Turning

I lay in bed last night and listened to the wind howling through the trees and around the chimney pots, the hail spattering against the window panes and the distant rhythm of surf pounding on the shore.
Bleak midwinter indeed.
But, safe in my warm nest I didn't feel bleak. This is a time of year when there is something vibrant pulsing at the core, and when night enfolds you it is like black velvet wrapped around a bright kernel, so in the heart of the darkness, the wildness outside lulled me to sleep very quickly.
It is a time of year when the night is often better than the day. This morning was possibly the most horrible day ever spawned. Rain, rain and more rain, borne on winds gusting to 105km/hr.

A couple of weeks ago, someone told me we were going to have blizzards, and snow lasting into mid-January. To my mind, an infinitely preferable alternative.

But heigh-ho. It's only weather, after all, and I have spent the day in my kitchen, all the animals curled up in their various beds, snoozing the hours away. I've been decorating my Christmas tree, wrapping a few presents, and writing last minute Christmas cards.

My Christmas tree

My friend Mairead posted a lovely piece on her blog recently called In Praise of Christmas Cards which was very apposite and beautifully written. She mourns the slow decline of Christmas Cards, she feels they are an important part of our tradition and - perhaps more to the point - our personal history. She is, of course, quite right. How can an email possibly compare? However warm the wishes, it doesn't sit on your mantelpiece looking pretty and seasonal, or last. And as for texts - well, there is nothing to be said.

She and my mother are as one in this, although even Mairead probably doesn't expend as much zeal in the matter as my Mama. In truth, I have never known anyone who takes Christmas cards more seriously - she does a proper job, with news and personal letters enclosed - she probably thinks a 'round robin' is that plumptious little creature on her bird table. And she has them mailed in good time, not like my last minute scrabble to catch the final posting day.

It was today, the final posting day for Christmas. No surprise that I was writing cards, then.
I looked out of the window regularly, waiting for a momentary pause in the rain so I could scoot down to the post box, but the passing hours only brought more rain, blowing ever more sideways. Being washed down to the post office did not seem an appealing prospect , but then suddenly an angel appeared. It is traditional of course, at Christmas. This angel took the form of my friend the Talentui Goddess. I didn't see her wings at first, only when she announced that she was on her way into town did I spot the soft feathers fluttering behind her chic hat.
'You're not going to the post office?' I asked, hardly daring to hope for such a reprieve.
'No,' she said. 'But I can. I'm going past it.'
What a honey.


If pushed, I'd have to admit that it's not cards, but Christmas carols that are the essential part of the season for me. I don't mean bashing out O Come All Ye Faithful with some person coughing on your left side and someone else blowing their nose to your right, but rather the lucid perfection of King's College choristers singing John Rutter or The Coventry Carol or something angelic along those lines. It's not possible for me to make mince pies, or write cards, or decorate trees without those clear voices in the background. 

Essential Christmas

But I do love Christmas cards.
I don't send many these days - postage being so exorbitant - but I am very choosy about what I buy. They have to pass some indefinable yardstick. They have to really appeal to me, even if they are not conventionally beautiful. And - pleased as I am to receive any cards at all these days, I have a definite marking system for the ones I do get. Every year I keep one or two that I specially like, which are hung vertically on ribbons, and each Christmas all the 'specials' from previous years come out of their box and decorate the walls all over again.

One of my 'specials'

Perhaps loving Christmas cards is also about anticipation. To me, this last week or so before Christmas is almost the best bit of all.

I love midwinter, the days getting shorter and shorter, the trees bare against the darkening sky, the stars fierce and brilliant, houses filled with light and, despite the horrors of the world, everyone looking forward to something, whatever that may be.

Here we are, in the deepest dark of the year, the long, cold reaches of winter still to come, the slow return of the light tantalisingly ahead as the earth pauses - pivoting, slowly turning towards her next brave horizon; yet hidden within the folds of her dark skirts is Christmas, like a warm heart glowing in the depths of the night, a bright kernel shrouded in velvet.

Daring to Bare

I hardly needed my alarm clock to wake me at cock-crow this morning.
A savage wind had already woken me several times as dawn crept in.
Here we are at the solstice, the longest day of the year, and Irish bonfire night - all crammed into one summer weekend - and you would think it was mid autumn.
I think it's my fault. A few days ago I wrote that it was hot and dry and wonderful. Needless to say, it started to rain the next day.

