At around 10.30 this morning, J, baby-J and I were walking out for a late breakfast when we discovered a hen in the driveway of a large terraced house in the south area of the city. Rather concerned that she might stray out into the busy street, I rang the doorbell and eventually the door was opened by a lady in her pyjamas and dressing gown. It suddenly seemed like the most ridiculous thing in the world that I should ask her if the hen in her garden belonged to her. She looked curiously at both me and the hen, and having ascertained that said bird was nothing to do with her, I inquired if she knew to whom it might belong. She gave me directions to another house saying it was possible the hen might have come from there and I felt an underlying sense from her of ‘you don’t know what you are letting yourself in for’. I apologised for the intrusion, she apologised for being in her nightwear, and shut the door.

While J & baby-J maintained a guard, I found what was perhaps the hen’s home, and to my surprise it was a house that had always led me to wonder who lived there because of an unusual layout in the front garden of many potted plants, some interesting sculptures and a red and white striped canopy on one of the upstairs windows.

I knocked with the door’s big brass knocker as there was no bell and was formulating the question ‘Have you by any chance lost a hen?’ in readiness for the door opening, when a number of dogs raced at the door barking loudly. I was waiting for the owner to call them off and appear, but after a few minutes, they disappeared back down the hall again. I could see all this through the stained-glass portions of the front door.

I made my way back down the path and before I reached the gate I heard an upstairs window opening. Looking up I could see the bare shoulders and head of someone in the upper portion of a sash window, the lower pane being curtained, thankfully. And I realised I had just got someone else either out of bed or out of the shower. This was getting even more ridiculous, but I had to ask The Question, and the person agreed it could be his hen. Seeing as he was in a state of undress, I said I would bring the hen down to him and he expressed his thanks.

Giving J the ‘thumbs up’ in the distance, she was horrified when I told her I was going to catch the hen and return her to her home. She was remembering a Rocky movie where many people had tried to catch a hen, but the hen had kept slipping out of their reach, a pantomime not to be performed in the pyjama lady’s front garden. I assured J that as a farmer’s daughter, I could catch a hen with my eyes closed. At this stage the hen was in the front porch of the house and I thought I had better act quickly before J had any chance to transfer her fears to both me and my target. Mission was accomplished in a matter of seconds, and we set off proudly down the road with a very well-behaved lady in my hands, and an equally well-behaved baby-J in his pram.

I put her in her own porch and the somewhat eccentric owner appeared to tell us that she was a rescue hen and was still having trouble with his other hens pecking her and the dogs chasing her, just the way bullies in our human society treat the vulnerable. He had made a little coop in his front garden to keep her out of harm’s way and give her a chance to mend, but she had obviously taken a stroll a little bit too far. We left her clucking, scraping and pecking, in her front garden, away from her tormentors and being the best hen that she possibly can.

We enjoyed our late late breakfast.

Ali with hen

Since Feng Shui had cropped up in a recent conversation, I decided to rekindle my interest and apply some Space Clearing and Feng Shui techniques in my own home, being mindful to perform the former before embarking on the latter, otherwise you could end up doubling your troubles.

One of the missing areas in my home is the Relationships area which occurs as a result of half of my conservatory jutting out into the garden, thus creating an empty space outside the kitchen window.  The cure is to hang clear, spherically-shaped crystals in the window. However, until I find these, I wondered what would happen if I squared off the area outside with my garden table and chairs, making it appear energetically as if it is another room, thus completing the bagua.

No one has proposed marriage just yet, but after a long absence of having friends to dinner on a regular basis – basically since I moved into this house 10 years’ ago – I started the ball rolling last Saturday with a dinner for my step-daughter to celebrate the end of her heroic adventure to complete a Master’s Degree in Equality Studies.  Everything fell into place seamlessly, I was in heaven preparing the food, and we all had a great evening.

Since it was the Apricot and Almond Pudding that stole the show, I give below the recipe.  It originally comes from Claudia Roden, and I have made a few changes.

Apricot and Almond Pudding

½ cup softened unsalted butter

3 eggs

¾ cup unrefined muscovado cane sugar or unrefined Demerara sugar

1 ¼ cups ground almonds

3 drops almond or vanilla extract

½ kilo apricots pitted and cut in half

Preheat oven to Gas 4, 180C, 350F

Oil a 12” baking dish.

Blend the butter and eggs with the sugar in a food processor.  Add the almonds and extract and continue to blend to a soft cream.  Pour into baking dish.

Arrange the apricot halves on top, cut side down, pressing them into the butter mixture.  Bake for 45 minutes.

The pudding is lovely served slightly warm, and if you like, dusted with a little icing sugar.

The recipe works very well with pears, peeled, cored and sliced lengthways.

On Friday last, my neighbour’s brother, James, an all-round technology expert, arrived to move the dish.  Ladders were produced, tools laid out on the garden table, and the operation began.  The two brothers worked together until children had to be ferried to various locations and there was a pause of about an hour and a half in the proceedings, during which time James and I sat down for a cup of coffee and a chat.  At this stage it was also raining quite heavily and there was nothing else to do other than to remain indoors and do what Irish people do very well, tell stories.

