I must digress from the continuing saga of the holidays to put you out of your misery about the garden, or more precisely the state of the putative lawn.
It thrived (probably all the better for not being fiddled with for four weeks)
Here’s the proof:

Lush Innit!
Compare and contrast with photo of same on entry for July 25th

Chapter 1 (of 8) Holiday 2005

This year we decided to head off for a month to France.
In fact if it hadn’t been for a certain wedding we might have gone for two.
Sile is free for August as well as July and me, being on a very long leash, we decided to risk spending the whole month within the confines of l’Hexagone (this being what the French sometimes call themselves.)
Now no matter how carefully we selected a house this was prime tourist season so it was going to cost a fortune to rent one so we made the decision to spend the first two weeks camping.
We hadn’t camped for about 15 years, around the time that the kids put their feet down and said, mainly because of my snoring in the narrow confines of a tent, and the long nocturnal trudges of weak Dwyer bladders to “Sanitaires”, that next holiday would be in a house.
With only ourselves to please we decided to take the plunge again.
We still own a medium sized dome tent, having passed the huge two bedroomed chalet tent on to my niece Tara and her family, and we made a last minute decision to throw in a “Gazebo” which seems to be the modern misnomer for a sort of wall less tent used for shelter in patios.
As for the rest of equipment we were still reasonably flush and knew that anything we were short of could be bought for small money in any French supermarket.
The other huge advantage of camping was that we had to make no advance bookings so we could go exactly where the fancy took us.
That in itself was wonderfully liberating, and that is exactly what we did.
The only booking we made was for the first night, in an excellent Chambre d’Hote called

l’Houzardiere

near Le Mans,

where we enjoyed an swim in their little pool,

an excellent Dinner (boissons compris), an elegant bedroom and croissants for breakfast for a staggeringly cheap €80 for the two of us.

True to our original intention the following day saw us wandering the roads of the Sarthe region. There we fell on a beautiful town called Solesme which had the most dramatic

Gothic Abbey over the river,

full of little turrets and balconies which could have graced any Hollywood version of one of Shakespearian plays.

Discovering that Solesme was one of a set of “Little Cities of Character of the Sarthe” we decided to move no further but to explore these.
We found a fine quiet (almost empty) campsite nearby in

Roeze sur Sarthe ( from the bridge,our campsite was on the right,by the boats)

and set about exploring the other “Petites Cities de Carectere”.

It might interest one to know how we made our decision where to put our tent.
France is flush with Camp Sites, most towns having their own “Municipal” version. These usually have most basic campers needs so all we had to do was find a municipal with at least an on camp guardian, hot showers, private pitches (emplacements), and a freezer available so we could freeze our ice blocks to keep our cool box chill. We also knew from experience to avoid one with a swimming pool, these being almost inevitably overrun with children.
Having a current Michelin Camping guide is invaluable in this situation.

The Bridge from the campsite.

That said all did not go too well in our first few days camping.

The site was by the river and on our second night there some of the townspeople just at the other side had what was definitely a full blown “Seisiun”.
The singing started at midnight and went on intermittently until about 4.30.
It was as drunken and discordant as a Seisiun at home would be.
We were again woken at about 5.30 by some noises around the tent, Sile thought she saw some long legs run off as we awoke noisily but we assumed it was an animal.
I had taken a vagary to write a journal at dawn each morning of the holidays. (from which this blog is being gleaned)
For the great creative juices to flow the system needed the lubrication of a large cup of coffee.
This particular morning the juices were not destined to even trickle.
No where could I find out gas lighter to light the little stove.
Having spent a full and desperate 30 minutes trying to ignite a tissue from the cigarette lighter in the car, it began to dawn on us that, as our spare cylinder of gas was also missing that the midnight thief was of a definite two legged variety. To extract our lighter and gas it had to open a box with a fastened lid.
I went to Madame La Gardienne to report and to borrow some matches for the still strongly desired fix of coffee.
It was then that we discovered that our neighbour had been dealt an even crueller blow than us. They had burnt a hole in and consequently destroyed his sons large inflated Piscine.
This was obviously done with our gas lighter.
At this stage it became obvious that we were the victims of a visit by the drunken “Chanteurs” who seemed to have gone on a destructive spree after their choral session finished. Luckily we woke up when we did as this seemed to have scared them off, and the splash that I remembered hearing shortly after was no doubt our gas cylinder hitting the river.
Well!
What excitement!
You will be glad to know that this episode was taken extremely seriously by the powers that were.
We were interviewed not once but twice by Gendarmes during the course of the day, and the other campers now assumed that we were made of the right stuff and so were reasonably civil to us.

