outdoors

Pam’s Picnic Holidays

| Mairead

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(I remembered it’s Wednesday so I’m doing creative!)

It’s nearly lunchtime as I write and I’m a little distracted… because I’m hungry and today we’re going on a picnic! Ever since Pam commented on Facebook about holidays as a child where her Dad would drive them all over Europe having picnics I couldn’t wait to try it. Maybe I’ll stop now and get back to you later with pictures….

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(Some French desert)

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(Pam’s Picnic Holidays… this is definitely happening)

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(Our picnic site – that’s the Loire)

I’m back from the picnic –  it was great! Lovely view, lovely food… not exactly a small French town but almost, it’s a small French campsite. Baby steps. We had the picnic area all to ourselves. Maybe it’s the Irish weather that trains us to be able to sit outside at lunch time? Fortunately, I had remembered the sun cream and the little fluffy clouds managed to shade us at intervals. We made the rolls ourselves: French bread ordered yesterday from reception, French brie (bought in France), French lettuce (bought in France) and some very nice apple chutney made by my mother-in-law. Yum. Maybe a little snooze to follow.

Dear Eilish – please send more, it’s very good! Mairead.

Obama and Me….

| Mairead

We’ve seen lots more beauty in the past two days since leaving Kilkee but we got a great surprise in a small town called Moneygall.

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(Beautiful place on Loop Head called Bridges of Ross)

Around noon I was hungry and we saw a cute little cafe in the town but it was closed so we travelled on for about a kilometre when we spotted a large service station that served Tim Hortons coffee.

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(Amazing view near the lighthouse at the tip of Loop Head)

The same coffee we had become addicted to in Canada! We stopped off and had some coffee. Then while we were there a lovely couple from America arrived.

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(Swallow feeding her chicks outside our bedroom at a farmhouse near Killaloe)

I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to get a picture with them…

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(Me and Obama)

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 Turns out it’s their holiday home in Ireland. Who knew? Mairead.

On the Road Again

| Mairead

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(Our first photo point was an old church and graveyard overlooking the river Boyne)

It’s been a long time but we finally dusted off the motorbike, charged the cameras and took to the road. As I write we’re just outside Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. About two hours from home. We’re taking it slowly this time. You might remember two years ago we went to Florence via Venice on the motorbike? I haven’t been on the bike since. Every time Denis would suggest a possible trip I’d remember that last journey and the heat (40 degrees C in full bike gear)  and the length of time spent sitting on my posterior (some days more than 8 (eight!) hours) and the motorways in Germany (lots of big scary trucks.)

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(Going over a little bridge we realised we were crossing the Royal Canal (at Coolnahay Harbour) so we stopped for tea and soda bread (baked by the daughter of the last lock-keeper))

But Denis is very persistent and eventually he came up with a formula I was willing to test… travel (on mainly country roads) for one hour, eat, travel for one more hour, eat and sleep. Also, temperatures would be less than 30 degrees… probably much less. This week we’re testing the formula. In order to make the test more interesting we’re following the Irish photo rally. This is a list compiled by Gerry Christie with twenty four GPS points around the island of Ireland. There are clues as to what you might find at a point but you have to go there to see. The idea is that you get to travel to places on your motorbike around the island that you might otherwise never find. They’re dotted around the country so you can spend your time meandering from one to the next for days. Have a look at the map on irishphotorally.com.

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(Bumble Bee at work)

Anyway, it was with a bit of trepidation that I got on the back of the bike this morning but I was soon rewarded with the forgotten truth – it’s an amazing form of transport. I had forgotten. The heat and daily distances of the last trip had erased my memory of it’s beauty. The beauty of the smells… just five minutes from home we smelled the most amazing wild garlic smell. We pass this point at least four times a week, every week never smelling the garlic, but on a motorbike…. The beauty of fresh air! I know it’s free but it’s gorgeous and it smells kinda green, yep it does.

