Meanwhile, Out The Country
When there’s so much going wrong with the world, I have no option in writing and in life, but focus on the things I have control over, to celebrate smart life decisions, being grateful for what is simple, consistent, good and kind around me; family, friends, neighbours, community and the place we have called home for the past twenty years.
A half mile from a vibrant village, divided roughly in half by the gurgling Dunkellin River and an old stone bridge where the road dips, giving it an almost New York feel with east and west sides. An excellent place to rear children with sport and recreational activities, green spaces and good infrastructure, families enjoy athletics, soccer, football, hurling, golf, running and equestrian pursuits.
The village has two great pubs, a church, community centre, cafe, restaurant, chemist, chipper and a grocery/fuel shop, other small businesses too numerous to mention contribute to the self-sufficiency vibe. The village hosts baptisms, communions, confirmations, engagements, stag and hen parties. You can plan your own 21st or a surprise 50th, in fact you can even plan your own funeral with the friendly village undertaker, provided your demise isn’t a surprise!
The east-siders mostly sup at the east side tavern, the west-siders similarly, but you’d have the enigmatic few who straddle the river to sup on both sides. On funeral days the east-west divide is not a divide at all. The village is a three or four-stop bus journey to the city, the train trip through bucolic landscape is pure luxury and you could even put your thumb out at the bus stop and hitch a ride.
We live in a modest, traditional house, on a few acres, also home to a menagerie of four- legged people. I tend gardens and grow vegetables, in between bouts of inspiration for writing the great novel! We look out over evergreen and deciduous hedges that mark farming boundaries, where tertiary roads lead to places like Kilchreest, Kilcolgan and Kiltulla, where counties Clare and Galway cosy up to each other in the shadows of the Slieve Aughties and Burren Mountains, among mixed farmlands bordered by limestone walls.
Living beside the Rahasane Turlough turns our quiet, ordinary fields and hedgerows into pulsing habitats for wild things; a huge panoply of birds, bees, land and river animals, foragers and predators, our pesticide-free, organic farming methods provide visual and aural wonderment, all year round. To watch the almost choreographed rituals of a pair of ringed doves is a hypnotic thing, the magpie aggressively marking territory is pure annoyance, the fan-tailed cock pheasant doing his cock-of-the-walk walk across the lawn is big bird royalty, black crows discuss building materials from on top of the swaying beech and our swallows re-establish homes in the old shed rafters.
The fox operates with unprecedented levels of nonchalance, skirting the hens’ property, throwing on odd sideways glance towards the house, conjuring up strategy for the revisit. At this time of year, all of the outside ambience is frantic; mating, breeding, laying, patterns solidly repeated, their predictability a source of joy and wonder.
Vegetable seeds are incubating inside loo rolls under glass, slow to germinate, temperatures not yet conducive, red and yellow onions have thrown up healthy shoots, beetroot and purple broccoli are keeping low to the ground. We have run out of our year-round peas, the year-round lettuce continues giving, early rhubarb was relished in juicy tarts at Easter. Potatoes need earthing up, (they also need warmth), come on sun, time for you, we’re only two sleeps from the longest day of the year.
Until next month, I’ll continue dabbling in the aforementioned novel. Then, while waiting on the muse I’ll take musical breaks, enjoying the tuneful rain pelting the galvanise roof of the potting shed!