I suppose it all started when I first read David Wallechinskys Book of Lists in the early Eighties. He tapped into the fact that we all have this passion for lists. Psychologists tell us that this points out basic flaws in our toilet training and that those of us obsessed with reducing artefacts into ordered lists are stuck in an anal stage. Well what the hell. There is no way I’m going to re-potty train just to stop enjoying lists.
My list fixations were again fed with Ben Schotts Miscellany a couple of years ago and even more so with the recent Channel 4 Sunday night 100 Best….. Well you name it, comic movies, weepies etc etc .
All this inspired me, when I started my own blog on my website after I retired, to do a list of my own.
This started off as a list of my hundred favourite things, but sort of spread and most un-anally (maybe my mother got the toilet training right after all) became my 135 favourite things. This is mainly because, like a good scab, I just can’t leave this list alone, I keep adding and even subtracting things.
My prime anal moment (a moment which took nearly five weeks and caused Sile to really think I had, at last, lost it) was when I illustrated with a little picture every single thing on my list of favourites. This puts me in the same category of those nerds in primary school who couldn’t rest each year until they had coloured in every single picture in their catechism. You can see that here.

Well the result of all this listing is that I have been given a desire to list out even more lists and to break down the lists into smaller lists and that has made me finally come up with my notion of

Give Me Five

This is a list of five of my favourite things in any category that appeals to a momentary whimsy. Read down and you will see what I came up with after about an hour on the computer. These don’t have to be in order of preference or even to be definitive and can certainly be changed at will.
It doesn’t have to be five either, less or more if it suits you, and if you feel like giving reasons for your choice all the better.
To start the ball rolling I am going to list the first 17 categories which came to my head. If anyone would like to submit some of their own just press the comments button at the bottom of the page and do just that.
Who knows, Wallechinsky and Schott both made a fortune by exploiting their anal side.
Maybe its my turn.
PS I promise I wont add any pictures to these.

These are five of my favourite:

Musical Films

Some Like It Hot
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Cabaret
Guys and Dolls
Okalahoma

Places to visit in France

Mont St Michel
Albi Cathedral
Monaco
St Circ Lapoppie
Rasteau Village

Vegetables

Seakale
Swiss Chard
Asparagus
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Jerusalem Artichokes

Gilbert and Sullivan Operas

Patience
Mikado
Pirates of Penzance
HMS Pinafore
Yeoman of the Guard

Meals I’ve had in Ireland

Lunch in Thorntons
Dinner in Olde Post House in Cavan
Sunday Buffet in Ballymaloe
Lunch in Purple Heather in Kenmare(in ’73)
Dinners in Dwyers (Many)

Countries to holiday in

France
France Again
Italy
Spain
Ireland

Cheeses

Banon de Chevre
Gubbeen
Gorgonzola
Gruyere
Parmagiano

Paintings

Ihly’s Absinthe Drinker
Garzone’s Cherries
Monet’s Water Lilies
The Last Judgment by Roger Van Der Weyden
Bathers in Tramore by Celia Richards

Cook Books

French Provincal Cooking by Elizabeth David
Leaves from a Tuscan Kitchen Ross/Waterfield
Cookery by Constance Spry
Good Things Jane Grigson
Ballymaloe Cookbook Myrtle Allen

Beaches in Ireland

Derrynane in Kerry
Curracloe in Wexford
Foirnis in Connemara
Back Strand in Tramore
“Visitors” on Brownstown, Corbally Mor

Operas

Lucia di Lammermore
The Magic Flute
The Marriage of Figaro
La Traviata
Norma

Walks near Waterford

Up the Minaun
To Coomshangaun
Along The Old Dungarvan Railway
Along the river in Newtown
Cheekpoint to Passage East

Wines

White Macon
Good Reds from Southern Languedoc
Alsace Gewürztraminer
Beaune
Sancerre

Shakespeare’s Plays

Twelfth Night
A Comedy of Errors
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
Midsummer Night’s Dream

Things about Cork

Patricks Hill
The English Market
Visiting but not living there
UCC
The Lower Glanmire Road

Living People I Admire

Mary Boydell of the Glass Society
Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe
Jamie Oliver
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall
Mary Robinson

Famous People I Nearly Met

(stories provided on demand)

Paul Newman
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Tim Brooke Taylor
John F Kennedy
Frank Sinatra

I was in hospital in 1966 to have my appendix out.
I was 17.
The only thing I can really remember about the nursing care at that time was the profound embarrassment (and indeed some terror) of having my groin razor shaved by a young (and also embarrassed) student nurse.

I was again in hospital in 1991, having had a brain haemorrhage, but a convenient bout of amnesia has wiped all aspects of that from my mind.

My middle daughter, Eileen, was ill with Leukaemia when she was 4 (she is now a perfectly healthy 25) and my best memory of that unhappy time was the incredible kindness of the nurses in Our Ladies Hospital in Crumlin. Not only their kindness but also their skill and experience, which seemed far ahead of the doctors to which they had to bow.

