Emly - Knockara Stud Farm, Tipperary

I’m starting this post from a park bench in the small village of Emly. I was once again hoping to bike into Tipperary this afternoon and find an Internet café, but the bike tires were flat, the pump was broken, and I didn’t feel like walking the 10 km into town. So I walked the 3 km into Emly, and was rewarded with a couple of pubs, a butcher’s shop, a tennis club, a family grocery store, and an old church (a town’s not legit without an old church). But alas, no Internet café. As I can only access Internet on Maria’s laptop where it takes a good five - ten minutes to load each page, my posts will (unfortunately) be much less frequent during my month at Knockara. However, I hope to remain as prolific as ever, writing up pages and then posting them all at once whenever I can get me some Internet.

I’m already feeling a bit isolated and lonely without Kim, Sinead, Cat, and Zoe. God, I can’t believe I’m actually missing a couple of cats. This trip is doing the unthinkable – turning me into a cat person. In the past few months, I have not come across a single dog that I’ve enjoyed. Bella and Brando were obnoxious and unmanageable. Tubby and Leon are crotchety and cantankerous, chewing shoes, getting into the trash, and following me out to the stables so that they can feast upon the steaming horse apples. But Cat and Zoe were brilliant at keeping Sinead’s mice at bay, were great at sitting on my ice-cold feet, and had antics that could amuse me for hours on end.

I think I like cats. If Zoe somehow slipped into my luggage, I would not be unhappy.

Zoe

Leon

Maria and George are good company, but Maria spends much of her time at the markets and George’s many ailments force him to spend much of his time resting. He feeds the horses in the morning, occasionally lunges Leetie, and then says to me, “I go to make my breakfast,” which is often followed by “I rest now.” I creep quietly up and down the wooden stairs for the rest of the day, doing my best avoid waking George during his naps. He sometimes surprises me, however. This morning, I was lightly leaping down the stairs in my socks, and found George was waiting for me at the bottom. He looked at me a moment, then said quite seriously, “I vas running down za stairs in my socks. I fell and broke my arm.”

It seems as if I’ll have the majority of my afternoons free to wander, but there isn’t really much wander-room. Once the bike gets fixed, it’ll be nice to have the option to cycle into Tipperary.

The obligatory old church 

Apparently this one is famous

You know you’ve been in Ireland too long when:

·      You wonder what’s missing if spuds aren’t on the table.

·      The sky is cloudy and the air is cold, but it isn’t raining. You catch yourself thinking, “My goodness, what a lovely day.”

·      You stop trying to get in on the right side of the car.

·      You put the kettle on the moment you wake up and about every other hour thereafter.

·      You get to the bus stop half an hour late, knowing that the bus probably won’t arrive for another ten minutes.

·      You’re surprised to look in a field and not see cows.

·      You don’t get excited about wild blackberries anymore. Because not only are they everywhere, they really don’t taste very good.

·      You’ve become addicted to Kerry Gold butter and don’t know how you’ll survive without it once you leave the country.

·      You get unbelievably excited when you see more than five stars at one time.

·      The sight of five pairs of Wellingtons in every entryway is commonplace. You not only embrace them into your everyday wardrobe, you begin thinking about upgrading to a pair of Wellies with stars or smiley faces. 

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