Last Saturday

Saturday morning dawned clear and bright, an ever-so-gentle breeze whispering the trees. From where I lie and first crack open my eyes, I see the top of a beech tree, all green and leafy except for one craggy naked branch that reaches up. As I contemplate that this green is a green unlike every other, a lone crow alights, cawing with its entire body. It's become a running joke that this is where I need to get up. But I know that this is a rare commodity, and I don't need to get up early, so I instead cuddle against my warm bed partner.

The day was spread out before us. We had an invitiation from the neighbors to grill and chat in the evening until the wee hours (or later), to enjoy the craic one last time. I had purposely worked hard during the week to get things to a place where I could have a peaceful weekend to enjoy Ireland and my family; for I leave my husband to finish up here, and when he joins us again, we will be in school mode, not to mention the fact that there will be no megaliths to pursue.

We had one bead for the weekend: Heritage Week, an annual celebration of Irish heritage and patrimony (now, there's a word we don't use in the US of A!). The kickoff celebration was in the beautiful town of Kilkenny, on the castle grounds. It was an easy itinerary, and we realized we could find it without a map. Which is good, because the map doesn't have the shiny new motorway on it.

We woke the sore-armed teen (more on his tree-climbing adventures later) and piled into the people mover (still for sale--interested?). The town was abuzz, both because of the festival, but also because of the upcoming hurling game. Yellow and black flags, banners, shirts, scarves, pajamas everywhere. There was even an inflatable Kilkenny Cat on a rooftop, complete with hurley.

We both have fond memories of this town, having visited it as a young family 12 years ago, and Alfred a dozen years before that. In fact, he had bought a hat there that has become a favorite, and he wanted to duck into the shop where they were made. How sad to find that Frank Wall hats are no longer made anymore, but how lovely that his son, Michael, a spry white-haired gentleman, still runs the shop. We emerged with a few calendar cards for Kilkenny supporters. "Up Kilkenny!" they cry, and Americans should not be shocked; it translates roughly as "Go, Kilkenny!" (And it's really funny to hear the call when County Down plays: "Up Down!")

As we approached the castle, we could hear the music, and sure enough, a marching band was warming up the crowd, next to the medieval re-enacters and stonemasons. We grabbed some delicous food: falafel and dolmas, sausage roll and goat cheese and spinach pie, and a punnet of raspberries to fortify us for merrymaking.

We watched stonemasons cutting and piecing a wall like a giant, heavy jigsaw puzzle; butter churning, a drumming workshop with Brazilian bells and Irish bodrans. The castle was open for self-guided tours, and we meandered our way through the relatively modern splendor and enjoying the spectacular views of the river and town.

The day slipped away pleasantly enough, and as clouds gathered, we headed back up the main street, window-shopping (we had a gift card from Christmas that we had forgotten about), and zipped back up the Isle to our little village, where tents and umbrellas had been erected around the bonfire to protect us from the imminent precipitation.

A quick check of email revealed a shuffling of automobiles on the other Island, as friends help reassemble our lives Stateside. A few quick calls, and we have arranged our airport transport and greeting committee as well as a date for the cat to get some intense love from my brother.

Steak burgers with roquefort and avocado, cider and prosecco, great talk and laughter. One by one people peeled off to head to bed, and all to soon, I realized that the sky was light.

The day dawned wild and windy, Wicklow at it's most wild and envigorating. The neighbors are sure that I won't miss the weather, but I'm not sure, as I listen to the wind creep in and whistle around the doors while all hands put the yard back in order. We'll head two doors down and watch Cork against Tyrone in the Gaelic football semifinal this afternoon, pack the bags the rest of the way, and print out our boarding passes.

Sore arms

It is a peculiarity of the Irish that men are often referred to by their nickname rather than their given name. My dear husband answers to "Alfie" on the football pitch (that's a soccer field), and Brian two doors down goes by "Gib."

And so it was that during a chat a few weeks back, Gib freshly cast and on crutches from tearing his Achilles tendon, that we learn that after working a myriad of jobs, he has found his passion in the treetops. With a regular contract to maintain forests under and around ESB power lines, he joyfully climbs trees for a living.

