DIARMUID GAVIN-WHERE ARE YOU?

Photo: Julia Zimmerman from DG Design tackles the probing questions from the audience in Carndonagh

“Thank you for your patience.” A soft voice came over the tannoy system in the hall of Carndonagh Community College.

I am happy to wait as Diarmuid Gavin is due to entertain the 100 or so people that have turned up tonight to see the plans for the new Barrack Hill Park project. I picked my seat carefully tonight as I want to get a good view, so it’s four rows up from the front for me. Not too close though, just in case Diarmuid picks on a member of the audience. I am wary of this from when I was a young lad at a Christmas pantomime starring Mike and Bernie Winters. If you can’t remember who they are, think of Morecambe and Wise without the humour. I was singled out in front of the vast audience and asked to go on stage to have cotton wool snowballs filled with boiled sweets thrown at me. Bernie Winters gleefully said to the laughing crowd “Oooh, she’s so excited isn’t she!” Why the floor didn’t swallow me up I’ll never know, but that was the price us boys paid in the 70’s if we wore our hair long.

There was a tap, tap on the microphone from the stage at the Áras, then the soft voice continued. “Apologies for the late start. We will be with you in a minute when the technical problem is sorted”

I remember the first time I was here to see Diarmuid. I was taking a few photos and Aideen Doherty, (the Community and Enterprise Development Officer) came up to me and said, “Hi Ian, I am sure you would like to interview Diarmuid. He has a minute before he goes on…. Diarmuid meet Ian, he is here to interview you”. I didn’t have the time or courage to say that I wasn’t there for an interview so after shaking Diarmuid’s hand I proceeded to come out with the biggest load of rubbish that you have ever heard. “Where are you staying? How long have you been interested in gardening? And the rest, until thankfully he could escape onto the stage and I could slink away kicking myself for not being prepared. For that reason I am keeping a low profile tonight.

“Hi and welcome, I am Julia Zimmerman from Diarmuid Gavin Design, I will be talking to you tonight about the exciting new development that we have put together for Carndonagh”. She begins “ I am afraid that Diarmuid cannot be with us tonight as he is ill, so I will go through the plans”

What……Diarmuid can’t be with us, he didn’t turn up the last time either…..No. I had even phoned up the caretaker of the school this afternoon to make sure he was going to be here.

There is a deep sigh from the audience and I am getting the feeling that most of us are disappointed by his absence. I feel let down and although it shouldn’t make a difference I feel that Diarmuid is the face of the project and he and he alone is the one that should sell the idea to us. I know it shouldn’t make any difference who does the presentation, after all Diarmuid won’t be on hand to do the maintenance after it’s finished. I want to be entertained and although Julia is a professional landscape architect and knows the site plan off by heart, she isn’t a famous person off the telly. I can’t listen anymore as she points to a dark photocopy of the site to show us where the cycle track, maze and ball areas are located.

“Is everyone happy?” Julia is asking. It’s the end of the presentation and I haven’t heard a word of what is being said, I am a celebrity casualty, who has missed his idol. Julia is scanning the room with a look of anticipation. There is a silence, which is lasting an eternity. It doesn’t look like anyone is happy.

“Why are the water features not included?” Someone is breaking the silence with a question. “It’s the maintenance costs mainly.” Says Julia.

“When will it be ready?” Asks someone else “How will we stop drinkers?” “Where’s the labyrinth?” The crowd are greedy for answers and it looks like Julia is doing her best to placate them.

“Who’s looking after the maintenance?” A voice is asking on the back row. Julia has stopped in her tracks. “I’ll pass you over to Aideen,” she says. “She will be able to answer that question.” The microphone is quickly passed over, with obvious relief.

“It’s the Council’s responsibility overall but residents will play a big part, especially over in the allotment area.” Aideen is well prepared but I am still not listening. I am amazed at the power a TV celebrity has on me. I am questioning why I am interested in the Barrack Hill project. Without the celebrity endorsement it is feeling like just any another design by a Landscape Design company. Let’s hope it is more than that.

I am questioning whether I should hang around or make a discreet exit (I should have sat at the back). Councillor Bernard McGuinness makes it easy for me.

“Thank you,” he says. “That’s it, it’s all over. ” I am not hesitating. I’m away……

Let’s hope Diarmuid makes a full recovery and is with us next time……….

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

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“God you look old.”

I am happily walking my dog around Swan Park on a beautiful autumn evening when a voice breaks my daydreaming. I turn towards a smiling, unshaved man holding a carrier bag full of apples.

“Thanks” I say. “It must be the light.”

“Well, not old as much as bald, what’s happened to your hair?”

It’s Joe, who I last saw three years ago in a pub.

What’s in the bag? I say, intent on changing the subject.

“Oh, I’ve just been getting some apples from a tree in the town. All you have to do is lean over a wall and it’s rich pickings.”

“I call that Scrumping?” I say. “Apples always taste nicer when they are someone else’s.”

