 |
| Carrick-On-Shannon is a great place for a walk and a drink |
I would like to introduce you to the Irish word craic, pronounced the same as crack. It actually comes from Northern English, where it meant “chat” or “gossip”. If you said “what’s the crack?”, it meant “what’s been happening?” Someone might say “there was some good crack at the pub last night”, meaning the banter flowed freely and there were a lot of fun things to talk about. This takes on an extra meaning in Ireland, where it also refers to a very special type of amusement – the kind that everyone in your circle finds hilarious although others might not. Sometimes the target will see the funny side, and other times not.
For example, in one railway station, they stuck the timetable on the electronic door so anyone wanting to read it would get close before it moved to the side. And when you move over to read it, the door would of course close, taking the timetable with it. People who discovered this sat there watching the stream of unfortunates try to read the timetable. It’s dark humour but even the head of Health and Safety at Haringey Council would chuckle. That’s the purest definition of craic.
On Wednesday
morning, we became victims of this ourselves. The evening before, the children
went to look for something in the car and left three of the doors open all
night. I discovered this when I left our caravan to check the post. The post
box was empty, but a letter was sitting on the driver’s seat in the car, doors
still wide open. Utterly brilliant trolling; made my day – we didn’t stop grinning
from breakfast to dinner.
I have also
been involved in this activity myself: before we left Spain, the previous owner
of our property told me of a man in his early eighties, a former farmer who
lives just round the corner from us and was looking forward to meeting us. He is
a local legend as only a few years ago he was brutally gored by a bull, its
horn ripping through him, causing him to spend a year in hospital recovering. The
story of his resilience made it to the TV and press as well. But he is a bit of
a character and everyone around knows of him. As we were coming from Spain, I
bought him an appropriate present: a bullfighter’s hat and cape. I hope he
wears them at the pub.
An exhibit at Glenview Folk Museum
On Monday 14 July we went to Glenview Folk Museum near Ballinamore. It’s packed full of artifacts
from past times, and the man who runs the place takes you on a tour round the
various objects and displays at lightning speed. There’s a salvaged food truck
from the 1920s in there, a massive collection of eggcups, an early electric
sports car from 50 years ago (no joke), and a huge number of exhibits from
different genres, such as apothecary, newsagent, café, domestic, and automotive.
Just a year
ago, we would not have been able to spend so long in such a place, but things
are changing and the children are getting a lot more interested in this type of
thing. Except Livia, who shut off after a while and went outside.
The children look on as sheep eat away at their inheritance
The next
morning, we woke up to find several sheep outside our window: they had escaped
from their field and had decided to come over for a mini-break. The weather had
been quite changeable, so we took them to a soft play centre in Fenagh Visitors’
Centre. It’s always a huge surprise to show up in small villages and find such
facilities – we have virtually everything we need around us, despite being a
million miles from a large city.
Seán's sheep
Seán often
appears in the area either herding his sheep with a quad bike or checking on
his land to make sure the sheep are secure. He promised me one of the lads
would come up and cut our land as the grass was starting to get very tall. A
lot of it had been appropriated by reeds, and it needed a proper tractor to mow
it.
On Monday we were in Longford at a mower shop – I bought a very heavy-duty brush cutter and strimmer at a specialist shop, and then we went to Carrick-On-Shannon to buy some garden tools, such as a rake and a spade. While we were there, Seán called and said one of the lads was coming up to cut our grass. We hurried back from Carrick to find almost all of it done. What would have taken an ordinary mower at least a full day had been done with the tractor in a matter of minutes.
 |
| The tractor mows part of our field |
The lad on the tractor was 17 years old and handled the immense beast like a vacuum cleaner in an empty room. I gave him a couple of notes for his efforts and we had a chat. Clever kid, had a lot to say – he could have been 40 years old. Anyway, it seems with all these people we’ve met, we’re on the way to becoming part of the local fabric.
We also took
a trip to a place called Bóthar na Naomh, a country park with a predetermined
path to follow. The shorter route is only a couple of kilometres, and mainly on
the flat, so we decided to try it out on the children. I remember when we went
to the Garbí near Sagunto for the first time – they complained a great deal
about having to walk along the stony paths through all the trees. By the fifth
time, it was much easier although Livia was still reluctant.
Here, things
hadn’t changed, at least initially. For the first couple of hundred metres, Livia
was enraged to the point of explosion that anyone would actually want to go for
a walk anywhere, but once she had calmed down and saw where she was, she started
to enjoy it. The nature there is resplendent, with a mix of woodland wildflowers
and open field ones too. There were meadowsweet, St John’s wort, cornflower, mountain
ash. fireweed, syringa, wild orchid, lupin, hollyhock, bee blossom, salvia, saxifrage,
hawthorn, elm, beech, oak, cypress, and those are just the ones I could name.
