Even on Days when it Rains Read Online Free Page B

she was a cook in the Industrial School in Killybegs, County Donegal. She gained great experience there, and it served us well as a family. We looked forward to the meals she created, and we’d devour them in seconds when we came home ravenous from school.
    In the wintertime we’d have a fish called baiyan on weekdays. When my father came home from a fishing outing with his catch, he’d salt the baiyan, and then they’d be washed and hung on lines to dry out. They’d be kept for winter use when fishing became more difficult, if not impossible, due to the atrocious weather.
    I remember how one time there was a storm that lasted for 19 days. It blew the roof off some of the houses, as well as the post office, and none of the boatmen were able to leave the island to bring in supplies because the sea was raging. As you always expected some kind of a storm at that time of the year, you’d have stocked up with extra supplies. We had plenty of potatoes and fish, milk and butter, and we had an 8-stone bag of Milford flour so we could bake our own bread. I remember, though, that the men ran out of cigarettes and got very cranky without their smokes.
    Some people were so poor that they weren’t able to buy enough food to put in store for the long winter months. Anyone who had a bit of money to spare would buy extra supplies and give some to those people. There were a lot of islanders who depended on the generosity and kindness of their neighbours. I recall one woman coming to our door looking for flour amid that terrible storm. My mother had just one bowl left by this time but even though she had no idea how much longer the storm was going to torment us, she gave away half the flour to the neighbour. The following day the storm suddenly died down and allowed the men to make a trip to the mainland for fresh supplies. It appeared as if her good deed had been repaid by the Lord above.
    When I was a young girl I was always very good at scavenging an extra bit of food. There was an old couple and their bachelor son who lived nearby to our cottage. I knew the time they had set for their dinner, so occasionally I’d drop in for a visit coming up to it. I’d sit in the corner, watching the fish sizzling over the fire. The people in the house seemed to enjoy having my company, but I was only there for the grub. I’m not certain if they ever noticed that the time of day I called happened to coincide with their main meal.
    â€˜Would you eat a bit of fish?’ the old lady would always ask.
    â€˜Is there a bit to spare?’ I’d have the cheek to ask in return.
    â€˜Ah, sure, your name is on one of them,’ the woman of the house would laugh. Maybe they knew my game after all.
    We always had a nice big fire in our home, and sometimes we’d sit around it at night eating crab toes that my mother would roast for us over the coals. Mother always made a pot of cocoa at night, and she’d leave it sitting in the hot ashes. Then, just before going to bed, we drank that delicious cocoa. Before we went to bed in the winter, my mother would heat the lid of a pot in the hot coals. Then she’d wrap a blanket around it and use it to warm up our beds. There were very few luxuries during those harsh times, but a cup of cocoa and a hot bed on a cold winter’s night was heaven on earth to us. She was a thoughtful mother, and even though the times were hard she tried to give us little comforts. It’s those acts of kindness that made us realize just how loved we were in that island home.
    As I got older, my day during the summer would start at 3.45 a.m., when I got up to cook breakfast for my father and some of the other fishermen before they set off to haul in the lobster pots from the sea. It was a simple breakfast of just two boiled eggs for each man. There were no big fry-ups in those days.
    â€˜Thanks, Julia, you’re a great wee girl,’ my father would say as he left the