07/04/2011 by Brigid.

I doubt it will have escaped anyone’s notice that John and I are participating in a charity motorcycle ride to Russia this summer. There is plenty of information elsewhere on the Internet about this trip, so I won’t bore you with details here*.

Our journey will take us through many countries and will, naturally, bring us into contact with speakers of a variety of languages. Now, while it is true that English is the most widely spoken second language in Europe, it is also true that we will be spending the majority of our trip in countries where Russian is the principal or second language. And, since I have a particular horror of not being able to communicate or even read road signs, I have equipped myself with a mini Russian language course from the BBC.

When we moved to France in 2007, it had been so long since I had visited any country whose native language was neither English nor French, that I was quite taken aback when, on a day trip to Huesca in Spain, I couldn’t read the restaurant menu. And, when John’s mum came over at Christmas, a trip to the Boya supermarket just across the border, turned into pure farce after she offered to buy us lunch.

The thing was that, although Betty had booked herself in for 10 days with us, she doesn’t really like France. Or perhaps I had better qualify that as she doesn’t much care for things French. She likes the wine, of course. And, food-wise, we were safe as long as the principal ingredients were eggs, cheese, potato or bread. Even so, my efforts to entice her with a traditional raclette dish failed spectacularly. It may have been a coincidence, but use of my “Jour de Fête” electric raclette machine resulted in a street-wide blackout, so omelettes became a staple feature of our daily menu.

Options for entertainment were dwindling and nerves were beginning to fray, so I suggested a booze run to Spain. Betty, I knew, liked Spain, having once owned a timeshare Tenerife …Thus, having bought up as many litre bottles of vodka and cheap brandy as we could justify bringing back in the car, we set out to find a restaurant for lunch.

We were guided to a sunny table on the enclosed terrace and given our menus. Betty studied hers with a degree of irritation, before asking me to call the waitress back for “the English menu”. I said I wasn’t sure that there would be one. “But all those holidays, Betty, don’t you understand a bit of Spanish?” “Of course, they will” she insisted, “all Spanish people speak English!” Well, in case any of my readers are under a similar misapprehension, let me assure you now, they don’t.

Eventually we ordered our meal by touring the dining room to peer at what was on other people’s plates, but even that wasn’t fool-proof. We tried a variety of Latin-sounding words for water, only to be served lemonade. Betty’s misery was compounded still further when, as usual, she attempted to improve her meal with a liberal quantity of salt – only to have the lid of the salt pot fall off in mid-sprinkle. Cue a lot of raised voices and gesticulation.

Determined that we should not repeat any part of that embarrassing exercise, I trawled eBay for a second-hand Spanish course. Needlesss to say, it remains quite a long way down my to-do list.

So, back to the present. I’m pleased to report that I can, with reasonable confidence, say “hello” and “goodbye”, “how are you”, and “I’m fine, thank you”, in Russian.

“I’m fine, thank you”. Why is it that, no matter what language you are learning, you are always taught “I’m fine, thank you”? On almost every foreign holiday I’ve ever been on, there have been mornings when I was anything but.

Alongside, “I’m fine, thank you”, any decent holiday vocabulary ought to cover “my head feels as if it is about to explode, and my mouth feels like the bottom of a parrot’s cage … thank you”. Mind you, my Russian phasebook does thoughtfully include “I think I’m going to be sick” and “Where’s the toilet?”. Additionally, if I’m arrested by the police, I now know how blame someone else.

My favourite, under the “Safe Travel” section, is a page devoted to Bond films. I’m not quite sure how useful phrases like “So we meet again, Mr Bond, but this time the advantage is mine”, or “Your plans for world domination are sadly mistaken”, will be, but I might learn them just for fun.

*To learn more about our 6,500-mile ride from Moscow, Scotland, to Moscow, Russia, visit www.offonaweeride.com.

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07/03/2011 by Brigid.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

You’ve probably seen this email circular before. Looks as if it could be Gaelic or otherwise someone’s been on the sherbet. Bet you could read it though, couldn’t you?

It has to be said, there are precious few advantages to being slightly deaf. Under normal circumstances it is pretty annoying, for everyone concerned, to have to keep asking people to repeat themselves. On the other hand, there are times when one catches a few random words from a sentence and, rather than put the speaker to the trouble of repeating, it is easiler, albeit risky, to feign comprehension. And there are times when the random words add up to too much information! In these cases, the “phenomenal power of the human mind” can be guaranteed to fill the gaps with improbable and often hilarious substitutions.