Which is why he was itching to get out of the cast for more than one reason. And as the summer progressed, it came to pass that he promised to drum up another harness and take Marcus up a beech tree across the lane.

This being Ireland, it took a while for it to come together, but it did so spectacularly: with sun shining, blue sky, puffy white clouds and a brisk breeze, the harness arrived, and Gib broke out a new rope. The two started with a relatively small tree close to the block of houses, perhaps only 60 feet tall or so.

Vaguely reminiscent of the REI climbing rock, a rope was fastened to a high branch (with the aid skyhooks), and a series of knots allowed the young lad to pull himself up. Not fast at first, and there was a great deal of hanging upside-down to start.

The entertainment value was apparent, as everyone on the block came out on the stoop and spent a fair time watching.

After half an hour of swinging around, Gib moved the rope farther up, and set a higher goal for Marcus. And left him to it.

At this point it became clear that this was a personal thing. Marcus didn't need anyone watching his every move. Indeed, as he went higher into the foliage, he nearly disappeared. No, this was flying solo, and though Gib was around, doing this and that (including swinging Danny on the other harness, for example), he wasn't actively paying him much mind. After an hour, a tired and hungry Marcus came down for lunch. But not before he'd made it to the top fork of that tree, above the roofline.

The weather took advantage of their lunch break to open up the heavens and soak things, and then the sun came out for their afternoon foray. They had chosen the beech across the car park, a lopsided old beech, for further scaling and branch walking, but the number of stinging nettles at its base made them rethink it, and they moved to a neighboring tree.

Unlike the first climb, Marcus rapidly disappeared into the dappled light of the branches, and except for his red hoodie, disappeared from view. Gib followed him up, and when they reached their goal, Gib asked him to step off into thin air, the rope holding him. Something magical happened: the boy, trusting the man, the tree, the rope, and himself, took the step.

In less than an hour, they were down on the earth again, quiet respect flowing between them. Rope burns on his hands, the boy sought first aid from his mother, but only briefly.

The cats of Tulfarris

Our very first picture of Tulfarris shows a black dog sniffing on the back patio. I didn't pay much mind to it at the time, it was a just a dog. And those few cats were just a few cats.

But they are as much part of the fabric of our lives as the hills and the neighbors. Linda, our next-door neighbor who dabbles in painting, is also known by the moniker The Cat Lady and the Biscuit Lady. For it is she who every day heads out to the car park with a big pot of kitty victuals and feeds the 19 strays. And it is she who always has a doggie biscuit for Gypsy, the black dog in our picture.

Gypsy theoretically "belongs" to Tommy and Tatiana, who live three doors down. She adopted them by showing up on their doorstep. It appears she was looking for smart people who enjoyed the outdoors, long walks, swimming and hiking. But she has also adopted each of us: Linda for biscuits and temporary digs when her people are out of town, our boys for tossing the squeaky ball and swims in the lake. She chases the stray cats, but delicately sniffs noses with Purdy, Linda's own spoiled beast. And it is not uncommon to find her sniffing around my ankles as I write, since I leave the door wide open on fine days such as this.

Linda also works with the local shelter to capture and have spayed the strays. Mostly calico, this is clearly a select gene pool, recently added to by an outsider Persian/tabby-blooded tomcat, from the looks of this last bunch of kittens. The new mother is just back from a spa treatment at the local vet, and will not be a mama ever again. Now Linda just needs to find homes for three adorable kittens.

Russborough & Rathbally

The absolutely closest attraction to where we live (other than the golf course itself) is Russborough House. It merits a star in the Michelin Guide, and is often called "the most beautiful house in Ireland." If we hike up the hill to our friends in Baltyboys, we can see it, with its gracefully sweeping lawns down to the lake. It is a favorite Sunday walk: in February with its long afternoon shadows, the daffodils just peeking their green heads through the snow, in autumn with the delicious flaming leaves, when we wondered where that lane that led to the lake wanted to go.

