AH SURE AZURE

Category: Travel

  • Sparkling Dungarven

    Sparkling Dungarven

    On the plus side of life in the country is the bright lights and on the negative side is the intense dark. How is this contradiction possible?

    My local town Dungarven has the most remarkable display of Christmas lights. No matter what direction you approach it from – an illuminated Angel strung across the main street bugling you into the town or and enormous Lighted Santa Bear across from the Supervalu.IMG_4217

    The park has an illuminated swan and swishes of lights enticillant (I think is how the French describe the Eiffel tower when it twinkiles up and down) the trees under which a group of adults are led through a routine of pressups and warmups.(war mups?)

    IMG_4219But the dark? Oh yes. It comes at about 5pm these days which is why the lights work. It is an intense dark, not the dirty light we get in Dublin.

    On clear nights we are compensated by the spectacular stars. On ordinary nights with the cloud cover I am convinced there is a glow in the sky over Dungarven from the lights that was not there before.

    Driving in the dark is not my idea of fun.

    Why I picked up a total stranger last night holding a red can for petrol I do not know. But I did and brought him to the nearest petrol station which was 5 km away. He was a simple type honest looking man with a stubbled chin and big eyes. He left his car with the hazards on at the side of the road. When we got back to it I noticed a passenger. ‘ thats my wife’ he told me. ‘ she is very nervous’.

    I opened the boot so he could get out the red can of petrol and I wondered where they were going where they lived and a thousand other questions. They faded into the intense darkness, my curiosity unsated ( if thats a word). He did seem to know a lot about cars.

    Another six weeks until we reach the shortest day and then another six weeks until its as long as it is today. But can Spring be far behind?

  • Break my heart at Breakfast

    Apricot jam -v Marmalade
    unopened jar of Apricot Jam bought by mistake

    Did you ever cut open a brown scone, butter it and reach for the marmalade only to find the orange spread you ladle on is Apricot jam masquerading as marmalade?

    The illogical anger as your taste buds struggle and yearn for the zest and buzz of marmalade is matched only by the disappointment that your breakfast on your breakaway has been partially spoiled. The anticipation of the perfect breakfast scone has been unfulfilled and you look around for someone to blame.

    How could anyone think the bland smoothness of apricot would fool me? Who actually made the decision to substitute the real thing with an inadequate replacement. Better by far to say ‘We do not have marmalade’ than to lead one down or up the garden path and lull one into a false sense of consumable confiture.

    It is actually not jam at all  or jelly as they call it in the US.  The real thing was sliced in a manual slicer attached vice like to the kitchen table  Seville oranges came in once a year and the annual ritual would rotate between the Rayburn where the slices would bob around in the preserving pan, pounds of sugar added until it was decanted into sterilised Jam jars  and oh the smell!

    In times of need when the real thing was all eaten, mother would make it out of a tin .  Delicious !  Only when all else failed did we buy a pot of marmalade.

    The sausages are eaten, the second cup of coffee is poured but its all gone up in a puff of smoke.

    Is it worth talking to the waitress? Will this only serve to fuel the anger, underlining the unfortunate start to the day.

    Or does one just bottle it up and buy ones one jar of the real stuff at the local shop.

    Did you not know that ‘I was a morning grouch – until I discovered Little Chip marmalade ‘. One of the best pieces of advertising ever.

    So remember- serving Apricot Jam can be responsible for morning grouches all over the world.

  • Islands of my Dreams

    WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

    Is it only me or does everyone see the land mass nearest them as the first island they looked out at as a child?
    When I look out at Howth, I see Cape Clear. When I look at Clare island off Luisburgh, I see Cape Clear.
    I think the shape of these land masses is similar. Ridges left after the glaciers slid their way through valleys to eventually melt into the sea.


    Their height is similar – not a very scientific observation but it gives me more to go on than nostalgia for my faulty perception.
    Or is it just wishful thinking- to be back in those days when your horizon was bordered Cape Clear, when the day was regulated by high tide so we could jump off Colla Pier.
    The walk past Hannah Fleury’s house, its perennial garden laden with scent , where her gorgeous golden retriever would curl on her back, beseeching us to rub her belly where her nipples felt velvety and nubbly under our fingers.
    We would pick up a swarm of files there that would pester us for a few fields. Our towels would round our heads, we must have looked like a small group of nomadic berbers, tans and freckles and sunburnt, instead of the mahogany skin of the desert inhabitants.
    We loitered at the pier, in fact we loitered everywhere. I cant think of a single other thing we did. We cycled, speeding down the 30’ gradient up at Caherlaska,, and freewheeling up the other side, seeing how far we could go without pedalling.
    We would later cut those hills out and dump our bikes in the heather and go across the springy turf and jump goat like over the rocks until we reached the holiday bungalow.
    Never going straight in to the house, but instead climbing directly on to the asphalt roof of the garage and in to the attic space, almost entirely filled with a table tennis table made of plywood and hung around with sheep skins drying on the rafters.
    The smell of those pelts is with me today, an acrid, earthy type of odour, inhaled deeply by us with whatever other dust and particles were in that roof space as we sped around the table, becoming more accurate every day with our serves and volleys.
    Dinner was almost invariably fresh mackerel cooked whole, with four scores across the sides and grilled or fried with butter.
    Served with liberal lemon juice and potatoes, we left the house as soon as possible after dessert, squeezing every last minute out of the long evenings with the stunning sunsets lasting any time up to 11.30.
    Maybe that is why I always think of Cape clear when I look out at the horizon from Dun Laoghaire. We were kings of our world for those few uncompromisingly lived weeks where natures backdrop knows no half measures.