Picture the scene. I’m sitting at the end of the bar, hemmed in by a wall on one side and one of the town’s many harmless drunks on the other. Michael has already told me – and several other women before me – that I have the face of an angel, before turning all teary-eyed and launching into an emotional tale about his prize bull. He’s difficult to understand at the best of times but now his voice trails away to a whisper. I’m none the wiser about the fate of the bull, but I do my best to empathise.

He looks at John. “Have we met before? Are ye married?” We have, in fact, met many times and had more or less the same conversation on each occasion. However, for Michael, every meeting is like the first. He shakes his head. “Ah, if ye were my wife, I’d ………” Ah, here we go. I can’t hear what he said, but my mind has already filled in the blanks. I’m thinking that Michael has probably never had any sort of sexual relationship with a woman so “… Eat properly? Take his medication? Stay sober?” Like I said, all equally improbable. And then he surprises us with a tale of unrequited love for “Bridget”. The only words I pick up are “buttermilk”, “bed”, “marry” and “flying out the window”. The tears reappear and he takes a wad of foreign notes from his pocket and looks as though he might be about to order another pint. The hope is, of course, that we will take pity and buy him a round. Only, John and the Landlord are giggling too much to take any notice, and I have temporarily retreated into a world of my own while my brain processes these fragments into a cohesive story.

The Landlord pours the pint and leaves it to settle. He’s still laughing when he asks me, “Did Michael show you his ………?”

I was startled. His what?! Michael is only a couple of years older than John, but looks 70. He did once unbutton his shirt in an effort to prove his relative youthfulness, and I have no desire to see anything else that might be hidden under his clothes!

It must have been evident from the expression on my face, that I hadn’t heard what the Landlord had said.  “His penny whistle”, he repeated. I was speechless. “No, really”, he persisted, “he keeps a penny whistle in his pocket for American tourists”!

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19/02/2011 by Brigid.

If you put “Knockliscrane” into Microsoft’s spell checker you get “knocking shop”. Best we add our rental address to the computer’s dictionary, to avoid any awkward misunderstandings …

The build is currently being hampered by the weather, but John and I have been far from idle. Aside from route planning and writing (and rewriting) press releases for the Moscow ride, we have planned our new kitchen, researched important stuff like satellite television and home movie systems, started golf lessons, learned to make soda bread and joined two dance classes.

They are big into social dancing here in Ireland, at least in Co. Clare they are. Not just “dad dancing” , i.e. rhythmless swaying, accompanied by extravagant hand gestures while miming to the lyrics. I mean proper ballroom dancing: foxtrots, waltzes, quicksteps, and the like. Dances of which I am embarrassingly ignorant. Strictly … two left feet!  John, at least, remembers learning a waltz in his youth, and although slightly less orangutan-like in its execution than his efforts in the disco … oobee doo, hoopdeewee, I wanna be like yoo-hoo-hoo, it is still less than elegant.

To be unable to dance is not only a social handicap but can, I have discovered, prove physically hazardous. Try explaining that you can’t to a man who has spent the last four days at a wedding, who has lost the power of speech and hearing, and whose only hope of staying awake is to keep moving. No such word!

Thus, John and I spent an enjoyable Wednesday evening being taught Jive at extremely grand Woodstock Hotel and Country Club in Ennis.

I said two dance classes, didn’t I.

We came away from Wednesday’s class, determined to practice what we had learned at home. And we might have done, had we not confused matters by signing up for a Set dancing class at the local church hall.

Equal in popularity to the foxtrot and the waltz, around here, is the traditional Irish Set dance. Sets are a bit like Scottish reels but, in my experience, far more likely to be seen in pubs and at parties throughout the year.

It was a mixed ability group but, as our teacher, Tom, said, there wasn’t much to the steps – as long as you got them right – and you could learn the figures out of a book. Well, that’s the theory anyway. Women out numbered men 4 to 1, so two or three of the women were conscripted to dance as men. It’s actually quite a skill – being able to mirror the movements of your partner if you are used to being the female half of the couple!

So off we went. In twos to start with: advance, retire, step left, step right …easy. Much easier than the Jive anyway. I could get the hang of this …

Unfortunately, I had only just got the hang of this, when Tom (a man whose teeth bear an uncanny resemblance to Peter Sellers’ Hunchback of Notre Dame),  started arranging couples in the middle of the room for the “first figure”. Uh?! The music started and, watching intently, yes, I could still make out the steps we had just practiced. Only we hadn’t been warned that we would need to move around the room with our partners – at speed! At this point it helps to know your right from your left and the difference between clockwise and anti-clockwise. It also helps to have a smaller room (John) and shorter legs (me) … Then came the second figure.

“You’ve picked a nice tempo, Tom”, commented the woman next to me, as I was recovering my balance, “nice and easy …”!!! Having danced several of these practice figures, I learned two things. First, don’t look at your feet, or you will eventually fall over them; and, second, bring a bottle of water with you.

