Eating an Elephant

This job has been described as "eating an elephant" as in the old saw, "How do you eat an elephant?" "One bite at a time!" (How we laughed!) and we are mentally trying to break the awesome whole down into bite sized pieces so that we have the task for the day. Today we have a couple. We have to meet the guy from the Irish Electricity Board (E.S.B.) about getting reconnected to the mains, we have to chop through the bases of the ivy growing up the side of the house and we have to (taraaaa!) clear the dining room including pulling up the lino.

We head out to the house fairly early and get the fires going at either end as usual. The house is now starting to warm up nicely. The E.S.B. man arrives and inspects and finds the equipment too old to be just turned on, so we have to pay them €390 for the privilege of a "new" connection. All they'll actually do is change the box in the hall and give us a brand new meter. What we need to do is engage a qualified electrician (step forward the family "Sparks") to declare the house wiring 'fit to be connected to'. There's a laugh. The wiring at present has all sorts of single strand wires twisted together, cables looping along the picture rails, ending in nothing where some kind of old electric fire used to hang. What Sparks will probably actually do is cut away most of this and leave us with one or two more modern bits of the installation so that he can sign the thing with a clear conscience. He'll then probably burst out laughing before giving us a quote for the repairs and rewiring.

We also get our first genuine visitor, the guy who rents the cattle grazing for the land, who we'll call Mike-the-Cows. He wanders in just to introduce himself and comments that he's been told that "an old couple" have taken over the house (Oy!). He's a lovely bloke who tells us he's happy to carry on the arrangement grazing the land and topping/spraying the rushy bits to keep the pasture in good heart, offers all kind of help including pulling out the old Volkswagen Golf from the brambles, ploughing the bit of ground I want to use for an allotment, helping cut down the loose barn sheeting and so on. He also provides a bit of local history including some 'back story' on our previous owners whom we will call, for these purposes TK Max (the old Dad, passed away in the 80's), TK Min (the son) and "the three sisters". Mike never knew the sisters but had plenty to do with TK Min. He also told us about a famous event which occurred nearby where a gang of bank robbers trying to escape from the Garda (Police) hi-jacked TK Max's car just along the lane from us and shot 2 Guards. The old boy was apparently upset enough to move out of the farmhouse and into the nearby town of Ballaghadereen.

Main job today was to clear the dining room and "lift the lino". Sounds easy doesn't it? Not quite so easy when there are three layers of lino in varying states of grottiness and decay. Under these was a layer of flattened out newspaper, then a layer of flattened fertilizer sacks and finally on the bottom a layer of closed newspapers dating from 1967, which had been in contact with cold damp concrete and walked on for 44 years and had turned into a greasy peaty stuff which had to be scraped up from the floor using a conveniently left behind kitchen knife. During the course of these works I got so sordid and dirty that Mrs Silverwood was aghast and there is another shampooing being threatened.

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More pics of the start

Some more pics to keep you going, but I'm a tired dog so I'll do you some more write up tomorrow.

1) Peat smoke from the Dining Room chimney (range) for the first time in 15 years

2) That unexplained "secret garden"

3) Some old wood-wormy chair legs go on the living room fire

4) Dad raking 15 years of jackdaw nests out of the living room fire place and chimney.

5) Old Mr K's VW Golf. Mr K has passed away in the 80's and the car has been there ever since. We reckon new battery, few pints of petrol, should fire up first turn of the key? Anyone wanna buy a classic.

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Aerial view

Yesterday I mentioned a 'secret garden' we discovered while walking to the four corners of the the lump of land which comes with the new place. Neither Mum nor Dad knew it was there, having not done this on previous visits. To explain we have blagged this picture from Google Maps satellite.

Bottom of this picture is the narrow country road running along our southern border. Roughly central in the picture is the house (dark grey roof) with, behind it and set at 90 degrees to one another with light coloured roofs are the byres. The house sits in the left hand rectangle which is the original 1 and a half acres, and to the right making a nice neat square with the buildings at the centre is the field we also bought, which is currently rented out for cattle grazing but it's a bit boggy so the cows have been taken off it for the winter.

