It also exists so that I can play with kids again! After a summer of nannying, babysitting, living, and playing with some wonderful children, my sense of fun was just withering away seeing only my peers, all of the time. Thanks to Conor and Brian Burke for sending me home exhausted and full of fun, and maybe even ready for a little alone time. It was a fabulous weekend.
Conor, aged 10, plays (and, as his 21 medals testify, excels at) rugby, (gaelic) football, and hurling. He also is learning the fiddle--we were blessed with a performance of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." He has a talent for scary faces.
Brian, aged 6, plays all three sports as well, though he "hates" hurling, as well as cabbage and jaffa cakes (an unfortunate thing, as both are staples of the Burke house). He wants to be a farmer, and his floor is already covered in a farm--plastic horses, cows, pigs, sheep, cats, dogs, ducks, swans, a deer, a turkey, a hedgehog, haybales, tractors and cow poop. What is he going to be for Halloween? A bull.
The Burkes (Liam and Margaret, and the two boys) don't live on a farm, unless you count the chickens, ducks, rabbit, cat and dogs, but their tiny village of Emly, Co. Tipperary, is steeped in farming. We got to visit the neighbors at milking time! Don't picture a barn and a farmer shooting milk into a cat's mouth. These forlks own about 100 milk cows, and use milking machines. We stood in the corridor between two lines of cow rears as the farmer and his son methodically attached and removed the suction cups. Poor Brian barely avoided being sprayed when one of the cows let loose a lot of something that wasn't milk! I left a bit disgusted, but with my love of milk intact.
Back at home, there was plenty to do. Every morning and the evening the chickens had to be moved between the shed and their pen, with a very insistent Brian demanding that we hold one. We spent lots of time on the trampoline…the boys loved a game Mari taught them called “dead man,” in which one person closes their eyes and tries to grab the others, and the tramp is a great place for a nap in the sun when you’re tired out. And after a bit of hurling lessons from Brian on Saturday, I was wrecked! It’s sort of lacrosse without the net—just a vicious-looking, and –feeling, stick. And Mari and I came away with our own hurling balls (about the size of baseballs), autographed by the famous Brian and Conor. Inside, we played roud after round of Go Fish, and watched Fantastic Mr. Fox--very funny.
Saturday also included trips both to “Tipp Town” and Emly Village. We walked up and down Tipp Town, the county seat, in half an hour, but spent a bit more time in Emly, population 500. Maybe. Now, I should have begun with this, but Emly has won the “Tidy Towns” award several years running now! !!!!! Everyone we met told us about it, and there were signs and plaques all down the street. And boy, it was tidy. They just found out this weekend, though, that they only got a silver medal this year—everyone is disappointed. “They must’ve come a day we didn’t expect [to inspect]” says Margaret. The Burke’s house was also quite tidy, especially considering its young inhabitants. Showering standards were something else, however—Mari and I took the only two showers that house saw this weekend. After a couple days of seeing the same clothes, we asked Brian if he ever took a bath, “What? Oh, only on Sundays. That’s bath-day. An’ I hate it.” Ah.
Sunday morning we went to Mass, with Margaret and two protesting boys—it didn’t seem to be a weekly thing. Liam dropped us off a few minutes early, and Margaret suggested that we “go see Kir.” “Yesss!!” was the boys response, and we headed toward the graveyard. The Burkes had another child, a daughter, Ciara (pronounced Kyra) who died of some sort of stomach complications five years ago, when she was thirteen. I was expecting something sad and solemn, but we just stood by her grave chatting for a few minutes, and rearranging the loads of flowerpots and decorations on the grass in front (which Conor had mowed the day before!). After a bit, it was time to go. Margaret kissed the picture on the gravestone and the boys waved “Bye, Kir!”
Mass was hard. I could almost immediately understand why the boys hadn’t wanted to come. Those in the small choir were the only ones who got to sing, and the combination of the priest’s microphone and the long pauses between his words made him almost impossible to listen to. Overall, the whole service was rushed—the sanctuary was very cold, and everyone there just sped through the liturgy. I couldn’t even keep up with the bits I knew!
Overall, a blessing of a weekend.
I would appreciate prayer, though, for my boldness in sharing the gospel. I know that this doesn’t always need to be directly through words, but lately I’ve been having trouble speaking up when I should.
