“Well, at least you’ll have plenty to blog about”

“Well, at least you’ll have plenty to blog about,” notes my dear husband. I know he’s just trying to cheer me up.
“I can’t very well blog about the stomach flu, though, can I? And most people aren’t interested in a flat tire. I really would rather write about the great weekend excursions we had.”
“Yes, but the flat tire at least points up how some things actually do work here. I mean, the rescue guy showed up in record time—less than an hour from Dublin.” He’s got a point there. And it proves my theory: if someone apologizes and says it’ll take a long time, they’ll get to it right away; if they say they’ll take care of it straight away, you’re in for a wait
“True, even the broadband is finally working! Are you going to go in or work from home, since Marcus doesn’t need a ride to school today? ”
“I can’t, I have a meeting that I have to go to this afternoon. And I don’t think I can reschedule.” Great, I have to figure out whether to leave Marcus by himself or schlep him with to the tyre centre.
“No. Oh, wait a sec, Ferdi’s stuck in Thailand.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope, he’ll be home in two days, via Kuala Lumpur and South Africa. He has to reschedule!”

Which means I can head into town to get a new tyre, knowing that Alfred will be here if Marcus needs him. I know the tyre centre well, and the fellows have already sold me new tyres for the front to get me thru the NCT (car safety test). At this rate, I’ll have a matching set by the thaw. And their proximity to downtown means I could take care of the Post Office and shopping.

*****

So much for the news. But what I really wanted to write about was the great weekend we had. The turkey had trimmings, and Alfred and Marcus cut out early to be home for an early supper. Butternut squash stood in for pumpkin, and today I saw sweet potatoes in the market, but otherwise it tasted just like it should. And after supper we stepped out our back door for some Space Shuttle gazing, with Danny spotting the bright body arcing overhead. We waved, and wished them a happy Thanksgiving.


With Thanksgiving came a change in the weather: clear and bitterly cold, loads of fog. When we headed out to do some exploring, chunks of ice would fall on the car from overhead: not hail, but ice falling off the canopy of trees.


We opted on Saturday afternoon to take a drive around the Blessington Lakes, and discovered a lovely castle (think small) just around the corner, a couple of overgrown fairy rings and a gorse-covered passage tomb. Reminders that people have been here much longer than we might think.



As we passed through Blessington on the way home, the town was all dressed up for Christmas, and the fog and cold added to the mood.

Sunday, we headed out after a breakfast of pumpkin (well, butternut squash) scones. South to Baltinglass, where the ruins of an abbey stand proudly by the river. Little treasures of a pillar that defies physics to remain standing, and Romanesque carved capitals, with frosty ferns poking out from between the stones.



Emboldened by the ease of finding the place, we then managed to drive in circles, and finally resorted the GPS to find a place called Castledermot—yup, Diarmait Mac Murchadh (or Dermot McMurraugh, if you prefer the modern spelling), King of Leinster, built a castle there, but there’s none of that left. Instead, there are ruins of an abbey dating to about 900, a pair of high crosses and another church/abbey, with no information posted other than we could get the key next door if we needed.



Thoroughly chilled, we tucked into shepard’s pie at a pub, and headed north to Kilcullen and one of my favorite events of the year. (At the back of the pub's car park, we found the signpost that was clearly missing when we needed it.)


The winter, or advent, spiral is a contemplative walk in an evergreen spiral, to light a candle in the growing darkness of winter. Together our light fills the room with a warm glow. Our school back home will celebrate the spiral later this week, and I shall miss watching the children that are still four years old in my heart walk tall as young adults, knowing that this is the last time they will walk this path as students of this school. For the first time, I have a pang of missing someone, and realizing it is “my” other children. Good thing they are all on Facebook!


And my visa application arrived this morning, which means I can stay another six months. Good thing Alfred was here to sign for it!

Hunkering down

Jack Frost came last night, painting random surfaces (mostly windshields) a chilly white. There's a dusting of snow on one of the Wicklow hills, and Met Eireann warns of "showers turning wintry" on Thursday. Which is all just a way of saying that it's cold.

I nipped up to Dublin City on Saturday, ostensibly to attend a workshop on taxation (which I did attend and almost understood), but also because I wanted a decent knife. I have tried to make it work with the supermarket-grade knives that came with the house, but have cite irreconcilable differencse. I was hoping that proximity to the continent would make it easier to find a good knife, but there appear to be only two kitchen shops around, both within a block of each other in Dublin. Lucky for me, the first one I hit had a lovely display of Sabatier, which fit the bill perfectly. A solid-looking garlic press also jumped into my shopping bag and I didn't say no.

Without Thanksgiving to act as a buffer, Ireland launched itself into Christmas season--the day after Halloween. The fun size candy was dumped unceremonously into the half-off bins (hooray, fun-sized caramel bars!), and those same shelves filled overnight with Cadbury and Bassett's and Mars and Smarties and After Eights and all sorts of Christmas-sized packages and advent calendars and holiday crackers and goodness, you could put on so much weight and put holes in your teeth just thinking about eating it all.