Running up the middle of the picture then, is a hedge run with the buildings half way up it, the bit 'behind' the house looking particularly thick, more like a spinney than a hedge. But No! When you go look it's actually rectangle tall-ways on in the view, roughly 30 feet wide and 90 feet long. It is a piece of ground raised about 2 feet above the rest of the land with a stream running down its eastern side. It is surrounded by a low stone wall perhaps 2 feet tall, now all overgrown with moss and grass. Outside this on the west is a row of mature pines and on the east, the hawthorn hedge. We are curious as to what it would be for. The raised aspect would improve drainage and the trees would protect it from wind, so we think it might have been a bit of garden, rather than more farm. Lovely though.

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Dogs get to see the place!

Yay! We dogs finally get to see the famous Roscommon house about which we have heard so much. Mum and Dad take us up there for today's first proper day of working. There's been snow this morning just when the kids were being readied for school (couldn't get any sense out of any of them - too excited, but eventually they were all wrangled off to their appropriate schools in time). Dad was wondering whether he'd be able to take scenic "White Christmas" photo's of the house and those lovely pine trees but this was not to be. There was just wet grass and a few slush piles when we got there, and a puddle of wet snow on the trailer cover and the 2CV hood.

We are all impressed by the superb transparent light in these parts. Driving up through the southern part of the county today we had the bright sun and blue skies behind us and in front of us a bank of dark snowy clouds. Between the two were the autumn colours of almost leafless trees including great drifts of scarlet-barked dogwoods. This was lit so brightly and clearly that Dad thought he must have super-cleaned his glasses and the car windscreen. We have heard about this special light in unpolluted areas but have never seen it with the naked eye. Spectacular.

We drive via a big Dunnes Stores in Roscommon for provisions - we have camping equipment on site but we needed coffee, bread, lunch, fire-lighters and peat briquettes (and Dad treated himself to a bag of real authentic dried out turf "sods". It's a genuine 2 hour drive from Silverwood's, more like 2hours 20 with the shopping. We arrive at almost midday and hop out of the car to start exploring. I love the place both inside and out, upstairs and downstairs, house, out buildings, garden and cattle fields (currently unoccupied). There are nooks and crannies, holes and old musty soft furnishings and it's all new and unexplored. I quickly reduce myself from the pristine white brushed show-dog that greeted Mum and Dad when they arrived here yesterday, to the soot and mud encrusted tramp they expected. Everyone's a winner!

Mum and Dad's main task today aside from exploring and a bit of tidying is to clear the three chimneys and light fires. All three are full of old jackdaw nests, probably 15-20 years worth in each, so there's a fair amount of shovelling debris from the grates into rubble sacks before Dad can even start rodding out the chimney. In one case the rodding hits a solid wad of nest and Dad has to take off the brush and just poke the set of rods about up there till the twigs start to fall down. It's a proud moment when they can finally light a small fire in the living room with an old, wood-wormy chair, and nip outside and see smoke coming from the pot - probably the first time in 15-20 years!

With a good draw established Dad lights a bigger fire and shoves on some of the briquettes and soon gets a lovely warm glow. It's a windy day with a hooley being blown up coming from the South (the front of the house) so it's nice to come in from the front garden and feel the warmth and to be out of the wind, bluster and noise from the pine trees.

Ther is a brief hiatus when Dad goes to light the range. He's swept out the chimney and has cleared out the range so he sets a small fire, but has not realised that the 'flue' for this runs across the top of the range under the hot plate and into a metal chimney at the back right. The hole here has a restriction (venturi?) only a couple of inches across and the metal flue has rusted over the 15 years with flakes of rust falling down and blocking it. The main chimney can therefore draw all it likes, but it can't take smoke from the range, and this starts pouring out of the front doors of the range like the house is on fire. We have to rush to open doors and windows to clear the smoke. However, further checks reveal that the rusted-in hot plate can be freed up and a small cover at the bottom of the chimney can also be bopped free with a rubber mallet, so that Dad can get his hand in and clear the rust flakes. Then we're away - proper draw, smoke clearing and a good fire got going in the range. Warm as toast.

