A Week in the Country

Faerly (@thisisfaerly) is a small Irish company, based in a back garden in Kildare, that specialises in eco-friendly, plastic-free packaged, Irish, natural and handmade products. That would be all the good stuff not only for your skin but your home and for when you are on the go.

And that’s not all, James and Eoin of Faerly are celebrating Pride by raising funds for BeLonG To, a charity that supports LGBTQ+ young people in Ireland. They have teamed up with Kotanical to produce a limited edition Pride essential oil blend and for every bottle sold they are donating €5 to @belongtoyouthservices to help fund their frontline services for young people!

My Father’s Barn

You open the door.

You get used to the dark

and you see

a selection of buckets, two rakes and a spade

three pitchforks, the hedge-knife, the scythe

that ladder he made, the turf-spade, the loy

the shovels all propped in their place

the twister he fashioned for the making of ropes

from a spooled bucket-handle he bent

the clippers, the hatchet, the hammer, the shears

the crosscut, the scythe-stone, the oil

the folded manure-bags, the file and the blades

the saw and the binder-twine rolls.

You smell the potatoes, the bog and mown grass

old coats on the back of the door.

You step out.

The homemade bolt is difficult.

You get used to the light.

– From the book To Walk in my Native Place by Bernadette McCarrick.

Removing a blood stain

Little mishaps occur on a regular basis, such as a cut while shaving, an ear bleeding when an earring gets caught or a child cutting a knee. All can result in an unwanted bloodstain. The golden rule for bloodstains is cold water. If you put it into hot water; it will bake the blood and the stain will be permanent.

Do not fret if you cannot deal with the stain immediately, but do get to it as soon as possible. Put the stained area into cold water and leave to soak overnight. This will dissolve the blood slowly. Wash it gently in cold water again. You will now be left with a faded stain. If it is a delicate fabric or good garment; make up a solution of hot water with detergent added. Rub gently and the stain will come out perfectly.

Rinse well in cold water and drip dry. If it is an ordinary garment you can put it into the ordinary wash once you’ve done the cold water rinse following the directions on the care label.

My dad invited his friend Barry over (via text) on his day off. Turned out he invited the wrong Barry. Currently the wrong Barry is here, whilst everybody else is doing their best to pretend he isn’t the wrong Barry and I’m silently shrieking

— Elsa Williams (@elsalwilliams) June 17, 2021

18

The number of question options available to earn your Guide Farmers badge.

From Ailish Considine in our Living Life section on the LGBTQ+ community:

The more you expose people to the LGBTI+ community, the more accepting they’ll become, because knowledge is power. Some people don’t really know and are afraid of it, because they don’t really know what it is