sorry!’ the two women smiled at each other in recognition.

Good friends that they were.

‘Choden how are you? here, let me help you’ Dechen was already lifting one of the buckets.

Chodens smile was so wide , it nearly split her face in two.

‘Its today isn’t it’ she said, more a statement than a question.

‘Yes’ Dechen replied happily ‘its today’

They started walking together each carrying a bucket.

‘I was hoping I would bump into you’ Choden exclaimed. ‘Will you come in for some tea’

‘I have made fresh bread’ She continued invitingly and when she saw the hesitation in her friends face she added ‘just out of the oven, and the pot is on’.

‘I should really keep going’ Denchen replied reluctantly ‘I want to get to the post office before the queue gets too long’

They had reached Chodens house and she set the bucket down at the door.

‘You know how it is with people, looking for all sorts of forms and asking too many questions’

‘I know what you mean, but why go to the post office at all’? Choden asked ‘Stay here and have tea. We can leave the door open and keep an eye out for the postman. It’ll save you a long trip down to Gamtog and I haven’t seen you for ages or at least not since Tenzin went. How long is that now? It must be four week’s? Come on just have one bowl. It will be good for you! You’ve been hiding yourself away since he went’.

‘Well ok!’ Dechen sighed ‘We do spend a lot of time traipsing up and down the mountain and I haven’t been avoiding you, just feeling a bit sad and missing him’

She followed her friend inside but sat near the open door.

Though the sun was climbing it was still chilly. She wrapped her hands gratefully around the bowl of tea her friend handed her.

She kept one eye on the door all the same though as they caught up with the news

‘That will be him now’ Choden said getting up to pour them another bowl of tea as a distant dog barked and sure enough a small man appeared with a sack on his back.

He spotted the two women through the open door and called out a greeting.

‘Come have some tea’ Choden called to him ‘and put this poor woman out of her misery’ She teased.

Dechen was already half standing, her two hands clasped to her chest as though in prayer when the postman stepped through the door.

As he stretched his hand forward towards her, a wide smile broke out across her face and she almost snatched the proffered envelope from him.

They watched in silence as she turned it over and back as if examining a precious stone of great value.

The white of the envelope with the strange writing amazed her.

She held it up to the light then down again to frown at it. Jammed between the tibetan writing and the four stamps were strange letters which she could not understand. She then turned her attention to the stamps, examining them closely and running her fingers over the shiny texture. A fish, a snail, a badger, a swan. Creatures she didn’t recognise.

She even put her nose to the envelope for a moment before laughing at her own foolishness.

‘Well open it’! Choden almost shouted with excitement.

Dechen looked from one face to the other seeing the curiosity in their eyes.

She smiled shyly and slipped the envelope in her pocket. ‘If you don’t mind’ she said respectfully  ‘I’ll go home now. Thank you for the tea’ She bowed to her friend, but seeing the disappointment in Chodens eyes, relented slightly.

‘Come up in the afternoon for tea and I will read it to you then’.

With that she slipped out the door and ran back up the hill.

THE GPO DUBLIN (PART TWO)

The General Post Office in Dublin is a beautiful building. taking just three years to build, it opened in jan 1818. It was of coursed badly damaged in the 1916 uprising and was rebuilt later by the free state.

I love the calm marbled and bronze interior of it.

If I have a letter to post, it is where I go. There is something very time worthy and dignified, in this digital age, of buying a stamp and then taking it over to one of the mahogany tables and carefully writing the address on an envelope, sticking on a stamp and posting it in one of the bronze letter boxes.

One day I was in the process of doing this when I was approached by a tall young man.

He looked about twenty and of asian origin.

He apologised for disturbing me. ‘Can you help me please?’ he asked respectfully in broken english.

I put down my pen from where I had finished writing the name and address and looked at the envelope he was proffering to me.

On the top left hand corner were four lines of what looked to me like chinese writing.

On the opposite side were four Irish stamps stuck neatly, two above the other. A basking shark, a blue snail, an otter and a swan.

‘An expensive letter’. I joked, seeing the sixty eight cent mark on each stamp.

He frowned ‘I don’t understand you’

I smiled and said ‘Your letter!  it must be going somewhere far away?’.

His face cleared as he returned my smile ‘Yes’ he said proudly ‘It is going to my mother. she lives in Gantog in tibet’

His english was stilted as if he had learnt off this sentence.

‘But’ he repeated ‘Can you please help? my english writing? no good! I need to write her address here’ He pointed to the space ‘I will tell you it and please can you write it on the envelope!’.

‘Of course’ I said and over the next fifteen minutes we laughed as he tried to pronounce the letters in english and I tried to make them out and write them as neatly as his tibetan writing up in the corner.

And while writing and talking, he introduced himself as ‘Tenzin’, he told me of the job he had got washing dishes in the mongolian restaurant in temple bar, how he had hoped to improve his english over here and yes of course he missed his mother very very much.

‘And your father’? I enquired

‘Dead’ he said shortly.

I didn’t enquire how or why but he continued and said he hoped to be able to send money home to his mother but it was expensive here.

At last we finished and together posted our letters into the bronze post box. Mine to the UK where my daughter and her husband and my three grandchildren were living and his, to some mountainous region of tibet, where his mother would be waiting anxiously for his letter to arrived.

And when it did, she would, no doubt, read it again and again and again.

The end.