Trasna An Uisce

This is the first time we have rented since we got married back in BC. It felt like we are just too big for this house, that we would never settle, a bit surreal. The Small Man is 10, the Middle is 8 and the Youngest (by 2.5 mins) is 8. There are more tears and fighting and blame slung at Himself for ‘gettin a different job..what was wrong with the last one’. We miss our kitchen, our sitting room, our bedrooms, the smell, feel and noises of our home in Galway. The Youngest wonders if she will ‘catch it’, the accent. ‘Of course not, you’re a Galway girl’ I reply lying through my teeth. The removal guys were so helpful as they trawled in and out all over the owners cream carpet (go figure..with the children it may not be the same shade of cream after a few weeks). Something tells me she was a cleaning fanatic, nozzles and sprays everywhere, I never knew there were so many. Never a priority of mine. I would fit in well with the very wealthy aristocrats who don’t mind a bit of dirt. They reckoned we should rent the house next door too! So much remains in the garage, many boxes filled with books which I cannot part with, other boxes with contents unknown. But the neighbours’ garages are packed to the gills with stuff too.


I cried like a baby for the first few days in a sea of brown paper and boxes. I couldn’t find anything, where should it all go. I had a rhythm in our kitchen in Galway, I needed to find a groove in this one. It sounds sentimental but everytime I imagined the Prom, or Quay Street or the kitchen in No 25 or Turlough I was off. Himself went to work, I wished I were him. He had familiarity. I did not.

When we returned from our holiday in France and before the removal van met us at the house in Thame we went to Maas, then tea after Mass, as you do over here. The Catholic community is akin to the Protestant community in Ireland, close. The Middle reckons the school is even holier than Annagh Hill, their old school. It takes its religion seriously and the congregation sing the hymns, all the hits. It felt good, familiar. It gave our spinning minds peace. Mass is a meeting place, a spiritual and social get together and a place where we met the kind lady who had the names and numbers of soccer clubs, piano teachers and classmates mums...and they had custard creams. Connections and conversations were beginning to happen. The smoke signals had gone up and it was known that the Irish family had arrived.