So, tell me, alcohol and dancing … how does that work?!

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06/02/2011 by Brigid.

I’ve had Roger Miller’s tune in my head since Friday last.

Since we sold our London house in October, we haven’t been settled anywhere for more than three weeks … and mightly tiring all this travelling is getting. I haven’t exactly helped matters by buying a second motorcycle: a 2002 BMW R1150GS, the “Yellow Peril”.  However, it gave John the excuse he needed to buy a big multi-purpose trailer … I need to have the new bike inspected by the DRIRE (déjà vu?) before it can be registered in France, and we need to get the car and all three bikes over to Ireland in May, prior to our wee Russian trip. Besides which, a trailer will probably be handy if I ever make good on my threat to buy a Harley!

We left France on 20^th January. John was determined that we didn’t need to use the roof box. The argument was logical. We were picking up a trailer in Birmingham, en route to Ireland, so would have so much more space next time. But, by the time I had loaded up various kitchen items, a suitcase full of linen, the cats, and a larger than average quantity of cheap booze from Spain, we had run out of room for clothes … So we departed with roof box: the car low on springs and heavy on fuel.

After a week in the UK, it was time to leave for Ireland. The original plan was for JR to pick up the cats from Leafy Oak and for him to drive, and for me to ride the Yellow Peril, up to Waltham St. Lawrence for a meeting to discuss our Moscow ride … then drive/ride from there to Birmingham to pick up the trailer. Sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances, we ended up attending the funeral of one of John’s ex-colleagues* instead. I donned a reasonably smart knee-length black woollen coat, and hoped that no one would notice my m/c leathers underneath.

Anyway, we left Hanwell about 2pm …

Phoenix Trailers closes early on Fridays, so the owner had kindly suggested that we pick the trailer up from his home in Bridgnorth. We arrived at about 5pm, just as it was getting dark … The temperature on the way up had varied between -1C and +2C. I was bloody freezing!

Before we could hitch up the trailer, John had to fit the removeable towbar. So I parked on the pavement with the bike’s newly-fitted French headlight trained on his rear bumper. The towbar is conveniently stowed in the spare wheel, which is neatly located under the carpet in the boot … which was full. So we had to unload it.

The trailer salesman looked on bemused as John fitted the phallic-looking towbar in place and tried to lock it. He pushed and pulled. He jogged it up and down. He took it out and gave it another go. No dice. “Trailerman John” went back inside and fetched a hammer. John gave the tow bar a smart tap and the head of the hammer fell off. He examined the locking mechanism, and tried again but it became perfectly clear to the assembled audience, that for all the wriggling, jiggling and lubrication it was definitely “not tonight Josephine” for the trailer.

John’s mood was not helped by my suggestion that we would not, in fact, be able to fit more than one motorbike on the 9’ x 4’ trailer anyway. “It’s up to you”, he said, “but do you really want to be riding all the way to Co. Clare in this weather?” He was right. I didn’t. At this point, Trailerman reappears with a tape measure. “Are you able to remove your screen and wing mirrors?” he said, “That bike is too tall for the trailer as it is”. It was obvious. The multi-purpose trailer comes with rails to support a tarpauline cover, and the 1150 enduro was much too tall to pass under them. This particular problem was soon remedied by removing the rails. However, with John no closer to fitting the towbar, we agreed that the problem would probably be easier to solve in daylight, and we might as well to find a hotel for the night. Luckily for me, there was a pet-friendly Travelodge in Wolverhampton: twelve cold, dark, miles away. We rebooked our 8.20am ferry and reloaded the boot.

In the morning, we were delighted to find a Skoda dealer … back in Bridgnorth. The area is popular with bikers and it was easy to see why. It was quite sunny, and the twisty and undulating roads through the frosty countryside actually made for quite a pleasant ride. Gratifyingly, the problem with the towbar wasn’t just us being cackhanded. The guys had to put the car up on the hoist to clean rust out of the receiving mechanism.

Over a curry and a beer the previous evening, John and I had agreed that the multi-purpose trailer was a waste of money if we were unable to use it for more than one bike. But Trailerman John was a decent fellow and offered to swap it for a big 3-bike trailer and refund the difference. “You have straps, don’t you?” he asked.

The bike trailers were not stored at his factory, but at a remote farm about fifteen minutes away. Trailerman led the way, followed by John in the car and me on the bike. It was Saturday morning, and he wasn’t meant to be at work. Once he was sure we were satisfied with the three bike trailer, he made his excuses and left us to hitch it up and load the bike … something we have never had to do alone before. But there’s a first time for everything.

