A Proper Session

Monday 16^th sees us all mainly ‘swerving hard work’. It feels like that kind of a day.  We played indoors with Mum and Dad on the computers, catching up with the finances, whacking some kitten pictures up on Flickr and cracking off a soda bread loaf and a couple of yeast-bread loaves, breaking in Dad’s new loaf-tins. Mum and Dad declare these breads “Very nice”. The soda bread is so delicious they have eaten most of it already.

Mum was maybe a tad more productive, constructing a couple of IKEA flat-pack CD rack/shelf units and Domestic-Goddessing bathroom and downstairs. Other than the indoor stuff, Dad was supervising chooks who DISGRACED THEMSELVES by climbing onto one of the raised beds (only the one with Dad’s seedling leeks in it!!!!) and laying it waste with their scratching. Dad’s own fault really - we've been saying for a while we should fence them "out" of that bit. He even have the wire sitting in the shed, but heh, mañana and all that.

As Dad describes it, the campaign to “try to make the 6 year old Westie bitch, Deefer, (that’s me!) learn to love the new kittens. Deefs is a natural "only child", (says Dad) fiercely jealous of anything that might come between her and her Dad, and also with a divil of a killer instinct when it comes to vermin and prey animals. We have worked our way through new (cat-friendly)dog-Coco, Charolais cattle and then chickens, all of which she got used to, bored by, and is now hearing our instructions not to kill. She's now on rabbits which are still worth a chase round the outside of the run and a shout at though the wire and we, foolish humans, have now introduced another prey species and this one IN THE HOUSE!” That sounds about right, Dad!

 
“There is no doubt at all that Deefer” continues Dad, “left to 'play' with kittens unsupervised, would do that shake-rat thing and we'd have two corpses in a few seconds. We are therefore trying to give her 30 minute sessions with her on the lead in the room where she can look, sniff, hear us trying to instruct her and see us doing "we love this kitten... it is a member of the family... it is a pet... part of our pack... it is not vermin" at her”.

On Tues 17^th July, the main event is undoubtedly that Mum and Dad find, at last, a proper Irish Traditional music session. This is happening (and does each Tuesday night) in the Village Inn pub in Lough Glynn and was told about to us by John Deere Bob who goes to it most weeks even though he is Teetotal. It was, after 25+ years of searching and chasing down tips, finally a real traditional session, not some kitsch laid on for tourists and not a formal 'gig' where you go to see a specific band or person. It’s just a motley collection of blokes and a couple of young girls in a pub, grouped at one end of the bar behind a balustrade thing. It started off fairly 'formal' (probably because the team from the “Comhaltas” National Archive were there video-ing), so each of the regulars got their turn on camera if they wanted - as I said, mainly old boys dressed in dark suits, some with old venerable hats on (flat caps, but also a baseball hat), ties, black shoes and in one case wooden soled clogs. One had a superb Dubliners style bushy beard and a pink, Father Christmas face. The two gals were young teenage local 'celebs' having won the Roscommon Fleadh (Music Festival) with their squeeze box playing, but were demon penny whistlers too. As well as music there are “Recitations”.

The 'recitations' were something to behold, tales of missing home and eventually returning, tales of ganders which were no good at stud, tales of some Cockney trying to fool 'Paddy' in London that his ass (as in donkey) was actually his brother etc. The musical group even indulged a couple of local 'characters' ("a bit-een simple" was how one of them was described by our own John Deere Bob after the event) by allowing them to sing or 'clog dance'. To be fair, one of them was a good singer and parodied a well know song by bringing in local JCB contractor Noel R (Our own “Poetic Plumber”) who everybody knew and changed the lyrics to suit all the local landmarks, towns and pubs. The other was a bit of a dire singer and his clog dancing was the subject of Mum reporting to have been  "in awe" when describing it to friends. Loud, certainly but having a rather loose relationship with the rhythm of the reel. 

After the National Archive people packed away their kit it all went a bit more random and the group was joined by several more including extra bodhrán players, spoons and a bloomin' good banjo player, young lad. Mum and Dad report that it was just an absolutely meltingly brilliant event which they wouldn't have missed for anything.

Also on that day, Dad strings a length of chicken wire across the kitchen garden to fence the chooks out of the raised beds. He also clears the felled elder round to the shredder heap. This is now getting rather big and ‘we’ need to hire a shredder to process it through into suitable path material for the kitchen garden, between the raised beds.

Paddy the Drains

At the risk of sounding like Peter Mayle of "Year in Provence" fame, Mum and Dad are experiencing a bit of culture shock and don't know whether to find it exasperating or to laugh hysterically. The mad laughing gets my vote. The local workers and tradesmen are all very friendly, easy-going, ready with a laugh or a joke and are, so far, brilliant hard workers who always give excellent value for money. BUT!!! You try to get them to talk money, quote you an actual price or tie themselves down to anything like an agreement on cost or time deadline and you are a braver dog than me!

