Charlie

Today is my Grandfather's Anniversary. He died 16 years ago today, at the age of 92. He certainly lived to a 'ripe old age', as they say.

We never called him 'Granda', or 'Grandpa' or any other affectionate grandfatherly term. He claimed it made him sound old. All of his grandchildren called him by his name 'Charlie'.

I wish I had a photo to show you - but they're all in Ireland, and certainly not in digital format. He was a strapping and handsome man with a mane of pure white hair, brushed straight back from his face. Born not in the last century, but in the one before that, he started work at a young age for what was to become the biggest Bank in Northern Ireland. He worked his way up from errand boy, to Chief Inspector. He retired and was called out of retirement twice to lead projects, such was the Bank's respect for him and their acknowledgment of his experience and knowledge. Chief Inspector is a fairly high rank in the Bank, but his rise beyond this was no doubt capped by the fact that he was a Catholic in an environment where all directorships were held by Protestants. This was a product of the political atmosphere, that thankfully (although painfully), has changed to a large extent in Northern Ireland.

He worked for the Bank in a time when a job there was a job for life and for him it certainly was. He retired completely, I believe, well into his seventies. I worked for the same Bank, and although the times had certainly changed and it was no longer a 'work your way up from the bottom' kind of place, it gave me great pride to have been his Grand-daughter working there, and representing the third generation of my family to work for this company. As my own career advanced, I often found myself wondering 'what would Charlie think of me now?' Would he be proud that I had moved up in a relatively short space of time, or would he be shocked that I had done so since he left at a time when women had to leave when they got married, and when they rarely if ever worked on the counter in the branches? I like to think it would have been both, and hopefully a little more of the former than the latter.

But Charlie the Bank man isn't the man I remember. I remember him fondly as the man with the white hair, two pairs of black glasses, one for reading and one for television. The man who sat in a comfortable armchair in front of the fire, often in a zip up cardigan. With a steel comb in his pocket that he would give to us to 'fix his hair'. The man who would patiently let us comb his hair over and over, probably scraping his scalp raw in the process, and never saying a word.

He was very generous and our new Christmas and Easter outfits would come courtesy of him and our Nana. He would lavishly heap praise on us as we paraded our new threads in front of him, fashion show style. He also remembered for many years the praise I gave him for how dapper he looked at my Aunt's wedding, when I was ten years old.

He was an adventurous man and in his eighties flew to the USA with my Uncle and visited both coasts. We have film footage of him touring high above Alcatraz in a helicopter - thrilling for him to have done, and still thrilling for us to watch.

I've read a lot of blog posts recently about people who talk about their Grandparents whom they still see, or sadly whom they've only just lost and I feel happy for them that they have, or have had their Grandparents in their lives for so long. My husband's maternal Grandparents are still alive and very well at the ages of only 78 and 80. However, I feel completely jealous, too. I would love to talk to Charlie now, to Nana his wife, whom we lost 6 years before him. I'd love to know what they think of me living all the way over here in America! What they think of my children?

I still miss them, a lot. My Nana died before her time, from cancer and my mother was only two years older than I am now when that happened. Charlie in his declining years was 'doting' a little and was forgetful. He literally just wound down and passed away peacefully in his sleep, and for that I am very grateful.

I wipe away a few tears now and replace them instead with a broad smile in memory of a great, grandfather.

I love you, Charlie!

Ten Years

Ten years ago today something happened that tipped my world upside down.

Something that was to open my eyes, my experiences, my heart, my love.

I came to America for the first time, arriving to join other family members for my cousin's wedding. I got to experience the closest thing to tropical paradise I'd ever seen when we stayed in the islands of Sanibel and Captiva in the Gulf of Mexico, where the wedding took place.

I sat on white shell beaches, watching sandpipers dot in and out of the foamy surf. I marveled at pelicans diving for their lunch a little way offshore. I swam in warm green waters and felt tiny fish brush against my ankles. I felt like I was on a travel show and 'Wildlife on One', all rolled into one.

