Solicitude

 A couple of weeks ago, we had to go to Dungloe for an appointment. We took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping and use a voucher we had from a local store. As a result, when we were on our way home, my large backpack was heavy. We walked from the grocery store to the bus stop--about 1/2 mile. The bus came and we got on. Our usual driver, John (not his real name) was back after an absence of a couple weeks. When we got home, John pulled up in front of our building and got up to open the door and go down the stairs. As he was going for the door, he grabbed my backpack and said, 'I'll take that for you.' and brought it down the steps. When we were all outside, he said, 'You know, I do a town run. I will be at SuperValu at about 1:40. I'll remind you next time.' He said this two or three times and I was surprised, but nodding and saying, 'OK, go raibh maith agat' (pronounced go-ruh-ma-huh-gut, or something similar depending on dialect--this means thank you).  As we were making our way inside and he was driving away, I was thinking about this. I remembered that he had driven up as we were heading to SuperValu, so had seen us there. It dawned on me that he might be concerned about the weight of my pack and me carrying it from the shops to the bus stop. 

Yesterday, we went back to Dungloe. As we were disembarking, he reminded me that he would be by at about 1:40 and added, 'There's no need for you to carry that heavy pack all this way.' Of course, after that, we would have felt like jerks if we didn't wait at the store, so we did even though we could have managed the load. He drove up, we settled in and stayed on the bus until we were dropped off right outside our door again.

We've been riding various buses here, in different areas (mostly rural), for over 7 years and I have been so impressed with how kind and considerate everyone is. There have been one or two grouchy drivers, but almost all of them have gone out of their way to be helpful. This is particularly true on these small rural routes. On this one, many people come from small villages further out than ours to go to Dungloe and get groceries. The shops here are pretty good, but they are more expensive than Aldi, Lidl, or SuperValu. Sometimes they aren't well stocked. And the shops in Dungloe have other things besides food. So older people will get on the bus with their 'granny trolleys' and go grocery shopping in Dungloe. Even before we moved here and started using this bus, I've seen them in Aldi and Lidl doing the town run. The drivers were in and out of the bus, taking bags from full trolleys (the grocery store carts/carriages) and loading them into the bus for the people riding. They get out and open the door when people get on and off. When someone gets on and wants to chat, they engage in conversation. One day during our move, Bill and I were the only two on the bus back home. I asked John a question about Irish and we had a mini Irish lesson. Then he told us some stories about the area and what it was like when he was growing up. It was great fun. 

The bus also serves as a social setting. Irish people get free travel passes when they turn 66 (Bill has one that allows both of us to ride free), so older people get on in groups or they sit by someone already on and the conversations and laughing begins. People talk about their own lives, what's going on in the community, people they know, world events, and more. Sometimes people  reminisce about the old days. I've learned a lot as I've ridden various buses! It's a wonderful part of living where and as we do!

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Still a Bit Off, But Still Grateful

 Since we finished moving, I've been trying to settle in and get into a new routine. I have been unsuccessful. I'm still feeling a bit discombobulated for some reason. This may partly be due to the summer weather we had last week. This always throws me off kilter as I am uncomfortable and don't sleep well. I am so looking forward to autumnal weather--less sun, more mizzle and drizzle, wind with a bit of a sharp edge to it all make me extremely happy, comfortable, and I sleep well. I think I just need a week or two of restful sleep at my ideal time (2-3am to 9-10 am) and walks that do not involve feeling like I am being roasted alive.

I am also getting used to working in a kitchen without a freezer or an oven. I knew there was a chance of being freezer-less, but when we looked at the place, I didn't think to check. The fridge is an under counter one, but it's for under a tall counter--in this case, it's under the breakfast bar. It's a nice size that I'm happy with. And I won't miss defrosting a freezer, but I do miss having one. We've looked into it and we can get a mini/tabletop freezer, but we decided to see how we get on before buying one. We really do not want to own an appliance like that. If we do end up moving again, it'd just be one more thing to either haul or try to sell. When we were moving this time, the local charity shop couldn't accept anything with a plug, so donating it could be tricky if it came to that.