The Blessington Lakes, however, were not always there: they are the result of damming the Poulaphouca falls, a favorite picnicing spot for Vistorian-era Dubliners wanting to escape the city. They would catch the steam tram from Terenure (now part of Dublin), and wend their way down through Blessington to the falls.

I learned that the River Liffey--yes, the same river that runs through the center of Dublin--was dammed in the 1930s as part of a scheme to provide water and electricity for Dublin (yes, the irony of our water being undrinkable does not escape me). As a result, many of the landholders who abutted the river gained waterfront property, which didn't do them much good, because it took from them their livelihood: raising cattle and cutting peat from the valley floor. The villages around the lake are dotted to this day with people who were misplaced.

I picked up all these tidbits from a book that appeared in the bookshop window in November,
Beneath the Poulaphouca Reservoir, which presents the survey of properties that were flooded out by the scheme. Detailed maps and photographs round out the inventory, and makes for a handsome coffee table book. So handsome in fact, that it is already in its second printing.

It is fascinating to see that the manor house at Tulfarris, which is now on a lobe of land jutting into the lakes was perched on a hill at the bend in the river. The ruined house that we explored in the snow back in February is also on the map, and there is a track leading from it to Russborough House. It revealed itself as the shell of a formerly elegant house, with tiny wings flanking it, mirroring Russborough House and giving a fine view of its grander sibling from its front stoop. The map calls it Rathbally House, but tells no more of its clearly elegant past.

So when we finally took the tour (we had saved it for my mother), we were surprised that the incredibly well-informed guide knew nothing of it. Granted, she was, as she called herself, a "blow-in," but that didn't stop her from recognizing a pair of tour-takers.

We too, ran into a few people we knew from the Steiner school, folks who had come to enjoy the fine day, to walk the acres of sheep-dotted fields and gardens and to shop the monthly farmer's market, as we did too.

It seems then, that while Russborough House opens its doors to all for colorful gatherings, Rathbally will sit on top of her lonely hill and keep her secrets to herself.

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.

In order

Monday came, and so did a purple truck--hurrah!
And so did some fellows from the Wicklow County Council, who posted this sign at the entrance to the golf club.

For those who aren't inclined or able to read the small type, it appears that the management is applying to retain the buildings they built--apparently without a permit. It is not uncommon for county councils here to require unpermitted structures to be bulldozed, and there were some lovely pictures in the newspaper just last week.

Dare to hope

This morning, a big purple truck pulled up and dropped off six dumpsters. It was exciting enough to get the kids -- even the teenager -- out of bed. Four are purple, and two are green. That's right, garbage and recycling in our little village. The driver informed us that our bin day is Monday.

But lest we get too excited, my visiting brother reminds me that in most places you can take your water glass to the tap to fill it. And then I had to remember to buy credit for the second mobile dongle so I wouldn't have to share the Internet connection anymore.

And then the boys went for a walk and came back to let me know that the hotel was going to be closing on Sunday-Wednesdays beginning July 4. That's right, at the height of the tourist season, the hotel is cutting back.

Unraveling

I dreamt last night that there was a cobra in the apartment (but wait, we live in a house) with a loud hiss and a flat head. When I called emergency services (which would have been easier to understand if I had been holding the receiver the right way around) they were unsure of what to do, since they don't have to deal with snakes in Ireland. Alfred was wondering if perhaps we brought it back from Morocco unintentionally when the snake rounded the corner and struck at the dog (but we don't have a dog!). That's when I woke up. The cold sweat was a bracing way to start the day.

After such a lovely vacation, we had an inauspiscious return home. The kids managed to hold off until after the flight from Bristol to start bickering. But as we pulled into the car park at home, we noticed the mounds of garbage next to the toters. Now I understand that the folks who work here were working shortened hours, but it clearly hadn't been collected since well before we left.

A chat with the neighbor revealed that the golf course had gone into examinership, which appears to be a sort of protection preceding bankruptcy. The paper had a short article on it, but it had several effects not noticed by the reporter. First up, it seems the entire staff was let go. More bad news at a bad time, though they say they will be hired back on an hourly basis as bookings merit.