Among white egrets, and lush hibiscus, the Bride and Groom finished all those last minute preparations. We gathered in the small white church and watched them celebrate their love, and join their lives. Little did I know sitting there in that church, that two days later I was to meet my own future husband, the day before I flew back to Ireland.

Who would have believed that this Irish guy whom my cousins counted among their very good friends, who wasn't at the wedding due to previous boozing with his buddies Gaelic Football commitments in San Fransisco, would come into my life and change it, completely?

My practical, rational side dictated that the odds of ever seeing this man again, having met him the night before my vacation ended were negligible. My heart and my gut however told me something different. As I looked out of the airplane window into the dark, watching the grid-like pattern of the street lit city of Miami grow smaller as the plane climbed, I knew something was different and I wondered had I just met someone important. Pipe dreams? Delusions? Maybe - but I am living proof that some dreams can come true.

Through our unconventional, separated by 4000 miles and the Atlantic Ocean, courtship, we had many phone calls when we chatted about all the usual getting-to-know-you stuff. We engaged in frivolous chatter, and serious discussions where we'd be the ones to set the world to rights. I had many more trips to Florida to visit him, and he came home to Ireland several times, too. Many times I'd ask myself 'where is this going?' and once we did try to end it, both agreeing that living a half a world apart wasn't exactly conducive to a thriving relationship. I did at one point try make my peace with the fact that we were not 'meant to be' and however much that hurt I stopped calling him. He continued to keep in touch with me however, and so we hovered for a while in a limbo of not moving forward and not breaking off completely either. Then he blessedly survived a very serious accident, and his attitude to 'us' took on a more serious and determined slant. Knowing that he could have died in that accident also made me realise that deep down where I didn't even want to admit it to myself, I really, really loved this guy. He's the first and only man I've ever loved, and will be the only man I will ever love.

Five years after meeting him, I moved to Florida to be with him - five months after our engagement. We got engaged while I was on vacation here, and I flew back to Ireland alone, two days later - I like to keep running themes in my life like that.

We are so different in lots of ways. I am college educated, my husband is more of a graduate of the school of life kind of guy. He is an extrovert, and I am more reserved. He is a risk taker, I am not! (He's a good housekeeper, I am not, but he's taught me a lot and I'm getting better ha ha!). We are the same in many ways. Our values and family upbringings are very similar. Our morals, dedication to our families and attitudes to our own little family and parenting are virtually the same.

Here we are 10 years, a transatlantic courtship, a wedding and two babies later. I still miss home, but I can truthfully say that I am very happy. I am up to my ears in Fisher Price, afraid of the outcome of my son's medical tests, and today dealing with our first kiddie puking experience if you can believe it since Miss E was born nearly 3 years ago, but I am happy.

Here's to meeting you 10 years ago D, I love you and am so glad you happened to me!

Our Irish Adventures

After a marathon traveling session via Newark, and on to Dublin, we finally made it to Ireland on the early hours of Wednesday 23^rd May. The journey to Ireland was smooth and generally uneventful which was great. It did however set the expectation that the return to Florida would be just as good.

It wasn’t.

To avoid boring you, or stressing myself, I'm not going into the details, suffice to say that it was a bit of a nightmare and one that I thought would never end – I have never been so glad to get the hell off an airplane in my life!

On to our hols then!

We arrived in Ireland, Dublin Airport which sadly looked dirty, small, outdated and CHAOTIC! Having been away from somewhere for a while, coming back has you looking at familiar places with a fresh perspective. There is a great deal of growth and regeneration in Ireland, and in Dublin – and having traveled through two large, clean and organized US airports on the way here, the contrast with what greets you in Dublin is stark, and somewhat embarrassing as an Irish person. I’m told a new terminal is in the works, and a facelift – can’t come soon enough I say.

A soft, almost misty rain fell as we traveled north from the airport. Two remarkable things stood out to me (at least remarkable to me in my haven’t-slept-in-flipping-ages state), the road – it was new since I traveled this route last – a gleaming new motorway all the way from Dublin to the North. No more meandering through little towns, and bigger, traffic clogging locales. As a tourist this might feel like a loss, but not to me. How great it was just to ‘zip’ up that road, home.

