Travel

Stop! Look Left!

| Mairead
First stop 15km from Fougères

It takes a while to transition to this different way of living. To any different way of living. We’ve all had that experience over the past two years. It’s a bit different if it’s forced on you, through ill health, pandemic, war. We choose this different way of living and we packed for it and we looked forward to it and still we were dazed and stunned by it in the first few days. Then we did something we’ve never done before… we stopped, we rearranged, we walked and talked, we drank a little coffee and then we made a tiny little plan.

Yum! The bakery opens at 6.30am every day (except Lundi!)

We had landed in France at 4pm on Friday and started driving south/west towards Portugal. We were on our way to a town called Saint-Brice-en-Cogles which is north of the city of Rennes. It’s a Village Étape. These are villages near the motorways that are nice places to stop for a break, a meal, to shop or to stay over. You can see signs for them on the motorway showing the junction nearest to them. We have always liked them as unlike a lot of French towns and villages the village étape will always have a cafe/restaurant serving food and there will be plenty of parking nearby. We found the restaurant and got a delicious chicken, mushroom and wholegrain mustard pizza to takeaway. And went to bed.

Ice on the windscreen

Next morning we woke to sunshine and freezing temperatures. There was ice on the windscreen. And Denis had forgotten to bring his coat. I had brought so many books they were spilling out on the floor every time we rounded a corner. The water tank had leaked all our water overnight due to a safety “feature” (does frozen water in the pipes really need to be avoided? Yes, seemingly.) Our carbon monoxide alarm had disappeared. We also needed to buy supplies for dinner. Plus the quality of our internet connection, so far, was intermittent which was a worry as Denis need to connect with work. It was a lot for a first day.

When we started travelling one of the things that worried me most was crossing the road. How could that worry me, I learned to cross the road as a child, I’m good at it, I know how to do it right. Right? No, not in France. It’s all to do with thinking I’m right. Crossing the road is a skill we learned as children. Just look both ways and cross when the road is clear or when there’s enough distance between you and the car to walk to safety. Right?

Stop!

Wait! There’s a small important first step that we miss if we’re crossing the road in France and every other country where they drive on the right. Look Left! The cars will be coming from the left. Sure, I know this is simple. Sure, I know that you will look left…eventually. But, we believe the cars and trucks nearest to us will be coming from the right so we automatically begin walking BEFORE we get around to looking left (and spotted the car zooming towards us.) Trust me this is a worry! And it’s nothing to do with crossing the road.

I know it’s not the biggest worry, it’s small but it always reminds me that I am missing lots of other things when I think I’m right. When I believe what I learned a long time ago (or even just last week) is still true. Things change fast but we can cope if we stop and just notice… and then move on.

They sell carbon monoxide alarms here!

Our tiny plan was to search on google maps for a Decathlon – for Denis’ coat, a supermarket – for dinner, a petrol station – for diesel, a hardware shop – for the carbon monoxide alarm, a campsite – for water, laundry and a place to empty the toilet and wifi. Doing all these things is easy when you know where they are and how to get there. But what is true right now is that everything takes longer and some supermarkets have barriers that we can’t fit under and some automatic petrol stations won’t accept our credit cards and some campsites have terrible wifi.

When we just notice what is true now and work with that, rather than assuming we are doing something wrong, most things become less stressful.

…what is true right now?

Reverence on Deck 9

| Mairead
Calm seas and selfies

I am sitting on the bed in our cabin on deck 9, the sea is incredible calm. There are no windows but from the slight movements, rattles and shakes in here I sense the calm sea. It was definitely calm when we were eating breakfast. Every time we travel on the ferry we remind ourselves that there’s no need to eat breakfast and then each time we see the beautiful photography for the breakfast we forget. The actual food does not look like the pictures and it does not taste the way the pictures make me think it will taste. I have been wondering about this for years. I think I’ve eaten my last breakfast on the ferry… maybe.

Looking good

We really want that breakfast to be pretty special and very tasty. And those photographs can’t be lying, can they? That’s how the food looked that day. The day long ago when the picture was taken. But today, here and now, the food is not that food. Today’s food is canteen food. The best you could say for it is – it’s not great. Those photos were taken when there was more time to make it look pretty, to add berries, to place the rasher in the most symmetrical spot.

