Liar, Liar, DANCE on Fire

On Saturday night – my last night in County Leitrim – Dan took Aoife and I to “Bridie’s Barn Dance,” hence the title. However, that’s a bit misleading. While it did take place in a barn (or rather, a nice cottage outfitted with bales of hay to appear barn-like), and while there was music, I never saw any dancing. Still, it was a pretty excellent time. As Dan later said, it was like Joe Mooney had condensed itself and come to Bridie’s house. There were three sessions going on most of the evening, two inside and one outside under a tent-gazebo. They also had a very friendly (and…very hard to understand) youngish Irish fellow working a barbeque all night, as well as lots and lots of beer. The makings of a great party, to be sure!

While I was there, I got a chance to have a more in-depth chat with Sam and his lady friend Ferris, who I mentioned a few entries ago. At the Swan, Sam was the Viking-lookin’ guy with the lute and Ferris was the lady with the assortment of wind instruments. Sam is actually from London (or sounds like it, at least), while Ferris is from the area, and they’ve been living in a caravan since January (!!!) as they’ve been constructing a house from scratch. Turns out they play frequently at Medieval reenactments (not much surprise there) and have a band with the two of them and a hurdy-gurdy player. “What is a hurdy-gurdy?” I hear you asking. I was not entirely sure until I looked it up just now! Oddly, I think I would have been able to visually identify one for you, but I couldn’t say what it sounded like or how it worked. It’s almost like a mechanical fiddle, wherein you crank a handle and a turning wheel (covered in rosin such as that used to prepare violin bows) makes the strings sound when they come in contact. In any case, I bought a CD off of Sam, and it’s pretty excellent! …If you like Renaissance-faire-esque stuff, which I totally do.

The next day I woke up to Dan getting a phone call from the hospital – Muireann was much, much improved and could come home that day! She’d had a bout of chicken pox (apparently didn’t really have it the first time) at the same time as the developing skin infection, and the antibiotic treatment knocked the infection out while it improved the pox. This was great news. However, it further reinforced my thankfulness that I’d never had the chicken pox; the poor girl was nearly unrecognizable for the spots and bumps all over her. After lunch, Rebecca gave me a list of things that I needed to do while in Dublin. I reluctantly said my goodbyes to the Hillman family and got on a bus to the final destination of my trip.

…Actually, I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about what my work schedule was like when I was staying in Leitrim. For some reason I just can’t motivate myself to write about it while I’m actually doing it, choosing instead to focus on the fun stuff I did after-hours. What a crazy thing, huh?

So every morning (Monday through Friday, that is) I’d get up around 8. Thankfully, I managed to wake up naturally and pre-empt my alarm clock every day except for, I think, two mornings. I would then go outside and feed the dog, cats, goats (three separate buckets of feed, so they don’t fight as much, plus hay), rabbits (feed, hay, and move the hutch so they have access to fresh grass), and fowl (scatter feed on the ground for them to peck up, then collect all the eggs). Later on, this routine was expanded to include watering all the dry patches in the polytunnel. Anyway, after this I’d come inside, usually to find everyone else awake, and sit down to have some cereal and tea for breakfast. Then I’d figure out what the plan was for the day (there was a small chalkboard upon which was written the to-do list) and get to work until 12 or 1, at which point I’d come in for lunch and tea. Then it was back to work! In fact, usually I’d be the one finishing my tea quickly and saying “well, better get back to work”. On the whole, I got the impression that Dan and Becky were surprised by my work ethic; I think this is because I went into it with the mentality I’d been using during my time with the Van Dams, who (as discussed) scheduled most of my time to be working rather than socializing. In fact, I was often pleasantly surprised when I was told I could call it a day after finishing some job. “Really? But it’s not even six yet!” was always my reaction (sometimes only internally). Then around six or seven it’d be dinner time.

The food was always good and fresh and largely composed of home-grown or –raised stuff. There was always the challenge of cooking to be dairy- and gluten-free, on account of a handful of afflicted people in the family. I suppose they’d get used to it after a while, but whenever I cooked, it became surprisingly difficult to work around that kind of thing. Here’s all the stuff I cooked for them during my stay:

- Pork fried rice

- Pureed black bean and salsa soup

- Bean chili and skillet cornbread (This was exciting because they’d never had cornbread before – I guess it’s mostly an American thing? Anyway they really seemed to like it!)

- Chinese-style roast pork belly

All in all, my time in Leitrim was probably the best part of my trip. Got to make new friends, actually had a social life for once, got back into cooking, learned a lot about caring for (and, to an extent, butchering) animals. I was sorry to leave, but it really is about time for me to come home.

Alright guys, one all-encompassing entry about Dublin coming up in a couple days!