The Great Snowball fight

The Great Snowball War of '63

When we were nine, my pals and I, we took part in the last Great Snowball War.  It had snowed all week end, from Friday until Monday morning.  Great was our joy when we awoke on Saturday morning to be told by our Mothers that there would be no school today.  Life couldn't get much better than this.

Monday morning dawned bitterly cold, and with deep snow drifts in the field next to our place.  Every child in the village headed for this field, because of its layout, it usually provided great drifts of snow for us to make huge snowmen.  We were experts in those days.  Marty Moore  provided a ladder, which  wound up getting lost in the snow and was retrieved when the thaw came, but not before his Dad had invested in another ladder.

We arrived on site, and before long, with much energy applied, we were up to the shoulders of our snowman.  Katie Riordan and Violet Dunne had provided the hat and scarf respectively.  Not that permission had been sought.  Most of us were nine that year, and it was a wonderful age to be.  Next year you would have two digits in your age, but this was your last year being a single digit age, and in those days that seemed to be powerfully important to us.

Work was going on apace when the Teddy Boys from the next village arrived.  Timsy Moore, Bartle Rourke, Mickey Finnerty and Toby Wade.  Shortly after that, their older brothers arrived.  Competition in snowman making was fierce between the two villages and the older lads were not above sabotage to make sure that their village had the best snowman.  There were no prizes for snowmen, just kudos.

Timsy Moore struck the first blow.  A well placed snowball caused Larry Burke to totter on the ladder as he attempted to place the snowmans head on snowy shoulders.  Larry hit the ground heavily taking the snowman with him.  That was it!  There was no other recourse to us.  War was declared.

It has always amazed me, in hindesight, how we all knew our jobs.  The girls made the snowballs and lined them up for the lads to throw.  We were quick and our frozen agile fingers [surely a contradiction in terms] quickly made the pile of snowballs grow and grow.

Larry, dignity assaulted, was the best shot and it wasn't long before the air was alive with snowballs flying backwards and forwards between "Them" and "Us".  They made a soft "thuft" sound as they found a target.  Things were very satisfactorily going our way until Thady Hanrahan decided to add a stone to his snowball.  Violet Dunne was the recipent of this devious weapon and she was lucky not to have lost an eye.  Violet left the battlefield howling loudly for her Mammy.  In those days we usually took our injuries silently and fought on. 

Big Teasy Dunne came up the lane like a battleship in full attack mode.  The Hood had nothing on her.  Wielding a mop about her, she laid into the other village lads.  Timsy Moore got it across the shoulders; Mickey Finnerty ran down the lane holding his nether regions and howling like a gibbon.  That he could walk straight after that whack and was not damaged for life was a miracle.

Hearing Teasy roar, other parents began to arrive on the scene, and it wasn't long before the war was over.  The other village lot ran off down the hill, and we roared and hooted with laughter at them. 

We slowly wended our way home, warm, damp and exhausted but Oh! it was a great war that war of '63.

There was never such a war since.  Snow didn't fall that heavily 'til last year.  By that time we had all reached our 50's and 60's and dignity and all that you know...

The field is now a housing estate, and todays little darlings sit snugly indoors in snow as they play with their playstations.  Oh what they miss out on.

Timsy Moore and I stood at the end of the lane last year and reminisced in the snow about the Great Snow War of '63.  He now lives in Dubai, and has done so for about ten years.  Last year he came home for six weeks...and a lifetime of memories.

Of village life...

Reading Maddie Griggs wonderful blog set me thinking about village life and the little things that go to make village life what it is.  The pub, [well this is Ireland], the village shop, the people, and the post office, if we had one that, and Dan.

