I won’t sugar-coat
it: this past winter was awful. It didn’t stop raining for days at a time. In
fact, according to the Irish Met Office, for 54 consecutive days from 29
December 2025 to 20 February 2026, it rained somewhere on the island. Several people
told me on separate occasions they had never had a winter quite like it, which for
a country famed for its rain is some statement to make. Still, it gives me
hope, because it can only get better.
However,
when the sun shines, this place is truly magical in every sense, especially as
the temperatures are never extreme. A real antidote to the searing Valencian sun,
I actually love to go to places where the heat doesn’t prevent me from enjoying
my day. The children love to play outside, and we make sure they wear
appropriate clothing. It’s hard to persuade Livia to button up – she’s like me;
she hates being overburdened with too many clothes. Coats often feel like extra
responsibilities rather than useful accoutrements to keep us warm or dry.
All this
hunkering down over winter had made us a touch restless, and ready to get on
with making our new home truly “ours”. On 25 March, once the colder weather had
passed, I hired a 3-ton digger and set about recreating the things we had back
at our old house in Germany that we all missed. One of those things was the
pond, which was a central point of the garden and doubled up as a paddling
pool.
In the end,
I made one large pond on the sunset side of the house, with a promontory that
will accommodate a fire cauldron for ceremonies, and a smaller one on the
sunrise side of the house for the children to enjoy. The larger one will
hopefully be a haven for wildlife – I hope to introduce some shrubs, trees and flowers
to attract the birds and insects, rodents and amphibians. Around the smaller
one, a large mound contains lupins, a dogwood, a panicled hydrangea, a bird
feeding station, a paddling area, and a short footpath with steps over the top
for the kids to play on. It’s about 60% ready.
I also spent
the early winter planting a series of trees – the sunrise garden has a
clay-type soil that drains really badly, so I have had to make some mounds and
drainage holes to let the water run off. I have also planted some of the more
thirsty-type trees, such as a few willows, a hornbeam, a maple, and a birch. On
the drier part of the garden, I planted two apple trees and a cherry tree. The
only doubt is a staghorn sumac, which as of 5 May hadn’t really got its act
together, but now seems to have understood that’s its new home. I will keep an
eye on it, otherwise I need to move it somewhere less squelchy. I have also
been busy cutting the grass and leaving the cuttings where they fell. This
helps to harden the ground over time, although on this sunny morning after a few
rainy days, it’s starting to resemble a savannah clearing.
During the
breathless month of April, the children joined us for some nature walks, some
garden work, and a few trips out for cake. I also launched my book in town with a reading at Mohill National School and a book signing event in Boyce & Co Café (photos at the bottom), both of which were quite a success. But it was the arrival of May that brought
about our first overnight trip away. Aoife, the effervescent wise woman who looks
after Dai and Milda four days a week, told us about the Festival of Fools in
Belfast. She was going to attend it and see her brother, who was running a wooden
folk games event. On the way, we passed by the splendid Navan Hill Fort near Armagh, where there was a demonstration of life in Ireland two centuries ago. The children loved dressing up and trying their survival skills - photos at the end.
One of the
most important aspects of the festival is crowd participation, with the
philosophy that maybe some will go home and think about taking up a new street
performance hobby of their own. I can see how easy it would be to gain new
grassroots recruits this way: it’s interactive to the point of being virtually
50:50 contribution of crowd to performers.
And I cannot
recommend this overtly welcoming and inspiring event enough. What’s tragic is
that there seems to be a funding issue that prevents the festival from growing
and developing into the international phenomenon that it could be. When we look
around European cities at what cultural festivals mark them, Munich has the
Oktoberfest of course, Valencia has the Fallas, and there is an argument to be
had that both festivals have outgrown their cities and as permanent fixtures
are now liabilities prone to overcrowding, unwanted noise, tension and loutish
behaviour rather than something the exhausted locals actually look forward to
each year.
Well.
What
followed was a demonstration that even a six-year-old girl can do it. The
diabolos were a real eye-opener. Watching Milda, Dainoris and Livia controlling
them like puppies on a leash was a cathartic moment that will live long in the
memory.
We went
inside to be greeted by smiling volunteers ushering us to the main activities. The
children hurried to the wooden folk games, which included a skittle setup with
a weight on a stick, another with a catapult and some targets spinning on an axle,
a chess-type game, a maze in a basket, a wooden 3D snakes-and-ladders game, and
many others. The place was a hub of entertainment and energy, with all ages
giving the games a go.
Then an
organiser announced there was to be a series of short shows. The first was a
youth theatre and acrobatics group from Derry City. Average age seemed to be
about 14 or 15. They rode unicycles in formations, juggled, and balanced stuff
on their heads. Then came a man dressed in a plastic pinny who performed with
eggs. Yes, you heard that right, with eggs. His bizarre but amusing act included
pretending to make eggs disappear and failing quite hilariously.
And just
when I thought the children couldn’t do any more to show how fast they’re
growing up, Dainoris was called up to be the egg man’s assistant for the middle
part of his show. And he did ever so well, even making a few improvised moves
of his own. At one point, he had to catch an egg that had been catapulted into
the air, which of course was planned to fail, but he took it so well it was
almost as if they’d rehearsed it.
