Dunlavin detectives

Every Thursday, I trot off to the elegant town of Dunlavin to pick up my veggie box. During the school year, the box meets me at school, but now that school's out, the Plum Tree Bakery graciously houses it (and happily sells me a loaf of bread in the process).

Dunlavin, the town closest to the Steiner school, boasts a magnificent if tiny library, a tiny garda station, two pubs, a chipper, a convenience store, a greengrocer, a bakery, a dry goods store, two churches, two national schools, and a fire station. There used to be a bank, but the Georgian house that housed it is now up for sale.

So you can imagine the excitement in town as two enterprising women decided to open a coffee shop across from the Centra. At some point during my brother's stay, we had 30 minutes to kill before picking up his nephew from school, so we stopped in and had soup and sandwiches. Upon arriving home, and after a detour to two gas stations (one for gas, one for air), my brother noticed that he could not find his driver's license. (As an aside, it is part of my family's genetic makeup to loose at least one item a day while traveling. I am fortunate that this gene appears to have passed me over.)

With only a few days left in his stay, we made a half-hearted attempt to locate it at the gas stations, but I wasn't due to trek south to Dunlavin for another week. And then life intervened, and the next thing I knew, two weeks had passed. On my way out the door for yet another quick trip to the US, I asked my dear spouse to pick up the veggies, which were languishing at the bakery, and by the way, could he check in the coffee shop to see if the license might have been left there?

And indeed, my big brother had left it on the coffee table (don't ask me why he had his license out to eat a sandwich). The owner, surmising that this was a person not from these parts, did her part, calling the local B&B's to see if a person of that name might be staying with them, but predictably came up empty-handed. So the upstanding citizen called in the local Garda, James. James, who divides his time between Dunlavin, Donard and Blessington launched his own full-scale investigation, which consisted of calling some B&B's in the area and coming up equally empty-handed.

About this time, my dear husband shows up with his sob story at the coffee shop, and Rose, the coffee shop lady, puts two and two together and gets on the phone to the Dunlavin station, but there's no one in. Since James is in none of his usual haunts, she puts in a call to Baltinglass, where Brian tries to catch up with him in a patrol car in Blessington. They patch husband through to the car, but James isn't there, so Brian promises to call once he's located James and license.

And here the trail goes cold. After a week of not hearing from Garda Brian, I headed out to Dunlavin today to pick up my veg box (the cool weather means lots of crispy greens). Since James' car was not in front of the Garda station, the boys and I put on our detective hats and headed over to the coffee shop. Rose recognized us immediately, and soon the fellows working on the sign out front were also chiming in. We decided I would call James after 3, when the note on the door said there would be someone in the station.

At 3:16, I placed the call. someone-not-James answered, and said he had heard that James had tried to ring all week. He promised to call me right back: sure enough, James still had the magic piece of plastic. Our address duly noted, James promised to mail it to us when he's back on duty Monday afternoon.

Case closed.

Cat's away

While I was off in Chicago, I can tell the boys missed me terribly. The following incriminating photos were downloaded from my dear husband's camera:

Yup, it looks like the boys took in not one, but two games: one hurling, one Gaelic football. It seems fitting that they should attend these games, as they are part of the runup to the all-Ireland game in September, the very first encounter we had with GAA sports when we were fresh off the boat.

GAA means Gaelic Athletic Association, and nowhere is the Irish identity stronger. The government may have lobbied hard to keep the language alive, but the population has embraced the sports--hurling, football and camogie. Kids play it from an early age, and all of Ireland gets into the action. The first weekend we were here, we ventured into Dublin to find an electronics shop to get a power adapter for our wireless router. At every stop of the tram, more and more people crammed on, wearing either green and yellow (Kerry) or red and white (Tyrone). There were thousands of fans, all heading into town to Croke Park to the All-Irish game, the world series of GAA sports, and they turned downtown Dublin into a joyous party. It didn't matter who won.

And I understand the celebration and the feeling of the living room being for the family again. All summer long, Dublin and a few other spots on the island are overrun by tourists, which while critical to the local economy, are but houseguests. GAA games are played out on pitches in smaller towns, then larger and larger towns, until September. The guests go home, the family lets down their hair and reclaims the living room.

We'll be gone by the time the all-Ireland plays out, but our home team of Wicklow is already out of the running. Still, perhaps we'll try to find a pub to watch the final, just to see the family again.

Gratuitous signage, part II

A pair of signs, one merely funny, the other's placement rather confusing. Both entirely gratutitous.

