A Rite of Passage

Beatrice endured a rite of passage today.  Unfortunately the passage fate had her follow happened to contain a patch of rather stingy nettles.  

It all began as such fun.  There was running in the garden at dalchoolin.  There was chasing, and being chased by, the new puppy (who incidentally has been named Percy).  

Then there was the nettle incident which curtailed any joy for the following twenty minutes.

Thus when Mummy arrived at the house she was greeted by the high pitched wail indicative that something had gone awry.  On investigation she discovered Bea perched on the kitchen counter with Melissa holding a damp cloth to her leg.  The leg was bright red and covered in the unmistakable white welts of the ferocious nettle stings.

One chocolate truffle, several cuddles and the promise of nail polish eventually dulled the wail to a sporadic outburst of “awoooch it is stingy” and we were able to relocate to the family room.

Oh nettles!  How could you do it?

Each member of the assembled St Johns then told Bea of their own battlescars.  Granda Brian had terrible nettle stings when he was a boy, as did Mummy, and Chloe and even Romily (Auntie Andrea’s Sylvannian family figure who endured very painful nettle stings to the tail in her youth)  But it was Melissa’s encounter with nettles which was the most horrific.  While Romily had stings on her tail, Granda had some on his legs and both Chloe and Mummy got them on their arms, Mels had fallen into a nettle patch and been stung on her arms, legs and face.  Beatrice became comforted in this collective memory of nettle pain.  She was still “stingy” but felt part of a rather exclusive club.  (Little did she realise that this club is not exclusive, rather it is extensive!)  

Perhaps this encounter will furnish Beatrice with a greater interest in herbology.  On our adventures on Daddy’s mountain she will peer with greater concentration at the tangle of pathside vegetation and be eager to learn which leaf shape the nettles assume.  Perhaps she will take greater care when cavorting bare legged in the Northern Irish wilds.  Perhaps....perhaps not.

The tale of the nettles was duly recounted to Daddy who shared his own experiences.  Some of which involved imparting nettle knowledge to a naive American...

A long time ago Jonathan and Paul took Michelle (said American) on a hosteling holiday in the Republic.  They amazed her with myths about giants, their skill at weather forecasting (red sky at night), their knowledge of mythology (fairy rings and raths) and of course their received wisdom about “traditional healing remedies and incantations”.  This wisdom was imparted when Michelle met some nettles.  Being gentlemen, Paul and Jonathan had a hunt in the undergrowth and procured some dockin leaves.  She was presented with this odd bouquet and instructed to rub it on the nettle stings reciting “Dockin in, Dockin out, Dockin rub the nasty nettle out”  As the “placebo” took effect, Michelle was amazed not only by her healing, but also that the gentlemen were so ambivalent about their knowledge of traditional healing remedies.  She consequently returned to the states carrying no scars, save perpetuating the quaint view of the Irish created by the Americans.

And so, Beatrice’s rite of passage is celebrated and turned into something of a homily... surely there are the fingerprints of a loving God (albeit with a quirky sense of humour) in the story of two weeds who choose to grow in such proximity, one of which brings suffering to humans while the other brings comfort.