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When we were younger we were encouraged to travel, get out and see the world. Good advice you would think, travel broadens the mind and opens up new opportunities for young people. However, I don’t think that any of us contemplated that when my older sister departed for Australia in 2005 and the younger one in 2009, that they would never again live in the country of their birth. And so it happened this morning, our visiting Australians departed from my shell of a house (they were a contributing factor to this by the way), four children and their mother, and headed to their home in the heat and red dirt. We will all be bereft for them for a few weeks, and the silence of going from nine to four people will make the house seem very empty.
Although I feel this greatly, I am sure that it is even more painful for my mother, something I only realised when I had my own kids. For this reason I am very glad that the two of us will set off tomorrow for the Woman and Agriculture Conference in Killarney.
As I write this, it is the eve of our annual pre-conference banquet and a mixture of excitement and panic is starting to build. But fear not, the Irish Country Living team was well into planning mode for this event ever before I started the job in August and all the i’s have been dotted and the t’s crossed.
The demand we had for tickets to the event this year was unforeseen and it was unfortunate that we had so many people whose names could only be added to a waiting list. This is something that we will assess and try to remedy for next year’s event.
This demand is driven not only by the lineup of speakers, but also by the attendees’ desire to meet each other, discuss common interests and after a year of challenging weather, this outlet is not only warranted but required.
In our Health Bytes column this week (page 20), Margaret Hawkins outlines a number of new mental health initiatives. A Teagasc mental health leaflet calls out the “value of good working and personal relationships as well as maintaining strong contact with family, friends and fellow farmers”. The Woman and Agriculture Conference has a place in providing this too.
I love Halloween, always have, it’s my birthday and I was always guaranteed that I would have the day off school so the real world was quite the shock in this regard.
Needless to say, Halloween has never been the healthiest of holidays for me personally and I was delighted to read Nessa’s healthier Halloween treats for small people. As always we have some puzzles to keep them entertained over the break on page 18. In our Top 5 events this week, there is also plenty to keep the adults entertained, with Halloween fright events around the country, the Jazz in Cork, or read Ciara Leahy’s preview of Savour Kilkenny.
Sport returns this week on page 30 with our new columnist Denis Hurley. Denis is a Cork-based journalist, covering a wide variety of sports for national newspapers as well as RTE.ie, GAA.ie and The 42. His work has also appeared in English football magazine When Saturday Comes and Golf World.
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