JOEY
I think I need driving shoes as well. They say to me: preppy in the style of Nancy Drew or Ali McGraw from Love Story. I could team them with blue jeans and a cute plaid shirt ...
Ok, my thoughts on a farm in Ireland:
You would need to research a nice area, close to Dublin or Cork because you would need to talk to city folk at some stage, or work for money to fund your farm stay. Farmers don’t count to talk to as they are hard at work for most of the day, and I believe Irish farmers’ wives are generally hard workers also, but with a disapproving demeanor and a way of saying ‘have another cup of tea then’ which discourages even the most avid tea drinker from taking another cup. Perhaps this is why Irish farmers spend so much time ‘getting the pigs in’ and so forth. Sundays would involve attending church in the disapproving catholic style but the tersely made roast would more than makeup for it.
Alternatively, if you do your research you could find the location where Gerard Butler lives as I believe there is a local pub where good looking young farmers hang out in thick, knitted wool jumpers and moleskin trousers after a hard days farming. They are more talkative than their forebears but you have to catch one that only drinks in moderation as the Irish are a bucolic, alcoholic nation. He might introduce you to his mammy if you’re lucky.
I would suggest a rural area close to the coast and within a days distance of Trinity College Dublin for your intellectual needs.
MAX
For the rest of us, who do have not seen PS I Love You, I am imagining being a researcher/PA/companion in a lovely Great House, and after some months becoming great friends with the young man who owns the house. Halfway through winter, the heating fails, and all inhabitants are sent away bar me and the young man to instruct the workmen when they appear. We can only heat one set of rooms in the house until the workmen come to fix the VERY old plumbing, so we must co-exist in wintery isolation of wood fires, a shared double bed and socks drying over the bookcases. Romance Blossoms. Max never needs to go home to Perth ☺
I have been planning, planning.
JOEY
Close, but much more interesting.
Perhaps you could be employed by a very old, slightly doddering couple ala Possession. They could live in a bad 1970s addition, shotgun at the ready, life savings hidden in the mattress, wellies in the mudroom until they decide to visit a distant relative somewhere, so you would be all alone in the great house. I think the old man could have an interest in racehorses and a large collection of valuable books, the documentation and organisation of which falls to you.
One wet and windy day, you could be exploring a wing of the old house, or out on a ramble quoting poetry aloud and stumble into a good looking, slightly arrogant young farmer (in a woolly jumper) who looks at you, incredulous that such a marvellous woman would be in his corner of the world, but with an antagonistic twitch to his mouth so you get off to a wrong start.
You think you dislike each other, but when the power goes off, one cold winter’s night, you reluctantly bond over tea and toast by the fire. I’m afraid marmalade would be involved, but you pretend you like it to save face. He does the same with the tea which he secretly likes sweet and milky. He also has some lanky hounds who appear throughout this story, and on a cold night in question could warm themselves too, by the fire.
Possible names for your arrogant farmer include:
Jack, Dylan, Sean, Liam or James.
MAX
I just made the three men who sit around me by barking with laughter when, cruising along in your story, a farmer appeared out of nowhere! ☺ Brilliant.
I think what will happen is I will choose Cork for some reason, be lucky enough to score a room in a dear little house in a dear little village that is being absorbed into the outermost suburbs of Cork (but has a great bus route to it from the City).
I will find it hard to find friends my own age because they would have all emigrated for work, so I will end up joining the darling little old ladies of the parish in their jam making, sponge baking and knitting.
One day, serving my wonderful sponge cake to the knitting circle and gossiping madly about our Dylan in America, I will be introduced to a returning grandson (he was in Africa somewhere teaching with an NGO) and we will conduct a slow and very much gossiped about romance in front of my best friends at the knitting circle. He will be the last gentleman in Ireland ☺
JOEY
Well you can tell your barking men that Dylan was walking the 10 miles from his remote ancestral home to the closest post office - which is only open once a week - to sort out a phone bill, and took a shortcut through your employer’s field which is how he stumbled across you, walking in the opposite direction and reciting poetry at the top of your lungs. (I mean, who does that?)
Or else, he didn’t know that the doddering OAPs had employed you and got suspicious when he saw smoke rising from the chimney (as he knew they were in Limerick visiting distant relations) whilst out on his tractor and came over to investigate, finding you in flagrante delecto in the main house, again reciting poetry at the top of your lungs!
So you see, barking engineers, Max was responsible for getting Dylan out of obscurity! I just helped their love story along a little bit by making it rain.
