In between places

I'm getting into a rhythm of sorts. Monday morning, Halo taxi at 08:00, to the airport. Back in Durham by lunchtime. Unpack, do some work. Buy milk. Take a nap. Some sort of reverse culture shock because even though they're so close, they're so different. 

Living in between two places feels weird. Leo's life in Dublin is really starting to take form, and our house is so cosy there. But I really love my place in Durham too, and my life there is uncomplicated. I know what's expected of me. Given the choice I'd obviously rather be in Dublin, for now there is no alternative. So I travel back and forth, a fortnight here, a weekend there, whenever I can for as long as I can. 

I'm a very impatient person, but I'm trying my best.

 

Some things are eternally comforting. Like coming home to your own bathroom cabinet. Post on the table waiting. Doing laundry. Stocking the fridge with foods of your own choosing. The things we do to make the absences feel a little less.

Lately

Life, as always, is busy. Fieldwork and teaching obligations are going very well. I'm coming to the end of my tutoring for the year, and am unsure if I'll keep it up next year (as it's very time consuming). I'll be sad when I finish up with my fieldwork as I've met so many wonderful people, but at the same time, I am keenly aware of how much data will need to be analysed by May (when it will be 12 months since I began).

I am going back and forth to Ireland more and more these days, as Leo is there working and we find that life is nicer when we see each other a lot. So I've been going over some weekends, and he comes here some weekends, and it's generally lovely. 

On Saturday we got up really early and did a tidy out of the bits and pieces of life, then we met my aunt and uncle at Avoca and went to a garden centre where we got lots and lots of plants. I also voted in our General Election, and we spent the entire weekend with the radio on listening to the results.

It is so nice to be home. To feel a part of where you are. To feel like you have something in common with the people around you. They are more like you than anyone else in the world. 

In other news: I go to the gym a lot more and lift weights, and I finally got some whistles that don't just play D and G Major (although the low whistle does).

home again home again

After a very long and hectic 2.5 weeks we're finally home. As soon as we got to the apartment I immediately unpacked everything, sorted dirty washing and put on a wash, put away everything else, went food shopping and made dinner. And I mean literally straight away. No time like the present to whip yourself back into shape. I really love home comforts. While holidays and meals out are amazing, there's nothing better to me than making my own bed with fresh sheets, filling the fridge with essentials, and getting back into home life. Domesticity is my everything. 

Home

While Leo has gone out to a meeting (8pm on a Wednesday?! Oh, but it's for something special, trust me) I have snuggled up on the couch with a cup of breakfast tea (fiiiiinally!) some delicious 70% cocoa chocolate, and I am now going to binge-watch the Pretty Little Liars episodes I missed. Life is, in oh so many ways, absolutely wonderful. I have lit a candle and am enjoying that briefest of moments at the beginning of Autumn, when everything is so very slowly getting ready to change. It feels, to me, like the gods of weather are inhaling one huge breath before they blow a gust of wind and everything comes twirling to the ground. It's a great snapshot in time.

some irish things on a friday

I am having a truly Irish morning. I've just finished making the most amazing smelling soda bread from this recipe. The recipe called for some kneading, and let me tell you, kneading bread is a wonderful, stress-relieving exercise. I recommend it to all.

While in the mood of all things Irish, I've been listening to Luke Kelly. His voice will reduce you to wobbly child tears if you're not very careful.

Did you know, you cut open the top of the bread before baking so the fairies (that help the bread to rise, naturally) can escape and go help someone else? The more you know!

And finally, without getting too political, this beautiful Yeats poem.

Yeats is one of my favourite poets, as I'm sure is true of many. Just a few lines:

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.

Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. 

And just to lighten the tone, 12 buns a cooling, ready to be iced later (with tea as dye for the raspberry flavoured ones!).

the things you miss

I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and a pang of disquiet. Why, you ask? Because I'm down to my last dozen bags of Barry's tea. Breakfast tea, as any Irish (or British) person will tell you, is simply not up to par on 'the continent'. The watery taste of European notions of breakfast tea is reminiscent of a million summer holidays in France, sitting outside a mobile home and eating paprika flavoured crisps, slathered in factor 30.

