Two more sleeps

Tomorrow is the day I have to say goodbye to my friends here, mothers through the school mostly.. And of course everyone is so matter-of-fact and upbeat on these occasions, when I want to cry at the finishing of a most precious year, just actually lament the passing for one day. What has been. What must become anecdote, memory, not remain the fibre of my life.

Fancy that - I've had: a year not working, a year with lots of trips to places I longed for for years!, a year rediscovering my own thoughts, a year of housework and excess childcare, a year of feeling part of this great thick blended throng of Europeans. A year on the up side.

The boys have grown a lot, physically and in their understanding of it all. LMM and I have had times to talk about the next 20, the next 5 years. And often not talk at all really, in the flurry of our separate logistic challenges - his the hospital, mine the boys and home.

Ireland has found its way under our skin, seeping in its green slow way as it does to buildings too. The kindness, the welcome, the accommodation to people's various needs. One of the Liberty-mamas, actually the first mama I met on the first day of school last year, said that when she moved to Cork, it wrapped its arms around her and she never wants to live anywhere else anymore. Now, at this point, a year in, I can understand and share the sentiment. It makes no sense at all that we should be leaving.

I love the range of people they are, the work they do in creative ways, the treasures of their children, their beautiful homes full of brilliant toys and games, their straight competence, their travels, their acceptance of a new one into their midst. Thank you all so much. And still, I leave.

All is Bared

What an awesome experience. I went to Blarney in the night, driving out the back way. Encountered not a soul on the road, not sure at all how many would be ahead in the Blarney Castle grounds. Pitch black, wondering about speed on a dark night, yellow street lights, even the hedges by the side of the road were still green tho.

Then, to the entrance. Suddenly it was like a world music festival, with people from ALL walks of life, warmly dressed, making their way in. People in pairs, in groups of friends - Cork, where nothing is a secret. All made our way down to a huge lit space, floodlit by sportsfield lights, sitting on our plastic bags, settling in for a long wait. And it was LONG.

What got to me was the cigarette smoke, my god they were all puffing away a lot. I had to go to the edge of the space we were all waiting in to clear the nausea. A group of women singing, a man stripping off to cheers WAY too early (just had to get his kit off), people with thermos flasks, ipods, warm beanies. I didn't speak much.

Some words from the crew, Spencer Tunick himself, then more waiting looking to the sky to lighten. It was only at about 5.30 that we all got our kit off. Which was easy, it was. Stuff everything into the bag, and walk out.

Walking out between the trees in a luminous crowd of white bodies was very moving: like the first humans walking out from the trees, primeval experience, even if totally removed from any historical accuracy ever!. Everyone still warm from clothes, shoulders sheltering bodies, curling over as they could. Eye contact.

Soon after, cold wet feet. Soon after, shouting and moving the mass, the putty we had become, into the right shape for the shoot, as determined from a crane high over our heads. Soon after, surreptitious glances at tattoos, shapes, colours of skin. We are all beautiful naked, even when cold in the grey light of dawn. Never more so.

More time passing and we are getting colder. During the lying-down shoot/red and white roses held aloft, I heard chattering teeth from a young guy near my head somewhere. The sun was nearly golden on the birch leaves nearby now, white light fading out the early grey.

It has seldom been harder to get my socks on, as at about 7am! The women only then made their way to a spot closer to the castle, for another stripping down. There was much hooting from both sides as the men watched from lower down the hill, like a scene from Braveheart now, cheering hooting, almost bawdy, but in such a fine humour in the early morning! Other folks are probably stirring and slurping their first cups of tea now, we're out here in full swing. Yep. As it were.

Dressed again, nothing but our big smiles to separate us from the rest of Cork anymore.

For me, an awesome, enormous feeling of wholeness in my body. Being one shape, inhabiting one vessel, not a collection of lumps too big and limbs too untoned.. Wonderful, a liberation.

