STATUS UPDATE: FEELING LOVED

Facebook has enhanced its status update product, which allows users to share what they are doing or how they are feeling in a structured and visual way. This is the most basic kind of sharing because it only requires the use of words or emoticons to express ourselves, our thoughts and opinions.

We have feeling excited, bored, happy, amused, sick and many more. I have not counted them but there must be hundreds of them and my personal favourite is feeling loved.

To me, it is the small things that make us feel loved and I found lots of small things at a recent festival that we went to.

I love animals in general and could not resist being up close and personal with the four-legged kind. It is not everyday that one could sneak up to a Friesian cow and look at her lovely eyelashes or give a horse some sugar lumps. Rural Ireland has its charms and against spectacular scenery, there are woolly sheep grazing and  Friesian cows unabashedly chewing their cud. 

So I look forward to farming related festivals especially the annual National Ploughing Championships.  The only problem is the weather as there could be practically four seasons in an ordinary Irish day. Even if the sun is out, there could be strong winds and it is safer to bring along an umbrella, just in case.

I need not have feared because we started out with the sun shining brightly as we made our way to Stradbally in County Laois recently. As the festival ground was a distance from the car park, we had to stand on a trailer that was towed by a tractor. The feeling of being ‘herded’ into the fair made me feel more connected than ever with the animals in the field.

There were over 1400 exhibitors and well over 200,000 visitors. After all it is Europe’s largest outdoor exhibition and agricultural trade show. In order to attract customers most of the stalls have loads of food and drink samples and freebies. A bit of cheese here and a small cup of spaghetti there could really fill one up and I am not talking about the free buns, cakes and cookies. They were giving out free car ice-scrapers as well even though winter has not yet arrived. Very generous indeed.

There was a band stand and just watching endearing old couples waltzing and jiving made me go all soft inside : farmers with their flat caps and tweed jackets and senior ladies in long skirts, red lipstick and pearls. Everyone came to revel in the festive mood – the young, the old, the babies, the disabled – and there were facilities for all.

A reflection of a society that cares.

Out of curiosity, I sauntered towards the Irish beekeeper’s stand. It was interesting to observe a glass casing which showcased live bees and the honeycomb. The joy of being educated about nature’s secrets! A tall man painstakingly explained to me what the bees were doing and added ‘If you wait a little longer and look closely enough, you can see the Queen bee.’ Feigning innocence I quipped, ‘And should I be looking out for the one that wears the crown?’ to which he responded with a loud guffaw.

When I spotted a life-sized cardboard Friesian cow with a cut out where the face should be, I could not resist resting my chin there. It was great fun watching mascots walking around in animal suits and swishing their tails and baring their teeth. I could not resist taking ‘selfies’ with them either.

A great necessity at any trade show is the toilet. Not particularly fond of visiting public toilets, I asked the person-in-charge whether it was clean. So he did me a personal service and cleaned it for me and even sprayed a huge cloud of air-freshener.

“There you are, a great strawberry fragrance for you and mind yourself now…” he said.

It is indeed the little things that make your mood – the good weather, the tractor-trailer experience, the freebies, the dancing free-spirit, the banter, the childlike antics of being a cardboard cow or hugging a mascot and the clean toilet created especially for you.

Status Update: Feeling loved.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/48611