It was with some terror then that I committed myself to the “Bons” in Cork last Monday for a hernia operation. It would be purely routine my consultant had assured me.
“In on Monday, “OP” on Tuesday and out by lunchtime Wednesday.”
By the time I got as far as the ward on Monday afternoon I was in a lather of solid funk. My mind was reeling with tales of hospital bugs, with newspaper stories of people who came out of the anaesthetic vegetables, of people in for tonsillectomies having legs removed by confused surgeons.
The nurse couldn’t have been kinder or more understanding, she even whispered (having read my blood pressure) that I could have a sedative if I wanted. Eventually it was shame that calmed me. I was in a small ward, just the four of us, and the other men there were really sick. There were “medical” patients not “surgical” like me.
They, unlike me, had every right to be in a blue funk (and weren’t).
I was also blessed to be in a ward where no one was a television watcher.
It was switched on for the news then switched firmly off.
Just like at home.
These men had arrived in at much the same time as me so we were all learning the ropes as we went.
Again it was the nurses who smoothed all our paths. They seemed to know in advance about any problems we might have. Small touches like sorting out better pillow mountains for reading, quietly insisting on giving pain killers to men determined to prove themselves stoics, and gently reassuring distraught wives when their husbands were out of earshot.
Are all these extras in the “Nurses Charter”?
By the following morning I knew more about these men than I knew about people who I had worked with for years. A hospital ward is a hell of a level playing field.
The following morning I was gotten ready for surgery. No groin shave this time but a stomach shave done on a totally unembarrassed 56 year old, with an totally un-threatening electric razor, by an totally unembarrassed student nurse. Times have changed.
I then had to don the backless hospital gown, no improvement there, and, a definite sartorial disimprovement, put on white, thigh high, support stockings (a blood clot preventative). I will leave the remarks of the medical patients to me in this get up to your imagination.
However instead of the indignity of being trollied aloft to the operating theatre like a transvestite pasha, they allowed me (another act of kindness) to walk up to unaided, wearing dressing gown and slippers to hide most of my shame. (I say most of because I had bought short pyjamas for the hospital so my white elasticated calves were on show.)

My memories of the operation are vague, I remember an Indian male surgical nurse putting his arm around my shoulder to relieve my terror (thereby proving that womankind don’t have the patent on kindness)
I remember a surly anaesthetist, my jovial surgeon coming in and saying
“Is he not out yet? Sure we’ll do it with a local”
I remember lying there wondering why is the anaesthetic was not taking and then realising that it had, and, from the bandages on my stomach that the whole operation was over.
I was cheered by my ward when I made my re-entry, this time unashamedly pashlike on the trolley. As I went in and out of dopey sleep for the next several hours I was aware of three sets of concerned eyes on me every time I opened mine.
There was the catering assistant saying “You’re only allowed tea and toast- but I’ll give you an extra slice” which she did hidden under a napkin.
Then there was the night nurse saying “ Did they only give you tea?
I’ll get you more toast as soon as the coast is clear.”
Which she did , accompanied by the jeers of the medical patients,
(“D’ye see the way they coddle the surgicals!”)

The following morning my consultant came in bright and early and told me I could go home. My new friends gave me a rousing send off.
I shook hands with all my ward, genuinely wishing them the very best,
I still can’t quite believe how close we had all got on a mere 36 hour acquaintance.
Was I just fortunate in my ward-fellows and my nurses?
I don’t think so.

I’m reliable informed that Leonard Cohen wasn’t writing about the nurses in the “Bons” when he wrote the following.
He could well have been.

The sisters of Mercy they are not departed or gone
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just cant go on
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me their song
Oh I hope you run into them you who’ve been travelling long.

By the way the operation was a success.
My navel is now back where it should be.

OK I promise I am not turning this into a photo blog.
The standard has been set too high.
I am just convalescing and took a photo of what I can see out of the window to my left, cropped it and rotated it 90 degrees and I’m delighted to see how different it looks.

When my three daughters were little, as a bribe to get them to go to sleep
(or at least to bed) at night I used to occasionally tell them bed time stories. After a while one particular series of stories became the all time favourite and, children being conservative animals, none other were permitted.
Just recently my middle daughter Eileen (who works in Hodges Figgis book shop in Dublin) told me that I must write this down. Of course I was flattered, even to think that she remembered it but also at a loss because the classic elements of a “Man in the Moon” story were not just the words. There were all sorts of actions, sound effects, and indeed audience participation which were part of the experience.
I have decided that the nearest I can get to recording this, I am at a loss to know what to call it, maybe short, interactive, one man playlet would be nearest the mark, would be to give the story as I used to to my children and suggest stage directions for the various bits of business by the size of the text where appropiate. In other words what one has here is a story for adult story tellers not for children.
My three daughters were Caitriona, Eileen and Deirdre. For the sake of the story we will imagine them as aged 9, 6, and 3 respectively.(which they would have been about 19 years ago.) Of course the stories were never the same and varied to reflect current family events but I will try to remember one . You substitute names etc. as appropriate, as indeed I have when I have told this to children of friends, nieces and nephews and even to grand nieces and nephews.Here we go;

The Man in the Moon and the Pink Planet.

Caitriona, Eileen and Deirdre were lying in their beds one night. They were bored and wide awake, didn’t feel like going to sleep.
Caitriona looked out the window and looked at the stars:

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky”
She sang.

