Last day and departure

Day 8, Saturday, October 9, 2010

Woke up at 7 and tip-toed through the living room where Piet was sleeping fitfully on the couch, and started brekky as Tim and Leila started to stir. Had hash browns left over from last night and scrambled eggs and scones we bought yesterday afternoon. Piet up around 8:30. Did some tidying up in preparation for our departure, threw out the milk that curdled in my tea and various other stuff that we knew we’d never use. Leila swept and mopped while I tidied up. One of the things I hated to do was to throw out the compostables and the prospect of throwing out perfectly good food (like sugar), which we know the next renters will probably need. Have decided to put the bag of sugar in a plastic bag in the cupboard. So there.

Wrote in the guest book and made a list of suggestions for the owners, including revising the Web site to indicate that “internet available” suggests internet available in the house but in fact we had to drive into the café-jel in Ennistimon to use the internet and upload the daily blog. It wasn’t such a bad thing but just something to know. Piet was able to get the oven to light so we crossed that off the maintenance list. Tim and Leila took a little toot up the hill and into the hills for the fun of it, Piet snoozed most of the morning and I read from a memoir about life in County Clare in the 1930s and 40s. Had lunch of ham and cheese samiches under the broiler and bunches of grapes and then Tim took off for Doolin to reserve Table 2 for us for tonight to celebrate Chip and Gay’s 39th anniversary. Our reservation is for 7:30. Tim got lost meandering back to the cottage and discovered a couple of castles nestled in the hillside. Chip and Gay still not back at 3:30 so we’re guessing (me fretting) that they had a leisurely brekky and ambled home taking their time.

Leila picked a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Gay and Chip of the wild tiny orange lilies (name escapes me) and fuschia, which grows in profusion in all the hedgerows. With crayons she found in the cupboard, she designed and colored a Happy Anniversary message to them on a paper napkin. She put this beautiful display next to their bed.

I took a walk down the lane and discovered a beautiful white rose climbing into the upper reaches of a grape vine laden with grapes growing over the stone wall of the cottage down at the end of the lane, which appears to be unoccupied. Picked some roses for Gay and Chip and added some wild honeysuckle and hawthorn berries on my way back, which I put on the other side of their bed.

I passed the time playing solitaire until they pulled into the driveway around 5:30 happy to be home but filled with the stories of their drive to Castletownshend--which shook the confidence of Gay, our primo navigator, when they tried to find their way through Cork--and their stay with her cousin Mark, and the leisurely trip home, all of which Chip has chronicled below.

At 7:00 we took off for Doolin for our night out, a treat for Gay and Chip. It turned out that Ted McCormac was the musician for the evening, our all-time favorite. The food was delicious and abundant – huge lamb shanks on a bed of mashed potatoes (Tim, Chip, Gay, Leila), chicken taliatelle (me), chicken cacciatore (Piet). We sat next to a family of Irish-Americans who had been on the plane out of Logan who were here for a wedding, and a group of Canadians from Toronto who knew all about Georgian Bay. Small world dept. The music (Ted, the banjo player from last night, and a guitar player from South Africa who has been living in Ireland for 11 years) was incredible. Ted sang a love song to “Chip and Gale,” at Tim’s request, which the banjo player picked up on and called them “Chip and Dale.” Very funny. We stayed almost to the bitter end, long enough to hear Ted sing A Song for Ireland, a perfect way for the evening to end. Home and in bed by midnight.

Sunday, October 10, 2010 (10/10/10)

I was first up at 6:30, Piet snoring happily in bed (not on the couch) on this gray day, the rest of the gang up by 7. We cooked all the eggs and bacon we had left, threw out everything else (as per Hettie, the caretaker), difficult for our frugal, hard-core recycling group, packed the car, did a final sweep, stacked dirty sheets and towels and left the flowers we had picked for Gay and Chip on the windowsill in the kitchen.

Left for the airport at 8:30, half an hour earlier than we had expected, and got there around 10. Rental car returns went like clockwork, no problems, and we were in the airport with enough time to get tax refunds (quite a process), get something to eat, shop for last minutes, and hang out, with about an hour to spare before it was time to get on the plane.

The flight home was smooth, the food just as nasty as before, and we landed on a beautiful sunny day in Logan an hour early. Levin was there to pick up the Westport group and Pieter arrived from Vermont, tearing himself away from a perfect fall day, at around 3:15. Home by 5:45 to a wagging, vibrating Pumpkin, had a poached egg on toast, scanned the mail, read Hannah’s “novel” about house sitting, and was in bed by 8:00. Great to be home but missing Chip and Gay and Tim and Leila, our little family

A huge thanks to Gay for making this all happen.