We lined the bike up with the steel ramp and John managed to operate the throttle and clutch efficiently, while keeping the wheels straight. The process was actually far simpler than we had feared it might be. The front wheel lodged neatly in the metal hoop at the front of the trailer and John was able to easily hold the bike upright until I strapped it down.

Unfortunately, the straps were in a side pocket of the boot, so he had to wait while I unloaded it again …

We had two sorts of straps: two inch-wide red ones and two longer two-inch wide black ones. Unfortunately, the red ones were too short and the black ones, aside from being ridiculously long, had no ratchet system. In other words, both were completely useless.

So there we were, on a farm in the middle of nowhere, now running late for the 1.50pm ferry, with a bike on a trailer that we couldn’t secure. The best we could do was to unhitch the trailer and lock the bike up while we went to find some suitable straps. Getting the bike off the trailer was a piece of cake – except that the trailer was no longer attached to the car, so it tipped violently as the weight of the bike took over. No damage was done other than to John’s underpants.

Now all we had to do was repack the boot …

I got in the car and we drove to Phoenix Trailers’ factory in Deuxhill where we knew that Trailerman John had had an appointment. When we got there it was locked up and deserted but, before we had time to use the phone, yer man had pulled up behind us. “I saw you drive through Bridgnorth without the trailer, so I knew you must have had some sort of problem”, he said. He opened up his store and sold us 8 beautiful two-piece straps with hooks on the ends: purpose-made for bikes, four for my bike and four for John’s. Then he was gone again.

I looked at John. “Did you take a note of where that farm was?” I said. John looked momentarily aghast. In all the panic, neither of us had a clue even what the name of the village was. We could, conceivably, get completely lost trying to find our way back to the bike and trailer.

In fact, it is a testament to the beauty of the area, that we were able, quite easily, to retrace our steps using various noteworthy buildings and views as waypoints. And, once reunited with the bike and trailer, we quickly loaded up and got underway. The next ferry was at 9.30pm.

We eventually arrived home in Co. Clare at 5.30am last Sunday.

*RIP Garath Davies. Remembered for his quick wit and one-liners, I’m sure he would have found something apt to say about our trailer saga.

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08/11/2010 by Brigid.

I’m writing again. This is a good thing - for me if not for you! After months of worry over the sale of our house in London, I rather lost the motivation. It wasn’t that blog-worthy stories didn’t occur, it was simply that any flashes of inspiration seemed to vanish as quickly as they had appeared. Anyway, a lot of what I wanted to write was just so damn depressing that no one would have wanted to read it. But that’s all in the past. Now we’re in Ireland.

Ireland? To bring you up to speed, one of the incentives for selling up in London (quite apart from not having the tedium of repairing damage caused by our charming, but careless, young tenants), was to use some of the equity to rebuild John’s family home in the West of Ireland. This has been a dream of ours since he and Mike bought back the ruined farmhouse from the forestry company in 1998. Why the farm was sold in the first place or how the house came to be destroyed by fire, makes for an interesting story in itself, but it would be too long in the telling. Suffice to say that John’s father passed away happy in the knowledge that his childhood home would be rebuilt and that the “new” flagstones, laid by John’s grandfather during the 60’s, might once again ring with the sound of music and laughter.

People around here remember the flagstones. They were the best in the neighbourhood and perfect for dancing.

The ruin is a sad sight now. One gable end was deliberately pushed in shortly after the fire and, as the years passed, wind and weather have gradually taken their toll on the weakened structure. Brambles and rushes have now overwhelmed what remains of the internal walls and chimney breast.

Rebuilding was never a realistic option. The farmhouse had a traditional layout consisting of a large central living room in which all cooking and entertaining took place, a large bedroom at one end, and two smaller ones at the other (one of which was also used to store salt pork, and sides of bacon hung from the ceiling). John remembers Aunt Gret cooking in a cauldron or on a bakestone over an open fire. There was no bathroom. Water for was brought up from a well each day and the surrounding fields served as a latrine. Even so, the family home is remembered for its craic.

The original house was, as our architect put it, a tad on the tidy side. Too small for modern-day living. In any event, planning regulations did not allow us to use the old footprint, as it was too close to the boundary. So we designed ourselves a spacious new three bedroom bungalow. The old cow cabin and cart shed together provided enough stone to level the site and, weather permitting, the foundations should go in this week. And, yes, we do hope to salvage those flagstones for our new living room.

In the meantime, John and I have a house-worth of furniture on our hands. Contemplating the cost of a year or so’s storage in the UK, coupled with a few weeks’ tourist accommodation, we decided it made economic sense to rent a house locally for the duration of the build. And here we are.

