Kelly O'Sullivan leaves London with a broken heart and all her worldly possessions for her aunt's farm in rural Ireland. She's got a maternity leave contract, she's going to lick her wounds, save some money, stay single and leave for sunnier climes after six months. She might have a fun fling if someone suitable comes along but that will be it!
Hmmm, but Hugh, the suave and sophisticated accountant, catches her eye. And neighbouring farmer, Steve, who proves to be more her knight in shining armour than a farmer on his big red tractor. Becky the goat does her best to thwart her plans too.
Ray D'Arcy described it as having a "Sunday evening television feel about it" like Monarch of the Glen but with a "bit of Bridget Jones on the farm" going on too.
Here's Kelly's first diary entry in Country Life at Heart:
New Year’s Day
Goodbye to some of my favourite things: cosy cafes, cappuccinos, cities and civilisation. Hello cows, countryside, cats … hmmm, what else begins with the letter c on farms? Crazy creatures? There’s not likely to be any cute cowboys. Stop it, Kelly. Okay, I’m overthinking this. Deep breaths. I’m ten miles outside Dublin and the windscreen wipers are battling against fast-falling snowflakes. I glance over at “my” snoozing cat. “We’ll have to think of a name for you. Something regal so you stand out from the farm cats. Lady Purrington perhaps.” She (I think) doesn’t grace that with a response, not even a twitch of her long, elegant tail.
The motorway is quiet. I guess most people are sleeping off their New Year’s Eve hangovers. I’m tootling along in my little Audi A1, sold to me by Mum with a family discount when I’d announced I was leaving London for rural Ireland. Impulsive? Desperate? Daft? Yes. Yes. Perhaps.
The fields are a pristine white, and the trees are dark, skeletal guardians against the grey sky. This road is clear but what will the narrow back roads near the farm be like? Oh well, I’ll worry about that when I get there. I can’t do anything about it now. Another 40km to go according to Google Maps, my new best friend. I have my torch and my boots. Resourceful is my middle name, isn’t it? I’m Capable Kelly now, not Calamity Kelly or Kellamity as my sisters call me at times. I can keep thirty teenagers under control and inspire them to enjoy Shakespeare. I can change a tyre. I’m a responsible cat owner and I’ll be feeding farm animals later. With what I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out. Capable Kelly. Right? Eeek!
I wasn’t expecting to be hurled in at the deep end. I can hear my mother: “I told you not to go. You should have stayed with us. You’ve always got back with Paul before.” I knew if I didn’t take drastic and swift action, we’d have a rerun of the last time we split up. And the time before that. If I wasn’t in London, he couldn’t come crying to my (impoverished) door on a whim. If I wasn’t in England, I couldn’t pack my bag and go back to him. Well, not so easily anyway.
“Come to Ireland,” Cathy had said, once she could get a word in between my ranting and my crying. Her boyfriend had moved to Dublin after the Brexit referendum and Cathy had followed three months later. “You’ll get teaching work. Sub for a while and see how it goes. You’ll love it.”
I was easily persuaded. My childhood memories of Ireland were of summer hayfields, travelling around on a rickety trailer, riding the donkey, eating ice-cream wafer sandwiches, wading barefoot through stony streams, bringing in cows to be milked and picking blackberries. Every summer for four years, my brother Fintan and I were put on a plane in Heathrow and collected in Dublin by Aunt Rita and Uncle Jim, Mum’s older siblings.
Rita and Jim have retired and rent out most of the farm, keeping a few acres as a hobby. “We do things more slowly now. We take our time and enjoy it,” Rita claimed, though it seems to keep them as busy as ever. She met Paul once and didn’t say much, which for Rita is unusual. When I rang to say I was considering moving to Ireland, she’d wasted no time on sympathy. “I’ll ask Margaret Kelleher,” she said. “Her daughter teaches at the local secondary school; she’ll know if there are any vacancies.”
As luck would have it – I’m still unsure if fate was being mischievous or helpful – a maternity leave vacancy came up at a school in Kilkenny starting in January. I flew over, did the interview, secured the job, handed in my notice, spent Christmas with my family in London, and the last three days in Dublin with my best friend from teacher training college. And now I’m driving to Aunt Rita and Uncle Jim’s farm four days earlier than planned. A slight change of scene from cosmopolitan London to the back of beyond.
My only worldly possessions are my car, my laptop, my Kindle, my clothes and now a cat. My company for breakfast this morning (Cathy and Simon still fast asleep), rather than a gorgeous male human, was a cat. Albeit a cute black cat with white tipped ears. I spotted her two days ago, skulking around a lamp post, looking hungry. Two hours later she was still there. After giving her some food, she’d purred and twisted herself around my legs (and my little finger, Cathy said). The next morning, it was snowing and the cat was still lurking. I brought her inside to keep warm and she seemed to decide this was home. I tried to find her owners, truly I did. Cathy’s tiny apartment couldn’t handle a cat invasion so guess who’s the owner of this lucky black cat? New year, new start and new feline roommate.