I grew up in this village, as did my Mother, her Father, his Father before that and I suppose you could say "we belong".  The family have been here since after the Famine which wiped out that branch of the family and resulted in my GGF leaving Sligo on the west coast and taking to the road to emigrate to England, at the age of 13 in order to survive.  He got as far as the Wicklow/Wexford border, having been taken on by a cattle drover in Dublin, as he sought to earn the fare.  He took work, as we say here, with the farmer whose cattle he had brought down from the markets in Dublin, and five years later he eloped with that mans daughter.  Suffice it to say that he got away with the elopement insofar as her brother maintained family ties as did her Mother, his Father in law always greeted him, and the twelve children they went on to have, with a shotgun loosely held in his arm.  Time and space were good healers it appears.

In the heel of the hunt the descendents became dairy farmers here, and four years ago I became the next in line to take over the old homestead.  Almost before there was a village, our family have been here.  In my childhood we boasted two shops, one of which sold newspapers and I still lick my lips when I remember being told by Mrs Margaret, as she was called, that I could put my hand into the biscuit tin of my choice and pick a biscuit.  As a member of an old village family she allowed certain privileges to my peers and I.  Mikado was a major favourite with me, my friend always went for the gingery ones, and her brothers always went for the Rich Tea.  We never could figure out why they didn't go for the sticky ones until Raymond admitted you could get two RT's and even three with a bit of luck whereas the Mikado's were big and Mrs Margaret would spot you had more than one if you chanced your luck.

Miss Imelda ran the local post office and one of my memories entailed being sent down with 10/= to her and being told to invest 5/= and I could spend the other 5/=.  The large, wide, brass railed counter was approximately an inch over my head, and I stood up on the rail, shot the post office book across the counter to Miss Imelda  squeaking at her that "Mum says five in and five out and please Miss can I have it in change so I can buy a book".  I was 7 years old at the time.  She looked across her pince nez at me and told me I was a good girl and handed me back 2/6 and told me one book would do me just as good and was it Enid Blyton.  Taking her for a mind reader, I dumbly nodded and clutching the 2/6 in a probably grubby paw, I stalked out the door and roared my head off all the way home.

Our other pride and joy in the village was the other shop where meat and veg was available and for many years there was stiff competiton between Mrs Margaret and Mrs Foley for custom.  The newspapers were the deciding factor.  The pub was owned by a man from Leitrim, 6'5" if he was an inch and we were all terrified of him; he owned a gladstone bag and we were never quite sure if the local men seen going into the pub after work weren't going in for medicinal reasons.  But, sure isn't Guinness good for you anyway?

Maggie Twohig was an elderly widow who lived in what would, by todays standards, be called a slum.  Indeed we were always, my friends and I, very industrious in our manner of walking past her house on the opposite side of the road.  Maggie always had her hall door open and anything could come flying out.  Broom handles, chamber pots [with contents], her mangy dog Bosco, or Maggie herself to spit her chewing tobacco out into the gutter.

Legend has it that my Great Grandmother was passing the door when Maggie was a young "gel" of innocent years.  Appearing with a pot in her hand, filled to the brim with cabbage, Maggie hailed GGM and asked her what was wrong with the cabbage she was cooking for her Daddy.  Her Mammy was in bed producing infant #2,345 or thereabouts, and she was chef for the day.  Taking a small bit, GGM spat it out and said "It tastes appalling".  Taking a bite herself, Maggie then announced in an astonished voice, "So that's where me chewing tobacco went to".  GGM continued on her way to the post office to regale her close friend and confidante Miss Imelda of the latest of the Twohig's tales. Indeed there were many to tell.  Maggie never married and had six strapping sons of her own and two of them were even able to share the same father.

Maggie was 86 when I was a child and had cleaned her act up.  She lived with her Granddaughter and had a bath every month without an R in it, cut her tobacco chewing back to Sundays and never in Lent and was rarely invited to assist Grainne with cooking the dinner.  She outlived her own sons and Grainne was generally considered worthy of nomination to sainthood for putting up with her.