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(There’s a lake right next to our hotel with a little jetty)

Anyway, we’re off to dinner now and tomorrow we’ll drive for an hour, eat, drive for another hour eat some more and sleep. We’ll also take some pictures and smell some more smells.

Bye for now, Mairead.

Bit stormy around here…..

| Mairead

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(Red Leaves)

Lots of family stuff going on here at the moment. Lots of transitions. Lots of new lessons. Lots of getting used to new situations which seem like old situations… but are not really, exactly the same… possibly. None of which I can explain to you (official secrets act – better you don’t know so they can’t get it out of you) so I’ll go on to talk about something else but you’ll know I’m not talking about what I seem to be talking about… I’ll be talking about the other stuff. Understood? Great, then I’ll begin.

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(Yellow moss)

That was very stormy weather we had at the weekend, wasn’t it? Denis and I took a long drive, just the two of us, on Saturday. The wind was so strong it made driving a little difficult, not to mention the rain making visibility difficulty. We had a lot to talk about. I spoke first, making sure I said lots to make myself understood. With the noise of the prevailing winds that often meant I was speaking LOUDLY. Then it was Denis’ turn. I needed to interrupt him a few times to make sure he was on the same wavelength as me. (There was no actual waves and we didn’t have the radio on, at all.) Then there was some silence, a few compromise sentences and some more silence. And laughter. Oh how we laughed. (Not really.)

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(Grey bark)

Then we had arrived at a place to have a nice cup of coffee. We had never been there before so there was a lot to look at, besides each other. The rain stopped. The sun started to come out and we made our way home. The driving, the visibility and the noise had reduced so we both were able to speak at normal volume. And we laughed. (Yep, really.) Sometimes it gets stormy, making communication difficult, but eventually the wind dies down.

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(Old door)

Gosh, it’s great to share, Mairead.

Heavy Rain brings Cheerful Scones

| Mairead

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(22 raindrops (or thereabouts) in a row… )

It was a very dark morning full of heavy rain when I woke up. So I lay there listening to the sound of water hitting the window, the roof and the cat. It was surprisingly pleasant (well not the cat bit but he stopped being unpleasant when I let him in.) My memory might be faulty but I think we haven’t had very many heavy rain storms this year. I was enjoyed this one.

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(This flowering shrub has been cheering me all through the summer, looks like it’s happy continuing into the autumn)

It got me thinking about all the things I connect with heavy rain (I mean the nice things I connect with heavy rain.) Being in bed, nice and warm. Staying home, warm and dry. Darkness in the daytime reminding me of the tunnel of trees. Scones and butter. Raindrop sounds. Comfortable shoes. Scones. It was the scones that finally got me out of bed but I completely forgot about them.

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(Pretty edges on the leaves)

By lunchtime it was still dark and raining and I was starting to feel tired and I don’t mind telling you, a bit grumpy. I was talking to myself in a less than kind or helpful way. Like I thought that would encourage me… I worked on my art journal and even began the process of painting one of my tea towels (it takes a few days.) But yet I continued to feel a bit heavy and very slow and not very accepting of this state.

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(More raindrops)

Then I remembered the scones and I was all excited again. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of eating the last egg in the fridge at the time… Still… it is possible to make scones without eggs, which reminds me of the other nice thing about heavy rain – hens.

Heavy rain produces worms and sometimes scones, Mairead.

The Green Venice

| Mairead

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(The embarcadère in Coulon)

When we picked this area in France for our September Retreat, I had noticed something on the map – the Marais Poitevin and in particular The Venise Vert  (the Green Venice.) You might remember how much I loved the real Venice, so I thought I might also love this French and green version.

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(Wrong way, paddle backwards…)

The pictures showed tunnels of trees (and you know I love tunnels of trees) over narrow canals with flat-bottomed boats. But it turned out to be a bit of an elusive spot, ok, not the whole area. To be precise I had a very particular picture of what it would look like (mainly the tunnels, sigh) but each time we drove to La Rochelle and through the Marais Poitevin area we would pass canals at the edge of the road with flat green farmland on the far side. Something wrong with that picture. No trees, no tunnels, not even one flat-bottomed boat.

