May 24^th, 2012

Day 4: Ahiohill, Clonakilty & Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland

Woke up to a beautiful morning here in County Cork! Finally the weather forecasters were right! After breakfast, Zoe and I headed out to the back to start raking the yard that John had cut yesterday- a stumbled upon a ton of red ant houses!

Not fun to walk through the yard and realize your shoe is covered in ants. Luckily, when we started doing the dirtier work we were wearing wellies- ants hate rubber! Anyway, after the yard was raked we reorganized all of the benches/tables and plants/flowers. I also planted a bunch more flowers into pots to continue the decorating in the back!

After that, I met up with Zoe in the side yard to work with the pea plants. They have bamboo sticks made into a sort of tent shape (picture Eeyore’s little tent house made of sticks) with netting wrapped around them. We worked with each plant to tie it to the bamboo stick nearest with embroidery string so that the vines can begin to wrap around the sticks and grow upwards. We even got some pea pods from the plants today and they were delicious- so so sweet! Afterwards, we spent some time turning the potato plants and loosening some of the soil, weeding the several vegetable patches around the grounds and cleaning up inside a bit more.

We finished early afternoon, when I settled myself into the ‘marshmallow’ couch in the sun porch and read for an hour or so. For dinner, Tina made “lenteja” which I’m pretty sure just means lentil in Spanish. Either way, it was delicious! Lentils with garlic, carrots, chorizo and assorted spices. Potatoes on the side, naturally! Zoe, Tina and I then drove into Cork to go to a poetry book release party. Some of Tina’s friends have just had their first collections of works published- it was a nice reception; free wine all around and some selected readings from their new books.  My favorite from the first poet, Afric McGlinchey, was a poem about being a single mother raising her son. It spoke of her the boy’s father who, at his age, had gone to fight and from what I understand, didn’t come home. The overall message was about not getting mad about the small things and appreciating life as the boy lives it… even if it means bringing home 4 friends every night, eating everything in sight and being a typical moody teenager. The second poet, Paul Casey, read one of his selections in Irish and I was hypnotized by the sound of it- a combination of artistic reading and a beautiful language. Couldn’t get much better. I really enjoyed myself, even though I’ve never gone to anything like it! Here’s a few photos from the venue- it was set in a Christchurch in Cork which has recently undergone a huge restoration project!

When we got home, we watched some Eurovision coverage on TV and now I’m just sitting and listening to John and Rob jam in the living room. Making up new songs, singing old ones; I even find myself singing along if I recognize the tune! Great way to wrap up the night J


Favorite part of the day: Driving to Cork City while it was still light out- the last time it seemed like an entirely different route because it was so dark/cloudy! The countryside is truly gorgeous :)