A Weekend in The Burren - The Aengus Finucane Memorial Walk

Aengus Finucane Memorial Walkers 2012 

Two weekends ago the second Aengus Finucane Memorial Walk took place in The Burren in Co. Clare, organised by a committee of former Concern Bangladesh volunteers from the heady early days of Concern, back in the 70s. Aengus was one of the founding fathers of Concern in Nigeria/Biafra in 1968 and it has grown from strength to strength since. Our lives are inextricably linked to Concern since we met as volunteers in Bangladesh in 1979, and we have a great grá (love) for the NGO that was home to us for over a decade between Tanzania, Bangladesh and Laos.

Jan and me at Ailwee caves

The famous signpost the CoCo shrank!

The Bare Burren Mountains 

Hubby Jan and me were walking for the first time as we had been unable to go the previous year when it was held in Leitrim.  This year I came home from the INMO conference in Killarney a day early and this meant we were able to head for Clare on the Saturday morning, arriving in Ballyvaughan in plenty of time to check into the hotel and have a snack before the walk. We also met some of the other walkers, friends and former colleagues in many instances. Most of the Concern family have met up over the decades at various AGMs and reunions, particularly the 40th Reunion a few years ago in 2008. It was a great weekend and it raised money for a cause close to Aengus Finucane's heart, the Jack Praeger Rescue Project in Calcutta (or Kolkata)

Tanzanian Friends Reunited in Ballyvaughan

The Poulbrone Dolmen - 5000 yrs old or so. 

Jan and me went to the pier where the meet-up was, and it was a bit drizzly at first  but this cleared up in jig time and we headed off to the walk, a gentle 5km out and 5km back the same route. We had a terrific guide who talked for Ireland and gave us a potted history of the Burren, its pots and caves and limestone history which you can read for yourself here. It's way too technical and geological for me, just know that it's the most unusual ecological and geological spot with rare unique flora that grows nowhere else in Ireland. The limestone surface is slowly being restored as trees begin to grow again, now that people are no longer collecting firewood in the hills. Seems like there's a reversal of deforestation going on in the Burren and I wonder will it change the place. The bareness is what makes it look so special, and it's very bleak in places with all the drystone walls and the dolmens or standing stones.

Windswept at the Poulnabron Dolmen

The walk was beautiful as the sun came out and we walked and talked through the path to the Ailwee Caves entrance. The caves have to wait for another day as they probably deserve a visit on their own with all the stalactites and stalagmites. We had a group photo taken at the Cave entrance. and then we walked back, with the view totally different and overlooking the sea at Ballyvaughan all the way across Galway Bay to Connemara. We chatted to various people and it was lovely to see everyone reconnecting, and meeting people we had last  met in Bangladesh over 30 years ago, or Tanzania over 25 years ago.

Limestone Burren landscape

We repaired to the pub when we got back, some of us getting ready for the night ahead first. I went for a very hot bath to prevent any possible muscle ache and it worked a treat, and then we headed out. Dinner was for 7pm in L'Arco Italian Restaurant in Ballyvaughan, across the road from the Burren Hotel where we stayed. There were some moving speeches as Jack spoke about his beloved brother Aengus, and the decision was taken to have next year's walk in Waterford - who knows, it may even be around Lismore!

We had a lovely meal and a great laugh at our table with a mix of people from Bangladesh and Tanzania days. Lots of photos were taken and promises to keep in touch, and we went back to a different pub after the meal where we continued the craic well into the night. Sign of the times and the demographic we all represented, we didn't party like back in the day when we would see in the dawn before hitting the hay, and we were all back in our hotels and hostelries between 2 and 3 am.

Hardy walkers under Bare Mountain on the Burren

One of the rare Burren flowers in bloom

The road back to Ballyvaughan

The next morning after breakfast another old Concern tradition was relived as Jack, a Holy Ghost priest like  his late brother Aengus, celebrated Mass in the conservatory of the guest house. It was a lovely personal and warm ceremony, with none of the distance and reserve that a formal church setting demands, and we all gained from it, whether religious or not. We all headed off homeward bound around lunchtime, and said our goodbyes till next year in Waterford!

Connor Pass, Dingle Peninsula, Kerry.

Jan and me took the long road home, going through the Burren and visiting the Poulnabrone Dolmen for a photo opportunity.We continued on down through Kerry after crossing the Shannon Estuary by the Killimer to Tarbert car ferry, going out to Dingle via Tralee and over the Conor Pass which has spectacular views over both sides of the Dingle Peninsula. We came  back via Killarney and Mallow, and we're still awaiting the summer that eludes us thus far.

