Dispatch No. 19: In Which I Meet Up with Beth and Friends In Ireland and Am Undone by Food and Drink; Have My Travel Plans Thwarted by St. Jude, and Anticipate the Arrival of Many Guests

It’s November, and I’m now past the halfway point in my stay here in Canterbury and am about to play host to friends and family pretty much the whole month, which will be great, not only for the company but also because I get to play tour guide.  My first guest, Kate Lander, the daughter of friends Anne and Dick Lander, arrived this morning for a short trip; friend and former teaching colleague Dennis Lynch comes for an equally short stay on Monday; daughter Elise gets here on Thursday for a week’s vacation, and Beth will be here from November 22-December 2.  After that, it’s only 12 days until I get on a plane and head back home.  The time has gone quickly so far, but I know that having guests and lots to do when they’re here will speed up the pace even more.  I left Kate on the High Street to do some shopping while I came back to the flat to finish this entry.  I hadn’t planned to be writing for another few days because I thought I’d be traveling and would get back on schedule next week, but the biggest storm to hit Great Britain since 1987—or, at the very least, in the last six years, depending upon the source—brought me back to Canterbury three days early.

My trip started out just fine.  I got on the train early Thursday morning, took it into London and then on to Gatwick Airport where I boarded my flight to Dublin and arrived in Ireland 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  My bus had wi fi, so Beth and I were able to keep in touch while I made the two-hour trip to Carlow, and she was there to meet me when we pulled in.  After checking in at the Red Setter Inn and getting changed for dinner, we made the short walk to Carlow College and were welcomed by Fr. Kevin O’Neill.  Since 2007, when Beth and her colleague, Lisa March, traveled to Carlow to establish a study abroad program, Fr. Kevin has been a most gracious host and friend.  When Beth spent a semester there in 2009, he made sure that she was immersed in the Irish culture—she even got to attend a hurling championship (a game with sticks and a ball, not what you’re probably thinking) in Dublin—and has hosted us whenever we’re in the country. 

As is his custom, Fr. Kevin invited us into his sitting room and offered to open, as he is wont to do, a bottle of excellent whiskey.  This time, it was a bottle of small batch whiskey distilled in Carlow.  Beth is not a whiskey aficionado, but I am a bit, so I accepted a generous pour and then another.  By the time we were ready to go to the restaurant Fr. Kevin had picked out—one of his favorites, The Lord Baganel, in the historic village of Leighlinbridge—I was glad I wasn’t driving.  It wasn’t until we got back later that evening that I realized he, too, had had a couple of whiskeys.  If the drink affected his handling the rain-slick, narrow and winding road in the dark, I didn’t notice.  Fr. Kevin and the Lord Baganel owner, James, are friends and share a love of art, so when James came to our table, the two of them waxed rhapsodic about a favorite artist whose work was going to be on display at the VISUAL, Carlow’s beautiful arts centre, which is on the college campus. 

When it came time to order, Fr. Kevin asked James if he had anything in the kitchen that wasn’t on the menu.  James said he had some fresh black sole, and our decision was made.  However, before we even got to the sole, which may have been the best fish I’ve ever eaten once I figured how to get rid of the bones, we first had a Dungeness crab salad, bread, and wine.  We had more wine when the fish came out sharing a plate with a heap of mashed potatoes (it’s not uncommon to have a meal in Ireland that features three kinds of potatoes) and green beans.  We followed that up with dessert—a berry terrine with vanilla ice cream—and then headed back out into the rain and back to Carlow.

Earlier that day, when she was on campus meeting with the people who take care of American students when they’re studying in Carlow, Beth made plans with Eric Derr, who “shepherds” the Illinois students at Carlow while he’s finishing up his doctoral dissertation, to meet at Teach (pronounced chock; it’s a  Gaelic word) Dolman to listen to some traditional Irish music—a session—featuring local musicians.  Eric is a fellow Iowan and former resident of Burlington, where we lived for three years a long time ago.  His dissertation is a two-volume cataloguing of all the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, which means he’s spent the past three years poring over historical documents in libraries and cathedrals and parish churches all over the country.  His project for the weekend we were there was to start checking his footnotes for accuracy.  He took some time away, however, and met us for a pint of Guinness and some music.  We got to Teach at 11 p.m., a time I’m usually strolling through dreamland, and we hung around until sometime after 1 a.m. 

