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You may have guessed from my last post that things were going to be madly busy for us a while, and we are indeed still in that slice of time known as “a while”. For those of you who missed the news, we have taken over, alongside our academic work, the running of Killeena House Estate and self-catering apartments. The last month I have veered between utter exhaustion and bounding out of bed full of enthusiasm. The day invariably begins well with some exciting job such as cleaning out the big bins or sticking my arm down a drain. For real thrills I whizz around on my sit-on lawn mower chopping up any butterfly that gets in my way (remember the mottophobia thing?). The best jobs are those that have a definite end result such as fixing the gate at the bottom of the wood. For years people have been pushing up the old wrought iron gate that rests on its broken hinges and attempting to hold it while they squeeze themselves through. As they are quite often coming from weddings held in a nearby venue the combination of gate and alcohol often resulted in a condition known as Frigate. And if they got stuck for too long it could be Floodgate. However, with some thick wire and some determination a temporary fix was made which meant the gate now swings open smoothly negating the need to navigate, circumnavigate or castigate the extravagating gate. This surrogate gate will eventually be replaced by a shiny new one that needs no objurgating. This was one of those jobs with a clear result that please me greatly (as do words ending in gate).
A major job that was undertaken at Killeena this week was the removal of two very large and dangerous trees. One was precariously sloping over the road to Inish Beg and the other over our own drive. Its always a shame to cut down such huge ecosystems but they were both going to come crashing down in the next storm, perhaps on someones’ personal body-shaped ecosystem. I’m hoping the tree over the drive might become some garden furniture…also known as a log to sit on. The other loss on the estate was the Crow That Would Die. I rescued a young crow earlier in the week when it fell out of its nest. I was very pleased with myself when I placed it back up on the roof to communicate in a not at all anthropological way with its mother. Unfortunately, I suspect that the bloated body I later in the week removed from the gutter was the same crow. However, all things have their moment in the gutter and if it was not for this small avian aquadiver I never would have got round to cleaning the gutters so carefully…if sadly. “Nevermore!” quoth the Raven, “Glug, glug, splash, glug” quoth the Crow.
Now I must away to Limerick to teach Irish Myths and Legends. Just don’t tell the Morrigan about my feather pipe cleaner…