Hello Astrid!

As exciting as you think it will be when I tell you where we are going and how long we will be away, it is often ordinary and boring and difficult and stressful. In fact, it’s just like home – different setting, same reactions, same me, same him. “Wherever you go, there you are” is the title of a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I bring the same way of thinking, the same instincts, the same inner demons, the same pain, everywhere I go.

The exciting thing is that at some point I realised this journey deserved reverence and I made a decision to learn from everything. To meet every boring moment with a “well hello, boring!” To meet every stress by noticing the discomfort within my body and allowing it relax. To meet every ordinary with a gold digger’s eye and spot the treasure within. To meet every difficult moment with self compassion and silence. The odd time I succeed.

Peaceful parking spot at the cemetery

Doesn’t our life’s journey deserve reverence?

Habit Practicing

| Mairead

Every time we go away I promise myself I will pack the van early. I never did. Until now. I’ve been packing warm weather clothes. And towels. And cups and plates. I have a lot of categories half packed. I hope that will be enough for now.

Bring everything!

And of course it is enough for now. Now is fully complete as it is. Next week or next month isn’t complete yet… but when it becomes now – one moment at a time it will be complete too. And it will be done because we will have moved onto the next moment.

It feels like I will never be able to get back into blogging because I have left it so long and why am bothering anyhow? Because I realised something useful this month – writing my mind (thoughts) onto the page changes everything for me. It is like a rumba (I think that’s the name of the robot vacuum cleaner?) cleaning without effort.

Early morning at Eilish’s

Although there is some effort required. I do have to sit at the page and stay there until I am done. I also have to be non-judgmental about what comes out onto the page. At least until it’s out there. After I’ve got it out I can edit it until it’s time to post. And then I have to post. It’s a process I had been following for a few years. And it works. But I stop. And then it’s hard to get back.

Rainbows in the surf

I would really like to prevent myself from stopping. I would really like to keep going, keep cleaning out my mind. But first I have to start. It’s like any habit, it takes practice. And I’m going to practice. Is there a habit you’d like to practice? Let me know and we can be cheerleaders for each other!

Noticing Every Tiny Thing

| Mairead

We have booked the ferry to France many times over the last couple of years and we cancelled the ferry to France many times… it’s hard to believe we will be actually going this time… I’ll let you know if we do.

Tiny beginnings…

This time it seems different. Like when you don’t eat ice cream during winter and the first one on a grey St. Patrick’s Day tastes better than you remembered. I am being reminded of small towns in France, huge mountains in Spain and tiny cups of coffee in Portugal. It’s like I’m already there, it’s like up until this ferry booking I didn’t allow myself to think of what I was missing and now I can’t stop thinking.

Tiny daffodils…

But I’m also forcing myself to remember the wet days, the grey days, the boring days, the ugly towns, the tiredness, the overwhelm and the underwhelm. Because it’s all part of the journey and if my expectations are just for the beautiful and the sunny then I can add disappointment to the list of expectations!

Tiny bursts of colour…

I love this quote in Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat.

Happiness is greater or equal to your perception of the events in your life minus your expectations of how life should be.

We have a flour mountain…

| Mairead
Sadie’s favourite place to watch the neighbour’s cat

We seem to be settling into a bit of a rut here at the moment, one day is very like the rest with spikes of excitement on grocery days and 5km walk day but last week there was a huge spike.

Sadie’s “well, any chance of a walk?” face

We now have roadmap of the proposed situation for the next four months and in celebration Denis and I walked to the petrol station to buy a newspaper. It’s less than 2km but this was Saturday morning and the new 5km walking limit didn’t start until Tuesday. Anyways, it was a beautiful sunny day. When we arrived I waited outside, Denis went in with his makeshift mask.

Flour Hero!

Ten minutes later from my seat on the curb, I am speechless, Denis is standing in front of me with two bags of precious flour. They have a small shop in the petrol station and I did tell him to keep an eye out for flour but I never thought there would be any. Oh the excitement. We have been eating Eilish’s creations ever since.