It's here - Spencer Tunick looming up in Cork

Next week, and unknown number of people in Cork will be taking part in a massive photo shoot with Spencer Tunick - taking all their clothes off, staying very close together, keeping quite still. From other photos at his site, it looks as if it's a silent activity, almost devotional, in an odd way: to large public spaces, to our common humanity, to our collected assembled bodies as an articulate medium in their own right.

I'll be there. For me, it's an occasion for a last hurrah, a treat on my own account to celebrate a year living here in Ireland, being part of the great mass of European humanity. This is my birth too, the collective unconscious of my own mind. And in view of the fuss about nude bodies used in Bill Henson's art in Australia these past few weeks, it seems highly appropriate - let's please not have a new age of prudery.

In my work, I've been involved with creating ephemeral activities for large crowds in public places, with Live Sites, in a role which required clothes on at all times! This is another way to participate in that work to blur the distinctions between a) formal public places and b) memorable artistic experiences - to change our views of a space and place - of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, even!

The organisation of large crowds is fantastic, the detailed email which arrived is brilliant people management, and all a big secret until the day. (UPDATE: NOT. LMM heard all about it at work one night, with 3 days to go. Confidentiality is a loose notion here in Cork.)

Fun. Can't wait, will reveal more in due course. Ha ha.

Birthday Party Boy

We'd hatched the idea that, now in spring, an outside party at Fitzgerald Park could be fun for a crowd of 8-year olds. The party had to be, we're not long before leaving, and this school has been one of the better things to happen to The Bean ever! Such wonderful friends, such a vibe, such folk-like-us in the school, it's easy to talk in there, without much pre-amble to explain ourselves.

So, to the party. I walked up to the park from school, in fine, almost sunny weather - 5 children, the others in other people's cars, on the way to meet up there. LMM on the way with The Pumpkin and the cake, to the cafe, where we'd start with pizza, toasted sandwiches and drinks, as arranged. Oh well, as he arrived, it seemed a complete surprise.

Twas a great party. The Bean had painted an alien, without eyes, so we could play Pin the Eye on the Alien. Pass the Parcel had rocket balloons in it, which were hanging in trees the next morning still. At one point, all the big kids went running, shouting, "Alex, your brother's rocket went the highest, did ye see it, he's the champion!!!" They especially loved the Great Fitzgerald Park Quiz, their first treasure hunt, with 11 questions I'd put together for them on sheets. They ran like mad, in pairs, had a great time! We've now seen more poetic, interesting spellings for belly: bellea, belleay.

The cake this year had to be alien/space/explorer-related, so 'twas an alien spaceship, bright yellow frosting, red pods on top, foil antenna (note to self: post photo!), and got eaten up! There was also a truly delicious cake which he chose from a patisserie in Montaigue the day of his actual birthday: caramelised pear with pear mousse. The boy got style, he do.

Weekday Pasta Recipe

Have all the ingredients for pasta with meat sauce on hand; also 2 small boys, homework, a painting project and a grey Cork afternoon.

Chop onion, mince garlic, fry with olive oil in large heavy-bottomed saucepan.
Stir. Put down spoon, wipe hands, get water for the boy's painting project.
Chop mushrooms, great zuchini. Take mince from wrapping.
Stir onion mix, add mince, check heat.
"Mummy look!" Check painting project, advise on shades of blue for the sky.
Stir mince.
Put on water for noodles in a large saucepan.
Add vegetables and salt and herbs, once mince is browned.
Change rinsing water, mind the green paint all over the sink. Discuss how to achieve pale shades of yellow and brown.
Adjust newspaper on table to prevent paint landing all over dining table.
Open tin of tomatoes, add this and tomato paste to the sauce. Do not squeeze tomato paste tube onto boy's paint palette. (He's not using red today.)
Rinse brush before he moves on to yellow, under the cold tap, not in the noodle water.
Add noodles to water once boiling.
Stir sauce. Check painting's progress, advise opinions. Taste sauce, adjust seasoning.
Allow to simmer: the sauce, not the boys. Chat to painter and his smaller brother. Assemble clean plates, drinks, grate parmesan.
Move dirty paintbrushes from the sink before you strain off cooked noodles.
Dad comes home from work.
Remove painting to drying spot, rinse paint plate, serve sauce over noodles.
Sit together, enjoy!

