February 2006

Hi everyone,

In February our stuff arrived. Follows is a note from that time.

Happy Sunday morning from Ireland!

Margie is out this early Sunday morning driving into the 24 hour Tesco store in Cork – not because we desperately need the milk she is picking up but because she is using the lack of traffic on a Sunday morning as a great time to practice driving on the alternate side of the road. I had an advantage in adjusting to driving on the right because I came here more frequently in the last two years and stayed for longer times, hence Margie’s desire to practise. (you’ll notice I am practising my Irish English spelling as well).

As I write I am listening to RTE1 – the public radio station in Ireland and what is absolutely sublime radio. For any of you with broadband, should you be interested, I recommend that you go to the RTE website and check out the saved versions of one show that is a Sunday morning standard in Ireland. Generations of children have been raised and multitudes of morning Rashers have been cooked to “Sunday morning miscellany.” This mixture of short story, essay and poems interspersed with music is both touching and extremely entertaining. We find it charming.

So what has been happening? The fun news

We went to a community meeting this week and I ended up volunteering to help. In Ireland there is a very prestigious award called “Tidy Towns.” It is given by a committee to smaller towns and is given in Silver and Gold awards. Twenty years ago Kinsale was a silver Tidy Town, and STILL displays the notice on a big sign as you enter town. This is false advertising from my point of view as, since we have purchased property here, we have seen the charm and cleanliness of the town decrease, to the point it has been a bit worrisome to folks who are investing in the area as we are. This decline has not hurt the tourism business a bit – but we can’t help but feel that “tidying up” would be a good idea. Therefore when we saw and advert for a Tidy towns committee meeting in the weekly publication, we decided to walk into town that night and see what was up.

As most of you know, I have been part of community groups for years and the reason I love them is that I am charmed by the energy that is always apparent when groups of people come together around a common cause, no matter how down-to-earth that cause may be. Certainly an hour discussing the difficulties of “rubbish” fits a description of a down-to-earth discussion. Kinsale is a small town, rubbish pick up has to be paid for and many who live here are foreign nationals (Polish young people primarily) who work in the restaurants and hotels. They don’t want to pay for their rubbish pick up. Therefore the “bins” are full almost as soon as they are emptied. When this is mixed with the fact the Ireland became the most progressive country in Europe by banning cigarette smoking in pubs and restaurants, therefore driving smokers out the door where they smoke on the step (leaving their butts on the curb) Kinsale is faced with these challenges. Anyway, here were the Americans, unexpectedly showing up for this meeting, being welcomed (although looked at with curiosity) as it was discussed how the committee would market their plans and how they would spend their finances to help the situations described. One of the ideas that caught my interest was the idea of “before and after” pictures – with celebrations of places which improve as the town gets ready for its season. Long story cut short, I found myself volunteering to take some pictures. On sunny days for the next month Margie and I will take pictures and will keep you up on what we find. The best thing we get out of our involvement is a small bit of insight into the folks, most of whom who have lived here their whole lives, who are instrumental in the way the town is run. As Margie chides me – we have lived here a whole of two weeks and already I am volunteering for things (smile).

Some of the first relationships I made three and a half years ago were with stores and businesses. Many of you may remember the story of when I had only two hours to buy all the appliances we would need for the Castlepark house because I had to give their measurements to Celtic Interiors who were designing and supplying the cabinets and countertops. As I left the store the young man who had shown me the various design elements of each appliance looked quite worn out. Circumstance has us returning to those same vendors now as we remodel our apartment in town. We are turning its use into a “holiday home” or letting by the week. I don’t know whether to be pleased or embarrassed to learn that these vendors all remember me. I think it may be because of what we call the “Beverley Hillbillies Syndrome” meaning those constant small cultural errors that we make in all innocence everyday. Certainly these errors become even more common during home remodelling, where the difference in the ways in which Americans use English become even more apparent. Whatever the reason, this Thursday and Friday were a bit like old home week as we once again sink our feet into the challenges of remodelling.

The Cat in the Hat story with customs

It all started because the foreigners didn’t know their telephone number. Most of our neighbours have numbers in the 477 exchange, so it was natural to put our number in that exchange as well, when really we can be found at 470-6990. While we figured it out and made the proper changes the fact that we had made cards with the wrong number still haunts us in unexpected ways – the fact that the shipping company had that number is one of them.

Our container arrived in Dublin harbour as expected on Saturday 21 January. I called our shipping company and also the local moving company on Monday the 23^rd – to give everyone our correct number. I was told by the local moving company that they didn’t expect the shipment until 13 February, a fact they confirmed with the shipping company. Because of this correspondence both Margie and I and our shipping company relaxed, expecting the shipment to take a couple more weeks. MEANWHILE customs is trying to reach us on the wrong number.

I wasn’t even expecting customs to call us. We had paid to have the moving company take the things through customs, so I was very surprised to later learn that customs had called us for four days and had finally resorted to calling the moving company – who had not only the wrong number but an email address from my previous work. The first week had gone by.

This last Monday I receive an email from the moving company and their very frustrated representative annoyed. They tell us that we have to move fast because now our shipment is being charged storage fees by customs. A reasonable person might think that this would be the end of the miscommunication but alas that is not the case.

The next problem was that it took three hours spent to fax the moving company with my relocation forms. First we would drive into town to a fax, then because the fax number didn’t work we would drive back to the house, only to drive into town to try again. This continued three times before the local Dublin exchange was properly sifted from the international dialling code and the fax went through. THEN customs wouldn’t look at the faxed copy so the originals had to be sent – but no one told us that they needed to be special delivery, in fact the woman in the Post assures me they would arrive the next day. WRONG – the next afternoon the representative from the moving company both calls me VERY” annoyed that the originals aren’t there but also emails me. She is by this time documenting every possible error, in case I intend to keep up my belief that I am not completely culpable for these errors and therefore the storage fees which are being incurred.

As I write the latest renegotiation with Macquire International has to do with their balking when I reminded them that there are a few very heavy items in this container which require special handling – handling for which I prepaid. They tell me that they never heard of such a thing. This resulted in my writing an email to both the shipper and the moving company – written in what I hope is a tone of reconciliation even though I really feel like throwing a temper tantrum. If all goes well this will sort out without too much more annoyance on everyone’s part and our things will be delivered either this week or next.

To keep this saga in perspective, the container has arrived and someone knows where it is. Our next door neighbours had friends come back to Ireland after 10 years in the States, shipping three containers (and I thought we had a lot of stuff) but only one arrived. Touch wood, that hasn’t happened here.

Goodbye for now

If you’ve made it this far, then it is time to say goodbye for now. I am off to take the rubbish to the skip (dumpster) and then the dogs and I will go up the hill. Stefan has taken to running madly in all directions (as one of our neighbours said, “He’s a mad fool isn’t he?”) and then coming back and gently touching our hand before he dashes off in another direction. It is as though he and Shadow are constantly thanking us for bringing them here. Samson (the cat) is asserting his dominance and superiority by stamping (as only a seven pound cat can stamp) through the house, dashing sometimes up the spiral stairs to the loft or down the main stairs to the glass doors. All in all we are a happy crew.

We also have found very inexpensive ways of making long distance phone calls – for instance we get 900 landline to landline minutes for twenty Euro. At that price we would love to talk with all of you – just let us know what morning works for you. We are between seven and eight hours ahead of you – so mornings work best. Webcams make it all the better because we can then see each other as well.

Lots of love to all,

Alana