Joe is looking confused, then corrects me “Ah, you mean Progging.” Then continues. “Well the person that owns them leaves them for the wasps and slugs, so I collect them every year and I haven’t been chased away yet. Did you ever do it, you know, Proggin’?” he asks me.

“Well funny you should ask,” I say. “I used to do quite a bit. The worst one was at a friend’s house, they had a large, beautiful apple tree with the sweetest apples on them. Another friend and I did a midnight raid, but with a twist. Instead of pinching the apples we took one single bite out of each one, carefully leaving them on the tree. I felt so guilty afterwards I had to confess to the person what I had done.”

“Was he still your friend afterwards?” Joe asked as he sat down on a bench near the new poop-a-scooper bins the Council have put on the park to try and get dog owners to be responsible.

“Well, he was, and if my memory serves me well he got his own back by stealing a load of tomatoes out of my dad’s greenhouse. The last laugh was on him though because he ate the fruit without washing it first and it was in the days when hideous chemicals were sprayed over everything in the name of pest control, he was ill for a week…..”

Joe interrupts. “I’m making a pie out of these,” he tells me, biting into one of his booty. I know they’re not cookers but when you put some blackberries in with it you can’t tell. “Here’s a tip I’ll tell you,” he continues, whether I like it or not. “Don’t pick blackberries from near the road or low enough for dogs to wee on.”

“I’ll remember that Joe.” I say counting how many exchanges of words it has taken Joe to reduce the conversation down to bodily functions. “There are a lot of berries around at the moment, autumn is really on us.” I say loosely as I am ready to carry on my walk. The dog’s bark has gone up an octave as she impatiently tries to urge me around the park and onto the beach.

“What sort of berries?” Asks Joe as he fastens up his padded jacket, brushes his hair out of his face and begins to walk just behind me.

It’s times like this that I wish that Julian, my old lecturer at college was with me. I used to think it would be a great idea to have a miniature version of him to fit in the top pocket of my jacket. He was a mine full of information and could be on call to answer any question. I don’t tend to store much in my head, that’s what the Internet was designed for, but as neither was to hand I had to rely on my own, rather flaky memory.

Julian gave me the best piece of advice when I left college though, he said, “Just remember four or five Latin plant names and drop them out in conversation. People will think you are a genius.……” That pearl of wisdom has stood me in good stead for years.

“Well,” I began, “There are Cotoneasters, especially dammeri with their red-berries, the birds love them. The Mahonia aquifolium is very attractive, providing us with blue-black berries which look great with their shiny evergreen leaves.” Wow, that’s two Latin names, just one more and Joe will think I am a real pro.

“Then there’s Pyracantha “Orange Charmer,” these have vicious spikes that would deter even the hardiest apple progger. Viburnum opulus is a native shrub that provides shiny red berries resembling coloured glass.” I’m on a roll here, one more and I am in the Super League. Have you heard of Sambucus niger?” I ask, “These are known as wild elderberry…” I turn around to get an answer.

Joe is moving away from me at a fast pace. “Look Ian, it was good talking to you,” he says, looking rather agitated. “I have just seen the bloke who owns the apple tree on the other side of the river”….

And as if by magic, Joe disappeared into the undergrowth and within a few seconds all I could hear was the sound of his carrier bag rustling in the distance.

“There’s holly…. I know the Latin name for that too….” I mumble to myself as I carry on my evening walk. The dog’s happy.

TALKING PICTURES

I am sat out on the patio on a gloriously sunny autumn day looking for inspiration for a script.   I am re-inventing myself yet again and moving into the production of Talking Pictures to liven up the gardening.ie website. It all sounds very glamorous but what I actually mean is that I have made a few silly clips to put on You Tube.

YouTube is an endless source of snappy home made films that are ideal for people with short attention spans, like myself.  When I first started writing articles I used to turn to some trusty reference books, but now I surf the net. If I don’t find what I want in a couple of seconds I am onto another site. TV surfing is another indication of my short attention span.  I can’t watch a telly with satellite channels, as I am too busy flicking, I tend to just make up my own story from all of the short clips I see when I change from one channel to another. I once watched all 50 channels in little boxes on one screen for hours until I got a very nasty headache and had to stop.

 

I got a bit carried a way with my first attempt for YouTube. The film is called “Recycling in the Garden” and I wrote the script whilst waiting in an airport lounge, which was a bad idea, as I had to wait two hours for the plane…..  You can do a lot of writing in two hours….

Pacing myself isn’t my strong point and by the time I had recorded the piece and read the script it was up to ten minutes long and full of…. well rubbish really, which is quite fitting I suppose as it was about reusing rubbish.  I really don’t like watching it back though as I have this slight grin on my face (stage nerves I think) that makes me look as though I am verging on self-parody. 

