A Visit From Anna

On Wednesday we receive a visit from Anna the Vendor, one of the "Three Sisters" who sold us the house and the one who generously provided us with the picture of the house circa 1900. Sparks and Dad are first alerted when they spot a lady walking across the neighbouring field. There are various holes in fences created by JCBs moving about to dig drains etc. and Dad was concerned that Mike the Cows might release his grazing-rent cows into the bits of land we didn't buy without checking that they couldn't get onto our bit or onto the public highway outside. We no longer have a front gate.

Thinking the lady might be to do with Mike, he nipped round there and hailed the lady stranger but was greeted with a cheerful "Ah, You must be my buyer!" Introductions were made. The lady was Anna the Vendor armed with a bag of fencing bits striding off to find husband who was down the field somewhere making good the very gaps we'd been concerned about. Tiny-petite but capable and determined looking in red wellies and a "Life is Crap" baseball hat, Dad was immediately taken with her. She seemed pleased that Dad wasn't some ogre, too. They compared notes and decided to meet up as soon as she and husband Paul had done fencing and Dad had done his shopping nip into Castlerea.

By the time she re-appeared Dad was back from Castlerea and in the yard shovelling, so Anna had come through the two doors of the Tígín to find him. The three had a good walk round together, with Dad showing Anna and Paul all the progress and explaining why things were happening, and talking of plans, and Anna, in turn explaining why and how things were as they are, what happened in various bits and her memories of growing up there from about 58 years ago onwards (she's 61 and moved there when she was 3).

It seems for example, that the Utility room was originally a water storage tank with concrete walls. Behind it, and between it an the house front-wall where we have done one of our drainage gullies is the little nook where she'd hide as a little girl if she was sulking or upset. Where Dad has started his veg patch is exactly where the old Dad, Garda Sargeant, TK Max grew his veg and it was he who planted the (now big) fir trees which surround it as an overkill wind break. Apparently neither TK Max, the old Dad, nor TK Min, brother to the three sisters, was particularly practical. It is Anna who has ended up being the capable one, hence the wellies, fencing materials and tramping across the fields.

Anna was delighted by everything we'd done and relieved that she could enjoy 'her house' now it was in different hands. She'd been a bit worried it might be traumatic seeing it again but she liked us and we liked her and this could be the start of a wonderful friendship. She was all enthusiastic about bring the 2nd Sister to see the place (Sis 2 lives in Dublin; Sis 3 is a bit more difficult as she's in Bexleyheath in Kent!). We got the feeling that she'd take us up on the open invitation to drop by regularly with proper chances to meet we dogs and Mum.

Excellent
Deefs