JandalsnAll

Greetings, and poge ma hone to you all. I have much news of little consequence.

Last week as I walked along MY beach I found a decaying baby horse. At first I thought it was a decaying baby cow but I thought about it and decided no, its a decaying baby horse. I made this decision based on the half revealed bone of the skull which was long and straight like a baby horses would be and not as much like a baby cows would be, and because it had hooves that weren’t cloven and I think a baby cow would have cloven hooves. If it still had more hair on it and if I felt like pulling its bottom out from under some rocks so I could see if it still had a tail, I might have had more evidence of it being a baby horse but I was quite happy with my decision not to touch it and to just trust my assumptions were correct.. though speaking of horses and their related cousins we all know why you should never assume. It was definitely dead though. And it definitely smelt like it was dead.

Well I went back a week or so later to see if I might retrieve its skull but it was gone. The smell was gone too. Maybe someone else beat me to it. But I think it most likely was washed out to sea as the swell was quite big and had pushed all the rocks up into a steep bank. So maybe it is buried under the rocks. Maybe one day it will rise again from its watery or stony grave and I can have its skull.

MY beach is my chosen haunting place of late. Its a stony little bay
I found round to the left from the pier and beneath the beginning of the cliffs. At first I was disgusted by all the debris I found washed up onto shore and lying among the stones, and the field directly behind it you need to walk through to get to MY beach from the road that has been used as a dumping ground at some time. Now however, since my baby horse find, Im intrigued by what I may stumble across. Ive found an old rusted metal shopping basket, a vacuum cleaner hose (actually several), an old chair leg, an old dolls leg, wheels, plastic buoys, one of those round red and white rings that hang on boats, a big rusty spring and shoes. So many shoes. Somewhere out there are alot people looking for a shoe and they really should come visit my odd shoe graveyard. You know the black hole that odd socks disappear into never to be seen again? Well there’s one for shoes too and MY beach is where it ends. Ive seen them, the shoes, falling from the sky.

So every so often I go down to MY beach to see what else I might find. More dead animals? Treasure? A human hand? I know I’ll always find shoes. Maybe one day I’ll find a sock aswell but I think thats fairly unlikely. Ive started sorting some of the interesting things(wheels, legs, dead animals) from the mundane (cans, bottles, shoes) with the view to possibly create some sculptures in my spare time. I wander over the stones with my stick I found, which is the perfect height and has a bend in it just like a walking stick and I poke at things like a crazy woman. Occasionally I’ll see someone come over the hill behind the beach or standing above at the edge of the cliffs but they never venture down for fear of the crazy hobo with her stick. But I leave my stick at the beach and bike back to the village and resume my ‘normal’ facade and the locals will never know Im really the crazy hobo stick lady. Ive met a few more of the locals. This week I met Heidi the SouthAfrican who works at the Village Craft Store and Joan the Dooliner who works there too and is Carol’s sister-in-law. But none of them will ever know about my secret hobo stick lady life.

On the 23rd of June, the day after Midsomer’s Day, Doolin lights its bonfires. Im still not sure why, I think its something to do with St John? Or maybe just a good time to burn stuff. Robert the hostel owner lit a bonfire in the field behind his house and he, Carol, Karl, some of the hostellers and myself sat around it leaning against piles of freshly mown hay, watching things burn and passing around a guitar. Its fun to burn things. For the record, hay and haybales are NOT delightful. I retract all my previous comments regarding the joys of haybales. They are evil poisonous things and have smote me down with hayfever of the most literal kind. Everywhere you look here there’s hay. Hay in the back field, hay in the front field, hay moving up the road on the back of a tractor. Its one giant hay conspiracy to make me sneeze and never stop. And when you sneeze your heart stops so I would die. Or maybe its just that its summer and people like to mow hay in the summer.

The last few days have been so hot, so sunny that I was convinced summer had finally arrived. I really could not stay outside for longer than 20 minutes the sun was so searingly hot, and I wandered around in jandals and a singlet. Alas it was all a cruel joke and this morning I awoke to see familiar grey drizzle out my window. Of course it will continue to rain over the next few days as these are my days off. If anyone is coming to Ireland and needs a weather report I can guarantee come Sunday and Monday it will be summer again and I can guarantee Tuesday will bring rain. The good weather made for some amazing sunsets though. One night I walked down the road that passes the hostel about 20minutes then over a couple of fields (past a sign saying Beware of the Bull) to the coast. There was absolutely nobody around and I walked for about an hour round the rocks to the pier while the sun began to set. At the pier there were too many people so I carried on round to MY beach (hoping I might find the skull this time) and up on to a hill to see the whole of Doolin and the cliffs lit up by the fire in the sky. Bright oranges and pinks and more subtle purples further out. It was amazing – and I didnt have my camera.

