You shall have a fishie....

Part fourteen.1

So, apart from wandering aimlessly round the countryside in questionable weather, falling into bogs and getting stupidly close to dangerous precipices (in a high wind!) I did manage to achieve a few things.

The spuds did pretty well really, not least because I got somewhat carried away at the planting stage and grew enough for a substantial family with greedy children.  This meant that potatoes formed 95% of my carbohydrate intake (and about 60% of my overall food intake) for my stay. I still have four or five large sacks in storage, although I may develop a rat problem in consequence. I have received endless advice on how and where to store them. Most of it conflicting. The beans struggled a bit, the broad beans produced a reasonable harvest, despite an overwhelming attack of Ramping Fumitory (this is a real name of a quite pretty plant). The French beans on the other hand had an attack of the vapours and were swallowed by the couch grass. The onions didn’t do too badly where I had managed to keep them clear of weeds but the garlic was a bit stunted and unimpressive. The raspberries recovered from their earlier sulk and went for it, unfortunately I had to leave before they got there, likewise with the tomatoes. The rabbits seem to have gone off my nasturtiums which might be down to the efforts of the foxes and stoat(s).

my veggie garden

yummy raspberries (the caterpillars think so too!)

new peas

and the tomatoes are nearly there....

This cornucopia of produce encouraged me to think about other ways in which I might feed myself. Quite by chance I picked up a book from one of those charity shelves you sometimes see in pubs. The book itself was absolutely dreadful. The sort of crime novel that makes ‘Murder She Wrote’ look like an intellectual tour de force. It did however (and rather bizarrely) contain a number of recipes which looked a lot more interesting than what passed for the plot. One of these was for smoked chicken. It just so happened that there was a cast iron casserole dish for sale in the local charity shop… €1! The rest was history. I experimented with incinerating a variety of sticks and herbs and so forth by sticking a barbecue grill inside the pot, bunging the lid on  and shoving the whole lot in the woodburner. The experiment was satisfyingly successful. Brigitte gave me a couple of fresh mackerel, which also turned out delicious. This prompted the purchase of a fishing rod. The only flaw in the plan being that I hadn’t a clue how to use the damn thing. I somewhat sheepishly crept down to the beach one morning, rod in one hand and bucket of sharp things in the other, heading for a spot where I had seen others fishing. Of course I had no idea what state of tide was most propitious for catching mackerel. Not that it mattered anyway. I spent the first half hour entangling myself in miles of line, and then attempting to disentangle myself (and everything else) from said line. Having done that I then tried to figure out what the reel was supposed to do and how to make it happen. This resulted in further knots and a lot more swearing. In the end I gave up, having caught a fair bit of seaweed and my finger, but nothing I fancied smoking for my tea. A couple of further attempts resulted in much the same outcome and eventually I lost my lures. 

Still no bloody fish!

At this point my mate’s husband came to the rescue and we all went fishing together (although my mate stayed on the nice flat pier with her dog while us idiots went scrambling over the rocks). She spent the next ten minutes doubled over laughing, watching me being earnestly instructed in the finer points of rod handling (stop sniggering!). I got the hang of casting, narrowly missing catching my dog in the process, but failed to reel anything in. My dog was looking nervous amidst all the flying hooks and whirring reels and started to slope off. Being nice, I took her back across the rocks to my mate and her dog, at which point the man caught a bloody fish! With MY bloody rod!! I gave up and went snorkelling. 

At least I might SEE a fish this way?

I did get the fish though, and it was delicious (a Pollock).