Stuff and trappings

I reconnected with my college roommate on Facebook, and we had a brief exchange, where I realized that she didn't know we were on the other side of the pond, and she realized we were not at home. When she realized what was what, she put me on to a blog for some friends of hers who decided to chuck it in and travel in Europe for a year. Makes me feel inadequate, since we had the whole safety net of a steady income and insurance, and by the time you add in all the trappings like renting a house, owning a car, and enrolling the kids in school, well, you're not really getting away from it, you're just switching brands.

Anyhow, it put our move back in perspective. For yes, we are now less than a month away from returning home, a place made sweeter for its absence, and are now having to deal with undoing everything we have done for the last (nearly) year. Just as I had no idea where to find things I needed when I got here, I'm discovering that I don't know where to get rid of things.

For instance, there are the textbooks. Upon enrollment, the German school sent us a single sheet on what, when and how to pay tuition, and a four-page book list--in about eight-point type. It became apparent that I didn't need to buy every book (French and Irish weren't on his plate), but I spent literally months rounding up all the bits, from poster paints and stencil brushes (available from only one art store in Dublin, and sold out the day I finally found it) to geography workbooks and scientific calculators. I was delighted by the refreshingly brief list from the Steiner school, and took care of it in one day: flute, saw, c-clamp and apron.

And so, at the end of the school year, we are faced with a mountain of schoolbooks, and my adorable teenager tells me that half the copy books are unused, as are a couple of textbooks. It appears that the book list was for the entire three-year cycle (that's grades 7-9), not just the one year! Which explains the excess, but not what to do with it.

If this were Seattle, I could use Craigslist or have a garage sale and be done with it; freecycle or donate the remainder to Goodwill. But it's not, and so I have to find the equivalent of garage sales, Craigslist, Goodwill, and freecycle.

So I set out: I found a website that lists used schoolbooks, and as I handed over the first of the pile to a mom in front of the Blessington Library at 7 pm on a Monday evening, she lamented the price of schoolbooks, and wasn't it great that you could pick so many up at that shop in Newbridge. Which of course is where we went the following day, and sold all but two of the remaining ones. The second to last went via the web to a woman in Bandon, County Cork, the home of my ancestors, and taught me a lesson about 1)how insanely expensive it is to send heavy things like books in Ireland and 2) checks written with a cross at the bottom can't be cashed, and we were foolish to choose a bank that doesn't have a branch in our town (or perhaps we were foolish to choose a town that didn't have a branch of our bank). It took a trip to Dublin to deposit what was left after I paid An Post. The unsold book is a history volume that has been superseded by a new edition. We have put it in the maybe pile for coming home.

And so it goes with all the other bits and pieces that we have acquired. With a firm job offer in hand, we are taking the first concrete steps to returning, booking flights and researching shipping options. We've written up blurbs for the cars, and have begun the arduous process of sorting through every cupboard and drawer. Lists are being made, and we've identified a car boot sale on the final Saturday before our departure; the rest will go to freecycle and St Vincent's.

And just what, pray tell, do I do with this blog? I don't need to worry about shipping it, for bytes take up no space (even though they may weigh heavily on us); a copy will be in my carry-on baggage (in my laptop), but that's not what I mean. I could simply stop here, but I imagine there will be a few follow-ups to deal with the messy loose ends that give such wonderful texture to our lives. So I'll leave it up for now, and figure out what to do with it later.

And besides, I may want to link to it from the Christmas letter.

Sesiun

We've all had these moments: maybe yours was watching skaters at the Olympics, perhaps hearing someone play incredible music or seeing an inspiring game of soccer. We feel moved to become like them, to be able to move with grace or create beauty with seemingly no effort. But as we mature, we wisely note that those people have paid their dues; hours of practice, numerous blisters and tears. Most of us are not willing to pay the price. But we’d still like to be able to soar like they do. Still.

I brought my violin to Ireland. Partly because I couldn't imagine not playing the thing for a year, partly out of a true intention of finding some kind of community group where I might be able to make some sort of contribution, but I'll admit I was also harboring a secret desire to sit in a pub and play in a session.

I networked my way to a teacher, who would plop a piece on the music stand, and we would play through it together--over and over again, building speed. I joined the small community group--designed for schoolkids--that he led. Eventually, one evening he invited me to come along while he and some friends 'got together to play some tunes.' I didn't dare bring my instrument into the pub with me, and just tapped my toe with them.

At the St john's festival at the Steiner School, the musicians naturally gravitated to one another, and an impromptu session happened around the campfire. I sat for a while, hoping, and then when they started playing some tunes I actually knew, I got my instrument out of the car. But of course, by the time I'd made it back across the field, they had exhausted my repertoire. No matter, I figured, at least my violin got to "hear" the music, something that actually helps the wood to resonate better.