Where are the recipe books like this? Does anyone else cook like this, with often up to 3 different things going on at once?

It will surely be what I remember about my times here, in fact what I'll remember about all these early years before they were both in school. Pictured is the Bean, helping with the strawberries, as the box construction and paint project dries on the table. There are SO many of these afternoons here, I do treasure them. And sit in an exhausted stupour sometimes between 9 and 10pm, once it's all over. That's where Channel 4 comes in.

It is an incredible leap coming in January next year, when I will see both my beautiful boys off to school - a new stage for us all.

Spring mornings along the Lee

One of my favourite parts of Cork.

Three days a week, the Pumpkin goes to preschool, and the walk from school to the preschool takes us through the grounds of UCC, along the Lee. He starts up a new story every time we walk (do you want a story about fairies or bicycles, daytime or nighttime? and so on), and we weave our way through morning traffic, students, parents, workers, until we get to the UCC gate. These hours, I will not forget.

Turning right after the footbridge, there's a gorgeous 300m along the river, under the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, a most unusual building, (the bottom picture catches it), past fairy gardens, old trees, green lawns, burbling river, through another stone gate, over the river and along to the preschool. There's hardly ever anyone here as I pass through.

And all around, traffic crawls in Cork's dreadful streets, unchangedly awful after all these months. Constant mire of roadworks, closed lanes, tractors down the main streets in peak hour...

Today, it's getting green, bright, denser. Pink blossom, white blossom. All the trees have their tiniest, babiest green leaves out - birch and beech, woodthorn, even tiny baby green oak leaves. I get the same feeling as when I look at a new baby - new life, exciting new possibilities. And as I walk it on the way back, I too am filled with the possibilities of 3 hours childfree, podcasts from Sydney or New York in my ears, my step getting longer, my thoughts clearing.

I'm so proud of you...

...for cleaning up the whole floor like that.

So said my Pumpkin after he'd pointed out how dirty the bathroom floor in the boys' bathroom was. And then stood there, hands on hips, watching as I wiped and mopped. Made me go the extra mile on the toilets and all other housework in the big Tuesday clean yesterday, yep. (Still trying to keep the big stuff to once a week, like I started in Darwin with Helen all those years ago.)

Just now, at the English Market, an actual statement from him: "The whole market could make a smiley face: the person who wants to keep me could give us a banana for the smile, this olive person could give us two round olives for the eyes, what could be the nose?" His imagination is unbounded, the language development way out there, just like his brother, and (might I add, just like his talkative parents.)

Power to him. He has said in the past: "it's my job to make everyone laugh and keep them all excited all the time."

Two lives, three lives

What a dual life I lead here.

I travel with my family, Leathermanman, The Bean and the Pumpkin. We do incredible trips, the kind of thing which I've saved up for, looked forward too, longed for. It's been about one a month. And little excursions here in between, as visitors come and go. I'm sociable, travelling light, talking with precious friends and family, or meeting new people.

August - England by car.
August - Germany by plane.
September - Spain and France by hire car.
October - Irelend by car, with visitors.
December - Germany, England by plane.
January - Amsterdam weekend, by plane. SOLO
February - Austria, by plane and hire car.
March - Turkey, by plane and bus.

Then I'm home, being a housewife (dang!), cleaning (yes it's small, but high rotation), shopping (usually at Lidl, also the English Market or Dunnes, Tesco), washing (drying it all on one small rack, inside all year) reading online (papers, blogs, emails), knitting (sometimes, not enough), dropping and collecting children to their (minimal, really) activities. And being a lot silent, in a weird kind of solitary confinement. And speaking to other mothers from school, my tribe, a lovely group, what will I do without them? But it's one perspective on a place only, not the work-one I'm more used to.