The Bull Maguire was another character of my childhood, of whom legends aplenty abounded.  His proud boast that he could drink any man under the table was only challenged, and beaten, when Larry Pullen [5'4 and ferret like in feature] punched him on the nose, knocked him out and, when he came to, had six pint glasses in front of him.  This lead to The Bull staggering out of the pub, never to return.  He took the pledge in '36 much to the publican of the day's dismay.  He was that mans best customer.  Larry the Pullet Pullen never drank the six pints.  It was a stunt thought up to try to get the Bull to curtail his alcoholic intake.  The Pullet was the Bulls brother in law.  It worked better beyond their wildest dreams. I remember the Bull standing at the village pump, handing out leaflets for the Sodality and Temperance group and he was well in his 70's at that stage.

Today we have the same pub that was always there.  However, it is now decorated in contemporary fashion by people who were considered to be blow-ins.  The locals drink in the next village and each week end a designat

Of village life Part 2

For some reason the previous blog lost its tail end, so I have decided to add a Part 2 to it.  To complete the last sentence, "designated drivers" has become the way to go for the locals now.  A fact that saddens me when I think that, instead of being able to stroll down to the local of a Saturday night for a pint, they migrate to the next town and someone drops them off and collects them.

Dan was a sort of local handyman.  He was 6'4" and devastatingly George Clooney-like with ravens wing black hair, eyes of violet blue and no idea how good looking he was.  When I was eight, Dan was twenty five and any girl over sixteen had an eye to this gorgeous man.  He was incredibly shy. I adored him from the age of seven, when he rescued me from an oak tree in a neighbours garden.  I had taken refuge from her puck goat, as nasty a piece of work with huge horns and mean diabolical eyes.  Dan, coming up home from the pub at lunchtime, strode past said goat, horns and all, and calmly lifted me down and carried me to a safe distance.  Therein was Dans problem.  The pub.  He was its best customer. 

For many years I would walk up the road with him on my return from school,  or work and we would chat about the local bird life.  Dan could name any bird and this gentle giant had another string to his bow.  On the rare occasions when he gave up drink, for Lent, the month of the Holy Souls [November] two weeks before and after his mothers birthday, Dan could make the most fabulous furniture, complete with intricate carving.  He could take a piece of plywood and by the time he was finished it would take an expert to tell the difference between Chippendale and his work.  Dan made few pieces, and those still in existence, are treasured. 

Ten years ago Dan was found frozen to death in a bus shelter.  The drink had finally gotten him.  He had lost everything, his looks, his talent for woodwork, his home.  After his Mother died when he was 52, he had stayed off the drink for fifteen months, as he proudly told everyone.  However, the demon drink is a hard mistress and she called him to her like a Siren of old.  He lost his house because he couldn't pay his rent, and the Council in those days took very little heed of where people wound up.  He had tried rehab, but fell off the wagon.  Dan was too shy to really communicate, but he had more friends here than he realised. There wasn't a dry eye in the village over him.  Most interestingly enough those that wept for him all could trace their ancestry back in this village, as I can.  Only the  "in-comers" sneered in contempt.  What did they know of this kindly man who never harmed anyone, and who quietly did more good deeds around the place, whether under the influence of alcohol or not. 

Part 3 to come...The Great Snowball challenge.

Spring is raising her head all about us

Madam Pounce enjoying the sunshine at the hall door last week end.  It was delightfully mild - indeed it was surprisingly mild and to be able to leave the hall door open and let fresh air in was a wonderful treat. 

A few of my favourite things.

The tea-pot came from a charity shop, the tins were a "find"  reduced from €36 to €16 a couple of years ago and all because of a tiny dent in the largest one.

A reminder of last year's snow, and a reminder to say THANK YOU GOD for a mild Christmas this year.  I spent most of early December panicking in case it would snow over Christmas.  Eldest now lives in London and I had visions of not being able to get to the airport to collect her, or flights being cancelled...but she got home and we had a wonderful Christmas.  Mother in Law passed away last June, and Sister in Law decided to spend it with friends instead of with her brother's family [us].  The dynamics changed with that one decision.  For over 30 years dinner was always served up at 14.00hrs, in order to enable SinLaw and MinLaw to return home as they "never liked to be away from home for too long".  This year we dined at 7, after a leisurely day chatting, going for a long walk on a nearby beach en famille, played Ludo, and ending the evening with lovely hot creamy Bailey's Irish Coffees.