And so, just when I thought my chance was past, that I hadn't managed to find that elusive dream, a quick call. My teacher was getting together with a few friends for some tunes, and would I like to come along. And bring the fiddle! And so I did. And I even managed to play--just a bit, not soaring like an eagle, but keeping time, and doing a little bit more than just dreaming.

Dubliners

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I woke myself with a start: barely a month, and we would be heading home! With the next few weeks jammed with visitors, and a final push of packing and selling stuff, I was panicky about running out of time before I got everything done that I had hoped for.

Which meant that when Saturday rolled around, there was no time to lose: we consulted the Great Wall. Aside from the obvious embrassment of a husband who can't find his way around Dublin, a yellow sticky note reminded me that I wanted to get some more of that incredible sock yarn from This is Knit and cruise Marks and Spencers one more time. Dublin it was.

We tootled up to Sandyford, found street parking, and hopped on the Luás, which plopped us a the base of Grafton Street. Under the guise of stimulating the economy, we dropped into a camera shop for a filter for the new camera, and then drifted into M&S (and their traditional sandwiches) and over to Powerscourt for the wool. Window shopping and street artists added to the lively atmosphere.

Euros distributed and bellies happy, we decided to play tourist a little bit, and snapped a variation on the classic Molly Malone ("The Tart with the cart") picture before heading over to the gardens at the Beatty Library.

We had discovered this gem of a park coincidentally while searching for (but not finding) a letterbox. Smack dab in the middle of the noisy and hard downtown, here was a little green haven, and a photogenic castle in the background to boot. After running around the maze to see if it connected (it doesn't!), we hied our way to the Dublin Castle, where hoardes of tourists queuing dashed our hopes of exercising our OPW card.

No matter, says our eldest, there was a museum about the Gardai back around the corner. Door locked, we rang the bell, and a friendly fellow let us in, and invited us to wander about said museum, which was chock-a-block with every known bit of memorabilia even remotely related to the Garda Síochána, from hats and pictures to reconstruction models used to convict notorious murderers. Loads of fun for all. But as we left, we took note of the plaque, which pretty much sums up why the Irish police force differs so greatly from its American counterparts. No "serve and protect" lip service here!

Tired feet, tired kids and hungry all around, we headed over to the Farm, an organic restaurant tucked into a slice of building on Dawson Street before heading home--to Tulfarris.

Jam session

In all the flurry between marrying off sisters in Germany last summer and preparing to move to the Emerald Isle, not a single jar of jam with the year 2008 on the label made it onto my shelf. Odd, when you consider that 100 jars is pretty normal for me in a season. Indeed, when we arrived here I could not bring myself to buy jam in the supermarket--thank heavens for Irish laws that allow people to sell their excess. I soon had jars of gooseberry and raspberry in my larder with a home-printed label.

A source of brown eggs was also identified (the wife of the man who gives button accordeon lessons at the Hollywood Community Centre on Saturdays), butter came in brown paper package tied up with string from one parent at the Steiner School, and another parent started a veg box scheme. We came to rely on our connections for fresh foods, and our very temporariness precluded the need to jam. For we already know we won't be here next winter.

But the habit--or instinct--is there: as the veggies turned the corner from dark greens and roots into the delicate first leaves and fruits, we rejoiced in rhubarb crumble, a sure harbinger of spring. Before we knew it, strawberries had joined the mix, and raspberries were on their heels. As the summer progressed in fits and starts, people complained that it would be another non-starter for shorts and beaches, but it meant that the berries just kept coming. And we happily gobbled raspberries (one punnet for the ride home, one to eat after supper).

And then the farmer, weary from stooping to pick all these berries while her belly swelled, but knowing that she would be happy to have them once the baby came, approached me: she had heard that I knew how to make jam, would I teach her? We set a date, exchanged emails: tender berries need a high-pectin fruit to gel into jam, did she have apples or some such? Crabapples were coming in, and purchased lemons would do for the strawberries.

We met at the school, and I discovered that her idea of a lot of fruit was a lot more than I could ever imagine. After enlisting kids to wash, cut and stir, we started batching jams. Six hours later, we had nearly 50 jars of jam, but we still had a small mountain of fruit. We called in the marines, or rather another mother who had said she could take any extra. Dumping half our remaining heap on her, we jammed on for another two hours, until we thought our feet would fall off.