She looked up at the sky and saw a pink star shining and twinkling brighter than any others.
“I’d love to go up to that Pink Planet”
“Why don’t we call the man in the moon and see if he will bring us there?” said Eileen,
Then they all concentrated hard and looked up into the sky at the big fat moon with the mans face on it and they closed their eyes and called out together:

Man in the Moooooon!
Man in the MoooooooooooooooooN!

Suddenly they heard a faint swishing sound far far away in the sky.

Ssssshhhhhhhhh it went very faintly in the distance.

But then it started to get louder.

Sssssssshhhhhhhhh as it got nearer.

Then it got very close and much louder

Sssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

And suddenly, there just outside the window was the man in the moon in his rocket with a big smile all over his face.

“Did I hear someone saying they wanted to go to the pink planet ?”
He said.
“Yes!” Said the three girls all together.
“Then Hop up on the back of my rocket and off we will go!”

So they scrambled out the window and sat on the three seats on the back of the rocket.

“Are we all ready?” Said the man in the moon.

“Wait wait!” said Eileen, “I forgot my nana”
“I’ll go and get it” and she scrambled back into the bedroom to get her very important blanket.
Then Deirdre said “And I’ll get my Teddy” and followed Eileen.
Caitriona looked at the man in the moon and said
“I used to have a Mousie, but I’m too big for him now”
“I see” said the man in the moon.

The two younger girls scrambled back out the window and into their seats in the rocket.

“Are we ready now?” said the man in the moon.

Yes! They all shouted together and he started the engine of the rocket and away they went.
Sssssssshhhhhhhhhh!

Sssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh.

Sssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Awayyyywayyyy into the night sky.

All the way up past the stars and the planets.

All the way up through the asteroids.

Until with a big bump they landed on the pink Planet.

“Right” said the man in the moon, “out you get”
“Don’t forget I’ll be back for you in two hours”

and awawayawayaway…….. he went

Ssssshhhhhhhhhh

ssssssssshhhhhhhhhh

ssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh

into the night sky.

Well what a surprising place the pink planet was.
Everything was pink!
The houses were pink.
The trees were pink.
The roads were pink.
The cows were pink and they didn’t say Mooooo
They said Piiiiiiiiioooooooooooooooonk.
The sheep were pink.
They didn’t say Baaaaa.
They said Piaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank.
What did the Dogs Say?
What did the Cats say?

Down the pink road walked the three children.

From behind some trees near the road they heard some strange crying.

I I I I I I
WAAAAAAANT
MYYYYYY
( PINK PINK)
MAAAAAAAMY

And there behind some trees they found a little baby elephant and he was crying his eyes out.

I I I I ! He started again very loud.
That’s enough of that said Eileen.
And he stopped except for a couple of pink hiccups.
P hic nk P hic nk.

Deirdre said.
“You stay with him and I’ll see what I can do.”

She went back on th the road and talked to the first man she saw.

“Where is the nearest pink town?” she asked.

“Down at the end of the pink road” he said.
“And is there a Pink Zoo in the pink town” said she.
“Indeed and there is” said he.

So Deirdre went back to the others and said “Come on”
“We are going to the Pink Town to find his Mother”

So they set off.
Caitriona in the lead holding the elephant by his trunk.
Eileen after her carrying her Nana.
Deirdre after her holding Teddy’s hand who was walking along the road next to her.

After a while they got to the Pink Town.
There they were guided to the Pink Zoo.
In the Zoo they found their way to the Pink Elephant house.

As they came up to the Elephant house they could hear a terrible catawauling noise.

I I I I I I I I I I I

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT

MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

BAAAAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBYYYYYYY!!!

So Eileen had to go up to the big Pink Elephant Mother in the Elephant House and say
“That’s enough of that!”
And the Big Elephant Mother stopped crying
And just gave two pink elephant hiccups.

PiiiiHICnk PiiiiiiiHic upnk.

Then she saw her baby.
And the baby pink elephant saw his mother.
And they were DEEEEEEELIGHTED!

And the Zoo Keeper came and said
“Are you the children who brought back the Baby pink Elephant?”

“We have a special reward for you” he said

And he gave them a
Great !
Big !
Bag!
OF!
Pink!
Sweets!

And a

Great!
Big!
Bar!
OF!
PINK!
CHOCOLATE!

And they were

Deeeelighted

Because they were

Deeeeelicious

Suddenly Eileen looked at her watch and said
“Will you look at the time”
“If we don’t run we are going to miss the Man in the Moon”

So off the ran as quick as they could.
Through the pink town
Down the pink Road
Past the pink wood where they had found the baby elephant.

There at the spot where he said he would be was the Man in the Moon.

“Hop in” he said “and we will go back to Kilmacleague”

So back in they hopped and off the rocket went.

Sssssshhhhhhhhhhh

Sssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh

Sssssssssssssssssss Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !

Until down they landed in Kilmacleague.
Back they scrambled into their beds.
They tucked themselves up all snug and comfy
And fell
Faaaaassssssttttttt Asssssssleeeeeeeep
Like Good little Girls……

In the sixties when there began to be a fashion for making “Gateaux” as against Cakes (at the same time, ironically, the French culinary elite were making “Le Cake” in place of Le Gateau ).
These Gateaux tended to be doused in expensive liqueurs
As we are, by geography, adjacent to a parsimonious nation, cheaper alternatives to these flavourings soon became available. These tended to be both chemical and slightly off the flavour they were supposed to replace. The worst of them was a rum alternative which was called on the (miniscule) bottle “Art Rum Flav” This fairly foul essence was easily detectable at 20 paces and because cheap was much abused in this country. Indeed some of our hotels and more restaurants than I like to admit thought it the bees knees (or as my (honorary ) nephew Tadhgh would say “the dogs bollocks.”)
That is all in the past now and I doubt (please tell me that I am right) whether Art Rum Flav is still available.
A couple of days ago I gave you my recipe for my current favourite brown bread. As this is favoured by Sile as being healthier I don’t get to make my current favourite white bread as often as I would like.This is my Sun dried Tomato Bread which recipe will follow.But first I have a confession to make.
Recipes bore me.
I rarely if ever follow a recipe. I do of course try and keep to the correct proportions of the important ingredients but I nearly always manage to insert something new. Often I do this from the highest of motives, a reluctance to see any thing go to waste for instance, but equally it could what they used to call in Cork “complete blagarding”. In other words I will throw in something just because I come across it or because it seems for a moment to be a good idea. Today’s effort with the Sun Dried Tomato Bread is a good illustration of just this.
It started when I was looking in the fridge for the Sun dried Tomatoes. I came across a vac pack of Black Nicoise Olives which had been in the fridge for ever. I checked the best before date, May 2004. Oops. Open them up , they smelled perfect but I felt conscience bound to use them up as soon as possible. In today’s bread for instance? Perfect.
Next surprise find in the fridge was a half finished plastic pack of Pesto which I had been given a present of as a sample by Oliesto foods in Castle Leslie last week. I had used a half of it in a dish of courgettes (just cut them in strips, fry them in olive oil and toss in the Pesto at the last minute. Delicious.) And as it was a particularly good Pesto I didn’t want to waste it so, I had another candidate for the bread.
As I finally closed the fridge door. ( a slight pause here to admit that looking in the fridge for sun dried tomatoes can only be described as ill-advised as they are always kept in the dry goods cupboard, which was where I found them a minute later) as I left the fridge however I spotted a large bunch of Parsley which I had intended to use with some new potatoes I cooked this week, at the last moment I had roasted the potatoes so, these also needed using up. We now have far too many Basil plants on the window sill because have decided that the ground is still too cold for putting them out, so I thought I should cull off some of the leaves from these to throw in with the parsley. The astute reader will have guessed where this is going at this stage. You are of course correct. We are heading fast towards the Mediterranean. To Italy or Provence, or more truthfully to a platonic ideal of those places.
No self respecting French Boulanger would dream of putting Sun Dried toms, Olives, and Basil in the one loaf. Thus the title; Artificial Provencal Flavour.
To get back to the recipe however in all other respects I kept faithfully to the following recipe. Well nearly. I had also found a jar of forgotten poppy seeds in the dry goods cupboard and noticed some home made mayonnaise (which my present weight does not allow me to eat) in the fridge.
Just to add the last touches of gilt (should that be guilt?) to the bread I painted it with some of the mayonnaise and then sprinkled over the poppy seeds before I put it on to prove.

Underneath follows the recipe.
Should you be tempted to add any (or all) of my extras this is when they went in.
I added the parsley and the basil to a third of the flour, along with the tomatoes and whizzed in a food processor until the tomatoes and herbs were chopped.
I carefully and labourously stoned and halved the olives (they weighed in at 150g with their stones in) and added them to the dough at the same time as I added the olive oil and the pesto(there was about 2 tablespoons of this.)
I omitted the sesame seeds (for a wonder!) and painted with mayonnaise and then sprinkled on the Poppy Seeds instead.

By the Miracles of modern technology aided by the digital camera I am able to give you a photo of the bread as it came out of the oven.
It looks great doesn’t it. It tasted even better.
As authentic as the smell of the market in Vaison la Romaine.

Sun Dried Tomato Bread
(For 3 X 450g -1lb.- loaves)

1.4kg (3 lbs.) Strong White Flour
2 X 7g Sachets Fast Action Yeast
1 teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
175g (6 oz.) Sun dried Tomatoes
850mls (30 oz.) Warm Water
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Sesame Seeds

Put the flour,yeast, and salt in a large bowl.
Cut the tomatoes in small dice. (If they are in oil you can use some of it in place of some of the olive oil) and add them to the flour.
(A simple method of doing this is to add the tomatoes to one third of the dry flour in a food processor and whizz together until the tomatoes are chopped)
Add the warm water and the olive oil to the bowl and blend all the ingredients together with your (spotlessly clean) hands.
Knead the mixture in the bowl until the bowl comes fairly clean then put it out on a lightly floured counter.
Now you want to knead it for at least 6 mts.
(If you have never kneaded bread before the idea is to flatten the ball of dough with the ball of your hand , draw it back into a ball, give it a half turn, and repeat.)
As you knead the dough will get noticeably smoother and less sticky.
Oil your three tins well and, if they are not well seasoned (or Non-stick) it is a good idea to line the bottom with some tinfoil or greaseproof paper.
Divide the dough between the tins, paint the tops with some egg wash and sprinkle over the sesame seeds.
Put these in a warm place for at least an hour (if not warm enough they can take a lot longer,I sometimes light the oven to its lowest and put them in the grill space over the oven) They should rise well over the tops of the tins .
Pre Heat the oven to Gas 7, 220C, 425F.
Cook the loaves at this temperature for 30 mts.
Shake them out of their tins and put them back for another 10mts to crisp the base and sides. Let them cool before eating or freezing.

