(Have mid-winter picnics- French people passing in cars get seriously confused)

Just looked to see what I put up on my very first New Year’s Day Blog in 2006 and found the underneath.

While wandering in the Comeragh Mountains after Christmas
I was lucky enough to spot one of the last surviving packs of Humanatis
Multicolouris perching on a rocky outcrop.
It is believed that they owe their continued existence to their preternatural propensity to look in different directions at the same time, their garish colouring which frightens off predators and their natural cheerfulness.

Picture taken last January of the rare and wonderful fall of snow.

Happy Christmas to all

from Martin and Síle

This is a piece I put up in 2005, my first Christmas blogging, much of it was later used by Mary Leyland in the Dwyer Book.

My brothers and sisters and I in the early fifties
Deirdre George Valerie David Fifi Teddy and Martin

We always went to Lotaville for lunch on Christmas day.
Lotaville was my fathers family home, a stately Victorian Villa in Glanmire, overlooking the river Lee about 3 miles outside Cork city.
It was what they call a “Gentleman’s Residence”, in about two or three acres of gardens, including a disused tennis court and large greenhouses where we were allowed pick the delicious black grapes in September.
The house itself was quite large but without a lot of bedrooms, probably about four or five , but these were huge.
It also had a tower built in on one side, a piece of Victorian/Gothic whimsy which could only be scaled inside by a series of ladders, and which the boys were allowed climb after lunch on Christmas day.

The tower at Lotaville

The inhabitants of the house were an odd lot to my young eyes too.
The head of the house (we would always have described a trip there as going to Granny Dwyers) was my Granny.
She was small and round and, as far as I was concerned, permanently cross.
My elder sister remembers someone quite different, someone warm who spoiled her, but, by the time I got to know her life had squeezed most of the joy from her, and, as the seventh child, the best emotion I could expect from her was tolerance.
My grandfather we called Dubs, he and Granny lived totally different lives within this house. Their marriage was endured not enjoyed, it was a type of early Irish divorce.
As well as having his own bedroom, Dubs had his own drawing room, a large brown masculine room with large windows overlooking the river.
This he shared with various small dogs of whom he was very fond.
He was also fond of his grandchildren and I remember always feeling welcome when I entered his room.
Granny’s Drawing room was at the end of the corridor but also looked over the river. In contrast with Dubs room it was feminine and chintzy with carpet and curtains in pale greens and pinks.
Granny shared this room with two other members of the household. Auntie Gill and Auntie Kat.
Auntie Gill was my father’s only sibling and 18 years his junior.
She was at this stage in her mid twenties, unmarried and, even to my eyes strangely old fashioned. I would also have rated her as cross and could see that she was interested only in the older children.
Auntie Kat on the other hand was kindness itself, it was obvious that like the younger children she was tolerated rather than loved and as such there was an unspoken bond between us.
She was a classic maiden Aunt, my Granny’s unmarried sister and she was shared between Granny’s household and that of her younger sister in a farm in Mitchelstown. It was always obvious to me, from the way she used to talk about the farm and the family there, that that was her favoured billet and she enjoyed her stays in Lotaville as little as Granny and Auntie Gill did.
Auntie Kat smoked “like a chimney”, she always had a Woodbine in the corner of her mouth and her cloud of white hair had permanent brown nicotine stain in that place where the smoke ascended.
The other member of the household, and to me much the most interesting was Lena.
Lena was the cook and her kingdom was in the large, dark basement kitchen.
Lena was an old retainer and as I remember her quite lame, she got about with some difficulty using a stick.
This did not stop her doing all the cooking and ruling over the girls who had been brought in for serving on Christmas day with an iron hand.
She was a kindly lady though and would tolerate us children “under her feet” for short periods.
These visits to the kitchen would have to be organised with some skill as it was strictly forbidden to go “annoying Lena” before lunch on Christmas day.
Despite all embargos I can still remember being put by her up on a chair in the kitchen to better see her making the bread sauce for the turkey.
I still have a memory of the delicious smell of the milk infusing with an onion studded with cloves, as Lena grated stale bread with which to thicken the sauce.
The lunch itself was not my favourite part of the day.
For all Lena’s kindness the food was much better at home.
The younger children were put at a small side table and, under orders to behave well, fed apart from the adults.
I can remember a certain amount of jollity at the large table, I can remember the surprise I felt when granny allowed a paper hat from a cracker to be put on her head.
I presume that Dubs would also have broken out of his part of the house and joined us for lunch, even though I have no memory of him being there.

I would hate anyone to think that Christmas day was not a happy day for me.
It was in fact a day full of magic, the lunch in Granny’s being just a formal and perfectly acceptable hiatus in the middle of a joyous day.

