little things

Community Spirit

| Mairead

 

(There was rain, beautiful rain)

I want to tell you a story about something that happened before I started writing about the new normal journey. The day after Eilish arrived in Greystones, Denis began feeling unwell. He rang the doctor and spoke to the receptionist who explained the procedure. He went on to the HSE (Irish health service) website to fill in a form for a test and then he went into self-isolation in our bedroom. I moved into the box room and we all lived happily ever after…

(The rain fell on the farmyard manure)

The next day I got up early to go to the supermarket. I wanted to do the shopping at a time when it would be quiet but when I got a text message from my sister-in-law, Helen, wishing me a happy St. Patrick’s Day I realised… it was St. Patrick’s Day. The supermarket wouldn’t be open early. Something cracked inside and I realised there were some things from now on that I couldn’t control and shopping in a quiet supermarket was one of them. Later that day I looked at the click and collect options and I booked a slot for the following week. Ok, I can do this, I’ll go to the supermarket early tomorrow instead but in the meantime I know we will have food next week no matter what.

(And it fell on the wire that will hold up the climbers)

Next morning, I delivered Denis’ breakfast and got dressed up to go to the supermarket. I hadn’t realised I was so tense, after all it’s just a supermarket trip, what’s so scary? When I opened the front door there was a leaflet on the porch floor.

(The leaflet, I’ve covered the personal details)

It read,
If you are self-isolating, I can help. My name is Orla… I’m part of a local volunteer network and live in…. My phone number is…
There was a list of things she could help with including talking on the phone. There were phone numbers for the HSE and Alone (charity for older people) and there were guidelines about the virus. At the bottom of the note there was a note saying how she and her neighbour had used hand sanitiser before preparing the leaflets and how they had used it again between visiting each house.

(Sun came out and painting moved to the fence)

I don’t know Orla but in that moment I loved her. I’d never heard of a local volunteer group. Did someone see the same news reports as me and instead of getting anxious, got organised? Orla was somewhere out there with kindness in her heart and a bundle of notes under her arm and if she was doing that then I could do this. I could be organised too.

(One down only 12 more to go…)

I got the groceries, it was very quiet in the supermarket. I went to the chemist, there was a small queue. All was well. Later that day I sent Orla a text to thank her, she said it was happening all over Greystones. She said she lived on the next green to me. I said I was really grateful for her note and we were fine for food but if there was anything I could do to please let me know. I made her a card and when I took Sadie for a walk I posted it in her post box. First, I laminated it and wiped it down with hard sanitiser.

(One and a half done… more to do)

While I was delivering the card I noticed there were children in Orla’s house (no I was not staking out her house…) Can you imagine the stories those children will tell their grandchildren about this time? They will say that their mother printed and cut up leaflets for nearly two hundred houses and that she sanitised her hands every time she popped one in a letter box. That she walked to every one of those houses letting people know they were not alone. That she went to the supermarket for her neighbours who couldn’t. That she chatted on the phone to strangers, reassuring them. I can imagine memories like that having the ability to sustain communities long after this is over. There’s a bigger prize than normality waiting for us on the other side of this.

May you be well, Mairead.

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.

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.

The Journey

| Mairead
(Practicing Garden Therapy)

Today is the day we were booked to travel on the ferry from Rosslare to France ❤️ then onto Spain ❤️ on our journey to Portugal ❤️. Right about now I would be writing my first post from the car park of the services area near Gorey. But everything changed and here we all are on a different kind of journey. Together.

(Watching Eilish playing in the shed)

I’m sitting in my garden and I can tell you one thing I didn’t know before, I am very lucky to have a garden. I have been neglecting her but she waited, hibernated even, let herself go a bit with the grief of missing my care. I’m sorry, garden. I’ll do better. I think that’s one of the things this journey is going to be about – gratitude for the things I didn’t know I had.

