All Roads Lead to Swatragh - Chapter 13

Lunch time arrived in no time and Grace was joined in the kitchen with Anna and Kelly. The girls pulled together cheeses, sourdough bread and some meats that Grace had picked up from her shopping trip in Coleraine. They stacked all the supplies on a tray and carried them out to the front porch where everyone sat down to eat. Grace poured iced tea for everyone as they chowed down and relaxed for a bit.

“Grace, I have to say this place, while a little run down, is pretty charming,” Kate began. “This is just the kind of place that Barry and I look for when we want to get away from it all.”

“I agree Kate,” Erin added. “I bet this place was constantly packed with city folk getting away from it all. Can't wait to see what it looks like when all the painting and front garden is finished.”

“Wait,” Grace plunged in to the conversation. “What are you getting at? I want the place to look great so I can put it on the market. I can't hold down and job and take care of this place at the same time.”

“Just making some observations, Grace. We understand your plan,” Keith replied. “By the way I want to take a look at some of that poetry you were talking about. Can we do that before we get back to work?”

“Hang on,” Grace answered, and headed into the house.

“Here you go Keith,” Grace came out the door and handed Keith a slip of crumpled paper which Keith read.

“My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.”
“I know these lines.....wait.... Hey this is Seamus Heaney. It's from a poem called Digging. Did he write this?”

“I don't know. All I know is that I found it in a drawer with other scraps of notes that my Grandmother had,” Grace replied.

“Do you think it's possible that your Grandmother hosted some famous people here at her B&B.” Barry queried. “Maybe we had better check out all this stuff before you sell the place. Did she have a guest book?”

“That's another 'I don't know', Barry. There's so much stuff in her little room that I've barely scratched the surface. Right now we still have a lot do to before dinner. Can we discuss this all later?” Grace was hoping to have made more progress and wasn't sure she wanted to delve into anything more at this point.

The group cleared up their lunch and headed back to work. Grace checked the guest rooms upstairs and even though her friends were staying there, they sparkled. They guys had cleared most of the clutter around the outside and were checking the pathway to the front door to make sure there was nothing to cause any tripping. The removal of the weeds and cutting back some of the overgrown bushes gave the cottage a very fresh look.

Under some of the overgrowth were some roses that had started to go wild. with some careful pruning the blooms would bring lots of color to the garden. Grace noticed some tags at the bottom of the trunks of the roses. One said Ballerina, another was tagged Apothecary. Grace took this to mean that these were tags to identify the specific roses. As the guys were clearing the shrubbery close to the cottage they found another bush. It was tagged Sweetheart and was climbing the cottage wall. Grace would have to do some research on the different types of roses. The Sweetheart had to be carefully removed from the wall of the cottage to prep for painting. Then it would receive a trellis to climb.

Grace could see how the garden was set up now that it was cleared. A beautiful English garden style full of color. She would need to replace some of the plants that had gone wild and some that had died from lack of water. But in the end, it would be full of life, just like her Grandmother.