Then there's our third life: our house in Elizabeth Street, the garden, the studies, the friends and family we have there. The steady, child-rearing, steady-being road ahead, the road behind. The road I'm in no hurry to resume, but know I must.

Ireland in Spring = Daffodils

Spring is def springing all over Ireland now! Here's a pic taken by Leathermanman, on a bicycle ride to Blarney today. No mean feat, it's about 12km from here in Cork. Ah well, there's some post-Turkey energy there.

The Crazy Hip Blog Mamas are having a Spring has Sprung photo week, so I'll try to let them know this fine sunshine and daffodils are here.

Beware though, anyone under 6 years old can't go into the fine historic house in the background - Blarney House has liability issues. Our hands are tied, she said, nothing we can do. What? It's a house for chrissakes, not the Crown Jewels...What do they think a child will do, grope all the old furnishings! Hello, it's got a responsible parent with it. Ah well, another source of revenue lost. The Irish obsession with litigation, regulations, partnered with the 'what can you do?' attitude, drives us NUTS every week.

We had a great game of hide-and-seek behind all the bushes though, anyway, when I was there with the Pumpkin.

Making a Winter Fair

The school has changed its format for the midwinter, Christmas, event. This year, it's to be a market like a European Christmas market, with entertainment, food, things and the traditional room for the kids to sell off their own old toys before Christmas. It'll be held in the school, on a Sunday and the hope is that more fathers and parents who might not often be at the school - will drop by.

In a burst of nostalgic rightness, I volunteered German christmas baking, and telephoned Omi for her recipes. Baking delicious aromatic spices when it's dark and cold outside, perfect! Not what I'd ever do in Australia, part of this whole year's thang. A delightful book arrived full of Swabian gutzl-recipes and history, with Omi's handwritten recipes (and margin notes re the costing of same!), some of aunt M's own recipes with her very pragmatic, hilarious notes. Treasure. So I set off and baked a practise batch of something. One day, The Pumpkin and his small friend O made a round of 'staghorn buttons', with currants for button-holes, the dough rolled in cinnamon. Great. And icing the cutouts was most of the fun.

Then, in an interminable meeting one evening, it became apparent that there were just too many biscuit bakers already underway. So, in an easy sideways leap, I went savoury. As is my want. I decided to do three relishes, which could conceivably be part of an Australian christmas dinner, and might be interesting here too: caramelised onions, a pineapple chutney from Queensland and watercress pesto. Relish Australia is born.

The boys cried on the sofa - as I sliced enormous Spanish brown onions on 3 evenings, and spent hours caramelising them with sugar and vinegar in Stephanie Alexander's recipe. Somewhere, there is a photo of my mascara running black down my face, and a big wide, winter-white skinned smile!Our little room ponged of onion for days! LMM chopped cashews and watercress all over the kitchen, green specks, and I whizzed them with garlic, olive oil, parmesan and lemon. A search of ABC North Queensland's site gave me a recipe which worked well with tinned pineapple from South America.

With an enormous vase of eucalyptus leaves on my table on the day, I was one of the few savoury types (!) in a room with divine cakes, pastries and miles of gorgeous biscuits. Crepes from Madame I. The day was a flurry of people, conversations, children, the crowd all really into this event. The Pumpkin had a sleep with his narni, under the table; the Bean scooped a pair of moon boots. And Relish Australia sold out by 1pm.

Update: There have beeen frequent winter walks along the Dinosaur Park, aka Lee Fields, with the Bean on the moon boots, the Pumpkin oh his pedal-less bike, me with i-pod, walking briskly! We are approached about the moon shoes every time, they're an absolute cracker.

I believe in this life, everything is possible..

