Oh, To be in Cork Now That Summer Is Here!

     I was looking after my dad for the weekend as my mum went to London for my brother’s daughter’s communion and was prepared for a sedate two days. My father only watches RTE so I was obliged to watch the Late Late which I feel hasn’t been same since Gaybo retired. I thought David Kelly with his gentle humour and dapper dress at age 81 was a gold mine of stories to be followed by the most wanted man in Ireland, Tommy Bowe. Most sport personalities have no personality but his easy manner and ready smile made my heart melt.

    My parents have a lovely garden which I was quite content to sit in but my son had a match in Cobh so we dragged ourselves along. We got lost several times and tempers were deteriorating rapidly as we got more hot and bothered trapped inside an airless car when suddenly we came across the pitch perched on a hillside overlooking the sea on a glorious Saturday morning.

     Sunday was a magnificent day and my sister had a fit to go swimming.  We had our lunch under the shade of a huge apple in the beer garden of The Anglers Rest and then leaving my dad with his Sunday papers went to find a place to swim. We crossed the road, cut through the car park and entered a field snowing with dandelion seeds.  We followed a track through the high grass until we came to a gap in the hedge that opened onto a flat stretch of gravelly riverbank.   There was already a large traveller family there with two horses and several dogs. My instinct was to run but my sister was completely unfazed. She flapped out her towel onto the stones and sat down. I sat with her and we watched the antics of Francie dragging his horse into the river ‘for a swim’, while his friends oblivious to the freezing water belly flopped into the river terrifying the fish. The dogs were no bigger than rats and seemed resigned to being picked up by tiny toddlers and flung into the water. There was a four day old foal that looked a dog with an oversized head.   Everybody seemed to be called Francie; there was lots of good natured slagging and they didn’t seem to mind the audience. I could have sat there all day.

     We then went to Fountainstown which was mobbed with half of Cork down there already. The tide was well in and everybody was forced to sit on the stones. Because of my freckly skin I fry in the sun and slathered sunblock in all my sensitive areas but forgot my right arm which was exposed to sun while driving. Today I have one pink arm which looks like an undercooked sausage but that’s an Irish summer for you – lobster skin: we rush out to greet the sun because we never know when it will be back again.