Needless to say, there was no energy to make supper, so I put in a call to the old man to meet us at the Ballymore Inn. Over terrific food, we regaled him of our hard work, and showed him the six jars that came home with us. We will have to finish them up before we leave, or use them as thank yous for the amazing people who have lent a hand along our way here. And maybe, just maybe, we can bring a bit of Kildare sunshine back to the emerald forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Emigrants

The Irish Times is part of my morning mix of newspapers, and carried an article that emigration is up again, after a decade of record immigration. They cite this statistic and that number, but that is all they are, just numbers. It is easy to forget that each and every number represents a person, and that each member of our family is one of those numbers.

The well-known Irish tradition of a wake applies not only to people who have departed this life, but long ago was used to mark the departure of a person from the Emerald Isle, since it was unlikely that they would ever return. Which is why, even today, when air travel makes it likely that people will return to these green hills dotted with white sheep, there is a party for the departing.

The bleed in Tulfarris started with a wound made back in February, when our American neighbor was laid off from his job at the golf club. He had thought he would ride it out, that he could concentrate on building the house he and his expectant wife were planning. But the banks rescinded the loan, and he was left at loose ends. By the end of spring, after more than a decade in Ireland, he prepared to head home, taking his wife and baby daughter with.

With his departure looming, the other neighbors mobilized to throw a goodbye party. The Wicklow weather was asserting itself, so a tarp was stretched to protect us from the evening moisture, and we bundled up as the evening wore on.

It was for us a chance to really get to know these pleasant people called our neighbors. The electrician two doors down was participating in the national strike, which meant he had been rattling around the village for too many days and was missing socializing. He pulled out a magnesium fire starter, and got the kids gathered around to light the bonfire to take off the chill.

The kids finally tuckered themselves out and went to bed; the alcohol kept flowing; the tree surgeon managed to haul out bottles of cider even on crutches ("naw, I don't need food, it'd only spoil the taste of the cider") and kept us laughing with unlikely tales (the man who put his frozen wife's corpse through the branch chipper). His partner showed up late, after mother and baby had gone to bed, and after the concert at Punchestown had ended. She regaled us with her own tales of mosh pit mud, made believable by the condition of her wellies. The doctor up the lane passed by with his golden retriever to press his hand into the departing's and leave a bottle of red.

Our eyelids drooping, we reluctantly headed off to bed around 2:30 in the morning. It was an odd feeling, lying there drifting off, hearing the voices and laughter just outside. If they had been strangers, it would have been a sleep-stealing annoyance; but the sound of friends--the ones being left behind--was music to my heart, and lulled me into an all-to-brief sleep.

There were a few aching heads the next day, but they will fade quickly. Unlike the pained hearts, all 65,100 of them.

Adventures in plumbing, Part III

Faithful readers have been following the continuing saga of plumbing in our adopted home. With electricians out on strike the last week, and plumber threatening to join them (and the pilots considering it too, if only the weather would improve), it seemed serendipitous that our accommodations in New Ross were equipped with one of my all-time favorite plumbing fixtures: the power shower.

We first encountered this beast during our first visit to Dublin, those many years ago. The agent threw out terms like "power shower" and "immersion," and, not wanting to seem stupid, we didn't say anything. I mean, how hard could it be to figure out a shower? There was a moment of trepidation while we considered the combination of electricity and water, with the accompanying potential for domestic daredevil thrills while naked and armed only with a bar of soap.

The first thing that happened--or rather didn't--was that we pressed the on button and nothing happened. We searched around the room, trying switches and finally located a little string hanging in the opposite corner of the bathroom. Pulling this rewarded us with a lukewarm dribble that we could warm a bit by turning one of the knobs. We never did figure out how to make the water stream any more powerful, powerful enough to say, rinse soap out of our hair.

You can imagine how thrilled we were to discover that our little house in Tulfarris does not have a power shower, though it seems to keep Eddie the plumber busy without it. And since it was only for one night, we delighted in showing off the electric device to my husband's godson. What we had forgotten, or perhaps it was only this model, was the deafening noise, delivered directly at ear level, for the duration of our invigorating power showers.

Away down south

So how to top our adventures in Wicklow with the godson? Why, plan a quick road trip, of course! A quick consult of the Great Wall revealed a couple of things that piqued his interest, so we decided to head south toward Waterford, that great Irish town of crystal fame.

An aside: You may have heard all the brouhaha about the launch of Microsoft's new search engine, Bing (I guess nobody else thinks of White Christmas and Bob Hope when they hear that name?). Since Darling Husband is part of the family, we decided to try its navigation feature out. How long would it take to get to Waterford, and what was the recommended route? In a head-to-head with the great G, little B took us south toward Tullow, then past New Ross and to Waterford, and then past it, up the River Suir another 30 km to a small village of the same name. Clearly, there are still a few bugs to work out.