Downtown, and even in our own small village, lights deck the storefronts, and the heaving masses and buskers cram the pavement. Lighted signs tell me that all the downtown parking lots were full, full, full, making me feel even more virtuous for having taken the bus. The bus runs from the center of Blessington to right into the heart of Dublin, takes about the same amount of time as driving myself, and costs only Eur 3.30. I'm sold.



An extended holiday season means that there are more weekends to schedule holiday parties and such, but that doesn't mean that they manage to spread themselves out so we can pace ourselves. No, this is the week that one school has its coffee morning (invite people in for a cuppa, get them to put some cash in the pot and maybe buy a few handmade gifts and a raffle ticket); and the other school has its Christmas Bazaar (with raffle and tombola, please provide a donation from your family ASAP). Next week is fallow, then we get hit with three holiday parties in quick succession, from Friday evening to Saturday night.

We're planning to pull the kids from school a few days early and head down to Germany for Christmas, where it is already snowing. Good thing we brought the woolies!

Cold turkey

My first year abroad, I was in France for Thanksgiving. I was the only American in the entire town (the other one arrived after the new year), and I couldn't afford to fly home. It was my first holiday out of the nest, so to speak, and I hadn't realized just how American I was, at least in this aspect. More than the turkey, I realized I missed the cold sandwiches (lots of mayo and cranberry sauce) and pumpkin pie the next week.
The next Thanksgiving I was back in the States, and gleefully joined the insanity of flying to my parents, a pie on my lap. I firmly believe that the TSA should make a specific exception for pumpkin pies in carryon for this week. Anything less would be Unamerican.
My years in Germany were a challenge, but I was still young and energetic. Not wanting a repeat of my French turkey fast, I set out, determined to find a turkey in November. A chat with a French butcher (just across the border from Freiburg had the fellow shaking his head--he would have to order a minimum of six fresh turkeys, would I purchase them all? I was a student, with no fridge of my own, just a cubby in a communal dorm fridge. This wasn't going to happen. I finally located a butcher in the basement of a supermarket in Freiburg who procured a frozen turkey for me. I headed into town on the tram (I couldn't ask Alfred to carry it on his bike's handlebars), and returned home with a frozen lap. The bird rested on my friend Ute's balcony for two days, where I don’t think it thawed at all since we had a cold snap. Frozen fingers stuffing the thing, another family tradition.
My mother, worried about me, sent a box with a can of cranberry jelly, a bag of stuffing, a can of pumpkin and a can of succotash. I love corn, I hate lima beans. She knew this, but that's a subject for many years of therapy. Given the size of the bird, we had a few starving-student friends over, and demolished everything, even the succotash (without my help).
So here we are, once again faced with the turkey-in-November-in-a-country-that-eats-their-turkeys-in-December dilemma. And of course, my liberal-jerking knee really wants a free-range bird, for both health and moral reasons. I've been at this a week now, and T-day is approaching.
One of the most useful things I have learned over the years professionally is how to estimate how much time a job is going to take me. My clients love that I deliver on time or a little early; I love that I don't have to sweat getting it done under the wire. But this is Ireland, and it takes a half-hour of conversation to ascertain that they don't have a turkey. Since I'm still quite new to the Irish Way, it means I have cleared my calendar to allot the rest of the week to procuring The Bird. Wish me luck!

Black and pink

After supper last night, Alfred took the boys over to the hotel to watch part of a big rugby match. (He maintains that this helps him advance professionally, so he can talk with his co-workers more intelligently.) Apparently, the rules of the game don't matter as much as the showmanship, which consists of grown men trying to intimidate the other team in a ritual called the Haka.



I should note that what's funny is that the All Blacks (who won, 18-16) are a national team who were playing against a regional team. By the way, this is what they call a friendly game.

From the ridiculous to the sublime: I woke this morning to pink light, and when I looked out the window (the Wicklow mountains are to my left) the sky was ablaze in a glorious sunrise. With the moon still up and the birds going crazy, Disney couldn't have painted a prettier picture.


I wonder which will be the subject of conversation around the water cooler?

A desk!

When we started to think in earnest about this adventure, we realized that much of it would be an exercise is prioritizing: just what is important enough to pack and bring with or pursue once we got here? Conversely, it was an opportunity to shed the excess: if we do without it for a year, can we do without it altogether?

Well, after a month of moving my laptop (a must have, given my line of work) back and forth from side board to kitchen table and back again each day, I learned a few things:

• Optical mice don't work on glass tables
• Food and keyboards don't mix
• Reshuffling piles of paper every day is extremely inefficient

The painfully obvious answer is a desk. If this were Seattle, or any other large city, I would head to IKEA. But it's not open in Dublin yet (long story, buy me a cider and I'll tell it to you), so we decided to trek to Bristol, combining a good visit with a lightning shop at the big blue box.

The other hurdle is that this tiny house has four sofas in it (no, I'm not kidding), and there was no way to get even a token desktop in. Our very cool landlady graciously gave us the key to the other house in the village (number 36) so we could swap out furniture. We figured out that by removing one large coffee table and turning one sofa 90 degrees, we could sneak in my tiny desk.