After we got the keys and were hanging out here for the first time, it took me an hour or so to realize that there is no oven here. I did not notice when looking at the photos in the listing or when we came to view. This I do not care about. I am happy enough to have the cupboard space instead of having it taken up with an oven I would try not to use. Every oven I've had since we came to Ireland has been crap--very inefficient. When I would turn them on, I could feel the air being blown out the door as the fan came on. The seals were probably shot. They were all old. It took forever to preheat and cook things. If I tried to use them without the fans, cooking time was even longer. I hated them. I'd never used ovens like that before--small with fans (but not convection ovens). In our first Irish apartment, I found the manual in a cupboard so used that as a guide to familiarize myself with the symbols and settings. When I read that it would take half an hour to cook a piece of salmon, I knew this was not gonna be a great appliance. And I've experienced worse ovens since. A few years ago, a then local grocery store had George Foreman indoor grills on sale and I happened to have a voucher. We bought one for 15 euro, figuring that it would pay for itself in electricity cost savings. It did and it didn't take long. Since then, I've kept my eyes open for other ways to avoid the oven, such as making things like stuffing and lasagna in my slow cooker instead of the oven. They come out much better and use a fraction of the energy. Still, there were some things for which neither the slow cooker nor the grill would work, so we looked into it and decided to get an air fryer to use as an oven. After reading some blogs and watching some videos, I understood that we needed to look for one that was wide instead of tall, with more surface area at the bottom of the basket. Lo and behold, on the day we got our security deposit back and handed over the keys to the apartment in Dungloe, we were in Lidl picking up some groceries and what did I see but exactly the kind of air fryer I was looking for. Yay! They had another smaller one that was half the price, but I could tell from the picture on the box that the round basket had a small bottom, so I passed on that one. The one we got has a 9 1/2 inch square basket. It seems like it will work just fine. I decided to keep it simple the first time I used it, so just made some fresh potato wedges. It took 15 minutes to do what has taken at least an hour in my previous ovens. So I'm happy. I will be learning the quirks and have been getting a few cookbooks from the library.

As a bonus, when we left Lidl, it was about 1:20. The bus we take between here and Dungloe also does local town runs, the last of which is at 1:30. So we waited right outside the door with our groceries and our large box. The bus pulled up, the driver got out, grabbed the box, placed it on a seat, and waited until we got on before closing the door and moving along. Then we did the rest of the town run, went back to the Main St. stop, picked up a couple more people, and came home. We get dropped off right outside our door, so we did not have to try to carry the box around town on either end, which would have been awkward. It still amazes me that we can live out here in this very rural place and we do not have to burden ourselves with car ownership. It's another thing that I am grateful for.

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Wednesday Words of Wisdom

 From my Tricycle Daily Dharma email this morning:

'It can be hard to tell what’s a failure and what’s just something that is shifting your life in a different direction. In other words, failure can be the portal to creativity, to learning something new, to having a fresh perspective.'

—Pema Chödrön, “How to Fail”

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Very Vivid!

 Still plenty of colour around

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We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Happy Ending

 The day we came to look at our new place and set a date a few days hence to start moving in, we were happy, but cautious. After the experience with Dick2, we knew we had to wait to see the lease before we got too excited. We had a strange weekend as we waited for Monday to arrive. When it did, we each packed our big backpacks and caught the bus, asking to be dropped off at the office. The lease was what we were used to—it laid out responsibilities on both sides without being hostile. It was just a few pages. We signed and got the keys. The letting agent said he would drive us to the flat. He came in and did a video of the place and its contents. Before he left, he repeated what he’d said when we viewed it—that they wanted a nice, quiet, friendly situation for everybody. We unpacked the few things we’d bought, had a cuppa, and basked in our happiness and relief about how things had turned out. 

A couple hours later, there was a knock on the door. It was the owner coming to introduce himself. He came in and showed us how things work. I mentioned the issues with the place we were leaving and he said, ‘Oh no, you won’t have any of that here. No weeping walls! The whole place is insulated.’ Then he proceeded to tap on the walls and around the windows. He said the attic is insulated, too. It’s a very warm flat, he said and used his son as an example. He is our neighbour and ‘uses his computer for heat.’ The landlord tapped the storage heater and said his son has not yet ever turned his on. He seemed really nice and we like him, too, as we do the letting agent who manages the place. When we were looking for the place to plug in the router, we discovered a wall plate that was broken in a neighbouring plug behind a piece of furniture. Bill took a photo to show that it was like that when we got here and sent it to the letting agent. Within two days the owner was here to fix it. He stayed a while and we had a nice chat. Before he left he said he hoped we’d be happy here and that they wanted a nice, quiet, friendly situation for everyone. The fact that this eas repeated so often makes me think they’ve had some issues in the past. I can only imagine.

So we settle in. The other day, we finally walked down to the beach again. We hadn’t been there since the day we came to view the flat, even though it’s just down the lane—a 7 or 8 minute walk from our door. 

When I was walking on the beach and turned around, there was Mt Errigal with some clouds covering her conical top. Beautiful.

We’re slowly finding our way into a new routine and exploring our new location. We’re both sleeping better than we have for months. It all feels really good!

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We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Dick2 Reappears

 There I was, sitting in the B&B after a long hot day wandering around what would be my new village/townland. I had discovered that there were messages from Dick2, the guy who wanted us to sign a dodgy lease over a week before. I’d emailed him with questions and concerns about this document, telling him that when we had answers, we could think about how to proceed. He had not responded until this day. 