The second thing that stood out to me was the road kill! When I first moved to Florida, things like armadillos, raccoons, and even the odd alligator, plastered to the tarmac (asphalt), made my eyes pop out. I’d never seen these creatures up close before, and to me they were no less fascinating because they were dead. Now I’m so used to them I barely notice them. Traveling up the road from the airport and around the various roads on our vacation I’m sure people thought me crazy to point out dead badgers, foxes and hedgehogs – none of which I have seen since moving to the states.

It was great to be back home – the place where I grew up, in the house that I have lived in for most of my life. People have asked me ‘how does it feel being here? Being back home?’ and I honestly told them ‘feels like I’m here all the time’ – that house will always be my home. It’s only now that I understand what confused me as a child – when my mother would take us to her parents’ house, and talk about it as ‘home’. I used to find this slightly unsettling. Did Mum not think her house with us was home? Now I know how she felt. This brings me to my question in my earlier post – is it possible to have two places you call ‘home’? My family home, where I grew up, is one of the most comfortable places I can be – somewhere I can be completely myself and totally relaxed. The home I have in Florida, is getting there, but a combination of homesickness, questioning my decision to stay at home, and a sense of ‘this isn’t really my house’ (my husband bought this house before we were engaged), has held me back from calling this my home. Having two children has helped me feel more settled, and eventually letting go of my career and contenting myself that staying at home is what’s right for me at present, has also helped. So, this house in Florida – to which I brought my two babies from the hospital, that has their toys sometimes strewn, and sometimes neatly stacked, all over it, that has my stamp on it now, that welcomes visitors on a regular basis, that cocoons us in our daily lives – is also ‘home’.

Our first week in Ireland consisted of a lot of driving between my family, and my in-laws, in two separate towns, an hour’s drive apart. Considering the number of different houses we visited, and the number of different and unknown faces they encountered, both kids did fantastic and they took everything in their stride which made things a whole lot easier on us. After a dull, wet and cold first week, the weather took a turn for the better and the remainder of our stay was blessed with magnificent sunshine and warm temperatures around the mid to high seventies, perfect!

The last time we were in Ireland there were a few people I didn’t get to see – I was determined that whatever else we didn’t get to do, we’d visit with these people this time. One of them was a great friend I used to work with and I hadn’t seen her in 5 years. It was great to catch up with her, and all the better for the big bottle of champagne that she popped and shared with us, to celebrate our two marriages, and the 5 kids between us that have happened since we last saw each other (sure beats a cup of tea and a bun!). It was great for our children to meet each other also, and I’ll be campaigning for her to bring hers out here for a visit, soon.

We had considered a couple of nights away, just us as a family of four to do some touristy things in parts that we’d never visited before. But, the dreaded lurgy struck again and the hubs was sick for the best part of 10 days – so, a B&B break, with two small children, and a sick husband (which let’s face it is like having a third small child), no thanks! So, he got packed off to his Mum’s on his own for a couple of days and we stayed with mine – everyone was happy!

Ireland has a fantastic buzz about it these days, North and South. There is a real sense of affluence all around, evidenced in part by top of the line SUVs driving all over the place (which amazes me considering that petrol costs 8 dollars a gallon in the North of Ireland right now! – I tell you, in the US gas is CHEAPO!).

There is much publicity about the housing boom that has taken place, all over, but especially in Northern Ireland – great for existing homeowners, but a nightmare for first time buyers, or people like us considering a move back at some time. That ‘some time’ feels like it’s getting further in the distance though since it would be financial suicide for us right now. Plenty of people can afford these houses though because every town has multiple construction projects underway building new residential developments and many people have built huge houses in the country (something that will stop thanks to a new government restriction on green belt construction).

The dollar/British pound (currency in Northern Ireland) exchange is 2 to1, against us, so basically anything costing 10 pounds, was 20 bucks for us, and so on. This is something I found hard to deal with when shopping. I’d fall for great clothes and then calculate what they’d cost in dollars and swiftly return them to the rack – I couldn’t bring myself to do it knowing I’d get something similar here for a lot less. This is also a big reason why moving to Ireland now, or in the near future is not an option for us – however much that pains me to say, or may pain my family to read. You’ll have to plan your holiday trips to Florida for a wee while longer folks – there are worse places to visit mind you!