And the Award goes to....Me!

I'd like to thank Mimi in Dublin for giving me this versatile blogger award - it's very nice to get an accolade like this and I do appreciate it - though I have to look at what I'm supposed to do with it.

Right - just checked and I have to tell you 8 things about me.
Then I have to pass it onto some fellow-bloggers - the number seems unspecified so I'll just select some random victims but tell you why I chose them.

Here goes!

1. I have lived in three continents in my lifetime - Europe, Asia and Africa. In Europe I lived in Ireland, England and Wales, and spent long periods of time in The Netherlands with hubby's family. In Asia I spent 2 years in Bangladesh and over 2 years in Laos or Lao PDR to give it its correct title. In Africa I lived in Tanzania for 11 years over a 13 year period.

2. I met my hubby Jan in Bangladesh and he comes from The Netherlands; we got married in Ireland and have spent more of our married life abroad than in Ireland. He has lived in more countries than me as he was in the Philippines as a Dutch volunteer before we met. We have never lived in his country, only visited there many times over the past 30 years. I speak reasonable Dutch and can converse and read it easily, a proud achievement for someone who still can't speak Irish after years of schooling and working in the Gaeltacht.

3. I have four children. Two of our children were born in Tanzania, and two in Ireland. The Tanzanian birth experience was far less high-tech and more memorable for many reasons - outside the scope of this list! They are all grown up now - including teen daughter who's taller than me now! The three boys are in their twenties - 28, 25 and 23. I can't believe how the years flew by.

4. I wanted to become a nurse since I was 12 and had my appendix out in Ardkeen Hospital in Waterford. It appealed to my romantic nature and had more to do with Cherry Ames books than the reality I encountered five years later! No regrets though, it's been a career that took me to wonderful countries and opened up opportunities I might otherwise never have had. Certainly life-changing - as if I hadn't gone to Bangladesh to save the world I wouldn't have met hubby!

5. My father died two months before my third birthday. People I went to school with thought I was an only child but in reality I had a sister who died in infancy who was born two months after my father's death. So it was tough on my mother - losing her husband and a baby in the space of four months. Regular blog-readers will know how close I was to my mother all my life and how I miss her since her death in March this year. I am grateful to have had her for so long, and it's a small consolation.

6. My maternal grandfather was a master tailor and I credit those genes with my love of dressmaking and knitting and sewing. We now live in the same house he lived in and practiced his craft - and called it (in his honour) Tailor's Cottage. Any skills I have in this line I owe him. He died when I was six weeks old so I never knew him, but we have his ledgers from the late 1920s for a decade, creating a rich tapestry of social history - all his clients and their suit measurements and the cost of the work is detailed meticulously, and we have fun recognising ancestors of local people from this area.

7. I didn't go to university until I was in my forties - I trained as a nurse under the old apprenticeship system - 3 years hard labour and block study with exams at intervals and finals - and my midwifery was the old one-year practical course - thrown in at the deep end with 90 deliveries clocked up in the course of the year. So I never had to go to college - until I went to do Public Health and became a full-time UCC student for a year and had a ball!

8. I became a granny this year and am enjoying it immensely - all the clichés are true - all of the fun and none of the responsibility of parenthood. I'll become a granny again next March as Sofia will get a brother or sister so happy days ahead. It brings back all the happy memories of my own children's babyhood as I watch Sofia grow up!

So now to select the lucky recipients of this Versatile Blogger Award - and don't worry if you don't fulfil the terms & conditions - it's not a bank loan, you know! So just enjoy reading it and if you feel  moved then by all means do write 8 things about yourself you are happy to share with your readers.

1.Diane @ Adventure before Dementia - she has had a peripatetic life and writes with humour about her life and travels.

2. Rudee @ A Knitting Nurse  - she inspires me with her wonderful knitting skills and her wry take on our shared profession - just what you need in community nursing.

3. Marguerite @ Cajun Delights - she's a foodie blogger and a writer and shares her wonderfully different corner of her world with us - the music, the food, and the atmosphere of Louisiana and Cajun Country comes shining through her blog.

4. Peggy @ Organic Growing Pains - she's a terrific gardener and makes me feel guilty for not being as industrious in the garden as she is - but I live it through her endeavours. 

