Postcards from the Edge
Mary Kenny moves from a Dublin flat to a bedsit and finds joy in less stuff and more freedom
‘We’re thinking of downsizing,’ is a sentence I often hear from our cohort of oldies.
Well, I was obliged to downsize two years ago from my Dublin residence – a dear old Georgian flat with dodgy floors – because of the ‘Brexit bounce’ affecting Ireland. That’s to say, old buildings are being redeveloped, probably for accommodation for City of London bankers or Google and Amazon employees whose EU base is in Ireland. I moved out at the end of my lease before the developers got going.
But I was fortunate enough to rent a one-room bedsit near the national university in Donnybrook, and this is what I discovered on moving: I could live perfectly contentedly in a one-room bedsit for the rest of my mortal days.
It’s simple, it’s easy to keep reasonably clean, and in a small space even an untidy clutterbug like me can learn to keep stuff under control.
A bed, a desk, a small dining-table, some bookshelves, a bit of wall storage and a little bathroom and kitchenette adjoining: what more do I need?
I lamented having to get rid of so many years’ accumulation of things. But once they were gone, I forgot about them.
St Francis of Assisi was right – fewer possessions means more freedom. And less housework.
I’m cheating a bit here, because I still own a home in Deal, Kent, and that’s still full of things and could do with a radical clear-out. But the Dublin bedsit has taught me that you can live in one room and find it entirely cosy and adequate for all daily needs.
I have re-bought Katharine Whitehorn’s classic Cooking in a Bedsitter, though mostly I only entertain pals to tea, or to tapas meals. And they come in and exclaim, ‘Why, it’s just like being a student again!’
So one-room living can be rejuvenating, too. The Irish are probably the most EUloving nation in the European Union: in Ireland, Brussels has a 93 per cent approval rating. People can’t understand why so many Brits voted to leave the EU.
Sometimes I try to explain that the coastal areas of Kent are very Brexity. ‘So strange,’ people comment. ‘And they’re so near to France, too!’
Well, yes. Unauthorised migrants arriving on Kent’s beaches are often blamed on lack of proper control by the French authorities. Plus the Kentish fishermen think the French nab too much of the Dover sole.
I like seeing the white cliffs of Calais from the beach, and reflecting that until the end of the last ice age you could walk right across to them.
My late husband, Richard West, a Balkan specialist, believed that Serbia would always retain a link with Russia, through religion and language. And so it has proved. Putin is always received rapturously when visiting Serbia.
Croatia, with its Catholic ties to the Austro-hungarian Empire, more easily looks to the European Union. But the EU free movement of peoples means it’s been losing its young people by the shedload. Almost 18,000 migrants left Croatia in 2015; in 2016, it was nearly 36,500; and the unofficial figure now is much higher. Most emigrants are between 18 and 44, and most go to other parts of the EU – mainly Germany – where wages are higher.
Some smaller EU countries are in catastrophic population decline because of free movement. Latvia and Bulgaria are increasingly bereft of their productive young; sad for the oldies left behind.
Yet the emigrating young may return to their home place: a charming Irish bestseller The Cow Book has described the daily life of its author, John Connell, who came back to the family farm in County Longford after working as a film-maker in Australia and Canada. This sweet book was published this spring in the UK (by Granta) and in America (as The Farmer’s Son), to great acclaim.
It’s a beguiling introduction to aspects of everyday agricultural life, such as how to help a cow give birth (alarming), and how to respect the natural cycles of life on the land.
The popular Limousin cow is now much favoured – ‘a great cow, except for their temper’. These animals can ‘break through ditches like racehorses, scale walls and fight bulls’.
Some pure-bred Charolais have no milk after calving – so a surrogate cow mother has to be found. Old cows valiantly lumber forth to help out.
Our first great animal relationship, the author writes, was ‘with the cow and not the horse’. The calories and Vitamin D in cows’ milk gave humans a stronger constitution, and milk-drinkers developed and conquered.
‘Manhood’ is an important element in the life of the land, he observes – perhaps unfashionably, nowadays. ‘Farming gives us our sense of it, our understanding of ourselves.’ Being near to nature makes a person, literally, more natural.