Packing up and the memories

We have had an interesting time since I last blogged; both YD and I were made redundant, we have just sold the old house and have to be out by the end of the month. This brings a rake of memories with it such as the day I first walked through the hall door, a new bride of one week, full of ideas, plans for redecoration, and hope. The day I returned from hospital two years later after we lost our first born child, and the safehaven the house became then. The joyous days we shared bringing ED and YD home from the maternity hospital. The storms that rolled down the mountains behind, the floods - particularly the one that threatened to make a swimming pool of the kitchen.

The times of tears, fears for the outcome of exams, times spent in hospitals, the laughter and joy all year round and the extra merriment at Christmas when the entire family of OH and I, ED and YD, Sister in Law and Mother in Law and my own beloved Mum gathered round the table. Mum who made Christmas extra special for me as she sat down to the table clasping her hands together, big brown eyes wide like a childs, and her compliment after dinner when she told me "you make Christmas Dinner just like my Mother". High praise indeed, she lost her Mother when she was ninteen years old.

Mother in Law passed away on 11 June this year in her 92nd year. Thirty two of those years were spent being my Mother in Law and it was not an easy relationship. I was not the daughter in law of choice, a Dubliner I was somewhere between earwigs and inert matter. Unfortunately for her I am resilient by nature so it all rolled off like water off a ducks back. I feel sorry for OH; she was not a hugely loving Mother, but she was his Mother and did one thing right in her life...gave birth to the best husband any woman could have, and a gentle but firm father to the girls. My pity lies with sister in law. Single and having shared a house with Mother in law for the last five years, she will miss the company. Ar dheis Dé a anamh.

We moved here immediately after Mum died, and we have loved the past three years building the extension, recovering the garden and now we look forward to having one daughter live with us as the other emigrates. Such is the way of life in Ireland now she must head for foreign shores like many before her, and it is likely that YD will head in the same direction next Spring. My heart breaks at the thought, but our children must do what they must do. "Thank God", my Grandmother used to say of my father "that Liam only emigrated to Dublin from Kerry". Wasn't she lucky.

We are now in the process of discarding furniture that we have no need for, sorting all the stuff for charity shops, all the stuff for the skip and thanking God that most of what we want has already been moved here.

My new build is a huge success. The most frequent word used by all who come to tea is "WOW!". Tiggywinkle joined me for afternoon tea two weeks ago, and hers was an opinion I valued deeply. Her own home is so elegant and the lady has such style that her WOW! hit the right spot.

I am now hoping that I will have more time to blog; read my favourite blogs and get the house sorted...yet again.

Baby blue tits flit past the new side door, Mother calling anxiously to them that Mme Pounce is in the vicinity. She is like a shabby tiger, we think she has that word beginning with C; the vet cannot confirm it, but we watch her with some anxiety. If there is any sign of suffering she will go to sleep permanently; until then she is free to sit on the new balcony and insult all and sundry as they fly past. The magpies sit on a nearby elder tree and make fun of her, she just flicks an impudent tail and stretches out to bask in what passes for a sunny day in an otherwise unsummer-like summer!

Election Time Again

So here we are, back in the fray; it's Election time again. General Election time at that! The country is in a mess, financially we are - well, let's just say that we have seen better days, but I live, cockeyed optimist that I am, in hopes that we will see better days again. Hopefully more rational days when house building and bling overspending are only a nightmare memory from the past.

This has been the most tense campaign so far. The country is deeply divided on who to vote for, and former staunch supporters of the governing party are threatening to leave the party altogether or vote for the main opposition. That is, for many of them, like killing your mother. The would be contenders have, so far, left me stone cold and I am seriously underwhelmed. What does get my goat though is the media.

We are an intelligent nation here, well able to make up our own mind on what we want and what we don't want. I would love to watch one t.v., programme with all the contending party leaders allowed time to finish their points - so that I can get to make up my own mind and not have it made up for me. As OH says, no chance of that happening anytime soon. Far too independent by nature.