I'm worried, because there's nothing quite like the taste of home. I've forfeited so many other things; cheese and onion Taytos, cheddar cheese, Irish sausages and pudding, and soda bread, that tea was all I had left. And now it's almost gone. I jest, of course, I can buy Yorkshire tea at the 'international' section of a supermarket up the road. But Yorkshire is Yorkshire, and while I love it dearly it is not home. So I have turned to the internet, which has never failed me before, to see how I can remedy the situation.

And you know what? I buy everything else online-sunblock, books, furniture, why not up my game and start getting my teabags online too? The idea of a 500 tea bag-box of Lyons nearly made me light headed with anticipation. I did some fast maths, and if I drink 2 cups a day, every day, this box will last me approximately 8.3 months, and cost a mere 0.0.4 cent per cup. That is just so good, I'm practically making money!

And why stop there? The cheeky devils on this website are also doing a St.Patrick's Day (or any time of the year Day) hamper with all sorts of treats including Emeralds sweets (fond memories from childhood) Bewley's tea, and some Lily O'Brien's chocolates. Sounds absolutely delightful, and I'm going to heavily drop some hints about how much I would love such a gift, which might involve me printing out the picture and sticking it up in several places.

All this talk of Irish food is making my mouth water. Denmark is great an all, but there's some things you can't change, and my love of Irish food is one of them. Some days in the supermarket I want to pull my hair out, because skinke ost (processed cream cheese with bacon) is not Irish cheddar and Danish bacon tastes like the sadness of a million penicillin-fed pigs. Sure, you can get imported Irish cheese, but it'll cost you a sweet fortune and you won't want to eat any because then it will be gone.

So for now I'm going to resign myself to having another cup of tea from my dwindling stock, maybe making this delicious looking soda bread from the wonderful Girl Called Jack, and do a cost-benefit analysis of purchasing as many Irish food items I can buy over the internet. It's a good day when you can honestly say that running out of tea bags is as bad as it gets.

Ireland, At Last

I haven't been posting at all recently because I've been in Ireland, and since my dad had a hilarious run in with the phone company about three years ago we have had neither phone line nor internet connection at home. So it goes. I've enjoyed the welcome break from internetting, and have been spending so much time outdoors because, it seems, the first pleasant summer in Irish history occurs the year I'm here for it.

I've been on so many trips already; The Burren and Cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare, Sligo to my mom's family home, The Hill of Tara, Dowth and Newgrane, The Boyne Valley. I'll write about all of my trips in individual posts, because I think it's nicer that way

So, like I said, the weather has been beautiful, and I've really surprised myself to see that my arms and feet are no longer pinky, but yellow. It's not quite a tan, but it's the best I've done in my entire life to date. I've been wearing a sunhat constantly, so I've been protecting my head and neck while letting my legs and arms get a little bit of sun, something I've never done before.

I spent the first few days settling back in. Actually, I went on a road trip the morning after I got home, but spent the days upon my return getting reacquainted with my cats, and my room. I have started the arduous task of sorting through all our family photos, and intend to go to my aunt's to help with scanning all the projector slides from their childhood in Africa to a digital format.

I've been spending at least an hour every morning sitting at the table in the back garden, with Leo until he left this morning, eating breakfast, drinking tea, warding off the cats from eating our food, and relaxing. Leo came to my house for the first time, so it was an excuse to go on trips around the Boyne Valley, adventure in the fields behind my house (we live a mile away from Fairyhouse, where the Irish Grand National is held), and cycle around my area, pointing out all the significant spots from my childhood. It's been surreal, to say the least.

He pointed out the Ash trees on my roads that are showing signs of the fungus that will eventually wipe them all out. It's terribly sad, but that's nature. We've been on a few nighttime and early morning cycles, this morning's 4am cycle probably holds the record though. We cycle to Ratoath so Leo could get the bus to the airport (Italy is calling), and then I cycled home alone, taking in the smells and sounds of pre-sunrise.

