The Best Day

Tuesday was the 1st of September: the day when, in a normal year, everyone who works at The Institute has to sign in to show that they are present and available for work . . . and not still sipping a pina colada [as R] in  a bar on the Costa del Rico. We weren't expected to do that, but we were requested-and-required to sign in to a Zoom call at 1500hrs and find out what's in store for us and the students for the 2020-2021 academic year. Our wireless "broad"band at home is so sketchy that I had in the Spring driven into work to Zoom at my desk.

Not Tuesday! The Beloved has a life too; and part of that is minding her antient father Pat the Salt - and keeping polished the remains of his collection of marbles. Tuesday was in the middle of a Week-On, so she was i/c; but she had a diary cascade of Zoomy busy events cluttering the morning and forenoon. Accordingly, I offered to take Pat off-site for a Thelma & Louise Pat & Bob out along Costa na Déise to visit some of his old haunts. And it was so-ho-ho

As we came round a cliff-top corner West of Boatstrand [Trá na mBád], we saw [above with wheel-barrow for scale] four people working diligently creating a mandala on the low-tide sand of Kilmurrin Cove. I like that sort of endeavour very much: you have a few hours to create something striking with hard physical work and then it's >!plooosh!< all gone. The antidote to hubris. I didn't abandon Pat and stride across the beach to help. I think it must be the work of Sean Corcoran who has a habit of creating these ephemera. 

Five minutes later we pulled into Pat's old gaff on the ridge above Bonmahon. It wasn't really sunny but it wasn't properly overcast either and there was a drying warm wind from the West. I parked the Red Yaris where Pat could see the back garden and started to mow the getting-leggy grass. After I'd done one section, I asked if he was ready for coffee and flapjacks - because it's so tiring watching other folk at work. I then declared Café Baldwin to be Open and unpacked him from the car for some of that fresh sea-breeze . . . and decaf n flaps. Then it was one man went to mow for another 40 minutes. I should add that Pat was mowing the grass - about 10 ares of it - without drive-wheels, let alone a ride-on, until the age of 85. Then he announced that a) he was not.going.to.mow.any.more b) he wasn't going to drive the car any more either.  That's when Dau.II and I started to do The Pension Run: mowing the grass for our dinner.

When we got home in time for my Haranguing The Troops Zoom, Pat told everyone who would listen that it had been The Best Day and how we had spent hours mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, cutting down trees. I was grateful for the bigging up because I was invited to stay for dinner.  The Best Day, mind, not A Perfect Day.