Safe again in our emplacement in Roeze

When I tried to start my car and discovered that I had drained the battery with my attempts find fire to obtain my coffee fix, Madame La Gardienne was on her bike in a jiffy and came back shortly with a borrowed jump leads and the use of her own car to “jump” it off.

The rest of our few days in the Sarthe region passed off without too much trauma.

The other “Petites Cities” proved just as interesting as Solesme with the star of the show being Asnieres-sur-Vegre, a little star with a church with the most marvellous

12th century frescos, depicting graphically the devils delight in being paid the wages of sin.
We even had a few candidates for them now.

While we were sitting outside the church in Asnieres a little episode happened to us which warmed our hearts and helped us get over the “Camping Raid of Roeze”
A party of three elderly but extremely elegant people, two ladies and a gentleman, made their way slowly up the path towards the church.
One of the ladies, who was using an old ebony walking stick, came over to us and smilingly asked, in beautifully accented French, if we were the owners of the Irish car parked down the village.

Asnieres-sur-Vegre with Sile and the corner of the Irish Car

When we admitted that we were she said that she just wanted to tell us that “just this year” she had so much enjoyed a holiday in our country and she wanted to thank us for it. “Even the weather was good “ she said, “and the people were so kind”
This quite made our day!
There will be further sagas of our holidays over the next few days!

I am suffering from a little premature nostalgia as I look out at our brand new garden.
You must remember that we had none at all for the fifteen years we lived over the restaurant.
Tomorrow we head off on a big adventure.
A whole month in France-and most of it unbooked.
We have rented a house with a pool in the Languedoc for one week and a very kind friend has lent us her apartment in Argeles Sur Mer for a week so we are not going to be travellers in the Irish sense.
We are however taking the tent out of it’s mothballs and intend to find out if we can still crack it under canvas, at least for a few nights.
This is all very exciting for me and I can’t wait…but…
The garden is just starting to come together so, I thought I would take just a few shots of it this early morning, stick them up in my blog, and then sneak a look at the homestead by sneaking into an internet cafe.

Not much of a shot I know but very exciting for us to see the grass growing!

Our friend Siobhan Denman never comes without some of her wonderful, blowzy, old-fashioned and very smelly Roses.

We found this fern Fossil in our new Indian Sandstone Patio.

Mind yourself garden.
See you in a month.

A great day of (some) tears and lots of laughter.

These are just some images which I have purloined from various cameras which give an idea of this great day of celebration.

The Bridal Bouquet.

As they walk back down the aisle they admired the choir singing them out.

Some of my sisters and sisters in law

The Father of The Bride Speech

Niece Maddy struts her stuff on the dance floor
(Note bride getting it all on in the background)

Sile with the Bridesmaids,daughters Eileen and Deirdre

The Bride and the Brides Parents

Sile, Maddy (not dancing) and her sister Una

The Golden Couple Going Away
Have a great honeymoon!

A few of the highlights for me were.

The sun miraculously coming out for the duration of the ceremony
just around the church!
(My brother said to me:
“Do you realise its raining 4 miles down the road?”
I told him that 4 miles around the church was all we could afford.)

Aonghus’s epithalamium* which was so emotional and sincere that there was
a strong possibility that he would be drowned out by the audible sobs.
(*Look it up!)

The beautiful Bass dish cooked by Eric Theze the chef in Faithlegge.

Madrigallery, singing like angels in the church and then (a text book example of Bathos) singing the chorus of “Treat me Daughter Decent” with me.”