I recently acquired a fiddle practice partner to join me in making a variety of the most hideous of sounds known to man. Sarah from France, has also recently purchased a fiddle and as she is staying at the hostel long term we will together endeavour to produce a sound that is bearable to the human and animal ear. Our first practice we struggled through several songs, assuring each other it didnt sound so bad while wincing in pain with every stroke of the bow. Sarah has had a few lessons when she was young but my fiddle is better than hers so it all evens out. I can play two songs – Merrily We Roll Along and German Polka which may come in handy as we always have plenty of Germans staying. When I say I can play those songs, I mean to me they sound like songs, to everyone else I would imagine they sound like Roberts donkey when he’s harrassing the cows across the road.

Last night I went out to McDermott’s pub for the first time in ages. There was a band called The Caley Bandits playing who were very good. The unusual inclusion of a double bass along with the usual bouron, bousouki and fiddle made for a great sound. Sarah and I studied the very accomplished fiddle player’s (Yvonne) technique intently with the hopes of picking up some secret quick fix but unfortunately I think the only cure is many years of practice. Many many years before my fiddle sounds more like a fiddle and less like a donkey.

Tomorrow morning I head to Galway to bank my meagre savings so far and spend much more on a night at the movies (Batman Begins), stocking up the food cupboard, and the elusive Saturday market sushi – the only sushi in Galway. They also have great crepes and olives and handmade chocolates and vegetarian takeaways at the markets so I think I may have to spend the day there for breakfast, lunch and dinner….and morning tea and afternoon tea – I’ll start saving next week.

Last week I bought a fiddle….yes, a fiddle.

This week Im thinking I’d like to purchase a recipe for black pudding and a big blood filled cow, or pig, or whatever the recipe calls for.

There is something nice about walking from place to place, relying on nothing but step after step to get you where you want to go. I dont mean from the kitchen to the bathroom, but from town to town, or inland to coast. And there’s a pleasant sense of acheivement on finally arriving at your destination knowing you did it all by yourself with your own two feet (not that I have much choice), unlike these lazy arses in their fancy cars. Those are the things I think about when I set off walking and when Im almost there. It’s somewhere in between that lies the torment and suffering. But I forget that and hence find myself again and again setting off on these at first and last refreshingly novel yet ultimately arduous stumbles through Ireland.

A few weeks ago I set off on one such delusional walk to climb around the coast and up to the cliffs
. I did visit the cliffs when I was in Doolin last and you may remember my telling of the bikeride from hell wrought with suicidal ratdogs and fifty minutes of agony. The memory of this did not deter me as I would take the track alongside the cliffs, steering well clear of the ratdogs of the road and ambling happily across gentle swaying fields and crossing babbling creeks – how quaint. Of course because it had been raining for two days straight the gentle fields of my mind had in reality taken on a more swamp-like appearance, the innocent creeks shouting and swearing rather than babbling. And so it was an interesting if somewhat challenging and muddy two hour stumble. Specific challenges including one gate (easy stuff), several electric fences (scary), more than one unsteady fording of aforementioned rude creeks and in the animal department – because there are always crazy animals – a herd of obstinate cows right in the middle of the track, watching my every move, waiting for me to take just one step closer before they’d pounce and devour me limb from limb. I walked around them – very far around them. And then there was the demon horse..it had no eye, just a red hole and yet it kept looking at me….

As I neared the summit, the demon horse’s eyeless stare on my back, I found myself on the wrong end of a fence and ended up back on the road. Determined to walk the full track and the most exciting part around the top on the cliffs, I sploshed back across field and over electric fence (somehow without electricuting myself) to find the small path trodden into the grass a few metres from the cliff edge. As I walked along the narrowing path, the cliffedge becoming ever closer I am reminded of the Council sign way down at the beginning of the track: CAUTION VERY DANGEROUS CLIFFS AHEAD The sign I had casually ignored, scoffed at even. I mean what are ‘very dangerous’ cliffs? How can something be more dangerous than ‘dangerous’? I was beginning to see that yes, these were indeed VERY DANGEROUS cliffs. Nearing the tourist area I could see O’Briens castle (and the tourists) and I urged myself onwards. Problem was this part of the track was barely narrow enough for one of my feet let alone two together, as well as being at an apex with the ‘very dangerous’ cliff edge about a meter away down and to my right, and a barbedwire fence down and out of reach to my left. Add to this the extreme gusts of wind blowing unpredictably one way and then another and you can see I was not in a prime position for the balancing required when skirting ‘very dangerous’ cliff edges. Fatal fall to the right, potential maiming fall to the left, I had no lifepreserving choice except to move cautiously forward. And so everytime I felt a gust of wind coming I’d crouch down and hang onto the long grasses either side of the path. I must have provided an entertaining sight to the tourists milling around at the end of the path – so near and yet so far.
But I did make it, climbing the final fence and wading through the crowds to find myself a quiet spot to sit for a while, after which I took the road home…