As I hauled myself reluctantly out of bed, I wondered whether the lads from the marquee company would even try to put the tent up on the beach. How would they ever fasten it down?
I had visions of a kind of marquee-shaped hot air balloon gusting across Donegal Bay with various people dangling from ropes. I tried to quell such negative (but graphic) thoughts, grabbed the flapjacks, my winter coat, hat and wellies, and headed out the door.
Marie Christine - one of our wwoofers -  was waiting by the car, despite the appalling hour and weather.

We were off to help at the 4th annual skinny dip to raise money for cancer research.

After last year's Dip in the Nip, I no longer had romantic visions of driving into the dawn, which was just as well, as nothing was visible on the horizon except low grey cloud hanging like soggy fleece, obliterating everything.
But to my amazement, when we got to the beach, a half-erected marquee met our eyes, with - yikes - men clinging to ropes...


I was instantly and efficiently directed to a parking slot and from that moment, everything fell into place with oiled ease. Before the tent was even fully up, it was filled with tables, portable gas rings, boilers, catering flasks full of piping hot coffee and tea, not to mention endless tins of flapjacks and buttered scones.

Talentui Organics  face and body oils

In a separate corner we laid out Talentui organic soaps and oils, cards and crafts - including lovely little pottery dishes with Dip in the Nip 2013 hand printed on the bottom. Our resident potter had made them with clay from the next bay along the coast, each one different.

The sea, the sea - caught in a bowl. Marie-Christine chose this one

Beltra Country Market was in full swing.

Dip in the Nip's inventor and organiser then informed us that everyone had recommended cancellation. The Irish Coast Guards, The Irish Surf Association and Life Guards, even I think the County Council, not to mention all those sane enough to be still in their beds, snug and warm.
Glancing out at the wild, messy ocean, and listening to the wind battering the tent, it wasn't hard to apply the logic.
But the suggestion that people ought not to fulfil the morning's purpose was met with loud boo-ing, and within minutes the men and couples had headed off to their stations at the far end of the beach, and a stream of pink wigs and dressing gowns was flowing down after them, if not eagerly, at least with determination. Marie and I took a few minutes off our tea-lady duties to watch as they gathered for a photo, away down the strand, before flinging their dressing-gowns off and racing towards the sea.

 

Looks like the men and the women could be going head-to-head this year

High up where we stood beside the tents, we watched items of clothing dancing along the sand like Disney characters. A pink wig somersaulted towards us like tumbleweed, followed a moment later by a t-shirt, flapping through the air like a strange, pink bird.

We never saw them again, but it wasn't long before the Dippers started to reappear, eager to wrap their numb fingers around a hot drink.
'It's warmer in the sea than on the beach,' they said.
I could believe them.

But it was warm in the tent too. Not because the temperature was higher, but because everyone was there for the same reason, and everyone was in it together, dippers and helpers alike - trying to raise money that might save a life, or to commemorate a loved one, to support someone suffering from a horrible disease, to forge new hope.
The air was filled with friendship and laughter. Despite the innate sadness of the cause, it buzzed with life and love.


There were no wishing trees this year, the wind was too strong.
But as Marie and I left, I saw that the car park was full of pink feathers, torn from boas and now settling into the sand and gravel like confetti.
Each one a silent prayer.



I am sad to see that sections of this post have been randomly used in an article about Dip in the Nip in the online publication, Sligo Today - without prior permission or acknowledgement as to the source.


The post I wrote after this same event last year, Nippy Dipping in the Briney, has been the second most popular post on my blog, ever.
You can read it here if you would like to.

Sweet Boys

Oystercatchers on our favourite beach

Yesterday we went to our favourite beach.
It felt like a pilgrimage - difficult. Something to prepare yourself for.
Comforting and painful in equal parts.

The tide was out and oystercatchers clustered on the sand, along with flocks of delicate brown and white birds that I recognise but cannot name. My sister would know what they are.
A lavender grey sky, heavy with rain, paused for us on the horizon, waiting patiently until we left, but the promised wind was already flirting with the dunes, sending scarves of dry sand snaking across the surface of the beach.
No one was there.
No one but ghosts. And us.

Model Dog looked up and down the beach and raced off, but only the wind chased her and finally she walked along tucked between us, the beautiful collar I bought her for Christmas gleaming pink and gold in her camouflage fur. She wasn't sad, just a bit lonely.

We are sad though.
December has been a month full of sorrow, and memories, and gratitude, and loneliness.
We buried Under Dog in the orchard on the 1st of December. He hadn't been well for a long time, and the balance was suddenly tipping the wrong way so that I was no longer sure if enjoyment was uppermost.
We had known it was coming.
It doesn't really help much though, does it - knowing?