I will tell you about the rest of the day and a secret garden in another post. This is enough for now. A dog is tired.

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They made it!

We are re-united again in Ireland. Mum and Dad had a smooth and successful run in the small convoy of 2CV, trailer and Fiat Panda. They managed the Faversham to Holyhead bit in almost exactly 8 hours, quarter to 2 to quarter to ten with all the machinery performing to plan and nothing breaking. This even though a massive rainstorm blasted through Birmingham and having soaked us all, laid down so much rain that everyone was swerving in the stranding water, banging their hazard warning lights on as they tried not to aqua-plane.

You can see from the picture what a bizarre load we had for the trailer; really just the leavings of the house when everyone had moved out and we were doing final sweeps, hoovers and clearing up, so it's the loft-ladder, various empty crates and buckets, cleaning stuff, the hoover itself and various straw hats found at the 11th hour plus, topping the lot, the three sets of fallow deer antlers which Dad hangs onto like some kind of talisman.

Making the port at ten pm meant a 4 hour wait for the sailing in which Mum and Dad tried to get some shut-eye but nobody can really sleep in a 2CV crammed with "stuff" so Dad was relieved to be allowed to board. The 2CV always seems to attract more attention than other cars from security blokes, and one with a trailer even more so, so Dad got stopped at every stage. Dad always thought "Look out, here we go!" expecting to be dragged out of the car which would then be stripped down to the last nuts and bolts. We have heard stories that when 2CVs were cheap student transport, the axle tubes, being empty of equipment never heat up even on the bumpiest ground, so were the perfect place for storing narcotics. However, all these blokes wanted to do was tell Dad they owned Ami's or Dyanes. The "security questions" were along the lines of do you have any compressed gasses or sharp implements "like knives". No, No... says Dad, neglecting to mention the fertilizer sack full of garden equipment and tools.

So they boarded at about 01:00 and Mum and Dad headed straight for the cabin and tried to get some sleep, only briefly interrupted by the Skipper doing his safety announcement, followed by a Terry Wogan sound-alike talking about mustering stations. They sleep like logs.

In the morning, another successful convoy run out through Dublin, taking in the Christmas lights all along the Liffey's banks and the new buildings in the City Centre. This time, Mum has the sat-nav going and Dad is following in the 2CV. They head out to Strokestown, County Roscommon where they link up with Mary Rose, the Solicitor, sign the final "Transfer of Ownership" and finally get the keys to the house in their little hot hands. They move on to the house where they get a good look round, unload some stuff and park (hide up) the 2CV and trailer. It's still as scary now as it was before, only now they own it!

From there a run down to Silverwood where we greet them with bucket loads of enthusiasm. We have been shampooed to within an inch of our lives and brushed out knot-free. We are all back together again. More on this tomorrow.

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The Great Adventure

The big day has arrived. The Adventure begins in earnest. Today's plans involve collecting the trailer from 2CV Llew's place the other side of Canterbury and bringing it back here so that the two cars and the trailer can be packed with all the stuff that remains here. This is not too much although it has grown slightly since Mum moved into Diamond's with the addition of various gifts and acquisitions. It's what came here in the little Fiat Panda, plus Dad's overnight bag which came on the plane, a couple of boxes and a few bits which have lived at Llew's workshop since our (Oct 3rd) move out from the old house; a bizarre collection of empty crates and buckets, the loft ladder and the fallow deer antlers and a printer.

The box is the lovely collection of "silly" presents which the Swindon side of the family gave Mum and Dad when they were down for the Christmas meal recently. All individually wrapped and tagged with an amusing luggage-tag they would be things like rubber gloves ("for the hands-on down and dirty stuff"), a packet of "Builders' Tea" (for when you need a drink), woolly hats, vitamin pills, scrubbing brushes and so on, as well as more serious stuff like Jameson whiskey and fizz. We should have kept all the labels - some of the comments were inspired - but like you do, they ended up swept up in the wrapping paper blitz. There are also now Mum's leaving do gifts. We hope all this will fit in the two cars and the trailer fairly easily with nothing over loaded and no visibility impaired.