Bloke A will do his job and chat away to you, find out that you need something else doing and will tell you he knows just the bloke - best plasterer, carpenter, drains engineer or whatever in the County. He will send the guy round or bring him round and the three or four of you will walk round describing what you want doing. You will be re-assured that the job is no problem and he'll sort you out "one of the days". He won't say which day. He won't give you contact details. Ask him for any idea of the price and he'll smile vaguely, make eye contact with his mate but never you, and say "Ah Sure, we'll not rob you!" They will then wander round some more reminiscing about the house, jobs they've done for our previous owners (TK Min and TK Max), hop back into the van. Press them for a price and they'll say "Sure - we'll get back to you, so we will".

Thus it was that our dealings with the Poetic Plumber while we got mains water connected, led to us finding out about his mate, Paddy who handles the drainage gulleys and water-removal pipework side of things. Paddy the Drains comes equipped with JCB and appropriate skills, plus another fine line in the strolling around, re-assuring you the job would happen whilst in no way tying himself down to date, price or even the need to talk to you any more. PP brought PtD round a couple weeks back and as far as we knew we were waiting for PtD to phone and offer us a price, where-upon we'd scratch our chins for a while, say yes, and agree a date.

By last Friday afternoon we were about to leave site for the weekend, headed for the Silverwoods. Dad was beginning to wonder where this had all gone. We'd heard no more from Paddy. Had he decided a price and date? Was he even interested? Had he gone on extended leave? Dad was just about to phone the Poetic Plumber when the bloke rang to say they'd be round tomorrow (Saturday) to do the drains. Dad tried a bit of meek half-hearted protest (But... but... but We were waiting for a price.... We're not here tomorrow... etc) but it was all batted away. We'll know the price when we pay for the pipes. You don't need to be here. 5 minutes later a truck pulled up to deliver half a dozen lengths of drain pipe and all the junctions and fittings. This suggested to Dad, at least, that maybe they had already bought the materials and probably did know the price.

Ah well. No harm done. We left site finally knowing the price. We'd agreed to it even though we felt slightly out-manoeuvred. We are trusting the pair of them to do the drains on Saturday (yesterday) as per the yellow lines painted onto the ground by Sparks, gulleys all in the right place and so on. We will then also trust them to turn up and eventually collect the agreed money. We won't demand that we ever see Paddy again or that he talks to us so we can thank him and congratulate him on a beautiful, professional job.

Gaaaah!
Deefer

5000 Euro and a Breakfast roll

These last few pictures this week, I bring you just for a bit of fun. The Euros just because no-one had seen that much money in one place at one time. These materials suppliers like to be paid in cash and one of them was asking for just under 10,000 Euros, so this was a down payment of the first half. The breakfast roll, ex Supa-Value's hot counter is just the most ridiculous amount of fried meat to try to fit into a baguette - 2 rashers, 3 sausages, 4 slices of black pudding, 4 of white and a hash brown. Yours for about 4 Euro and God Bless your arteries.

Sparks has finished his week at 4 on Friday and we are left alone for the night having to look after the arrival of the Poetic Plumber on Saturday with his JCB. He is contracted by Roscommon County Council to connect us up to the mains, which he manages by very skillful use of the JCB in a couple of hours. In the middle he hits our old branch-line and slices the terminated end off it. There is no problem with water pressure at this point and a fountain quickly fills his trench, the water board man having to lep into the hole in wellies ith a closing device to stem the flow. When they are all done we have water to the house and to one of the outside taps but it's at low pressure pointing to an issue somewhere between the main and the house, possibly in one of the many sub=branches feeding outhouses, cattle drinkers and so on. Poetic will come back with appropriate blokes (at our cost, naturally) and sort us out soon.

And that's it for the week. More soon, when I am less tired.
Deefs

The Poetic Plumber

Our campaign to get onto mains services marches on. We've paid the money and signed all the forms for the ESB (Electricity Supply Board) and have been given a 12 week predicted lead time. Sparks thinks this is nonsense because they are assuming we are a brand new connection which would involve erecting telegraph poles and digging up roads. He thinks if he has a word in the right ear someone will realise that all the hardware is actually there and only a new fuse is needed plus an official turn-on. It might be far fewer than 12 weeks. Meanwhile though, we are buying a 3kW generator to see us through and to be there after the build in case of power cuts.

Broad band and telephone are on the way, but need power, obviously.

Water starts off a bit more complicated. The address has only ever had an "agricultural" feed, so we are liable for the €1600 (gad!) fee of a new connection. We must also engage a local approved contractor willing to connect us up out in the road and also insured to the tune of €6,400,000 as demanded by County Roscommon Water Services. We contact our Estate Agent (and now friend) John C who suggests a local man (Lough Glynn) whose name is the same as a poet in a famous Irish poem, so he becomes "The Poetic Plumber" in our cast of thousands. He's a brilliant bloke, silver hair, quiet spoken and with an accent to die for and both Mum and Dad fall in love with him. He knew our former owners (TK Min and TK Max) and went to school with the "Three Sisters". He knows our 'vendor', Anna L, quite well. He lives in a similar house to ours and is impressed by the hard work we have put in so far. He comes up to the house to see the job and even volunteers to come back after dark to see us in the caravan to stamp and sign the application, suggesting that we take the paperwork into Castlerea on the Friday morning to pay the fee and we could be connected as soon as next Saturday (he almost whispers the word, with the accent on the 'Tur'). He has a JCB, of course, and we are keen to engage him in also digging some french-drains for our roof run-off.

Progress!
Deefer