We walked
through the forested area, taking longer than usual, because Dainoris and Milda
wanted to look at the flora. This was incredibly encouraging. Livia was
starting to get in the mood as well. Then we came to the open part, which
straddled the edge of a lake and some wide open pastures with cows grazing.
Except one: standing menacingly in the meadow, staring at us like a coked-up
night club bouncer looking for some action, was an angry-looking cow with an
expression of world-weariness mixed with utter paranoia. She seemed the type of
cow that would kick your car windows in and steal all your belongings while you
and your family were sitting in there terrified. See if you can tell in the photo which
one…
 |
| Yes, that’s her, the ruthless bovine colossus. |
The children had been asking about doing some more activities, especially ones with meaning, which was a credit to their personalities. A week or two ago, there was a poster in the window of The Corner café advertising a Martial Arts course for kids. I proposed it to them and they were delighted. Every day they kept asking, “are we going to Ninja School today?”
So on
Wednesday 23 July, we drove to the community hall in Ballinamore to begin their
training. Initially, I told Livia she couldn’t go, because I didn’t think she
would be able to pay attention and listen to the instructor. How wrong was I?
Not only did she pay attention, she loved every minute of it. Dainoris came
away tired but elated. However Milda was not so overjoyed – she decided it
wasn’t for her and we respect her decision. She wants to do dance classes
instead.
Ninja School - image blurred for obvious reasons
It started
with some basic instructions like stand up, hands in the air, now by your
sides. But it developed into running up and down, or hopping to the middle, or
frog leaping. Livia followed every step and listened to the whole thing.
Then came
the breakthrough we have all been waiting for: the instructor said they would
be getting their white gowns the coming week and to earn a different colour to
go on their belts, they have to do their homework, and this week their homework
is to help their parents clean up.
Well.
The day
after, Livia not only helped us tidy up, she did the whole thing herself. Since
then, she has taken on an air of responsibility and has started putting
importance on household maintenance. She still flares up, but she has started
to demonstrate more independence and self-confidence.
Roly-Poly Hill, Ballinamore
After the Ninja
School, we went outside to the playground and the children did some more
running about. Where on Earth they get their energy from beats me. They intentionally
get up at a time when adults slouch out of bed to get ready for work. They
eat the bare minimum until an intervention from a parent, yet they charge
around like they’d been given an athlete’s diet and a litre of coffee. This
carries on all day until they have a little crash. This crash and resulting short
nap allows them to go on until as late as possible, even if they’ve spent an
hour charging around a hall.
I took a
walk through Ballinamore’s public park. It is a happy place, and full of everyday
life – the kids playing football with a couple of bags as goalposts; the old
geezer out for a run; the mother on the phone while her children blow bubbles;
a dad, his son and a friend cracking a hurling ball across the park, and my
three rolling down the steep spectator banks on the far side of the field,
screaming with laughter.
Here, also,
I discovered one of the trees of my youth: the Lawson’s cypress, also known as
the Oregon cedar, a tree so grand and tall, that it’s essentially permanent
nighttime under its fronds. I loved those trees as they remind me of my
childhood. They have these unique berries that look like sultanas but are as
hard as rubber balls. It’s hard to come to terms with the rubbish you did as a
child, but at least you can comfort yourself in some of the more pleasant
memories.
Our horticultural hoard
There’s a
garden centre about ten minutes after Carrick called Ardcarne, and it is a
haven of horticultural happiness. On Thursday 24 July, we drove out there to
see what we would like to put in the garden. Thinking we were just going to
look, I forgot how insistent the children are, especially Dainoris. He looks at
something in a shop and wants to buy it: whether it be a spare part for a
lawnmower, a packet of dishwasher tablets, a milk churn, a set of oyster knives,
a crystal lampshade, a 1993 Charlton Athletic mug, or some Norwegian flags,
Dainoris will take the lot if his eyes train on them.
So in the
end, we came out of there with enough plants to turn part of our garden into a
mini jungle. All the many staff in there were ultra friendly and the café was a
lesson in how to make sure people keep coming back. We had a good gluttonous
cake session in there before we headed out to buy some plants. And this is the
main issue – the garden wasn’t ready for any plants so I’d need to get back and
start preparing the ground pretty quickly. We bought the basic garden tools and
some compost, and the next day I dug out a space for many of the plants and
shrubs we had bought. There would be a lower flower bed, and with the earth I
had dug, there would be a mound to use as a windbreaker.
Coming up: August
Bank Holidays in Ireland are full of events for everyone. The next is on 4
August. Looking forward to it!
EXTRA PHOTOS BELOW
 |
| Bóthar na Naomh, wild flowers |
 |
| Bóthar na Naomh |
 |
| Bóthar na Naomh |
 |
| Carrick-On-Shannon |
 |
| Mown. |