(We are collecting sticks… I’ll explain another day)

Another thing about this journey is that there’s three of us. Denis, whom I’m usually living with in close confines, has been self-isolating for the past ten days, we talk on the phone now. I suppose I should add him to the list of things I’m grateful for. I didn’t realise how much I have got used to his presence. I am finding it surprisingly easy to be annoyed by his absence which I find surprisingly easy to turn into annoyance with him but he’s taking it well. I’m obviously not trying hard enough.

(Aren’t they lovely?)

Eilish is here too, Denis’ Mom (Denis and his five brothers all call their Mam, Mom – might be a Cork thing.) Eleven days ago we gave her an ultimatum and bundled her into the car to come live with us. Right about now I sense she’s ready to bolt. I’m really grateful she’s here though because she’s a huge distraction. You know, like Netflix?

(The description said they were ground cover and seemingly that means less weeds?)

When I’m not watching her we’ve been navigating a way to be two strong women sharing one house… politely. (Politely because Eilish doesn’t use swear words, I love them! I have found a way to make her laugh when I’m swearing though, I love to make her laugh.) She has a very different way of looking at things and she definitely thinks there’s one right way to do stuff. I don’t think there’s one right way… and I know I’m right…

(That’s wild garlic. Liam, one of Eilish’s sons, gave it to me last year and it survived!)

We are very alike in many ways, we like crafting and more recently gardening and Denis, we like Denis, mostly. We are also very different. She likes crafts to be exactly like the pattern intended, I don’t like following the pattern. I think weeds are just flowers planted in the wrong place and she thinks that’s crazy talk. I bet when she reads this she’ll say, Now, don’t mind me, Mairead but maybe just take a few more pictures of the garden and say less?

(Look! Ivy grows in our shed!)

It was my Dad’s birthday yesterday, he’d have been 99. I was thinking of him and the time of the petrol crisis (that was when we thought not having petrol was the worst thing that could happen to us.) He had a petrol station during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and the petrol crisis was a highpoint for him. He realised that how he behaved then would underscore the rest of his business life. So he was kind. He rationed the petrol so there would be enough for everyone. Even if you weren’t a customer, even if he didn’t know you or would never see you again. Thirty years later people from different parts of Ireland were dropping in to thank him and remind him of how he helped them when they most needed it.

He reminds me that my behaviour now will underscore the rest of my life. I’m negotiating my way through this and it’s not in every moment but most of the time, I try to be kind.

May you be well, Mairead.

Living the Dream

| Mairead

(Beautiful trees in the campsite)

As I write I’m in the laundry room of the campsite in La Flèche standing guard. This is a lovely campsite with hot water in the showers and toilet paper in the toilets – it’s the little things. They also have washing machines – two and a tumble drier – one.

(Instructions for the washing machine)

I was very excited when we checked in yesterday and spotted the laundry room. So this morning after coffee I gathered all the dirty washing including sheets, pillowcases, towels and tea towels into two pillowcases and hobbled over to buy the tokens and some powder. But when I got to the washing machines they were full of someone else’s clothes. Never mind, I can wait.

(Twenty six minutes left)

There’s one very handy thing about paid washing machines (and driers) they always tell you how long until the load is finished. There was just ten minutes left. So I waited 10 minutes and the machines stopped. And then I waited for another 10 minutes. I waited and waited for the owners to turn up. They didn’t turn up.

(Instructions for the compost bin)

I took out the clothes from one of the machines and put them on top and put one pillowcase full of mine in. Then I went to remake the bed. I retuned 10 minutes later but they still hadn’t arrived. I kept coming back, no sign of them. My first laundry had finished, I put it in the drier and then put the second laundry in the washing machine. I sorted the recycling, learned how to use the compost bin, studied the terrorist leaflet (!) and went back again.

(What to do if there’s a territory attack)

Now, my first set of clothes were dry but… there was still 36 minutes left on the drier and 37 minutes left on the second washing. Having some time to spare I began figuring out how this might work… Does the drier wait with my 36 minutes until I put more clothes in? Or does it just tick down to 0 and I lose my 36 minutes? Or what if the person who’s laundry I’ve been waiting on puts his/her laundry into the dryer with my 36 minutes? Before I had convinced myself to go door to door around the campsite I took a moment to notice it was probably 50 cent worth of dryer time. I went off to think about some project ideas.

