All This and Heaven Too

A Virgin Trollope......

2012-02-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Couldn’t resist that title - coined by my lovely friend Suzanne Rogers who hasn't read any of Joanne Trollope's books but got tickets for her in conversation with broadcaster/journalist Sinead Gleeson in the lovely Pavilion theatre in Dun Laoghaire and invited me along. The evening was part of DLR's Libraries Voices Series and Joanne was promoting her new novel The Soldiers Wife - I started it last night and am already hooked.

It was a joy to hear Joanne's modulated English voice read her work. It is a gentle, pragmatic and unassuming voice - much as I had always suspected it would be. Joanne Trollope has had seventeen books published, makes me wonder why I'm clapping myself on the back! Such dedication. I have read eight of those seventeen and her remaining books are on the bucket list. I think that like Mary Wesley and Anita Brookner Joanne has great clarity of vision into the mindset of middle-class Britain. Fascinating insight into that British reserve and in all the things not said as much as what's said. A fifth generation niece of Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope,'the real Trollope' as she describes him, she grew up surrounded by books and I'd imagine has a strong sense of belonging in the world of British letters. She was a really lovely speaker - if you ever get the chance go to hear her.

Sinead Gleeson was relaxed with her and I felt as if I was eavesdropping on a conversation between two friends who hadn't seen each other for some time. They are both warm and funny women and very amusing about John Terry and FA soccer (Joannes's a Chelsea supporter). Joanne grew up with no television and had books as companions during long winter nights and equally long summer days. At the moment I'm torn between ranting about televison or religion as 'the opium of the people'. Both have been damaging to society - and helped in other ways - and both are of course driven by money, power and and in the case of television - greed. Except for Sesame Street. taht was a worthwhile show.I digress. As per.

On popular culture and the lure of immediate celeberity status I loved Joanne's comment about soccer's WAGs 'There is a price to pay for that title' she said. Indeed there is. And she wondered if when a footballers career is over due to injury or age and the ludicrously big amounts of money stop flowing what kind of adjustments had to be made in those relationships.
An interesting woman - would love to sit and natter with her for ages.
Maybe her next novel. I'll buy it!

What the Dickens.....?

2012-02-06T11:28:00.000-08:00

On the eve of the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens it seems apt to throw my tuppence worth into the pot.

I didn't grow up in a bookish house - in fact there were no books in our house bar school books and any books I brought home from the library. Books were a luxury we could ill-afford. My father, now aged 78, proudly claims he has never read a book (and I believe him), my mother- sadly departed - read in her youth and didn't reach an old age in which she could start reading again.I know my three brothers find it difficult to concentrate on the written word. Two of my sister now adults read but had no interest in books in their teens. I send recommendations their way regularly, having a fair idea of what they like. So I didn't 'discover' Dickens apart from movies until he was presented to me when we studied Great Expectations in school for our Intermediate Certificate.

I absolutely loved it despite its long-windedness and Dickens's many caricatures. I feel Mr Dickens really understood people and as he can tend to be mawkishly sentimental his writing appeals to my 'aaah' side. Many of my fellow students thought it a most boring piece of literature, preferring the problem page of the 'Jackie' magazine as reading matter. Then I read 'David Copperfield' - another tale/life to immerse myself in. Dickens characters really leap off the page for me - my sense of melodrama heightened and satisfied in reading his work.

The next one I read is one I return to again and again. 'The Old Curiosity Shop', I don't care what Oscar says (and I'm a big Oscar fan) I still cry every time I read of the death of Little Nell. Imagine the impact it must have had on readers when it came out first! Readers who weren't constantly bombarded as we are by visual and auditory stimulation. When I read 'The Old Curiosity Shop', I am in the shop; for Charles Dickens took me by the hand and brought me there, introduced me to all his amazing characters and told me their tales. Ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. And Charles brought all their stories to his readership, people readers could identify with - just as Shakespeare in his day brought all the great stories of the world and staged them for the ordinary populace - many of whom who could read. I went on to read many more of Dickens novels (although not them all - they're on the bucket list) Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol would of course be great favourites and I am re-reading Hard Times at the moment.

When I left school and started my boring administrative job it was only the promise of Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy when I got home that made the day bearable. Another author I liked during the 80's was American horror writer Stephen King. I think King's thumping great reads are in the same vein as Charles Dickens in that they too are big books well populated with myriad characters who are managed muscularly within the plot of the novel.

I think my own writing has been influenced by Charles Dickens - I certainly hope so - and if not then I am glad to have read him anyway, to have walked the world of Victorian times in his company as he exclaims on the odd behavior of some and the valiant nature of others.