Having lived like a nomad out of suitcases for the last few weeks, I found myself having a Maureen O’Hara moment.  No sooner had John turned the key in the front door, than I was complaining that I wanted “me tings about me”*. In particular, having set off the smoke alarm twice cooking breakfast on Saturday, I needed my own pots and pans. A functioning washing machine would be a bonus too, along with an address …

Yes, it’s true. We have no idea of our address or, indeed, whether this house actually has one. Quite possibly, it doesn’t. Our building site is known locally as “Johnny Paddy’s”. Before the old house came to John, it belonged to his uncle, Johnny. So why “Johnny Paddy”? Rural Ireland was, until recently, populated by enormous families (John’s father had 16 siblings, 13 of whom survived into adulthood). Over the centuries, cousins have necessarily married cousins, albeit distant ones, and local surnames proliferated, with many instances of the same surname appearing in both sides of a family tree. John, of course, is a popular boys’ name. Since roads and houses didn’t have names, in order that the postman could differentiate between men of the same name that lived locally, it was customary to add the father’s name, in this case Pat or Paddy, John’s grandfather. Hence, “Johnny Paddy’s”. Perfectly logical. Even today, it isn’t necessary for a house to have a name. A friend of ours routinely found his mail on the front seat of his (unlocked) Volvo.

* Craic is an Irish term variously translated as fun, entertainment or gossip, depending on the context.
* From the 1952 film, “The Quiet Man”, where the plot revolves around the refusal of O’Hara’s “brother” to hand over a dowry of furniture and money, having discovered that he has been duped into allowing her to marry John Wayne.

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01/06/2010 by Brigid.

May 31^st, for those of us who lack the confidence to complete their Déclaration d’Impôt on-line, is D-day for French tax returns. Since our (French-registered) car and bike insurance are also due for renewal around now, a trip home was in order. Mum is, to all intents and purposes, fully mobile again so, having not spent a single night alone for nearly a year, this would be a fine chance for her to prove her independence. The lovely girls from the home care agency visit every morning and Mum’s beloved daily agreed to come out of retirement to do a few hours of housework while we were away, so she wouldn’t be entirely abandoned.

The only real issue was how Mum was going to feed herself during our absence. Despite her protests to the contrary, a week’s diet of soup, sandwiches and ginger biscuits, is hardly ideal for one who is meant to be gaining weight. Pre-prepared meals might be an answer but there was always the question of reheating them … or not, as the case may be. Since her illness, Mum gets ravinously hungry and needs to eat … now! As in immediately - not in 20 minutes’ time, when the oven has reached temperature. Left to her own devices, she would happily spread fish pie on bread and eat it as a sandwich rather than heat it up. Even so, having once or twice nearly melted a plastic freezer container in the oven, John and I decided she needed a microwave.

We found a neat little combination microwave with, needless to say, a dozen functions that Mum will never use, and I cleared a convenient corner of the kitchen worksurface of the ‘coral reef’: an accumulation of lovingly-collected tins and boxes, old menus, a dozen bottles of vitamin pills, “useful” plastic bags, kitchen scales (2 sets, with weights), paper napkins and a couple of hot water bottles … Of course, I couldn’t throw any of this away but, by the time I had found most of it a new home, I must say that the new microwave looked very handsome in its new oasis of quiet organisation.

And Mum seemed approving. She even put on her reading specs to examine the new apparatus. I gave her a brief demonstration with a cup of water, and stuck three flourescent yellow stickers next to the most essential buttons, marking them steps #1, #2 and #3. Nothing could be simpler.

Or so I thought. In fact, when I dared to suggest, an hour later, that Mum might like to heat up her dinner in the new oven, her face was a picture. The look of horror was such that I might as well have suggested grilling a live rattlesnake with a flame-thrower. No! Really!”, she said with genuine panic in her voice, “I’ll make an omelette”.

How guilty did I feel when John and I came home from our evening out, to find that she hadn’t located the eggs …?!

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25/04/2010 by Brigid.

Teenagers have a way with words. When my cousin, Ella, was about 15, her father, a single parent of three, sent her to stay with Mum so that he could take a bit of a break. The Isle of Wight has been a popular summer resort since the Victorian times and generations of children have enjoyed summers synonymous with grazed knees, banana sandwiches, shrimping nets, sandy underpants, skinny-dipping, first dances, first kisses, first … Ah, halcyon days!

However , as foreign travel became affordable to the masses, the mild climate and holiday atmosphere spawned a rash of old people’s homes. While the families still descend from London in August, the Island has attracted the nickname of “God’s Waiting Room” for the rest of the year. And, unfortunately, a seaside town out of season is never going to cut it with a bored teen.

