NEWS
EVENTS
Emerald Paradise Day Four
Other | Wednesday 22nd August 2012 | Osh
I wake next to Jenna to the sound of girls giggling and as I get up I feel like I’ve slipped into some sort of adolescent sleepover fantasy, and no guys, not of the negligee and pillow fighting variety. A post mortem of last night’s events ensues followed by a full cooked breakfast, how lucky can a girl be! We are dropped home around lunch time by the other Jenna who is a little worse for wear this morning after all her glorious shifting with “Mr Too High Pants” but surprisingly still manages to look great, if only we all had this talent.
By midafternoon the previous nights excitement is starting to catch up with Jenna and I so we delve into some serious good floor laying and multiple episode of Come Dine With Me, which I have to say is ridiculous but oddly addictive. However the inner skinny bitch in me is calling for some physical exercise what with my midnight feast on chippies again. So Jenna and I head out for a rather nostalgic for her, but interesting walk up to the local high street of Delvin.
As we walk along we visit, Smiling Bess. A grand archway that once was much grander with a pair of large pots on either side the miraculously went missing one day and have never been seen again. They decorated the entrance of a wealthy British landowner once upon a time and perhaps that’s is why they have disappeared into the ether??
Next up is a tour of the rather small high street which manages to host several pubs, hair dressers and one building that sports an undertaker, restaurant and a number of other shops all in its four walls, talk about multi-tasking! However the grand highlight is Castle Delvin which seems to suddenly pop up out of the side of the high street. Apparently Delvin castle was once the strong hold of the De Lacy family and dates back to 1154 as Delvin’s oldest building. Now for the history buffs out there the De Lacy’s were an old Norman noble family who travelled to England alongside William the Conqueror and later played a major role in the Norman Conquest of England and Ireland. However history lesson aside, this place vibrates with an eerie quiet and a feeling of having watched the world grow around it. Standing in its ruins you can still see staircases archways and in the cemetery headstones cracked and poking out of the ground like rotten teeth. It’s absolutely beautiful. I make Jenna stand for the compulsory pictures and then we decided it’s time to head on home again via her old work place.
This place almost feels like it should come out of a Hitchcock film but the hospital Jenna used to work in was for the sole purpose of catering for patients, in a time when very little was known about certain health problems and disabilities, and conventional approaches were not embraced. She tells me of the nursing staff that were archaic in method and bullying in manner. As well as the heart breaking story of an old woman who lived in the hospital all her life, suffering from epilepsy her parents had abandoned her at birth to the confines of the institution. Sadly after a lifetime in the one place she died never having experienced anything of the outside world.
Moving quickly on from the front gates of this depressing place we continue our walk home with happier thoughts in mind. After all the sunshine and walking we are ravenous and decided in true vegetarian style to pig out on salad, yes that’s right salad and boy, it was orgasmic. Mumma bear and Papa Murphy are home now and I get my first experience of the bogs. We hop in the car, cover ourselves from the small annoying flying things that bite and head over to the family peat allotment. This place is incredible, its damp, black and squidgy and I get laughed at a number of times for getting stuck –thank goodness for my wellingtons- but it is absolutely glorious to look at. A mixture of black and bright green carpets the earth interspersed by animal tracks and vibrant orange flowers. While to one side and neat as a pin are the cut outs of peat that must be turned regularly to dry in readiness for winter and the burning fires it will fuel.
Too soon thought, the flying things are driving us back into the car and we head home. Several more episodes of Come Dine With Me and too many cups of Barry’s tea, and we are ready for bed! I fall asleep excited for the next day’s adventure, because tomorrow Jenna will be filming a new song with Balcony TV in Dublin, yippee!
Check in tomorrow for Balcony TV, Camera men that are like full grown cherubs and strange pub music.
By Saabeah Aforo-Addo