Happy Birthday dear Charles, happy birthday to you.

Where I Write

2012-02-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

A friend told me recently she had been thinking of me as she watched a movie about a writer who worked at a desk overlooking East Hampton in Long Island. I laughed. If only I could have a big mahogany desk overlooking the Hamptons. It's such a lovely idea, staring out a window at Natures beauty in one of the most expensive areas of the world.

I write in scraps of space and time. I can edit, hone and rewrite in the evenings sitting with the family but to get that first draft down I need to be on my own - no interruptions. Sometimes during the paying job's working week I get up early (not too often anymore mind!) I often sit up long after the world is asleep and write wrapped up in a duvet in my sitting room in the silence of the night. I unplug all electrical appliances barring the laptop - if it's poetry I'm working on I use pencil and unlined paper and play with the words that way, scratching out, arrowing words up and down, juggling.

At the weekends I will sit propped up in bed for an hour or so and write before I rise. If I get up and dressed suddenly all sorts of ridiculous domestic trivia seems to get in my way (I'm lying - it is called procrastinating!). On my 'writing day' - the unpaid day I have stolen for myself from the working week I head to one of the many libraries in Fingal (I especially like Rush) and read and write there for three or four hours. This morning I spent in Fighting Words and now I will write sitting by the fire in my living room for several hours. I have to stop before 8pm otherwise I won't sleep and be exhausted in work the following day. Jemser will cook dinner - a little worried about him actually, he cleaned the deep fat fryer yesterday (it was carcinogenic it was so dirty) and said he got great satisfaction from it! You'd want to see it - it is pristine, looks like it just came out of the box, son#1 and I tease him terribly about it.

Sometimes at weekends when I can find a few hours together I sit on a chair in my very untidy unused box-room with my legs stretched over to the single bed. I tried getting rid of the bed and putting in a desk - but the desk (a small battered pine kitchen table) became the receptacle for every bit of rubbish in the house and I had nowhere for visitors to sleep - or for myself to sleep when Jemser attempts to frighten the whole estate with his snoring. So the table was dumped and the bed went back in. The room is so small it can only take a single bed, a chair and a bedside locker. That room is where I wrote most of 'The Heron's Flood' available here - http://www.bookshop.kennys.ie/. I occasionally write in coffee shops while waiting to pick up sons #1 or #2 from some activity. I have written in my car with Lyric FM on in the background. So I suppose at this stage, yeah - definitely - I can consider myself committed to writing. I probably should be committed when I re-read how I fit it in, maybe dedicated is a better word.

Whatever. But whether one writes in a twenty million dollar house in the Hamptons or a cold tiny boxroom in a 3 bed semi-detached in Dublin the only way the work will be done is by applying ones fingers to the keyboard and ones bum to the seat. Worldly wisdom for the day.

I need your opinion.......

2012-01-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

Ok. I need help. I've been faffing about for the last year with two novels and several unfinished stories and I really need input from others to channel me in one direction only. Both novels will be written because the characters are very much alive to me now but realistically I need to follow one set for a few months and see what happens to them. I have an ending and a beginning for one so that'll probably be the first one I'll write. Here is the core, the pitch of the story - what I need to know is-would your read it? Do you like books that are set in the past? In environment outside of your own, Do you like love stories? Stories of unrequited love in particular and tales of lost opportunities?

My working title is The Daisy-Killer and it is a fictionalised version of some parts of the life of my grandfather Tom Kennedy. Family are all ok with this. Both Tom and my grandmother Evelyn are dead as are their siblings and unfortunately so too are two of their children. Tom was born in Dublin and in the mid 1930's he married a woman from Edinburgh in Scotland, no-one has any record of where they met but I have him taking a trip to Scotland on holiday and meeting Evelyn, my grandmother. After a distant courtship by letter she comes to Dublin and they marry. They had three children - very well spaced. Evelyn found sex horrific - her frigidity stemming from her unbelievable tough up bringing in the tenement houses of Edinburgh and Leith and a mind that was dogged by depression for all of her life. I'm speculating as to the underlying causes of Evelyn's dislike of sex of course, my mother told me my grandmother was frigid but I have no way of knowing if that is true.