We had a candidate on the doorstep yesterday afternoon, in the rain, and he found us, buried away at the back of Godspeed as we are. God love him, I really felt so sorry for him. A mere child in his early twenties, he earnestly encouraged me to vote for his candidate, I pointed out that he was the candidate; he thanked me. Exhausted, wet and knowing that he is such a small fish that his chances of getting more than 40 votes are slim. I have decided to vote for him. He won't get a 1 or a 2, but sure doesn't he merit a mark for finding us.

Our extension is completed, since Christmas, and I was able to cook the Christmas turkey in my new range. This was the best Christmas we have had in years. The snow fell, the whole family was gathered together under one roof; not going anywhere fast in the whitened world outside, and it was cosy cheer from the 25th of December until the 3rd of January. By that stage the snow was getting tedious, life had to go on. There was a major task of painting the new rooms and, by that time, I was sick to the teeth of the white emulsion on the kitchen. The undercoat for the yellow sun haze that was to come after.

January dragged on, and on, and on, and on and...The Flu Virus struck OH and I. He got the milder form, I got the full whack and a relapse to boot. The computer started to act up and getting a signal became a luxury not a right. Talk about feeling cut off...however, I spent the time reading all those books that I haven't had a chance to get to. Going through all my Miss Marple dvd's with Margaret Rutherford, Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan all giving their versions. I'm a dedicated Hickson fan for authenticity, Rutherford for the comedy and McEwan for the two mixed together.

February has slinged by, wet, grumpy and better forgotten. Today, as I took out the laundry to the line, an exciting experience as rain has stopped that for aided by the relapse; I listened to the blackbirds at dusk giving the warning call, the robins scooting from tree to tree singing their beautiful song and thought that March is just around the corner. The primula in their pots outside the front door are rich and jewel coloured and the daffodils and narcissi and irises are all late but the more welcome for that. There are more snowdrops than last year and our resident hedgehog has appeared out of hiberanation. Maybe he's running as a candidate in the hedgerow elections.

Spring is spritely on its way.

Bank Holiday and Inspector Fox comes to call

OH was minding his Mother this Bank Holiday week end and I had planned my week end very carefully. I was to be on sentry duty on the build [what a delightful excuse] as it would be wide open, the windows and doors not due for delivery until today. Well, the best laid plans of mice, men and me [to keep the alliteration going] never did go well, did they.

My plans included a day in Dublin, solo, lunch in Bewleys, a meander around the St. Stephen's Green Centre, a stroll through St. Stephen's Green, a visit to my favourite book shop to stock up on some much needed reading material. A wander through Trinity College to view the Autumn leaves and a gentle journey home by LUAS. Saturday was to have been a long lie in until half past ten, a wander 'round the extension, daydreaming about how it will look when all finished. A walk down the Pier with my favourite cousin, lunch at her house, home to catch up on all those episodes of Campion and Mrs Bradley Mysteries. Mass at 6 o'c to catch up on all the local gossip. Dinner of roast breast of chicken and creamed potato, followed by a long evening of reading.

Reality? Yes, grumpily I feel we have enough of reality already on t.v., with half these reality programmes. Reality was I had to work Friday, the windows and doors were installed on Friday [OH had already departed for parts rural] and Peter asked me would it be all right if the chaps worked over the week end so that the plasterer could start on Tuesday. He thought the weather looked like it was coming to the end of its wonderful run; if the guys could work over the week end then, he told me, the plasterer could work inside or out as weather permitted on Tuesday. What could I say? What diligent workers they are too. Eight o'clock on a Saturday morning.

Still, I can't complain. At this rate we should be dun'n'dusted by end November. I have been blessed with a terrific builder, an Indian Summer, and, so far, under budget. May that part of the build hold true until the end. Plumbing and heating come on-site next week, kitchen the week after and range and floor laying week after. I have picked a wooden floor for the dining room, and linoleum for the kitchen, hall and shower room. A friend of mine is still trying to get me to put down tiles but I hate them, I am terrified of slipping on them and feel like I am walking on ice on some of them. Besides which, tiles are so permanent. I love the idea of, if I get fed up with the lino - I can change it whenever I like.

