We took the horses out to the gallops on Wednesday morning. I was a little nervous about how This One would react to all the stimuli associated with someone else's exercise track, but to my great relief, she was quite calm. The ride was quick, easy, and fun. This One threw a momentary fit when separated from Leetie, but the fellow who works the gallops came out and lent me a hand with the rambunctious, anxious filly.
The few other things that I do here other than work with horses involves cooking vegetable dishes for dinner every evening and helping George cope with his various ailments. After dinner I peel two oranges for him. As he is diabetic, he is very careful to keep enough sugar in his system, and as he has arthritis, peeling his own oranges can be a bit challenging.
“But I do not complain,” says George. “I do not let my body get za better of me.”
“Well, did you sleep okay last night?” asks Aimee.
“Ach, my apnea vould not let me sleep. I haf to alvays vake up and concentrate on za breath. But I do not complain.”
Maria has been kind enough to allow me to tag along to her Christmas play rehearsals; about thirty people meeting twice a week to put on a tiny production of Good King Cole. They immediately dragged me up on stage and made me sing the chorus songs with the rest of Emly’s choir. I have an absolute ball watching these thespians work, as all the cross-gender roles balance out the cliché songs from “Annie” perfectly.
I’ve discovered that Leon grew up in France, hence only converses in French. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize why George and Maria were always saying, “CUSHE, Leon! Cushe!” (I have absolutely no idea how that's spelled...)
No wonder Leon and I don’t communicate so well.
Thursday morning was market day for Maria, so she packed up and headed out around six o’clock. I fed the dogs (George feeds the horses, but never the dogs. He loves the dogs, but will not feed them), cleaned the stables, and sat down to wait for Patrick. Maria had organized for me to help Patrick load some horses in northern Tipperary, so that I’d have the opportunity to see more of the county.
More of the country looked very much like the rest of the county, though. It is all green. It is all rolling. It is all sopping wet. The towns all have churches and pubs. Some have castles. There are many, many cows. The thing that sets Tipperary a bit apart from other counties is its vast amount of high quality horses; the indoor/outdoor blanket sort of horses.
By the way, I’ve also discovered that not only do horses have indoor and outdoor regular blankets, they have indoor and outdoor sweat blankets. Christ, my horses were so abused. Dear old Mariah had only one blanket, and a shoddy one at that.
But Patrick was quite the character, and I relished the opportunity to spend the day with him. He’s a dressage trainer, and TEFL teacher, a amateur linguist, and a history fanatic. He was able to fill me in on the history of various towns, their patron saints, and the Gaelic pronunciation and meaning of the town names. He took me to the rock of Cashel on the way back, and I experienced some awe inspired jaw-droppage at the sight of this truly superb castle. He was also a brilliant conversationalist – I’ve never experienced such effective rabbit trailing as I did that afternoon with Patrick. He could go off for ten minutes on what I thought was an entirely unrelated subject, and then masterfully tie it back into the previous subject just before it had been so long abandoned that I'd forgotten how it could relate. I suppose that's what happens when you're paid to talk for six hours every day.
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| Patrick's place |
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| An ancient abbey. There's a sign at the entrance that says females will drop dead as soon as they set foot on the grounds. |
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| God, I love the trees here. |
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| Patrick |
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| Rock of Cashel |
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| Cashel |
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| Cashel |
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| View from Cashel. Several wealthy families in Tipperary still have the right to be buried at this site. |
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| Cashel |
A few helpful websites for vagabonders:
couchsurfing.org -- a great way to meet people, get to know the area, and travel cheaply.
the various WWOOFing websites. These are obviously great for finding organic farms to volunteer at. Just be aware that you'll be in very rural locations -- which can get fairly isolating after a few months.
workaway.info -- the agreement is pretty much the same as WWOOFing, but there are more urban opportunities. Volunteering in hostels or in homes as opposed to farms.
helpex.net -- very similar to workaway. Urban and rural volunteer positions all over the world. Food and accommodation for about 25 hours of work a week.
neweuropetours.eu -- a great resource for free walking tours in various cities throughout Europe. I've been on three, and enjoyed all of them immensely.
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