 

SUPER 8

Although I came from the generation that only occasionally recorded their voice on a cassette player, I did do a couple of films using the Super 8 cameras back in the 1970’s. These required developing and manual splicing of the film.  When I was ten, my friends at the time Matthew Beardsley and Barbara Hibbert and I made a film called “5 Years” (named after the David Bowie song of the same name that was popular at the time), which was about the end of the world.  Not the happiest of titles, I admit, but it was great fun to do.  In the film, Barbara and I were happily living in a caravan (an old green one used as a tool shed on an allotment if I remember) in idyllic bliss when tragedy happened.  With the use of loads of red filters on the lenses, we ran around in various locations around the town and country, in true Edward G. Robinson manner, dying slowly as radiation engulfed the planet after the A bomb exploded.  There were lots of scenes of us leaning on lampposts holding our throats and gagging as the toxic fumes finished us off.   

We made it for a programme on the telly called Screen Test and, not surprisingly it didn’t win, get short listed, or even get a showing.  It was good fun to do though if a little morbid and in hindsight it probably wasn’t the happy family viewing stuff they were looking for.

The other epic we did was of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  That really did last for hours.  I played the part of Merlin the Magician, which thankfully spared me from having to wear body hugging coloured tights over our underpants and parade around holding wooden swords and cardboard shields.  I did wear my mother’s oriental dressing gown and a pointy hat made from the top part of a traffic cone though, so in hindsight, maybe the tights would have been a better option.  We never did finish that film as it ended up being too long, a bit like my first attempt on YouTube.   

 

I am still no clearer what to do the latest short film clip on.  My lad has offered again to do the camera work so I might try and jazz this one up a bit with some fast, jerky camera work like you see on Jamie Oliver’s cookery programme or a fast paced American drama series.

 

ANY IDEAS?

You could give me a hand here and send in some ideas.  Are there any aspects of gardening you would like to be shown how to do on film? Send in your ideas and it might inspire me to put something together, as my short attention span has meant that I am now heading off and starting another project…. making the tea. 

 

KICK BACK

I am sitting, sweating on a large rock at the bottom of the garden, covered in grazes from brambles, being attacked by wasps and dopey flies. I have on two pairs of gloves, leather traps (shin guards usually worn by jockeys), safety goggles and a pair of earmuffs that cut out all sound barring my racing pulse. It didn’t say anything about this in the instruction manual for my latest toy.

I had been considering buying a chainsaw for months, especially as I usually cut branches with a bow saw. It’s far too labour intensive and I thought a bit of external power was needed. After extensive research, (checking the catalogue shops on the internet), I decided to get a top of the range, 4 litre turbo Black and Decker with auto this and safety that, which was packed in a very pretty box that masked the seriousness of the piece of equipment that lay inside.

It came, like these things do, in quite a few pieces, with instructions on the assembly in fourteen languages. It wasn’t that difficult though as there were pictures to follow. You tighten a bolt here and put lubricating oil in there and I had it set up in no time without any bits left over that I could see. Then I thought it would be a clever idea to read the instructions (or RTFM as my lad says if I ask him a technical question). Well I can honestly say it scared the begeezus out of me. Lots of images of something called kick back warned me that if the blade was angled incorrectly it would fly up and…. well, thankfully the pictures were not in colour. It was this that prompted me to put the pristine piece of machinery back in the garage and leave it for a few weeks until I plucked up enough courage to pull on the rip cord and start the angry beast up.


DIZZY HEIGHTS
I have to be careful about how I phrase this next bit. I daren’t describe how I have been “playing with the new chainsaw” because I don’t want another stream of health and safety warriors to descend on me from across the globe. In this article last week (which also goes out on the internet), I happened to mention that I ate a sweet crinodendron seed at a family party last week. I was inundated with remarks about how irresponsible I was and should be lynched for my disregard for common sense. Still it’s not surprising when you read that there is a new law out where you need a qualification to climb a ladder. One Council in England have had to abandon their speed cameras because there are not enough qualified people to leave the ground anymore to put them on top of poles along the road. It’s not all bad news then….

TRAINING
Anyway, I digress. I have just had a happy hour practising cutting the wood and I am getting into the swing of it. The spikes on the front of the machine appear to keep the kickback at bay and my confidence level is increasing. Cutting logs for the fire is still heavy work and although the chain is cutting through them like butter, I still have to lift the chainsaw up and steer it in the direction of the wood. I will also have to carry the small logs back to a dry place to store for the winter but that can wait for a time when I am not being pestered by wasps and horse flies (I think the horse traps are attracting them).

It is important to have training with any mechanical equipment though, as (without wanting to sound like a Health and Safety Officer) they are all dangerous. Strimmers, mowers, chainsaws and even non motorised tools like shears, spades and rakes are all potential hazards, but surely I don’t have to tell you that (unless you are four then ask your parents to show you how to use them properly)

So I have overcome my fear and if I can find enough wood to cut, we should be warm and cosy this winter without having to spend too much money on coal and oil. I have managed to pile up enough wood to last a week in the last hour and a half, so it’s a pretty good use of my time.

As a wise old salt once told me “Wood is a great source of heating as it warms you twice. Once when you cut it and once when you burn it”. (Three times if you count carrying the logs up the hill….)