Freeze Dried

Neither of us have seen anything quite like this bizarre weather. We are not complaining that it is unseasonably dry after last summer's sogginess but we are amazed by the weeks of relentless NE cold wind. We used to get NE winds in North Kent, of course, but generally only for a few days. I think I am correct in saying that we had our much trumpeted drought from Valentine's Day round to early March (19 days) and then just a few days of wet before this NE wind arrived on 9th March. That has now blown almost continuously for the 3 weeks since, bringing plenty of clear skies, bitter, frosty nights and just very occasional dust-like frozen snow.

The soil is dry enough to raise dust and what small amount of water there is in the soil is frozen, so unavailable to plants. The poor things are suffering frost/wind-burn like you would not believe, even the known drought-tolerant Mediterranean herbs like Rosemary and some hardy species like Verbena bonariensis (Purple verbena) and perennial wallflower. All the new growth, encouraged into motion by the warmth of our false spring is frazzled, curled and dead like the worst drought. It is one of those things - we assume the plants will recover and produce some new growth from still-dormant axial buds when a proper, more honest spring comes along, thawing the small amount of water that is here already and supplying a top-up.

So, yesterday we completed out dutiful paying of respects to the late James Harrinton. We were off down to the big, drafty, unheated church in Loughglynn for the service, which turned out to be a full Mass (I gather this is unusual for Holy Saturday). The church was packed with maybe 300 folk. We saw John Deere Bob in there sitting away to one side at the back, and we were joined in our pew by neighbour, Una C. I have my first Irish cold bug so I feel very bunged up and moopy, and sitting at the back of this church for an hour had me chilled down to the kidneys. Liz got on OK in a woolen suit and the vintage mink coat (those two thicknesses of 'cloth' even made the pew feel comfortable!) but we were both relieved when it was over and we could shuffle outside into the thin sunshine.

In matters of etiquette I take my cue from JD Bob here, and he had his black woolly 'Thinsulate' hat back on his head within seconds of stepping out into the car-park, so I did too. Also, he was not going out to the grave yard with the hearse and procession, so we took that as permission to also depart and get back into the warm, light the range, walk dogs, do shopping and, in Liz's case get into 'Domestic Goddess' mode baking and food prepping for our guests the next day, now today of course.

Today we are hosts to 2CV acquaintances John and Carol Mellor. I vaguely recognise John from 2CV events gone by, from his pictures in Facebook, but do not know them in any real sense. However, John is organising and fronting up a holiday tour 2CV convoy (They call them 'Raids' in 2CV land) for his Bristol-based 2CV club local group (The Bath Tub Club) in Summer all up and down the West of Ireland and is over here this Easter weekend to 'recce' the route. We saw his notices in the club magazine and, as their route is passing through Connemara, an hour or so away, we decided to offer our house and grounds as a port-in-the-storm, respite from bad weather if they get it, warm dry place to recover, fix broken cars etc. John is delighted with this and, although he agrees the official route is a way off here, has accepted the offer to call by on his recce to get fed and possibly stay overnight. We are doing him slow roasted lamb and assorted other bakery etc. Should be fun and nice to meet some new friends.

AWOL Annie and Romantic Meals

Mum announces on Weds 11^th that the forecast was for frequent heavy showers all day and she wasn't wrong. Dad was wrangling a log store (stops for rain) out of some wood and (stops for rain) left over tar felt (stops for rain) and it felt like every other saw-cut (stops for rain) and change of tool (stops for rain) he was stopping to avoid a rain shower (and relax). Never mind, the job got completed and he has now stacked what we thought of as our big pile of logs into it and the new store has swallowed them and is asking for more. Is that all yer got? Come on! We are going to have to go logging again, so today's mission to the lovely "Connacht Gold Garden Centre and Agric Merchant" will have chain-saw chain-lube on the list.

The Lovely Girls, meanwhile, have bizarrely decided that afternoon is a better time to lay eggs than morning. Not a one has laid an egg prior to midday for the last couple of days. We'd been hanging on keeping them in the run till we had 4 and then letting them out to free-range, but now we're letting them out even if there are no eggs and they can catch up with that side of things when they get back. Not a bother. We are currently on 4 eggs most days but we think all 5 are laying, just 2 of them might be doing it every other day (or 3 of them 2 out of three days?) Whatever, you get the drift.

Thursday 12^th

As they say round here "Wait 'n'I tell yer!"; I have a bizarre and unique tale for you this morning; possibly an "Only in Ireland" one or possibly an "only in our unique circumstances" one.