The bun fight Chez Nous the day after, and all the couple’s lovely young friends
talking to and thanking us wrinklies.

A great day was had by all.

First official picture of the Golden Couple and Guests

Every Good Wish Aonghus and Caitriona

I have just been reading Bob Quinn’s book
The Atlantean Irish
and as an escape from weddings Sile and I went
for a spin around Carrick on Suir a couple of evenings ago
and stopped to look at the high crosses in Ahenny.

I took a photograph of this piece of one of the crosses.
I think that with this bit of strap carving Bob Quinns point is well made.
Arabesque is I think the appropiate term.
(And a good moment to remember how much we owe the nation of Islam)

Post Scriptum
Thank you Isabel for seeing the slip of the thumb.
(See comment)

Just three days before Caitriona’s wedding and less than a week before we head to France for a month there is no time for Words just a picture.

While we were getting the garden landscaped this was dug up.
Obviously the original kitchen range from the 1930’s.
A little shagged but an original feature and it will be treasured.
(We also found the little pot in the garden, nice to see that it has
found its original home on the range))

About 10 years ago my brother-in- law Martin Lyes, who worked at that time for Enterprise Ireland, was on a trip to Scandanavia and decided to bring some books of Irish interest as a present to his colleagues there.
He saw a picture book on Ireland, called “Ireland Past and Present” which looked perfect for the job.
It was edited by the poet Brendan Keneally and on a quick flick through it seemed to satisfy all his criteria.
When he finally got to take a closer look at it he found the following photo inside;

It was a photo of all the Dwyer Family (even if you can only see Eileen’s ear!)
Because we had some of our own photos taken on the same day we were able to place it exactly at the Dublin Street Carnival of 1988.
Was it Deirdre’s Lion make up or our natural beauty that got us there?

I remember in Joseph Losey’s film Accident that there was a cricket match which seemed to convey all the languor and boredom of a hot English Summers day.
I never thought that we might have similar symbols of summer here in Ireland
Our new house backs on to the main GAA pitch for Waterford. This wasn’t something which we thought of as a great selling point at the time.
We were wrong.
Firstly it means that behind the house is a large sports arena, empty for most of the time.
Secondly, and unexpectedly, there are the wonderful sounds which reach us as they play matches in the pitch.
Now my family will laugh like drains if they hear that I find the sounds of a match in progress soothing.
I am the notorious Dwyer who broke the mould but being determinedly non sporty.
My Parents were madly keen on sport.
My mother captained the Irish ladies Hockey team on numerous occasions, played tennis for Munster and at one time played golf off a scratch handicap.
My Father was likewise extremely good at tennis, sailed competitively and hunted for years until chronic hay fever caused him to quit.
All of my 6 older siblings played some sport or other. Some of them extremely well.
I, pompously, decided that sport was not for me and concentrated instead on “The Arts”.
However I am not totally immune from the sounds of sport.
In our childhood home Tree Tops we were on the northside of the Lee over looking Pairc Ui Caoimh on the Southern bank.
All my Sundays were audibly coloured by the swell and rush of crowds enthusiastically “cheering on” their side, punctuated by the shrill screech of the ref’s whistle. Maybe because it is a sound associated with school free Summer Sundays it is still most soothing to my ears.
It was an unexpected pleasure and a little capsule of nostalgia when I realised that I could have the same Sunday music here in my new home in Waterford.

One of the first things we had found in the back garden was a sliotar (this is the ball used for hurley)
Now a few weeks ago I heard a new sound from the pitch.
A crisp leather smack delivered through the cheers and the whistles.
The football season had finished and the hurling season was now on.
Even as I type this I can hear the emotion filled swell of the crowds and the smart crack of ash against leather.
I know that I have discovered a new sound which will always be associated with summer.

This is Caitriona, photographed in the garden on Sunday last, with reflections of the eaten barbecue, me with camera and Sile in a red top.
It was entered for,and was accepted by the Mirror Project and you can see it at http://www.mirrorproject.com/mirror?id=30075

Good luck in the new life Katie!