rainbows a go-go
You’ve heard neither hair nor hide of me for yonks…
I was plagued with various cough-y things, and then broke my arm. Yikes!
I emerged after Christmas and went window shopping. And I was lured. The siren sign,
S A L E
A seductive word. Especially when there’s pretty clothes involved. I went in and browsed, saw nothing I fancied and, as I left, I tripped on a down step that I hadn’t expected.
I did that ‘I-think-I-can-save-it’ hop, skip and run and went splat in the middle of Main Street Blackrock.
The upshot was a broken arm strapped to my body for three long weeks.
As I sat, feeling sorry for myself, Molly and Sadie came for a visit. They’re my next door neighbors. Molly is 5 and Sadie is 2. They’d drawn rainbows for me. And those rainbows made me feel happy.
And, now that I’m emerging once more into the world, I’ve stuck them up in my office because they still make me feel happy.
And whenever I need inspiration I look at them and ideas spring into my head.
Thank you Molly and Sadie.
So there was stuff. Life was getting at me. My focus was on my nearest and dearest. I assumed that my .ie domain was paid by standing order. It wasn’t.
My website had disappeared. On enquiry I found that it had been sold to a stranger. Sold to a stranger!
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK !!!!!!
I consulted a nephew. He suggested checking every Catherine Brophy that Google can offer, on the off chance that one of them bought it. They hadn’t.
All I could do now was set up a new site and recover what I could. That should be easy. It wasn’t.
Then the phone rang and and I heard the voice of an angel.
His name was Padraig.
“I have your website,” he said, “I got it in a job lot and you can have it back”
ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA!
It should be easy. It wasn’t.
I called on Clint, another angel I’d heard about.
Clint wove all kinds of magic but nothing happened. Then he and Padraig got on the phone to each other and talked in angel-speak. Magic happened and I got my website back.
Thank you angels.
THE ANGELS ARE
PADRAIG ANTHONY: ( I’ll add in his details when he sends them)
CLINTON DAVIES : https://www.digital-web.solutions Facebook: @DegitalWebsSolutions
The best gift I ever got was from my nieces Sarah and Lucy. It arrived one Christmas in a brown, A4 envelope.
“Open it, open it!” they urged.
An invitation to spend a girly day with them. Wow… I was thrilled.
“You used to have us to stay and take us on Midnight Adventures.” they explained. “So now we’re taking you out.”
For ‘Midnight Adventure’, read, ‘marched them up Killiney Hill in the dark’!
I was touched. The girly day had horses and manicures, massage, tarot plus plenty of laughter and chat. Pure, fabulous, out!
They’re both parents now and, when the weather was warmish, and visitors allowed, they each came to visit.
Lucy came with Ollie and Ben, one Sunday when partner David, and eldest son Jacob were away on boys’ business. We sat in the garden. Ollie is three and a bit. Tall for his age, serious. He stands still at the table and sizes us up. I find myself hoping I come up to scratch.
Ben, at eighteen months, views us from the safety of Lucy’s knee. He too takes stock, it doesn’t take long. He wriggles down and goes off at a trot. We have a pond. We three adults swivel our chairs to keep him in view. He discovers a path made of stones. He grabs a stone, throws it into the pond and laughs at the splash. He grabs another stone and another. This could go on for a bit.
I quarter-fill a bucket and set it beside the stones. Ben’s in like a shot and splashing away. Ollie decides to join him. There’s potential for squabbles. I fill another bucket and place it near the stones at the farther end of the path. Ollie’s in. They splash and splash and splash and splash till the water’s is too full of stones to splash any more. They take out the stones and start all over again. And again, and again, and again, and again.
It left us adults free to laugh and drink tea and eat cake and babble on about shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and cabbages, and kings with occasional breaks to help the boys with de-bucketing stones. Everyone happy and well. Great chat, great fun. A highlight for me.
STONES AND WATER… WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT?
A week or two later Sarah arrived with partner Darragh and their two girls.
Chloe and Mia are old enough to sit politely, have a drink and join in the conversation. But adult conversation is boring and they soon slip away. They explore the path of stones that goes through the flower beds. They squat and stare into the pond. They throw in the odd leaf. They examine stones. They watch bees diving into the purple flowers of the Echium spike. They check behind the trellis and discover the Secret Garden.