Feeling a bit fuzzy-headed when the alarm went off at 8 a.m. the next morning, Beth and I went down for a full Irish breakfast—two fried eggs, sausage, bacon, two kinds of “pudding” (a sort of grain-heavy sausage, the black variety made with blood), and a stewed tomato—some soda bread, juice and coffee.  We had decided to eat heavy in the morning and then skip lunch, knowing we had dinner plans at a great tapas place, Café Mimosa, with some friends that night.  Beth had more meetings, so she went off to the campus while I sat in the Red Setter’s front room and read.  I always get on a Graham Greene kick when I come over here, and I was reading The Stamboul Train, which Greene called “an entertainment” rather than a novel, and it centers on a trip on the Orient Express from France to Istanbul.  I knew the book was written in the 1930s, but I was still surprised at how racist and classist and sexist it was, much more so—or perhaps much more noticeably—than other books of his I’ve read.  As always, it was wonderfully written, but the author’s insensitivity was a bit off-putting.  I guess it’s best to think of his work as representing a particular time and place and read it with that context in mind.

So that’s what I was doing when Beth came back, and we headed to Coleman’s Bike Shop to look for a used bicycle that could be left at the college for the American faculty who come there with study abroad students—and for Eric, who fills in whenever there is not a faculty person able to come for semester.  We were told ahead of time that Mr. Coleman’s son had recently taken his own life and that Mr. Coleman, who was normally quite outgoing, was still struggling with the loss and might not be his usual self.  With this knowledge, we walked into the store, which has a garage door entrance, and met Mr. Coleman.  He was subdued but very friendly.  Beth asked him if he had any used bicycles, and he said no.  Now, to set the scene a little…imagine a garage, now imagine a garage filled with bicycles of all types and conditions and ages (one dated back to the 1950s), imagine that these bicycles are in a kind of upright jumble, hooked together like a great puzzle and surrounded by—nay, half-buried in—a heap of random handlebars, tools and cables, pedals and seats, chains, and who knows what else (I’ve posted a couple of photos of the shop on Facebook) and not a one of them was for sale.  Because Beth wanted to get a bicycle and because she wanted to support local Carlow businesses, she put a hold on a nice, relatively inexpensive new bicycle and said we would be back later in the day after she’d checked to see if there was money in her budget at school for the purchase.  (We did go back and Beth made arrangements for the bike to be picked up and taken to the college.  When we were there the second time, I asked if I could take pictures because, as I honestly told Mr. Coleman, it was nice to see someone else whose workspace—in my case, basement work bench—shared a similar kind of organization.  His daughter, who was there in the afternoon, said that they’d had another, larger shop elsewhere in Carlow, and it was even more of a disaster area.  And yet, when he needed a tape measure to check the height of the bike Beth picked out, he stuck his hand into the pile and pulled it right out. )

While she was on campus in the morning, before our bike shopping, Beth had run into Eric again and made plans to have lunch with us and with Sister Mary, every American student’s favorite Irish person, at a local restaurant.  So, rather than skip a meal, we had big bowls of excellent seafood chowder, more soda bread, and a Coke made with real sugar, not the high fructose sugar variety from home.  (There’s a reason I’m cataloguing my eating.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.)  After lunch, Beth had another meeting, I read some more and then we went out for a walk, ducking into doorways when the rain became, as Mr. Coleman had put it, “a lashing rain.”  Then we met Padraigin Caesar, who had worked with the study abroad program when Beth was there in 2009, in the arts centre café for coffee and got caught up on families.  Padraigin, who is also a harpist and singer, came to Illinois in 2011 to meet with college study abroad personnel, and she stayed with us in between campus visits.  She wasn’t feeling particularly well, so when she got home, she went to the doctor and discovered she was pregnant with her second child, Harry.  (I was thinking Patrick would have been better name choice, but I had no vote).  She and her husband, Declan, daughter Heidi and son Harry might come to visit Canterbury when Beth is here later in the month, so I may have more guests to host.