Incidentally, the cliffs were just as impressive the second time, maybe more so after it had be revealed to me that these cliffs were the very Cliffs of Despair in The Princess Bride movie – movie choice of many an adolescent slumberparty and every girls favourite. Right? That big rat thing was scary man.

Anyway back to my walking. The next expedition I took up was a walk from Doolin to Lisdoonvarna – home of the infamous September match-making festival – but thats not why I was going there…well kindof but just to see what kind of town holds a matchmaking festival, definitely not with the intention of finding myself a match. And also because it sounded like an interesting place to walk to when one has nothing to do and fancies a walk. Remind me to stop fancying walking. Actually the walk there was rather nice. The day was overcast so it wasnt too hot. I spent the first half an hour or so admiring the countryside and the view over into Doolin with the ocean behind. Other delights included a tractor making haybales (do we have haybales in NZ? the big round ones?) which for some reason I do find delightful, a gray pony with a pink nose and a man smoking a pipe while atop a stepladder painting the side of his house. Yes, this is the world Im living in, where ponies have pink noses and farmers can smoke a pipe while simultaneously holding onto a ladder and a paintbrush. In my mind he even has a plaid shirt and braces, but I may be letting my imagination get away with me. After the excitment of the pipe sighting, things got a little mundane. Same old honey coloured fields and stupid cows eyeing up my limbs. The torment was setting in and I began cursing my Godgiven feet – why cant you go any faster? Why god, why did you make feet so slow? Why didnt you make a rocket booster where my arse is?
Just as I begin contemplating hijacking some other form of transport (tractor? cow?) I see the highway sign announcing I am 1 km from Lisdoonvarna town centre. Lucky for me- and the cow for that matter.

The town of Lisdoonvarna is not as intriguing as its name makes it sound. It has a chinese takeaway, a chemist, a couple of dairys, a few pubs – one being The Matchmaker Bar ‘come on in and meet your match’ – um steering clear of that one. So I milled around trying to find the exciting underground of Lisdoonvarna with no sucess. I did see some young girls in a car with the stereo going in view of a group of schoolboys across the road. Right before my very eyes, an authentic example of Lisdoonvarna matchmaking in its initial stages. So I can say that even out of festival season the matchmaking scene in Lisdoonvarna is alive and well if anyone is looking…..
I bought some decent food at a shop at least twice the size of the Doolin Deli and caught the bus home, sparing EU1.35 to spare myself the not yet forgotten agony of walking.

All in all it was a sucessful morning expedition. I found some vegetables and learnt several new things: 1. Together, Lisdoonvarna and Doolin are the host town to Ukraine – who would have guessed? 2. If I need a match The Matchmaker Bar in Lisdoonvarna is the place to find one – or not – depending on whether I have need of a farmer who can paint a house and smoke a pipe at the same time. 3. Yes these feet WERE made for walking but Id much rather have a rocket booster arse.

What a wonderful peaceful lazy day Ive had. Before breakast I took a walk through the misty and rather unpromising morning to a spot along the beginning of the cliffs called Tralacken. I’d been told the secret way to get there (which wasnt terribly secret I must say) as its apparently a favourite swimming spot of the locals in summer. A footworn path leads out from the main track up to the cliffs across to the coast and down over the edge. What I found were rocky terraces in staggered layers reaching down to the water. Down the middle theres a small flow of water creating little waterfalls here and there and I sat beside one of these for a while and watched two stags watching me until I got too cold and had to move again. Its a really pretty spot – it feels like something out of the movies – like there should be mermaids lazing on the rocks…. and singing dancing crabs with little top hats … and rapping fish with the voice of Will Smith- so an animated Disney movie then. I meandered back to the hostel stopping to say hello to R’s donkey in a field nearby. Im not sure why he has a donkey but I will try to slip the question into conversation sometime. But now I finally have an animal friend to give my apple cores to – I used to give them to Brie (puppydog of my heart with strange but healthy eating habits) and everytime Ive eaten an apple here in Ireland Ive had this odd sense of loss and confusion like I just dont know what to do with my apple core. But all is now right in the universe thanks to my donkey friend.