Al, who was a chef with a mixed background, Bulgaria came into it and South Africa I think, worked for my nephew in his restaurant in Graiguenamanagh. He spoke, to the untutored ear, pure Cockney.
On a trip to Cork, with David they went into Flynns Butchers Shop.
It was a beautiful hot sunny day.
Al, who was by now conversant with the Irish ability to address strangers (if not the accents of same) decided to do his bit for Irish/Bulgarian peace by saying to the butcher in perfect Cockney;
“ Wat a day !”
The butcher, ever anxious to please, followed Al’s eye as best he could and answered;
“Dere pork chops By”.
Al, realising he had been misunderstood , raised his voice at least two decibels and said
“Nah, Nah I mean WAT A DAY!!”
The, now confused, butcher making yet another effort to follow Als eyeline (but consious that he had a particularly ignorant lunatic on his hands) said;
“D’you mean de chickens?”
David, at this stage incoherent with laughter thought it time to withdraw.

Bill Mosse in Kells Mills in the middle of Bennetsbridge village stone grinds the most magnificent flour. On Myrtle Allen’s suggestion the food committee of Euro-Toques visited him a few years ago. Bill took us on an intense tour of his mill and gave us samples of his flour to take away. The improvement in my soda bread in the restaurant when using Bills “Retail Coarse” flour was remarkable.
I continued to use this flour in my soda bread as long as the restaurant was in opereation. We gave Bill an award for a quality food product that year but he is someone that is not really interested in getting involved in the retail trade. You will have to go to the mill itself (Its in the middle of Bennetsbridge) to buy some.
Do I beg you, it is well worth it. My Brown Soda Bread is very simply made using this flour but I have also discovered that if mixed with a certain proportion of strong flour (to provide the gluten) it makes a wonderfully nutty brown yeast bread. Because his flour is so difficult to get I havn’t published this anywhere before now. Note I have also added treacle, malt and a little buttermilk to the recipe( not to mention pinhead oatmeal for the crunch factor and wheat germ just for the heck of it ). The more I add to it the more I am enjoying the taste.
However since this loaf has now become Sile and my daily bread await further developments as I find I am constantly changing it.
Give it a go.
You’ll find it difficult to buy another shop loaf.

Bennetsbridge Brown Yeast Bread

Made from “Retail Coarse” from Bill Mosse’s Kells Mills in Bennetsbridge.
These proportions being uniquely for that flour which seems to need an incredible amount of flour to absorb that much water (but its well worth it.)

For 4x 1kg (2lb.) Loaf Tins

900g (2lbs) Kells Mills Retail Coarse
900g (2lbs.) Strong White Flour
110g (4 oz.) Pinhead Oatmeal
60g (2 oz.) Wheat Germ
4 Tablespoons Buttermilk
1 teaspoon Salt
2 X 7g (¼ oz.) Packets Dried Yeast
1 Tablespoon Black Molasses
2 Tablespoons Malt Extract
1.25ltrs (2 pt. 2oz.) Warm Water

Make sure your hands are spotless.
This is very hands-on cooking.
Mix the two flours, the oatmeal, the wheatgerm, the salt and the yeast together.
Measure the warm water in a jug and dissolve the molasses and malt in this. Mix this and the buttermilk into the flour.
In the bowl mix these together well with your hands until you feel the dough coming together.

The dough before kneading

Tip on to a board and knead thoroughly for 6 mts (time yourself)
Keep the white flour handy to sprinkle on more if it gets too sticky.

The kneaded dough

You will end up with a large lump of dough roughly 3.4kg (7 ½ lbs) in weight.
Oil four loaf tins well. Divide the mixture into four loaves, sprinkle with brown flour and leave to rise and prove in a warm place for 1 hour.

The loaves before proving

(Covered on top of a very low oven or in a –not too well lagged – hot press.If you leave it somewhere cooler it will take longer, but be none the worse for that.)
When the bread has risen well over the top of the tin it is risen and ready to bake.

The loaves after proving

Pre-heat the oven to 220C, 425F, gas 7.
Cook the bread for 30 to 45 mts at that heat.(Timing depends on the oven)
Leave them in their tins for a few minutes when you take them out of the oven. Then they should slip out of the tin easily.

The finished bread

Knock the loaf on the bottom, if it doesn’t sound hollow put it back into the hot oven for another 10 mts or so.
This bread remains fresh for a couple of days and freezes excellently.

Ballybunion, Mens to the left Ladies to the right. Castle in the middle.

Every summer from way before I was born until I got to about 12 my family summer holidays were a month in a rented house in Ballybunion.
Ballybunion, BallyB as we called it must have been quite a fashionable resort in the fifties.
It had two magnificent (if not exactly swimmer friendly) beaches ; “Mens” and “Ladies”, a world famous golf course situated among the dunes, an amusement arcade to cater for the non golfers, a cinema, a terrific and scary cliff walk, a nearby fishing village called The Cashen where you could buy fresh fish, in fact it had everything and more that a summer holiday needed in the fifties.
This was you must remember before the days of cheap travel to the continent. My parents had gone to Rome in ‘53 by liner from Cobh, a trip that took them several days and involved them in things like Deck Chairs and Quoits.
Not having any comparisons to make we didn’t realise how the miserable the weather was and were contented, well reasonably contented, with the Irish version of summer. It was often cold and wet.