Last week, while tidying up the old kitchen I turned to look out the window to see what was causing a furore with the crows and magpies and there, sitting calmly surveying me, was Inspector Fox. Mobile phone to hand I grabbed a few quick shots. These were probably the kindest shots the fox had to endure that week. OH was cutting gorse at the top end of the garden when he came across three snares, all set at fox height and all nastily vicious. I am furious. Furious at whoever set them, trespessed on our property, and afraid for my beautiful foxes. Even my neighbour who keeps six beautiful bantams was enraged when he saw the snares. Bad cess on whoever the perpetrator is. May he die roarin' as they say in country parts.

A golden October day & other things that spring to mind

I am thoroughly enjoying my holiday, I must admit. I have taken a month off, partly annual leave that was left over from two years ago and had to be squared away, and two weeks of this years leave. The joy of being able to watch Downton Abbey on a Sunday night and not have to retire shortly after is intoxicating. Usually I am in bed by ten thirty on a Sunday night, early Monday start, and this goes against my grain. I'm an night owl and life is good at two a.m.

This morning, after a v-e-r-y late night, we got up at ten a.m., and after a full Irish breakfast, OH and I headed out for the veggie patch. This was started earlier this year, and we have feasted on our own lettuce, onions, beetroot, Kerr's Pink potatoes, Orla's, Cultra's and Roosters. The peas were plentiful and the strawberries few but superb. We will not mention the carrotts. Shush! not a word. Suffice it to say that those teeny weensy orange balls were not, and I repeat not actually berries, they were, allegedly supposed to be full grown carrotts. If I was a rabbit, I would have gone blind.

My little herb plot, on the other hand, was bountiful...that is apart from the lemon thyme that got murdered, well, o.k., smothered by drooping potato leaves [OH and planning not mutually conducive] and I have lavender for the airing press, night scented stock which eventually struggled past all OH's obstacles, thyme, sage [variegated] rosemary and chives. We came to an amicable arrangement today. He will line up his drills the other way this year, we will not have orange pebbles with feathery tops, we will have more rhubarb and I will have a bigger plot for The Herbs! I have also coaxed two extra feet of soil from him, all the better to put in a path to get at the other side of the herb bed. Honestly, I know he thinks I am wonderful, but I have not mastered the art of hovering over the herb bed...yet!

In between all the weeding and pruning and snipping away I trailed in and out hanging out clothes on the line. With the roofers on site lately, they had taken over the socket into which I plug Gertrude, so a backlog soon cropped up.

Gertrude I hear you ask. Well, yes...Gerty is a decrepit washing machine and she belonged to my Mum. Gerty's speed wash is a mere two and a half hours long. Her woolen wash ensures that all wools are throughly boiled, and the lock on the door opens twenty minutes after a wash has finished...if Gerty feels like it. Needless to remark, cometh the new kitchen, cometh the new super speed washing machine.

Lunch was heating up a tin of Baxter's gluten free Cockaleekie, brown bread and huge mugs of Bewleys tea to wash it down. Carmel, an old friend from my youth, called by to leave in some seeds of a flower, the name of which she wishes she could remember; we have decided to term it "Senior Moment" until either [a] she remembers what it is or [b] they grow and we see the evidence for ourselves. "Good Lord, she remarked, "look at your builders having their lunch...my aren't they eating healthy. When Roy and I got our extension done twenty years ago it was 'someone nip down to the chippers' and cans of Fanta, this lot are positively glowing with nutritious good health". I had to laugh, I remember that extension being built, and it was Carmel herself who nipped down to the chipper for the lads at lunchtime. She put up two stone on that build.

All the while birds sang, robins hopped around grabbing juicy worms and leatherjackets, beaks barely big enought to cope with such largess. Sadly the Greenfinches are not with us, wiped out this year by a virus. Overhead the Sparrow Hawk fancied his chances with some racing pigeons and a tortoiseshell butterfly flew into the new build, fluttered around all the rooms and gracefully headed off out the new side door. The sun, a mellow gold sitting lower in the sky, shone on us, the breeze was balmy and all was good.