Tom settled for he had - he was too decent a human being and devout a Catholic to do otherwise. He worked as a stone man (a typesetter today)and was never out of work. But it was a trade - not a profession which really didn't make it easy for them to buy the beautiful three bedroomed house on Glandore Road off Griffith avenue, this was about 7 years after they married. It necessitated a big mortgage even though they had saved a large deposit thanks to Evelyn's thrifty nature and determination to have this big beautiful house. Tom liked to gamble and he loved a pint - nothing to excess but he really didn't have the money for either addiction. So when, in the early 1950s, an opportunity arose for him to earn really great money on the Detroit Free Press he grabbed the chance. His oldest daughter was already in the States and was courting a Dublin boy over there, his second daughter was in her late teens and working and his son had just started secondary school. He lived in Detroit for five years - sending home money often. He only came home twice for a holiday in that time. My mother married in 1959 and I know
he was home by then, he worked with Smurfit's Print and Packaging until he retired. Betting on a few horses and drinking a few pints. Sitting in with Evelyn watching TV when she wasn't too depressed to be in bed. He died of a heart attack in a single bed in the boxroom of my grandmother's little suburban palace in 1976.

The title comes from something my mother told me. Evelyn hated daisies, they ruined the look in her lawn and every summer she followed Tom around the garden pointing them out as he sprinkled weedkiller on them. One summer day, a year before he died, my mother was visiting them, sitting out the back enjoying the sunshine as the went about their daisy killing. A plane passed over head and Mam said Tom lifted his face to the sky and she never ever saw such a look of yearning on anybody's face. She knew he wished he was elsewhere. Mam was an inveterate romantic and that look combined with my imagination is populating the story (see, I've already made up my mind!)So in the novel I'm giving Tom a love affair in Detroit - a passionate affair with a feisty American journalist. But will I let Tom stay with his imagined lover in the States instead of coming home to this god-forsaken bog after his five years? Or should I impregnate that lover and give him an even bigger moral dilemma? Is it right to change history for the sake of a story? I suppose it is - once I'm not claiming it as fact.

I have to go now folks . I've a book to write. BTW the other book is about a man from a Pakistani family in Limerick who falls in love with a sexy young Kildare woman and is ostracized by his family. It doesn't help that his love is a witch! But I can't find the ending on that one that isn't totally corny ( based on fact but I need a denouement - maybe that one is a screenplay!) Then I have this other idea about a young Irish girl who is of Eastern European extraction and wins an X Factor type competition which eventually destroys both her and her family. Then I have this idea about....see, this is why nothing actually gets done!

Sure what can y'do?'

2012-01-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

A woman in her seventies that I know is a total fatalist - she goes beyond pessimism in her world view and every conversation with her ends in her shrugging her shoulders and shrilly opining 'sure, what can y'do?; The conversation could be about the weather, the length of the grass, the misbehavings of a child or a partner, the state of the nation, the price of petrol - anything.

Perhaps it's the short days and the lack of light but my mood and my energy levels are horribly low at the moment and it is an effort to drag myself from the bed each day to face - what - mundanity. Getting washed, dressed, making a dinner or walking the dog all appear to be huge huge tasks that seem insurmountable to me. But I do them. Not every well some days, but I make myself make the effort. I can't write when I'm like this. I can't face people without crying so i can't work. I can't read, I can't concentrate on anything with this black treacle in my brain.

Thankfully I have a brilliant GP who has treated me for over twelve years and she has a very holistic approach to medicine and mental health in particular. She made a very valid point to me when I visited her late last week. 'We're human beings - all we have to do is be really.' It stuck in my head and I think it's a great mantra for times like the one I'm going through now. My melancholic frame of mind drags down those around me too - even I can't bear the sight of me when I'm like this and I feel there is a big cloud of moodiness sitting over my three bed semi. I thank the heavens every day for my prosaic Jemser. He doesn't understand in anyway how I feel - there is no rhyme or reason to it and Jemser likes rhyme and reason. And he doesn't have to understand it - all he has to do is hold me through the bad patches and remind me to make the most of the good patches. Ditto sons#1 and #2. I am truly blessed in those around me (don't remind me of this when I am ranting on about slovenly males in a month or so!

So why go on? Because - that's why, just because. Ask Godot when he arrives, he'll explain it all. Give it your own meaning - your own raison d'etre. All I know is in the very depth of me there is a chink of light - that with time and patience and not giving in completely to the negativity and keep taking the tablets of course - I will smile again, I will enjoy a walk or a chat with family and friends . I will even enjoy my boring job because of the lovely colleagues I have. I will write again. And read and learn - always learn Because there is always, always something you can do to make your lot in life a little better - even if it is only changing your attitude to that lot. In the words of Will 'there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,'

Some days I wish I didn't have a brain to torment me. A sibling once remarked that when I'm depressed there is a physical change in me. In the way I walk and hold my head, he said it was like watching a cartoon where a character goes about with a big gray cloud glowering over her. o look at me -I have to be in here for life and sometimes it can be fairly grim. 'Sure what can y'do?' I can float towards that chink of light and truly this too shall pass.

