We’re off to France for a fortnight from today. Hurrah. Posting may be light but a full blow by blow account will be provided on our return – something for you to look forward to.
We are house swapping for the first time. Hope it all works out for everyone. I am exhausted from tidying our house. I hope that the cat doesn’t catch too many small animals for the French family.
Last year, some friends from Brussels came to Dublin and we agreed that we should all meet again this year.
I mentioned that it would be lovely to go to Rye and little faerie hands went and made it happen [pause to regret that I no longer work with the organiser who is spectacular at getting things done]. So on the first Friday in July, I flew to Gatwick leaving my little family to fend for themselves. In what can only be called a spectacular organisational débâcle, that morning I drove the 250kms from Cork to Dublin with the children sitting resignedly in the back. My appetite for driving from Gatwick to Rye at 9.30 that evening was, therefore, even less than it might otherwise have been. However, my trusty phone navigated me safely there. Very cheaply also as the new lower roaming rates had just been introduced. Let us pause for a moment here to think positive thoughts about the European Commission and all who sail in her.
The drive was a bit hair raising. Due to it taking forever to get the rental car, it was 10.30 before I set off and midnight before I arrived. The whole journey was busy, lots of cars even in the rural parts and I was struck anew by how very full England is, particularly, the south east. The accommodation was terrific – my first airbnb experience and I would recommend it on the basis of this place.
It has been years since I have been away with a group of friends and I was delighted with the novelty of not constantly worrying about meals which is a feature of travel with my children and also, nobody said, “I’m bored”. There were five of us who used to work together in Brussels on this weekend and although we are a somewhat disparate group we get on really well and, of course, have the delightful luxury of reminiscing about our time working together and what happened to our least loved colleagues.
Rye itself is delightful. I was reminded how pretty England is and, as my friend J pointed out, this part of the world has had money for at least a thousand years, and it shows. Rye is a hilltop town looking out over marshes to the sea. It’s all steep little winding lanes and half-timbered cottages. Tiny and perfect.
I had wanted to visit since my friend J told me that it was the town on which Tilling in the Mapp and Lucia books is based. If you haven’t read them, I really recommend them. They are set in the 30s and describe two middle aged women vying for social dominance in a small English town. I re-read the books in preparation for my trip and was slightly appalled to discover that I am now older than Miss Mapp who is only 43. Alas.
They were filming a TV series while we were there so I was able to take this picture from the church which was rather appealing, to me at least.
I also climbed the church tower from which Lucia’s garden is visible.
Rye is awash with literature. Lamb House which is the model for Mallards in the novels was where EF Benson lived but Henry James also lived there for many years as did Rumer Godden (unknown to me in advance of my trip but now will try her – suggestions welcome). Radclyffe Hall also put in time in Rye but not at Lamb House I think. Entirely coincidentally, I had taken “The Well of Loneliness” out of the library recently to give it a go but I am not entirely convinced that I can face it, enthusiasm for Rye notwithstanding. Anyhow, here is a picture of Mallards and it is entirely clear on seeing it why Lucia wanted to get her mitts on it.
I had forotten that this part of England was also the setting for one of my favourite Georgette Heyer novels – “The Unknown Ajax”. Since I almost know it by heart from repeated re-reading, I was able to recognise the landmarks referred to in the book and was suitably delighted to see the cage of the murderous butcher referred to in the novel when I visited the little museum. Rye is also, apparently, the inspiration for “Five go to Smuggler’s Top” which I am also about to re-read. Your point?
The local supermarket was called Jempsons and it was, insofar as a supermarket can be, charming. Everything about Rye is charming. J bought a ceramic hen for keeping eggs and my soul was filled with envy but as I had travelled hand luggage only, I was not going to be able to buy a ceramic hen as well as a biscuit barrel [why am I obsessed with biscuit barrels?]. Happily, in Cork this week, I found a ceramic hen [someday I will post a picture of my mother’s enormous range of china] and, with my parents’ blessing, brought it safely to Dublin and it is even now surveying the kitchen with a beady eye from its perch.
We also went to Camber Sands which are very beautiful but very full of people and built up right to the coast in a way that reminded me of Scheveningen in the Netherlands which is also very full of people. This inspired my friend N who is from Northern Ireland to suggest that next year we might visit the Antrim coast which is also full of beautiful beaches but boasts considerably fewer people. So next year will see us going off to Northern Ireland. Isn’t it well for us?
I went to Brussels for work a couple of weeks ago. We left Brussels for good in July 2008 and this was only my third trip back. The first couple of times, shortly after we had left, I didn’t feel anything in particular and I remember remarking to people in Ireland how surprised I was that I didn’t miss Brussels at all.
This time, it was different though. The weather was lovely; much warmer than here. You forget that Brussels is warmer. And so much was the same, the Sablon, the 92 tram, I felt a remembering tug of all the things I used to love. I went to see some old friends in the evening and their children, in the manner of small children on whom you turn your back, had grown from infants to polite, slightly exotic older children who kissed me on both cheeks when they greeted me.