As I embark on this new life, I’ve set some resolutions:
- Don’t date anyone (after all, a cat is all the company I need)
- Don’t sweat the small stuff (I’m expecting rural Ireland to be relaxed and easy-going)
- Have fun (with new friends; strictly no romantic liaisons)
- Get fit (running along quiet country roads)
- Read lots of books (in the peace and tranquillity – oh, bliss).
Easy peasy. The snow eases and I adjust the wipers. It’s 3.30pm. It will soon be completely dark. I hope I’ll reach the farm soon. I hadn’t planned to travel today but had no choice after getting a phone call from Aunt Rita.
She’d sounded breathless and I knew immediately something was wrong. She’s normally calm and organised and zen. “Jim’s in hospital. They think he had a stroke; they have to keep him in.”
Almost before she could draw breath, she rushed on. “I’m in hospital with him. I came in the ambulance. I’m going to stay with Sadie. She’ll drive me home now to get the jeep, collect clothes and let Floss out. Kelly, do you think you could come down today? If not, I’ll ask one of the neighbours to look after the animals.”
“Of course I can. What has the hospital said about Jim?”
“Oh, that’s great, a load off my mind. I’ll leave a key under the mat at the back door. And there’s neighbours’ phone numbers in a notebook if you need help. I’ll write instructions for the animals.”
Thinking Rita sounded more worried about the animals than her brother, I asked again about Jim.
“The doctor said she’ll know more in a few hours but it looks like a stroke. I’d better go, Sadie’s parked outside.” And with that, she rang off. I finished my coffee, packed my bag and said my goodbyes, putting my cat into a box lined with an old jumper of Simon’s that Cathy was going to send to a charity shop.
* * *
I’m only 2km away from the farm according to Google Maps. I glance at the speedometer: 20kph. The windscreen wipers are working hard, creating fanlights out to a swirling wintry world. The temperature has dropped to minus three. I recall Mum saying I should get the tyres checked. It hadn’t seemed necessary in a snow-free London. The car slides to the left. I hear a loud squeal. It’s not the cat, she’s still asleep. It’s me. I grip the steering wheel and turn it to the right. I do my best not to touch the brake, remembering that advice from my driving lessons. The car straightens for a few metres, then slides to the left again. It stops suddenly and I jerk forward. All I can see is the dark looming shape of a towering hedge in front of me. There are no street lights, no headlights of oncoming cars. Another twenty minutes and it’ll be pitch dark. What do I do? Try to reverse out? Cry? I grit my teeth as I put the car in reverse and press the accelerator. The wheels spin. The car doesn’t move.
I can’t stay here, the practical side of my brain tells me. But it’s a long walk to the farm and what if there are snowdrifts or I get lost. I won’t be much good to Rita frozen solid in a deep hole. I look at the cat and her green eyes gaze back at me: You’re in charge.
I will the rational side of my brain to spring into action. Come on Capable Kelly, you can do it. Keep it together. It’s not Mount Everest or the Wild West. It’s less than 2km to the farm; surely forty minutes’ walk at most. Keep calm. Okay, I’ll abandon the car and walk. Surely someone will help me rescue my car tomorrow. Ireland of a thousand welcomes and all that.
I blink away tears and twist my hair into a bun under my woolly hat. Waterproof coat. Torch. Cat. Phone. Thankfully I’m wearing flat boots – reasonably waterproof, I hope. Everything else can wait. The cat seems happy enough to be tucked inside my coat, her green eyes peek up at me. At least one of us will be cosy and warm.
I’ve one hand deep in my coat pocket, the other holding the torch. It’s probably another kilometre along this main road till I reach the secondary road leading to the farm. I remember Rita saying their house is exactly one kilometre (or was it one mile?) from the main road. The tarmac is slippery with frozen snow so I trudge along the grassy ditch. At least, I presume there’s grass under the snow. My feet aren’t making any noise. It’s all so silent. Anyone could be hiding behind that tall hedge. “Don’t be ridiculous Kelly,” I tell myself. As if anyone would be out on a freezing cold evening waiting to ambush a lone female on the slim chance one should happen along this lane. “You never know,” my brain argues back, “and it’s not as if you ever took those self-defence classes.”
I hear a vehicle coming. It stops and the ignition is switched off. A male voice calls out, “Hi, are you okay? Can I give you a lift?”
A tall man in a dark coat steps out of a shiny black jeep.
“Hello. My car is stuck in the snow. I’m going to Rita Kelly’s farm. I’m her niece.”