Well…, on that afternoon, that’s what we named the bit behind the trellis. It makes our garden sound huge. It’s not, it’s just full. But, even in our little space, Chloe and Mia could entertain themselves for the whole afternoon. With the occasional break for a biscuit, or maybe a drink .
We adults laughed and told stories of Life, The Universe, and all that. What a great afternoon! All of us healthy and happy. Another highlight.
HOW LUCKY AM I TO HAVE NIECES LIKE THIS?
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One of the great joys of living in Bray is being able to get to the sea. Especially during Lockdown. The prom can be crowded with people walking their dogs and their children. Groups cluster round Gino’s Ice Cream shop. So, being of a cautious disposition, I prefer to take my exercise where it’s easier to keep the regulation two meters apart, in the harbour, on the short pier.
The first joy of the pier is the birds. Turnstones line the edge like they’re waiting for something to happen. The swans look serene on the water and a bit less serene waddling up the beach waiting for children to feed them. There’s a mixed flurry of wings when there’s something to eat in the water. There’s a lone goose. Does it think it’s a swan? Or just proving its independence?
But birds are not known for their light conversation! An even greater delight is the joy of talking to strangers. At a distance of course.
At the end of the pier as you can see the occasional ship and remember that haunting line.
“sail the horizon with Wales lurking beyond, there’s often a man with his rod, casting a line in the hope of a fish. He might have his son by his side teaching him how to cast.
“Caught anything yet?” I ask.
If they have caught a fish, no matter how small, the son will proudly display it. Mostly they’ve caught nothing at all but they’re happy to chat for a bit.
One late afternoon on the pier greeted a man who replied, at length, by recounting his travels all over the world. I’ve done my fair share of travelling so I tried to engage. But I failed. He was hell bent on listing his umpteen destinations, every village in Asia and Africa that welcomed him in, the multifarious vehicles he’d travelled in. The chance to converse with a stranger in Lockdown is precious but, as the bitter east wind sneaked into my bones, I remembered advice I’d once read.
“If you ask a man five questions and he asks you none, it’s time to leave.”
I’d asked him many more questions than five. He’d asked me none. So I scarpered.
Not all of the strangers I spoke with were so self absorbed. One day I met a young man on a bike. One comment led to another. We discovered a lot in common and had one of those great conversations that leaves you feeling uplifted, remembering that, despite the darkness of these present times, there are good people here in the world. He turned out to be Tom Kerrisk, actor, poet, muscian, and singer with the band Mystic Tears.
Later I had a listen to Mystic Tears on You Tube. I loved it. Have a listen yourself. Here’s just one <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUfIvjNzjMA> There’s loads more where that came from. Or check out his website <https://www.thomaskerrisk.com/>
Another day a woman smiled at me and remarked on the weather. Before we knew it we were in deep conversation and, over the next half hour or so, discovered that we’d both been in India and Zambia . We swapped stories. We laughed. We discovered so much in common. It turned out that she was a nun. Nuns are like the rest of us, there’s the good the bad and very mixed-middling. She was one of the good ones, bright, open-minded, fun to be with and ready to take on adventure.
When I was only four or five I remember my mother telling a neighbour that her daughter would talk to anyone at all, even the cat. She framed it as a complaint but, I knew from her voice that she wasn’t complaining. And I knew from the way she ruffled my hair that she was proud of my outgoing nature. It gave me permission to be as I was and I’ll always be grateful.
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Iseult is my cousin, not first cousin, second cousin maybe? First cousin once removed? I’m never too sure which is which. She’s the youngest daughter of my first cousin. Up to recently I’d only met her at family gatherings. Our family runs to great swathes of aunties, uncles and cousins who gather regularly to eat, drink, catch up, gossip and talk nonsense.
I’d always liked Iseult but we’d never had more than pleasant, superficial chat. During Lockdown she was furloughed from work and turned to her great love, her art. She’s a trained artist and a genius with colour. She started painting on silk to make scarves. I thought they looked good and, when lockdown was eased and visits to houses were deemed O.K., I went to her house to choose some.
