Category Archives: simple living

93. 2-stroke

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What’s your favourite smell? Freshly mown grass? Fresh coffee? That smell when you nuzzle your face into a baby? Why is it your favourite smell? Do you know?

I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning, the window open to cool the house down before the heat of the day kicked in. That’s when the smell came tumbling in and nostalgia stroked my face like a feather. One of the council workers was strimming the strip of grass that runs the length of my street. And there it was: The smell of exhaust from a 2-stroke engine. There’s comfort in that smell for me and it’s deeply entwined with so many good memories.

We’re living on Carina of Devon. Me and Julian and the girls. The smell of a 2-stroke engine is us leaving Carina to head off on an adventure in the rubber dinghy. Maybe it’s all of us, going ashore to explore a new place or to wander up a river that’s too shallow for Carina‘s draught. Or I’m on my own, the freedom of having the outboard tiller in my hand, setting out to go for a solitary walk or to go shopping or do the laundry. Or it’s Julian, taking the girls across the Rio Guadiana to school. Or it’s all the other yachties we met over the years, the smell and sound of a 2-stroke outboard motor signalling their arrivals and departures from their anchored yachts. It’s adventure and freedom.

Strip that layer away, and I’m living in Arviat. It’s summer, with open sea and lake-pocked land. I have my own quad bike and I zip around town in the near 20-hour daylight, picking my friend Crystal up at 3am, so we can go check the fishing net we’re sharing for the summer, or meeting Frank at 5am to go beluga hunting. His quad has Arden’s boat trailer attached on the back, so I hop on and reverse the quad into the sea under Frank’s guidance; he offloads the boat, as I park the quad and trailer. Or I’m out along the road to the dump, or the road past the reservoir, at twilight or after dark, speeding along way too fast, sometimes alone, sometimes not. In my mind, I’m a badass. In reality, probably not.

Strip that layer away, and I’m living in Arviat. It’s spring, and I’m at the floe edge with Arden. We’ve come by skidoo; him driving, me sitting in the qamutik (sled), facing back towards Arviat, back towards the direction we’ve come from, to shield myself from the powdery snow blown up by the skidoo runners. I’m surrounded by the immense beautiful whiteness of the west coast of Hudson Bay. We’ll stop when we get to the floe edge. Arden will talk to me and teach me, I’ll try to remember everything; we’ll drink tea and eat the bannock Theresa has made for us.

Strip away that layer and I’m at home in Ballygibbon. I could be 10 or 20 or 25. The 2-stroke exhaust is Daddy mowing the lawn. It’s the ease and efficiency of the first petrol-powered lawn mower after years of a small, manual one. It’s me spending summer evenings following Daddy round the garden – at 10 or 20 or 25 – just for his company and the important things we have to talk about – Gaelic football and films and music, a bit of politics and other sports.

When I catch a whiff of 2-stroke exhaust, it doesn’t conjure any one of these times in my life in particular. Rather, it mashes them all up, and loosens something in me, a knot unravels, and a feeling of belonging rushes through my veins. Now, I am here, with a view out my window that’s as green as I could ever have hoped for. And a new layer is added to my love of that smell.

89. Back to school

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The girls have been on summer holidays now for about one-fifth of the year. It’s been a glorious summer. Despite some loss – or perhaps because of it, making us realise how fleeting and precious life is – we have had an amazing summer, during which we got to do some incredible things. Twelve hours from now, the new school year starts.

They’re both a little nervous – a new school for Lily, a new class for Katie. They will both have new classmates and new teachers and, in the case of Lily, new subjects that she’s never studied before.

I’m a little nervous too, as I always am at the start of the school year, hoping they will have positive experiences and will enjoy themselves.

They’ve got their bags packed, their clothes ready, and we’re in bed early tonight. The house is going to be very quiet tomorrow!

85. The real New Year

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The start of September has always felt more like the real New Year. What is the 1st of January other than a dark miserable arbitrary day in the wake of the bacchanal of Christmas, everyone over-fed, over-watered, over-socialised, with not a penny to their names after splurging on presents and outfits and goodness knows what else, and nothing to look forward to but two or more months of cold and dark. New Year’s resolutions at that time of year are born more out of guilt than optimism.