After this,
a couple of Finnish ladies did a comedy acrobatic routine, followed by some
more youth formations on unicycles, and a finale with some more comedy acrobatics
from the same youth group. Livia and Dainoris sat through all this without
getting up or being distracted. Milda hovered between the shows and the folk
games.
I sent a
photo of Dainoris to Aoife to show her what he’d been doing, and she reminded
me that her brother was the one running the folk games. I hadn’t made the
connection. So I went to introduce myself to him, by saying “oh, you’re Aoife’s
brother?” which initially bemused him somewhat, but when I explained, he thought
the situation was quite amusing.
After the
festival, we headed to the car along Royal Avenue, stopping at Writer’s Square
for some merchandise on the way. The drive home was a peaceful one, punctuated
by a stop in Enniskillen for an enormous Indian meal.
Bank Holiday
Monday was a lazy day for everyone – although I still had to cook, take the
washing to the dryer in town, and dry the children’s hair after their bath, but
I still managed to watch the extraordinary climax to the World Snooker Final. I
wouldn’t miss that, despite the adverse conditions inflicted by family members ambushing
me with spontaneous tasks.
All-in-all, life
had taken a tremendously malevolent set of turns over the previous three years,
but time is helping us all heal. I have found it the most difficult to adjust
to this new reality, mainly because I have been so used to being in an
international environment for a quarter of a century, and having to give up
most of my career in order to start again at my age has frankly made me
economically obsolete, but the kind people of this pretty corner of the world
have made it much easier than it could have been.
On Saturday
23 May, some friends of ours from Valencia came by for a day on their way
around Ireland. The weather was cheering up after a few days of rain, and the sun
was starting to get hot. Nobody associates Ireland with the type of Mediterranean
weather that brings northern Europeans south in their millions once a year, but
after all that rain, we’re owed some lovely sunny days. And this week has been terrific:
of all the days of my life that the sun has shone, I can’t remember such a
perfect combination of colour, warmth, and serenity.
But nothing
prepares you for the approach to the Lough Ree Inn: you reach the outskirts of
Athlone, then you see a sign for Coosan Point along a rather nondescript-looking
turnoff next to a car showroom. Less than a minute up that road, there is an
almost imperceptible left-turn a car-and-a-half wide. Your journey takes you
into some shallow woodland past some of the tidiest houses with the neatest,
manicured lawns, ornamental trees, statues, fountains and electric SUVs before you
enter some farmland. After a number of secluded houses with boats in the
driveways, you finally arrive at a bustling and thriving leisure facility on
the shore of the huge lake, the island’s fifth largest.
And boy,
what a view it is – visitors with their own barbecues pepper the parkland
leading to the water, where children paddle in the shallows. A well-equipped
playground is festooned with kids and adults making a lot of happy noises. The ice
cream van has a queue of red-faced clients waiting patiently to order their treats
from a jolly young lady behind the counter. The colourful terrace of the pub is
littered with people enjoying their day off, and dog walkers hurtle past looking
fitter than the rest of us. Boats, both big and small, are scattered across the
serene surface of the sea-like lake, listing and leaning as they bob above the brilliant
blue waters.
This place
is magic. It’s as if Someone Upstairs decided to create an impeccable haven of relaxation
for members and let the sinners in for a day. I had booked a table for seven a
couple of days early, and it didn’t disappoint. The view outwards was a glorious
picture of chaos, like an updated L.S. Lowry painting had been given AI
treatment.
The menus
came up, and the first thing I noticed was the venison burger; the rest was
immaterial to me. The cheerful chatter was unrelenting, the food was easy on
the eye and easier on the stomach, and the desserts were tasty, but the drinks
list could have been better. I hardly drink any more, but I honestly believe a place
like that could do better by stocking a few more niche items in their alcohol
repertoire.
Afterwards,
we went outside to enjoy the scenery and sit by the lake. The children were happily
amused in the playground, so we just hung around the area taking in the fantastic
scenery and spirited atmosphere. I try to always get it right for visitors, and
this time I was definitely vindicated, even if I say so myself. They left quite
late in the early evening, and we stayed for one more round of juices and coffees
before taking the road home.
The rest of
this week, I have been busy working in the garden, cutting the grass, shaping
the ponds, and planting a few more shrubs. I am going to make a long, thin
mound of topsoil no higher than my foot along one edge of the garden to spread
the contents of the box of wild flowers on. I’d love to see them grow and turn
the garden into a flying insect’s paradise.
I am by no
means a superstitious person, but I am ceaselessly kept in check by a malevolent
and openly hostile hobgoblin in a robust and systematic manner. So for that
reason, I don’t declare things like “I’m currently contented with life”, or
some such statement, because I can guarantee you it will be sabotaged by an unwelcome
development that will cause us either to have to set fire to the entire island
of Ireland to combat it, or to gouge our eyes out to satisfy its lust for Schadenfreude
and the infliction of desolation upon us (again).
Having undergone
the equivalent experience of being pulled through a field of electrified gorse while
having slate boulders dropped on me, I would like to imagine that this
hobgoblin that has plagued my life for at least the last thirty years is
finally moving on to some other poor victim.
We can but
hope.