Shivering on the beach aged about 6

I have a very clear remembrance of reaching the end of a month in BallyB and realising that we had not had one sunny day for the entire month.
Not that that stopped us doing the usual summery things.

A Seaside image (also about 6)

We swam every day. In Ballybunion of course it wasn’t exactly swimming. The waves came directly from the Atlantic and, to my under 10 year old size, were enormous. You went into the water (“Don’t go out over your knees”!) and waited for the next wave which went right over your head. This meant no agonizing inching into deeper colder water, acclimatizing each bit slowly as you went, it also meant that as long as you were in the water, ducking and leaping the waves your very energy kept you from freezing over as the icy Atlantic breakers enveloped you.
Over time of course we developed various strategies for dealing with the immersions.
We were, let me immediately admit a privileged bunch.
The whole trip to Kerry itself was only made comfortable by tapping into this privilege.
Rental houses in seaside villages in Fifties Ireland wouldn’t have been fitted out as our comfortable homes were.
My Father was director of a large manufacturing /wholesale warehouse called Dwyer’s in Cork. Consequently he was able to commandeer various things to make our lives comfortable.
A day before our departure to Ballybunion a large truck from “the warehouse” arrived at our door. This would be manned by a workman who would regard it as a mini holiday and always entered into the spirit of the occasion. This truck would be piled high with those Sine qua non which might be unavailable in the summer house. I remember a fridge being packed, huge quantities of tinned foods which mightn’t be available in the provinces, and presumably extra beds as we always brought several friends with us this is as well as my 6 siblings and my parents and Eileen our house keeper and at least one further maid. Possible rarely fewer than 12 or 14 of us. Now my parents would drive down in their cars but the real treat for the journey would be to get to go down in the van. This was definitely where the most fun happened. This was the conveyance of choice of the maids, who could and did flirt with the van drivers all the way down, and this was also the conveyance of choice of the children because we knew that we be allowed to sing our Ballybunion song all the way down.
We rented, for most of the holidays, the same house in Ballybunion.
This was Number Five Clarks Lodges. The song which we sang incessantly was the name of this house followed by Ballybunion County Kerry. We went through the whole alphabet chanting this monotonously by changing the first letter as we went. As in “Aumber Aive Alarks Alodges”, etc and on to “Bumber Bive Barks Bodges” etc etc. The dear lord knows how any adult retained their sanity listening to this tribal chanting during the several hours it took us to get down there in the van.
But furthermore I remember both Eileen and the van driver (the name Dan comes to mind?) chanting along with us on the trip and that was of course why we fought hard for the privilege for being in the van.
Once we arrived in BallyB there were the friends to meet again. There were other families like ourselves who came down for a month every year.
My older brothers and sisters remember the Bincheys from Dublin, one of whom was later to immortalise the place in “Echoes”. We were especially friendly with the Kellehers, who ran a private school in Kanturk, so friendly that my eldest sister ended up marrying one of them. I also remember the Nash’s from Limerick and then of course there were our own cousins the Staveacres from Derbyshire who brought some public school glamour into our lives.
As I say we were a privileged bunch. As I also intimated we also found ways and means of surviving the cold of the compulsory daily swims.
I must confess to a slight blush as I remember this but our indulgent families used to permit us to get into our “Togs” in the house. Then, wrapped in our towelling beach wraps, they would drive us to the beach.
There, leaping and hollering, we would run towards the water, discarding towels and wraps as we ran, plunge into the waves, and, having made the necessary and healthful ozone immersions, run back to the cars , gathering wraps as we ran only to head home for hot baths to get the blood re-circulating and the sand off our feet.
Do I remember this? Just about. I don’t think it struck me for an instant what a spectacle we must have made of ourselves.
Years afterwards I met someone who told that they remembered me from that time. They remembered huddling in the cold on the beach when we would make our triumphalist onslaught on the strand.
By this time they could no longer remember if envy or loathing was the principal emotion they felt watching us.
I think loathing would have been the fairest.
When I got to twelve or so our family holidays would have been coming to a close. I was after all the youngest of seven and by that time the majority of the family would have been at or near school leaving age.
I didn’t go back to BallyB until a few years ago when I made a brief sentimental voyage. The weather was just as I remembered it. Grim.
The town had certainly disimproved but probably by less than most resorts which were fashionable in the fifties, due no doubt to the effect of the famous golf course which been at this stage matched by a second similar one nearby.
I can’t say I felt any temptation to stay longer than a few hours.
The memories are however very sweet, I can still draw great nostalgic sighs from any of my family by crooning, “Cumber cive clarks clodges Cally cunion county Cerry”>