5.  Lilly @ Stuff I make, bake and love - her gusto for food and innovation are always entertaining and enjoyable - and she writes a funny, quirky blog well worth a visit.

6. Padraic @ Window across Dublin Bay - not merely the token man amongst women but a recent blog for me that I enjoy - plenty of food for thought, and we found some serendipitous links in our past.

That's enough bloggers to target with the award - I just hope you are all happy to receive it and carry out the task of writing 7 or 8 things - random - about yourself. I enjoyed this and hope you do too. It's not meant to be confessional, just stuff you are happy to share with the world.

On Colonialism, Craft and Cookery Books - my not-So-Guilty Pleasures

I've been visiting a lot of beautiful craft blogs lately where I am in wonder at the skills of the people who make such lovely things, while thinking "if only I had the time, could I do that?" Well I dabble - that's about all the time work and real life leave me to indulge what is incredibly relaxing and challenging and ultimately extremely satisfying. Making something from scratch by hand or sewing machine gives me a great buzz, and I used to do a lot more of it when the kids were small and I was either full-time in the home or working part-time or home schooling.

I qualify that by reminding readers most of this time was spent in the African bush or a provincial town (Iringa) in Tanzania, or in the backwater quietness of Vientiane in Laos, where we had plenty of support in the form of house staff who did a lot of the work that would normally be my lot. Does that sound dreadfully colonial and exploitative? Bet it did - but I knew it would, and I have defended it so often that I genuinely feel I can stand over it as being neither of the above.

As many of you who live in the so-called LDCs (Less-Developed Countries) of the world will know (Lynda, I'm thinking of you here) human capital is central to the national economy, and people have the expectation that if you come into their country with a foreign NGO (Non-Government Organisation) as we did, that the least you will do is provide local employment. Had we come over all virtuous and insisted on doing everything ourselves we would have found it a lot more difficult to gain recognition and acceptance. We would have been labelled mean and stingy and unwilling to help people help themselves through the dignity of honest work. As the ethos of our NGO (Concern Worldwide) was not to give handouts but to provide sustainabale development for people, it would have sat uncomfortably with that ethic.

As it was, we were blessed with having household staff wherever we lived who were (clichéd though it sounds) very much part of our family, and we still have contact with many of them, via the blessings of Facebook and email as well as snail mail. The children grew up with them and their children, and they were at the various family and birthday parties as guests and friends and I love to follow their children as they grow up. The staff were like any employee of the NGO, with the same terms and conditions - living in Socialist and post-Communist countries ensured that Labour Law was strictly pro-worker and we adhered to it as fairly as we expect it to be here at home.

So that's my little polemic rant- I do tend to digress all over the place in my posts, maybe I should curb the stream of consciousness a little, as I never know when I start a post where it will take me. I hope the readers can cope with this - please be brutally honest if you can't and tell me to stick to the point - I can handle constructive criticism (I think!)

This post was supposed to be about my craft and cookery books - so I will share a few photos of the ones I love, including some new knitting books I got this week - one on Party Knits and one on Knits for Kids - New Knits on the Block. The latter is perfect now that I can indulge Sofia and as the two were for sale at a knockdown price of €6.99 for two - on a BOGOF (Buy one get one free) offer - who could resist!

The other ones are journals - one is a Knitting Journal and has some lovely patterns and handy tips, while the other is a Book Lover's Companion. This was a bit sidelined when I started logging my books on iRead on Facebook and Library Thing online (see the sidebar in this blog) but I do print off the reviews and keep them in the journal. I have to start logging my knits in the journal too, with photos. Do you like the new bonnet I made Sofia? It's sitting on a cushion hand-embroidered in a Women's Project in Saidpur in Bangladesh in 1980!

The cookery books I love are on the bookshelves I photographed here - there are lots gathered over many years and plenty from recent years that were either given as presents or bought in the workplace bookclub sales - these are ubiquitous in Irish workplaces (probably elsewhere) and sales reps deliver a selection of samples to the offices for a week or so and they have wonderful knockdown prices for everything - so a Jamie Oliver marked at £30 can be had for €12 or so. I've got beautiful books for a tenner that would be three times that in the shops, so as I'm a sucker for a good bargain, once again I'm just a girl who can't say no! I love the Samuelson African Continent cookbook - it was a present from Anne in New Jersey, an old friend. Our recent houseguest Tandy (my knitting student!) gave me the BBC Masterchef book - you can see us in the photo. It ties in with the TV series so should prove fun to try out.

