Author Archives: annebennettbrosnan

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About annebennettbrosnan

Farmer's wife, mom, language teacher, baker, stand in gapper, good friend (that's the intention), bon viveur...

Hands Full

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Taking the three sons, aged 6, 3 and 1 to town is an act of martyrdom, and I’m no saint. Sometimes, however it is unavoidable. When called upon to mount such a campaign as a trip to town, I make it into a bit of an adventure, a treat, a slow meander with a list of jobs to do at their pace.

Friday, we had to go to the cobblers, the bank, the fish shop with the trip to the cafe dangling on the end of the stick as a motivation to behave. And while it is not something I want to make of an everyday, a trip to town with these little boys is not altogether unpleasant.

You wouldn’t want to be tired, complaisant or in a hurry. You need your wits about you and a fail safe exit plan should the whole operation fall apart. You have to time it well. Long enough to get your work done, short enough for the little people not to become tired or bored. Not bored, certainly, not bored.

Like the puppeteer about her little puppets, you add a narration, most probably annoying to others but essential to keeping the show on the road or off the road as it were.

‘We’ll just go to the cobblers now. (In mind head, I’m wandering if that is somehow un-PC?)’

You explain the concept, enlist their help paying the shoe-maker (worse?), putting the shoes in the basket, waving goodbye.

They must continue to hold the buggy around the remaining shops and if they’re very good, we’ll pass the toy shop to look in the window. Six months to Christmas means nothing to these boys as they calculate the risks of getting such a toy against the good/naughty boy barometer.

Time on our side, they have the freedom to run around the big town square safely before making it to the cafe for our treat and coffee to keep mother quiet. The cafe is set up for mothers and their children and so I watch as they play with toys and other children before suiting up again for the walk back to the car-park.

All the time narrating, mind the lady, onto the footpath, we’ll cross the road here, you push the button, we’ll wait. Then, waiting, a lovely older lady appeared by my side and with the gentlest touch of my hand and kind eyes told me quietly that I had my ‘hands full.’ I hear it a lot, it’s the Irish way of saying, mothering here doesn’t go unnoticed. You have your hands full. I heard these words from the angel lady at the pedestrian crossing who had the look of someone who really understood and her words meant more.

I thanked her, may have shook my head at her knowing smile and crossed the road with my little boys.

To the car, they hold the buggy, by my side, while I get the ticket. ‘You press the button for the elevator. Do you remember where we left the car? I know you’re all getting tired, but we’ll be home soon, you were such great boys today.’

Gliding

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I sat in the same place almost a year ago to the day, celebrating my birthday at forty one weeks pregnant, unable to fit any clothes, unable to sit still in a restaurant or a cinema or able to enjoy the usual birthday treats. I sat there with the farmer on a scorching Sunday eating a bag of salty chips watching people come and go like the waves behind me, to-ing and fro-ing in their usual manner. Forty one weeks pregnant and utterly miserable. Have you tried walking the hills people asked in their are-you-sure-you’re-not-just-holding-the-baby-in way! Yes, I walked hills, why on that very hill, the hill to Ballybunion’s Ladies beach, I thought I was going into labour on more than one occasion that very week I’ll have you know. A year ago. Almost to the day. 

What a year it’s been. Everyone takes to motherhood differently you know. I’ve taken to it each time like the only undignified swan of the flock in shallow mucky waters. What an analogy. You see, I start out wanting to be graceful, gliding, swanlike but end up stuck and I’m sure in what is a very tiring situation, covered in mud and squawking as that swan would in the messy post storm pond. Where am I going with this? Beats me, I don’t particularly like swans.  And there you have early motherhood for me. Messy, confused, undignified. And the little signets do well enough but it’s taken me on three different occasions almost a year after the birth to pull the mind, body and soul back into some proportion. And yet, it always does in the end you know.
So, there we sat earlier today in the same spot, me and this darling boy as he smiled at me in all his perfection, my gentle, sweet baby. Sitting there on that same hill, under the same brilliant blue sky, a tad cloudier mind you and I saw that steep hill, the year that had past, tides that have come and gone and left me this beauty in their stead and me an utterly transformed woman, yet again. Anthony a year old, me a year older sharing a moment on our hill overlooking the Atlantic under a dramatic blue sky and might I add, gliding.

A Rainy Bank Holiday

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The June Bank Holiday weekend is a trial for the summer holidays. At this stage, we’d be hoping for good weather but already in the style of a good-auld-Irish-can’t-complain-about-the-misery-sur-tis-green episode of non-stop rain, I contemplate a farmhouse in Kerry for the summer with three young boys. I can do it. I’ll make the best of this by God.