Isn’t it a lovely name for your in-laws, your beautiful parents. Somehow it doesn’t carry any of the sting of “The In-Laws”.
My Father died about 15 years ago and my Mother about 7 so I had adopted my in-laws as my own.
Just before she died my Mother had come with us to America to my nephews wedding.She had thoroughly enjoyed this so we were determined to do something similar with Sile’s parents before it got too much for them.
They had come with us on holiday to Provence, and to the opera in Orange, in 1997 but that was “en famille” with Sile’s sister, brother-in law (read beau frere) and most of our (combined) children.
By the Summer of 2000 we were a much depleted holiday group, the children having decided to go on their own holidays, so it was just the two of us, Una and Martin, (beau frere and belle soeur) and les beaux parents who set of for a week to the little known Aveyron department of France. Our destination was a gite by a tiny village, La Fouillade, just south of the town of Villefranche de Rouergue.
We had passed through Rouergue on the way back from a holiday in Provence the previous year and had fallen in love with the area. It was in that wonderful state of being “undiscovered” and the Grande Place in Villefranche with its rock faced cathedral, by itself warranted a return visit. We thought it would be a nice quiet place for the beaux (but ancient) parents.
The whole holiday was in jeopardy for much of the spring as Sile’s mother (universally known by us as Mamo, from the Irish for Granny)had an operation to have an arthritic knee replaced quite close to our departure date and there was a question of whether she would be fit enough or not.
In the end she was, just.
Sile and I were elected to travel with the Beaux Parents as Martin and Una would already be in France, and arranged to meet us at the gite.
We were travelling by Air France to Toulouse with a change in Paris. Fired with the memory of previous Air France flights when disabled passengers had been given preferential and advanced passage from planes we booked a wheelchair for Mamo in Charles de Gaulle.
As our luck would have it they decided to reverse the previous procedures on this flight and made us wait until all the passengers had disembarked before they hydraulically lifted a by now fuming Mamo (“I am perfectly capable of walking you know!”) off the back door of the plane and on to a wheelchair.
The result of this was that we missed our connection and had to be put up overnight in Paris by Air France.

And here started our troubles.

Air France couldn’t have been nicer. They fed us in the nicest restaurant in the Airport and then packed us off by taxi to Hotel Bleu Marine which they assured us was nearby.
Would that the taxi driver was equally well informed, we could see it all right, behind the high fence of its enclave, the taxi driver joked , (yes a Parisian taxi driver joked!) that if we went around a certain roundabout for a fifth time he wouldn’t be able to charge us any fare.
After the fifth (and we weren’t paying anyway) we found our way and arrived at the cavernous foyer of the Bleu Marine.
The foyer was decorated with the usual assortment of lounging beaux monde who, while busy sipping their digestifs, watched the , now very bedraggled, Irish procession head towards the tiny lift which was of course at the very end of the foyer.
We packed in, just, with Daideo last, his back to the doors and creaked up to the fourth floor.
Arriving at the fourth the doors opened, no budge out of the beaux pere, I realised that he had his back to the open door and couldn’t see it.
“The door is open Daideo” “Where ?” says he, fair enough. But at that stage they were shutting and we made our inevitable journey back to the ground floor.
As the lift doors re-opened on the motley Irish some of the clientele in the hotel foyer actually stood up to better see this strange group of people who had evidently come in just to have spins up and down in the lift.

Eventually we made it to the bedrooms, aware that we had to get up at about 5.30 to get our re-scheduled flight to Toulouse.
The next disaster was likely our fault. We woke late, called the parents late, and all scrambled down to the taxi in a rush.
We were half way to the airport when Mamo clapped her hand over her mouth and said “ my teeth !” “they are still under the pillow.”
To have gone back to the hotel at that stage would have meant missing a second flight so we consoled Mamo as much as possible and headed to De Gaulle and onwards to Toulouse.
The next disaster had a certain surreal edge to it.
We hadn’t carried our “in hold” luggage with us as Air France had assured us they would be on our flight in the morning. As they were.
That is all but Sile’s and my large suitcase which held our entire clothes for the holiday. We watched at baggage carousel number 1 in vain. All the other luggage was there but our large red suitcase was missing.
At this stage there was some urgency to get the parents to the house and get at least a cup of tea inside Mamo. Sile sent me to sort out the suitcase while she collected the hired car. We still had a 100 kms or so to go to La Fouillade. Off she went while I went up to the nearest Air France official, to start the investigation of the missing suitcase.
Considering the quality of my French we understood each other well enough. He explained that I would have to go to a special department, high in the upper floors of the airport as that was the only place where I could lodge my complaint. He explained to me how to get there, and then disappeared towards a lift.
After some confusion I arrived at the relevant door. Knocked. “Entrez” said the man I had just spoken to! He showed no sign whatsoever that he had ever met me before!
Shook, I resolved to go on with my missing case story. I repeated to the man the same details I had already told him downstairs to which he reacted as if he had never heard them before. I was in his office for some time as I had to ring the owner of my Gite to get the postal address to which, my official promised, my case would be delivered within a few days.
I was still bothered and slightly bewildered later aswe left his office (together like old friends.)
Then he said something very peculiar, “Did you try Carousel 12?” “That is the trans- Atlantic carousel but sometimes……”
Intrigued I went with him to carousel 12 where, our large red suitcase was making its solo stately circuits.
Pathetically glad to be reunited with it I asked no further questions and fled to Sile and our hired car.