How different is September. The start of autumn, the season of plenty, of apples and wheat, of (in Ireland) bringing home the turf to heat the house in winter. It’s back to school time too. Whether you have children or not, the return to school at this time of year is so ingrained in our culture. All but a few know exactly what it’s like to go back to school. It’s all about newness – a new class, new books, new teachers, maybe a new uniform. It’s a time for moving up and moving on, from one year or level to the next. This is the time of year when many teenagers move away from home for the first time.

This year, like all others, early September feels like the start of a new year. Lily and Katie have (of their own volition) spent the past two days declutterring and deep cleaning their bedroom. Lily has decided to try her hand at selling some clothes she no longer wears on Vinted. She’s sold three items today alone!

With school about to start in a few days, the girls and I have been talking about eating more healthily for ourselves and the planet and so I’m planning some very different meals over the coming weeks.

At this time of year, the weather is still warm enough and the days long enough to put New Year’s resolutions and promises made to ourselves into action. There’s a welcome return to routine after the more free-form and chaotic summer holidays – especially for people with school-age kids.

So, if you’re thinking of making positive changes in your life, don’t hold off until dreary January. Embrace the possibilities for change at this, the real, New Year.

81. All talk

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So much talking. Our living room filled with family. Oh how we can talk. One conversation, multiple conversations simultaneously. Sometimes quiet intent listening. Sometimes uproarious laughter.

There’s football talk and golf talk. Talk of births and deaths and marriages. There’s politics and the economy and talk of the rising cost of everything from groceries to airport food.

We ask each other about half remembered family stories, piecing them together, sure to forget and likely to have to ask about them again the next time we meet, or the time after that.

The tea flows, and the wine. The plates of ham sandwiches, rhubarb tart, biscuits, cake disappear, and still the talk goes on.

All too soon it’s midnight. The cousins leave, not to be seen for another few weeks or months, having dropped in and lit up our evening.

And still the talk goes on. As we wash up. As we prepare for bed. As we decide to have one more drink. It feels like we won’t ever run out of talk.

77. West Cork scenes

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The last couple of days in west Cork have been a delight. Here are a few photos….

View from Glandore
Adam and Eve islands
The Warren, Roscarbery
The Warren from the cliff walk
Evening swimmers
Silliness on the beach

76. Drombeg

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Drombeg stone circle

I visit Drombeg every time I come to west Cork. And each time, I feel a connection to the people who lived here 3000 years ago. Not some hokey connection, like these people were somehow more spiritual or more vital or more at one with nature than us. No. I feel a connection because they were people just like us, breathing in this same air, looking out over the view of the sea cradled in the V of the valley. These clouds hung over them, this rain fell on them, this wind chilled them, this sun shone on them.

While Newgrange or Stonehenge are huge and majestic monuments, stone circles such as Drombeg and the others that dot the landscape of southwest Cork feel much more intimate and ordinary. As astounding as the stone circle is, with its orientation based on deep astronomy, it is the more intimate and domestic elements of this site that move me. It is knowing that the body of a youth was found at the centre of the circle. It is the rectangle water pit, where water was boiled using stones first heated in a fire. Maybe the pit was used for cooking. Maybe it was used for dyeing or some other purpose. We simply don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. It’s that people – men, women, children – sat and walked and played and loved and argued and laughed here 3000 years ago. Ordinary people who couldn’t imagine that 3000 years into the future people would visit what remains of their home and wonder at what they did.

67. Supplies

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Vicks vaporub? Check

Vicks inhaler? Check

Paracetamol? Check

Balsam tissues? Check

Water? Check

Extra pillow to minimise coughing? Check

Well, I’ve caught something or other. Bad summer cold, Covid, who knows. So, I have my supplies lined up by the bed. Here’s hoping I sleep better tonight than last night.

61. Playful weather

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The last time I came home to Ireland for an extended summer visit – 2023 – it rained every day but two of the almost four weeks we were here. Not always heavily and not always prolonged. But every day but two it rained at least for some part of the day.

I wouldn’t really have minded. We live in a hot, dry country after all, and coming home to Ireland’s more temperate climate doesn’t really bother us. We’re here for family and friends, really. So what if there’s some rain? We just don our rain coats and sturdy shoes and get on with it.

Except that I came home for those four weeks in the summer of 2023 on a mission. I’d planned it in advance, discussed it with Mammy and with my sister. I was here to work. The wrought iron gates and garden furniture needed to be painted and the two sheds needed to be cleared out. On my first day or two home, I went to the hardware shop in Edenderry and bought the paint, brushes, rubber gloves and whatever else I needed. I was going to spend much of those four weeks out of doors, getting these much needed jobs done.