The fields full of barley, wheat and rapeseed and the little country lanes used to represent to me being stuck in one place in time and not being able to move; as a kid I wanted nothing more than to live near people my age. But with time and distance I've come to appreciate my area for its' beauty, the good farmland, the houses; cosy, massive or architecturally impressive, the dogs that run at your heels as you cycle by, the manicured gardens and the horses in fields. I love it all.

And It's Good to be Home From Time to Time

For the Easter break I managed to book a cheap-ish flight home, so I got to go back to Ireland for more than a week, the longest I've been home by a long shot since I first moved away. Being at home stirs so many emotions. There's really nothing like walking down a quiet Grafton St., headphones in, soaking up the feeling of memories collliding with who you are now. I don't know if I could bear to live in Ireland again, the colloquial preoccupations and conservative undertones are too much for me, but it feels amazing to go back and play pretend for a few days every now and then.

While at home, I visited Bewley's no less than twice, made several Bus Eireann journeys, cycled my old faithful mountain bike I've been riding around the block since the tender age of twelve, cleaned out my bedroom, watched Intermission, and saw all of the people I love the most.

This shelf, this one shelf, contains so many sources of emotion that I can't even. I don't even actually care about or like the Furby, but that doesn't change its significance. Incidentally, Leo's aunt published Wicked the book (sitting below the book from Caroline I borrowed years ago but never read), from her own publishing house, and I am probably more in awe of this fact than most facts that exist today.

In addition, I went to The Giant's Causeway in country Antrim with my friends. We all wore matching 'feck off rain' tshirts and listened to terrible music. And got lost coming home. I had a whale of a time. The signage read 'The North', which we all found too funny, because everyone casually refers to 'The North' but I never in a thousand years thought they'd take it far enough so as to put it on the official road signs.

Everyone told me I'd be disappointed, that the Causeway is very small and unimpressive, but it was absolutely breathtaking. We climbed all over the rocks for about an hour, in what had to be the only sunny day Ireland has had in a year. I in no way exaggerate, it is amazing.

Sadly all good things come to an end, and the trip flew by. This is a picture I took of my room. I think it is fitting. If you ever have to go to Ireland for some reason, fly with Aer Lingus because they are the friendliest, kitchiest airline in existence. It is an absolute pleasure. So many 'sorry now love, would you mind just....' from the crew. Never flying Ryanair again after that experience.

Take care, be nice, remember to stay hydrated.

Copenhagen: The Arrival

Our last night in London was spent at Leo's friend's apartment with some of his friends. The apartment itself was one of the most surprising I've been in in memory, it was in a dodgy block of flats, but inside the walls were lined with books. The banter was at times decidedly 'political' and I just kept my mouth shut for about an hour straight. I've become so moderate in my old age. I did have a really nice night though, and we decided that it probably made sense to just stay up all night.

Naturally, I couldn't hack it, and had the most intense 1 hour power nap of my life, emerging from my cocoon fresh and ready to go at 5am. Actually, I felt like absolute trash, but it's my blog and I'll colour the past whatever shade I like. The taxi driver didn't actually know how to get to Gatwick, but we got to the airport, managed to root through our bags to get rid of the excess materials and generally faff with about half an hour to spare. Norwegian quality airline that take credit cards, and Euro.

It wasn't the world's greatest breakfast, but it was a damn sight better than Ryanair food

What else do you need? A wave of relief spread over me as we left London behind. I don't mean to sound unappreciative for the opportunities that London gave me, but it tired me out and frustrated me in many ways. It was time to move on.

A Poignant 'This is Goodbye' shot

Getting to our hostel was pretty tricky considering we didn't have Kroner and couldn't seem to find a taxi rank outside Nørreport station. Thus we embarked upon the most challenging event of the past few days, dragging the contents of our little lives two miles. One of the wheels had fallen off a suitcase. It was not fun. About an hour later we arrived.

The rest of the day was a haze. That hour sleep was long forgotten, and after eating a really average burger and buying bed sheets that turned out to be for small children (Copenhagen prices, if it seems too good to be true, it is), we crashed. And with that, we had successfully made the move, several hundred miles, one timezone away, to a country with unpronouncable words and the nicest trains in the world. And I can safely say I am very happy to be here.