A day of carpentry for Dad, building wee housey round the gas canisters and for Mum, Domestic Goddessery and painting said housey. Then Dad is mowing in the west field when neighbour one side Una shows up with bag full of rooted slips and cutting of broom and lilac. We feed her tea and biscuits, Dad nips out briefly to finish the mowing as it starts raining and Una is well enough entertained by chatting to Mum who then walks her home. At that point (about 6pm) we feed chooks and they are all present and correct.

We retreat indoors and Mum goes wild in the kitchen creating a gorgeous romantic meal of lobster, a green salad from our garden, pork ribs in lovely sticky peanut sauce and rice salad with peppers. She has Dad light the range for extra cosiness and they light the candles on the wrought-iron stand and one on the table. There is wine and nice linen. Mum and Dad are settled to a lovely romantic evening....sigh. They progress through lobster (yummy) and are just at the last scrape out of meat bits from among claws, cracking the claw shells etc when there's a knock at the door. It's other neighbour, John Deere Bob 

A bit non-plussed but not yet at the stage where they can tell this lovely old boy to scram on his tractor as it's not really a good time, Mum and Dad invite him in, flapping away any objections. He shuffles through in farm boots to sit by the range in 'his' chair, completely un-phased by the romantic scene and candles. Mum serves him tea and biscuits and returns to the table. Mum and Dad start back into the rather in-your-fingers, messy-eating ribs in sauce course, all a bit weirded out by having to wipe their mouths every now and then to hold snatched conversations with Bob, who alternates between sitting happily silent looking around him, or commenting on the car-port or the garden, weather etc. 

Dad soldiers on through my ribs and salad and wine and eventually finish, and Mum tries to do the same but eventually (as she puts it) her nerve cracks and she pushes aside the last ribs and salad pretending to have finished the meal, and clears away. Dad goes to help but they are curiously un-nerved by Bob and Mum always says to Dad, "No, you sit still, I'll do it!" as if she is worried Bob might think the less of us if a man is helping in the kitchen.

They all chat some more, now a bit more relaxed around the cleared table and glasses of wine half-hidden behind 'stuff' so it's not quite so in non-drinker Bob's view. Eventually he gets up and goes, put-putting back down the drive on his tractor and Mum and Dad both breathe out simultaneously, but any pretence of the romance being re-awoken vanishes when I go to lock down the chickens and find the one missing. One of the Lovely Girls seems to have gone AWOL. We don't yet know whether that's AWOL=lost and will wander back, AWOL=gone broody and is hidden up somewhere on a clutch of eggies or AWOL=snatched by Brer Fox. We searched everywhere but to no avail. Dad was rather hoping William's crowing on Friday morning would guide the 'lost' her back like Siren Song and she'd be standing on the porch all apologetic this morning. No such happy ending, so far anyway.

An everyday tale of country folk?

Friday The 13^th

Dad decides, as it's not windy, to 'drop' the 2nd ugly Leylandii at the top of our woods, figuring that if he cuts the required wedge on 'that side' nearest the concrete wall and then slopes a cut through from 'this side' it would neatly fall 'that' way across the wall which would then act as a neat saw-horse while he logged up the trunk. Mum is happily weeding out to the side, 90 degrees from the expected (some of you may have spotted a pattern here!) direction of falling but is, cleverly, more than the tree height away. This turns out to be a salutary lesson to all readers who might fancy playing with a chainsaw one day. An argumentative Leylandii will not necessarily do what it's told. Still, no harm done and Mum was shaken but not stirred.

AWOL Annie stays AWOL. There is, so far, no happy re-union and Dad’s dream that William's enthusiastic crowing in the morning would guide her little lost but unharmed self home so she'd be waiting when we came to let the rest out, was not to be. Never mind. We have not yet given up hope. We keep the other chickens close through the day; they stay around our logging and weeding activity and we round them up well before the end of the afternoon and lock them up by 6pm. Little foxy chum (if indeed there has been foul-play (fowl play?) and he/she is the culprit) is not getting another one. 

Bizarrely, black and white doe-bunny, Padfoot. who has spent a week excavating a neat hole and tunnel under the fence of her run till she was down two body lengths (We're WATCHING you, Padders!), suddenly fills it all in again in half an hour in the evening, just before 'lock-down' and seals it up by stomping the soil down as if it had never been. She even leaves a bigger stone on the top as if to mnark the spot. We have no idea why. Perhaps she was upset at Mum and Dad poking a stick down it to see how impressively deep it is.

14^th

We have a bimbly day where not much is achieved but AT LAST the ground is drying enough that Dad can get onto the 'allotment' and hoe! He can enjoy the sight of decapitated and uprooted weeds wilting quickly in the sun's heat and the breeze. Up to now this has been impossible because the grass started growing again immediately it landed on the sodden ground (sodding ground?). Facebook still seems to have all our old Kent lot suffering under the still-relentless rain, so we sympathize with them.