I stop myself before telling him my entire life history. Why am I doing this? You’re in Ireland now, it’s what they do.
He walks towards me. “I’m Hugh O’Connor, a neighbour. I heard Jim’s in hospital. I’ll drive you to the farm if you like?”
I accept gratefully. “I’m Kelly, Kelly O’Sullivan.” I wait for the response I used to get from locals here: “Oh, you got your mother’s maiden name, do you find that confusing/irritating/funny?” but it doesn’t come.
I settle myself on the passenger seat. As I put on the safety belt, it occurs to me this man could be targeting defenceless stranded females. I’ve never heard Rita mention him. He doesn’t look like a farmer, despite driving a jeep. It’s spotless. Where’s the farm smell, his wellies, his cap, the empty medicine bottles, the old receipts, the discarded sticks? All the stuff I remember from Uncle Jim’s vehicles. But there isn’t much I can do about it now. Lifting the cat from inside my jacket, I put her on my knee.
“She’s my cat.” I feel the need to explain.
“So I see.” He laughs. “Well, that’s bringing coals to Castlecomer. Rita must have a dozen cats around the place. She milks two cows for themselves and the cats.”
“This will be a house cat,” I say, but I’m thinking Rita didn’t say anything about milking cows. I’ve never milked a cow in my life. Surely she doesn’t expect me to milk a cow.
“How did you hear Jim’s in hospital? He only went in this morning.”
“Oh, news travels fast around here. People were talking about him at the Wellie Race.”
“Wellie race?”
“Yeah. It’s in Castlecomer. New Year’s Day every year, the perfect thing for a hangover.” He gives a mock grimace. “A 5km race in wellies. You can choose to run, walk or hobble around. It’s good fun, lots dress up – men in dresses and people wearing chicken costumes, that sort of thing – but some take it very seriously.”
He grins at me.
My mind boggles and I venture a “Did you run?” and glance at his black jeans. His thighs look muscular but not rugby bulky. His legs would probably look good in a mini skirt.
“No, I pulled a tendon before Christmas. I went as the accountancy firm I work for is a sponsor.”
I glance at him again. Mid-thirties. Black hair swept across. No receding hairline. Goatee beard, high cheekbones, his cologne smells nice. Strong hands on the steering wheel. Clean nails.
I realise I’m staring – Feck sake, Kelly. What am I, thirteen? – and go back to stroking the cat and looking ahead at the snow-covered lane.
We arrive in the farmyard and he parks by the back door. No one uses the front door, except the priest.
I lift the mat by the door to reveal a shiny key.
“No burglar would ever think of looking there,” Hugh says wryly. “Will I come in with you for a minute to check all’s okay?”
I baulk for a second – What if he’s a burglar? – and then nod. He follows me in through the dark hallway, the small utility and into the kitchen where I see an envelope on the table propped up against a huge teapot covered in a knitted pink and green tea cosy.
As I pick up the envelope, I hear a tractor roar into the yard followed by heavy footsteps crunching through the icy snow as they approach the back door.
“Hello.” It’s a male voice. “Helloo?”
A man well wrapped up in a bright red woollen hat and navy puffy coat appears in the utility. “Ah, Kelly, Rita said you’d be here. I saw the English reg car in the ditch and thought it must be you. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”
“I can give you a hand with the livestock?”
“Ah, yes, that would be great, thank you, errr ...”
“Are you telling me you’ve forgotten me? We used to have water fights in the yard and swing from ropes in the hayshed.”
“Steve Fairbrother!” I grin. “I can hardly see your face under your woolly hat.”
Steve is two years older than me and as a seven-year-old I’d idolised him that first summer. And every summer until Mum remarried and my summers in Ireland ended.
He pulls off his hat and I see his curly brown hair and dark brown eyes. Even as a seven-year-old, I’d been mesmerised by how dark his eyes were, yet they had flecks of green and gold. I’m not close enough to see if the flecks are still there.
“That’s me.” And then with a look of concern “Are you okay?”
“Yes, my car slid and got stuck in the snow. Hugh stopped and gave me a lift.”
Hugh appears from the shadows of the kitchen. Has he been hiding?
“Hello Steve.”
Steve’s voice takes on a more formal tone. “Hello Hugh.”
“Well, Kelly, I’ll be off,” says Hugh. “Would you like help with your car in the morning?”
Steve answers quickly. “I can pull it out with the tractor.”
Hugh smiles. “I’ll leave it in your capable hands then Steve. Bye Kelly, see you soon.”
I follow him to the back door. “Many thanks for rescuing me, I really appreciate it.”
He waves as he gets into the jeep, reverses and drives off, the headlights illuminating the snowflakes still falling. I return to the kitchen where Steve is standing by the table in his stocking feet, red woolly socks almost up to his knees over his jeans.