(This is the only picture of the Curney Cake, you’re lucky to get it, normally there no time to take a picture before I eat it)

But now I think I might have a problem. I am secretly cutting slices from the Curney Cake (an absolutely delicious crusty scone cake with sultanas and orange zest) and slathering it in butter. No one knows why the cake is getting smaller and smaller, except me. Also, on an unrelated matter, no one knows why my cheeks are getting chubbier, I might be allergic to one of the plants in the garden? When Tuesday (the start of the 5km walking) finally arrived Eilish and I set out for the sea and we brought a picnic and the dog. Another beautiful day. Another Curney Cake, this time as well as butter there was Rhubarb Jam. Yes Eilish has made three and a half pots of Rhubarb and Ginger Jam. Yes I’m eating that too. But at least we are walking everyday.

View from our picnic

Oh, full disclosure, we drove to the beach and had a little walk, no need to over do it on our first day. Must rush, there’s an emergency in the kitchen – the Curney Cake is all gone, I need to tell Eilish. Only two and a half kilos of flour to go.

May you be well, Mairead.

Hidden Shed Treasures

| Mairead
(I suppose white is bright…)

And now we’re painting. Not art, no, the shed. Well it was bound to happen. I blame Eilish. She saw the old paint tins that I was storing until next year or the year after when I’d get the date right and take them to the town council car park for the toxic dump day. I never got the day right and here we are with a hidden stash of rusted paint tins. I’d never have opened them. I might have started burying them but I’d never have opened them. Eilish opened them.

(My shine a light on Easter Saturday night… Christmas angel from Sally)

The first surprise for me was that they are not rusted on the inside. Nope, not even a little bit. The second surprise was that even though we bought them for one purpose they can be used for something else… like a shed. I know, crazy right?

(We found this in the larder… yes, we ate it… at Easter. The rule book has been burned)

Eilish painted the shed door on a day in the recent past, as I no longer know what day today is it could have been Thursday or Friday or Saturday? Then yesterday I painted one side, we are very grateful that there are only two sides accessible therefore we are more than halfway finished already.

(Long life custard… I’m not sure it means you will have a long life if you eat it but I’m willing to experiment)

I have secretly dreamed of painting the shed for years. I have. I’d see brightly coloured little sheds on Pinterest or in the paint catalogue at Woodies and I’d think, some day…the day came. If only I had been buying the paint in Woodies, a brightly coloured shed might be in my future but no, our rusting tins of paint contain only white.

We like finished.

And therein hides a dilemma. Did I mention we got some jigsaws from the Cork art and craft shop that delivers? It’s called VibesandScribes.ie it’s well known in Cork so of course Eilish knew about it but when her daughter-in-law, Helen, suggested we might get some project supplies, Eilish and I did something we’d never done before.

(Jigsaws are fun…)

We went online shopping. Now there’s pyjamas and unmentionables (Eilish doesn’t like when I call them knickers) arriving tomorrow, the jigsaws arrived on Friday and there was a crochet kit too. We started the jigsaw and pretty soon just wanted it finished. Jigsaws are very frustrating. You get one piece to fit and you think, I can do this, this is great. Then the next 64 pieces you try won’t fit, I can’t do this, this is soooooo frustrating. In the midst of the frustration it’s really hard to notice that you got that jigsaw to have a jigsaw experience. And jigsaw experiences contain both highs and lows. Like life. Wishing for it to be finished is like wishing your life away.

(Seen on our 2km walk. There’s a lot of beauty out on our street that I hadn’t noticed before)

I’ve know about this dilemma for a while now but I forget… like in the middle of the jigsaw or painting the shed or when we can’t get flour in our supermarket delivery or when the lockdown is extended. So today I’m going to remember that gratitude is the cure for wishing my life away. I am grateful that the people in Vibes and Scribes are working. I’m grateful that my Mam taught me to bake scones when I was a child and that baking them still brings me joy. I am grateful that Eilish will never let a half empty rusty tin of paint be wasted. I am grateful that I am here and now and safe and well.

May you be well, Mairead.

PS. Eilish has just uncovered a rusty tin of blue paint, we haven’t opened it yet… I am beyond excited!

The shredder is all mine…

| Mairead
(Growing baby daisy’s in the maternity ward)

The gardening continues. I’ve just realised this might be why my dabbling in the garden previously didn’t bear fruit (pun intended.) It’s a continuous game, gardening. Persistence is rewarded and popping in and out once a month is very much discouraged. Maybe that’s why a team of gardeners is a good thing. We have a team here at the moment one of us is part-time but we’re getting the most out of him. In spite of his protests about being too busy I’ve seen him secretly checking out the growth of our seeds in the maternity ward.

