Friday, September 23, 2011

Reading The Irish Rain

The world outside my office window is tinted green and gray today. At least the rain has stopped, but it’s small comfort according to the weather report and the fact that we are leaving tomorrow at 6:30 in the morning for Michigan, so we can stand around in the mud and watch our seven year-old grandson play soccer. There’s something very diabolical about kids’ soccer and rain. We so rarely get to attend a game, but every single time we do it’s conducted in Irish weather. You’d think they’d cancel, but they do not, because Michiganders are nothing if not an exceedingly hardy lot. There could be a monsoon with little players blowing in the wind like scraps of paper and they’d still be out there with their lawn chairs and golf umbrellas screaming “Defense! Defense!”. To Eric and me it’s unnecessary torture, but what do we know? When it comes to sports together we’re not a whole person. In fact, I may actually have the edge, as I was a huge fan of the diminutive NBA player Earl Boykins back when he tore up the court at Eastern Michigan in the early ‘90’s.

One good thing about the weather though is it melds perfectly with the book I’m reading at the moment, Eric Newby’s Round Ireland in Low Gear, recommended by my bookseller friend Paul Bauer of Archer’s Books. A million years ago (in the 70’s) when Eric and I were young and unencumbered we spent a raucous month in Ireland visting both of my clans of relatives, the Chambers in County Mayo and the Carrolls in Cork, but mostly banging around the gorgeous coastline by ourselves. We got there in mid-June and returned home in mid-July, so never experienced Ireland when the Furies were unleashed. Newby and his wife were no spring chickens back in the mid-80’s when they braved gale force winds and days of pounding rain pedaling bicylcles over a steep, desolate, and in winter, virtually uninhabited, terrain. Every night proved a challenge to find a B&B open in the winter and every day an equal challenge to scrounge up lunch and dinner. You would think from the menu that the Irish wouldn’t recognize a vegetable if one walked up and introduced itself in Gaelic.

Of course the romantic view of Ireland is that the rain is “soft” and indeed it can be. For the first two weeks we were there we spotted nary a drop, which must be some kind of record. But the last two weeks more than made up for it with endless days of cold sodden grayness broken only by hours of sudden intense light. I ended up with the mother of all sore throats despite frequent breaks to snug pubs where we sat by open peat fires sipping Irish coffee or an endless hot “cuppa.” By the time I was certain I’d die of strep we were in Killarney at a lovely hotel where the proprietor’s son whisked us away at break-neck speed (at that point I was certain it was the TRIP that would kill me) to a place called St. Clare’s (or was it St. Ann’s?) Lying-In Hospital presided over by a tiny nun who was most distraught to see a Yank in such distress at her establishment. Every time I think of the place I picture Ernest Hemingway tucked up in an iron bed on a ward in a Spanish hospital during the revolution.

As it turned out, it was not strep “a’tall” just a “bit of a nuisance” which could be handled easily, according to the doctor, with “orange” and a spot of medicine I was to buy at the chemist. This “spot of medicine” did not require a prescription, but probably would have in the U.S. as it was most effective. As for “the orange”, the hotel provided Eric with a large pitcher free of charge because they felt so sorry for the “the poor garel” (that would be ME). In the throes of such effusive sympathy, however, they neglected to mention it was to be mixed with water. Over the course of a day and a night I drank the whole thing straight which may very well have expedited my recovery.

Thinking of all of this makes me long to get back to the Irish Furies blowing from the cold Atlantic and pounding the west coast of the auld sod as our poor intrepid cyclists forge on. I think today I will spend the morning readying books for the pilgrimage to the mall tonight (nothing small, I promise!) and then repair to the gloom of the family room this afternoon and settle in, with the book and a pot of tea for comfort, oblivious to the call of the internet.

Besides, it's raining again.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the view from your window, and your winsome look back. Our lives are a series of small moments woven together. Thank you for taking me on this journey and am looking for you to safely return from the muddy soccer game.

tess said...

The soccer game was a little muddy, but not nearly as bad as feared. The game was hysterical because our grandson's team won 16-0 primarily because the other team kept forgetting which goal to run to!

Glad you enjoyed my little Irish story.It was a fun post to write.

Anonymous said...

I was a soccer Mom and loved every minute. Especially when Kevin got in high school. The little ones are like bumble bee ball....most in a pack around the field. Miss it.

tess said...

Oh,the little ones are great fun. They stand in a huddle and kick at each other's feet. But it's better than last year when they'd get tired and just drift out of the game.

I was never a soccer mom, but I was a cheerleader mom for awhile. THAT was certainly something.