The plan is to pull out of Faversham (Wagons Roll!) about 1pm just so that we can do some of the journey in daylight and take it fairly gently up to North Wales and Holyhead Docks. We sincerely hope not to need all those 11 hours to do the distance. We are all booked on the overnight ferry 02:50 with sleeper cabins. Then tomorrow morning the plans involve driving across from Dublin to Strokestown, Co.Roscommon where we hunt down the solicitors office, sign the last bits of paper and take possession of the keys to the new house. We motor on to the house, fight our way in and then poke around to see how much "clearing" the three sisters have done, and what we are left with.

The 2CV and trailer then remain at the new place while Mum and Dad drop down in the Fiat to the Silverwoods where Mum and Dad and we dogs and the in-Laws are re-united and Brand New Life (BNL) starts for real. Everyone will stay the first night at the Silverwoods; after that it's all open to discussion and what opportunities arise as BNL takes its own new course.

So, readers, this is probably the last post for the moment till we can get enough kit and electricity together in the one place to restart the story. I know that many, many people are wishing us all the best and a safe journey and we all thank you very much for that. Updates soon.

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Mum finishes Work

Some more pictures in the Photo-fest vein just to catch you up on UK life (for a limited period only). First up a 2nd nice picture of Dad's beautiful trailer. You can see more clearly in this one that the wheels are 2CV wheels so that the spares on the car and trailer are interchangeable. The cover for the trailer is actually quite a posh one made by a proper sail-maker, all professionally stitched and with proper eyes. They are normally some kind of cheap sheeting hot-seam welded together. This was done by 2CV Llew calling in a favour from the sail maker he knows and uses for boat stuff who is, apparently, a bit of a one for the drinking. You have to try to make sure he gets any jobs done for you before lunchtime because after lunch he's not a lot of use to anybody!

Next up is a pic of that "Faversham" stove cookin' up a storm with the peat briquettes.

The other two pics are of the ever more shaggy and workshop-dirty year-old Westie pup Boris-the-barking-bastard. Poor ol' Boris. He got that name and reputation as he was going through a phase. It got so bad that 2CV Llew was reduced to buying one of those electronic collars which fizz compressed air when triggered by barking, theoretically distracting the dog so he stops barking. Dad and Llew think that I may have a hand in grassing them up and telling Bozza he was about to get fitted with this thing because for no other reason which is apparent, he suddenly stopped the incessant barking and didn't need the collar. He did actually have another barking session later and was very briefly fitted with the thing but stopped barking immediately so that now all Llew has to do is mention the collar or get 'that tone' in his voice and Boris is now so angelic you'd think there'd not been a problem! I don't think the collar has ever actually triggered the compressed air. It seemed to be enough that Llew was grabbing him and moving to fit it.

Mum finishes work. She's done 10+ years at her 'firm' and has made good friends. She is well thought of and (we're not just saying this) very popular so that her leaving is always going to be accompanied by much celebration and a good whip round. She gets showered with gifts and in particular one of those new electronic 'Kindle' books, but also chocs, booze, a nice Zippo lighter, scented candles and so on. Everybody signs a big card with nice comments about how brilliant she has been to work with, best wishes for Ireland, how they'll miss her etc. Mum arranges for a breakfast delivery of croissants and pain-au-chocolates. There's a formal 'party' at lunchtime where the CEO does a nice speech and they've decorated the office with Irish flags and have even found a tape of the Dublinners (some Brits do tend to reach for the old familiar clichés and stereotypes in these circumstances!). They all adjourn to the Pub after work where Mum "holds court" to a good gang of them including, again the CEO and some of the IT crowd with whom she's had loads to do across the years, being the main website and systems persons in the firm.

Dad and Diamond are assigned the task of raking her out of the pub while still thoroughly compos mentis and they all head for home via a good kebab shop, a wine shop and fridge to construct a good salad. The drinking goes on very gently into the evening before Mum, finally able to relax and wind down, unemployed, retires for a good night's sleep.

Well done Mum! You survived!

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