I awake at 7am after a lie-in. Normally, these boys wake earlier. I sneak downstairs, fuel up on coffee and get the breakfast ready. Some minutes later the house arises with ‘That’s mine’, ‘no, mine’ and ‘Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.’
Up the stairs I go and have the perfect parenting conversation, I think.
Right boys, says I, we can have a good day or a bad day. A good day includes, fun, kindness to one another, giggles, hugs, imagination and anything else my just awakened mind can dream up. A bad day, on the other hand, involves cross boys, a grumpy mommy, a boring day, tears, hoarse voices and have I mentioned a grumpy mommy?
We decide on the good day.
After eating breakfast, cleaning up and dressing, we decide to start as we mean the summer to go on and not switch on the television right away.
We did lego yesterday. We baked yesterday and I ate all the substandard dinosaurs. I am full to the brim with one-legged stegosaurus.
Puzzles it is. Yes, I can work with you and you. At the same time. Find the pieces around the edges first. You want your bottle? Ok, pet. Great work. Well done. I am helping you. And you. Drink up. Oh, you have a poo, let’s change that. I do help you. All the time. Let’s play tidy up the puzzles. Come on. You too. You have to. Because I said so. Great stuff.
Toy hospital? I’d love to. Girls can be doctors too you know. Yes, I’ll be nurse once you know I could be a Doctor too. You two be Doctors because you’re the boys, no, no, because you insist, no. no, because you make great, caring Doctors. Yes, your doctor outfit is here. Yes, I’ll make the beds. Yes that toy Dog can be a sick cat. Yes, and her too, she can be an elephant with a broken toe.
Oh now, you’re Dogs and I’m the vet and you’re hungry dogs, ok, Mommy Vet will get something nice for you to eat. Let’s sit down and have a nice snack together, oh you still want to be dogs, who are chasing each other, and me.
Followed by Superheros, Hide and Go Seek and crawling races.
It’s 9:15am.
A good day. Where’s the remote?

To the Mart

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He may only be three going on four but already you get glimpses of the man he’ll become. I’ll be talking to Daddy he tells me excited at the day that lays ahead. I’ll be up on the big box with Dan (as he calls Daddy) when we sell the calves. The same calves who he tried to feed some weeks before. The same calves he let lick or morelike swallow his little hand previously.

He walks down the drive with a little swagger behind his father who is busy trying to think of what else he might need for the mart. Calves, check. Calf cards, check, phone, wallet, keys check, little namesake, check. The rain pours down on them but little will dampen the spirits of the three year old, who carrying the ham sandwiches on Thomas the Tank backpack, will drive with Daddy in his tractor to the mart.

The city woman in me used to wonder what we would tell them about the days we would have to put calves in the trailer to take to the mart. It used to make me a little sad but I’ve come to realize that my life as a farmer’s wife is less of a novelty now and more the norm by the year. That these little of boys of mine while adoring their animals, know from a young age that taking the calves to the mart is a part of the job. Not a time for sentimentality mom.

Just before being lifted up high by his Daddy towards his little seat on the tractor, he gives me one big wave and a happy smile. He’s off for a day at the mart, a day with Daddy. Such a big boy now.

In that Pint of Milk

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In that pint of milk is the ponderings of a Dairy farmer. Where will the cows go next? That field might be a bit wet after the recent rain, best put them in the High Field for now.

There is the watchful eye on protein and fat content, is there enough, is it good enough?

Behind that Pint of Milk are reams of paperwork, waiting for the farmer’s wife’s attention. Incomings and outgoings, all to be put in order, as soon as you can.

In that creamy milk is the call from the boys for the creamy bit, the nightly hot chocolate, the pour at breakfast, the sour milk for tomorrow’s bread, the icecream on a Sunday.

The farmer wipes the cow’s udder, places on the cluster, rubs a pap and the milk flows as the cow feeds on some ration. A gentle squeeze on an empty pap, cleaning, some dip, she feels the tap on her leg by the farmer’s hand, telling her to move on. Her milk moves through the dairy pipework into the bulk tank, to the tock, tock, tock of the machine awaiting collection. She saunters into the yard and towards the field again.

Back into year’s green green grass. Grass that brings on her creamy milk for that evening’s milking.

All in that pint of milk.

Keep her country

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By my reckoning, it takes you a couple of years before you get into the swing of this country living business. The first year you might find yourself opened mouthed, at times awestruck, sometimes dumbstruck, perplexed and amazed. It is without a doubt a culture shock. I’ve known culture shock, I’ve travelled a bit and so I thought, hey, it’s my own country, how different could it be?

Different. To say the least.