Our targeted attraction was not light-catching dust collectors, but the Waterford and Suir railway, a narrow gauge restored line that would take us on a 40-minute scenic ride along the river. There were a few attractions along the way back that we hoped to see as well, to break up the drive.

With Alfred released from the office a wee bit early (it was a Friday, after all), off we headed, south to County Carlow. We were headed for a hostel beat New Ross, similar to the digs in Omagh. To change things up a bit, I took the wheel, and let my life partner in crime navigate, which meant far more little white lines, and fewer thick red ones--or even middle-sized yellow ones. We also had trusty Peter with, and between the map and the book, we only had to double back three times before we found a place to park the car so we could explore Ballymoon castle and refuel the starving teenager.

Characterized as an "unusual fortress" by Peter, the place was enormous, with the remains of the walls revealing thick walls and evidence of many rooms, some with quite elegant proportions.

With our destination still a bit of a ways off, we decided to stop for a meal in the next town big enough to have a pub with food. Duiske fit that bill, and despite the challenging parking situation, found ourselves in a cozy pub with a lanky waiter and tasty food. Even better, it sported a handsome bridge, and featured a quite tasty sticky toffee pudding.

We arrived at the hostel just a bit before bedtime, and were greeted by a peat fire to reward us for our perseverance, for it laid at the end of an excruciatingly long dirt track that threatened both the side mirrors and the exhaust system of the car (they both survived, thankfully). The hostel sported a power shower, a chess set and a resident rooster who came to beg at the kitchen window when he smelled toast.

The next morning, we headed out bright and early (after that classic hostel meal, baked beans on toast). Through the town of New Ross, where we stopped to peek at the Dunbrody Emigrant Ship, a tall elegant old lady moored in the river.

The wide spot of Kilmeadan boasts a thatched-roof pub and the terminus for the Waterford and Suir River Railway, a serious little narrow-gauge railway that is holding its own against the adjacent motorway construction. While the weather went from cloudy to very wet, the coachman described the sights along the way as well as future plans and past history for the railway. It was by all measures, delightful, and much drier than traipsing around stone ruins in the rain.

We really didn't want to traipse around stone ruins in the rain, but when we got to Jerpoint Abbey, it was still pouring. But I wasn't about to miss out on what Peter calls "undoubtedly one of the finest Cistercian monastic ruins in Ireland." Borrowing an OPW (Office of Pubic Works) umbrella, we braved the wetness to follow the informative guide and view the exquisite carvings in the most "excellently reconstructed" cloister.

The easiest thing would have been to speed home directly, but the straightest way took us past one of our favorites, the high cross at Moone. The master of this cross never fails us, using simple gestures in a coarse medium to suggest complex stories. Remember the story of the loaves and fishes? It's here.

Alfred headed up to the airport the next day to farewell to his godson the following day. The number of visitors on the docket is down to two!

Down time

Our calendar showed that my brother's departure would mark the calm before the storm: August would bring three sets of visits and spell the closure of our time here. Monday, we dug into the pile of chores that had piled up (not just laundry), and updated the Great Wall of Planning to reflect what we absolutely wanted to still squeeze in.

So I was feeling quite virtuous and in control, looking forward to a full two and a half weeks of implementing said plan, when Alfred's godson send an IM: he couldn't get his planned days off: could he come tomorrow? And the answer was of course, of course.

Which meant that we got to put of until next week what we could have done then. Lucky for us, said godson is also a good sport when it comes to seeing some of the things that we wanted to see.

One of the items the boys had been clamoring for was the Sealife Aquarium in Bray. Since it lies on the other side of the Wicklow mountains outside our door, we decided to go over them on a different route. The Sally Gap is immortalized in song, but we had never managed to get there somehow. Well, we can report that it is stunning, so much in fact, that I neglected to take a single picture. I'll just have to go back, and am happy to have an excuse to do so.

I had been to Bray many years ago, with a very small only child, to see the aquarium, only to discover the whole building under construction. We enjoyed the pebbly beach and spray, and then took the train home. This time, we enjoyed the pebbly beach and spray, had a chuckle at the pale people pretending it was swimming weather, and actually went to the aquarium.

It's a small place, which left us ample time to meander home the long way, via Glendalough, which we've visited at least seven times by now, so our place in heaven should be well-secured.

Since there was clearly no time to roast a chicken for dinner, we headed to Hollywood to the Inn, where we met up with my hard-working spouse for dinner of Guinness stew topped off with sticky toffee pudding.