We found our way successfully out of the airport (we don’t always, we spent a long time trying to exit from Nice Airport once) and the first part of out journey was trouble free. The next disaster was perhaps to have greater consequences than any of the others. As a result of this particular mishap every time I drive a hired car in France Sile is convinced that we are going to hit the right hand ditch and recoils constantly from it.
While driving through the town of Gailliac, (brilliant red wine ) I mis-judged a high pavement and shredded both the tyre and the wheel on the right front.
We hurt no one but limped noisily down to the nearest parking place to check the damage. We then had a stroke of luck. We pulled in next to a French Camper van. Monsieur leapt out, grasped the situation immediately, took over the entire wheel changing, sent his wife to the van from where she returned with a basin of warm water, soap and towels so I could clean up and generally made us feel that “cead mile failte” should be a slogan for the French tourism board to use.
That was, to some extent the end of the disasters on the outward journey.

We found the gite which was lovely, all unspoiled in a meadow of wild flowers.

The family on the terrace at la Fouillade

The accommodation was very comfortable, the house holder had left us a large quantity of excellent Gailliac wine to get us going, the local boulangerie had good croissants, what more could one want?

Exploring the area was another bonus.
We had previously been to Albi which has a superb Cathedral and also some terrific Brocantes which kept me happy. Cordes sur Ciel, which truly justifies its name, we had seen from a distance but now got to explore.

Myself and my beau famille on the steps of Albi Cathedral
((N.B. Mamo’s white cloth bag)

Any notion that Mamo and Daideo would be left gently relaxing on the terrace of the gite was quickly dispelled as they proved ready, if not entirely able, to gallivant off with us on our explorations.
But all the time we were conscious of Mamo’s unease at her lack of teeth.
We rang the Blue Marine Hotel and yes, they had found the teeth but no they could not send them on. Could we not call in for them on the way back?
When we consulted the timetables this was impossible, so Sile, emboldened by her mothers unhappiness, rang the hotel again. She had decided to bribe, if necessary, whoever answered the phone to help us out.
Then we had our second stroke of luck.
The girl who answered this time was helpfulness itself.
Of course she would help. As she lived near Charles de Gaulle she would drop them there herself at the Air France office.
Sudden relief of all parties. (We afterwards sent her a silver Celtic necklace as a thank you)

And so, at the end of a most unusual holiday, we set off home.
The flight again involved us in a change in Paris. As we got towards De Gaulle Sile pointed out to me that the terminal for Ireland was some distance from the one we were going to arrive in at.
The decision was made, she would run on ahead to (hopefully) collect the teeth while I would bundle the parents along as fast as possible. (We had about an hour before our Dublin flight)
And bundling was indeed what I turned out to be at.
We discovered that the best means of transport between the two terminals was with a series of moving walkways.Both Sile’s parents use walking sticks and were a little unsteady even with these.Therefore a decision on how we would proceed was necessary. Another small matter was that
Mamo carried with her a white open topped cloth bag with all her presents for home which could not be let down or it would spill its contents all over the concourse.
This was how we eventually proceeded.
I carried both sticks and the cloth bag. I carefully ladled them both on to the walkway and lodged them on to a hand rail. Then, carrying the sticks and the bag, if I ran like hell I arrived before them at the end of the section of walkway.
There I could catch them gently as they were disgorged by walkway one and lodge them, again gently, on to the next one.
And so we proceeded over what must have been about six of these until we eventually arrived at our terminal and a disappointed looking Sile.
It turned out that there were dozens of Air France offices at the terminals.
Sile had tried several of them and all in vain. It looked like we were going to have to return without the teeth.
Now however the immediate priority was to get our flight for which several “last calls” had been delivered as we leap frogged along towards our check in desk.
As we approached the desk I saw a parcel sitting on the desk a small box, about the size for a set of teeth. My heart lifted, could it possibly be…
“Madame Ronayne” said the charming check in man “ I have a parcel for you”
The relief was immense.
Our reward for the whole holiday was on the flight back when Mamo opened her parcel and then, after a discreet bow of the head and a little adjusting, raised her head and graced us all with a magnificent smile.
Her first full smile for a week.

One additional moment on the holiday should be mentioned before I finish.
When we got into Toulouse airport on the way back we called into the Air France office to enquire about the whereabouts of the offices in De Gaulle.
There was a very upset Irish girl there with whom we started to talk.
It turned out her luggage had been mislaid and she was facing a holiday without clothes.
“Have you tried carousel 12 “ said I.
“That wasn’t the one our flight used”said she.
“Try it anyway” said I and pointed her towards it.

On Tuesday afternoon Sile wanted to make a quick reconnoitre of Annestown Beach which is where she will be bringing her 6 year olds for their “Tour” on Thursday. I brought my camera. Funny how having a camera in your hand makes you look at everything differently.
Here are some shots I (and one Sile) took in the 30 mts we were there.

Just a little cave but they always promise something

A fairly good example of “crispy pancakes of yellow tide foam”

Sile battling the wintery May cold

The sea pinks had (foolishly)decided that summer had arrived.
Incredibly taken just 3 mts. after the previous shot.
We used to say “March of many Weathers” now May has that title.
Global Warming?

Would I have noticed the heron had I not the Camera?

Sile took this one of the cold sea (I have swum in May!)

Cows on a ridge over the beach

Someone has restored the old lime kiln and castellated it as well.
(Against attack from whom? The Acid Greens?)