(Not my laundry)

Then I came back to find my laundry almost finished but you’ll never guess… you have guessed, haven’t you? Are you still there? The other person’s laundry was tumbling around in the dryer… in my 36 minutes of dryer time!! So now I’m standing here with my wet clothes waiting for the dryer and if past experience is anything to go by the owners of the clothes in the dryer won’t be getting back anytime soon!

(My view for the past hour)

Oh, you’ll never guess this – the dryer just opened by itself! Should I just pop the clothes out? And pop mine in? But what if they’re not dry? Moral decisions and dilemmas… this is my life now.

Before you go to bed tonight hug your washing machine, Mairead.

The doors

| Mairead

(This door in Couhé)

I love old doors in France, especially when they are framed by stone or wood or greenery. This town was mentioned in the old sign yesterday and now here we are rambling along its streets. It’s full of lovely doors…

(Multiple doors and a gate, yummy)

It was a grey day and we were tired. I think the dark mornings and the short days are telling us something… hibernate? Whatever, we found the cure is going for short walks multiple times in the day. It works and it means we don’t get caught in the rain anymore… that’s said with more hope than confidence. As soon as a rain shower stops we jump up and grab a ten minute walk. So far so good.

(Love)

We were looking at the map today and I noticed Chartres. Do you remember when it was so hot I wouldn’t walk 30 minutes to go see Chartres cathedral? I’d have loved rain that day. Or would I? So quickly I seem to forget that every weather has a downside and an upside.

(There was a tiny door round the back!)

That night in Couhé at ten pm there was a group of people playing loud music in the square. Not a lot you can do about that when you don’t speak the language and you’re just visiting. So it was lovely when the rain started and they went home.

Every cloud, Mairead.

A sign of the times…

| Mairead

(This barn wall looks like a piece of mosaic art)

Sometimes when I can’t think of what to tell you at the end of a day I look at the pictures I’ve taken. I’m often surprised at what I see. In the moment when I take a picture it’s because something feels right. Plus, I always take more than one. To have six pictures on a blog I have to take at least three times that amount. Then I have a choice. Maybe not a choice of subject but a choice of angle or light or detail.

(The river)

I’m just using my phone so it’s not complicated, the most important part of the process is – take a picture. I know if I don’t have a picture on a particular day I can always use one of the spares from a previous day but it feels like a mistake. I imagine you will understand better what I’m saying if there’s a picture of the thing I’m talking about. I wonder if the blog is about pictures more than anything else.

(Can you see the two Christmas trees?)

Anyway, just now I was looking at a picture of an old signpost attached to a building in the town of Chaunay, where we stayed on Monday night. It turns out the picture tells a short story of our journey this season. Here’s the signpost:

(Signpost in Chaunay)

I took the picture because I love… old signs, the colour blue and the feeling I got when I saw it. There was a scaffolding around the building and the sign was up on the second floor but I didn’t climb the scaffolding… I stretched a bit instead. Then I walked on. Now as I’m looking at the picture I notice what it says…

(Still autumn, barely)

At the top it says, Vienne, the department. Next line says it’s the R10 road from Paris to Bayonne. Next line is the name of the town, Chaunay. Then there’s an arrow showing the direction and distance to the town of Chez-Fouché, 5.2 kilometers and the town of Couhé, 10.6 kilometers.

(Night sky in Chaunay)

As a signpost for modern travel it’s not much use, it’s too small, the font is minuscule, there’s too much information on it, it only gives the closest towns not the biggest towns, its flat on a wall so you’d have to stop to read it.

As a signpost for going slow and stopping to look at the little things, it’s perfect, Mairead.

(There’s Chaunay on the N10)

We are lost…

| Mairead

(Cute touches everywhere, like flowers in the stone fonts)

Aubeterre is one of the Beautiful Villages of France. It’s on the official list but even if you didn’t know about the list you’d think it was beautiful. It’s old stone houses are perched on a couple of hills and there’s even a church built into one of them.