(Here we are in prenatal… with little Rose)

So last weekend was the first weekend Denis was able to get into the garden. Eilish had a list of jobs ready for him and I learned a thing or two about keeping him on point and not wandering off to do something he liked better. The phrase, oh no you’re not finished here yet! stops him in his tracks. Let me just write that down for future use.

(FenceChat location)

He fixed the fence between our house and my friend Aileen and now I’m not worried about falling over it during our weekly FenceChat. It’s a new app like zoom but no one freezes, except from the cold.

He also hammer-actioned some screws into some wood and fixed the shed door. It seems lifting the door with one foot while undoing the bolt was not the intended way to get into the shed. We are saving a ton of time without all the gymnastics.

(Can you see those fabulous hammer-action screws?)

Then Eilish found my new favourite tool – a shredder. It was at the back of the shed and one of the things I didn’t know I was grateful for… I woke up on Friday morning with a brilliant idea. With all our enthusiasm in the first weeks we had filled three huge garden bags and numerous smaller black bags with garden debris. Then we had run out of bags and no way of getting more so we were at a tipping point… On the one hand neatly cut plants and pulled weeds, on the other, towering piles of plant cuttings and weeds. I have to be very particular when taking photos for you, one centimeter too far to the right or left and you will be horrified.

(Denis was a little too wide angle on this shot… but there’s me and my shredder)

I started using my shredder (it’s mine) on Saturday. By the way, I’m the only one allowed to use the shredder, safety issues, you understand. Stay well back now. (Don’t tell them but it’s nothing to do with safety, it’s all about the optics, I look like I’m doing a lot but the machine is doing it all. Kinda like how I used to think about ironing before I realised no one was noticing my neat piles of ironed clothes left lying around the house for weeks. The noise of the shredder ensures everyone knows I’m hard at work…)

(Here’s Denis working on the fence or maybe he’s doing a little dance?)

So now I’m shredding (well ok the machine is shredding) the contents of the garden debris bags. On top of that we can use the shredded material for mulch (impressed? that’s a new word in my vocabulary, maybe I will become a gardening app next?) on the front garden. It works best with woody material so the weeds will have to turn themselves into compost on their own. For that purpose we have found a good spot and they are hard at work.

(Even with that big pile of rubbish, this is still my favourite spot to sit and do nothing)

Well to be honest they are slow at work, very slow but that’s ok, slow is acceptable too. I can feel myself slowing down too, is it time to sit and enjoy the garden yet?

May you be well, Mairead.

The fairy princess and the dragon…

| Mairead

There will be a short story time interval from the garden…

Dorothy's Garden(Disclaimer:This is not my garden. This is Dorothy’s garden. One day my garden will grow up and be like Dorothy’s garden… maybe)

Once upon a time there was a little fairy princess called Betty…

Betty didn’t know she was a fairy princess, neither did her family or her friends or any of the people in her town. But she was.



Rain plant(There was rain)

They all thought what she did was just normal, ordinary, nothing special. This is what she did… every night when she fell asleep she made bandages in her dreams and every morning she walked through the town handing the bandages to everyone she met.



Rain Pegs(Rain here too)

Then one day everything changed. A huge angry dragon arrived at the edge of town and started screaming fireballs out through his mouth and down Church Street. Everyone was terrified. Including the fairy princess but she had a job to do so she carried on. It was a little more difficult today as everyone was hiding in their houses so Betty had to push her bandages through letter boxes or leave them in porches. The dragon had made everything very hot and Betty’s clothes and hands and face were getting a little scorched but she kept going and eventually had delivered all the bandages… except one.



Shed Love(No rain here… impressive, right? Yes, there’s still ivy but this is a marathon not a sprint)

Betty knew who this one was for and she was more than a little afraid but she carried on. On to the edge of town where the dragon stood. When he saw Betty coming towards him he hiccuped and the fireballs stopped. Betty held out her last bandage and the dragon took it. Then Betty turned around and walked back through the town towards home. All the townspeople looking out their windows were astonished and started to clap. Betty heard the clapping and joined in (she really didn’t know she was a fairy princess but everyone else in town was starting to suspect…)



Buds(Look! Buds!)