We talked about building houses, losing money, growing up on a farm, mothers-in-law, being true to yourself, Feng Shui, ghosts, geopathic stress, water divining, astrology, nature spirits, cats, music, the passing of loved ones and finding solutions to problems by leaving them aside for a while to give the chemistry time to work, in the interval.  Intervals can be as short as the space between musical notes, or as long as it takes to grieve a loss, in each case necessary to make the music or to help us sing our song.

Without knowing anything about my past, James told me the following story. Just before his father died, he had asked James to take him to where he had been born.  He didn’t wish to go to the house as other people were now living there, but he went to a particular spot in the fields to look towards a hill which contained a graveyard.  He said to James ‘Outside the consecrated ground of the graveyard is where all the stillborn children are buried’.  James had listened respectfully to his father, and no questions were asked.  He had accepted that his father had wanted to make a return visit to where he had been born, and this observation was by-the-way.

Not long after, his father died, and at a family gathering, one of James’s aunts remarked about them being a family of eight, and James was thinking, there are only seven in my father’s family as he named all his aunts and uncles.  He questioned his aunt, and she told him that there had been a stillborn baby girl in the family.  And he then knew the reason why his father had wanted to return to this particular spot, to acknowledge his sister, and perhaps even to let her know he would be passing over soon.

In the telling of this story, I was so deeply moved, remembering my own two stillborn little girls, and my stillborn brother whom I had never known about until I had had my own experiences. The lid had been sealed on that particular box in the hearts of both my mother and my father, but thankfully, in more enlightened times, I didn’t have to lock up my grief.  However, having been dropped into these memories all out of the blue, I have been plunged into an emotional tour of my own and my parents’ disappointments and sadness, and I realise, in my own way, in order to get on with life, I respond to many situations in ways that are not congruent with what I am feeling deep inside.

James had enabled the signal to reach the satellite dish, and unconsciously unblocked my channels for essential messages to get through.  Now I can stop running away and begin living my own truth.

Some years ago I planted these herbs in my garden and they are just ready at this time of the year to coincide with the ripening of the summer fruits. I got my act together yesterday, combined redcurrants, sugar, sweet cicely and angelica, and have produced two pound jars of the most heavenly redcurrant jelly.

Now I want to have a party.  Anyone interested?

And here’s a photograph to whet your appetite.

Redcurrant Jelly

My friend Cathy announced that she was going to contribute to me gaining some new experiences to help me discover what lay outside my present sphere of activity.  A woman of her word, she collected me last Saturday morning to attend a viewing of the contents of the country home of the late Sally Walker who, along with her husband, had been devoted to the development, care and running of their 40-acre gardens, Fernhill, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains.  This is practically on my doorstep.  I didn’t have too far to go to step into a new world.

I had never been to either a viewing or an auction and had no idea what to expect.  Cathy was interested in a quantity of linen and lace to put to use in her 500-year-old, lovingly-restored Castle on the edge of The Burren. I was a timid observer.  As we walked around the rooms I met many people I knew, not locals, but customers from that well-known, Dublin 4 food shop, most of whom had difficulty recognising me out of mufti.

Despite many familiar faces, it took me a while to find a comfort zone, other than outside in the beautiful, naturalistic setting of the gardens with the tiniest glimpse of Dublin Bay shimmering on the horizon. And then I spied them, a pair of gilt metal and turquoise glass candlesticks hung with cut-glass drops.  I was immediately transported back to the parlour of my great-grandmother’s home in Co Armagh, the contents of which were kept under lock and key by one of my uncles who lived there on his own when I was a small child.  Each time I visited him, I would sit at his kitchen table chatting while he finished his mug of tea, home-baked bread, country butter and damson jam, after which I would request a visit to the treasure trove of antiques in the parlour.  The shutters would be folded back carefully, giving him an opportunity to open a window and air the stuffy room.  As soon as a slight breeze came through, I would hear the tinkling of the lustres on two tall vases which were placed close to the window.  It was a tender memory for me, and I just had to run my fingers gently through the lustres on Sally Walker’s candlesticks to hear that delicate sound again. Having made this connection, I experienced a feeling of sadness seeing this lady’s personal choices for her lovely home, on view to the nation, to be auctioned off and scattered the length and breadth of Ireland, and perhaps further afield, like seeds dispersed by the wind to another resting place.  But what to do when one’s affairs need to be tidied up to allow remaining family to get on with their own lives, as has happened time and again in my own family.  On reflection, I think the sadness is to do with a feeling of disconnection from my own family of origin, perhaps to be remedied in the near future now that I have more time and energy for travel.