At eight that night, we went to the Mimosa, where we met up with Eric and Noel and Kate Cavanaugh.  Noel is a lecturer at Carlow College and a great, hilarious storyteller in the true Irish tradition.  Kate is equally funny, so we spent about three hours laughing and nibbling a variety of tapas dishes (everything from chocolate chili beef to calamari to a goat cheese-apple thing to a cheese plate to lots of other things I don’t remember), washing them down with a Cornish ale appropriately called Proper Job, which it did on me, along with an after-dinner liqueur and then ending the night, after a dash through the aforementioned lashing rain, to a noisy place called Carpe Diem, where whiskey was had.  That night when we fell into bed, it was only 12:30 a.m., an early evening.

On Saturday, following a subdued breakfast of toast and coffee, we took the bus to Dublin and met up with Pam and John at the Townhouse Inn, just north of the River Liffey.  Beth took a gamble on booking it—memories of the Kelly Hotel in Dublin still haunt us—but it turned out to be a great place with a great staff.  We set out for some sightseeing, south over the river to Grafton Street, which is pedestrianized (one of my new favorite words) and the home to a host of buskers, including a band called Keywest, which was really very good.  We had lunch at Bruxelles, a pub noted for its connection with the film, The Commitments, where I had salmon cakes and the obligatory pint of Guinness.  We spent part of the afternoon at the national museum, which has an exhibit of bog people—folks who ended up, usually violently, at the bottom of a peat bog, where they were preserved—parts of them, at least—and discovered centuries later.  It sounds a little grisly, but it is a fascinating exhibit, even right after lunch!  Mid-afternoon, we had a snack—hot chocolate and a scone for me—before heading back to the hotel for a bit of down time before we went out again for dinner and, perhaps, some music. 

It’s at this point that I’d like you to look back through the previous paragraphs and start to catalogue for yourselves all that I had eaten and drunk those three days.  Keep in mind that I had been living a pretty Spartan lifestyle in Canterbury—except for clotted cream, which is a sin—and eating like a first century monk—except for clotted cream, which is a sin. 

After our down time, I began to wonder if I was done for.  I lay on the bed and tried to muster my strength for another go at Dublin nightlife, but my body was telling me otherwise.  We did go out for dinner at a pub--where else—and had a roast beef sandwich and more Guinness—and then back to the hotel for another bit of down time.  This time, I was down.  My stomach, my head, even my feet, were telling me it was time to say uncle.  For three and a half days, I’d been eating and drinking myself stupid, and I had nothing left.  Surprisingly, perhaps because she’d avoided the whiskey, Beth still had enough energy to join John—Pam, like me, had thrown in the towel—for stops at a couple of nearby pubs for music, though she wanted me to report that she had only sparkling water at the second place.  I, in the meantime, had fallen into a deep, deep sleep that was not even interrupted by the bar patrons who used the alley behind our hotel as a smoking lounge.  When morning came, I felt much better and was ready for our last day in Ireland, but I must admit that I wish I’d had the wherewithal to go out for the music.  There’s nothing quite like a session in a local pub, with musicians popping in and out, playing guitars or fiddles or squeezeboxes, bagpipes, bodhrans (hand-held drums) or penny whistles.  The music is so much a part of their lives, of the country’s culture, that anyone who can play an instrument knows the tunes and can sit in, and those of us who can't, can sit and enjoy.