So, obviously, the garbage was not being collected: it turns out that the farmer down the road where the skip lives got tired of not being paid and bulldozed a berm of earth on the lane between the properties. In addition, there was a note in the mailbox telling us to not drink the water, that they we still doing repairs. Clearly they're not doing repairs (unless they're tunneling in from underneath or have invisible cars); there's just no one left to monitor the quality.

Most mysteriously, the internet was down, even though there is clearly electricity at the hotel where the signal comes in and is rebroadcast. If you recall, the net came up less than twenty-four hours before we left: it sounds like we missed all the excitement the next day as the network company came with guarded trucks and removed their leased equipment because they hadn't been paid. In the process of unplugging, they managed to break the connection, leaving the whole village without a signal.

Of course, we know this now: at the time, all we could do was inform the landlady, and let her begin the process of sorting things out. In the meantime, we have moved from drinking bottled water to using it for cooking and teethbrushing. Rubbish is more difficult: my husband, in a gesture reminiscent of my own father, took a black garbage bag up to work to chuck it there rather than add to the mounting health hazard (the stray cats tend to rip open any bag that smells of food, and the wind scatters everything).

After four days of haranguing the net folks, she got through, and a fellow came out and plugged things back together. There's still a chance that the connection may be cut off again, so we're not selling the dongles!

Well, you say, at least things on the home front are fine. Would that it were! We received news that our endearingly curmudgeon neighbor Eric is in hospital battling a resurgence of his cancer. We are grateful for CaringBridge, which allows us to keep in touch and offer remote support to him and his family.

And then came the bombshell: as I was trying to figure out how to manage tax season remotely, our housesitter informed us that she had found a room to rent (apparently a better deal than free rent and kitty love) and would be moving out in May. Like a hastily knit sweater, it seems our plans are unravelling faster than we can darn them together.

However, as they say, we are not quitters. Our first visitor arrives tomorrow morning, and we intend to show him a few of the sites. The daffodils we planted in the fall are fairly bursting in the mild weather that has returned to the island, which means that a little boy has a birthday that needs celebrating next week as well. We shall somehow manage to get the taxes done, and somehow, somehow, line up another housesitter to take us through the summer here.

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.

Breathtaking

We went for a walk the other evening. We like to go for after-dinner walks during the summer, when bedtime doesn't seem so all-fired important. September was a bit like an extended summer, with boys not in school as much, and frankly, the outdoors verily screams at us to come and walk.
We knew that Ireland would be beautiful, we'd been here before, after all. But neighbor after neighbor, friend after friend echoes it: it is absolutely gorgeous here. It's worth the drive from Dublin, just to be able to witness flocks of birds over the lake at sunset. Really. Worth. It.

Slowing down

I should mention that until a week ago, we were also living on the cash we had brought back from Germany this summer: while we had an Irish account, and had successfully transferred many Euros from Germany, we did not have any way to access said money: the mail system at the apartment was such that they held mail a random number of days before delivery, and the bank managed to issue a PIN, but had no record of it, so had to resend it; Alfred managed to get his card in hand, but no PIN was forthcoming. So we used cash. Very carefully.

The landlady had an antenna installed for pulling in a broadband signal within a record-breaking three days. We moved two days later, and immediately noticed that the place, while shiny on the surface, was quite grubby. The previous tenants had smoked, and every cupboard was stuffed with their things. Stacks of unpaid bills in the drawers and mailbox told the story, and the neighbor confirmed it: they had left overnight, one step ahead of the Garda. I pulled things out, wiped things down, threw the windows open, and called in a carpet cleaner.

We’ve also had the electrician in to do various things like actually attach a heater to the wires hanging out of Marcus’ wall and anchor the dishwasher in place so it doesn’t tip over when you open the door. Life works at a different speed here: we emailed the landlady on Monday, called on Tuesday when she didn’t respond, she replied that she’d send someone out on Friday. Friday, the handyman called to say he was running behind, would Monday do? Which meant that he made it Tuesday.

And the list goes on: I ordered stuff online two weeks ago, but it hasn’t shipped yet, the gal promises she’ll call me back once she’s tracked it down. That was two days ago. I note with chagrin that my order number is 57. I guess they’re new to this online stuff.