...sang the entire contents of the Cork Opera House, along with Amp Fiddler, during Cork Jazz Festival.

We had visitors in town, Stockbrokerman and his new gal from London, keen to show off eachother and their entirely free, financial wellbeing. We took them to all sorts of gigs, not jazz, but part of the Festival nonetheless. What a venue Cypress Avenue is - Vivienne Long, you rock!

Then to Amp Fiddler, in the Opera House. A Detroit man from the funk'n line, got us on our feet, singin and dancin. The singing is no surprise in Ireland, the dancing is: it's a reserved place, really that way.

And then to the finale: EVERYONE sang that line, over and over, until we all could think nothing else, believe nothing else. A crowd, on key, anthemic. Transformational.

So ends a month of visitors into our wee shoebox every weekend. Great times. Mon-Wed: I rearrange, tidy, wash. Thursday: shop. Friday collect next visitor from airport, away we go again! To walk Cork, see the shop streets (disappointing to most our visitors, thrillingly fresh to most Corkonians, who remember the bad old days, 10 years ago.)

The Look of the Irish 2

What's with the fake tans, heavy fake tans? Someone said tanarexia to me, I knew just what it was immediately now!

The cheap tracksuits, the tonnes of makeup, the dreadful shoes, the completely too-cold clothes, the stretched-flat and tortured hair. They end up looking all a bit the same. There's a strange aesthetic among the girls, from about 15-25 here - looks cheap and slutty to me, not even stylish-slut. And yet, there's so much of it out there, they must love it. Is it just Cork?

In a rare escape to a pub in the evening, we walk home, in our jeans, boots, yes lipstick and perfume, coats and scarves. And encounter girls in way too short skirts, way too high heels, no sleeves, falling in and out of the pubs off Oliver Plunkett on the way home.

We didn't even do that when we were in our 20s: me in Sydney, she in Munich. We're cousins, so maybe there's something of a family value set after all. We were just glad of our good sense. And we were chatted up in Crane Lane, by a French man then, who thought VERY highly of her marvellous profile! Off to Paris modelling for her, he said.

The View From My Window 2

Sitting at the computer, the desk is behind a wall of glass the length of the room. So it's a perfect light room for an Australian family, top floor - which is great for us. I'm sure our noise travels to the floor below...

I look out and see an ancient stone wall, with some of the window arches bricked back in, weeds growing in the cracks, old corrugated iron on the roof. The owner of this building tells us that they excavated lots of bodies when he built this building about 20 years ago, exhumed them and took them away. We're just outside the city wall, so there are many burial grounds nearby.

I see a courtyard of white houses with grey slate roofs, and into lots of windows - probably 8 different places over there that we can see. LMM points out how many bathrooms we can see into, I notice the women cooking at the other windows, at the same time each evening as I am. There are satellite dishes, pot plants, lampshades, clothes airers. Sometimes clothes on a line, wet for a week.

We're all in our own versions of Rear Window, a hidden courtyard life, separate from the much more cheerless streets around us. It's neighbourly, we're part of a place with other people's lives nearby. It's never isolated. But no-one waves or speaks across it - that would be intruding.

UPDATE: In early June, the entire wall is green and pink, in wonderful flower. The sky has often been blue.

Dirty Veg from Caroline

We're back from a big trip, so it's time to settle now into another kind of life here: school, making lunches, dropping and collecting both boys (I'm off the 24/7 shift, hooray, that WAS a hard 2 months), getting to a workout often if poss, and shopping local.

Caroline's pesticide-etc-free vegetable stand at the Coal Quay every Saturday is pure pleasure. A request for a handful of spinach gets me a boy's backpack FULL, and then throw in some carrots, beetroot, cucumbers, salad leaves: with the dirt still on. She is definitely the gardener, with the dirt deep in her hands: I admire them and her, it must be a hard life, growing here in Ireland with this weather that won't really play nicely.

