Flotsam and Jetsam: Miscellaneous Observations and Anecdotes of a Temporary Expatriate

This will be a post of meandering thoughts, to be told in a combination of pictures and text:

One always worries about fitting in seamlessly in one's new culture.  Thanks to the foresight of our landlord, we know the intended use of each of the provided utensils.  Now, if only one's golf clubs came with similar idiot-proof instructions...

I can't adequately explain the pleasures of wheaten bread and Kerry Creme butter.  No pictures here, I'm just sayin'...

On the subject of breakfast, we've mostly been eating in a healthy fashion, yogurt, toast, bananas, and multi-bran cereal.  Prior trips have featured the ubiquitous Irish or Scottish breakfasts, an LDL-athon of eggs, bacon, sausage and toast.  Though one night early in our stay we ventured ten miles north to the Rust Nail restaurant, only to find that they don't serve food during the week.  We then changed course to a restaurant in Carndonough, pronounced something like Car-in-DONna, though in our early days we assumed it would be Car-don-Ach, which unable to remember morphed into Kreplach.  As you can readily see, we spare no effort to endear ourselves to the local populace.

In any event, this restaurant featured an all-day breakfast, and I was able to satisfy my irish breakfast Jones.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ordering a beer.  Lest the reader harbor any doubts, beer and salty breakfast meats do NOT go together at all.  I mention this so others shouldn't suffer.

The wifely unit makes an Irish breaky on an off day from golf.

As readers will have noted, we've been amazed at the warmth and openness of the Ballyliffen residents and club members.  Though, as you'll see in the photos below, perhaps I've reached my sell-by date in the estimation of some:

Top, Mary the starter and Joann graciously pose at the golf shop counter.  Bottom, from left to right, Ashland, Trish, Gareth and an unidentified lady look for cover as I enter the shop a mere few days later.  I can only hope that AC and Kent at our home club don't take awy any ideas from this.

Speaking of the warmth of the locals, T and I were sitting in the bar area having a bite of lunch yesterday when a man of a certain age came over to our table and asked, "And, how was your day out there?"  John Doherty is his name, as we discovered when I put out my hand and introduced ourselves, and we briefly told him of our extended stay in town.

But of far greater interest was what we learned from John, as he was a member in the formative late 1960's.  The club had previously maintained a rudmentary nine hole course on leased land.  However, when it became apparent that the lease would not be renewed, the club was able to purchase 400 acres of common grazing ground for a mere pittance (John indicated 5,000 pounds but I've also read elsewhere it was 500 pounds to each of those with a stake in the grazing grounds.  The term in Scotland would be corfters, but not sure that's used here).  

But the best part of John's story was his description of how the members themselves graded and shaped the teeing grounds, greens and bunkers, using mostly hand tools.  It took them a couple of years to build, as one can imagine, but one can only imagine the emotions of playing that which one's own hands created.  Similarly, one can imagine the emotion when the shaping of a landform kicks one's own golf ball into an impossible lie in the deep hay.  We're down to a precious few days, but I'm hoping for an opportunity to buy John a ppint or three to pry more stories from his vault.

We had an amusing postmodern (or would it be premodern) moment last evening as we crawled into bed.  Theresa had checked her e-mail on her phone and handed it to me to read a delightful note from our favorite Scottish housewife (inside joke) Elsie, reacting to my kitty blogging.  I realized that because of our lack of Internet at the cottage that Theresa, the blogger's very own wife, was reading a review of the post before reading the actual post.  Just seemd curious in the moment...

I've yet to focus on Ballyliffen swag for myself or as gifts for others, but the lovely Joann models an item seen frequently that will NOT be coming home with the Simpsons.  It's a BGC hat deliberately styled to resemble a Boston Red Sox cap (a "G" and "C" are cleverly inserted in the open spaces of the "b").  I'm not prone to excessive moralizing, but some things are just WRONG!

Update:  Forgot to add an intended blog stat update.  Hopefully I'll get this in before most have read it.  The blog is approaching 400 pageviews, a clear indication that many of you have far too much time on your hands.  These include the readily explainable hits from the U.S., U.K. (thanks Elsie) and Ireland.  But it also includes 20 pageviews from Russia, 3 from Sweden, the one from Germany (clearly he didn't enjoy his visit) and one from, of all places, Peru.  Writing for a global audience is daunting, indeed.