Of course, I also had the trek to Florida and back last week, so assembling the desk was one of the things that just didn't Get Done. But with a calm moment during the week last week, and patience with a screwdriver (I miss my drill, but not enough to buy a new one), I have a desk!


Astute viewers will also note the laundry rack. Yes, we have no dryer, which is something I sorely miss, as the amount of laundry produced by four people in a muddy place can be prodigious, and we're only barely keeping up. One load a day is the maximum, since that fills the two racks, which need at least a day to dry. We have discovered we can speed drying marginally by turning the rack in front of the radiator.

Eagle eyes will notice a white thingy poking out one side of the computer--the Omnitel guys assure me that it will be just a few more days or so until they can get the broadband working. In the meantime, I invested in a USB dongle that gives me a mobile broadband connection to the tower on the hill. The pipeline is smaller, but has been very reliable, and can even carry a voice call without a hiccup. Which means you can call our Redmond number, and if we're not asleep, we'll pick up and talk to you. While sitting at the desk, no less!

Flamingo in the pansies

I have been away for nearly a week, on my annual translation pilgrimage. This year's conference was held in a resort in Walt Disney World, and the organizers went to great lengths to keep the cartoon characters at bay (One colleague relates the story of trying to have a difficult conversation with an employee, only to be interrupted by Goofy at an inopportune moment.). But Florida is still Florida, and Disney is still Disney: our mascot was a relatively innocuous flamingo, flaming pink and sporting tennis shoes and glasses--no, not the intellectual kind, these were purple with rhinestones. A dozen plastic lawn flamingos were purchased to decorate the poolside planters lest we take ourselves too seriously.
My travel day was a bit unreal, from the fresh code orange alert for election day, to the perennially false resort environment, to the early election returns. The juxtaposition between the fall color on the Wicklow hills and the perfectly groomed grass and palm trees was jarring, not to mention the sheer scale of things. I don't think the motorway around Dublin is as wide as the hotel driveway (and people go around the roundabout the wrong way!).
The warm weather, incredible fresh orange juice, and historical election results helped me adjust, and soon I was wearing sandals every day, though I still needed a sweater indoors because of the air conditioning. Sessions were attended, business cards were exchanged, meals were shared poolside. When it came time to leave, ,the traditional drawing was held for free registration for next year's conference, and another dozen names were pulled out of the bowl for--you guessed it--a lawn flamingo.


Which explains how something so pink ended up somewhere so green.

Wheels

You asked, here they are, the new Hellstern fleet. The good news is that the blue beast passed its NCT (National Car Test) on the first try, though our neighbor told us that never happens.

The minivan (a Renault Scénic) looks pretty big next to the little Clio, but it's actually a wee bit smaller than a Mazda 5. It's completely gutless, but the dual sunroofs are pretty cool.

From cold to warm

During our stay in England, the weather turned cold. Frost on the windshields, dusting of snow on the hills kind of cold. Needless to say, it was lovely being on vacation and not having to scrape windshields (windscreens).

After two days of sightseeing, our third day at the Goswells was given over to pressing apples into cider. Armed with a book and plans for a press from the Web, Karen supervised, while we put Cripsin's fabrication to the test. We picked, chopped, scratted (that's a fancy-apple term for the coarse grinding that the fruit undergoes before pressing), searched for more containers for apples and their by-products (future compost), and managed to break the press. With a halt put to the preparations, the men-folk retrenched to the workshop and figured out how to rebuild the press to apply enough pressure to get the precious juice without breaking apart. After much kibitzing and fortified with a fine out-of-the-freezer feast, the first pressing was finished by bedtime for the wee ones. A large bottle of juice was set to ferment (Karen has promised a full report), and the rest pasteurized and bottled and labeled. We tucked our bottle into the special bottle compartment in the back of the car (it is a French car, after all), and it is now safely ensconced in our kitchen.





Our crossing home was not as rough as coming over, but high winds kept us circling for three hours before we could dock. The Irish Coast Guard took advantage of the opportunity to do some helicopter rescue training, which provided at least an hour of entertainment. We got home and fell into bed quite late; poor Alfred had to rise the next morning, but we did no such thing.




The trees outside our windows appeared a little more bare, and the microwave said it needed its clock reset. I figured I'd need to set the timers on the radiators as well (each one has a separate control), but we scratched our head for a day until the neighbor said they had only been without power for an hour. Indeed, it appears that readjusting clocks off of daylight savings time was taken care of for us by the electric company. I wonder how they'll move things forward in the spring...

The tallest of the Wicklow hills had a sprinkling of white (we think that's why it's called the Sugaloaf), but that has since melted. The weather turned back to just quite cool. I finally capitulated and bought a wireless modem dongle for my laptop, since the Internet connection was completely gone upon our return, and a visit from the tech today yielded absolutely no improvement.

I am off to Florida tomorrow, for a professional conference. It will be odd to be warm (though I may freeze with the air conditioning) and around Americans.