The Super Duper yellow bicycle (thoughtless acts of kindness)

Tags

Dublin, Granny, kind deeds, Nurses, praise, red cape, Spring, the aircoach, the patton flyer, the yellow bicycle, wind and rain, work

So here comes Nanny pepper pot,

On her yellow bicycle.

Pedaling along, head bent against the wind and rain.

red cape flying out behind.

Red cape?

Ah no! that’s just her raincoat.

Super Nanny,

Shes a Super Duper Granny.

One could easily compare the yellow bicycle to a sort of magic carpet because once I take off on her, any adventure or good deed I have or do, is out of my control.

So keeping that in mind, please don’t think I am looking for praise when I tell you the story of a true occurrence that took place a while back, when I was cycling to work.

It is an early Sunday morning in Spring.

Seven am to be exact.

I am cycling to work on the yellow bicycle.

The weather is dreadful, visibility poor because of the rain and the wind is so strong I am struggling, head bent against it.

But I am not the only one struggling.

As I reach the Blackrock shopping center, I see a man running down a side street.

His coat is open as though he didn’t have the time to button it and is flapping like a sail in the wind.

He is also struggling with a large wheely suitcase. which, weaving along behind him, sometimes overturns as he pulls it impatiently across the uneven surfaces of manholes and dips in the pavement.

This causes him to lose momentum, because, each time it does, he has to stop and right it.

I also see the reason for his hurry.

Ahead, The Patton flyer, (the small bus that ran this route to the airport before the days of the present day Aircoach) is pulling away from the bus stop.

The man rounding the corner on to the main road, is seconds too late.

‘Stop! Wait’ He shouts waving his free hand frantically at the receding red tail lights.

But it is hopeless, the wind carries his voice away.

(As a user of this service I understand the predicament he is in. This small bus only runs every hour on the hour and missing it probably will probably also mean missing his flight, unless of course he can afford to hail a taxi.)

At this stage I have come parallel to him.

and passing him, I call out.

‘Don’t worry I’ll stop the bus’ (remember I am on the yellow bicycle so this is uttered almost unbeknownst to my self)

My words are also swept away in the wind and I don’t think he hears me because he has slowed down, head dropping, defeated.

For a moment I am tempted to pretend I said nothing and just keep going to work but the yellow bicycle has other ideas and I find myself cycling faster.

And even though I know I have no hope in gaining on the red tail lights of the receding bus, I don’t give up.

As luck would have it, there is a set of traffic lights a few meters beyond the bus stop and these lights turn red.

The bus is forced to stop.

I see my chance and putting all my energy into turning those pedals around and hoping that the lights won’t change, I succeed in pulling up along side the drivers door .

I lean from my bike and rap my knuckles loudly against his window.

He glances sideways, his eyes widening in horror as he looks at the apparition staring in at him.

I see fear in his eyes (I understand what he is  thinking.)

So to let him see it is not the ‘hold up’ he imagines it to be, I pull off my hood.

Relief floods across his face as he sees I’m a woman and not a mad gunman.

Still cautious, he lowers his window slightly.

‘Yes?’ He cranes his head to speak through the small opening he has created.

‘Oh please,’ I have to shout above the wind and the noise of his engine. ‘There is a poor man back there. He is nearly having a heart attack trying to catch you. PLEASE wait for him”

To my surprise the driver smiles and nods and as the lights turn green, he pulls over to the pavement.

I look back and see that my friend, recognising he has another chance, is starting to run again.

Job done, I get on my bike and continue on my way to work.

The bus catches up with me at Booterstown and passing me, the driver toots the horn loudly.

I look up to see a dozen faces peering and waving at me through the rain covered windows.

And then I see my friend.

‘Thank you’ He mouths as the bus disappears into the rainy morning.

I hope the hairdryer is working in the nurses changing room.

Sadly the Patton flyer is no more. Some bureaucratic problem with a licence caused it to be taken off the road.  instead its been replaced by a huge impersonal air-coach which I cannot imagine would be so good as to carry out this simple but meaningful deed.

The end.

