Enjoyment -- Emly, Ireland

-->I’m starting this post from George’s study downstairs. Pictures of horses and riders decorate the walls, and the shelves are piled high with antique looking classics and books with long German titles. The fireplace looks cold and sullen and seems to have resigned itself to a summer of limited use. It’s a bit chilly outside today, though – I’d be quite pleased to have a cheery fire sparking in the hearth.

The weather is usually absolute crap in Ireland (so much that they even have a saying – you don’t come to Ireland for the weather), and a storm is brewing today. The sky is a gentle, bluish grey and the trees are starting to sway in the wind, uppermost leaves wildly dancing about. Weather in Colorado is often violent. Everything seems to be pushed to the limit – sunrises and sunsets are stark and stunning, night skies are defined and bright, thunderstorms so violent the ground seems to shake, tumultuous hail storms in the middle of July, and blizzards that bury a city in six feet of snow.

The wind in Ireland can be ferocious (particularly if you go to the west coast), and the rain can be torrential, but bad weather is generally a quiet, ongoing phenomenon. Maybe that’s what helps folks to accept it so readily – like a frog in a pot of boiling water. Death by horrid weather sneaks up on ‘em, real quiet like.

Today’s gentle, blue/grey pea soup sky holds the promise of horrid weather.

Kiki is a constant source of amusement. I have learned that I must always take up the entire chair when I sit down to use George’s computer or to eat in the study. If there is more than three inches of space between my back and a surface of any kind, Kiki will wedge herself in. She then proceeds to use my back as leverage and scratches herself (and my back, incidentally) vigorously. This was humorous for the first couple of days, but I’ve rather gotten over the novelty of being scratched whenever I sit down.

Leon is even fatter than he was when I saw him a year and a half ago, and every bit as flatulent. He has fonder memories of me than I do of him, and immediately started tugging on my sleeve when I stepped down from George’s car. He sticks his face into my laptop when I try to write, and if I shift my weight to keep his horse manure slobber away from my keyboard, he takes his nose straight to my crotch. I do not enjoy Leon. I enjoy most things about this farmhouse in Emly–

The AGA

The horses

Tubby

Kiki

George

(George does not like having his picture taken)

The fields

The flowers

 The stables

But I do not enjoy Leon. 

C'est dommage.