This afternoon I took another walk, this time down to the pier and around the coast to a little bay I’d seen from atop a cliff. The weather had taken a complete turnaround, summer in Ireland finally. The overtold joke in Ireland (just mention the word summer and someones bound to say it) goes ‘ I remember summer last year – it was on a Friday’. Well this year its been on a Monday and a Thursday and thankfully I dont work on a Thursday. So I spent the afternoon lying on a warm rock in the sun like a big fat lizard, on my own little beach. Then I wandered back, stopped in at Magnetic music cafe (the last music cafe for 3000miles apparently – well thats got to be worth a visit if it’ll be 3000 miles before I get another chance) and had a horrible coffee and a delicious piece of cheescake. And then I shopped at the Doolin Deli (the one food store in Doolin) for Mars bars and stamps. Just so you know, the days of tea and scones are over. Now its all Mars bars and cocopops (the stamps are irrelevant). Though I did break down and buy a scone today as well…. Dont you think its strange that NZers say scone as ‘scon’ when they should really say it ‘scone’ like ‘tone’ or ‘phone’ or ‘cone’. I encourage all NZers to start saying scone the way it looks. No matter if you feel silly, speak proud in knowing your interpretation of the ridiculous English language is surely more correct than those heathens who insist that scone rhymes with con.

Speaking of foods that could possibly be had for breakfast, and cons for that matter, on Wednesday I had my first morning working at the B&B down the road – cooking meat for people who eat meat – unlike myself. And I dont think it went at all badly. It was organized it so all I had to do was microwave the precooked sausages and puddings of both black and white variety, grill the bacon and fry the eggs. All of which I did – how well did I do it is the all important question. And to be honest I wouldnt really have a clue. Bacon is supposed to bleed right? But it was okay because my first guinnea pigs were Japanese, so the odds were that, one: they didnt have much traditional Irish breakfast experience to compare with mine, and two: they prefer their food raw anyway.

So I have two and a half days of work a week and the remaining four and a half are more often than not so far, spent in the manner described above. As you can see, its a hard life here in Doolin, and its a suprise I have time to blog at all. But don’t worry I wont let it stop me writing for the people.

The problem with free tea is its always there, whispering to you ‘drink me, driiinnkk meee’ I did go sober for a few days but now Im back on the brown stuff, though I try to keep it to 8 cups a day. And dont mention the scones…

The hostel itself sits quietly on the banks of the Aille River (Aille means delightful) not much more than a simple cottage with two storeys and a patch of grass for camping alongside the river. From what I gather the original building is over 300years old – take a moment to think about that – it was built before NZ technically became a country. Inside theres a kitchen, a cosy living area with two long tables, some benches, a old ironstove fireplace, and two rocking chairs. Now one of the rocking chairs is boring and not very good at its job, its kindof wobbly and rocks backand forth but also side to side as rocking chairs should never do. I triy to avoid this one. BUT the other rocking chair is the best rocking chair chair in the world. It is big and handmade to perfectly fit my behind, has a lovely weight to it and is right in the corner by the fire. AND the best thing? It has been sat in by the obviously very talented Andy Riley, the guy who wrote/drew ‘The Bunny Suicides’ and ‘Return of the Bunny Suicides’ books. So when I sit in it, its kindof like Im sitting in his lap – kindof. Hows that for fame?

In the evenings round the fire is the place to be just to chill out, dry your shoes, get warm, drink tea…..
Highlights in the living area have included: several impromtu traditional Irish music jam session last week with R leading the pack on the guitar, C the fiddle player a guest passing through and A another traveller on the bosouki (spelling?). That was great – no need to go to the pub. The excellent yet rather inappropriate named card game of Shithead has also become a popular pasttime. I learnt it from an Australian, but it seems to be a worldwide phenomenon amoungst travellers, with Germans and Belgians adding their own twist on the game. And despite there being no words for shithead in German or Belgian, its still called the same. Strange. Those travellers who have never heard of it are at first taken aback after asking the name of the game, only to be verbally abused, but they soon give in to its mysterious powers and find themselves playing endlessly.

This weekend is the Irish June bank holiday weekend. I have no idea what these particular holidays are for but they have enough of them. Theres one in May, June, August, October and then they get all the usual holidays too – crazy Irish. Anyway its the time when everyone in Ireland goes away for the weekend and all the accomodation is booked out and things are crazy busy.