We had coffee and got into chat and I discovered that, artistically, we a lot in common. “How so?” You may ask, “She’s a painter, you’re a writer.”
But the process of creation is the same. The same daunting blank page/canvas. The same first draft that we think is horrific. The same hard, hard work to produce something that we’re not too ashamed of.
She showed me her scarves and some of her paintings. Oh yes, I thought, she’s good. We drank more coffee, chatted some more and laughed a lot. Despite the generational gap, we discovered a lot more in common.
I’d been thinking of doing a Dun Laoghaire Arts project. You had to team up with another artist and produce work on the theme of Metamorphosis. Who would I work with? With Covid restrictions, how easy would it be to meet?
By now I’d been in Iseult’s house for a couple of hours and it suddenly struck me. Iseult was an artist. We were on the same page and she lived very near me. Would she be interested in working with me? She jumped at the chance.
We met each a week in her house, when that was permitted. When it wasn’t, and the weather was good, we met on the pier in Bray watching the swans and the tides. And on Zoom when the weather was awful and now that the new Lockdown has cramped everyone’s style.
She’s a joy to be with, a delight to work with, full of ideas and we seem to spark one another The project is coming along and, whether anyone thinks the final result is good, bad or indifferent, we’re having a ball. We are laughing a lot, finding still more in common and lifting one another’s spirits. In these dark times that is no small matter.
Check out her Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/iseultmacker/photos/>
Instagram: htps://www.instagram.com/iseultmccormackcreations/
Website: https://www.iseultmccormack.ie
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There’s a hedge at the bottom of our garden. It’s not our hedge. It’s on the other side of our back fence and it’s a nuisance. A mix of blackberry bramble and ivy, it creeps over everything. It has strangled our clematis Montana. It has crept over our shed and sneaked inside making it leak. And it doesn’t even give us blackberries. Oh yes, it does produce them but they’re way too high up to collect. We hack it back as best we can, but still it encroaches.
Every Spring a pair of blackbirds nest on our roof. And somewhere nearby a magpie and a pigeon conduct a regular feud. But during Lockdown we noticed more birds than usual, sparrows, with bits of twigs and leaves and fluff in their beaks, flying in and out of the hated hedge. And each morning we woke to their clamorous twitters.
One day while I was out weeding, ( see <https://wordpress.com/post/catherinebrophy.ie/5926>) I stood to consider a maple tree that had escaped its pot. Was growing too big for our tiny plot? Should we cut it down? But I do love a maple and this one looked really cute with its pink leaves peeping out of green buds on the bare branches.
Suddenly the hedge behind me started a furious rustle and a couple of fledglings burst out on to the roof of our shed. They fluttered down to the fence between us and the neighbours. They flapped into the maple. More followed and more and more. I got to fifteen before I lost count. They hopped from branch to branch pecking at leaf buds. They flitted from branch to fence and from fence back to branch. They fluttered down to the ground and hopped to the edge of our tiny pool. They perched on the stones and drank water.
I was enraptured. I put out my arm to lean on the shed when suddenly, a half dozen or so flew out of the maple. They zoomed under my arm and back into the hedge. I felt the wind of their wings on my skin. It was thrilling.
Yes, that was a highlight.
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zoom stories
Yikes!!!!
I hated it. All that faffing around with tech.
“Click on your video.”
“It’s bottom left.”
“Turn on your mic.”
Whistles, fuzzy sound, figures lurking in the dark. And me staring at myself on screen looking like a witch who has tossed a bag of flour in her own face.
I used it because I’d been invited to tell stories. As I told, distracting texts started flashing on screen. There were no sudden bursts of laughter. No gasps of surprise. None of that audience energy that dictates how you tell a story.
And no applause.
When I was done I was wrecked. I did it a couple of times, then I swore I’d never do it again.
But the lure of telling got to me. Gradually I discovered “Gallery view”, “Speaker View” and “Chat” and I remembered to turn up the volume on my speaker. People wrote nice things in Chat. I wrote back. With Covid rampaging, clearly Zoom was the future
I still missed the live audience.
