25 September, 2011

Hillbillies: not just for Arkansas anymore.

There's a guy up here named Finn who lives not far down the road. Nice man, never married, I'd say in his fifties or so. I run into him every now and then and he's always pleasant, and he recently stopped by my house with a book on the local area and its history that, it turns out, he wrote himself. I've never met an actual author before, so I had him autograph it, an act which visibly pleased him.

Yesterday I was in a cooking mood and I made a pan of enchiladas. Up here, if it's not made with potatoes or served with potatoes it's probably not going to appear on the table, so whenever I make enchiladas they're always a hit. Yesterday, as they were cooling on the counter, I decided to walk some down to Finn and get some exercise in the process.

Caoilte and I set out around 4pm but couldn't pass Lucy's without stopping in for a cup of tea and a natter. After half an hour or so dark clouds began forming and it started to look as if it might rain, so Caoilte and I headed down the road to Finn's place. It's about a mile and a half away and the walk is beautiful with rolling green hills separated into lush green oases filled with sheep, cows, or nothing but late-season dandelions and whin bushes, all of it set against a backdrop of the Bluestack mountains and, smack in the middle of it all, the camelback humps that line what's known locally as "the Gap." Finn lives on a beautiful, wooded hillside that stretches up into a fully-fledged forest. He's a farmer by trade, and as Caoilte and I walked down the hill toward his house we saw him working with another, younger guy loading metal poles into a trailer.

We walked up the small lane to where they were working and stood, waiting for one of them to notice us. When they did I immediately wondered if I'd missed some local course on food delivery etiquette, because Finn smiled broadly at us but turned six different shades of red. Had I embarrassed him? Was bringing food to a confirmed bachelor to be construed in these parts as some sort of medieval courting ritual?! Finn took the Tupperware box and asked me what was in it, so I explained to him what enchiladas were and thanked him for the book he'd brought me a couple of days ago, mostly for the benefit of the younger guy who was stood there taking in every word, grinning like a hyena. I asked Finn if the little lane, which I'd never been on before, led back to the road we live on and he said it did, but warned me of some dogs at one of the houses along the way that might chase after us. He very kindly offered me the use of a stick, which I declined, and Caoilte and I went on our way.

The lane got narrower and more mucky relative to its increase in altitude, until we found ourselves approaching the top of the hill it spans. At the apex were two houses, one new(ish) and the other, well, let's just say we discovered the dogs. They didn't give us any trouble because as soon as they started to bark a greasy-haired woman who was sitting in the front window rapped loudly on the glass and both dogs shut up. The house itself wouldn't have been out of place in Arkansas, with mangy dogs out front, smashed cars stuffed with empty feed bags elevated on concrete blocks, tin cans and garbage forming sort of a moat around the outer walls, and various other bits of farming detritus blighting the landscape like a pox. Such was the state of the place and the feeling of unease it gave me that I practically kicked Caoilte to walk faster past it, and advised him in hushed tones NOT to look at the dogs, the house, the occupants, or anything but the road ahead until we'd passed by.

Once we were past we relaxed a bit, and after a few hundred yards we noticed, on our right, a group of HUGE Charolais bulls standing knee deep in a field of mud. They'd obviously been there for a while because the mud, rather than being knobbly and cloddy, was as thick, smooth and silky as chocolate pudding. There were probably 20 of them there, huge things all standing in a giant clot under a few sparse trees. I offhandedly said to Caoilte, "sure am glad we're not on THAT side of the fence, eh?" A few yards further on there was a tractor reclining on its haunches in the mud, clearly stuck there, and beyond that the gate to the field hanging wide open, as if whoever had driven the tractor in there had been in too much of a hurry to get out to shut it. And there were the bulls, standing against the trees looking at us, nothing between us and them but a swinging, open gate. My heart jumped. I grabbed Caoilte and we increased our pace, not to a run because we didn't want to attract the bulls' attention, but to something of a panic-stricken power walk. To our left was a small lane leading up the hill which might have offered an escape except that on it, just beside the junction, was a huge cow and her calf, just standing there looking intently back at us. Jesus. Some little lane of horrors this was turning out to be!

Now, dogs I'm not afraid of. Snakes, cats, mice, hamsters, sheep, goats, all good. But cows--cows I am VERY afraid of, and bulls most of all. They weigh up to 2,400lbs, they can be skittish, and they aren't terribly sympathetic (or empathetic) beasts. We practically began sprinting down the lane, kicking up mud as we raced down the narrow, dirty double tracks. We didn't slow down until we came to where it intersects the road that we turn down to get to our own home.

Later, talking to Lucy and Larry about it, we learned all sorts of things about the area, including the fact that hillbillies aren't just for Arkansas. Suffice it to say we won't be walking down that back lane again, and we're pretty damn lucky we fell in with good people to begin with who steered us right when we were looking for a place to live last October.

Time to make some more enchiladas.

14 September, 2011

I think I've met a leprechaun!

On the school run each morning there are a number of routes I can take, but I usually opt for one tiny back road that not only cuts about a mile off the journey, but offers me dual advantages of no traffic and very little cow poo. I realise that your average person wouldn't likely take cow poo into consideration when calculating the most efficient route to school, but this is Ireland, remember, and I live down a warren of back roads lined with dairy farms. Cow poo is something I consider frequently.

This morning, like every other, Caoilte and I set off to school, laughing along the way at a small bird that seemed about to flap itself to death trying to outrun our car. This happens a lot, actually. We very often find ourselves chasing some poor bird or rabbit that seems hell bent on leading us down the road rather than moving out of the way.