I went to the Auction on Monday on Cathy’s behalf, ready to bid for her selected items.  Initially, I was terrified, but soon got the hang of what to do. Light-hearted banter between the auctioneer and some of his well-known clients eased my fears for my maiden voyage.  There was certainly no recession in South County Dublin on that day as many items soared past their suggested value.  Dealers came and went, knowing exactly what they were looking for, late arrivals had to be content with standing in the driveway following their catalogues and listening to the proceedings via loudspeakers. Dark clouds and heavy showers gave way to bright sunshine as newcomers were being directed to nearby fields which were opened up to accommodate the overflow.  It was going to be a long day in the country without a picnic. I plucked up the courage to leave some bids and headed home for lunch.

I may not have come home with anything to grace Cathy’s Castle, but I did return with a firm link to a special place in my heart. I am now happy to embrace future adventures in the spirit of childlike wonder.  Meanwhile, I remain firmly rooted in the present, like the pink roses and the Scots pines which had silently absorbed the bidding knowing that Sally Walker’s lifelong passion for nature and the countryside will last forever in her generous gift of the provision of an abundant habitat for the essential work of the earthworms, bees, butterflies and birds for whom there will always be a home at Fernhill.

One such word is meitheal which captures beautifully the essence of a whole endeavour.  It means a gang of workmen, or a band of reapers, and has been applied, in the past, to the co-operative nature of bringing in the harvest when all hands gathered to help each farmer complete the cycle of sowing and reaping.

A couple of years’ ago, I found myself in the midst of a modern-day meitheal.  It was a summer evening, and I had called to one of my best friends with a wedding gift for her daughter and husband-to-be.  They had just begun to put together the sheets for the Order of Service, surrounded by pieces of card of varying sizes to be assembled, scissors, doubled-sided tape and ribbon.  The young couple wanted to go out to spend their last evening together before their faithful commitment the next day.  We looked at the clock and decided that the only way to complete the job in order for everyone to be satisfied was to form a very creative production line.  It was extremely interesting how we all fell into doing the jobs that each of us could do best, we laughed and chatted, shared scissors, spilled coffee, drank tea, stroked the cat, and the cards were finished in an hour and a half.  Everyone was smiling.

Today, we are being urged by ecologists to change our relationships towards ourselves, others and our planet Earth in order to invite back the fragmented parts of ourselves and help weave a more sustainable way of living for all.  Words like meitheal could be an essential component of this rich tapestry.

Each visit had necessitated a perusal of the bottom half of my kitchen dresser. One friend wanted to retrieve sugar for her coffee while another was looking for space for some of the shopping she had done for me for the weekend. I was so deeply embarrassed by the mess therein that I decided to clean it out once I was more mobile and flexible. On so doing, in amongst spilled flour and dried pasta, etc, I discovered some angelica which I had candied (without the green dye) about 3 years’ ago. While it didn’t look the best, it had still retained some of its sweet, musky, seductive flavour and I have been nibbling happily on it ever since.

Now that the seeds from the original plant have produced four new angelica plants, I can get to work again, putting it to better use than reclining in an untidy store cupboard. According to food writer, Sophie Grigson, ‘its Latin name, angel of the archangel, derives, according to one source, from a dream in which an angel announced that an infusion of angelica would halt the spread of plague’. Well, if it can do that successfully, maybe, just maybe, it can hit the sore spot, and help with the healing of my back.

I also found a kilner jar of apricot and nettle wine which I had made as a Spring tonic around the same time as the candying of the angelica. On sampling, I was surprised that it tasted far better than when it was first made. Evil warded off and blood purified, what next but a big thank you to all my family, friends and neighbours who offered their support in the last week and who continue to keep in touch. I am very grateful for your love, kindness and friendship.

Then he enquired about our latest grandchild and said he had intended to buy a card to welcome the new baby. He would do it the next time he was passing on his way to an AA meeting which is accommodated in the grounds of our local church.

Next, he asked ‘Do you know where I am this morning?’ Many ideas rushed through my head as to where this honest, homeless man might have spent the night. Down by the riverbank, in a shop doorway, in an abandoned car, in a covered park bandstand, or perhaps even in a shelter for the homeless?

‘I am in Ranelagh Park, listening to the birds singing. I wish I knew more about the birds, their names, how to identify them. It is beautiful here’, he told me. I suggested that for this morning he could sit and receive their birdsong. He could come to know the birds through their singing first, and then he could start putting names on them. He said he would do just that, wished me a ‘God Bless’, and that he would wave in to me on his way to the AA meeting at 11am.

Ben is bent almost in half, unsteady on his feet, and is frequently bleeding and drooling through and over skin that hasn’t been washed for a long time. When I don’t see him for a few months, I wonder has he passed on, and then unexpectedly I will glimpse his misshapen figure weaving unsteadily through the traffic and I smile with happiness while other motorists are stopped in their tracks to allow him safe passage. Another day has woken up to receive a man who doesn’t whinge about the weather, the effects of the recession/credit crunch, global warming or cooling, or the price of the tahini, water and rye crackers which he buys for his picnic. His days are perfect, and so are yours, and so are mine.