Sunday, our last day in Ireland, started with my getting a cell phone weather alert and a second message announcing the the cancellation of my ferry to Wales.  A massive storm was bearing down on Great Britain, and, as a result, the ship I was going to take across the Irish Sea, a smallish ferry by ocean-going standards, was not going to sail on Monday, but they were putting me on their larger boat. This news completely destroyed my plans for the week.  I needed to get that smaller, speedier ferry because it was the only one that allowed me to catch a train to St. Ives, Cornwall, and arrive the same day.  The next train south was a 17-hour ordeal that would get me there on Tuesday, essentially cutting my already short trip a day shorter.  With that in mind, I emailed Grahame Wheelband, owner of 11 Sea View Terrace, the bed and breakfast where I’d been looking forward to staying, and informed him I wouldn’t be able to make it.  I have to admit that the thing I’m saddest about when it comes to missing out on St. Ives and Cornwall is the chance to meet Grahame.  In the space of a few days and a few emails, I got the impression that Grahame is someone I’d like to get to know, someone whose warmth and personality were evident, even though we’d never met.  I plan to get to St. Ives one day, and I look forward to meeting Grahame when I do.

So, with my plans altered dramatically, Beth and I checked to make sure that her trip home on Monday was still on schedule.  Because the storm’s track started south of Ireland and moved diagonally across Great Britain, the flight that she and Pam and John were on would not be affected.  Knowing what the next day was going to bring, we set out for a day of sightseeing.  Our first stop was the Garden of Remembrance, which features a stunning sculpture dedicated to the many people who stood up to fight during the 700 years of British rule of the island (see Facebook).  You can’t look at this piece of art and not feel the pain and the pride of the Irish who finally were able to achieve freedom in the early 20^th century.  From there we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, an ancient illuminated copy of the Gospels.  Both Pam and I noted errors in the displays accompanying the exhibit (The Book of Psalms is not a gospel; John was not a witness to the crucifixion), but it is quite an experience looking at a text that was hand-written and hand-illustrated more than 1000 years ago.

As impressive as the Book of Kells and other ancient texts are, my favorite part of the trip to Trinity, as it was the last time we visited, was the Long Room, the old and wonderful library.  With stacks of leather-bound books that tower overhead and busts of everyone from Socrates to Swift, this is a bibliophile’s version of heaven.  (Again, I’ve posted some pictures on Facebook).  At one point, while I was sitting down and looking at all of the tomes arranged around me, a young boy in his school uniform stopped in front of me and asked, “Is this seat taken?”  Even though Beth had been there a minute earlier before getting up to take a photo, I invited him to sit.  He looked exhausted.  I asked him if he was on a school trip, and he said that he was and that he was in Dublin to play rugby.  Before I had a chance to ask him anything else, I had little rugby players all around me, all wiped out after having played five games in three days and all willing to talk.  I think that those few minutes might have been my favorite time in Dublin, maybe in my trip as a whole.  It was such fun to listen to them talk about their games, to have them show me the souvenirs they’d bought for their families and for themselves that I could have sat there for hours.  But along came their coach who hustled them into the gift shop for a final spending spree before they headed back to London and their boarding school.

That evening, having fully recovered from the debauchery of the three days previous, we took part in the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, an entertaining two hours of drama and lecture and pub culture directed by professional actors.  In 2011, I answered enough questions correctly that I won a t-shirt, so I stayed mum this time around, paying attention, instead, to the skill of the pair of actors who showed us around.  A favorite moment on the tour came when one of the actors was talking about Brendan Behan, a brilliant writer and notorious drunk whose drinking killed him at a young age.  Behan was in Toronto on a lecture tour when a journalist asked him why he was there.  Behan said, and I paraphrase here, “I saw a sign that said ‘Drink Canada Dry,’ so I thought I’d give it a shot.” We stopped in at four pubs that evening, ending at Davey Byrne’s, a pub labeled as a “moral pub” by James Joyce because Byrne did not drink. 