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

 

That’s NOT where it belongs (death of a yellow bicycle)

Tags

bedsheets, childhood, daughters, dogs, family, furniture, Gerard Dillon, house extensions, pinterest, stress, T P Flanagan, the yellow bicycle, tidyness

Due to the circumstances I am about to describe, the yellow bicycle has been removed from her usual place by the fire (when not in travel mode she forms a means of drying clothes) and now stands on my balcony at the mercy of the elements.

As I sit writing I can see her gazing dolefully across at sugar loaf, whilst also managing to cast baleful glances through the window at me.

Why is she being so dramatic?

Bicycles are outdoor creatures!

Its not as though she can catch her death of cold.

I have mollycoddled her too much.

I draw the curtain so that I can write in peace.

Who moved my coffee!

A while ago I wrote a piece about what happens when I get too involved with my daughters lives.

Moving in teabag by teabag ( Here’s your bicycle and what’s your hurry)

Now the shoe is on the other foot

My eldest daughter and her husband are extending their house.

It is nearly Christmas and the build has run into a few delays.

At first the plan was that they would be able to live in the house except for a day or two when the new floors were being laid as they would both be at work during the week.

But a few days before the job is due to finish they realise how dangerously dusty it has become and they set about looking for somewhere to stay in the interim.

I come up with a solution

There are three of them and a dog.

There is only one of me.

It makes more sense that I move out and stay somewhere and let them have my small one bed-roomed abode.

After all it is only for a few days.

They arrive with a lot of stuff.

Not their fault.

A working couple need their office clothes and leisure clothes, night wear, hygiene stuff. laptops, phone chargers.

A child need toys and clothes and nappies and baby wipes,

A dog needs her bed and food bowl ( if I stand on that water bowl once more!)

Did I mention my apartment is small?  Did I mention they were staying for a few days only?

Time marches on. Another building delay. The few days turns into a week and another week and they are still here.

I really don’t mind.

That much.

Its just ….

Well the yellow bicycle hasn’t a hope of returning to her place by the fire before Christmas.

and someone keeps moving my coffee.

The tidy scoring system

I am a tidy person.

on a tidy scale of one to ten I would probably score a six.

This might not seem such a high score for my profession as a nurse.

But anything over a four is high in our family.

In saying that, I do have a daughter who scores an eight.

She could score a ten except that she has a black Labrador who sheds a lot.

And if you should meet that daughter she is most likely to have a sweeping brush in hand. (Been caught with accoutrements of tidiness can lower your score because it does not give an accurate reading.)

But I wasn’t always tidy

To be perfectly Honest

Growing up I shared a bedroom with my sister.

Now the bedrooms in our house were utilitarian. My father, an architect, was ahead of his time where interior decor was involved.

So while my friends bedrooms sported fake velvet headboards, chintzy bedspreads, dizzymaking carpets of multicoloured floral patterns and those kidney shaped dressing table with a three sided mirror, (Not encouraged to gaze at ourselves we had no mirror in bedroom) ours consisted of homemade bunk beds designed to leave as much floor space free as possible, a sleek built in wardrobe and ….

well that was it!

A bed and a wardrobe on (you guessed it ) a floor of wooden boards.

So ashamed was I of my minimalist room, that whenever I had a friend over, I would haul one of the beautiful mahogany bespoke chairs down from the open plan dining room and place it beside my bed to give the semblance of extra furniture.

I didn’t realise until years later that my friends considered my bedroom amazing. and looking back it was.

The wooden floors were solid oak. the sliding wardrobes the best mahogany and the beds handcrafted.

As clean and crisp a room as you would find these days on Pinterest.

Any way my sister was as tidy as I was untidy so, to prevent friction, we drew a line across the floor,(Did I mention we were allowed, encouraged even to draw on anything that didn’t move)And from then on her side of the room remained ultra tidy with clothes folded neatly (On the floor?) while my side remained strewn with abandoned garments.

Now though as handy as it might seem to just step out of ones clothes there was a downside.

As I lay awake in the semi dark (did we even have curtains?) dreaming of boys, the folds of clothes on the floor began to take the shape of faces.

Evil faces.