But in spite of this, and perhaps because of this, I have to say I like it here. There is, of course, the picture postcard views of the Wicklow Mountains out our back window, but there are also amazing moments when we turn a bend in the road and the view literally takes our breath away. Then there are the moments when we turn a bend and find ourselves staring at the grill of a rather large truck. You can’t have one without the other. Yesterday, I had to choose between hitting someone’s garbage can and taking on a tractor. My left mirror (that’s the passenger side) lost the battle.

About the only thing I would change would be to make the internet connection a little more reliable (our line-of-site reception is entirely capricious, and does not necessarily coincide with my wanting to use it.). But the people give new meaning to the term laid back. Could you imagine an insurance agent telling you they’ll have to call you back on Monday, since her underwriter is going home for the weekend? No question of staying late: the world won’t end if they go home to their family. Indeed, that’s what I should be doing too. We’ll deal with it next week.

Daily grind

We are settling into a routine: Alfred and Marcus rise too early for me to want to know what time it is, grunt at each other, shower and pile into the Clio. They drive down the one-lane road a short stretch and pick up our neighbour Paul, and they all ride in to Dublin together. They drop Paul at the Luás (light rail) station, drop Marcus at school, and Alfred actually gets to the office later. They reverse the process in the evenings. As it turns out, their trek over the mountains on two-lane roads takes about the same amount of time as Alfred’s freeway-based commute to the apartment that was closer in.

Danny & I get up an hour later, and have a leisurely breakfast, get dressed, and I drive him to school. Surprisingly, the left-hand-side-of-the-road thing is a non-issue. What is an issue is the condition of the roads. Variable is a word that sums it up nicely. It can take me anywhere from 10 minutes to 25 minutes to make the drive, depending on how many trucks and tractors I encounter. The width of the road—any road—is variable; the condition of the road, variable; whether or not there’s a line down the middle, or a fog line or any line at all, variable. Signage? You got, it, variable. I am reminded how my father used to think it was great fun to change signs around, and I realize it’s a national pastime, since signage tends to reflect changes on Sunday mornings (after Saturday night). There are some misguided souls who maintain it’s the wind that moves them around.

Thursday is my long day, with both boys in school until 3 (Danny is out at 1:30 most other days); Friday is short for both, with them out at one. So I took the train in on one Thursday to register with the Garda, the first step in the immigration process. After standing in line for 45 minutes, I received a number to tell me where I was in the line; yup, there were 249 people in front of me, and each one takes 25 minutes on average. The fellow behind the glass told me that my number wouldn’t be called until after four, and that I needed to bring my husband and children with. The only problem was that I needed to be at Tulfarris at 4:30 to sign the lease and setup the broadband. I abandoned all hope, and went shopping instead, bought some lunch (crisps) and some yarn and some sushi nori at the oriental market.

Tulfarris Village

With both boys in school, we could set a date with a realtor, to see the Tulfarris house and a couple of others. There are no lock boxes here, so realtors have to set up appointments with each other, and apparently miss each other all the time. In our case, three of four properties were a miss; and the fourth was the kind of place that left us gasping for air, literally, as every room had at least one air freshener in it.

Our date in Tulfarris revealed just what we needed: open floor plan, bright and airy, still small. The landlady and her husband owned and rented out three of the houses, and we even looked at another one, but our choice has the best light, and a view of the Wicklow Mountains from almost every window. We decided to take the upstairs room tucked under the eaves for ourselves.

We told her we would take it, with the proviso that she get broadband in. (We were absolutely not wanting to deal with setting up broadband, after having spent hours wrestling with Verizon the week before we left.) The realtor was left standing dumbfounded that we could do this all by ourselves.

The relo people at this point were feeling like a bit of a fifth wheel. When we asked them for things we really needed, like a second car and help with immigration for me and the boys, they were no help whatsoever; but they gave us maps and shopping bags and wanted to help negotiate the lease. We let them do this, but they got my name wrong on it, so I can’t even get a library card. At least they bought us lunch!