Early the next morning, I caught a cab to the ferry port and boarded the Ulysses, the largest passenger ferry in Europe.  It’s named after Joyce’s novel (I don’t know why, exactly) and is quite impressive.  It’s nearly as long as two football fields, has 11 decks, including several for cars and trucks, and speeds along at 20-21 knots (about 24 mph).  Because of the storm, which had been named St. Jude, swells on the sea were at 4.5 feet, but there was never any sense of choppiness the entire 3+ hour trip.  Still, I had taken seasickness medicine just before we left, so I may not be the best judge of the trip's roughness; I was fine, a little dopey from the pills, but fine. We arrived at Holyhead, Wales, at the appointed hour, but because of the storm, I had to wait for nearly two hours before I could get on a train to London.  During that time, I checked the timetables and realized I would have a six-hour layover in London before I could get a train to London, so I booked a ride on a National Express bus, which would get me back to Canterbury four hours before the train would get me there. 

The train ride from Holyhead to London took me through very dramatic Welsh countryside.  Rather than the rolling hills of Kent, we passed through fields of gorse studded with craggy rocks (I’m not sure if it was gorse or not; I just like the word), along coastline, beneath and through mountains.  This was my first time in Wales, and I’d like to go back.  Whether Beth and I make the trip in November depends on the weather.  It won’t be much fun trying to hike around in a rain storm and strong winds, which can happen as winter approaches. 

I learned something on the train ride, too.  I have a BritRail pass, which allows me to ride any train anywhere in Great Britain, so I got on at Holyhead, found a seat in a car away from two families with rambunctious children, turned on my iPod and settled in.  A couple of stops later, I was tapped on the shoulder by a young man who said I was in his seat.  It was at this point that I noticed lighted signs next to each pair of seats, some marked Reserved, others marked Available.  I apologized and said I didn’t have a reserved seat, so he pointed me in the direction of an open, unreserved seat, and the rest of the trip went smoothly.  Four hours later, I was back in London and on the Tube headed for Victoria Station and my bus.

Victoria Station is not difficult to navigate.  In fact, there are lines painted on the floor that take you right to where you want to be…or so I thought.  I got on the blue line marked “Bus Depot” and started walking.  I knew that the bus station was not in the train terminal, but when I got to the end of the blue line and found myself outside in the rain on the sidewalk, I had no idea what to do next.  I saw buses moving in all directions, but there was no sign indicating where the station was.  I walked around a corner: nothing.  I went back inside and asked a guy selling cell phones where the station was, and he pointed me back toward the train side of the place.  I went that way but, doubting his knowledge, asked a young woman in a perfume shop where to catch a bus.  She sent me back the way I had just come.  I went outside and started walking, figuring I would find it sooner or later—hopefully sooner because I was running out of time.  I came across a travel agency that was still open, and I asked someone in there where I needed to be, and he waved in the general direction of the train station.  I finally found a place where buses were lined up but didn’t see anything remotely like a station.  I went into another travel agency in the adjoining building and was finally given specific and correct directions.  When I got to the door at the end of the corridor I’d been told to follow, there it was: Victoria Bus Station, clearly marked with a huge lighted sign and people dragging suitcases in through the entrance.  To this day, I don’t know where this is in relation to the train station.  Maybe I can go back in the daytime, and at a time when it’s not raining, and figure it out.  All I cared about at that moment, though, was getting to my bus and getting back to Canterbury, which I did without further incident.

I’m not sure if I’ll have time to write and post next week, but I’ll try.  In addition to guests arriving, I also have my term lecturing to the students in the American Literature class—I’m talking about Edgar Allan Poe—and then we have an overnight field trip to Bath, Oxford and Stonehenge.  Because Elise is not a student in the program, she can’t go on the school coach, so I’m renting a car and driving us to the various spots.  I did most of this particular drive when we were here before, so I’m not worried about getting lost, and I’m not even that worried about driving on the left side of the road.  But, that said, I’m still a bit worried I might do something I shouldn’t.  If I do, I’ll tell you all about it next time.

I'm off to meet Kate at the cathedral for a tour inside. 

Thanks for reading. 

 

p.s. There wasn't much evidence of the power of the St. Jude storm here in Canterbury, other than the River Stour was flowing much faster and deeper than normal, and there were a few limbs down.  In other parts of the country, though, things were much worse, especially in places where the 80-100 mph winds ripped trees up and toppled them on to cars and houses.