The more I stared the eviler they became until at last, unable to bear them any longer, I would creep from under my warm covers into the cold (why would you even consider that we might have central heating) and move them around.

Facing those Demons

I like a clean bed as much as the next.

Maybe even more than the next.

One of my favourite pleasures in life is a deep bath followed by a climb into a soft bed bedecked with fresh sheets.

Nothing wrong with that you say, but the problem was I would feel so languorous after my bath (others might call this lazy) I didn’t bother removing the old sheet.

Instead I would just lay a clean one on top.

None of the rest of my family noticed or at least no one complained.

Maybe they didn’t bath or change their sheets as frequently and I carried on this habit for quite some time.

Until my sisters wedding,

It all comes out in the wash in the end

My sister is getting married.

And with some of her friends planning to stay at our house, she sets about making up spare beds for them.

And quickly runs out of clean sheets

‘Nonsense’ exclaims my mother. ‘there are plenty of fresh sheets in the linen press’

I overhear this conversation while munching on toast and marmalade from the depths of my (very soft) bed.

As my sisters footsteps gets louder (oh those bare floorboards) I slide slowly and guiltily, lowering my self under the warmth of my blankets, creasing the many layers of sheets as I do so.

At last only the top of my head is visible.

But I continue eating, frantically munching on my warm safe toast (did i mention I eat when I’m stressed)

”STEPHANIE”

Before I get a chance to reply she rips the covers off me and the evidence is exposed.

Not only is my plate of crusts and crumb covered top sheet visible to the public but the twenty something under sheets as well.

The truth is out and the shame.

‘You are not only lazy but untidy too’ My sister shouts.

She spots the heaps of clothes on my floor.

‘How can you BEAR to live in such a mess! And what am I suppose to do now? ‘

‘Quickly quickly, wash the sheets?’ I hear you say

Ah! normally that would be a good idea, but you see we had no washing machine.

We can blame that on my mother.

On going out to buy one, she passed an art gallery and popped inside (just for a quick look she told us later).

She emerged after a while and nestled in her purse where the washing machine money should have been, was a receipt for an original Gerard Dillon or it may have been the T P Flanagan, to be delivered to the house the next day.

So mostly she washed by hand (no doubt gazing lovingly at her purchase) and every once in a while she would send one of us down with a bag of larger items to the locally washateria.

This bag being too heavy to carry was placed on a pram and I cried bitterly when it was my turn (my childhood shame was never ending)

Oh how I would have gladly cast aside my shame and willingly pushed the pram of sheets down that day.

But the wedding was now imminent and the guests arriving soon so there was no time for even that.

I cannot remember what the final outcome was.

To allay my shame and possibly have an insight into my continued martyred approach to life I like to think I spent my sisters wedding, Cinderella-like, washing sheets while everyone else was having fun.

But the reality was my used sheets were probably reused.

Maybe if you were one of those guests you could throw a light on this?

or I could ask my sister but I’d rather not remind her……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is more to life than riding a yellow bicycle (That’s no diet for a growing woman)

Tags

autumn, cancer, cycling, Darwin, Dawkins, diet, Dostoevsky, Gerard Dillon, mothers, painting, the yellow bicycle

There is more to weight (loss) than riding a yellow bike

or so I’m told.

turning pedals alone just won’t cut it. 

But, unless I spend the rest of my days monitoring every morsel I eat

(How boring)

I  will be as my genes dictate.

And so I am going to blame it on my mother.

*****

Next month I face the great man himself (My Oncologist)

Nope, not god, but almost so.

And my mother will not be there to take the blame.

Not that she wouldn’t or couldn’t.

My eighty six year old still alive Mother of eight (All alive) herself overweight, who continued to cycle her bicycle whilst her six slim best friends  (ironically now all dead) were driving around in BMW’s.

My avid gatherer of clutter and objects d’art mother. (When raising her family my father gave her the money to go and buy a washing machine. She gaily headed off on the bus into the city and came home with an original painting by Gerard Dillon instead)

My reader of Darwin, Dawkins and Dostoevsky mother, with a brain as sharp as a pin, would be well able to put her spoke in (pardon the pun) and stand up for me.

But no I will sit motherless with head bent.