(The house of the potter)

We found it by accident yesterday, a wet and dreary Sunday. Everything was dripping rain, the shops and cafes were closed, there was nowhere to buy even a bottle of water but this place warmed our hearts.

(Pretty tiles)

There is seriously no end to the beautiful places you can find in rural France. Sunday’s and Monday’s are still quiet days though, where the baker gets a break from the 4am start. Sometimes even the supermarket has no baguettes on a Monday morning. This can cause serious anxiety.

(Pretty windows)

The days are getting shorter now and the temperatures are decreasing it’s nearly time to go home – only nine more days and it’s probably just as well. They say it takes less than a month to build a habit and I can confirm that because I have built a solid baguette habit in that time. I’m on one half one a day but I feel the pull to go deeper.

(Look, someone lives there and sits outside at a little table)

You may not have read the reports but baguettes are just a gateway confectionary. They lead directly to pastries and this country has more varieties of pastries than we have potatoes. There’s the croissants, innocuous enough on their own but some days there are no croissants left… so, what do you do? Leave empty handed? No. You choose a pain au chocolate (kinda croissant with chocolate chips). That there is the slippery slope.

(Pretty cafe and restaurant and Jesus)

You may not have heard of the Viennese Almonde yet but you soon will. It is quietly taking over the lives of those who take one bite. No one is immune to its power. Just say No! That’s all you have to do, but saying no is what’s difficult.

(Lovely shades of green just don’t drink the water…)

You naively go into the boulangerie thinking, you’ll just get a baguette, a skinny little trifle of baked goodness. What harm could that be? While you wait – because you must wait, there is always a queue. The boulangerie ties with the mobile phone provider for popularity in France. Every boulangerie has an entrance door and an exit door – have you ever wondered why? I have. It’s because they are very busy…

(More pretty flowers)

Anyway, while you wait your eyes stray towards the adorable cylinder-shaped-just-for-one-4-strawberries-suspended-in-jelly-on-a-baked-meringue-base. Just looking at it and your mouth gets to work preparing to bite into it while your head screams, Noooo! That’s when the Viennese Almonde seems like a good idea. It’s almond, so basically healthy, right? It’s bigger. Yes. But. You won’t eat it all, will you?

Save yourselves, we are lost, Mairead.

(That’s where Aubeterre is located)

Funny name, adorable place

| Mairead

(There’s Denis racing over to the coffee)

We drove to the town of Le Bugue on Tuesday morning with a bag of dripping clothes and my nerves on edge. We had checked in the Campercontact app and were heading for camping car parking very near the center of town.

(The market was here earlier)

On the way there we passed the most amazing chalk cliffs. Each one more jaw dropping than the next. You could see people walking on ledges or standing at balconies cut into the cliff face. One cliff had a couple of two story houses built into it. This is the busiest tourist area we have seen on this trip, the traffic was mad and the roads were narrow and there were few places to stop. We kept going, promising to return.

(That’s someone’s front garden!)

Then the first thing we see getting into La Bugue is a market! I don’t know if I mentioned previously but we rarely land in a town on the right day for the market and this was the second time it happened this week. We were over the moon. Well to be honest we should have been over the moon but I was still a little moody after the lightening episode, coffee was all I wanted.

(So old)

Our parking was indeed close to the town – about 3 minutes walk over the Dordogne. It also was a little soggy because it seems the whole world had torrential rain on Monday night. We parked up and headed off to find a cafe.

(Reflecting on the Dordogne)

The town was full of people, chatting and buying and selling and generally having the craic. We found a spot for coffee. I started reading the Lascaux book and Denis was reading his phone. We hadn’t two words for each other.

(Hello I’m France, nice to meet you…)

I cannot give you any historical information about La Bugue but I bet it’s absolutely steeped in history like all the towns we are landing in lately. Yet here we were, oblivious. Can you see us? Are you shouting at me? Wake up and look at where you are!

Some days I’m just not at my best, Mairead.

(There’s La Bugue)