you'd better put the kettle on...

if you have the time, i've got the story to tell...
go and get your coffee...

ireland is almost invariably good to me, but the north.....i've only been here once before, but i'm fairly sure i could stay...i won't, (yet) but i could....here in the quiet of county tyrone, its kind of like yorkshire moors meets riverful tipperary, and it seems like it's glad i'm here.

we three (barlow, drage and na) arrived on a cold saturday morning, my prayers for sunshine still ringing round my ears...we were met by a giddy emma, who had that look about her of one who has spent a week or two at home: good food, comfy bed, many walks, some hard work pruning. the four of us tramped around belfast for a couple of hours in the tank (not literally a tank, clearly...that would be contraversial....), getting a right luxury tour of the old town. emma has clearly being doing her research lately, and looked surprisingly at home even in her four-by-four....for me, it was all new....the falls, the shankhill, the muralled gables and the painted kerbstones had been mainly myth and legend in my head. my one trip to the north in 1995 had involved a route that bypassed the city (it had however passed almost alongside the cowan family farm as it would happen), and the tyrone towns on that road had shown me the fierceness of flags...but the city itself is something rather diffferent. not myth, the signs of nations and banners and histories, the faces of victims and prisoners and martyrs painted on walls, the slogans and promises of small armies of boys and young men....these are real and rather rife in the cities suburbs. you feel like they're glaring at you saying - do you really expect i'll ever be pulled down? - you can't argue easily with a flag. by the end of our tour i felt like my lungs were being wringed out by some very strong hands. i hadn't cried but i had instead felt just that - like my insides were churning or being kneaded. i didn't want to leave though - it had a strange pull on me that i knew meant until i had got out of the tank and walked around i wouldn't feel everything that there is for me to feel for the place. the walk is for another time.

so we took coffee and raisin bread at common grounds, possibly the most delightful coffee house i have seen for a while - take note rikes, you should come check it out...

then we proceeded to the farm. i'm not sure i know how to describe how homely someone else's house is, but when shown to my room, i felt i could stay a week and not miss anything or want to be anywhere else. emma had left a careful selection of books on my bedside table, and the accuracy of her understanding of my literary requirements was uncanny. seamus heaney awaited me there - the death of a naturalist - which i haven't read since i was about seventeen. he will resurface later in my story. alongside it was silver linings, by martin fletcher, which any of you wishing to know more about this place and why it has been so contested over should probably froogle for. (isbn 0-349-11251-7)

we ate lunch and enjoyed jimmy and rosemary's observation of us, his historical insights and her loving the chat from around the table. we sat around that table for what felt like the whole afternoon, so when we four came to depart for the boat, i felt sure it was nearly evening. emma then told us she had sneakily prayed that the minutes we were all together here would feel like hours...and lo, it was only about half-three....

the drive west across almost as far as enniskillin was for me a bit of a musical journey, through towns and across rivers, whose lovers and legends i had only heard sung about. (mostly by my dad, who i quietly wished was there for that particular leg of the trip). i read with wonder the book of irish history emma had provided for just such a road, and finger-traced our progress across the width of ulster on its map, wondering if one half from the south and half from over the water could ever really know what it means to love this place.

our expectations of 'the barge' came crashing down when we discovered that the cowan family boat was in fact a 'luxury yacht' (so named by the girls who have little concept of boats and less concept of luxury..!) it is moored on the banks of a river heading north from the upper lough erne, in county fermanagh, alongside about a dozen others, most of which are seemingly owned by friends of emma's parents or relations of the butcher from up the road, or so-and-so from james's classes' parents.
we set up house, and then get drunk. we laughed heartily, told some sad stories, some family stories, school stories...and a few about how good god is..tried to make emma say rude words (which, it appears, is probably more tricky than trying to get me to talk about poo....) we ate salmon when already drunk, we drank more wine than i knew we had brought, we smoked cigarettes enroached with rizla-packet-tear-offs, to the point that all that remained was a pile of papers with nowhere to go....we each left drunken messages for poor mr vino, whose impending marriage formed a large part of the evening's conversation...emma and i sang, badly, and not for long.....mostly we laughed. the boat was an instant home to us and we loved it.

when we woke, the hangovers didn't last long....the fruit salad and coffee saw them off for us....but then what do you suppose happened.....?

the sun, the sun came out, and there it stayed. the suntan i jokingly prayed for on the plane....? its here, its on me. i got it.....we sat out on deck, painted our toe-nails and drank more coffee, read our books, wrote our books, and in general were at ease. rosemary and jimmy arrived later, and off we went on a trip down the river to the lough and back again. we moved along the river having types of birds pointed out to us and then argued over like only parents can do.....we drank coke and ate crisps and kind of felt like kids i think. the cowan parents are, it seems, such innately parenty parents that if you are roughly their child's age, they'll adopt you for as long as they can see you. we moored again the other side of several miles of lake and a few islands.....we ate, slept, walked, and the time it just went on and on....it was half four when i thought it surely nearing eight.....madness.....on the way back, we all found our place on the boat. drago of the indoors was reading on the couch......snuggled and warm with a hundred layers over her. she had lamb and the chilli peppers on the laptop and was content, i think....claire and emma huddled like a pair of old washer-women, car blankets round them and sitting at the very front of the boat, headed towards the sun going down and being as close as friends are when they know that one is about to get married and they don't want to miss out on anything that might happen before then.....jimmy and rosemary steered the boat and loved eachother like kids i think..she smoking away, him with his tea and his life-jacket.....me i found a small seat in the corner right at the back......i got my hat and jacket so the wind didn't bother me.....the sunset on the river and through the trees on the islands around us was not even photographable...well, i just mean it was too good for photos....with a cigarette and a cup of tea in one hand, and the - death of a naturalist - in the other, i was as happy as i can remember being.....he is from this way, you see, seamus heaney, and it shows....when i studied this book for gcse english, i realised i could understand poetry by myself. i also realised i was glad to be irish, and didn't need to be proud just to be glad. i became friends with paul f over that book, and also learned to write poetry a bit because of it, i think. punctuation is very important to him. as are all aspects of nature, and ways in which man uses and enjoys nature are kind of themes. it turned out that that dog-earred copy in my lap had been used not only by emma and later her brother james while at school, but also by rosemary, in 1974...reading it was good right then because i saw that i was different from when i last read it...but also the same, i think.

i found one poem in it that i do not ever remember reading before.
rashly or not, i there and then named it my favourite of the book.

and here it is....


scaffolding

masons, when they start upon a building,
are careful to test out the scaffolding;

make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

and yet all this comes down when job's done
showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

so if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
old bridges breaking between you and me

never fear. we may let the scaffolds fall
confident that we have built our wall.


i'd like to know how it feels to build love.

i haven't enjoyed writing for a long time as much as i have this morning.
i still have a few hours left, so i'm off to make soup for the girls for when they return from their walking tour of the county.
if you have got this far, thanks.
back home tonight. love you x