And he will sigh and look at me and say

‘I didn’t save you from cancer only to lose you to heart disease’

and I will mumble something about my genes and how I can’t understand it because I am ALWAYS riding my yellow bicycle

and he will say (as he says every year) that that is not enough.

SO with this upcoming dreaded yearly appointment I start a frantic weight loss program.

(How much weight can one lose in a month?)

And to settle my nerves l take off through the autumny trees on the strength of the above pictured breakfast

and arrive home STARVING only to discover there is nothing there to eat but the leg of the table.

 

 

 

Blown-away bread; A recipe (Make it if you dare)

Tags

cycling, driftwood, family, fire, fried bread, genes, Pelican, quick thinking, recipe, red wine, steak, The wild atlantic way, the yellow bicycle, turf

 

You would be forgiven for thinking Blown-away bread is so named because the eater was ‘blown away’ by it’s deliciousness.

But that is not the case.

It got its name due to a mischievous gust of wind that blew it off the plate when I was about to serve it to my first customer.

“Hey my bread! it’s blown away” (needless to say I was serving it out of doors and by the wild Atlantic sea)

I quickly picked up the offending bread, shook the sand off, put it back on the plate and coolly replied

“Of course it has. That’s why its called Blown-away bread!”

Picture this!

you have just spent a glorious but tiring day cycling along mountain and bog roads and are positively STARVING.

Passing through a small village you decide to call into the butcher and buy a piece of steak.

Then, cycling the last down hill to your small tent by the sea, you set about lighting a fire.

You pull out a frying pan and throw a slab of butter into it followed by the steak.

That done you, pouring yourself a lavish glass of red wine, you stretch out your tired feet to the fire and wiggling your muddy toes (you cycle in sandals) sigh with contentment.

As you lean forward to turn the steak you become aware, above the sizzling of the pan, of the sound of voices in the distance and note (alarmingly) that they are getting louder.(A sure sign they are headed in your direction).

With sinking heart you hastily consider your options.

The first (which isn’t even a possible one but in your panic you consider it anyway) is to grab pan, steak and fire and run and hide (there are many sandy dips and hollows in this place) but you know that no one has ever manage to move a fire and live to tell the tale so you discard that one.

The second is to grin and brace yourself for the onslaught.

And here they come now .

‘Hi mom what are you doing?’

‘Hi granny’ (there are little ones in tow)

‘ooh that smells delicious’

It’s your family and without any invitation they plonk themselves down in unison beside you on the grass.

Now mothers are, by there very nature, selfless beings and it would be unacceptable to sit in front of your genes and devour a steak if you hadn’t enough to share, so you have to think quickly.

Mothers are also very innovative when it comes to feeding their young during a food shortage (think of the pelican) so without further ado you find yourself inventing a dish that although it would turn every cardiologist in the country white with fright, would have your children (even those whose diet mainly consists of avocado and almond milk) calling out for more.

The name of the dish? Blown-away Bread and you can find the recipe below.

 

THE RECIPE:

Accoutrements:

• One large frying pan into which you can fit two slices of bread comfortably.
• one fire preferably by the sea.
• one medium sized family

Ingredients:

• one Ilb butter (I use kerrygold)
• One small steak
• a small drop sea water (instead of salt)
• A bottle (or two) of red wine (mostly for drinking but a small amount for cooking)
• a loaf of thickly sliced bread (as many slices as there are people to feed and more)

Cooking time:  as long as the fire lasts.

Method:

First build a small circle of stones slightly smaller than the base of the frying pan and with an even finish so the pan can balance on it.

This done, light your fire inside this circle using turf /gathered drift wood/ dried cow dung etc

Allow the embers to die down.

Place your pan on the fire and when hot, add a good dollop of the butter.

As soon as the butter is frothing, add the steak browning it well on both sides

Allow the steak to cook thoroughly.

Discard the steak (either eat, give to the dog or throw to the seagulls. It’s no longer needed for the recipe)

Add more butter to the pan

Add some wine and a tablespoon of sea water and reduce

Carefully place two thick slices of bread in the pan.

