Trying to figure out ...

... why I feel sad

Although I now live permanently in Northern Ireland, I still own part of a house in Essex where I lived for many years.

I’ve just been back there to dogsit (long story) and felt strangely sad when I was leaving. I say “strangely” because in the many visits that I’ve made to England since moving here, I’ve never felt like that before. I’ve been trying to figure out why, so here goes.

First of all, the house was empty as its usual occupant was on holiday - which is why I was dogsitting. Was there no-one closer to hand who could have done it? Well, yes and no. Yes there were people nearby who know both the dog and its owner extremely well; and no, because none of them were prepared to move into the house for a week probably because it’s not very clean and because the dog (or is it the owner?) can be quite demanding.

Let me explain. For breakfast, the dog gets a handful of biscuits, followed by some goat’s milk, followed by a raw egg broken into his bowl. He is then given three (yes, always three) slices of cucumber with a lump of low fat feta cheese on top. It’s quite a peculiar combination but that’s what he’s used to, so that’s what I had to give him.

Photo by Maxime on Unsplash

His evening meal is just as complicated and also involves a number of courses, starting with biscuits and meat with a trickle of salmon oil and some keeper’s mix to keep his fur healthy, followed by a pig’s ear, a rabbit’s ear complete with fur (which really is stomach-turning) and a cow’s ear.

I suppose I have to admit that feeding the dog was not difficult as such, but as I kept forgetting what I was supposed to give him at different times, I had to refer quite often to the two pages of A4 instructions I’d been given. It’s just a wild guess but those instructions might be a bit of a disencentive for the neighbours.

Anyway, there was no one else to do it, so I made the trek from here. And it really was a trek as I went by boat and car as opposed to plane, the reason being that I had Christmas presents and a few other things that I needed to bring back with me. I took the boat during the day from Belfast to Liverpool getting in at 6.30pm after which I drove for five hours straight to Essex. It’s not much fun, I can tell you.

However, having got there I really enjoyed my stay. I met up with lots of old friends, most of whom are members of my former running club. Even though it’s now 17 months since I left Essex, I’m still able to turn up for the Sunday morning run and know most of the people there. I’d never joined a running club before the one in Essex and had just assumed that I’d fit into Ballymoney the way I’d done there. However, it just hasn’t worked out like that. I’m not sure if it’s them or me. More likely a mixture of the two.

I was also able to meet up with my son, albeit only for a few hours as he had been on holiday with the occupant of the house where I was dog-sitting. Although I talk to him regularly on the phone, it’s no substitute for seeing him in person. When I was in Essex it was so easy to just get in the car and be with him in a couple of hours. I do miss being able to do that.

And in the longer term, I’ve started to worry about the viability of continuing to go backwards and forwards between England and Ireland in the way that I can now. I hope that I’ve got another 10 years or so of good health, but what happens when it starts to deteriorate? I didn’t think of that before embarking on this venture.

So I guess the combination of those issues was at the crux of my temporary feelings of sadness and upset when I had to leave. Somehow that disconnection from friends and family resonated this time in a way that it hadn’t done before.

That’s not to say I haven’t got friends and/or family here. One of my friends is a particularly close and special person but he’s not in the running club which means that, on the whole, I don’t have people I can just contact to find out if they fancy going out for a run or entering a race. I really do feel like Billy No Mates when I turn up to a race on my own. Anyway, enough of the running club.

I also have quite a few family members here, one of whom lives here in Ballymoney. As it happens, she’s just gone off to Spain for a couple of weeks so I’m looking after her dog for her now. Maybe I should take this up professionally. Just a thought.

Back to the matter in hand. Needless to say, it didn’t take long to settle into my life in Ballymoney again. Probably just a matter of hours. However, I’ve already got plenty to complain about as the flags had been put up while I was away in advance of the marching season of bands and orange lodges which starts formally in mid-July.

For those not in the know, every year there are major celebrations in loyalist/unionist areas to remember the Battle of the Boyne which took place between King William of Orange (protestant) and King James (catholic) on 12th July 1690. Yes, that really is 335 years ago. Never let it be said that they don’t have long memories here. And every year leading up to the 12th and for a while after, we have endless bands mainly made up of drums and flutes but with some accordion accompaniment that parade through the streets of loyalist towns.

As Ballymoney fits into that category, we have literally dozens of them. In fact there was one last Saturday night. The bands marched around the streets of the town for about an hour or so and people came in their droves to watch them.

If loyalists weren’t trying to remember a victory of their religion over catholicism which has repercussions to this day, these parades would be good community events. Sadly, the undertones are anything but communal. Maybe some day we’ll sort it out, get rid of the flags and have bands that represent everyone’s heritage.

There’s always hope. And I guess that’s why I’m here - most of the time happily - rather than over there in Essex.