So what’s so different? Let me illustrate with a few examples;

In the country, everybody knows everybody else. What? In the city, I knew my immediate neighbours plus a few more. That was it. I knew those neighbour’s offspring and maybe the odd eccentric aunt. In the country, you’re expected to know everyone and that everyone seems to be in someway connected to half of the village and you have to remember this. You really have to remember this she types cringing.

Country people love funerals. It’s not actually about the deceased, well it kind of is. Yes, you attend a funeral to support your neighbours, show your face, lend a hand but mainly it is a bit of a social gathering outside the funeral home. Was there many at it? How did she look? Were you talking to anyone? Be they sad, tragic or in celebration of a long happy life, they are the reason to put on a nice scarf or clean shoes and meet your neighbours. They bring moments of solidarity to a community in sad times and a nice chat on a bright evening at others.

The countryside is very quiet at night time. You might hear a cow bellow or a milk truck of a morning but there are no drunken brawls (more’s the pity) to speak of or cars zooming past on a nearby street.

Anyone can drop into the house, anytime. The general rule of thumb in the city is that if you find someone in your house uninvited, you call the gardai. Here, depending on the day, someone in the farmhouse kitchen; ask them if they would like tea. They will, on the odd occasion, wonder in the door and see if there is anyone there. Beware of the city woman yielding a hurley.

Everyone waves at you when you drive past them. I love this, I have loved it forever. As a young girl visiting country cousins I thought it just so lovely and would practise giving the little lift of my index finger in a parked car alone. Hello neighbour, how are you? Be it from tradition, habit, good manners or acknowlegement, it gives me a little chuckle as I do it habitually on the school run each morning.

So there you have it, some few examples of why you might find your local city woman perplexed in the countryside. Go easy on her. She’s just seeing you countryfolk in a whole different light, getting the hang of your turn of phrase, your quirks, your family tree and your unquenchable thirst for tea.

Keep her country.

Link

A difficult day is one where your little boy arrives home from school and his eyes are not shining. It’s even more difficult when it happens a few days in a row. For one reason or another, he finds writing really difficult and it is breaking his little heart. A little heart that I have held precious until he took it out into the world, un-mommyed.

Instinct alone was not directing me on this one. I had used up my resources, my tough lines, soft kisses, big hugs, go get em’s and so had to reach for the big guns at homework time.

‘I can’t do it. I give up.’ he cries thoroughly unused to not succeeding, not believing that he is brilliant (mea culpa). Here, I realize I ignored the hundred and one articles available at a click on how to praise appropriately but forgetting myself daily, I tell him how fantastic he is. To me, anyways. Ridiculously, in that little ‘give up’, I see wasted opportunity, a graduation not attended, potential not achieved, in other words, hysteria of a mother on seeing her first born down-trodden.

Hysteria aside, I reach for the most fantastic weapon us modern mothers have in the face of our child’s adversity; knowledge. Like his mother, this son of mine is a dreamer, an idealist and a believer (though he still has a good excuse at six to assume such roles, me not so much). When your mom has told you a thousand times that you’re doing great, you’re fine out, you can do it and there is still doubt, there must be another voice to tell a six year old boy to keep going.

So thankfully, there’s youtube.

For no longer was it me telling him but some more brilliant others. Winston Churchill in warbling chinny Queen’s English told him to ‘Never, never, never, give up.’

JFK told him that when he chose to go to the Moon, he did so not because things are easy but because they are hard. 

And good old Albert Einstein, well he discovered atoms (I think) and some equation that mommy doesn’t really understand but he didn’t like school and found writing very difficult. Very difficult, indeed. ‘See, just like you.’

For a boy who loves soldiers, space exploration and scientists (!), who better to tell him that the windy road ahead can be navigated than these, his new heros. His hearing those words for the first time, I heard them too. And thanked those heros for the words of hope that continue to keep on giving.  Today, they brought the sparkle to a little boy in Kerry finding the homework tough.

And to the mommy who will try anything (and more than likely too much) to keep him going.

Walking into Light

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Somebody, somewhere (which is a lazy way of saying that I couldn’t be bothered googling it at 6am in the morning) came up with the idea of the Darkness into Light walk. Starting at 4am, over 100,000 people in our country began walking a 5km pilgrimage into the light of the morning in aid of Pieta House, an organisation that helps those who are feeling suicidal or are self-harming.

That spark of inspiration, an idea that grew in the mind of one very clever person motivated over 100,000 people to awaken from a deep sleep at 3am to get to the starting line to walk for those who need help, support, the love of a community who believe with intervention that they can in no little way help to show those in trouble the way back to the light.

Today, though deliciously, I got to chat to many local people that I’ve come to know in my new role as a ‘Kerry woman’, I walked for the most part alone as the community of Listowel came together. In doing so, I was able to partake and eavesdrop in on many early morning conversations in the spirit of giddiness (what are we doing up at this hour of the morning in the honour of God) and good intention.