But it rained and rained. Day after day. What could I do? If the painting didn’t get done now, the gates and furniture would be facing into another winter of damage. So, I painted in the gaps in the rain, glancing worryingly at the sky and willing the rain to hold off for a few hours to let the paint dry. It rarely did. The painting got done, but the gates still carry the pock marks of raindrops on not quite dry paint.

The garden furniture was easier. We could haul it into the shed to paint it. But first the shed had to be cleared. I did that over two rainy days – clearing the contents of the shed, loading them into the boot and back of Mammy’s car to take them to the recycling centre, then back home to fill up another load. There were decades worth of old stuff to be thrown out – old paint cans, old rusty tools, old broken bits and bobs from the house and the garden. All hauled away in the rain. And then I tidied up what was left and now had space to paint the garden furniture.

Two days without rain that whole summer in Ireland. And it was cold too. We had to light the fire in July to keep warm.

I arrived in Ireland this year with no plans to do any outdoor work around the house. Well, you can guess what’s happened. Glorious weather most of the time, barely a cloud in the sky. The odd day or rain here and there. We’re dining al fresco for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I could be out painting the gates, or cutting back the hedges, or weeding the patio. Instead, I’m sitting inside at the kitchen table, a warm breeze wafting through the French doors, the light too bright for me to work outside on my laptop.

Maybe if I want a break in this glorious summer weather, I should plan to do a bit of painting.

60. Digital nomad

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Only a few short years ago, this summer would have been impossible. But here I am, over fifty days since I left home, and barely a day of work missed. Laptop, wifi, Bluetooth; Word, Zoom, Google docs. These are the tools I need to work anywhere and at any time. In between all the fun summer activities – visiting friends, Wimbledon, Pride, museums, hikes, and on and on – I’ve been beavering away at work. Making space at the kitchen table at Mammy’s house, spending days in public libraries, in friends’ spare rooms and office spaces – I have been working away to pay the bills and fund this wonderful summer.

All summer I’ve been ghostwriting, editing and providing other writing support for clients in South Africa, the UK, Europe, the US, Canada and China, fitting in an hour of work here, a couple of days there, a weekend, an evening, whatever time I can find. It’s been challenging at times, as I’m not following my usual routine of working at my desk, on my lovely widescreen monitor, while the girls are at school. Instead, I’m working from an old laptop, in a variety of different places, at various times of the day, and with all sorts of distractions.

Technology that was almost unimaginable twenty years ago, clunky and clumsy ten years ago, intermittent and expensive even five years ago, is now ubiquitous, easy to access and easy to use. Even with a barely hanging in there laptop, I can work wherever and whenever I want.

I am privileged to have a job that allows me to choose when and where I work, and equally privileged to have access to the tools and hardware that allow me to work in this way. I’m one lucky summer digital nomad.

49. Breakfast

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Breakfast is generally the most perfunctory of meals. Quick and practical at the start of the day. On Saturday or Sunday, I like to make pancakes or waffles, which we eat lazily with multiple mugs of tea. But still, it’s the meal that, most of the time, I make and eat at home. I always imagine going out for breakfasts, but I’ve never lived anywhere that’s had much in the way of breakfast options.

Visiting a city is always a great opportunity for sampling breakfasts of all sorts. The memory of New York and Toronto diner breakfasts make me drool even now, and I still get nostalgic about breakfasts in Paris, Sydney, Honolulu, Vienna, London, Sevilla. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, mueslis, yogurts; breakfasts of all shapes and sizes; enjoyed with friends or in my own.

This morning, on the way through Derry, I had one such memorable breakfast. Not at a diner or a cafe, but at a friend’s house, made all the more delicious for the care and devotion my friend’s brother and sister put into making it.

The dining table was dressed with food, like that Christmas scene in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. Eight of us sat around a table laden with rashers, sausages, black pudding, grilled tomatoes, fried potatoes, baked beans; potato farls, brown bread, toast, brioche buns, pancakes; jams, honey, marmalade, maple syrup; tea, coffee, hot chocolate. Every breakfast I love, all there on the table. I could have sat there all day, gorging myself like the Prince Regent.

Alas, we had to get on the road. Home beckoned. So, with a tummy full of food made with care and passion, I set out, another memorable breakfast to fuel my future nostalgia.