Then I got involved with World Ceilidh, organised by Marin Millenaar. It’s international story event. There were people from all over Europe, the Far East, U.S.A., Canada and South America. Most are story tellers. They recognise a good story and know when it’s well told. Praise from them is high praise indeed.
After a live performance people come to you afterwards to say they enjoyed it. And that’s lovely. But storytellers recognize why they enjoy it, they recognize good editing and the well-chosen details that create the magic. Their feedback is more precise, and they liked my stories. It is lovely to be appreciated by people who know what they’re talking about!
But I still miss the live audience.
So, something that started as a horror had become a highlight!
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OUR POSTMAN
Our Postman is a walking wonder.
Before the pandemic I’d heard him push letters through the letterbox. I’d glimpsed him through the window in winter and nodded at him from the garden in summer.
He’s a tall young man, good-looking, in a wholesome, boy-next-door kind of way. The kind my mother urged me to marry. But I, of course, dismissed her suggestions. Instead I flirted with bad boys, Peter Pans and guys I thought must be interesting because of their tattoos, piercings and fancy moustaches. They all turned out to be eejits!
In Lockdown, they said, we could give our letters direct to the postman. We took advantage of this and soon we got talking, at 2 meters, with our guy. He even offered to take parcels of books and post them for us. It was great talking to someone other than ourselves.
Soon we were lurking. Watching from behind the curtains to spot his bike arrive on our road. Wandering into the garden “by chance”. We were, I suspect, a hint over-eager but he always seemed willing to chat.
People started ordering on line more and more. Sorting offices were overwhelmed. Orders were slower to arrive. Some took their frustration out on the postman. He just nodded and listened and sympathized. He checked on vulnerable people and was always ready with an offer help . His rounds took longer and longer. He still smiled and stopped for a chat.
I know he’s not unique. I know that postmen all over the country were equally efficient and warm and helpful and chatty.
So Hurray for Our Postman.
Hurray for the Postmen of Ireland.
Hurray for the Postmen of the World.
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NETTLES
I know, unlikely. But that first day out from the lockdown, when I saw the nettles, wow. I had to write about it.
NETTLES
Lockdown had halted my regular walks so, on this first outing, my knees feel creaky and my ankles complain. But the sun soothes my back.
In the park at the end of our road I cross the little bridge. The rusting bike is gone. The stream is clear and the water is gurgling. On the bank there is a great bed of nettles. They have a come-hither look. I find myself staring. The leaves spring out from their stems. Healthy. Alert. Edges serrated. Ready to sting an attacker. I always thought that new growth was tender and green but not these. These are dark, tinged with purple and beautiful.
Butterflies love nettles. People gather them for soup. Some slash and burn them. I stand and look, remembering childhood stings, my father plucking a soothing dock leaf and endless summers.
____
So that was two highlights for the price of one. The Nettles and the enjoyment of writing the piece.
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WEEDING
I know, an unlikely highlight. Especially given my past history. Himself is the one with green fingers. Everything he plants, blooms, every weakling he tends, recovers. Plants don’t die at my hands but, I do expect them to look after themselves and, sometimes they don’t.
Then every so often a clump of weeds catches my eye. I vow to remove them. Each time I pass them I vow it again. Finally I get the urge.
“I’ll just do that bit to-day.” I resolve.
I pull one gang of weeds to find a phalanx of smaller weeds luring me on.
“I’ll just do this next bit.” I think.
But I keep on and on on ’till I have to call for a fork-lift and a licensed physiotherapist to remove me from the garden and place me on the sofa.
Weeding’s a killer.
But, six weeks of lockdown!
I limited my weeding to a small patch per day and went for total clearance. Every weed removed. Lovely idea. Then there’s scutch grass, and the fancy stuff that’s supposed to look pretty but has sneaked in everywhere. I pulled yards and yards of the roots. I pulled great tangles. I felt great. I felt I was winning. I was not. There were still more of them lurking, down there, getting the revs up. For the time being, however, there was plenty of space for bushes to bloom and flowers to grow.
Over the weeks I got the whole garden weeded. Himself clipped, tied up, planted, supported and repaired. The garden looked great.
A definite highlight.
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Irish Storyteller and Writer Catherine Brophy 