So I get home, wash dirt off and plan what to make with all this indigenous stuff - soup's good, parsnip goes with most everything as it turns out. Multi-veg mash is another Magic food: boys eat parsnip, celeriac, zuchini, carrot and potato, and I'm happy. Magic. Not all at once, but they all go in. Under sausages, it makes a regular appearance as dinner. Spanakopita. I love it. They all taste so damn alive, different from one another, like a true vegetable should! Makes me think of my father standing in the garden in Canberra, dirt on his hands, colanders full of the latest abundance. He grew, and still grows, most everything.

A thread right through from my Saturday mornings here in Cork, to my father's sensational plots in Canberra, with echoes too, of all the grandfathers that had their gardens in Bohemia long ago.

And now for some Motivation

Have decided to join the gym, around the corner, for the discount rate of E300 for a year. I tried for a 6 month commitment, but the deal isn't offered for that. So we'll just see.

It's been a process of elimination: can't attend a course with regular hours, as Leathermanman's shifts change, and then every month or so, we'll want to go away for a week. Needs to be vigourous, to give me a place to vent frustration, sweat, go hard, move fast. Oh and if I could lose the weight I gained in my stressful job earlier this year, that'd be great too. Can't attend classes, should be cheap because of all our other expenses. So. Here tis.

Very exciting to start, feels like I'll be able to take this seriously here, while I'm not working or studying or what. My own little thing to commit to. Better than just being there for everyone all the time. Much.

The View From My Window 1

I love it here. Out of every window, there's a different spire to be seen - the Red Abbey, St Finbarrs and St Nicholas. The density of housing, of history just outside, the quiet of this place is just exactly what we came for.

Someone must have been watching on our whole journey into this flat in Cove Street, one street down from the river Lee, right in the middle of Cork! Just enough room for all of us, and the minimal stuff we brought. It's odd to move in and not own the linen, kitchen stuff, furniture - yet call it ours now. In all our moves, it's never been as easy as this.

St Nicholas is my favourite, out the kitchen window, only about 50m away. There's a floral reclining armchair ( I know I know, but here's to the beauty of a fully-furnished flat) positioned with a small table just so, so that when I sink back with a book, I can see straight up to Nicholas. He's there as I work in the kitchen too, we're forming a solid, quiet relationship. The pic shows kitchen tap, window and Nicholas; this is taken from said chair.

Barbara Kingsolver's book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is absolutely wonderful: phwoar can she write, I love the format, with contributions from her husband and daughter too. Makes me laugh out loud, weep tears of recognition and read to anyone at any occasion! How does spaghetti grow! Strange to be reading a book about feeding a family from your own garden, now that I've just left mine, but inspirational. This food-theme is going to be big this year - local, fresh, high quality. And I've every intention of starting it all up again once we go back: the compost will be great, hope the avocado tree makes it!

And out the door, we've found the chemist, the corner shop with newspapers, phone top-up machine and friendly faces, the local pub, the internet shop we can use to print letters, as there's no printer here with us.

UPDATE: By February, the Bean is allowed to go down and buy milk by himself, returning with a HUGE smile, the correct change and maybe a packet of Actimel yoghurt drinks! "I worked out that I had enough if I only got the 4-pack!"

A well boring day

What a magical combination of engineering and other-worldly skills, with generations passing it on! Saw this sign on a wall, on the way home Cork from a day further out west. Left the boys in the car to snap this one!

A day when Leathermanman worked all day, so I packed the Bean and the Pumpkin and a picnic into the car, in search of Drombeg Stone Circle, Creagh Gardens and a day out. The Drombeg stones are well, small, but the knowledge that centuries ago, some mysterious folk watched the mid-summer sun rise up through a chink on the horizon and cast its rays across the altar stone and through the centre of the 2 lead stones, well, that's not so bad. Boys imagined cooking here, and enjoyed running about in the big space. Creagh Gardens are closed, but we enjoyed our picnic in a lovely garden nearby all the same.