The Cottage - Day 5
A bright start. Raining, but a bright kind of rain. And the winds have gone. Yes I will cycle today.
An email from the landlord tells me he has a couple very interested in renting the cottage, so he wants to know if everything is okay and I am definitely taking it.
We had agreed a 3-week trial. I wonder how to tell him that the porch roof he had agreed to have fixed before I moved in is still leaking badly. He had told me the repair was untested.
The dog persuades me to walk beyond the postbox, and it is when we are wading through the bog that I worry the tea will be waiting too long.
Rain is moving around, as the sun is jumping around the landscape, presenting dozens of different photographs even if you stay in one wet spot. After a mile my brain informs my legs that caffeine is absent and this is no way to start a day.
The dog gets stranded so I go back to guide her out, as behind her the clouds slide over the distant mountains.
The moment the rain stops the birds come out of the bushes and cheer. I cheer for them. The dog chases them.
Tea is not waiting for me, as it appears I left the house while in the middle of making it. I forgive the dog.
A bluebottle gets louder than usual so I guess it is caught in a web and trying to escape. I go into the porch to look. The blue bottle is not in a web. A spider less than half its size has it clamped from behind and is carrying it backwards along the ledge. Eventually the blue bottle is subdued. I want to save the bluebottle, and I can, but I don’t - for who then would save the spider?
Can’t help thinking though that it would be like a person eating a live horse - from the rear.
Against the far conifers I see waves of rain. The sky has darkened and the rain is heavy everywhere. Still though, it is not as bad as the previous 2 days. Yes I will cycle today.
The tapes and journals of my American Cycle are in a couple of boxes somewhere here. I should locate the point where I left off posting them online and get going again.
Beyond the trees and the belting rain a line of bright sky appears. The dark clouds cover only the mainland, for the sea is visible through the rain, and bright blue it is in the sun, surrounding islands of bright green. I feel happy for the islands.
Take the ladder from the workshop and look at the porch roof. It appears to have some flashband applied on half of it since I looked at it a couple of weeks ago. But that half isn’t stopping the rain coming in either.
Bang my head coming out of the bathroom.
Before I cycle I will take the dog for a good walk so that she is tired and won’t mind being left behind for the first time properly since we moved here. By the time I have my boots on everywhere is shrouded in lashing rain, and everything but sheep and trees disappears from view. We walk anyway. For 10 metres. Although it looks like it’s down for the day, it’s been so changeable so far that I decide we can wait.
Met Eireann has a rather simplistic looking rainfall radar online. I watch the animation of rain moving across Ireland but missing us, as outside my window I watch the heavy rain as far as the eye can see, very much getting us. The UK Met Office seems more accurate and tells me we might be in the clear before long. The BBC is the easiest of all to follow and also predicts an end but not for over an hour yet.
All the time the dog is still standing waiting to go on the promised walk.
We trust the BBC. Doesn’t everybody, apart from American conservatives? And we walk in the light rain expecting it to at least not get heavier. It doesn’t.
After a 3 mile walk the dog is ready to nap and asks me to fix her bed. I tuck her in and tell her that she will be minding the house while I head off.
As I put more air into the tyres I see a red car coming up my driveway. Somehow it is finding the space to turn around and leave. It has an L plate.
For all but half a kilometre I can cycle on backroads the 4 miles to the village, though I realise I’m mixing my measurements. In truth the smoothness of the main road is welcome when I reach it. Plus it isn’t that busy though anything going past is doing so at speed.
You’re more in danger of an accident from looking at the scenery. In every direction. The mountains are still there of course, changing their patterns with every twist of the road and every change in the sky, but you are much closer to the sea. Meanwhile close up you go past cottage doors, open frequently, and asses in fields. And all the time accompanied by the smell of burning turf.
In the village I don’t talk. I buy food for me and for the dog. And I get a puncture repair kit just so I can get my hands on some patches. Close to closing time it seems too late to bother asking people the nearest town I might be lucky enough to find the much needed spare inner tubes.
Taking photographs with my hair blowing in front of the lens has been a problem but if I am to tie my hair back I must buy a dozen elastic hair ties, all girlie coloured and 2 euro to boot. I didn’t really want 3 years’ supply. And I suppose a hat will keep my hair in check. It’ll be cold enough for the hat soon.
After buying the food on the main street I go around the corner - to the other street - but the shops there have closed while I was shopping.
From the center of the village you can see my house. If I had a scope with me I could wave to the dog. If the dog had a scope too that is. I waved anyway.
The ride back is glorious. Not in how I do it - I’m clearly out of straightforward cycling practice let alone in hauling a load that includes 4 litres of milk and 4 kilos of dog food - but in the scenery. The sky is largely blue with wisps of white and blue-gray clouds, but the mountains are magnificent as are the bogs below them, in the late evening hues of the sun.
It is the best the mountains have looked yet. This is my cycle home, I tell myself, the nearest thing I have to a commute.
Cranking uphill I am sweating when from somewhere in the blue sky soft rain sprinkles on me to cool me down. It is a perfect feeling.
From a mile away I tell myself I am home. And I keep telling myself I’m home until I wheel Long Grass into the porch for unloading.
Sitting at the table in the kitchen I get cramp in my right leg. Very quickly I am prostrate on the tiled floor stretching the leg. As I get back into cycling that will go.
After 3 days of rain I have no dry wood left to light a fire, but the dog and I have eaten good knowing we have plenty of food for the days ahead, so bedtime makes sense.
I let Long Grass sleep in the porch.
Read the Next Day at the cottage
Read the Previous Day at the cottage
List of all the Days at the Cottage
More from The Cottage:
• Photos of The Cottage
• Day 1 at The Cottage
• 12 Photos of Scenery Around The Cottage
• 12 Photos not all Mountains and Islands
• My Cycle Across America
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
And you told the landlord you were/weren’t [delete as applicable] taking it.
Eolai, I can smell the rain! You have a gift—thanks for sharing it.
Primal,
I didn’t respond. Because I wasn’t sure of the answer and it was only 5 days in.
The plan was, while trying to give him as much notice as possible if things were not going to work out, to give myself at least a week, though ideally 2, to see how everything was - otherwise it wouldn’t be a 3-week trial.
However given his now new potential tenants I felt I had a responsibility to him to act faster so I resolved to take 24 hours and then respond.
Martha,
Oh if I could only share the rain itself.
If you were never to paint a picture, then you’re pen pictures would put huge artistic pressure on your not yet painted pictures. That cramp thing happens me too, pure spastic. ( that’s a first ). Have you seen any other places around, for rent, possible alternatives if the porch doesn’t work out?
Sniffle,
I haven’t seen anywhere but then to be honest the thought to look has never even occurred to me.
Searching online for months through listings and following up with maps and satellite photos etc. I was very particular about the exact layout of the land where I would choose to live.
There’s a quality of life you get being able to walk out your door and turn left or right with your dog and not be harassed by cars. And yet without a car myself I need certain services within cycling reach.
Speaking of which, the sun is almost here - I must away.
Sniffle is right - you’ve been painting with words for us. Thank you.
MrsMama,
Thank you.
Having said that, you and Sniffle are making me think I should paint urban pictures of Ireland or America while I’m living here