Allow the slices to crisp on one side before turning over, ensuring they are thoroughly coated in the meat/butter/wine juice/seawater juice.

Crisp other side then lift on plate (watch that wind) and serve to your first two customers.

Continue adding butter/ wine/sea water/ bread and serving in that order until everyone has had a slice of substitute steak.

Keep going for as long as you have bread/fire/family/wine oh and calm weather.

Waiting for the embers to die down. The wine? Oh that’s for cooking with of course.

The End.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I prefer walking (If only Dad had heard of kintsukuroi)

Tags

Antithesis, cycling, flaws and imperfections, fly fishing, fly tying, Interferon, Kintsukuroi, Mediteranean, melanoma., philosophy, The Alentejo, the yellow bicycle, walking

Kintsukuroi : The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted with gold silver or platinum powder.

‘Don’t let Stephanie touch that dish/plate/teapot, she’ll break it!’ was one of my Dad’s refrains.

Recently my sister reminded me of this when telling me of someone she knew who was dyspraxic. She said she often wondered if I had suffered from a mild form that went undetected.

I assured her that I was just a clumsy child and the fact that I had no problem riding a bicycle proved I hadn’t a dyspraxic bone in my body.

Poor Dad!

If only he heard about kintsukuroi he might have been a bit more chilled about my breakages, plus he never learned that hovering nervously over me reminding me not to break something was a sure way of making me break it.

Then again with the pressure off I might not have broken any for him to practice on in the first place.

Now my observation is a sort of antithesis.

My Dad was a pedant and therefore on one side the perfectionist in him would have struggled when faced with the shattered pieces of something as beautiful as a delicate china plate.

But he was also an artist, a purist one to be exact (no wild abstract splashing’s for him, his water colours followed the strict old fashioned wash method) so the creative side of this Japanese art would have interested him.

And being a purist, his Kintsukuroi would have been meticulous.

Unfortunately he missed the era of google, but I am sure he would have gone in search of books on the subject, just as he had with the art of tying Artificial flies for his fishing.

One of my childhood memories is of him sitting, head bent, brow furrowed in concentration, at his specially equipped table in my parents bedroom, tying these minute flies. (Really he should have been working at his architectural drawings and earning a crust for his family)

This table, on which stood a miniature vice grips and a well leafed book detailing the art of fly tying, had a small drawer underneath containing boxes with hooks of various sizes, scrapes of wool, gold and silver threads and hackle feathers collected from cockerels around the country.

It was actually my mothers dressing table, but since she never wore a scrape of make up or perfume, he commandeered it.

So you can understand why I could also picture him, at the same table, in the same manner, painstakingly fitting together the pieces of my latest breakage and painting in the cracks with gold or silver lacquer.

And just as when he was tying flies, we watched in admiration (the hook steady in the vice grips and using a forceps with surgical precision, attaching first the wool, winding the silver or gold thread around to hold it in place, then the feathers) as before our very eyes a Wickhams fancy, bloody butcher, sooty olive, or duckfly, appeared,  we could have also gazed admiringly at his latest piece of kintsukuroi.

And I would have been the proud source of yet another family story surrounding the occasion of the breakage of that particular piece (rather than the shameful clumsy daughter who’s breakages ended in the bin).

A note on fly fishing (and how it ruled our family)

Firstly, the subject of hackle feathers!

As a child it did not appear to us in anyway unusual that, when driving along a country road we would screech to a sudden halt, as my dad, having spied some colourful feathered fowl in a farm yard, would leap from the car, open the gate and scattering the hens, approach the door to talk to the woman of the house.

From our vantage point, we would watch as she, or one of her children raced around the yard in pursuit of the fine cockerel whose feathers my Dad had put his eye on.

Once caught the catcher would hold the bird steady while my Dad plucked a few of the hackle feathers and thanking the farmers wife profusely, tuck them into the small metal box he kept in his jacket pocket.

Secondly. We had to know the names of the flies he tied. After all if we were his oarsman for the day, he could, without letting his eyes leave the water, reel in his line and announce that a change of fly was needed. And our job then was to quietly place the oars in the rowlocks (sounds might frighten the fish) and hand him whichever of the above he requested.

