The Turf Bank

As I bent down once again creating the stook at the edge of the bank I cursed my absent husband. It was the one place, and the one job that I missed him most, turf. Three hours so far today I had been stooping and placing sods of turf in the intricate design known as a stook, many hours this year I had spent turning and footing the damned stuff. It was his smell that surrounded me, his voice in my ear. Not sweet nothings, it is an extensive rulebook, little stories ran through my mind like the day he came back from the bog berating poor Jerry Pa, "Girl, a fierce day at the bog, the wind would cut ye in two. Saw young Jerry Pa, what a scoundrel, his daddy would roll over in his grave to see him trat the sods like that. His turf'll be so wet and heavy he'll never raise smoke from his fireplace this winter. Took it straight off the ground and threw it into an abstract kind of a stook. Tis no way to treat turf. Treat it right and it'll warm the coldest of hearts come winter."
I remember when I first asked in all innocence what a foot was. He laughed heartily "Maybe the villagers are right about ye, a flighty young one from the city, knowing nothing about turf. Lil you'll be at the bog one day, and I'll tell ye, all in good time.
I was from Cork city, a civilised place with gas to heat us in the winter and a coal fire on special occasions. I married Dan when I was twenty two, fresh out of college and full of life, Dan was a fully paid up member of the bachelor club until I arrived this year according to the old men gossiping after Mass, he was forty four.
We had first met when I was sixteen and running away from home because my brother, the sneaky little pup had stolen my diary and read it to the gang of kids we hung out with. Full of teenager-angst he told them all I had a crush on Timmy, the unofficial leader of our pack. My diary no more said those words than if the Pope had a baby, himself. So I was on the train to Mallow, with a bag of clothes, a tenner and a packet of biscuits. Dan, was just the man sitting opposite, nose in a book, he didn't blip on my radar, owld one. The train had been getting up speed over the viaduct when it made a sudden stop. Dan fell forward over the table and we banged heads.
There apologies and smiles, I noticed he had wrinkly lines around deep blue eyes. The guard didn't come down to tell us why we'd stopped and we started to chat pondering on the situation ideas from cow on the track to alien attack, we had great fun laughing at the more preposterous stories. He had a flask of tea and offered me some so I got out my food store and we had a mini picnic. He was great fun for such an old man.

Boat Picnic

The boat trip on the gentle river ended with a picnic on the shore. Surprisingly, Sean had packed wine, grapes, brie, mini quiches and the most decadent strawberry cream pie. After imbibing copious amounts of wine we realised we were incapable of rowing back across the river, in fact we were incapable of anything except giggling loudly and making really strange word associations.
We slept fitfully, wrapped in each others arms and woke much later sober, with headaches but we couldn't find the oars. We felt like boat joy riders deserting the boat as we swam back across the river.
Ideas like idyllic picnics or lazy boat trips sound so romantic and beautiful but it's a bit like eating a sandwich on a beach, sand always gets into the sandwich. Perfection on earth does not exist. We can aim towards perfection but there will always be a missing oar or soaking wet clothes.

Day One Routine

It was a routine operation, so they said and then followed it by lots of legalise but the bottom line is, the peaks in my life are gone. The things I considered routine all disappeared with the cut of the surgeon's knife. Waking up with the musky aroma of my husband next to me, taking up too much space, snoring quietly. I would then nudge him gently and he would wake too. We would talk about our day ahead, argue about who was going to dip their toes into the cold air first, who's turn it was for breakfast. I usually won and I would sink back into the pillows listening to him pad down the hallway to the kitchen. The tinny sounds of spoons on cups would be replaced by clatters as bowls and plates were brought forth, all our crockery had chips in from Séan's hamfistedness. I loved him for it. Each time I went to find a pair of tweezers that were buckled out of shape, forks and knives used as screwdrivers, screwdrivers used as hammers. For the twenty five years we have been married I have mended or replaced all the tools over and over again. I bought some pink secateurs so he wouldn't use them but eventually I found them with gouges out of the blades - they had been used for cutting wire. And the wire cutters, well they had been used to hold the aerial in place at the back of the television and are probably still there. Séan would sometimes come down and drag me out of bed, if I had a vital meeting but usually he would bring breakfast down to the bedroom and we would perch on the bed eating our porridge and chat some more, shall we paint the hallway, bottom the front room, when was the nurseryman coming with the trees, did the dog take his worming tablet. The usual, the routine, the monotonous. But I wouldn't have had it any other way, after those minutes together first thing, on our own the world invaded kids jumping all over us, jobs to go to, luches to prepare, meetings to pitch, soccer training, friends to visit, neighbours to check on, families to ring. That reminds me I must ring Séan's mother she will be devastated, her first born, her eldest son, gone at only forty seven, what's routine about that. THe doctor has returned and is giving me more information but still reiterating that it was a routine operation. I have a sarcastic retort that for now is being held in but I swear if he says routine one more time. Séan would've stopped me, I would give him my acid retorts, the ones I would say if I had more gumption or less sensitivity. He held me in check. He held me. Oh Séan why did they have to mess up your routine operation. Why are you dead? I need you to help me organise your funeral, I need you to tell your mother. I need your arms around me when I tell the children. I need you. Nothing will ever be mundane again, no comforting cooking together you chopping while I stir. Everyone said we were two halves of the same coin, well I feel half a person, we slotted together so well. I loved our boring, routine wishy washy life and now I am going to have to do it by myself. When we said till death do us part I thought it would be when we both had plastic hips and knees and hearing aids, I thought it would be forty years from now. Did you know how much I loved our humdrum existence, we could chat for hours about nothing, we laughed together, we cried together, you laughed when I cried at movies and I laughed when you cried at reality shows on t.v. The doctor arrives again to explain the procedure for your body and again he starts with the it was a routine operation and I am sorry Séan, I know he is only human but I reply "routine? so all your patients die?" and I walked out to the car and bawled.