by Peg Prendeville

Glory alleluia! Our bridge is being repaired in Clounleharde. Soon we hope to be able to go to the village without having to do a cross country run. The school buses will not have to make any further detours and our postman and PP will be able to visit this area with ease again. It proves how a bit of pressure from certain people can do the trick.

The Lenten Stations Mass will be celebrated in Ballyhahill this Wednesday night April 13^th @ 8pm for all Ballyhahill town lands. It will be on Thursday 14^th April @ 8pm in Loughill for all Loughill town lands. A meeting of the Liturgy Committee to finalise Easter arrangements will be held in the Parish Centre on Wednesday night at 8.30 pm after the Mass. I think it must be the first time that a Polish priest celebrated Mass in Ballyhahill last Saturday night. He is a member of the Oblate order, same as Fr Michael O’Connor and he and another priest who had spent many years in the Missions concelebrated in the absence of our own Fr O’Leary.

I came across the following article recently and thought I would share it with you.

Aprons
The principal use of Grandma’s apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material.  But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. The apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold Grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ‘old-time apron’ that served so many purposes. Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her grand-daughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don’t think I ever caught anything from an apron – except love!