“Well, long time. How long is it?” he asks.
“I’m twenty-seven now, so seventeen years I guess.”
“You still have plenty of freckles, not as many perhaps.”
“I’ll have you know I fit in very well around here with these freckles and red hair, you were the odd one out. I remember people asking if you were Spanish.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “True. It’s good to see you can still put me in my place.”
“Well, I hope you’ll still help a girl out.”
“Of course.”
“That would be great. Rita left me a list but I haven’t done any farming since I was ten.”
Steve grins. “What? No cows in London?”
He picks up the envelope, covered with Rita’s neat cursive handwriting.
“Okay, it’s just a case of feeding the two cows, the two goats, the three yos.”
“The three what?”
“The yos. You know.” He looks at me and clearly decides the snow got to my brain. “Female sheep. Yos, E.W.E.”
“Ah, yes, ewes, I forgot about them.”
He returns to the note and reads aloud. “Shut in hens. Feed cats and Floss. Floss in hayshed.”
“Floss, isn’t that her dog?”
“Yeah, she’s getting old now. She usually sleeps in here. She probably left her in the hayshed in case you were delayed.”
“I’d better text Rita and let her know I’ve arrived.”
The text won’t send. “Try from the middle of the yard when we go out,” advises Steve.
“Oh, okay.”
“Do you want to get changed into old clothes?”
“Um,” I look down at my black jeans. “All my clothes are in the car, not that I have farm clothes as such.”
He grins. “Demote your oldest. I’ll do the jobs tonight but you might as well watch, in case Rita doesn’t get home for a few days.”
He does that Irish thing of commenting on the very obvious weather conditions as we cross the yard. “It’s baltic out.”
“Sorry?”
“Baltic. Perishing.”
Ah, okay, freezing cold. The text to Rita sends with a little whoosh as I cross the yard.
I watch as Steve plunges a pitchfork (at least I remember the name of something farmy) into a bale of hay, removes a sizeable bundle and tosses it into the racks. I wonder if I’d have recognised him if I’d passed him in the street. He hasn’t changed that much – still has wild brown curly hair with a bronzed complexion, a wide grin with a dimple in his right cheek, but back then, he was stick thin. Not that he’s fat but he’s certainly muscular. Perhaps he plays rugby. Floss, the border collie, stands by me. She barked initially when she saw me, probably suspecting I’m about to burgle the place, but once Steve rubbed her down and brought her over to me, she stopped. She sniffed around me as I stood still as a stone, wondering if she would bite if I moved. “You’re grand,” he says. “She sees you as a friend, not a foe.” I stretch a hand out gingerly to stroke the top of her head.
“The goat won’t need milking till the morning. I’ll show you how to do it tomorrow.”
“I’ve to milk a goat?”
“Aye, just the one.”
Milk a goat! The only positive thing is a goat is smaller than a cow. What happened to feeding a few animals?
Steve shows me where the henhouse is, pokes his head in, checks all six hens are on their perch and bolts the door.
“I brought you over some dinner, you’ll have to warm it in the microwave.”
“Oh, that’s very good of you.” I realise I’m starving. Glancing at my phone, I see it’s 6pm.
“No worries. Mam plated up lots of roast goose leftovers.”
He stops at my expression of undisguised horror. “You’re not vegetarian, are you?”
“No, no, but a plateful of roast goose?”
“I meant goose with all the trimmings, you know, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy.”
“Oh, okay, that sounds lovely, really nice.” Get with it, Kelly.
We walk across the yard to his jeep and he retrieves a plate covered with tinfoil from the passenger seat. I take it.
“Erm, thank you so much for this, and all the help.”
“No bother. Don’t forget to put some coal on the kitchen stove before you go to bed. It’s a divil to start again if it goes out.”
When I get to the kitchen I remove the tinfoil and put the plate in the microwave. I see Rita has installed a dishwasher too. Yay for modern conveniences merging with the old. Her huge white sink is still here, and there’s a mishmash of a few fitted units and a 1940s dresser.
The dinner is huge. Enough for a week. I eat about half, feed the cat a few bits of meat and put the rest into Floss’s bowl.
I’m too tired to do anything else. Where do I sleep? I push the door open to the room Fintan and I used to sleep in and see one of the single beds is made up. Aunt Rita was prepared for my arrival. I bring the hot water bottle to the kitchen to fill it.
So here I am, in a little single bed in an Irish farmhouse with a hot water bottle, a city cat and a farm dog, instead of sunny Florida with Paul.
I thump my rather lumpy pillow. Stay positive. Capable Kelly. Just a menagerie of animals to feed and care for. Piece of cake, right?
If you're in Ireland, you can purchase the Country Life at Heart right here. All other locations, it's on Amazon as an ebook and a paperback.