There is nothing like a few farmyard animals to remind us that this was once a dairy farm; hen-keeping is on the agenda.  That is if we can get past his insistence that a cockerel is a necessity, and mine that hens are independent and need no male to make them cluck happily!  He only wants a cockerel for two reasons, one is to back answer the neighbours two donkeys, and the other is he is blessed among women.. YD and I, and ED when she is around...another male voice to crow about the garden would suit him well!  Yeah! Right!

For some reason, this cloud reminded me of someone being blown along! YD says it reminds her of Mary Poppins.  Taken at dusk at the end of a lovely day.

We had a mad rush to finish the decoration in the "sitting room" [as my Grandmother used to call it] for Christmas, but gone is the 80's taupe/gold/brown squiggly carpet and a nice wine Axminster with a small pattern on it graces the floor.  Far more complimentary to the fireplace, with its blue tiles, and the walls are now cream instead of a dull beige as they were when we moved back in in 2008.  For some reason the fact that ED was coming home for Christmas put a push on OH to get the long promised decoration finished; and, even if I do say so myself, the sight of her face as she viewed this room and her own newly re-decorated bedroom was the best present we could have had.

We are now in the next phase of the five year plan, but a year ahead of ourselves; conversion of an outbuilding to a cottage to let.  I still haven't decided if I will use if for holiday lets or full time letting; but with the way this Government has clamped down with its austerity measures, the extra income will not go amiss.  Nowadays, here in Ireland, you turn on the t.v.,/radio with fear and trepidation; newstime announcements only seem to bring news of more taxes.  We have taxes for owning a house, septic tank taxes,  you name it and they'll tax it, yet nothing seems to stop them from paying exorbitant amounts to "Advisors"  way beyond the cap on their income.  A cap that is mesmerising to the ordinary Joe O'Soap in the street.  Bets are now being taken on how long before we find ourselves with another General Election to rid us of the Government that was going to put things right after the unholy mess we found ourselves in reached mind boggling proportions.  We're still wa..................it.......................ing.....................!

However, they haven't managed to tax bird song.             Yet.          We hope.         It was wonderful today to stand in the garden and listen to the thrush, blackbird and robin form a quartet with a dunnock and treat us to the best Opera going.  The hedges and trees are alive with the sound of flitting wings as blue tits and coal tits roam from tree to tree.  The long tailed tits arrive promptly at eleven and four and the greats lurk around the fat balls ready to attack all would be incomers.

The narcissi and daffodils are showing willing, and if the wind that has blown us out of the garden for the past week drops for long enough we may even see that river of daffs we planted last year come to bloom.  In the lane the flowering current [Ribes] is showing its pink petticoats, and the dwarf Iris are abundant.  My favourites, the snowdrops, are late this year, they usually show by Christmas, but this year they are peeking daintily at us - maybe they await St Brigid's day on Wednesday.

From Monday on for the next few weeks the sounds of building will be ringing in our ears, and this year it won't be just the birds. 

It is that time of the year again, winter is on its way, a chilly breeze greets me on the door step each morning as I check the post box and the range has been lit.  At the moment there is a pea souper fog obscuring the view, and I like it.  I am in that mood to hide behind it, the range crackling, the smell of roasting lemon and herb chicken coming from its oven, the kettle hissing on top and the prospect of a large cuppa and a chance to sit down and blog.  Somewhere out there someone is out with his gun shooting at rabbits; I think the local woodpigeon population may be safe as nothing is flying in this weather.

Grubstake

OH's constant companion, this little chap knows how to find the juciest grubs.  He is never far from OH as he gardens, and how he has survived Mme Pounce is beyond me.  His is a derring do attitude, and he will risk feather and beak to pursue his desires.