So you better know your flies!.

But where is this story going?

Oh yes.

Breakages, flaws, imperfections and changes and re-pairings.

Kintsukuroi also has a philosophical expression i.e embracing the flaws and imperfections of the object. Seeing its life story through its breakages rather than trying to disguise them.

April, eight years ago, I received the news of a biopsy.

Metastatic melanoma.

The primary, my right calf.

A small freckle I had surgically removed a few years before (supposedly benign) had metastasised to the lymph nodes in my groin.

Had all those years of cycling in the summer sun caused the primary?

Who knows? but one thing was sure. I was not the perfectly healthy individual I presumed I was, but a flawed one, an imperfect being, a broken piece of the human kind.

Look Dad! Now how insignificant those plates, those cups, that teapot.

‘But how can it be?’ I wailed at anyone interested in listening to me’ I feel so well’

I wrote in my diary.

‘After all my years of nursing, of hand holding and reassuring of others I am now on the same side of the fence. I never thought it would be me.’

I had my surgery that May.

At first I was scared of everything, the sun, my life, even my leg.

Especially my leg.

I took each step gingerly, barely daring to walk on it.

I was so fearful of putting weight on it that I began to cycle more than I ever (if that was possible) just to avoid putting it to the ground.

My bicycle became my crutch.

At first I cycled with two surgical drains still in place, hidden by pinning them to the underside of my long skirt.

Then through an exhausting year of Interferon.

I couldn’t stop cycling!

In the west of Ireland I struggled against the Atlantic storms, forcing my legs round and round.

And when my treatment finished, I cycled at a gentler pace across France where, on I reaching the Mediterranean, I finally excepted the philosophy of Kintsukuroi and embraced my imperfection.

In doing so, I realised I no longer needed to rely so much on my bicycle to cart me around and that sometimes I preferred walking.

And now, although there is no silver or gold mending it, like a piece of (unfinished) Kintsukuroi, the thin scar making its way crookedly along, from mid thigh to mid abdomen, continues to tell my story.

To be continued…

(Where with some anxiety but after much deliberation I decided to explore The Alentejo region in Portugal without the yellow bicycle.

As I cycle I Learn to see life stories in the flaws of old things rather than focus on their imperfections.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still can’t see the sea but goodbye to the agapanthus.

Tags

bicyles, churches, Cycling in france, ferries, french food, goodbyes, Irish, Islands, lunchtime, pénichette, the yellow bicycle, trains, wine

Good bye to the Agapanthus 

Before I realize it my week is over.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, my island story is told.

I make my bed one final time and close the door of the room with it’s window that looks across the bay of sleeping boats at low tide and its ghostly presence at night.

I never did get around to writing about my need to check each room, cupboard and wardrobe before I went to bed.

I am not usually scared of night time. I wild camp without a second thought and sleep in a small tent with no fear. Darkness never bothers me, I have often cycled home alone with just my bicycle lamp to show me the way.

Yet, though this house is in the middle of the village and there is no crime on the island, I felt uneasy each night I spent in it. My unease coming from something inside the house rather than outside.

Of all the rooms, the bedroom opposite the one I chose to use, caused me the most anxiety.

My instinct was to close its door but to keep my one open so that I could keep a watchful eye.

But what I would do if I woke in the morning to find it open or worse, woke in the night to see the door handle slowly turning, I had no idea.

Eventually of course I fell asleep each night  and in the morning all was well.

And in the end, the only night I was ever disturbed was when leaving the window open, the zing of a mosquito in my ear made me shoot out of bed.

After a ridiculously lengthy chase I managed to squish the intruder between my shoe and the wall.

~~~

I plan to be up early but I sleep in.

When I finally walk up the hill to the boulangerie, all the pain au raisin are sold out.

Madame looks surprised to see me and I explain my absence yesterday. I tell her I am leaving this morning and thank her for her delicious patisseries over the last week.

She suggests a Breton Far. A solid custard type square studded with plums and when I nod,  I see her slip a second one in.

‘Au revoir’.

‘Au revoir et bon voyage’.

I walk down the steep hill for the last time.

The lady who takes care of the house rings to tell me just to pull the door after me and leave the key in it.

She has had to go to the mainland unexpectedly and apologises for not being there to say goodbye. I am concerned about leaving the house with the key dangling in the door but she assures me that I needn’t worry.

I meet the postman coming in through the gate. He has the only other yellow bicycle on the island and it has a small engine on it, which I suppose when, day in day out delivering letters and parcels up those steep hills, he is well entitled to.

Outside the gate I wait patiently until the only herd of milking cows left on the island walk by and then sail down the hill to the catch ferry, stopping on the pier to look back one last time across the semi circle of sand.

Au revoir to the village with its steep hill. To my house with the blue shutters. To the stone cottages. To the white beaches and small lane ways.

Au revoir to the fields of fennel and cauliflowers and now faded Agapanthus.

‘Simple ou return?’ The ferry lad looks surprised (or maybe slightly relieved) when I sadly reply ‘Simple’

Again he doesn’t charge me for the yellow bicycle though it has caused him more trouble than I have.

The tide is still out so once again its an easy chore to wheel my bike off the ferry and up the sloping ramp of the walk way.

The day is fine! blue skies with a scatter of clouds. I look enviously at the people with walking sticks, rug-sacks and cameras heading past me to board the ferry.

Faire Manger

The importance of lunch time in France can not be overstated.

I learnt that the hard way when cycling from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean a few years ago.

Cycling until midday, my romantic notion of stopping and buying baguette, figs, goats cheese and a small bottle of Sancerre to picnic on in the shade of some dappled-Monet-like-canal-side-tree, was soon quashed.

Shops closed for lunch from 12 until two.

On the dot and without exception.

No amount of pleading by a mad Irish woman who didn’t have a watch or a good sense of time, and always managed to arrive just as the doors of such establishments were shutting, was going to make the owner take pity and let her in. 

I went hungry for the first day or two until I began to realise the importance of these two hours.

Then one day, after again being turned away with a rumbling stomach, I spied a tiny fish restaurant on the banks of the Canal.

I was shown to a small table at the back in a dark corner.

The only other people at the restaurant, were a couple who were already eating at a prime canal side table.

Seated beneath an ancient weeping willow in the warmth of the October sun, they appeared dappled and happy and impressionist like.

Their wine glasses glinted in the light as they raised and lowered them between mouthfuls. Their contented sounding conversation drowned out only occasionally when a pretty pénichette would chug by, its wake causing the soporific ducks and swans to sway and untuck their heads momentarily in order to glare at the disturbance of their fish filled dreams.

Lucky them I thought (The couple not the birds)watching enviously from my table in the gloom.

Minutes later a group of ten arrived and immediately the couple were moved (mid mouthful) from their enviable table to a smaller one near mine and the waiters busied themselves joining the now empty table to another while the new arrivals stood patiently by.

With a flurry of white linen and the clattering of cutlery and glass, it was soon ready and the newcomers were seated.

Meanwhile the discommoded couple continued their food and wine and conversation at the lesser table.

I watched amazed

Not only did they NOT give the slightest inkling of objection at losing their scenic spot, nor any indication at the inconvenience of being interrupted mid bite, But they even smiled at the waiters as though understanding perfectly that it was not the loveliness or ambience of seating position that was important, but the priority of getting everyone fed for this imperative meal.

(Nor, I noted, was there any smugness on the part of the group who now sat installed at a wonderful table in the dappled shade.

Indeed they (the newcomers) didn’t seem in the slightest bit aware of their good fortune except to take it as though fully entitled to do so.

Nor did they show any appreciation for the loveliness of their surroundings. Instead, bending their heads low, they discussed what they would eat).

The second time I noticed the importance of lunchtime was when I took the train from Sete to Narbonne with my bicycle.

Unfortunately I chose a day when the train workers decided to stage an impromptu ‘manifestation’ (strike) .

The train stopped (and remained) at a small station and as I sat listening to the sound of rifles being shot into the air further down the tracks, the other passengers suddenly sprang from their seats and hurried down the platform to where a large crowd was gathering.

Curious as to what was happening, I followed, to see the striking station workers handing out cardboard boxes to everyone.

It was midday and yes, the world might be falling asunder, the trains not running etc, but the people had to eat lunch.

I joined the crowd and was duly handed a box.

Taking it back to my carriage I tucked into tuna pasta, a small plastic bottle of white wine,a fruit yogurt and an apple

Once I had finished and because ,though the sounds of of gunshots were fading, the train still showed no signs of moving, I removed my bicycle from its rack in the bike compartment and cycled away satisfied by my lovely lunch.