Santa Claus, and his stocking were a great source of joy when my eyes first opened on Christmas morning.
I would have lain for hours in the bed, too excited to sleep and knowing that “He” wouldn’t come until I did.
The morning stocking was always filled with cheap toys and sweets and always had a silver wrapped tangerine at the toe.
Unlike other households Santa didn’t provide the main Christmas presents for us.
This was reserved for the “Christmas Tree”
“The Tree” as we called this time was, without doubt the highlight of Christmas day.
After morning mass, for those who were reckoned too young to be allowed up for midnight mass, we had breakfast in the breakfast room which was next to the billiard room.
The billiard room was the biggest room in the house, large enough for a billiard table but as yet not holding one.
There was no decorating done to this room until after the younger children had gone to bed on Christmas eve.
Then it was transformed.
There was a large amount of ceremony attached to “The Tree”
We all had to line up in age at the door to the billiard room.
This was the one time of the year when the youngest took precedence.
Then once we got into the room itself we had to join hands and dance around the tree singing “Here we go round the mulberry bush”
This does sound just a little twee in 2005 but I promise you that in the fifties there was no embarrassment whatsoever.
The tree was put in the middle of the room, decorated with lights and the shiny glass balls which rested for the rest of the year in the attic in boxes.
But it was what was under the tree was what made the magic of this moment.
Here were piled all our presents.
This was what “The Tree” was all about.
Again tradition dictated that you were not allowed pick or open one of your own presents. Anything with “To Martin” on it, no matter how tempting, had to be passed by and one picked out one for George or Valerie.
Eventually you ended up with a sizeable pile of presents in the corner and then there was the excitement of unwrapping and glorying in your new found wealth.
I never remember being disappointed.

Then it was off to Granny’s for lunch.

When we came back from Granny’s we would find the Billiard room again completely transformed this time for Christmas Dinner.
The tree would be re-erected in the bow window in the corner and the floor covered with trestle tables covered with white linen.
To my childish eyes it seemed that these tables were set for hundreds of people but I now suppose that it couldn’t have been more than forty or so.
These would have been members of my mothers large family, and my mother and fathers equally large circle of friends.
There would be various extra staff recruited for the night so, for us children it was difficult to decide where the most fun was going on, in the billiard room or in the kitchen.
In direct contrast to the staid and old fashioned lunch the dinner was a bit of a bacchanalia.
I can remember that we were allowed smoke, yes us 8 to 10 year olds were allowed to puff away!
I can also remember that much drink was consumed by my various uncles.
I have a distinct memory of someone’s paper hat being ignited and then the flames quenched by another uncle with a soda water siphon.
In the meantime there would have also been much hilarity and drink consumed in the kitchen, I can remember a steady stream of uncles and aunts arriving in with bottles to make sure that the “staff” were able to celebrate as well.

Stephens day was “The Wran” and we would be allowed dress up in rags and sing outside our neighbours houses, passing others up to the same tricks on the way.

“The Wran the Wran
The king of all Birds
St Stephens day
Was caught in the furze
Up with the kettle
And down with the pot
Give us our answer and let us begone”

“Knock at the knocker ring at the bell,
Give us a copper for singing so well”

“God bless the mistress of this house
A golden chain around her neck
And be she sick or be she sore
The lord have mercy all the more”

And we would be given lots of coppers and this money, unlike the money we would have collected for carol singing the week before, was for ourselves and so, once we were finished we would divide the spoils and head off to Mr. Sullivan’s shop on the Lower Road for a gorge of sweets.

As you can see it was easy enough to put up with lunch in Lotaville knowing what other treats Christmas had in store for us.

On Wednesday last I went into my cardiologist (ahem) for my routine, annual check- up and, to my dismay (but not total shock) discovered that my heart mal-function, my “flutter” had returned.
I had a feeling things were not perfect but had, as usual, put it down to hypochondria.
My Cardio however took it very seriously indeed and said we must get this fixed and soon. He lifted the phone and called the Clinic in Montpellier (who had performed the procedure in February 2012) and asked how soon could they do the job on me. When they told him that Thursday would be OK- he raised his eyebrows to me and said “Demain? “ then I did go into shock. Even though this is, as heart operations go, a comparatively minor procedure, it does involve a fair bit of local aenesthesia and sedation, two nights in hospital and a session of various electrodes being sent up through veins to the heart where they burn off the bits which are causing the problem.
Sile was, fortunately, with me at the cardio so she was able to soothe me, take me home and help me to pack and organise the local nurse to call and give me the necessary injections before heading into the clinic in Montpellier the following morning.
And so it came to pass and I went through the same procedure as before (this time without the help of the Georges Brassins songs). Spent two nights away, last night in my glory as my single neighbour in my room departed yesterday, in a most comfortable hospital being treated extremely well by a series of nurses, doctors, aides and porters before Sile collected me this morning and we headed back to home.
I sent a text to my brothers and sisters last night telling them all that I was in hospital but fine, I had been fixed I told them before I even realised fully that I was broken- all true.

