Major league catch-up

Yeah, it’s been 3 weeks since our stuff arrived, and I last wrote. So sue me. Things have been going swimmingly: literally. It’s been raining. A lot. Locals have been saying things like, “I can’t remember a worse June.” It hasn’t been as bad as Britain, where flooding has killed 4 people; but sodden nonetheless.

So back to the big move. When the truck pulled into our little cul-de-sac, 15 weeks after its contents had been packed in Seattle, we thought there was no way it was going to make it the last 20 yards down to our house. Indeed a car parked in the road seemed to have the way blocked. We rang the door at the three houses on that side of the road to no avail. As I turned back to the sidewalk, yer man had tried the door on the offending car, opened it, and was pushing it out of the way. My cop neighbour witnessed the whole affair, laughing.

The moving van was a 40 foot straight truck, towing a 20 foot trailer. It originated in Britain and had been making deliveries across Ireland for several days: we were its last stop. The crew was a 17 year old kid and the 30 something driver. Both had incredible cockney accents but were very pleasant. They were also pretty displeased with the job the original movers had done back in Seattle in packing some of the stuff. They’d taped the cardboard directly to the furniture, for instance, leaving sticky glue marks on several things. We also lost some glasses and cups and the like; and several picture frames were cracked or chipped. But all in all, our stuff made it here in pretty good shape.

The unloading was unremarkable for the most part. It did result in an unbelievable amount of packing materials. There was also the incident with the man who owned the car that the mover moved. Shortly before 6 this huge bald guy (think Rob Halford of Judas Priest) shows up looking for whoever moved his car. I told him it was the mover, but asked was there a problem. The problem was how disrespectful it was for a stranger to muck around with his private property. Sure, wasn’t he just in town doing his shopping and if no one was home at the three houses we tried why didn’t we try any of the houses across the street, for they all had his mobile number… and so on. All we could do was apologize and hope he left soon. (Folks from HAL will not be surprised to read that I actually saw L.A.S.T. in my mind’s eye) The mover lost patience before I did. Nothing really came of it except now there’s someone on the street who won’t even acknowledge us as we walk by. Ahh well. We’ve found the Irish on the whole to be a pretty grumpy, but friendly lot. Bound to meet the just grumps eventually.

Getting the truck out was even more interesting than getting it in. Our circle is too tight for it to pull through, so the driver had to break the first rule of backing (don’t) and back the sucker all the way out. A different car was in the way behind this time. The movers went knocking on more doors to no avail. But the old woman who owned the car was in the middle of the circle watching the spectacle. Her daughter put two and two together and told her to get out of the way and the truck snaked out of its hole.

When everyone was gone and the dust began to settle, we celebrated with pizza and champagne.

Things I’m most happy to be reunited with, in no particular order: our good cookware, the butcher block, my hiking boots, our good sheets and duvet, and my Get Fuzzy comic books.

So what’ve we been up to since? Quite a bit, really.

We had a date to see a salsa band at our local that turned out to be a standard dance song cover band. But they had a trombone player. Always redeeming.

We went to see a percussion concert at Christ Church Cathedral. The church is an 18th century Georgian masterpiece with truly remarkable acoustics. The quartet was from Britain and played everything from the standard trap set to marimbas, to Japanese bowls, to invented instruments that I cannot begin to describe.

We climbed the highest peak in County Kilkenny, Brandon Hill. It’s about an hour’s drive from here, and about a 2 hour climb from there to the 1500 foot summit. It’d been threatening to rain the whole trip up, but waited until we got to the summit. Having gained a great view of the surrounding countryside and distant harbours, a gale blew in, pushing the otherwise fine mist into liquid sandpaper. We beat a hasty retreat back down the mountain into the woods for our well-earned midday repast: that Waterford standby of blahs with red-lead.

We raced in a treasure hunt around county Waterford. It was a fundraiser for a school for autistic kids sponsored by a pharmacy where our German friend “Frau Doktor” works. She was on a team of co-workers; PK and I joined her husband, “Grossmann”, and the Daddy Lad. Almost 3 hours of scurrying all over the county, through torrential rain to pubs, graveyards, mountain tops, old churches, copper mines, and beaches in search of clues and answers. We came in second. To Frau Doktor’s team. On a technicality. We were back first in both stages and had the best time overall, but they got some hotly contested bonus points. The winning team earned a half day’s off from work; we won coupons to the pharmacy worth 35 euros each.

We took driving lessons. We are both still on provisional licenses, the moral equivalent of learner permits, and have yet to be assigned driving test times. We thought we should get some formal instruction and insight into passing the test. Turns out I would’ve failed; PK might not have fared any better. We both have to relearn how to clutch when approaching a stop. And despite having a convex mirror, we must check our blind spot. I’m feeling pretty good about it; PK’s feeling less confident.

We had the boss over for dinner. And her daughter. My boss lives in England and commutes during the week to Waterford. For the past two weeks she’s brought her 15 year old daughter along for some work experience. We made them homemade guacamole, herbed pork loin with smashed chipotle sweet potatoes on spring greens, and PK’s famous banana gooey cake.

I went into the hospital today for some tests on me gut: not much improvement there to be honest. Should know more by Tuesday. So fasting all day yesterday: fun! Hard to imagine that some people do this of their own accord. No figuring.

Sun’s out. Gnocchi's done. And so am I.

Slainte.