I do like your NGO returning grandson. He could have red hair.
MAX
Oh god – sorry – my cold is not making me make sense.
I meant to say I made the men around me JUMP when I barked with laughter because the farmer was so unexpected and welcome in the story.
But your exhortations still stand relevant, as the men around me are just jealous that I get brilliant stories in my inbox instead of boring work, which appears in theirs! I am the only one in this office that will burst out laughing in happiness when reading my emails. So THERE, boring engineers.
My laugh this time was REALLY loud ☺
I used to recite Banjo Patterson out aloud to the bush when I rode our horses on the farm. They would listen to me as we ambled along the fence lines. I used to wish that someone romantic would think that the ultimate accomplishment of the woman he wanted to marry, but I never met that poetry loving male. Not until Dylan that is. Dylan sounds Mr Darcy romantic, but I am over difficult men at the moment, I fancy a straight-forward man to be truthful. Hence my NGO Grandson, modelled on the lovely Scotsman from Skegness, with his utter truthfulness and lack of modern artifice. It is entirely likely that he will be in possession of fox-red hair ☺
If I cannot find a redhead in Ireland to romance, I am just not trying hard enough.
I am worried about the economic recession in Ireland at the moment – I am consulting the Lawyer in Cork Dad put me in touch with as to if the Admin Sector is still buoyant – it would be crazy to go if there genuinely was a recession, and they may not give me a visa anyway ☹
JOEY
Hehe my feathers were ruffled at the engineers thinking I had poor narrative skills. I think you should aim for a thinking redhead to romance, as you are one smart lady
14 AUGUST
JOEY
Hehe … this is Dylan as a young tack with his Da … I can't find a more recent photo, but his expression has softened somewhat in the intervening years.
See you at 8.3X (that's between 8.30 and 8.40!)
MAX
Brilliant! :-) I hope his Da likes me. I may have to milk a cow and trim some hedgerows before he takes me seriously. I will be practising in between knitting lessons from Mum. God, so much to learn before Dylan and I meet.
Also, what do you think Dylan's Ma will think essential accomplishments for a girl who sets her hat at her boy? I can bake, cook, sew and shoot ...
JOEY
His ma will respect a woman who can put good food on the table at night, get her linen snow white and wrinkle-free and make a decent tea cake. She doesn't like those young girls with nothing but floss between their ears who are always making eyes at her boys, that's for sure. Although she's a straight-talking woman, she'll respect someone who can get along with Dylan's da, who is a fanciful, whiskey-drinking practical joker, always trying to trick you with his talk of fairies and folk tales. When he doesn't have much to say, he devotes time to cleaning his pipe or his gun. I think deep down Dylan's ma is a lot like Lynne from Hereford, she's a sweetheart, devoted to her family and farm. She might have a tough exterior, but that's just from years of hard work and raising 4 boys (Dylan, the twins Colin and Ryan, Thomas, the black-haired, blue-eyed eldest who works for a publishing house in Dublin). So, all in all, Dylan's ma is going to like you a lot more than her daughters-in-law (Colin and Ryan having married local floss with blonde highlights) because she can see you will love the farm as much as she does.
MAX
My immediate feeling - it sounds like Joey has decided which of Ma's boys SHE likes! :P
MAX
I like the sound of Dylan's Da, just the kind of Da I get along with. He sounds a little like Ash's Dad, who finally inducted me into the family a few months ago by getting me GOOD with a practical joke.
Dylan's Ma I think will have to be won over with plenty of time in the kitchen chopping potatoes and talking about all the things that women with sons don't get to talk about. First boyfriend’s mother was like that, she loved to talk girl talk with all her sons' girlfriends, which is why all her sons' girlfriends got along with each other as well.
I hope to have poddy calves and orphaned lambs and the only female puppy in Da's new litter of sheepdogs (which is when I know I am really in the family - none of the flosses have one of the family dogs). I will be OBSESSIVE about the vege garden, and Ma will teach me how to grow all the wildflowers around the area and I will introduce the family to the renewable energy revolution.
Da and Ma will let me have a tiny little nook by the fireplace with a small chair and table for my 'scratchings' and all the spare walls will suddenly grow more bookcases to hold all the books that will suddenly appear with me. I will also start a sideline in beading corsages for the local flosses little sisters for their balls. I will have both the Catholic and the Protestant clergy for dinners once a month, which will make the neighbourhood look sideways at me, but everything else will be normal about me, so they won't mind so much.