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(Heading for my river bank… shriek, shriek, paddle, paddle…)

And so with only a week to go (I know, I know, 4 days isn’t a week) it was now or never! I set to work on Saturday evening attempting to pin down the exact location I had seen in the pictures (oh and disaster, I couldn’t find the pictures any more…) It was not an easy job, but I did locate a town possibly very close to but not exactly the right place. It would have to do. So on Sunday afternoon we put the name in the sat nav and set off to… Coulon.

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(Sigh…)

On the way we got a bit side-tracked when we found another of the places the French people go on a Sunday afternoon – car-boot sale or an empty-your-attic sale, there were no signs and I don’t know the difference. Suffice to say there was lots of very good bargains to be had. Can you guess what I got for €1 each? More tea towels. And they’re linen. And they have sweet little loops for hanging up. Did I mention that I love fabric? (Tea towels are fabric!) Especially in bundles. The very nice French lady who was selling the tea towels had ironed and folded each one and tied a little ribbon around a bundle of six. (Yes, I did buy six more tea towels. No, I’m not going to use them for drying dishes.)

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(Sign)

Now, even if we didn’t find Green Venice, all was well in my world. But we did! We arrived in Coulon and my investigations had indicated that we needed to find the area of embarcadère (I think it means where you get on the boats.) Long story short: we parked, we had lunch, we checked out the flat-bottomed boats.

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(Sigh…)

Finally, we found the perfect boat and got in holding a paddle each. First, it’s very funny. One person rows a bit and then the other person rows a bit and both people laugh a lot. But if one person is stronger or more competitive the boat soon starts heading towards the other person’s bank of the river. Huge shrieks of laughter from me and a smidgen of panic. Instructions from Denis. Paddles in the water again, huge smiles.

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(Sigh…)

Eventually, we started to match each other’s strength and competitive force and we stopped working so hard and the river took us along. And it was so cool and, really, really peaceful. And because each of us had our hands full and our feet firmly balanced it was almost impossible to think of doing anything else, except being there. We stopped wanting to take pictures. So we took very little. Instead, we had the experience, of floating, on the water, in the canals, built by 13th century monks. Sigh…

Sigh, Sigh, Sigh… Mairead.

The Tunnel I love

| Mairead

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(Leaves and seed. I pick something up every time I go walking)

I went on my walk this morning (of course I did!) a bit earlier than usual because it’s not so pleasant to walk in the heat. Anyway, there’s a stretch of the road which I call the tunnel (or tunnel as I like to say in French) and I absolutely love it. It’s dark and incredibly quiet in there. You can just about make out the light from the sky in the distance. This morning I had to stop and get a good feel of its magic.

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(Duck. From the riverside in Vouvant)

I never bring the camera out on my walk, much too much distraction, but two nights ago I had my phone and I took a picture. It might not be very clear but I wanted to give you a visual sense of my tunnel.

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(My tunnel, sigh)

So… I’m standing in my tunnel this morning and the phrase the darkest hour is just before the dawn comes to mind. And it got me thinking… my tunnel is such a comforting place to be, I wonder how it would work if the next time I’m feeling down, I imagine myself in my tunnel. A place to be held safely in the dark until it’s time to venture out into the sun. I’m definitely going to try it. (By the way, in case I forget and you notice I’m needing my tunnel, could you remind me please?)

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(Love this quote from Maya Angelou, it’s now in one of the journals I’ve been creating here)

With only a week left (I think I’ll keep saying that every day from now on….) I’ve been thinking of all the things I want to do before we leave and on the very top of the list is… getting a video of the hens running to me (their surrogate mother…) So far we have a startled looking hen standing very still so hopefully they’re not camera-shy. If we do manage to capture momentum I’ll find a way to share it with you.

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(Very cute sign in Vouvant)

From the sunny swing, Mairead.