As I find all these books as pleasurable to read as to work from I think I'm getting plenty of great value - and I know from looking at those blogs of similar leanings that I'm not alone in that opinion! I actually use them as recipe books too - and as you can see from previous knitting posts - I get through quite a few of the patterns too!

My maternal grandfather was a tailor so maybe I inherited some of the gene pool there, I certainly have some skill in that line despite hating home ec. in school, yet I taught myself on his ancient treadle Singer machine where I made dolls' clothes, then I got an old Brother machine which died after a number of years making maxi dresses and fancy frocks for dinner dances (it was the Seventies after all!) and then I got my current machine, a Singer with lots of fancy stitching, in 1986 when we lived in the bush in Tanzania. It's a testament to the longevity of the brand that it's still going strong 24 years on, as fit for purpose as ever.


Some day I will get back to dressmaking - but I aim to lose about 5-8 kg first to get back to size 12 (no, I don't know what a size zero is and I never met anyone who did or was - but that may be just US sizing! I'm aiming for 12 UK or 40 European size and then I'll get dressmaking again - there's a goal to strive for and I have some classy pieces from my previous size 12 life that I can't wait to get into again. I made suits, skirts, bermudas, trousers, tops, dresses - you name it, I made it.

I even made a safari suit which hubby sported whenever visiting dignitaries like President Nyerere came on project visits.And as my middle son reminded me recently, my kids might need therapy in years to come to work through the trauma of being dressed in chaircovers and curtains - Sound of Music-style - during their formative years in Africa! As our curtains were the colourful "Vitenge" cloths worn by the women they made great curtains and chair covers, and it was a small step to move into kids' clothing. As the son said, many times they blended into the furniture like chameleons!

The blessings of a nice cup of tea

One of my favourite Christmas treats was a funky teapot, which has brought tea drinking to a whole new level for me. It's like a kettle, white ceramic with red flowers and black leaves.

I have gone back to drinking leaf tea after years of teabags in a mug. In defence of the much-maligned teabag, they are not too bad in Ireland, much better than in other countries I've lived in. It also set me thinking about tea in the various manifestations and its significance in my life over the years, hence this tribute.

Here is my lovely new teapot, and a mug

I grew up with tea as a constant in my life, coffee never intruding in my childhood unless you counted a vile concoction called Irel which was ersatz coffee made from chicory and must have been invented by some demented sadist in the days of wartime rationing. In any case it put me right off coffee until my student days when bedsit Maxwell House made for urban sophistication in those pre-skinny latte and cappucino days! Tea was always super-sweet until one Lent in nursing school in Dublin when I decided to give up sugar and smoking. Well, one out of two ain't bad, and I haven't gone back to sweet tea since. (The smoking cessation didn't happen for another four years and had nothing to do with Lent, but that's another story.)

In the late 1970s I worked in Bangladesh as a volunteer with the Irish-based NGO, Concern. There were the most magnificent tea gardens in Sylhet, which we visited for some of their key social events (see below!). Factory tours there showed us how the tea moved from the bush to the pot, and the process was fascinating. The tea gardens, shaded by a canopy of tall trees, possibly eucalyptus but I'm not sure, were an undulating landscape in an otherwise flat country, and this novelty value alone made them worth a visit, as did the arcane social life. The tea estates were run by remnants of the Empire, either British "Staying On" Raj types, or Anglo-Indians straight out of a Somerset Maugham novel, where full afternoon tea on the verandah was a venerable institution. The social calendar was marked by events like the Monsoon Ball and the Bachelor's Ball...which seemed totally anachronistic to me in a country that was not only post-colonial by (then) 30 years, but newly independent and in search of a strong identity.

Other tea encounters in that era were holidays in Sri Lanka to the Kandy and Adam's Peak area where there were totally different tea gardens, in misty mountainous central highlands. I can't recall the exact location of the tea estates but I remember another factory tour! And it seems the floor sweepings always ended up in teabags, which should have put me off for life, but didn't. (Maybe I have a slovenly approach to tea, and need to become a tea connoisseur/snob like so many coffee and wine "connoisseurs"!)

In those days, I eschewed the ubiquitous Chai of the entire subcontinent as being way too sweet, spicy and stewed to death, the latter being totally unforgiveable for an Irish tea drinker. (The only exception was the wonderful thirst-quenching milky chai on the trains in India, poured from a froth-inducing height into unglazed clay cups, which were thrown out of the train window afterwards - the best recycling ever.) It amuses me now to see how Chai has gained such status among tea aficionados, up there with green, white and herbal tea, and costs a fortune. Earl Gray was the height of sophistication in my younger days, and I ruined the image by adding milk!