In February 2012 I had a visit to hospital, I afterwards wrote about it in the Irish Times, here it is again for anyone who may have missed it.

Le Crise de Coeur
Over Christmas in Ireland, on New Year’s Day to be exact, having overindulged myself fearlessly on the eve, I developed a painful case of indigestion.
This was unusual in that the pain instead of being centred around the ribs was higher on the chest and stretched between the shoulders. I put it firmly down to the price being paid for the high life of Christmas and, true to form, it responded to a Maalox tablet and dissipated.
As January and February progressed and I was back in France this new version of indigestion seemed to become the norm and I started to get a little quietly concerned. Could it (I whispered to my coward self) possibly be something else? But then another Maalox and I would laugh, and call myself a hypochondriac. Who ever heard of curing a Heart Attack with magnesium?
Then we went for a brief few days into Spain and met there my old buddy Michael. Michael is now single and (like myself) a man of a certain age and size.
He told us that having become concerned about his high blood pressure he had gone to the doctor in the Spanish town where he lived and he had sent him to a Heart clinic in the nearby city. There they had told him that he needed some treatment, in fact what amounted to a minor heart operation. This he did, all successfully.
This certainly made me realise that it was possible that I was acting either like a wimp or an ostrich.
One day towards the end of February Sile and I decided to take a stroll in the hill behind Murviel, after a short climb I had to confess that I couldn’t go on, I was breathless and the chest pains had returned. Finally I slipped out of denial and confessed all to Sile and agreed to see my local doctor on Monday.
A brief note about the French medical system, because we now work in France and contribute to the social security system we are entitled to a valuable card called a Carte Vitale. This covers a huge amount of one’s medical and even dental expenses in France, we both top this up with an insurance which costs us about €50 each per month..
So on the following Monday I went to see my doctor.
He shared my concerns and organised an appointment for me with a cardiologist.
Because this is France that appointment was made for the following day.
So on Tuesday I went to meet what I now rather grandly call my cardiologist and there I had the usual tests being connected to a monitor by electrodes and then having my chest probed (externally of course) by an Ultrasound machine.
He then made his diagnosis; I had what he called a Flutter, an irregular heartbeat. He was going to put me on a course of tablets and daily injections for a week, make me take a blood test and on this basis he would decide on my treatment.
The system here is that you contact a district nurse, there a several in our village, and you then go to the chemist and get the necessary equipment and she comes and takes the blood for the tests and administers the injections.
Yesterday was the day to return to the Cardio. Having re-attached me to the machine and read the blood tests he sat my wife and I down and told us of our choices to fix this “Flutter”.
There was a procedure in which I would be attached to an electric shock machine and this usually fixed the problem- this usually only took a few hours and could happen in Beziers, our nearest city, but, with this treatment the condition often returned.
The more modern treatment, he told us, involved, going into hospital for two or three days, having an angiogram (basically exploratory but minor surgery) and then some radio wave treatment which tended to fix the problem fully.
Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have to watch ER on the tele will guess why I went for the second option.
Then his secretary got on the phone and within half an hour I was booked into the Cardiac Clinic in Montpellier for two days later.

My Cardiologist had told me to expect to be in for at least two nights as there were two distinct processes to perform, both involving inserting tools of different kinds into arteries and once there being pushed up into my heart to perform their function. (Just like all roads lead to Rome so all arteries lead to the heart).
A little after I had installed my self in my room three nurses came to prepare me, one to shave the places where I was likely to be punctured, one to take my blood pressure and to give me an electrocardiogram and a student to watch and learn.
Then (having observed my girth) Madame the head nurse came back with two navy blue paper overalls, one to wear with the opening at the front, one with the opening at the back (down at the theatre I was to observe that all the little slight French men had to do with only one) and also a fetching little navy bikini bottoms an essential thing to further protect the Famous Dwyer Modesty.
And so, shaven and shorn, having deprived myself off all food and drink for nearly eight hours and with my outfit topped off fetchingly with a baby blue Tam O’ Shanter hairnet the trollyman arrived and hopped me on my Chariot (that is what the French call them) and we headed down to theatre.
Imagine, if you will, Santa (I am large and white bearded) and as a Gay Gordon in a navy paper mini kilt with matching knickers and toning Tam and you will get an idea how alluring I appeared.
We fortunately met no-one I knew on the way down but we did meet a frightened and lost Frenchman who, when I raised my self up in the chariot to see what was going on, gave a little shriek and galloped off down the corridor. My charioteer , it turned out , had spent some time in Sweden , a Northern and Liberal country , so was totally unphased by Santas in drag.
Once in the actual operating theatre I was rolled onto the table where a gowned up nurse took one look at my double paper pinafore ensemble and proceeded to cut it from me with a scissors. When I said indignantly “Madame you are destroying my beautiful dress” She replied (equally deadpan and quick as a wink) “Ah Monsieur but that blue is just not your colour”.
Thus bolstering my profound belief the French and the Irish share the exact same sense of humour.

