Deeply touched

Just a reminder that I’m offline again until 19 November, but I’m at least going to try to check email and so on daily from a wifi hotspot.  Why am I in this pickle again, when we’d just been reconnected after our move?  Well, here’s why:

We’d moved from the house where we’d lived since arriving in Ireland to another place which we hoped to buy.  The estate was beautiful, the house was fantastic and well built and the view of the Cooley mountains was to die for.  However, in the three months we lived there, Jonathan got beaten up three times, Nicholas had money and sweets taken off him, all three the kids had fireworks thrown at them, our babysitter’s parents witnessed a firework being thrown under a passing car (with a whole family in it) and exploding under it – the underside of the car was a mass of flames, according to our friends.  If there had been even the tiniest leak in the petrol tank…

We had ‘bangers’ set off near enough to our house to inspire us to call the Guards (Gardai [pronounced gaar-dee] is the Irish word for the police, also referred to as the Guards), one time it was set off right on our doorstep.  Don’t know what a banger is?  It’s a firework which does nothing but make noise.  No pretty colourful explosion in the sky, no frizzy flower of sparks.  No other possible explanation for its purpose than noise.  When one of these goes off on your doorstep, it sounds as if a bomb exploded in front of your house.  Come to think of it, that’s exactly what it is.

As a result of all this unpleasantness, Lara became a nervous wreck.  She’s a highly strung child at the best of times, and though we’re handling it, it was hard to comfort her when there was real cause for concern.

Our rent agreement was a rent-to-buy thing, which meant the rent was very high, but the idea was to save a deposit over a period of eighteen months.  We would have gotten every cent back.  Because we withdrew from the contract after only three months, we lost the deposit.  Taking in consideration with that the money we would have saved in lower rent if we’d just rented somewhere, we lost about €1 900 on this deal.  However, the huge relief to feel we are safe, to not stress myself to death when the children are out of sight, to have Lara sleep soundly and not be nauseaous with tension all the time, is worth every cent.

So we moved again this past weekend, and though it was bloody awful, it was so worth it.  We now live in a very small estate, in a nice four-bedroom house, in a good neighbourhood.  I am hugely relieved.

But internet-less again for a while, unfortunately.

Now to the reason for the title of this entry.  A post inspired by the recent Ford Hood shootings which gives a lot of food for thought on war in general.  I’ll let Stonekettle Station speak for itself.