Family run

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions and yes, the 5 seater it is going to be and –for the first time ever – a new one. I have decided, that doesn’t mean, I’m growing up. Growing up is still optional!!

The magnificent weather was going to be the topic this week, the wonderful fact that I  fixed the washing line and market cloth, tea towels and aprons were drying in the sun.  However, as we speak they are being washed on the line by a fairly serious shower and sunhine is no longer on the agenda and not worth talking about. 

After the bread round last Saturday, I was very tired, delighted with the week and progress but tired and in the throws of  a head cold. That is to say, I finished the market in Carlow in blissful sunshine, sold out to lovely customers and came home to feeling sorry for myself and dumping on the long suffering family. “Family- run” is just one of many terms associated with small businesses, terms that have been discovered by the advertising industry and have – in many respects – become meaningless as everyone wants a bite of the “look at me – I’m small and beautiful”  cherry. I will rant on about artisan and home made some other time but today, I’d like to thank the family, not only mine but the family of every truely family run business who put up with so much, carry so much and tolerate even more. It is not always the work – even though that can seem never ending -  it is more the being dumped on by the hysterically overworked person whose idea the whole thing was and who as soon as you come into sight, wants to know why you are not doing anything. Kicking a ball around becomes an offence as easily as doing your homework, studying for the exams or – God forbid – sitting down to watch a match. A tiny television tucked into a corner, is not small enough and staying out in study until 9 in the evening is not long enough. 4 years into the grand bakehouse adventure, life is slowly settling down from the really hystericall to the the manageble. In a good week, all going to plan, life is good and the light at the end of the tunnel is startling and bright. But it takes little to tip the balance back into manic and relaxing around me is never a good idea. 

So thanks to the 14 year old, who routinely takes over in the evening when the clean up becomes too much and gives up his Saturday lie in for an early shift from 4 to 7. Thanks to the leaving cert student who is always there to fill in, always there as back up and always the calming influence when it should be him that’s getting nervous. Thanks to the student who comes back after a long week in the water and on her feet as a waitress to turn around and write invoices and do the bread round. Thanks to the other student who’ll deliver bread when he can and does the chopping and cleaning, who takes on the pay roll, the web site and the general  computer illiteracy that abounds in this business and thanks to the long suffering husband who never questioned the wisdom of starting a business in a recession, who calmy accepts that most things are his fault and who still asks “ what can I do? - when he so rarely get a polite answer. Thanks to them all when they understand that when I rant and give out, I am really quietly and politely asking for help. 

So – once a year – I say thanks and will try and make amends. 

Now, that that’s done, there are still the garden furniture that need to be painted, the grass cut, the dishes to be done and the advent wreath from before christmas is still sitting on a chair out back. Why is there clothes on the floor and wellie boots in the kitchen? are the dogs fed and the chickens mucked out? Surely there isn’t more sport on tv tonight and are you really going for another cycle......... seriously? 

Van or no van, new or old van, 3 or 5 seats???? I need advice!!!!

After the bread round is wasting a lot of time recently. Whether I am running on the road( once) , walking the dogs or washing the floor ( much more often) -  I’m thinking. When I’m baking or filling in the spread sheets, I am wondering : Do I need a new van, do I need five seats or three, can the business  tackle the repayments and why doesn’t my van go another year or three??

The old Van is much loved,  has done the mileage, owes me nothing and still motors on very well. Insurance is prohibitive however and our mechanic has – very nicely – said he doesn’ t really want to see the van again. “You should be buying not fixing” has been his verdict for sometime now. There are so many things that make sense financially and that are logical and sensible but sadly, I have never decided anything on that level.  I decide by gut instinct rather than by any rational thought processes. Normally,I  know what I want and then fashion the rational around that. Now, I want a van with five seats. For over 20 years now, I have driven a family car where space was premium, for over 14 of those years, seven seaters were the name of the game and I distinctly recall a birthday party where one orienteering party of 13 was collected in one car load. Now, those parties are gone and some of the children too. Grown up, one has his own car and only the youngest depends on me for transport but still, the instinct remains to have space. Silly, nostalgic instinct or sensible multiuse of space??  Has anyone any ideas that might help? Anyone been there and done that and changed from multi-tasking mother to multi-tasking mother with  a business to run?

For the second Monday running, I have avoided the paperwork day with a run to the garages to talk, look, compare and test drive. I want reclining seats ( bakers need to sleep somewhere)  when they are offering touch screen radio. I want a tailgate boot rather than a hinged door ( unloading in the rain or using the Van as a market stall in bad weather) We work our way around it and have found the Van that has it all, except I can’ t decide whether five seats as opposed to three ( or really two and a half) is the way to go. Flexibility or functionality and do I really need a new van?? I struggle to process the fact that buying  a new van apparently is not stupid even though I laughed all my adult life at people who did just that, Driving  old cars was a way of life that suited me. That has now changed, say the mechanic and the accountant but I am hanging on here and struggling with the brave new world of sensible decisions.



So, any thoughts, any advice please?  After the bread round tomorrow or the next day, I need to make a decision – and then I’ll start pfaffing about the colour. I like yellow………

Spring is here

Finally the sun is shining, the birds are having a field day –literally and the whole country is cutting the grass and enthusing about the weather. Needless to say, after the bread round is finally going for those walks and getting that excersise and has –-  in completely unfounded optimism – registered for the VHI women’s mini marathon.

