Wednesday 5 June 2013

Inner freshness

Blog Sun june 2

Started out after 8.30.  It felt good to be back on the road again.  I had stayed the night in Skelleys pub and B&B in Ballymahon.  The faced looked quite unloved and when I walked in the door, I found myself in and off-licence that was also a basic grocery shop. Through the door I could see the bar.  At this stage I was a bit wary wondering what the accommodation would be like.  We were led through a couple of doors and upstairs to the room where I would spend the night.  This part had been recently built.  The room was fine and the bed comfortable, but the light in the bathroom did not work, the toilet seat was not attached to the toilet, and Mary Ann noticed that some spiders had made their home in the skylight.  In spite of that I slept very well.  Next morning when I went to pay for my board he gave me back 15 euros for Ndi Moyo hospice.

In any case as I said it was good to be back on the road again. A little bit out of the town I came to a bridge where the Royal Canal crossed the road.  There was a walk and a cycle path along the bank.  I did not know that the Royal Canal went all the way to Ballymahon from Dublin.  It probably connects with the Shannon river.  I walked on through rich farmland with lots of cattle and a few sheep.  It was a warm morning, a sleepy Sunday morning with few people about and not much traffic and the cattle looked very content in their fields of plentiful grass.   After a few miles there were lots of large spreading trees standing in the middle of the fields, sycamore, beech and chestnuts decked with creamy ice-cream-like cones of blossom.  Vestiges I thought of the Landed gentry who were gifted these lands by conquering England and laid much of it out like parkland.

The first village I came to was Keenagh.  I was hoping to get a cup of coffee and rest for a while but the only café was closed in spite of having an Open sign in the window.  There is a monument in the centre of Keenagh.  It is a stone clock tower topped with a weather vane.  The inscription on it reads
Erected by the tenants and friends of the Honorable Lairence Harman-king-Harman who died Oct 1875.  In grateful memory of a good landlord and an upright man.  Justum et tenacem probisiri virum.  I wonder how many other such memorials there are in Ireland to good and upright landlords!
My brother Jim came to meet me just as I was going into Longford with a packed lunch – hot soup, a beer and sandwiches.  We spent an hour together.  It was a welcome break for my feet.  I passed a vintage rally in Longford.  Some of the cars had passed me during the day.  Jim and I thought that it might be a good idea if some of our young people were to start a vintage fair to show off their old relatives.  There would be different categories for different age groups.  They could get us all groomed properly and have prizes for the best presented old person in the various categories. As I was leaving Longford there was an inscription on a wall about a Dominican Abbey that had once stood there and had been destroyed by Cromwell’s army.  Two brothers had been martyred.  The stones from the Abbey had been used to build the local jail and when that was closed some of them were used to build the local school – St Christophers.  Just outside Longford a man pulled in beside me in a car and gave me 10 Euros.  A little further, a man turning into his driveway stopped to talk and gave what change he had in his pocket.  A couple of miles further on a young man came out to his gateway to talk to me.  Soon his wife joined him and she went back into the house to find money to give me.  They were Mark and Imelda.
I plodded on towards Drumlish but feet were complaining so I phoned my host for the night, Margaret McManus and she picked me up a couple of miles south of Drumlish.  Margaret brought me to her home farm near Granard, a lovely quiet retreat where she spoiled me with good food and good craic.  Margaret lives in Armagh but also spends time in her childhood home.

Blog June 3 Mon.

Started out again at about 8.30 a couple of miles south of Drumlish.  From Drumlish I had planned to take a small country road to Ballinamore going through Cloone.  The village was deserted. Later I discovered it was a bank holiday.  I took the road signed Ballinamore. I met an old lady hurrying up the street and asked her if I followed this road would I come to a sign for Cloone.  She said I might but she was not sure but she wanted to know if she was late for Mass.  I said I didn’t know, so she rushed off again saying she would in any case say a prayer for me.  So I walked on out the road and saw nobody until I had gone a mile and a half and a cyclist stopped to talk.  He told me I would have to go back into town and go out another road that would bring me to the road to Cloone.  So back I went.  That was an extra 3 miles and my feet did not approve.  I did find the road and there was little traffic on it.  On both sides of the road were turf bogs and bushes.  Later there were fields where rushes ruled and often a sea of buttercups.  I have never seen so many buttercups, field after field.  Wordsworth made such a big fuss of the little patch of daffodils he chanced on
beside the lake, beneath the trees,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
But his little patch of daffodils was nothing compared to the fields and fields of buttercups in Leitrim, and along the ditches lots of cows’ parsley shoulder high.  I even saw a ditch with lots of wild strawberry blossom.  It brought back memories of walking home form Tullysarran school, pulling wild strawberries and threading them on to cocksfoot stems of grass to bring home.   Then there was the odd patch of sweet red clover that we used to pull and suck the bottom of each of the red bits.   All the natural richness of the ditches and the land on each side and the lovely smell of summer growth remind me of Hopkins poem about Spring “ all that juice and all that joy and that inner freshness deep down things”  I often think that those words sum up the essence of life -  keeping ourselves always fresh, always being surprised by joy and wonder of all the life that is pulsing around us.
Jim met me again this time in Cloone, where we had a picnic beside the graveyard.  Then walked on and got as far as Ballinamore, further than I had thought I would.  I’ve been stopping every few hours to air dry and treat my feet.  This time round they take high priority.  I was waiting at the outskirts of Ballinamore for Lourda to pick me up when a car stopped and four young lads got out and came over to talk to me.  They were from Cavan and wanted to know all about my walk.  They asked for a photo and I gave them Mary Ann’s email so that they could send it to her to include in the blog.
Lourda brought me to Mohill where she lives and we went to her sister’s and her husband’s house for our evening meal.  We had a great meal and great craic.  The hospitality has been amazing.  Tomorrow is another day.


                

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