YD came up from the old house for a visit and to inspect what will be her new bedroom. This is her first time up since the build began; she is enchanted with the shell of what will be her room, and I could see her plotting beds, wardrobes and flooring - the last I saw of her before I had to nip out grocery shopping she was discussing the benefits of wood flooring over carpeting with Peter.

The Latest was collecting her at quarter to seven, so we sat in the garden with cups of tea and chatted until he arrived. It is his first time here and seven text directions finally got him safely to his destination.

The old house is on the market, viewing is slow, it is a buyers market but we are not in any great rush. If it doesn't sell before the new year we shall let it, but I notice an impatience in the girls to have it gone and to get to move up here full time. This pleases me, it tells me that they have enjoyed living without the 'rents, but as ED said to me the other day "I look forward to coming in from work of a winters evening and having a Mum cooked meal". Y-e-r-s-h! Well, that will happen, of course, but Mum has gained her independence too, and a life, so don't forget your cook books my darlings. Here's the number of the local Chinese takeaway, girls, 01-23456789 - just in case.

Building - the new Yoga

At the moment I am sitting in the study, surrounded by the contents of the dining room, and half the sitting room. Things have progressed on the build at a rapid pace and the roofers started today; hence the big clearance from the other rooms. In order to sit here and blog, I am lying half sideways and reaching around a tipsy pile of magazines...really must sort and dump them!

We are hoping now that all will be done and dusted by the end of November, and that Christmas should see us warmed by the new range, cosseted with more space and enjoying our turkey on Christmas day, without a mile hike from kitchen to table!

Peter has the patience of Job, and I have discovered that I am a frustrated blocklayer, I would love to be in there doing all those bits and pieces...so I curb my enthusiasm and head for the carpet shop to pick out a nice lino for the kitchen floor. I can not believe how fast things are going, long may the pace last.

My friend, the one who likes to tell me I don't know anything about everything, called up the other day. On the phone she told me that she would be giving me helpful and practical tips on how to survive a build, "seeing as how you have never experience anything like this before". I wondered aloud to myself "what was that thing we got done in the old house?" still, she means well, and I haven't the heart to trample on her dreams of her version of a perfect world. She was a little disgruntled to find out that there is such progress on the build, rather than feeling frustrated, at wits end and full of venom towards the builder, I am getting on like a house on fire with him, and instead of all things being higgeldy piggeldy in the study, there is actually a retrieval system in place - despite yoga like sitting to use the computer. Well, you can't make an omlette without breaking eggs can you.

Ah well, away with me now to enjoy myself watching the progress, do some laundry and leave you with a few of my favourite pics...

Buiding commences, and it isn't even Spring yet

After long planning, much searching and hours sort finances the build of the new extension has begun. The premier worry was foundation levels, we live on a granite sheeted hill, and the worry was that there would be weeks of chipping away with time, patience and money withering away. Last Monday week, under a cerulean blue sky and temperatures in the 20's work began, foundations are perfect and the only two places where the granite reared its head enough to be a nuisance are no problem, foundations are tied into the granite.

Day One was spent clearing the site. Peter my builder [a man who is never happier then when he is measuring a site, digging holes with a digger, and flying up and down the road on the dumper]and I walked the site and I chose what buddleia's and lilac's I wanted to save and where we were going to move them to. The box hedge has been halved and now resides near my bedroom window; the cotoneasters were dumped, they grow like weeds here.

Day Two The foundations were dug out and frabjous day! We have lift off, no tedious weeks of hammering away at granite. By two in the afternoon word had gotten around the village that there was a dishy young hunk working up the road and we found ourselves inundated with local teens dressed up to the nines, all wandering in with the most delighful of excuses

"Mammy sent me up to get some eggs". - Sorry pet, we don't sell eggs I replied, wondering vaguely in my innocence why she was standing on tippy toe and peering over my shoulder up the garden. Amazing child, of at least fifteen years of age, she actually walked back down the yard - backwards- staring fixedly at something behind me, not, I guessed, my favourite rose. A sudden blush, a giggle or three from herself and pal and I realised that Lazlo had appeared and the girls had completely forgotten my existence.