Next morning the dragon was still there and Betty did the same thing she always did, she gave out her bandages and as she approached the dragon he hiccuped again then reached out towards Betty and took his bandage. Betty turned around and walked home clapping along when she heard the townspeople from their houses.



Worm(Can you see the worm? Gardener’s friend)

This went on for weeks. Betty was running out of un-scorched clothes. The townspeople were wondering if they’d every walk down Church Street again when one morning as Betty was handing the bandage to him, the dragon spoke…

Thank you.



Seed Sprout(Sorry it’s a bit fuzzy in the seed maternity ward… one of our seeds has sprouted!)

We are the townspeople and we are beginning to suspect that we have some fairy princesses living among us.

To a fairy princess called Val, thank you, x.

To my fairy princess sister in law, Helen, thank you, x.

To the fairy princesses who take care of my mother in the nursing home, thank you, x.

To the fairy princess guy with the tattoos in the supermarket click and collect in Greystones who keeps us fed, thank you, x.

There’s every likelihood that you are a fairy princess too because I’m beginning to suspect you’ve been one all along, thank you, x.

May you be well, Mairead.

 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

| Mairead

(This is clematis and it is going to look beautiful soon… possibly)

New experiences continue here and we’re like children (nice children, not cranky children…) as we discover different ways to be in the world together. Denis has returned to the fold and we welcomed him with open mouths as he is cooking again. I can hear him chopping while I type – there isn’t a nicer sound.

(You think you’re missing your hairdresser? Sadie is so concerned she needs Denis to reassure her that Eilish isn’t going to stab her)

Our latest endeavor has kind of snuck up on us. Like everyone else I’ve been doing a bit of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle for years but now I realise I was only playing at it! HaHa, Ha, I laugh in the face of my previous efforts. Here’s what’s happening…

(You can’t eat yarn…)

Yesterday Eilish came in to measure my head. Oh yes, I’ve forgotten to tell you why but first… she arrives over with her knitting, her needles and yarn in a bag. I thought I recognised the bag… And then I thought I’d wet myself with the laughing. You’ll never guess what the bag was? No don’t try, you won’t guess. It was a Tesco Finest Oatmeal and Linseed Loaf bag… (our favourite bread, that we can’t get any more by the way…) Inside you could see the yarn peeping through. Now this is more like it, now we can honestly say we are, REUSING our plastic. Also, every time I look at the bag I remember with affection the bread, oh how we loved you, Tesco Finest Oatmeal and Linseed Loaf, sniff.

(Here are our potatoes, can you see anything? No, me neither but soon…)

So back to the knitting and my head measurements… We are getting all our groceries from click and collect so someone else does our shopping (thank you ❤) and I collect it in the car park of the supermarket. It works well for groceries. Not so well for hairbands. My hair is growing and it’s getting in my face and I find myself swearing and flailing my arms all around the place when I realise I’m about to touch my face to get the stray hairs back. So I thought, wouldn’t a hairband be very useful? And there was a hairband on the supermarket website shop, perfect, right? Alas, no. When the delivery came the hairband was in the Not Available list. 😟 Eilish could see more swearing and flailing in her future so she offered to rip some of my crochet squares ( I have sensed for a long time that she didn’t like my crochet…?) and use the yarn to make a hairband. RECYCLING!

(Hairband doing its job, send Eilish your head measurements if you want one we have 6 stamps left and loads of crochet squares… we’ll happily send you one (free, we’re just having fun here) and then you’ll be recycling too…😁)

We were talking about opening up a website shop because she’s already on the second hairband and I only have one head. But then we realised if the shop was successful we’d never have time to go out in the garden… I can probably wear more than one hairband at a time.

(My favourite gardening tool at the moment, fantastic for management of strong emotions… I hear)

I wish I had a story about how we are REDUCE -ing but with all the baking we’ve been doing nothing’s getting reduced except the contents of the bag of flour. That reminds me… Eilish was telling me that during the war years people used to sew flour bags together to make bed sheets. Yes, I did wonder how comfortable paper sheets could be… turns out the flour bags were made of cotton… oh right.

May you be well, Mairead.