I think I would like to spend a long weekend in Brussels. Nobody is more surprised than I am.
In the airport on the way home I overheard a Belgian mama lamenting to her mother about the difficulty of finding an English speaking exchange for her child. She pointed out that everyone wants to learn English so the English can go where they like and their fancy rarely falls on Brussels. The grandmother asked whether she had considered Ireland although, she added doubtfully, she herself had been to Dublin and the English spoken in Ireland was entirely unintelligible.
I love Belgians too.
With my mother unwell, I have been up and down to Cork a fair bit on the train. It’s not a bad service but I am quite tired of it. I particularly disliked the weekend where I got back to Dublin on Sunday night and realised that I had to go to Belfast the following morning for work. It did give me the opportunity to verify that it was raining on the whole island of Ireland.
How bright am I to be going to Cork this weekend and up to Armagh on Tuesday?
That is all.
I had to leave at 6 in the morning for a work trip recently and searched blearily in the drawer for a travel sized toothpaste. It was only when I was going to bed in my hotel that night that I realised that I had inadvertently packed bubblegum flavoured kiddie toothpaste. Alas.
Wednesday
Having had a very successful dinner at the cousins’ B&B the previous night, we developed a plan to go on a cliff walk to the beach just across the road. The fathers would drive towels and picnics to the beach and the mothers would shepherd the children along the cliff path. I instantly felt that the fathers were getting a far better deal. Somewhat to my astonishment, this turned out not to be the case. The weather was beautiful, the children were cheerful and the walk was pleasant. We spent the day at the beach and the Princess got the chance to walk up the road and renew her acquaintance with the shopkeeper who had given her a lift the previous day.
That night all the children stayed in another cousin’s house and six of the grown-ups were able to go out to dinner together. Let joy be unconfined.
Thursday
We collected the children from their cousin’s house and went for a walk in the damp.
Reaction had set in, they were all tired and cranky. We trudged back to the house. The day was redeemed by an evening trip to the merries in the driving rain. The children had a fantastic time. Almost certainly the highlight of their summer. I felt mildly ill after a ride which should have been called the whiplash and knew myself to be as old as time.
Friday
The children and I spent the morning in Dingle’s really excellent library. We all read books peacefully and I actually heard lots of Irish spoken though one of the librarians was from the North which meant that a fair bit of it was impenetrable to me. On a whim I asked the librarian whether our Dublin library cards might work there. They would not but they would issue temporary cards for our stay. Too late, alas, for this trip but filed away for future knowledge and may some day be useful for you to know also, gentle reader.
We met an old friends of mine from college and her family for lunch. During our college careers I had often visited her in Dingle. This time was, however, the first time I had actually been able to see the mountains on the Dingle peninsula. We reminisced fondly over the endless rain that had been a feature of our youth. Her four children and our three bonded and Daniel continues to speak with a midlands accent (where they now live) as a tribute to this encounter. They also bought us lunch – what’s not to love?
That afternoon, using the local knowledge from lunch we went to the beach where, some 20 years previously, I had swum with the Dingle dolphin. I very rapidly turned tail; dolphins are enormous. Of course, Fungi was not then the celebrity that he is today. I brought the children and the cousins to the same cove but Fungi chose to bond with the dozens of boats driving tourists round the bay. Some of us saw him once in the distance. Not, regrettably, Michael, who was inclined to cry.
That night, Mr. Waffle and I went out to dinner while my saintly parents-in-law babysat. All very satisfactory.
And do you know what? The weather was so fine that we never got to visit the aquarium. Saved for next year.
Saturday
Our lovely landlady came to say goodbye. We had a long chat with her (as Gaeilge, very thrilling). She knew a number of the teachers from the children’s school who also come from that neck of the woods – further thrill. We brought her out to the car to meet the children (they were already strapped in for the journey) and finally they spoke some Irish. Not much and that little not grammatical but, you know, it was something. Our landlady and her husband are both local native speakers who moved to Dublin. They spoke Irish to their children but our landlady said that her mother always said what odd accents the children had. She also said that there was a lot more Irish spoken 20 years ago. A former colleague of mine from this part of the world, who has now retired, told me how when he was 12 he won a scholarship to a school in Killarney (this was before free-second level education). A lot of the local clever boys did. This was a school near the Gaeltacht which promoted and supported the Irish language. Yet, somehow, the boys from the Gaeltacht didn’t feel happy speaking to each other in Irish (although this was strongly encouraged) in front of their peers. He described to me the huge sense of relief the boys from the Gaeltacht felt when they sat on the bus home together at the end of term and could relax and speak Irish again. It’s all a bit depressing, really. However, on a cheerful note, have a link to the cups song and “Wake Me Up” in Irish just in case you are the only person who hasn’t seen them.