Madam Pounce, doyenne of our house, boss of YD, bad tempered, fussy, ocd, mouser extraordinaire who has recently discovered the futility of trying ot catch one of our local robins.  Her Ladyship was seriously underwhelmed last winter when it snowed, this is one of the early days, the Heuchera behind her was totally invisible two days later.  She declined to go out when it turned really bad, and upon being helped out the door at meal and "ahem!" times, turned a vicious and baleful eye upon the simple minded one who thought her life would be improved by a snow clawicure.  That was me by the way.

Winter wonderland

Our local Golf course, scene of many a happy childhood hour.  Mum would gather up my friends and I, pack an enormous flask of hot tea, sausage sandwiches with apples [we were big 3 Jays fans] and head off across the snowy plains.  She would leave her basket in one of the shelters, and we would try to trace the tracks in the snow.  Rabbit, hare, birds, fox and the ubiquitous badger.  After an hour of imagining we were in some Canadian backwood, we would tuck into the sandwiches, sponge cake and piping hot tea.  Arriving home to a huge casserole  fresh from the oven and some of her apple pie, we would sit before the fire and voice our day dreams, our imaginations ran around the world and sleepily, at seven, everyone returned to their homes dreaming of more fun in the snow tomorrow.

Ironically, during ED and YD's childhood, snow was a rare sight.  When it did come it lasted but a few hours, yet I would pack a backpack, same basic ingredients and head for the grounds of Kilruddery House.  Adventures when we are children are the foundation of our adulthood, Mum used to say.  She was right.  These are the days and hours we can never get back, but boy! wasn't it grand to make the best of them?

Becalmed!

No matter where I roam, the road home always calls me.

I have a strong sense of belonging living here.  I loved my life in Wicklow, made many new friends, discovered blogging, made new friends,  lost the Queen of my Heart and came home.  I realise now that sometimes you have to "emigrate", be it locally or globally, to appreciate what it is you have.  All the years of slogging home carrying a heavy school bag, dashing for buses and trains to take me to work, heading off on "foreign" holidays in an era when the holiday abroad idea was just beginning to take a grip, leaving to get married,  this road, in those days, was the portal to the world and  preparation for coming home eventually.  My soul is at peace here.

Monarch of all he surveys!

Night time nature

It is night-time, 00:38 a.m., to be precise, and I am not long in. OH, YD and I decided to go down to the village pub earlier. Something we had been promising ourselves for quite some time. We usually drop down to the next village, OH and I, catch up with all our friends [well, mostly mine, I grew up here] and last night, after Downton Abbey we decided to call into the local.

Pubs in Ireland have taken a hammering with all the pc rules that came on board in the past decade or so. No smoking; so now everybody sits out in the cold in winter in draughty shelters...well, where else are you going to have a bit of craic with your pals. In our village it's not an option, go out and be blown out of it with a howling gale...the village has become very healthy regarding smoking in the past twenty years.

It was lovely to meet up with the neighbours, catch up on whose who [my God, hasn't she aged...look in the mirror dear at yourself!] and could your one over there really be a grandmother? For heaven's sake she was three years behind me in school. How could she be a granny...and of course the questions flying back at us. YD got the usual inquisition "Have you a boyfriend love?!" or "if you're not dating pet, I have a lovely son, he's 36, on his second marriage and has 14 kids". Yes. Indeed.

As OH works anti social hours, most of the neighbours were amazed either with the fact that we were still together after 32 years, or that we still went out together, or that we actually have a mid-twenties daughter. He worked in the place 40 years ago and I was tickled pink when two of my former disco-dancing days pals informed me that he hadn't aged a bit since those days. One cast a cold eye over me and asked me had I heard of botox, the other patted my hand and said I was still quite presentable. Thanks Gals! You don't look a day over 80 either. [Loud giggle!].

As we staggered up the hill after mid-night, not inebriated but tilting head first into a howling gale force wind, a fox was sitting in the front garden having a staring competition with Mme Pounce. Pounce has not been feeling too well this week. More to do with convincing OH and YD that I have starved her and she has been indulging in extra packets of a well known cat food product - serve the hussy right for miaowing lies. My moneys with the fox. Anyhow, as soon as Mme Pounce saw us coming she hopped off the garden table and chased the poor, innocent, underfed, terrified little fox away. Am I biased? Yep, you got it. There were foxes in this garden before herself arrived.