We didn't know at the time that it would be our last walk on the beach

But, bad as that was, there was worse to come.

What we didn't know was that Top Dog was only holding on for his brother.
Although I might have known. He's always looked after his twin, right from the start. When they were just little plippys, he'd climb in and lie on top of Under Dog in the basket to keep him safe. (Hence the name, Under Dog.) Such sweet plippys they were. They slept like that for years, until Under Dog had his awful accident and damaged his back. Top Dog never climbed in on top of him again after that.

Thirteen years we had them - and I am grateful for every one, even though time has embedded them so deep in our hearts they can't be removed without taking huge slices of us too.

Sweet plippys

Some unfathomable instinct had warned me that when one of them called time, the other wouldn't want to stay for long on his own. It's why we got Model Dog in May.
But I never dreamed we'd only have ten days grace.

It was very sudden. A quiet, happy Sunday chewing his marrow bone, but then awful pain in the evening which the vet's injections didn't really alleviate. He lay calmly in his basket all night, watching us, obviously uncomfortable, but not distressed. We wondered if he'd swallowed a bit of bone.
We hoped. Too anxious to talk, we just watched and hoped.
The vet met us again at her surgery before first light, and I held his sweet face in my hands as he fell asleep, but the operation only revealed that there was nothing to be done. It wasn't a bit of bone. Our poor Top Dog was bleeding internally from a tumour tangling around his blood vessels and the kindest thing was to kiss him and let him go with our blessing, without waking up.
The kindest thing for him, not for us.

He had seemed so fit and well. Ageing, but fit and well.
But it explained why he hasn't wanted to walk very far recently. Why he'd hide behind my legs when Model Dog was racing and chasing, why he'd handed the responsibility for small jobs over to her - like going out with me to feed the hens.

We buried him next to his brother. Model Dog sat and watched, visibly appalled, as his grave was dug. When we placed him in it, she tried to get in too, and the next day I saw her carry his bone up to the orchard and leave it close to where he lies.

Model Dog and I didn't go to the woods for a week or more afterwards.
I couldn't face it, and still find it difficult. They are there, two black and white ghosts dancing through the trees, racing down every ride, swimming in the river, running along the bank.
They are carefree, full of joy.


Nothing can prepare you for how you will react when something happens. The morning he died, I removed Top Dog's bed from the kitchen because I couldn't bear to see it, perpetually empty. And I sent an email to the family, to my friends, to people I might bump into, because he was so important a figure in our lives that I needed to 'stop the clocks'. Everyone had to be told of his death immediately, so that I wouldn't have to explain later, although I couldn't bring myself to speak to anyone except my own two boys.
But how kind people are. I hadn't thought beyond the ordeal of telling them, and I was more touched than I can say by the kind messages, the texts, cards, emails, even flowers we received during the following days and weeks. Such an outpouring of love and comfort - it has helped so much.

Candles for the Winter Solstice

And on the Winter Solstice - that day when for so many generations our ancestors have reached out from the enclosing darkness to welcome the return of the light - I filled the windowsill with candles in memory of them, in celebration of their years and the joy they brought us, the companionship, the trust, the love - in gratitude for the continuance of them.

They are woven in, woven in. Nothing can remove those we have loved, and truly, it is only ourselves we weep for, not for them, for they 'have slipped the surly bonds of Earth/And danced the skies...' *

But the trouble is, neither of us can quite get used to a world without them.

More than ever, I am grateful for my lovely Model Dog.

A dear friend sent me this poem in the days after Top Dog died.
It made me cry all over again, but it is beautiful, and I think you will like it. It was written by Mary Oliver.

Her Grave  

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile -
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her cunning elbows,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.
                                            

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.
We did not think of music,
but, anyway, it began to rain
slowly.
                                          

Her wolfish, invitational,  half pounce.

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.
                                       

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
 He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if you're lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?

She roved ahead of us through the fields, yet would come back, or

wait for me, or be somewhere

Now she is buried under the pines. 

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and

not be angry.

Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering.

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste

of the infallible energies?

How strong was her dark body?

How apt is her grave place.

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

Finally,

the slick mountains of love break

over us

Mary Oliver

                                  

How apt are their grave places indeed.
It is where they loved to be. It is where I love to be.

My brother wrote:

'What a very special orchard you have now, and for a long time. 

May every season you walk there bring you more peace.

And now you have Model Dog, in the nick of time.

And God's Good Grace, all the time.

Love and love and love.

Sorry I can't offer more but I know you have been blessed and you will be again.'

Amen to that.

Blessed indeed.

Farewell, sweet boys.

* from High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr