On going to Galway - today.

Just I thought I would treat myself to putting up a picture of Lettermore in Galway for this blog, I might as well, it's as close as we got to Galway today.  Himself announced on Tuesday that, come hail, rain or..."yes, snow", I interrupted his flow with something less than my usual tolerance.  Last night I got everything ready, and this morning, after a sleepless night in case I missed the alarm, I awaited his awakening before I put a toe out on the carpet.  Aha! I'm getting too fly for that mistake at 6 a.m.  

Opening a sleepy eye, Beloved greeted me with "What's the weather like?" 

"Well," I replied, "at 5 a.m., there was a heavy downpour with hail stones but it's offering sunshine at the moment".  

There was a silence.  Followed by more silence.  "What do you think", he asked, snugly wrapped up with 86% of the duvet tightly wrapped around him, "will we go or will we leave it until next week?". 

I'm up to that dodge as well.  "It's entirely up to you, Sweetheart, whatever you decide is fine by me" [this with a smirk into the pillow].

Even the early rising birds are amused by him, at this stage, or maybe that's bemused.I'm sure I heard one tweet "he'll stay in his cocoon".  I had a long chat with myself on Sunday about leaving the "Day Away" decision up to him.  If I say yes, and we go and it rains - "well, you wanted to come here, I didn't" is probably number one refrain on a list of thousands.  If I say "no" then "Ah but you never want to go anywhere" would be number one on the other list; playing safe was a cosy option and I grabbed it for all I was worth.  Mum used to do this to Dad, she called it "Rug Pulling", with capitals, and it always worked.  It worked this time too.  Rolling over into more of the duvet he announced "Arra, sure we'll leave it until next week, and we'll go to ......[wait for it]....CORK!."

So, we got up at 9 o'clock and headed off to do the weeks grocery shopping.  Over breakfast, the Wise One decreed that we shall go to Waterford one day [notice that casual 'one day'] next week as that train leaves at a respectable 10.25 a.m., (that's, as I pointed out to him if it doesn't sit down at Sallins, Hazelhatch or in the departure station) and we shall [shall we?] arrive in Waterford at 12.20 and the train home is at 14.50 pip emma.  Well Emma might just well get the pip, whoever Emma is, because if that train manages to run to schedule, then there will be miracles in the air.

At this stage I'm not quite sure if this is beginning to be an episode out of an Irish comedy or am I blurry irritated with it.  It's messing up my schedule for one thing, trying to organise history group meetings, meeting up with an old friend home from America, a days shopping with youngest daughter and a days photography with eldest, a bit of blogging and a bit of research on another project of mine... well, it's beginning to get in the way. A discussion while travelling out to our local Aldi this morning ran something like this

Me:       You know the original plan was to have a weekly trip somewhere we wanted to see

              travelling by car, and once a month a trip to Galway [heard of that place before?] or 

              Waterford by train.

Him:      Well, things have gotten in the way, the rain, that inner ear infection you got, that 

               funeral we had to go to, and then there was...

Me:        Well, I suggest that you and I take the "car" trips together, we try for Waterford next week and that we can take off in a couple of weeks time for more local trips to either Balbriggan or Maynooth on the D.A.R.T, then in October you can head down to Thurles for lunch with your old pal Jimmy, and I can head off, or do a few of my own things while you're away for the day...

The response was a soulful look accompanied by a little boy hurt voice telling me that he likes being in my company.  6'2" doesn't carry off little boy hurt too well with me.  I have Kerry blood in my veins and am not for turning.  I am a determined woman.

Me:      O.K., we'll see what we can organise [pause here for quick reassessment] Nooo! wait a minute.  I pointed out my old argument of 35 years together, 34 of them while he was working I was organising household, children etc., etc., and had made a life of my own.  So we are now agreed on the above agenda of car trips, local trips on D.A.R.T [Dublin Area Rapid Transit]

and lunch [solo run] in October to Thurles, Co. Tipperary - oh! and one day next week we're going to either Waterford or Cork.

Lovely.   

In the meantime, he'll be where he wants to be.  In the garden wrestling gorse, cutting hedges, murdering the buddleja, and planning his chicken coop.

I did mention the chicken coop didn't I.   Last year it was called the chicken run, but the girls had too much fun with that title and it acquired a new title this year.  O.k., so the story on the chicken accommodation is roughly this [using the patented time schedule for demonstration purposes, patented by Himself]

March 2008, I inherit and we move in full time in July 2008 after some minor roof repairs and decorating are done.  August 2008 he announces he is dismantling Mum's hen run and turning it into a vegetable patch.

Christmas 2009, while watching me draw up plans for a new extension to the house, he draws up Plan #1/sometime in-20?? for a hen house.

August 2010 extension commenced, vegetable plot prepared.  

December 2010 extension completed.

Still with me?

January 2011 Planning Application for Hen Accommodation Plan #2/anytime in near future/20?? is put before me.  I tell him that, apart from that I don't want it as near to the house as Mum had her hen run, and the whiff on hot summer days was something else, and that another part of the garden will be too cold in winter and far too hot in summer for the poor hens, he's free to put said hen accommodation wherever he chooses.

August 2011  Various brochures on various types of hen accommodation are acquired at Tinahely Annual Agricultural Show, Co. Wicklow.  They make an interesting contribution to the coffee table.

November 2011 - June 2012, rambling discourse on types of hen ensue.  He wants ten, I tell him that is too many.  Nearly everyone on the lane keeps hens, so the days [when Mum was alive] of selling off your surplus to the local shop have passed him by.  Besides, I remind him of his cholesterol level.  I suggest two Marrans, and he wants Bantams, I suggest Silkies and he decides to investigate Leghorns.  At the moment Ostriches are definitely off the list but the possibility of bustards is not.  Mum would be so proud of him, she kept quail, guinea fowl, marrans, silkies, woodcock, pheasants...I'd settle for one hen, just for a home reared egg!

September 2012 Dining room table [a large, long one] covered for two months with plans for Hen house/run/accommodation/you name it.  Dinner party for friends in early November necessitates re-acquiring dining table, plans sulkily put away.

December 2012  "Did anyone see my hen house plans?"

A silent 2013.

June 2014 "Why did I get convert your Mum's hen run into a vegetable patch?"  

                    "...'er, we wanted fresh veg and last years haul was fabulous?????"

August 2014.  "Where's that magazine you were reading the other day with those fancy hen trailers in it".

Himself was last seen, when not plotting train trips to Galway, digging out foundations for a hen run.  He built a two story house 5'2[H] x 3'6"[W] x 4'7"[D] twelve years ago for the cat, it will, it appears, be the template for the hen shack!

The cat currently sleeps in an abandoned cardboard box [full of old t-shirts belonging to youngest daughter who was throwing them out] on the veranda.  On winter nights she occupies the bottom left hand corner of eldest daughter's bed...it's nearer the radiator.

On that note...