When we arrived at the school I let Caoilte out and dutifully watched him go into the building, then I headed back to the house. Up the Carricknamana road I went, turned left at the top of the hill, and was engaging fairly heavily in some serious coffee fantasy when I pulled up short behind a load of dairy cows breakfasting on either side of the road. This wouldn't be an unusual sight anywhere else up here, but on this little rarely-used road it was quite a surprise. In all the time I've lived here, I've never seen cows on this tiny stretch of potholed blacktop.

There's not a lot to do when you wind up trapped behind a cow parade other than crawl along behind, so that's what I did. The two in the back seemed a bit put out by my lurking and increased their pace to a slow jog until they caught up to the others, then we all just settled in for the ride. Seconds later a HUGE green tractor came screeching up behind me, blaring its horn like it was late to a fire. I thought perhaps he wanted to pass me, but the narrowness of the road left me nowhere to go. The only options I had were to continue on behind the cows or pull off the road and into the ditch. Really, I wasn't about to take the ditch. I was already so close to the cows' hindquarters I could have told you if one had farted. I stopped, peering curiously into the rear view mirror.

Out of the tractor hopped a little old man, hat barely on his head, stick in hand, screaming as he hopped down the road, "Did yis not hear me blowing the feckin' horn?! Jesus, I was blowin' the feckin' horn! Did yis not hear me blowin' the feckin' horn?!" I didn't have a chance to answer as he ran down the road, waving his stick, screaming "ye bastards!!" at the top of his lungs. I realised that the cows weren't being led into a field down the lane, as I had assumed, but had gotten away from this guy at some point and he was now having to chase them down to get them back. By following them I had inadvertently pushed them further down the lane. Oops! I backed up and looked for a place to turn around, but I couldn't get past the tractor, which was taking up nearly all the lane. There was nothing I could do but sit and wait for the cows to come back up, followed by the angry old farmer.

The cows came up, one by one, and squeezed by my car like lipids navigating a clogged artery; I am prepared neither to confirm nor deny the sucking up of a seat cushion or two as these huge things passed close enough to jostle my mirror. The farmer finally came into view, following up the herd, still yelling "ye bastards" at them between swishes of his stick, hat clinging precariously to his head as he cursed and spat and stomped his little wellies. When he reached my car I put the window down and apologised for what I now realised was partially my fault. I explained that I had thought they were being led into a field down the lane, and that if I'd known they were loose I wouldn't have followed them. "Ach," he said (he was missing some teeth), "ahm te auld to be running after these wee bastards! They shoulda' gone in the gate, ah was TWO MINUTES behin' 'em, the bastards -- GET UP ye bastards!! -- ahm too aul' for this, the feckin' bastards..." It was all I could do not to laugh as I put the car in first and drove on down the lane toward home.

Later, over tea in Lucy's kitchen, I related my story. "Ah," said Larry, "that could be nobody else but Reid. Aye, he'll give ye a touch, now!" Lucy laughed and nodded.

I love living here.

30 June, 2011

The Chair


So I'm reading Fox News, keeping up with the US Joneses, when I see that the "Fox on Sex" section, which is usually tamer than an issue of Tiger Beat, is featuring sex furniture. Sex furniture? On Fox? Do Republicans even *have* sex--outside of Capitol Hill, and with their actual spouses? I had to click. Most of the article was silly stuff, the usual assortment of things I suppose your average church shut-in might find titillating, but nothing too out of the ordinary. There was this one thing, though... a Tantra Chair.

Tantra chair?

I clicked, clicked again, and there on my screen was one of the most beautiful pieces of furniture I'd ever seen. Never mind its Tantric qualities, which are, by the way, optimally and graphically explained on the "film" tab in full living HD. It's one gorgeous bit of kit! Curvy, sensual, ultra-modern, sleek, with all the right angles - it's the Jessica Rabbit of living (or bed-) room furniture. It's also nearly 1200 euro.

I had to tell Milo.

I sent him an email with screen shots, since I was sure the site would be banned by the Army and therefore inaccessible from a war zone. God forbid any of our troops should have anything resembling entertainment, let alone anything to dream of other than killing people and blowing stuff up.

Just after lunchtime, as Caoilte and I were getting ready to see the new Transformers movie in Letterkenny, my neighbour, Lucy, stopped in to see if I could run an errand for her. She made the mistake of asking what I'd been up to - so I told her I'd been shopping for a chair.

"A chair?" she asked.

"Yeah. Wanna see?" I replied.

"Sure."

I brought up the web page, which opened not to the tame little splash page but to the page depicting a few of the chair's uses, as demonstrated by a gorgeous, naked couple. "Oh my," she said, pointing to the man, "does it come with that?"

After a bit of giggling and a lot of sticker shock, I closed the computer and Caoilte and I headed out to see Transformers. Afterward we stopped by Argos to pick up the item Lucy had asked me to get while we were out, then headed back home. I stopped by to give it to her and she mentioned that Larry was interested in seeing this chair, and could I bring it up on the laptop for him. Grinning, I complied. In fact, I went one better and clicked the "film" tab, so he could enjoy the videos in all of their glory.

Now, Lucy and Larry are farmers, down-to-earth, lovely people in their 60's who lead about as conventional a life as you can imagine. They're also two of the most open-minded, accepting people I know (remind me later to relate what shall forever be known in these parts as the 'attic chains incident'). As I left, the image of Larry glued to the laptop screen while Lucy chewed her dinner looking at me completely non-plussed made me laugh all the way home. Later, I texted Lucy and asked her how Larry's heart was doing. "I switched it off!" came the reply.

At 1900 Milo showed up in the chat room and said precisely what I thought he'd say: "order it now!" Very soon, the Tantra Chair will be the showpiece of my living room.

Americans. Providing entertainment to County Donegal since 2008. :)