Annamaes in Kilkenny
posted on February 15th, 2010
Kilkenny is about an hours drive from Kilcullen. When we arrived I couldn’t believe we were already there- on our little holiday with the house. The hostel was cosy and Rosie made sure that everyone felt comfortable. It was the ‘four girls’, Julie, Siobhan, Maive and Barbara, in the large room and a double for ‘the lads’, Anthony and André, and Brendan in his single domain.
We didn’t do much. We had breakfast at the latest; we made sure each day we had some time at home just having a nap. And although Julie announced that she won’t sleep at night if she did that, she always slept well after coming home from the pub. We went to see the castle and Holy Mary Church, we saw the Castlecomer discovery centre and the lovely town of Kilkenny with its shops and street musicians. We did some shopping, a lovely CD –yes, another one- for Anthony and some for the house, loads of cake and sweets for Julie, some computer stuff for Brendan, and again the unsuccessful quest to find Siobhan a poster with birds.
We all did our share. Brendan reminded us to take it slowly, Julie reminded us to have plenty of tea breaks, Anthony reminded us to smile and celebrate extra hard when ever we pocketed a ball playing pool- no matter whose ball it was, mind you…- and Siobhan reminded us to look after ourselves. André always knew where everything was, Maive knew what it was called in Spanish and Barbara found the love heart polar bears… Yes, we had fun.
For me personally I found that living in the same room with the people ‘I look after’ for the holiday time and going new ways with them opens horizons. Siobhan never had seafood chowder before, Julie reluctantly managed to walk a forest trail, Anthony won in pool against the cool lads from town and Brendan showed me the paths of his past. We are blessed to be in touch in such a way that we actually touch people’s lives and let them touch us. To put it in Julie’s words: can’t we stay just for one more day?