~~~~~~

Lunch time is drawing near.

The restaurant opposite the old harbour is busy.

I manage to get a small table on the terrace with just two chairs at it.

knowing from my above mentioned experiences how precious restaurant tables are at this time of day, I am aware how lucky I am.

At the table beside mine, a group of five Irish men sit with glasses of beer in front of them.

I order a glass then watch as one of the men stands up, boules in hand and steps across the low stone wall separating the terrace from the pitch.

There is a Frenchman already there (I saw him arrive on a moped when I was putting my bicycle in the rack) practicing alone. The Irish man approaches him and without noticeably speaking the pair shake hands and a game of boules begins.

It all happens so smoothly, almost fluently.

It’s obviously not the first time the Irish man has played.

Not only does he appear to know the protocol of starting a game, but he does not let us down either.

By now the beer/wine/coffee drinkers are swiveling in their seats for a better view and the odd clapping of hands and murmurs of appreciation break out.

I settle contentedly back in my chair and watch the game too.

The restaurant is getting busier. (If that is possible) I order a plate of moules mariniere and a glass of white wine

Every table is filled and I nod as someone asks if they can take the empty seat opposite me.

Another chair appears. and another.

My table for one has now become a table for four.

Though now a bit squished, I have no objection.

I understand that we are not at the one table with the expectation of becoming friends or even making small chat but rather for the importance of  ‘faire manger‘.

So after an initial ‘bon appetit’ we get down to the business in hand of enjoying our lunch!

The final hours.

The church of Sainte Barbe sits on top of a hill.

Built at the start of 17th century, it is a beautiful building, its tower reaching to the heavens.

The plaque explains that Sainte Barbe was the patron saint of sailors and that the occupants of the passing boats would salute the church in hopes for a safe voyage.

After my lunch at the busy restaurant I still have some time before I need to be at the ferry, so I sit in its shadow and pulling out my diary am busy writing the final sentences of my story when I become aware of the flow of male voices.

I can’t see the owners of this conversation as they are hidden from my view by the shrubbery, but judging from the undulation, the butting in, the interruptions, with sometimes two voices together escalating and much laughter they can only be that of friends.

As I turn around curiously to listen and try and catch what language they are speaking (Yes eavesdrop, if you will) I notice three bicycles complete with filled pannier’s leaning against a wall.

One of the bicycles is sporting an Irish flag.

The voices get louder and without a break in the conversation, three men of about my age appear around the corner.

‘Bonjour’ They greet me politely when they see me sitting there.

‘Bonjour’ I reply in my best accent intending to pretend I am french. But before I know it I’m admitting to my Irishness.

We start comparing notes.

They explain that its their first time cycling in France and only one of them (I’ll call him Tom) speaks the language and poorly at that.

They depend on his french (however poor) for asking directions when they get lost (which they seem to do frequently).

Now their story goes that Tom only knows the french word for ‘right’ (a droite) and can never remember the word for ‘left’ (a gauche) but at least he knows that one word. So when they are cycling along (Lost as per usual) and he is forced to stop and ask directions, if whoever he asks, indicates they should turn left and says ‘a gauche’, he jumps back on his bicycle, immediately forgetting the word for ‘left’ so shouts instead to the pair still cycling ahead ‘A non droite, A non droite’ (‘to the not right’) and they turn left.

Was it due to my almost non existing chance of conversation for the week on the island that makes me find their story hilarious?

Eventually after much chat we part ways arranging to continue our conversation later in the bar on the ferry but for now they off to buy wine to bring home to their wives and I am off to buy gifts for my grandchildren which I do before cycling down the hill to join the queue of cars waiting to board the ferry.

The End