Birth stories were exchanged, ten stitches in all, war wounds, lost high heels at last weeks wedding, the sausages that were awaiting him in the fridge, her shiny medal displayed on her jumper as she walked in from school, the ankle that was starting to give him gib all in the most melodic North Kerry accent.

Normally, at Listowel race course, we’d be gathered to check out the fashion at the races, meeting up after the harvest in September to place a token amount on a horse without really having much of an idea about races but knowing a lot about community.  The same familiar faces there to show support. The message was clear though nobody really needs it spelt out.

Walking into the light, I remembered how I was complaining all week about having to do this, this chore. But was so glad I did. It is a reminder to do good, to offer kindness (too often undervalued),to love others. Maybe it’s the adenaline which is quickly wearing off, but it was a lesson, once again, on the beauty of humanity, the capacity of people to come together to do something so beautiful, so kind, to show that there is always light. There is always light.

The babies are waking, the cows are bellowing, this light, along with a lot of coffee will fuel this morning but for now, I know that it is great to be alive, to be a part of something inspired. Now, for a quick nap, let me tell you, it’s tiring being this great.

Enjoy the light.

What’s Wrong with Walking?

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We all have our obstacles that stop us from getting out on the road and exercising. Be it the boyfriend who eyes you funny when you don those lycra sweatpants or the thought of the hill climb back to your house, we meet them all the time. Mine is the lady, a walking obstacle, driping with judgement, who pops up on occasion on my road and asks ‘What’s wrong with walking?’ as I run past.

Somedays, what I’d do for some city anonymity?

‘What’s wrong with walking?’ is a phrase I’ve heard before in Kerry, especially seeing as there are more runners on the country roads and so there is a bit of a backlash to this new ‘fad’. So here is my response, though I doubt if this lady ever reads my blog unless of course I become a world famous writer, thus giving her the chance to ask me ‘what’s wrong with reading?’

So my Lady, in order to get out on the road today, I procrastinated by eating my lunch, thus giving me an extra hour to digest. I then had to find a cleanish pair of socks (though not matching) to wear on my run, I had to change a nappy, pass the baby over with instructions, beg the baby to return my soaking wet earphones from his mouth (which meant I only heard every second word of my running soundtrack today) and avoid fifty questions about, well, the world in order to get out the door.

I ran as always out the door, into the air, which today looked like it might pour on me and I ran and ran and ran. I was feeling really hot and sweaty and to be honest a bit miserable and about to give up when I came across my walking obstacle poised, like the meany girl in the school yard, waiting to deliver her blow. I sped up (wondering why I hadn’t just avoided this route on a day when I wasn’t feeling the running love), waving a hello, warm day isn’t it, only to be delivered my ‘what’s wrong with walking?’ blow again.

Not that I owe you an explaination but here it is, I run so that I lose the baby fat that after three pregnancies and labours have left me, well soft, as they like to say around here. I run to get out all the pent up energy that builds up during the day of doing stuff for everybody else. I run to feel alive, I run to have more energy, I run to have a waist again. Someday. There’s little wrong with walking Lady, I do it all the time but as per my choice, I run, run like the devil around the country roads around my farm because it makes me feel and eventually look good. So there.

So ignore that obstacle, that pair of tight trousers, the blushing at the boy you have a crush on as you run past sweaty and unkempt, that steep hill or that passive aggressive neighbour and walk, dance, run, summersault like you just don’t care.

And one day, my Lady, I’m going to run past you, like an Egyptian.

The Bellow

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At this point in the year, the promise of the pillow is everything. The adrenaline has come and gone and has left us a farmer who is tired out, body and soul. Once again, I fell asleep waiting for him to come into us. He ran behind, there was a calf sick, the tractor gave trouble, spreading went on. There are a number of reasons that would delay a farmer from eating a supper and sinking into a well deserved slumber this late in the Spring.

The pillow had just taken the weight of his weariness as that blasted cow gave a bellow. A long, relentless bellow that had both myself and himself sitting upright in the bed trying to figure out the bellow. Where are they? Do they have grass? I thought I heard it to the left of the house? Is there a cow in to calf? And so, despite my insistence that I go in his place, my farmer dragged himself from the bed to make sure all was as it should be outside.

It could go any way I thought, those misplaced bellows have previously had us rushing into clothes in the middle of the night whereon we’ve chased errant animals back to their patch.You always have to follow up on a bellow. Tonight, I begrudged the cow her bellow, one that took my husband from his much needed sleep. A while later, I hear the back door shut again and his heavy legs pull up the stairs.

All is grand he whispers as he soaks back into his side of the bed, to much needed rest.