8 Weeks Out: July 2015

A documentation of Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Our landlady at Armcashel is very attentive and we are not allowed to skip breakfast at her specific instruction, and in order to serve each table with complete attention, she schedules each room in 15 minute intervals. So we were slotted for a 9:15 breakfast time with a 10:00 appointment, which meant hurrying through breakfast as politely as we could and scooting off to the house.

NF was there when we arrived, though she assured us she had only just arrived and that she was enjoying the view when we pulled in. We took her into the new house and she said it all looked good, that we didn't really need to do much to get it going and that we were lucky to have found an older cottage in such good shape.

She then went on to say that since it had already been modernized, it wasn't worth the expense and trouble of undoing things like the concrete facing to bring it back to it's original condition. She was, in fact, very practical about the whole thing and said that some purists would say we should scrap all the 'upgrades' but that she felt that things like the cement facing didn't harm the building at all and in her opinion created a kind of "a raincoat" that kept the dampness out. She kept apologizing for not "being much help" but I have to say that she was very reassuring and gave me a lot of hope for forward motion.

After we thoroughly examined the new house we walked up to the old house to check it over. NF was very patient while going over the new house but it was clear that she was excited to go look at the old one. We fought our way through the wild overgrowth of queen anne's lace and nettles and went in. She looked delighted! She was especially excited about seeing the outshot, as she had never seen one in person before and she thought they were fairly uncommon to find nowadays. She said overall the house looked like it was in really good shape, that what we really need to do first is fix the roof and chimney and that would keep it sound for another 100 years. She suggested we photograph the house in as much detail as possible so that when we are finally able to move forward with it, we know how things were put together, so we can replicate it.

Armed with that thought, LS and I set about recording the old house with my pocket camera, I photographed as much detail as I could and we lost ourselves in the task at hand. Birds serenaded us and the queen anne's lace scented the air with its heavy, sweet fragrance. we pushed past brambles, stopped down nettles, LS took a piece of wood she found and dug down until she found a concrete floor under all that dirt! I do remember when we first bought the house, thinking that we would dig out all the dirt and find something underneath. At that point cattle had used the house as shelter for so many years that the dirt was as hard as concrete and we couldn't make a dent with the shovel we bought. Now that a decade or more has passed the dirt was fluffy and loose, LS was able to dig right down with no problem and she was so excited when she hit the concrete. It looks like it might have tiny pebbles embedded in the concrete, whether decorative or just the material they used, it is beautiful and we were so pleased to find it there. LS was inspired to stay and keep digging, she wanted to go and find a shovel at DM's but the camera ran out of room and it started to rain so we headed back into town to find a cell phone.

Ahhh, here is the part of the trip that gave me the most trouble, (but not for too long) driving. I was fine driving in places where I had been before, even as a passenger on trips where TR was the driver. But when I suddenly found myself driving AND trying to find a store or other destination, it became very difficult and, well, pretty stressful. We drove around Roscommon town trying to find the landmarks RM had told us about that would lead us to the Cell Phone Store. We drove behind the main street, we took a couple of different turnoffs on the big roundabout, we ended up at Tesco, starving and went in to find ready made food. No dice. We headed over to Supervalu, found something to eat and sat in the car discussing what to do. LS texted the builder that the Ms had recommended to us and he called back while we were enjoying our car lunch. After making a date for the next evening, we headed out, following phone directions to find the Cell Phone Store and there it was right on the main street, practically next door to Jackson's. I popped in to see what I could arrange and LS went up to Frances Yarn Establishment to get another, badly needed, skein to finish up her project. All went well and we were done in plenty of time, we were going to head back to our room to freshen up and then go to dinner at The Moorings (RM had kindly made us a reservation which turned out to be necessary that whole week). As we sped towards Castlerea we decided that it would take too long and we abandoned freshening up for timelines, rerouted and headed to the restaurant.

We arrived 30 minutes early, which turned out not to be a problem. We were seated in the solarium, which was far too hot for LS and despite the waiter trying to open windows and close blinds, the temperature remained in the surface-of-the-sun zone for the duration of dinner. The food was really good and the atmosphere (heat aside) was charming and we had a delightful dinner.

Afterwards we had hoped to explore Boyle Abbey, thinking that it was the kind of thing that was just open to the public at all times. But no, it was locked up and we strolled along the sidewalk admiring the remains of what was once a bustling, busy center of the community. Afterwards we headed home for some much deserved rest.

And that was that!