Not all the old folk here are anonymous inmates of residential care homes. In common with many of her contemporaries, Mum herself chose to ‘retire’ to the Isle of Wight after my father died. Our family have strong links with the Island. I was spending my summer holidays here, racing keelboats from the local sailing club and, to Mum, it seemed the most natural thing to do. However, when she announced her plans, my grandmother told her, “You’ll live till you’re 100 and go mad. Everyone does.”

Sitting down to lunch in the Club dining room, Ella surveyed Mum’s lame, deaf and toothless friends. “Ugh, me-no-paus-al …”, she huffed, “do we really HAVE to eat in Jurassic Park!”

That was twenty years ago. But the name seemed so apt, it stuck. We had lunch there today. Not much has changed. Only now, sadly, it is Mum and her contemporaries who are the fossils.

Founded in 1886, the sailing club is the oldest on the Island. It boasts three competitive classes for adult sailors and a growing reputation as a centre of excellence for sail training for youngsters from age 8 and up. Progress indeed, since I was a child, when under-18’s were not allowed to cross the gravel in front of the clubhouse (a pre-fab wooden cricket pavilion, constructed by Boulter and Paul of Norwich circa 1896), let alone set foot in the dining room! Until the 70’s, we were confined to the Dinghy Club (started in 1925 by David Niven and a friend), and just barely tolerated on the basis that we were neither seen nor heard by the senior members. Any accidental trespass into the adults’ territory was invariably met with a severe rebuke from any one of a dozen purple-faced moustaches lining the bar room balcony. But that was then.

Nowadays, throughout the winter (except when the footie is on Sky at the Village Inn), the Club is the focus of our social circle. Summer too, though the landscape changes a bit after Easter with the arrival of the London set, keen to secure places for their children on Cadet Week. These people are generally my contemporaries, though I am always slightly shocked to see how we have all aged. Terrifyingly, their children are now of an age to be organising Dinghy Club events themselves.

As the weather warms up, the older year-round residents take refuge in their gardens, reliquishing their Scrabble and bridge evenings in favour of more nautically-inspired events for the under-60’s, “the young”! Even so, there are moments when one could be forgiven for mistaking the Club dining room for some sort of posh retirement home.

“Do you want pudding, Mr Hamilton?”, asks a young waitress.
What is it?”, comes the reply.
“Rhubarb Crumble or Chocolate Torte”.
“Chocolate sauce, eh? Yes, I’ll think I’ll have vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.”
“Err, we can do vanilla ice cream, but we don’t have chocolate sauce, I’m afraid.”
“No chocolate sauce? Then why did you offer it? I’ll just have vanilla ice cream, thank you.” Then, in a stage whisper, “Really, I don’t know where they find these waitresses … ”
I don’t know either, but I swear they are some of the most patient teenagers you will find anywhere. Our waitress moves on.
“Pudding, Mrs Pilchard?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Would you like desert, Mrs Pilchard?”
“Oooh yes! What is it?”
“Rhubard Crumble or Chocolate Torte”.
“With custard? I do like home-made custard, don’t you? What did you say the choices were …?”

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24/03/2010 by Brigid.

The observatory on the summit of the Pic du Midi, 60k to the west of Montréjeau, is clearly silhouetted against a clear blue sky. It’s going to be a great day for skiing. Sunshine, snow, faux filet and frites for lunch, a pichet of vin rouge and may be a chocolat chaud or two (adding a shot of quelque choses from a hip flask when the waiter isn’t looking) …

I’m dreaming. Something heavy lands on my ankles and I open my eyes to find a 6kg tabby pressing his nose into my face, demanding breakfast. It’s 6.45am. The sun is streaming through a chink in the curtains, but we’re not in the Pyrenees. The cat is now stomping about on John’s legs. His brother is wailing by the bedroom door. John shows no sign of wanting to greet the day. He turns over and the cat lands on the floor with an unceremonious thud. Resistance is futile. I drag on my dressing gown and go and find them some food before they wake my mother.

My cousin and my great-aunt are coming to lunch today and I need to get up anyway. It’s John’s birthday and lunch is as close as he will get to a birthday party. If I had asked him in advance who he would most have liked to invite, I doubt he would have thought of Leslie. It doesn’t matter. Leslie and Roz have, of course, come to see Mum, not John, but they have the great advantages of being good company and enjoying their food.

Leslie is my mother’s accountant. He is also a member of the British Long Distance Swimming Association and the (rather eccentric) Serpentine Swimming Club in Hyde Park. Readers in the UK may have seen Leslie in a recent advertising campaign by The Times: a swimmer in Speedo trunks and a black swimming cap, diving into the Serpentine on a cold winter’s day. You can’t see Leslie’s face in the photo, but knowing his reputation as a trencherman, there was no mistaking the slightly rotund midriff. John and Leslie get on well. Indeed, they had, very nearly, been business partners.