Over the course of the next two hours we had groups of two's, three's and fives all walking Mammy's dog; more egg buyers, [my neighbour would be in huge profit if he was at home to hear all the requests for eggs], three lovely lassies 'got lost' and thought we were part of a local park. Yes - the garden looks lovely but no, we are not the local park!

Lazlo? Oh he took the adoration in his stride. Sun glasses on head, teeth shining like pearls, muscles rippling under his tee-shirt and wedding ring sparkling. The first thing he had shown me on day one was a picture of his new bride. He is six months married and uxurious. Having met her today, I can see why. Sophia Loren move over, Nadja is beautiful, speaks excellent English and has a lovely manner. She dropped him off to work as she headed off to her own job, or jobs I should say. The lady is not work shy. Fair play to her.

Rain stopped play yesterday; cloudbursts were everywhere, and we got our deluge too. Today was better and the footings have been going in. Peter keeps a weather eye open, literally, and targets so much to get through each day so that there is no wastage. He would make a great NCO in the army. Everything is organised with military precision; even the awkward task of getting cement up our narrow lane; his attitude is "no problems only solutions" which is a favourite saying of mine.

He won the contract to build not because his was the cheapest quote, rather, he got the job because [a] he "got" what my plans were, and [b] two other builders had spoken about blasting any rock that might hinder foundation-laying...BLAST???? Dear God in Heaven, the old lady would never stand that...she's heading for 100 years and wouldn't be the better of a stick of dynamite. My knees nearly buckled when I heard that.

I like to think that Mum would be proud of this new stage in the old lady's life; a new kitchen and shower room and a bedroom for her beloved grand-daughter. On sunny days I feel that she is with us, I am sure I saw her flitting about the foundations the other night. The foxes certainly are, they have laid claim to every corner so far, the smell is powerful, but hasn't managed to put off the builders or the doe eyed females who wander up to 'take a look'.

Peter sometimes brings Max, his golden retriever with him. He's had more offers of dog walking in the past week than he can count; Max divides his time between sitting watching the blocks go down, trailing foxes, and sucking up to me at the back door with limpid eyes of a very gorgeous brown and trying to convince me that he hasn't been fed since Sunday week. His pot belly belies that. Now, if I could only get ten weeks of sunshine, or at least dry and mild weather...

August at home and in garden - when it isn't raining!

This is a picture of my herbs and oils shelf which reigns supreme in my tiny kitchen. When I first moved back home I had a job sorting out Mum's kitchen - not that there was much, she had infinite patience for the garden and little or non for kitchen and in thirty years she saw out seven sets of saucepans to my one! I love to cook, and although I am not a cake-maker, I love traditional main courses - with a twist...my own version of the recipe.

OH and I spent two full days clearing out Mum's tiny kitchen, and repainting it to brighten it up. Under the sink we took off sliding doors that drove her wild, they never ran smoothly and I replaced them with a curtain hurriedly made up from an old curtain. In time this was replaced with "The Great Idea", otherwise know as maternity dresses that I found in the attic in our previous home. Well worn and used back in the day, I washed them, cut the ends off them, turned them down at the top and slid them onto a curtain wire. Now I have curtains, in floral patterns, plain and with lines on them. God bless the nuns for at least managing to teach me how to hem neatly. The girls love my recycled curtains, as they call them.

So far August has been a major disappointment with the weather. OH and I set out to freshen up the back patio with some exterior wall paint we found in a shed. Hopefully building work will start in the next two weeks or so on our new extension on the far side of the house. In the meantime I felt that the patio was sadly lacking in "relax" appeal and we got one half wall painted on Saturday morning before rain and relations visiting put paid to our efforts. That said, the Bizzie Lizzies [Impatiens] are looking much chirpier. I tried to get a picture up, but things are not going smoothly on that side this morning.

Winifred Wood-Pigeon, a stately dame of her kind, is currently trundling around the Blue Cedar followed by P.C. Magpie, who is, akin to all his brethren, permanently terrified that another bird will discover a juicy morsel that managed to escape the Magpie Brethren. Winnie shows scant interest in PC Magpie, she's well used to their ways and her complacent attitude serves her well, he gives up and flies off to find more interesting things to investigate such as OH's newly planted Monbretia at the end of the garden.