Tanzania was our next exotic port of call, for most of the 80s and half the 90s. Another tea country, with tea gardens in the Southern Highlands as well as up North, though I only recall coffee shambas in the Arusha/Kilimanjaro/Moshi area, and in Bukoba/Kagera region. Near Iringa where we lived was a large tea estate at Mufindi, part of the gardens were nationalised and others run by Brooke Bond, part of Unilever, which was another anachronism in such a socialist country. Mufindi Club was a weekend retreat for many wazungu (expats/foreigners) and we compromised our principles somewhat by learning to play golf there on a beautiful course at over 2000m altitude. The estate was run like a company town, with a company shop for the employees where visitors to the club could buy tea from the factory. I was homeschooling our three boys back in those days and a factory tour became a mandatory field trip, where we saw every stage of production right down to - you guessed it - the teabags! Apparently not quite floor sweepings but the finest filtering of the leaves.

This is William, age 7 in Mufindi, sitting near the clubhouse by the first tee, eating peanuts -1994

Then we spent a few years in Laos, where tea was grown on the Bolovens Plateau in the far south, a place I never visited but the tea from there was large leafs, and very smoky. Very much an acquired taste which I never quite did acquire, so there was a lot of Lyon's and Barry's tea smuggled back from home; it became as coveted as Tayto Cheese'n'Onion crisps whenever visitors from Dublin came on project visits. The only "normal" tea available in Vientiane was ghastly Lipton's teabags, which had high-tech strings attached that could actually squeeze the teabag and prevent it dripping all over the floor! Never improved the taste though - a memory perhaps best forgotten!

My myriad tea gaffes are legendary and almost led to domestic diplomatic incidents back in the early 80s with Jan when visiting my future in-laws in The Netherlands. The Dutch do not drink much tea, and those that do drink it black. My persistent request for milk led to much confusion and bewilderment, and I was often given tea with "koffiemelk", which bears no relation to real milk and ruins a cuppa. Such was my desperation at one stage that I resorted to raiding the milk bulk tank on Jan's family farm to sneak in a jug of milk. I dread to think what impression they must have had of mad Irishwomen after that incident. Other cultural divides were in the presentation - a cup of tepid water with a teabag in the saucer was often proferred by friends who had the temerity to consider this constituted a cup of tea!

Apple Tart with Cream

And now we've come full circle - back to where I started tea drinking, in Lismore. There is nothing more relaxing and soothing than a nice hot cuppa at the start and end of the day, and many times in between. A nice piece of cake, a bun or a slice of apple tart with cream is an ideal accompaniment, and for breakfast it goes great with toast. The full Irish breakfast is incomplete without a pot of tea.

This rack of Almond Buns is ready to be enjoyed with a cuppa.

Culturally, Irish people are probably among the greatest consumers of tea, always milky and with or without sugar. This knows no geographical boundaries, as we are always asked to bring tea to Spain for Shayne, to keep him endlessly supplied, and the Irish community of nuns in Kabanga Hospital, where two of our sons were born, made the best pot of strong tea in Tanzania - it would bend spoons and is a lasting memory of our many visits. Not for nothing are ads for tea invariably nostalgic, with a nod to the emigrant and smacking of more than a touch of paddywhackery.

In Ireland, tea is offered to visitors as a default setting, and woe betide those who demur, as the host will appear more offended than an Irish Mammy in full-on guilt-tripping martyrdom mode! The Mrs. Doyle syndrome (see Father Ted) will then kick in and the refusenik urged to "Go on, Go on, Go on!" until he or she capitulates. Resistance is generally futile and the wise guest will do well to remember this particularly Irish tea-dance is all part of an elaborate ritual. The Irish guest expects to be cajoled and the Irish host expects the initial refusal.

I learnt this to my cost in Tanzania, when visiting a Danish friend for a playdate with our sons. She offered tea when I arrived, and I automatically said something along the lines of "Ah no, I'm grand/don't want to be putting you to any bother" - and that was it ! She said "OK, fine" and left me reeling in shock - and gasping for a cuppa! My Dutch husband could perfectly empathise with her response and from then on I never hesitated in any non-Irish situation when offered that nice cup of tea.