When John retired from the Met Police in 2001, he had the idea of setting up an IT consultancy. It didn’t seem such a bad idea. We both had backgrounds in computing. Hell, we met on a computer course, after all! John spent the last few years of his service rolling out a London-wide crime reporting system and was pretty handy when it came to pulling computers apart. I built databases. My first lesson in hands-on computer maintenance came in 1994, when John took the lid off our brand new desktop and stuck the end of the vacuum cleaner in it. We nearly had a “domestic”! But two days later, when our receptionist’s computer packed up, I won a lot of Brownie points by whipping off the lid and swapping her hard drive with another from a similar machine. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. By 2001, I was working as a Network Administrator for a medical communications company.

Anyway, all this is by the by. Where was I? Ah yes, our brief foray into IT consultancy …

Our first potential client was referred to us by a friend. Mr Prakash was a plastic surgeon. He was interested in installing a network in his office and, specifically, needed a database to store digital photographs. We needed someone with an expert knowledge of computer networks. And that’s where Leslie fits in.

John and Leslie duly agreed to meet Mr Prakash at his very swish Harley Street consulting rooms. The door was answered by an extremely shapely pair of bristols, the owner of which promptly announced that she was one of Mr Prakash’s most grateful patients. In case you hadn’t guessed, Mr Prakash specialised in breast enhancement.

Having admired the secretary’s assets, our dynamic duo went on to view the offices and discuss the relative merits of Novell and Windows NT. Mr Prakash then came to the subject of the storage of his photos and choice of a digital camera, and pulled out a large album of “before and after” photos of his work. Reading between the lines, things went steadily downhill from there …

Sadly, “Rynne Associates” never did get that contract and, as it happened, we were both offered other jobs shortly after. Nevertheless, as far as John and Leslie were concerned, the abortive venture served to cement a lasting friendship.

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12/03/2010 by Brigid.

I am feeling a bit sorry for myself today. I have shingles … again. It is unattractive and uncomfortable and I have been given a five-a-day course of anti-viral horse pills that may, or may not, stop it spreading and have already upset my stomach. Shingles and an upset stomach. Outstanding.

On the other hand, having a potentially contagious disease does give me an excuse to avoid hugging people. Specifically, it presents me with a water-tight cop out this weekend when my sister comes to stay. One of the many criticisms Sarah has levelled at me over the years is that I don’t show enough affection, ergo I don’t hug her. She is probably right. As a family, I don’t think we were great huggers, and I particularly detest being hugged by bossomy old ladies with more facial hair than Bill Oddie, or trying to ‘hug’ the boney thorax of my skeletal sister without actually breaking anything. When greeting friends or relatives of either sex, the social air kiss is just soooo much less embarrassing. Mwah darhling! And now, of course, having spent so much time in France, John and I habitually greet friends with a kiss on alternate cheeks, which takes some of our non-Francophile friends by surprise and can be hazardous. Right side first. Ooops!

Likewise, I was initially taken aback by the American man-hug. But there is something simultaneously comradely and affectionate about this very masculine embrace - often combined with a slap on the back between two men or a kiss on the cheek between a man and a woman. This is no perfunctory greeting reserved for the tribal elders, but a genuine recognition of brotherhood. Even between men and women, while the the potential to take advantage of physical proximity undoubtedly exists, the power and duration of the hug is generally directly proportional to the closeness of the friendship. Anyway, so natural is the gesture, that any exageration tends to be more flattering than offensive. Away from home, such a hug bestows a reassuring sense of belonging, of being part of the club and, as such, I am a fan.

Anyway, back to the present and my current role as my mother’s housekeeper. We’ve just seen my aunt off on the 10.55am Yarmouth ferry. Now I need to remake the guest bed for my slightly potty sister, who arrives tomorrow. The utility room already looks like a Chinese laundry, so I am faced with the dilemma of whether or not I really need to change the sheets. Auntie says not. She only stayed one night and it is, in her opinion, perfectly acceptable to ask Sarah to sleep on the unused side of the double bed. On the other hand, my sister drives us all round the bend and doesn’t always get the warmest of welcomes from our mother, so I am inclined to make a special effort for her. It worked last time. Peace and harmony are the names of the game where the two of them are concerned. This time, however, the dice are loaded against me. It is Mother’s Day on Sunday and Sarah has baked a cake …

In fact, Sarah has very probably baked several cakes. She is nothing if not a perfectionist. Mum’s lemon sponge birthday cake took several attempts. For weeks beforehand, Sarah’s friends, relatives and workmates were presented with beta versions. Dozens of cookery books were consulted. Recipes were chosen and modified. Advice was sought from friends. The butter was creamed, the eggs were beaten and the batter was baked. But, time and time again, the finished cake was found to be too rich, too sweet, too heavy, too sharp, too, too …