In an attempt to use up all those carbs I had been consuming I used my bike to go to the village and to do a bit of exploring. I was loath to leave the dog behind, especially when the weather was so lovely. I did try to find a bike basket for her to travel in, but failed. My alternative plan was to stuff her in a backpack. On the first go she vanished completely inside it, so I stuffed a cushion into the bottom to support her. Luckily she’s a very even tempered little animal, neither of us was unduly traumatised. She looked a bit apprehensive to start with, but rapidly settled into enjoying the view and the smells. In fact she much prefers it to being in the horrible noisy smelly landrover and her little head poked over my shoulder as we freewheeled down the hills (I was too sweaty and breathless to notice what she was doing on the way up). The only downside was that we nearly caused several accidents as people in cars turned to stare (and drifted towards the ditch…) 

 Being on a bike also gave me a wonderful opportunity to observe some of the local wildlife. One prize specimen is the parish lurker. A gentleman who would give Quasimodo a run for his money in the ‘hideously ugly’ stakes. I suspect Quasimodo probably smelled better though. The lurker is a true professional who has found his calling, he flags down cars on the pretext that there’s a problem with them, jumps in and demands to be driven to the pub of his choice. Once he is in the car, the only way to extract him is to deposit him at his desired destination. He is also a stealer of cigarettes and part time peeping tom (his is not a face you would wish to encounter on a dark night!).

Then there was the lady, or possibly gentleman whom I spotted getting off the bus and was later encountered holding forth in the pub. This is not Sydney or San Francisco, so I suspect that it was probably an ill favoured lady, in what were approximately ladies clothes who had cornered an unfortunate tourist, although I might be mistaken.

There is another very pleasant, quiet gentleman, who lives in a neat bungalow with an immaculately tidy garden. By local standards he is dapper and well presented (although I’m not too sure about the provenance of his hair). He always has a smile for me. That’s the scary bit. His teeth are quite extroverted, in fact I’d go so far as to say that they live a full and independent life of their own.

There is almost no end to the local colour (in much the same way that the pavement outside a kebab shop on a Friday night is colourful). I spent a couple of days up a ladder painting the windows of my mate’s house in the village. This gave me an unrivalled observation post. The second day in particular was a tumbleweed day… Nothing happened, and continued to happen as the wind picked up in fretful gusts. A few cars passed through without stopping and there was an odd cinematic quality about everything, as if the mind numbing dullness was leading up to some momentous event. A bloke (who had previously tried to give me his teddy bear…don’t ask) came out of the pub and conducted an argument on speakerphone while sat on the opposite kerb. I now know more than I ever wanted to about his personal life (I wasn’t so high as to be invisible either!). The occasional tourist stopped in the middle of the crossroads and looked bewildered, usually just before driving up a road which would bring them to where they had been five minutes earlier. Some of them repeated this  more than once. I did give some directions, God alone knows where the recipients ended up. It probably didn’t matter as most of them had no idea where they wanted to be.

Some of the local characters rolled through, giving me uncertain waves and wondering if they were supposed to know me. A bloke pulled up in a newish car, got  out and walked briskly to the shop, hands clasped behind his back, brigadier style. On his return he knocked peremptorily on the private door of the occasional pub (there are three full time pubs as well) and after a lengthy pause was admitted. Some time passed before he emerged, to sit in his car looking disgruntled and slightly sinister. I began to wonder if he had committed some foul deed upon the elderly spinster who resides within. She then emerged and asked me if I had seen a pigeon. Apparently it was a specific pigeon which had been rather unwell earlier. Given the number of feral cats in the area there wasn’t much I could say….

Things I have done:

Weeded most of the vegetable garden.

Harvested the spuds and onions (and garlic).

Dug over the spud patch and removed the latest crop of brambles.

Mowed the lawn and a path around the field.

Repainted the worst windowsill (two coats so far)

Decided against hanging the mirror in the bedroom, hung it at the top of the stairs instead, or rather, I will, when I get around to it. I did get the mirror plates though.

Collected trunk (decided against having both, no room in the back of the landrover anyway)

Made some progress with sewing the quilt (I MUST NOT attempt to do anything that involves measuring after I have had a drink!!!! Whoops…)

Got Hammerite and painted butchers block.

This has led to a further ‘to do’ list.

Get a brushcutter!!!

Poison all the weeds,

Get weed suppressing black plastic