I called him and he started out being calm and polite, asking me about the lease. I told him I’d sent him an email that he’d not responded to. He interrupted—a pattern that was to continue throughout the conversation. ‘I never got an email!’ I calmly reiterated that I’d sent an email on the same day we got the lease. His agitation level notched up a bit and his voice got louder. ‘I never got an email from you!’ ‘No?’ I replied, ‘Well, it’s in my sent mail folder, so I can forward it to you if you’d like.’ We were not going to talk about the email any more after that.  Had my brain not been fried from the nasty sun and heat, I might have thought to say that Bill also got the CC so it was not believable that he did not receive it. We both think that what happened was that he saw it and figured he’d ignore it and we’d cave and sign it.

Anyway, on the conversation went, with me calmly speaking and him interrupting, getting more and more agitated, twisting my words, ignoring what he didn’t want to talk about, and becoming increasingly hostile. In short order, he was yelling at me. ‘I took it off the market for you! I could have rented it to someone else! Other people wanted to look at it!’ ‘Good,’ I replied, ‘Then you should call them.’ That pissed him off more. He did not want to discuss the issues we had with the lease, even though he asked me about them. When I mentioned a couple things off the top of my head, he ignored them and yelled about something else. I was so tired, but my brain was running through all kinds of thoughts about how bizarre this was, how lucky we were to have decided against dealing with this guy, and wondering how long this nonsense was going to go on. But things got even more weird and I started to wonder whether I was actually in a junior high lunch room. 

He repeatedly yelled at me, ‘You dropped me! You just dropped me!’ ‘How does one respond to this, I wonder?’ I was thinking to myself. In the end, I didn’t bother, because he just kept yelling over me, repeating that we’d dropped him. I almost felt sorry for him at that point, because it was all so pathetic. Finally he got tired of his tantrum, I guess, because he shouted that he never wanted to have anything to do with us again, hanging up on me before I could say that finally here was something we could agree on!

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We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Happy Day!

 Happy 1st day of meteorological autumn! Good-bye summer! 😁🍁🍂

Before we had our experience with Dick2, we had high hopes for a different place—the place we’re in now, in fact. The listing had popped up late one night in June. We both liked it, but we had to do some investigation into the location. We discovered that it would meet our needs with 4 different bus companies going through, access to grocery stores, and places to walk. The next morning, Bill contacted the letting agent, who said that there were still a few things being done to the place, then asked him to send references from other letting agents, not landlords. Bill did this and we waited for a date and time to view. At the end of the week, he called and said that the apartment would now not be available until August as the owner’s daughter was staying in it. He said he would call us back when we could view. We were disappointed. We wanted to come here, but we didn’t feel like we could wait and see whether or not it would actually become available, given the conditions at the place in Dungloe. We kept looking, every once in a while reminding ourselves that this was still there in the background as a possibility.

About a week and a half after we dealt with Dick2, near the end of July, Bill got a call just as we were starting supper. It was Bob (not his real name), the letting agent from here, asking if we could come and view the apartment the next day. We agreed. We could have come here and gone back a couple hours later, but we decided to see if we could find a room for the night so we’d have time to explore. It was a very hot day—30-ish C, which is not at all usual for here. It was a hard day in some ways, but we were buoyed by the fact that we knew we were moving here. I wrote about the day here.

When we came to look at it, Bob told us to wander around before inviting us to take a seat. We chatted for about 20 minutes. It was very comfortable and pleasant—nothing at all like the last guy. We both really like Bob and did from the start. We later learned that one of our letters of reference was from a guy he’d taken his exams with years ago. I asked when we would know whether we could rent it and he said within the hour. He was going to call the owner and tell him we wanted it. It seemed like we were kind of pre-approved in a way. Bob said there was another couple interested, but they didn’t provide references. They wanted a nice, quiet situation where everyone gets along and likes one another (there are 4 apartments here and we never hear anyone unless they go out or come in and we hear their door). I can only imagine what has happened in the past. There are two cracked windows as a result of someone throwing stones at them to get the attention of the previous tenant. he’s been trying to get someone to fix them for 4 months, he said. Anyway, he showed us around outside and that was that. He called within 15 minutes and we set up a time to come back, sign the lease and get the keys. This was a Thursday and we did that on the following Monday. We did not allow ourselves to get too excited, given what happened a couple weeks earlier. We’d need to see the lease.

As it happened, the day was destined to be blighted by Dick2. Later on, we discovered multiple messages from the guy—voicemail, text, email. When we got to the B&B, after I’d recovered a bit from the heat, I reluctantly called him. It was bizarre and by the end, I wondered if I was dealing with an adult. We still laugh about it.

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