Ireland is also a country of contrasts right now, with the seemingly incongruous visions of BMW SUVs all over the place, sparkling mansions in the countryside no doubt furnished to perfection, alongside Mrs. McFarmer, complete with green wellies walking along the side of the main road, en route to a field of ewes or the like, or as my Mum put it, when we came across an ‘Irish Traffic Jam’ holding up two lines of traffic where Paddy gets his ponies from one field to another – a scene that could easily have taken place in my Grandmother’s time (albeit that the traffic jam would have been decidedly shorter) – the farmer likely to have been dressed in exactly the same way – brown trousers (probably from an old suit) with a cream stripy open necked shirt, sleeves rolled up on account of the beautiful sunny day.

Another contrast that shocked me was some of the attitudes and reactions to the ever growing migrant population in Ireland. The Irish have a reputation for being friendly and welcoming and this is indeed a reputation deserved by many. However I encountered quite a few people less than thrilled to see many Polish and Latvian people moving to Ireland. An influx of people from Eastern European countries that have recently joined the European Union has brought a cosmopolitan feel to the place, with several towns now sporting ‘Polish Shops’, in much the same way as British and Irish shops can be found dotted around US cities, carrying goods that have been imported from ‘home’. It’s also a novelty to browse around the shopping centres and hear couples chattering away in a foreign language. Some Irish people do not like this influx claiming that newcomers are taking jobs, benefits, school places etc from local people. This saddens me, since in some cases those very people complaining are ones who enjoyed US hospitality for many years when they came here to work when they were starting off in their adult lives – to earn money for a better life. Many countries in the world accepted the Irish when people fled Ireland's shores over the years. Yes it was hard for some of them and they undoubtedly faced many challenges, but I guess it is Ireland’s turn to return the favour? I would also say that this influx of other nationalities and their cultures is exactly what Northern Ireland in particular needs. Perhaps as other cultures assimilate, it will water down the whole ‘Catholic – Protestant’ tension that has existed for too long – we can hope…

We encountered that ‘Irish Traffic Jam’ on our way to a forest park that I visited occasionally as a child. These photos are a few snapshots from that day, easily the best of the whole trip. It was so much fun taking Miss E along the forest paths that we ran along as kids, where we shouted as loud as we could, reveling in the echo of our voices bouncing around the leafy canopy above us. A particular memory of this forest park for me is a set of stepping stones across the river that winds its way through the park. I just loved being able to take Miss E across these stones – admittedly nervous as I tried to avoid her having the same fate as I so many times where I ended up in the water, rather than over the top of it.

Miss E searched in the hollows of trees for fairies, and was delighted at the possibility that the little creatures (water flies of some sort) that she later saw skirting the top of the water, with dappled sunlight glinting on their wings, were possibly the very same fairies that 'were not in' when she knocked on their 'doors'.

My Mum has a picture of us (her four kids) as children sitting on tree limbs so she couldn’t resist the opportunity to have us do this once again. Since I was wearing a skirt and flip flops - my feet stayed firmly on the ground!

Over the course of our three week stay, we did a lot of driving about, and had a lot of fun at various parties, picnics and barbeques and enjoyed catching up with everyone. We were thoroughly spoiled by both families – with people vacating rooms to give us places to sleep, giving us full access to cars (a BIG help!), and plying us with enough sausages (to appreciate what this means you really have to have tasted Irish sausages and been away from them for some time!), and other culinary feasts to last us until our trip next year, and of course, cause us to pile on a few happy pounds. Miss E is now chatting with a broad Irish accent (Nor'n Irish at that !), and has picked up her 5 year old cousin's talent for saying 'I didn't do anything' on cue once her brother's sudden shrieks for help sound, despite blatant evidence to the contrary, *sigh*, another challenge!

