Finally, a place to live

In terms of living space, my goal has been simple: a short-term let for my three-month stay. In reality, this has proved to be more elusive than I had hoped. My original place in Trim was great for my entry into Ireland, with a terrific landlord who even met me on the road on my first day here and guided me to the town. The place, though, was too small; I needed a regular apartment with a sitting room, a kitchen and a place to work. The goal was a place in Trim, but Trim is one of Ireland’s more elegant spots, an upscale heritage town on the River Boyne, a sort of Ashland without the Shakespeare, and short lets were difficult to come by. From a flier I phoned a number that turned out to be a butcher on Emmett Street. He showed me two places. The first one, a filthy place above his shop, would have made crack addicts happy. The second, directly across from a very popular pub called Lenihan’s, had three bedrooms, way more than I needed. The butcher’s solution was to lock one of them up so that he could use it for storage, promising not to come in ‘too often’.

            An entrepreneurial woman named Mary with a Hat Hire business was my next stop. She rents holiday cottages on her farmland. These cottages are a widely varied set of buildings dotted across the farm, which was about five miles out of town. The one she had for me was just being vacated by another American who, Mary says, lived there for three years.  This cottage, which Mary called a chalet, turned out to be a trailer that was parked at the edge of a sheep field; it was straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel but with TV reception. I felt bad about not taking it because Mary would have been a good landlady. She grew up a few miles from Trim in Rathcairn, an Irish-language village where even the signage isn’t translated into English. I liked her immediately, but the sheep were a bit daunting.

            Sheep entered into quite a few potential rentals, as it turned out. My favorite was a small place on a sheep farm in the country above Mullingar. The farm was owned by Tom, a rotund and genial man who lives alone in the family house, a two-hundred-year-old stone farmhouse that he has fixed up beautifully. The place is guarded over by a stone gargoyle dating from about the 10^th century that was found on the land. Aside from the marginal concern about living in close proximity to a lonely sheep farmer, the place was charming but the drive, on increasingly narrow roads, was daunting in the daylight and would have been nearly impossible at night. Still, living in a cozy place off the courtyard of the farm with a sheepdog on hand for color was very tempting, but my cousin pointed out the impracticalities and in the end I had to agree with him.

            Now beginning to feel a bit desperate of ever finding a place that was close to Ballinderry House, had light and a good kitchen, was reasonably clean and offered at least the promise of broadband, I began phoning auctioneers, as real estate agents are called here. One name that came up again and again was that of Donal Byrne, based in Edenderry, an undistinguished town about ten minutes from Ballinderry. Edenderry is not Trim. The town itself has many shuttered businesses, is a bit rough, and is far from the images of the picturesque villages in the guide books. It has a sense of the real to it, as if I am living in what contemporary Ireland is like for most people here.

 But it does have a great café with nice food and homemade breads and pastries, decent Indian, Chinese and Italian restaurants and what I hear is a great place for fry-ups, An Cuan Cistin. There is a Tesco, the huge UK supermarket chain, and Dunnes Stores, the only Irish supermarket left in this country. The library has internet access, and there is a place to buy newspapers. The population is diverse, with non-nationals of mainly Eastern European descent, as is true all over Ireland. My neighborhood, Clonmullen Hall, is a small block of apartments and townhouses situated just behind the High Street. You can walk to Tesco through a break in the fence if you don’t mind wading through the trash. The place is full of children; I have already made friends with several of the girls. My upstairs neighbor Liz has given me advice about the services here, and Natalie, who lives in the next block of apartments, invited me into her place to demonstrate her internet connection and tell me how to get started. Her computer screen had Cyrillic characters on it.

The apartment itself has an entryway, a sitting room, a dining area, and two bedrooms. I’m using one for an office but it will be available for Claire when she comes over in June. The kitchen has lots of counter space, and there is a tiny back yard with a garden shed and a dwarf-size electric lawn mower; mostly the yard is great for hanging out laundry.

After a good ten or twelve hours of cleaning and a couple of dinners made in the kitchen it’s beginning to feel like home.

            

All the pretty little horses

Yesterday I came very close to causing an accident with the horses. Alan and Eleanor were more than gracious, but I still feel, 24 hours later, very shaky about the whole thing.

I was lucky enough to get to Ireland just as two of the four Ballinderry mares foaled. They both had colts, which is considered exceptionally lucky. Alan breeds the horses for the National Hunt. Ballinderry has had a long association with jumping races; our cousin Jasper is evidently something of a local legend in the breeder circles. There are four mares now at Ballinderry. In addition to the new moms, there is an old mare who has just been retired as a breeder. And there is Sybill, an eccentric horse who has so far resisted all attempts to break her. Eleanor calls her mad, and she does seem that way at times, frenetically galloping and whinnying in the big front field.

The foals need to be cared for like children. They are led to the small pasture, called a craft, one mare and foal at a time, each morning, and brought in each evening, or earlier if it is raining. There are visits from the vet and the farrier (not for shoes, as these animals who are always on grass or hay and aren’t ridden, don’t need them). Alan and Eleanor must clean off the foals’ bottoms, as Alan says, each evening, and Alan gives each of them injections of yogurt from a large syringe that he sticks in their mouths.

On Friday night the larger colt kicked Alan as he was being given his yogurt injection. This turn of events is some cause for concern, as it could mean that the colt will not be trainable; since the colt is half brother to Sybill, this is concerning. At the very least a certain amount of strength will be required to handle him. So on Saturday when it was time to bring them in, Alan and Eleanor were more watchful than usual. Satco Street, the older mare, came to Alan relatively calmly; sometimes she gallops from them and needs to be cornered in the field. He slipped the bridle on her and led her to the gate, where I waited. My job was to open and then quickly close the gate, since the young mare tries to go through the gate with Satco rather than wait her turn.

For some reason Eleanor did not stay back with the young mare as she had done in the past, which threw me a bit. As I began to swing the gate closed the large colt left its mother and headed back to the field. At the same time the young mare and her colt were crowding through the gate to follow Satco. Not knowing what to do I swung the gate closed to keep the mare in, but the large colt was now trapped on the other side of the fence and his mother went crazy. Eleanor yelled at me to open the gate fast, which I did, while Alan desperately held onto Satco’s bridle. The colt came back through the gate, which I this time successfully closed to keep the young mare inside. But the colt was enjoying his freedom and was not inclined to follow his mother to the stall.  ‘Get behind him!’ Alan yelled, and Eleanor moved around behind the colt. I followed her and tried to hold my arms out as I had seen her do many times to contain the horses. By blocking off the large colt’s escape route they were able to get him back with his mother and soon all four mares were locked in their stalls.

Eleanor phoned her brother Robert, a big man whose passion is tractors, to come and help with the yogurt dosage that evening. When I left he was just arriving. As for the colt, he will be kept with his mother through her next stud, which happens in about two weeks, and for the rest of the summer. He’ll be weaned in the early autumn, and Alan and Eleanor will need to make a decision about what happens to him and to the incorrigible Sybill, who must be on their minds as they watch this newest animal test their mettle.