She has put up a ton of weight since moving here. Life suits her, no big black and white bullying tom from the old house around to chase her round the garden. She has discovered the cosiest of hidey holes to rest up in during the day and with her cheating eating is as fat as a frump.

Our owl has reappeared, he is to be seen these nights floating past the dining room window. He was missing for a while, but is now back with us. A barn owl, he sails on silent wings across the garden. In the daytime we are treated to the cackling of a Jay. In my childhood there were a lot of jays around but now after an absence of many years one has come back to us.

Away with me to my bed before I fall asleep. I shall resist the urge to watch another programme on our forthcoming presidential election. I am tired enough to sleep without its benefit.

As Dixon of Dock Green used to say "Good night folks!!!".

A new Broom

I call out to visit an old neighbour, when I can get him at home that is. His social life at 87 years of age is better than a 27 year olds! He lives beside our old house, and even to this day ED and YD are convinced that he and his late wife were an extra set of grandparents.

Last week I dropped out to see him, and brought the poor man a jar of my home made chutney. He is, as far as I can ascertain, still alive and feeling no ill consequences. I have become interested again in home cooking. Three years of a tiny kitchen here, and about six months of lack of access to all my kitchenalia, I lost the grá and cooking became basic. I am back with a bang and my James Martin cook books are getting great use. Chutney [a glut of apples is great incentive] and apple jam and apple sauce and apple...you get the picture. I still have friends, apparently, all of them having survived their pots of chutney!

So, back to my visit to Tom, chutney included. Being the Miss Marple type, my deductive powers went into hyperdrive when I saw the skip outside what used to be our marital home. Loaded to the brim. The wardrobes from our old bedroom [only three years old at time of sale], the interior doors, and my kitchen. All thrown higgledy, piggeldy into the skip. A wail went through my mind as I sat, to all appearances searching for something on the floor of the car, taking in the contents of the new owners skip. A marital lifetime of choosing with OH the perfect doors, the family friendly kitchen. The kitchen where all my friends headed for, nevermind a sitting room with comfy sofa and roaring fire. The kitchen where ED and YD studied, indeed learned to write and draw, the kitchen window which gave birth to this blog The View from the Kitchen Window....all in the skip. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Taking a moment to calm myself, to resist the urge to go and bang on the hall door and demand to ask what the hell she was thinking of throwing out the best kitchen in Ireland, the wardrobe that was good enough for...ah what the heck, I told myself. She paid her money for the house, you're benefitting from that money and aren't you thrilled with your new dishwasher...she can dump what she likes honey. You don't own it anymore.

I trotted up Tom's driveway, weakly rang the door bell and tottered down the hall into his kitchen. "Are ye upset alannah?" the ever-noticing Tom chuckled; "nooo, well not now Tom, I realise that different women have different kitchens, but it gave me a start to see my pride and joy out in a skip all the same" I breathlessly returned. "Well, ye see, tis like this, as I see it...once you'd left that kitchen, the spirit was gone out of it and she'd have to get a new one". Love that man! No wonder he had 52 years of very happily married life to his beautiful Sara, Lord rest her.

Yesterday I had a phone call from Tom. "Is it yourself that's in it alannah?" He hails from Tipperary and Irish is his first language. "Hello Tom, are you ok?" I asked, because at his age, every day he is still in our lives is a boon. "Faith I am", he said. "Yer wan next door has gotten a new hi-fi kitchen in, and the lad that put the plumbing in told me it cost €24k. God help us, now I'm wondering can the woman cook at all?". "By the way" he added, " Mary from number 61 took your kitchen from the skip, and has had it installed in the flat she built in the back garden for her young daughter and son in law, they love it". May Mary's daughter have as many happy hours cooking in her new kitchn as I had. I must give her a James Martin cookbook for a housewarming gift!