I couldn’t say that we only discovered Ireland when we retired, we’d visited the land of our forefather’s several times before that, but it was with retirement that we started to spend time there (mostly in the same cottage in Kerry) every year. We loved it, even without the family connections. Many of these blogs have been written while we were there and / or shortly after our return. And then we stopped.
There were three reasons which in total meant we haven’t been since 2019. First there was bloody Brexit which made travel ‘abroad’ generally more difficult and more so with our dogs (pet passports, rabies certificates all became more challenging to obtain and more expensive). We probably would have surmounted these obstacles but then came another one – the pandemic. For a year or more, I can’t quite remember, travel anywhere even to the bottom of the street, became impossible, banned in fact unless of course you were a Tory politician.
Even then after that had all gone away (except it’s debatable whether it has), we might have started to go back to Ireland, except there was a third and final blow – my own health. Two operations, a spell in hospital and a period of recuperation which seems to be on-going. We have struggled to travel down to the Derbyshire cottage and the barn / vineyard let alone engage in long drives and ferry crossings. So, as I say, no Ireland since 2019.
From time to time I have pondered on how we might revisit the Emerald Isle without too much stress and strain but generally even just thinking about it has proved stressful and it was just easier to put it on the back burner as they say.
True there were the occasional reminders on the TV what the place had to offer, Irish Pickers I think it was called, a programme about the Irish antiques trade with the dealers travelling to all parts of the country to buy assorted items. Marvellous. But that was a few years ago and there it lay, until now and a programme on BBC iPlayer entitled The Great House Revival. It’s about doing up old property.
We’ve only watched 3 episodes (and there looks to be many more) but the appeal of the place comes flooding back. It reminds me of three slight regrets I have related to this country. One was a job in County Mayo which I don’t really regret. The job was as a psychologist just not my kind of psychologist. The second somewhat more of a regret was that we never bought an old cottage for very little money and then spend a lot of money doing it up (see photo at top). But as we owned 4 properties at that time, another one would probably have been regarded as excessive. So no to that.
The third and last one is more of a regret. This was and, to some extent still is, about the scheme to plant a small, Irish vineyard. I say still is, because only a couple of weeks ago I engaged in one of my favourite hobbies, looking at land for sale on line. Buying the land is possible from a financial point of view (I don’t want a lot) but the sheer effort of setting it up, as we have in Yorkshire but when we were younger and much fitter, well not so much. So no, off you go onto the back burner once more.
And then as I say along came The Great House Revival and I’m off into dreamland once again. I realise that I’m only creating unnecessary stress for myself but then, on the other hand, these crazy ambitions show me I’m still alive and not quite ready for the only folks home just yet. Speaking of which, how I laughed at the Father’s Day card my daughter bought me yesterday. On the front it said ‘if you think this card is shit you should see the nursing home I’ve picked out for you.’ She was joking, wasn’t she?
Anyway back to Ireland. Will it happen? Watch this space.