Then a frighteningly young anaesthetist grabbed my arm, stuck one leg on the step of the table and with my arm over his knee deftly, painlessly and in a cool nonchalant fashion stuck a universal catheter in my arm. This was to be my mainline for the next two hours.
First up was my Radio Wave man and he decided to use the groin for his conduit to the heart. What he must have had (the squeamish and the genuinely knowledgeable should look away now) was some sort of soldering iron on a long wire which he then pushed up the artery to the heart. He told me that if I felt any pain I was to tell him and he would just increase the amount of drugs he was pumping into my arm.
At this stage I was completely pain-free, my only sensation was a delightfully pleasant feeling which was somehow reminiscent of bedsits in the sixties.
(I think they had dripped in something soothing into my arm to calm me)
For the next half hour or so he fiddled about with the soldering iron in my heart , every so often I would feel a burning sensation spread up to my jaw but it soon passed and I was not going to Let Ireland Down with a display of wimpishness.
What he was doing in (very) lay man’s terms was fixing the terminals in my heart battery to ensure that the recurrence of the skipped beat would not happen again.
Then to my surprise who appeared at my elbow, grinning from ear to ear, but my cardiologist.
“We decided”, he said” that while you were here we might as well do the second procedure as well- are you okay with that?”
I was fine with that.
Then he proceeded to push a small camera up to my heart via an artery in my wrist. He first of all gave me the same guarantee- “Any pain just let me know and we will fix it”
This one was a little more painful but, true to my new heroism when he asked me was I feeling any I croaked “No It’s Fine”
The cardio shot a look at me and then shouted at the Anaesthetist (in French) “He is being too brave, give him another little cocktail there Philippe”! Then a wonderful feeling of wellbeing spread up my arm and through my chest.
I was no longer feeling any pain.
Then as I lay there happily a familiar tune began to hum in my brain.
Then I began to recognise it; Georges Brassans “Copains d’Abord” one of my very favourite French songs- one I love so much I spent many weeks many years ago translating it, painstakingly, into rhyming English.
My Cardio was crooning it quietly and happily to himself as he worked: “Monsieur “I said “C’est Les copains vous chant” “You know this?” He said smiling. “It is my favourite song.”
I then explained how I had translated it etc. A truly surreal moment between him and me, talking about Brassans while he fiddled with my heart. So for the next twenty minutes or so, while he studied my heart from many angles (I could see out of the corner of my eye the images on the screen over our heads) he continued to hum “Les Copains” – a most reassuring sound as I knew that as long as he hummed contentedly about his work he was finding no evidence of heart disease- which was the whole point of his investigation.
After about thirty minutes or so (I was on the table for roughly two hours) he pulled out his camera, mopped up some of the blood from my various wounds and gave me the verdict :
“All Good “he said “Monsieur has fixed the flutter and I have found no evidence of disease, now you can go home tomorrow and then come into my office next week”, then he asked “Is your wife here” I said she was somewhere in the hospital. He shrugged and went off.
I then had to wait for a half hour in the recovery room , where I made myself busy teaching the nurse in charge the English terms for Hypertension and Echograph ( look them up) as she was hoping to spend some time on a Stage in England.
Eventually about two and a half hours after I had left it, I arrived back into my room- Sile was there. Before I could say a thing she said “It’s Ok, I know it’s good, the Cardiologist came and found me and told me all“ – I was amazed that a man so busy could have found the time for this moment of kindness.
I woke up the following morning feeling as light as a feather. Monsieur le Cardiologue was as good as his word, the strong weight I felt I had been carrying under my heart since Christmas was lifted and I felt truly well again, a marvellous feeling.
And then, the final bit of good news; when I called into the office to pay my bill on the way out, Madame stamped all my reports and smilingly assured me that there was nothing to pay.
Vive Le France!