I have a very little fridge and I’m not going to fill it up with rain

| Mairead

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(Some perfect scraps of paper)

It seems to have rained all night so the ground was very wet this morning…. but it’s sunny now so I’m sitting outside on the swing. Since we got here I’ve been making craft stuff everyday (except at the weekend) and the weather has been nice enough to work outside. Until this week. It was hard to come back inside when I’d got used to working in the air. Even when the sun wasn’t shining it felt good to be outside. Now there were downsides. For example every piece of paper had to be weighted down so that it didn’t blow away. It’s painful fishing for those perfect scraps of paper in the rose bushes. But working inside the glue smells and the spots of paint I’ve been dropping may never come out of the rug… 

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(Bits and pieces)

So, instead of reminding myself it will be a lot colder and wetter when we get back home and how’s that going to suck… I starting thinking….. all this talking and thinking about cold weather or wet weather or bad weather gets me no closer to the thing I want to be doing. It’s just a distraction. 

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(Mara came back today and she made up a vegetable basket – all from the garden. And later there’s promise of chocolate zucchini cake – no idea…)

Like when I go into the supermarket here. I bring a list, it’s a very small list because we have a very small fridge (note to self: bigger fridge is not always better fridge, you tend to fill the fridge and the only advantage is that there’s more room for things to go off…) But on the way to getting the things on the list I see lots of attractive other things. Like cute knives and forks, you can never have enough knives and forks and they have a gingham pattern. Or cake… well who doesn’t want more cake? Or those funny orange sticks in the fish section – what are they? Anyway, by the time I find the things on the list the basket is full and I’m ready for a nap. 

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(Who could pass these?)

How is that like this? Maybe not a lot but it reminds me… when I’m in the supermarket I forget why I’m there – to fill the little list. When the rain falls I forget why I’m here (in France, but maybe also in general) – to fill my other little list. My other little list has joy and love and fun and crafts and glue and paint and scissors and fabric and pins and thread and wool and other people’s hens and…..

If I fill my other little fridge with rain and cold and problems and worry it’ll be hard to get anything else in, Mairead.

Rain or Shine, some more hen pictures

| Mairead

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(We went for a ramble around the lake at Mervant this morning)

It’s Sunday afternoon, I’ve just brought the hens their afternoon treat – porridge. They love it! Being from France they possibly haven’t tasted it  (you can only buy it here in the English section at the supermarket) but they get very excited when they realise that’s what I’ve brought. Their excitement is followed by very noisy pecking in the feeding dish. This weekend they’ve had a lot of excitement food-wise.

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(Some swallows gathering on the wire outside our house)

It rained heavily all day yesterday (Saturday) which was fine as I had planned a day of answering long unanswered emails, so I sat most of the day on the sofa in front of the windows to the garden. After a while I kinda forgot where I was. You miss a lot of reality when you’re on the computer. So it was lunchtime before I realised the hens were probably drenched, I went to investigate. I had let them out of the house earlier in the morning when the rain was only starting and was surprised that they seemed very eager to be outside.

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(Can you see the rain?)

Now when I reached their enclosure I couldn’t believe the state of them. They were indeed drenched, they looked like they’d been for a swim, feathers plastered against their heads, beaks to the ground. I remember the bird ‘flu crisis we had in Ireland a few years ago, so I knew birds could get the ‘flu, is this how it started?

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(The poor chicken… notice the muddy beak?)

I went straight back to the house (the one we’re in not the hens) and had Denis check if his brother Liam (he and Kate live with the hens I was hen-sitting last summer) was online to get advice. He wasn’t. So instead we searched for a hen forum (where hen owners gather on the internet to chat… really…)

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(Soaking)

We found one in America. There was lots of chat about hens in the rain but the main message –  they’re fine. They love the rain. Why? Because it provides the other thing they love – worms. It has been a very dry summer here in the Vendee and so the ground is very hard, making it difficult for worms to get to the surface or hens to get through to them. Not yesterday. Soft earth. Lots of worm potential. Happy hens.

So how do birds get the ‘flu? Mairead.