I sat up in bed early yesterday morning, bedazzled by the joys of a sunny morning, albeit six a.m., and there, grazing on the lawn placidly as ever was Winnie and six Magpies. A comment a friend passed recently came to mind. "I know this used to be a dairy farm IE, Frisians grazing down there and all that, but honestly IE, six black and white magpies...what's this? the economic version of black and white grazers?" I had to chuckle at that, while at the same time ruefully wishing that there was at least one bovine view to be seen. OH would have a fit! His lovely lawn, retrieved from a wilderness? NEVER! Of course, back in the day it wasn't Frisians grazing there, but a motley crew of multi coloured placid cud chewers. I remember Molly - the last of my Grandfathers dairy cows. She was elderly and past milk production but Mum kept her on for sentiments sake. Molly would back up to the end of the house wall, and blissfully scratch her derriere while lowing contentedly. She provided the inspiration for a blog some time ago.

There is something about cattle that appeals to me. From their gentle brown eyes, inquisitiveness, and soft gentle voices. No matter the breed, no matter whether they are beef or milk producers, give me cattle over sheep anytime. Eek! I can hear all my sheep farming blogging friends hurl insults at me, but no my friends. I am not averse to sheep, it's just that sheep are clannish, stand and look at you as if they can't work out who or what you are [but instinctively know you are inedible], whereas cows come over for a chat.

Have you ever stepped over a stile into a field of cattle? Some people are afraid to do so, the size of the beasts intimidating them. I have always found that if you step smartly down and head straight for your destination they stand back respectfully and let you pass on. Mind you, dear reader, I haven't put this theory to the test with bulls.

So, back to gardens. Well, I do have to confess that it does my heart good to look out [on wet days] at the splash of colour around the garden and to think of the difference in the summer of '08. There are three more flower beds since we moved back in, Mum's bed still reigns supreme. There are pockets of colours of every hue brightening up previously dull and uninteresting corners; the bee and butterfly population are holding their own with all the buddleia's that have come into prominence after the clearance. The fragrance of roses abounds. Since that first summer we have added ten new varieties, some old favourites like Albert Darcy, some redolent of honeysuckle and some we may never know the names of because of my penchant for buying the "cast-asides" in garden centres.

I think it is a source of bemusement to OH how I can go into a garden centre, pick out the runts, the plants that the centres consider are no longer commercially viable and so place them on the half price counter. I bring them home, plant them and tell them "grow or die" and within two years they are off, racing up walls, and making a laughing stock of the "commercially perfect" pieces that cost an arm and a leg. What the heck, if you are supposed to hard prune roses, doesn't it follow that they must be strong, ergo the runts are worthy of a second chance?

My joy will be unconfined if I can encourage rabbits back into the garden. OH says, with some cynicism, that I only want them back to feed the five foxes who reside here. My reply to that is that we will be lucky to have even one fox left considering current happenings. It appears that someone heere in the village is poisoning them. A lingering and awful death - we lost the Hopping Fox on Tuesday. She was a quiet little charmer, almost tame and would often sit under a nearby Forsythia of a summers evening as I sat reading a book on the patio. We didn't trouble each other, but I think she liked the company. The others would either race through when they saw someone was about or turn back the way they came, but she would come down off the hill, have a good sniff around, stand and look at me for a while and then walk over to the Forsythia and curl up, occasionally looking up and then wrapping her brush around her.

We were at a Blessing of the Graves down the country last Sunday night. As the Priest gave a long sermon on a rain-lashed hillside, my attention wandered. I looked across the fields to a nearby ditch dividing two fields. There, betwixt a rowan tree and a hawthorn bush, outlined by the weak rays of a sun trying to shine through the rain, sat a rabbit. Upright and engrossed in washing himself, he reminded me of Fiver in Watership Down. "Bright Eyes" came to mind and, I have to admit, this view made more impression on me than Fr. Doyle's sermon.

Autumn is coming, and with it a whole new adventure for this years garden.