Warmer nights mean many things to many people but to us it means that the sourdough is livelier and that I should have taken out the radiator that keeps that part of the bake house warmish. Last Thursday night I didn’t and the sourdoughs thought they might go for a walk. On Fridays, I start at a leisurely 2.30am, stoke up the stove for a bit of heat, put on the yeast doughs  and divide the sourdoughs into baskets. It is a nice and easy morning after the hectic market day on Thursday with a lovely “only one more day to the weekend” feeling. Philippe, second baker for that day, came in at 4.15am, goes into the pantry to hang up his coat and comes out with “there is sourdough everywhere”….. At this stage, even I see the tell tale signs of a sourdough puddle creeping in underneath the pantry door and the day takes a turn. Our five bucket sourdough starter tower is alive and bubbling and I regret to say, I didn’t think to take a video. Too old for that universal reflex action obviously!! The lids were lifting and puffing and  bubbling with sourdough starter running down the tower and slowly spreading on the floor. We closed the door and finished the bake – with one eye on the slowly increasing puddle, wondering if anyone ever made a horror movie with sourdough.

Two hours later with the bread on the road, I tackle the buckets and the puddle and discovered that spilled sourdough is plain nasty to take off the ground and off the wall and off the buckets. It sticks – but I win in the end, with one spotless pantry, a tower of sourdoughs brought back under control and the surplus gone to feed the compost. One cup of tea later, we turn into a proper episode of faulty towers. A bird has got stuck in the sourdough in the compost and needs rescuing and washing and drying – in  the kitchen – not the bakehouse, I hasten to add!!  The bird gets washed – with difficulty, sourdough still being nasty to take off and objects vigourously. I get pecked and clawed and am quite happy that this bird is small and his beak insignificant. As he dries off in a box on top of the stove, I light my own fire and finish the paperwork for the week. And you thought we only bake.

Happy to report the sourdoughs are behaving since then and have abandoned all efforts to escape and colonise the bakehouse – and the bird is well again – if probably still very cross. After the bread round spent Sunday afternoon at the Barrow towpath for a walk on this first of hopefully many spring days. Sunshine, proper heat in the sun and a glorious river walk – which by the way is perfectly fine and I really hope doesn’t get developed into this proposed tourist project of a walkway. Yesterday, there were many, many walkers enjoying the tow path near St Mullins, the amazing St Mullins Café was overfull, serving wonderful salads and sandwiches, brownies and tarts and any further development of this wonderful resource seems entirely unnecessary and probably damaging. I don’t wash buckets, walls and floors and birds if there is no escaping sourdoughs. Why would you fix and develop a tow path that is perfect as it is? Oh – and if you see a tower of buckets on your travels, give us a shout.

Lent and a few thoughts around it.

Lent  comes around every year. With the first sense of spring, with the first daffodils and snowbells, with the increasing light and the birds singing and looking for nesting sites. 

“What are you giving up for lent” is a conversation topic. Lent is a bit like January, the good intention tend to not last very long as we amend and change our plans and intentions. At the market, people eye up the tiny little apple pies “ they don’t really count do they?” since they are not chocolate and so small and anyway, they are made with spelt and therefore not really bad for you. And so the “all refined sugar” changes to “only serious junk food” and lent becomes that little bit easier as we progress. As children we used to give up sweets and collect them in glass jars in the kitchen - until Easter, when this sweet stash was augmented by Easter eggs and the most amazing sugar crash negated in one easy day all the good that lent might have done in the sugar balance of any one body. 

Fasting used to be an integral part of the practise of Catholicism. We ate fish instead of meat, no food at all before communion and on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday you only ate one meal and very little else while lent itself was a long season of penance. In Ireland, we do penance and guilt better than any one else and have invented small little extra traditions like the barefoot climb of Croagh Patrick or the three day “no food and no sleep” event, commonly known as Lough Dergh. We ridicule many of these traditions today and tend to not take it very seriously. We have recognized that the no meat fasting originated in the catholic bishop’s monopoly in the fish industry and their wish to boost their profits. We laugh off our love of penance and our deal brokering with God as generations of mothers “did Lough Dergh” for exam success or other happiness they tried to buy for their children. But as we laugh at our ancestor’s love of penance and guilt, are we throwing out  more than we should? 

A season to cut out things that are bad for us, a season to review our habits and opt for positive change, a season to review how we treat ourselves and others – can that be a bad thing to do? Lent, like January, is a new beginning and as such is a wonderful thing. As we live in total comfort, it is good to cut out some luxuries and – instead of collecting them in a glass jar – share them with others and become aware of the abundance in our lives. Every religion has some kind of time of fasting and reconsidering and it is a great idea. I give up alcohol for lent every year – since I outgrew the sweets jar – and use lent to try and instigate an exercise regime and a healthier, more mindful lifestyle. This year, I also follow a suggestion of the Samaritans and attempt to de-clutter my life ( and my wardrobe space), packing a bag every day with things I do not need and give them away. Yesterday, it was the bottom of the wardrobe and today it is that evil little space behind the door. As with all good plans, it probably won’t be every day but it will be some days and it will make a difference. So maybe give lent a chance and give Catholicism one too. As one very “unchurchy” friend said on facebook, “Better an atheist than a hypocritical catholic”. So right, but I’d still much rather be a non-hypocritical catholic than an atheist. We made a terrible shambles of the church and horrific things have happened in the name of the church but the man who gave us the sermon of the mount and the simple – but so very difficult - rule to love our neighbour, is still the line I want to follow in my life and the line worth fighting for.