Is It Spring Yet?

You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I haven’t posted in a while. We haven’t taken our rv, the AvantBard, out since before the holidays. The weather has been “cat” as they say, and I am on day 108 of what they’re calling “The Hundred Day Flu”. It’s a bad cold that’s going around and won’t go away. It’s slowly drifting away from my eyes and ears leaving just a little residue in my lungs. Springtime, where are you???

But this past week we started making up for lost time. We actually went on TWO camping trips. One to the west and one to the east.

As you may recall, every February we go to the Scoil Cheoil an Earraigh (Music School of the Spring) in Ballyferriter near Dingle in the beautiful southwest. This is a Gaeltacht area of Ireland meaning Irish is the first language there. 

The weather forecast is always a consideration when going anywhere in Ireland. Siobhan, the weather lady, cautioned it would be miserable in the southwest but what could we do? The festival wouldn’t wait.

We were surprised to drive the entire three and a half hour journey with not a trickle of rain. But we did notice the wind picking up the closer we got to the coast. We were expecting dark clouds and showers and were glad we’d be mostly inside for the weekend.

That evening Dixie unleashed his guitar at a little session in one of the pubs across from our usual parking spot. I relaxed and listened. Around 2 AM we strolled back to the Bard in a little drizzle, feeling like we’d dodged a bad weather bullet. We crawled into our cozy sleeping bags and settled down for the proverbial long winter’s nap (although they were calling it spring). 

When…. Whoa… what’s going on!!! I woke with a start feeling tossed about in a clothes dryer! Lashing wind and rain relentlessly swirling and pounding from all sides. We had our front wheels up on chocks for leveling, and I was certain we were going to be swept off and sucked up Wizard of Oz style. My head was spinning with dread as fast as Auntie Em’s unfortunate farmhouse. I had no idea where we’d be at sunrise. And where was Toto?

In spite of my fears, this was actually pretty exciting. I’m too old to die young so bring on the adventure, right? Once the storm began I never got back to sleep and I was even a little sea sick. It was definitely a rollicking night to remember. That Dixie slept through it all… too many large bottles of Guinness I think.

Next morning some shopping, beach combing and rambling around Dingle. It had all calmed down and the Bard was still on the chocks.

 

A big change from former years… two girlfriends to play with! Their husbands are musicians and they love to come along in their campers. I introduced the two of them and now we’re all tight. We’re already planning the next trip out in April.

By four in the afternoon our little entourage from Thurles (about ten of us) had arrived and sussed out a spot in a quiet pub. We began the long (eight hour!) session that would highlight the weekend. Full of confidence and anticipation I opened my fiddle case and… NO BOW!!! I’d left the %^&*(& bow at home! It was an easy mistake to make that involved changing fiddles and fiddle cases and bows the night before then changing back. Still, it was like I’d been hit over the head with a banjo.

Of course, disappointments come and go throughout life. I’ve had my share and I’m sure so have you. But it’s been a while since I slipped off the moon and hit the ground so hard. I know it was very inconsequential in the scheme of things, but nevertheless I was actually stunned for a moment. Can’t play without a bow. I’d just have to… sit and listen to trad for hours on end. Irish trad is great to PLAY but… eight hours suddenly seemed like a very long time.

I need not have fret (or is it fretted?) Immediately phones came out and pleas were extended. Within an hour I had a very nice bow to borrow for the weekend and all was well. I love these guys! They always have my back (and no one even mentioned the word ‘dementia’).

The next day we relaxed in the cool, calm, dry Kerry air then another session at night. You can see the video of me leading a small crowd in a couple of verses of Cill Chais which is a song I learned in Irish. Many Irish people learned it in school so they sing along. It’s about the sorrow from the felling of the forest surrounding Cill Chais castle. It was written as a poem in the early eighteenth century.

Before we headed for home Sunday, we returned the bow to it’s generous owner and stopped by Wine Strand, a nearby beach I’d never been to but seen signs for. Couldn’t believe my eyes as we drove down the narrow boreen to the beach and there in a farmer’s field overlooking the beach… three glorious standing stones. 

I wriggled under the barbed wire fence to get a closer look. One of them was an ogham stone which you will recall is a standing stone with the ogham alphabet carved along its edge. The ogham alphabet is a series of strokes across horizontal lines that was used from the 4th-9th centuries and, on the stones, was probably spelling out names.

Isn’t this the best kind of discovery… one you didn’t google or find on a website but just popped up unexpectedly out of nowhere? As C.S. Lewis would say, I was “surprised by joy” (although Lewis was referring to Jesus and I just saw three old stones).

We were home Sunday night and saw the forecast looked fabulous for the next weekend. With cautious optimism we started googling and looking at maps! Then on Thursday we were off to the Wexford mountains in the east. See you there in the next post.