In the event, Sarah’s cake was a triumph: a mini masterpiece covered with a delicate white glacé icing, decorated with little gold sugar stars and a white rose from her own garden. It tasted delicious and we told her so, but the hospital had stolen her thunder. There was another cake! Or, to be more precise, as my sister arrived habitually late and well after teatime, there HAD BEEN another cake. A rather large one, actually. But all that was left now were some chocolate crumbs and a bit of squishy icing. Nevertheless, with all the hype surrounding the making of Sarah’s lemon sponge, we could hardly leave it, could we? Well, yes we could. With the best will in the world, there is only so much birthday cake one can be expected to consume in the space of two hours. There was a bit left over and Mum made the fatal error of suggesting that it be offered to the nurses. Cue frilly lips and tears before bedtime. Feel the love …

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21/02/2010 by Brigid.

As you can imagine, a lot has happened in the two months since my last post. We got Mum home, safe and sound, in time for Christmas. Though it wasn’t, perhaps, quite the merry feast that we had all hoped for. Festive food, especially those dishes whose main ingredients consisted of dried fruit and nuts, proved quite a challenge to Mum’s digestive system. There were regular bouts of painful indigestion and sickness, culminating in a blockage that required yet another surgical intervention. The good news is that the operation went well and, despite the loss of yet more weight and muscle-strength, we all believe that Mum is now well on the road to recovery. So, with our London house now finished and on the market, and Mum convalescing in The Elms, John and I put the cats in a cattery and took a bit of a break.

It was all a bit “last minute” and we are being a little secretive about our current whereabouts. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out, but John’s mother is under the impression that we are still on the Isle of Wight, and we would rather keep it that way.

Knowing what a hard winter it has been so far here, it was reasonable to assume that an uninsulated summer cottage would be a touch chilly in mid-February. Thus, having failed to identify any charity sending blankets to Haiti, we borrowed two or three from Mum’s vast, moth-ball scented collection, dragged the all-seasons duvet and pillows off our own bed, and packed our thermal undies along with a dozen bottles of wine and three quarts of comforting home-canned stew.

We were right about the cottage. Despite the turf fire and central heating, we can still see our breath indoors. A hard frost covers the road outside and dark clouds race in off the Atlantic, bringing with them hail, sleet and snow.  But things could be worse. As quickly as the clouds arrive, they are gone again. Far off, the Cliffs of Moher and O’Brien’s Tower emerge silhouetted against a narrow band of blue sky and shafts of sunlight paint the neighbouring fields bronze, copper and gold. And, if all goes to plan, this view (or one very similar) will shortly be ours to keep.

The welcome has been characteristically warm and we have already been fed to within an inch of our lives or, at the very least, to the last hole on our longest belts. Then there is the Guinness. No trip would be complete without a good drink with John’s cousins. So, on Friday evening we ate in and agreed to meet up in Inagh for a jar or two around 9.30pm.

Whether due to the recession or to the smoking ban, O’Rinn’s seemed unusually quiet. We had a couple of pints there, then adjourned across the road to Dillons, where a poker game was drawing a bit of a crowd. As, one by one, the players threw in their hands, the dimly-lit bar emptied, leaving a few die-hard drinkers and our small party. I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Ollie, how are ye?”, said Marie. The owner of the hand was a thin elderly man with long white hair and a complete absence of molars. He poked a boney finger at John, “What’s wrong with your hair, Tulip? Are ye a policeman or someting?”. Then, to Theresa, “This’ll be your husband?” Theresa indicated that John was actually my husband, to which Ollie reacted with apparent disappointment, “Eh, so ye’re married to Tulip?” He backed off a little and began to sing a Republican tribute to the Falls Road Volunteers. Mercifully, the entertainment was swiftly brought to a conclusion when the landlord hit the light-switch and plunged the bar into darkness. It was time to leave.

I don’t remember anything else about the evening. It was, in fact, about 3.30am when John and I got indoors and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I have no idea if John had achieved the gallon, but was only glad that I had been drinking halves to his pints. It was still dark when John woke me, clambering about on my side of the bed. If my luck was in, my sense of humour was definitely out. “What the f*ck are you doing?”, were the most romantic words I could muster. “I need to pee and I can’t find my way out. Where’s the f*cking door gone?” came the reply from my disoriented and increasingly panic-stricken husband. I quickly turned the light on before there was an accident.

Suffice to say, I was more than slightly relieved when Jim rang on Saturday morning and put us off until tonight.

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