My Mum keeps saying to me ‘I’m sure you’re glad to be back in your own space’, and yes, part of me is. Toting two kids and all their baggage around the countryside was busy, and a lot of fun, and they enjoyed it too, but it takes a lot of energy, and so we’re happy to have some ‘downtime’ at the minute. We miss everyone, and despite the horrible journey back here, we’re looking forward to heading back this time next year. In the meantime we have our memories, photos, and smiles on our faces.

I’m sure I’ll be blogging more about this trip – but for now I must go shop from the kids for Father’s Day which I completely forgot about until a few minutes ago!

Family memories all baked up in love.

We're heading out of town this weekend, to my cousin and her family. She celebrated her 40th Birthday last week, and knowing that she will have all the spa gift cards, and 'smelly stuff' one would want, I have resorted to making edible goodies for her (creative and economic all in one - always a bonus for this stay at home mother!)

The first batch of chocolatey goodness I'll be bringing is her favourite family treat - our Nana's Caramel Squares. As I was baking these this morning I found myself fondly reminiscing about Nana, to the point where I could almost feel her there standing beside me, watching her soft freckled hands, knuckles swollen with arthritis, lovingly rubbing the butter into the oats and flour. She was 75 when she died, not that old these days, and I was only 13, yet my memories of times spent at her house are vivid and plenty. I remember her patience as we (another cousin and myself) made Caramel Squares in her kitchen, on the big red table and we put a whole can of condensed milk into the base instead of the caramel mixture. Never one to waste a thing, she proceeded to get another can of milk for the caramel, and used our 'modified' base anyway. I think those were the crunchiest ones we'd ever tasted lol!

The timing of my reflections on Nana couldn't be better, since patience is not a strong point of mine lately. She was a great role model, and someone whose attitude and caring outreach to others I would like to emulate more. She was a devout Catholic, and instilled in her children a love of their faith, and a love of God and his 'holy Mother' as she would say. I want to pass that on to my children. I also want them to have fond memories of their Grandmothers and other extended family which is why, even though the thought of traveling for hours on end with two small children by air terrifies me (you have no idea!), I know it is so important for us to travel to Ireland as often as logistics and funds allow us to do so. We are fortunate, too, that our families can visit here fairly often.

The other recipe I'll be making for my cousin this morning is a Martha Stewart recipe - for Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies. Like most recipes of Martha's it'll use all my mixing bowls and utensils, but it'll be so worth it because these are scrumptious. Martha is someone I don't want to emulate so much lol! Well except for the mega millions part, but I'll stay clear of prison thank you!

Here are some pics - and should you feel the urge to try - the recipes are here for you too :) Have a SUPER weekend!

Caramel Squares:

For the base:
4oz quaker oats (I use quick cooking - but I don't think it matters)
2oz sugar
4oz all purpose flour
4oz (one stick) butter

1. Preheat oven to 375F
   
2. Sift flour, add oats and sugar
3. Work in butter with fingertips until evenly distributed and mixture forms pea sized lumps
4. Press mixture evenly into the bottom of a greased 8x8inch baking tin (I like to use the disposable ones, I can peel the tinfoil away and it makes cutting them much easier).
5. Bake for 25 mins or until brown and firm.

For the top:
4oz (one stick) butter
2oz sugar
2 generous tablespoons of light karo syrup (golden syrup)
Small can condensed milk (I used the most of a 14oz can)
Few drops vanilla extract
8oz milk chocolate chips

1. Put all ingredients into a large pot and bring to the boil - allow to bubble for 5 mins (as my Nana used to say 'not a minute more, not a minute less). Be careful - I use a large pot because this mixture likes to 'spit' and there's nothing worse than a caramel burn if it gets on your skin. Watch it carefully too, it's very easy to burn and I have found this out the hard way and ruined saucepans in the process!
2. Pour caramel over cooled base, refrigerate to allow caramel to set...
3. Melt chocolate and pour over cooled caramel. Refrigerate again to set.
4. Once cooled and set, remove and allow to come to room temperature - then cut into squares.

I'm tired typing now and I have NO packing done, so here's a link to the brownie recipe"

Martha Stewart Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies


Now, how come I never remember how much of a pain clean up is when I embark on these baking adventures?