Today - and staying in it

2012-01-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of talk lately on radio and tv and a lot of written articles on mental health issues. I heard Tony Bates yesterday http://www.rte.ie/radio1/marianfinucane/tonybates.html talking to Marian Finucane about our attitude to depression and mental health issues. I love listening to Dr Bates - he is intelligent and empathetic and I always read his piece in the Irish Times medical supplement on Tuesdays. I have found myself in much of Dr Bates' work - he has an uncanny knack for making me see myself, accept myself and move on. His new book is called 'Depression:A Common Sense Approach' and I highly recommend it to anyone who either suffers from depression or lives with someone who is a sufferer.

Those of you who know me well know I have battled with depression and mental health issues for decades. I'm now thankfully at the stage where I manage my illness well, recognise it coming and I haven't had any serious bouts for a number of years. I used my own experiences in writing 'The Heron's Flood' and living with depression is a thread running through the book. Ironic that that most awful of feelings rewarded me creatively in the end - mind you I'd prefer a no depression no writing life - or would I? Are we ever fully content and accepting of ourselves?

In recent years I have used both meditation and mindfulness as a way to keep myself in the present moment - trying not to worry about the future as I can't influence it or dwelling on the past which I cannot change. My mother's' favourite prayer was the alcoholic's one (she used to say 'why do they get all the good ones!)

'God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
To change the things I can change
And the wisdom to know the difference'

Whether one believes in a God or Higher Power is irrelevant. It is really a prayer to self - a promise to at least try to be peaceful, loving and wise, to walk away from inner turmoil and accept what comes our way. Surely something we all could strive for on a daily basis. Combine that prayer with half an hour's meditation or mindfulness - daily if possible - try Jon Kabat-Zin You tube link here to get a flavour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc.

Dr Kabat-Zin's work is fantastic. When I discovered mindfulness it gave me back myself. After twenty years of medication and psychiatrists I finally found the answer, the 'why' of my depression. There is no why - it just is and it is within me and only I can lift myself out of it. And that can only be done if I accept myself as I am, acknowledge my bad points and try to let my good self win, and breathe.

Above all mindfulness can be done at any time and in any place. If you are feeling stressed or anxious -or even if it is only people getting on your nerves-just stop. Stop for half a minute, breathe, in out in out,breathe, be in the moment; befriend your mind and let it work unflurried by anything other than what it has to do in that moment.

New Year's Revolutions

2011-12-31T06:47:00.000-08:00

Because that's what they are - if I ever manage to adhere to any of them for longer than a fortnight there will have been a revolution - in my brain.

The drink's gone already so there is No 1 to be broken - will I last more than 6 weeks? Check back with me and see mid February!

The three stone I want to shift off my middle (and various other floppy parts of my body) invariably get tackled with the greatest vigour and seriously good intention. But then...well February has to be gotten through doesn't it? And how can anyone get through February without the comfort of food? By which I mean comfort food of course - bread and butter, ice-cream, biscuits , chocolate, chocolate, crisps, chocolate. I have to lose weight though because all my clothes are ridiculously tight and I can't afford new ones.

Resolutions to be a better person; a good neighbour, a trustworthy worker, a compassionate friend and to be empathetic and charitable towards others - no matter where they're coming from. I make these resolutions every morning of my life but I'm human and a very flawed human at that so I invariably have broken these type of noble ideals before I even leave the house with dark mutterings about ungrateful, slovenly males.

Resolutions to write more on a daily basis have been kept over the last few years - and it brings me great joy so that's one I have successfully kept and will hopefully continue to keep. I must examine my logic around writing (if ther is any logic to it!) Maybe I could apply my thinking there to the other things I want to happen in my life.

A resolution to read more and to tell more stories to more children - well I'll keep that one easily enough.

And a resolution to keep myself surrounded with family and friends who love me despite the fact that most of them haven't the slightset idea what is going on in my fevered little cauldron of a brain!

Thank you all for reading - and a Happy 2012 to each and every one

My Christmas post - a little late and rather long!

2011-12-30T08:59:00.000-08:00

I got a special kiss this Christmas Eve – and nobody actually touched me.

I travelled to Donegal – my Donegal, my beloved Kilcar – on Friday December 23rd. The second part of the journey was terrifying. Up to about 4pm it was grand – moseying along the M1 with John Kelly on Lyric FM playing the best Christnmas music on the planet, delighted work was over for a week. But once I hit exit 14 for Derry I was in trouble.I normally belt along (within the speed limit of course) from that exit to the Roslea turn – it gets much slower after that as my urban eyes and reflexes adapt to country roads.
It was a squally evening, constant dirty showers of rain - not helped by the fact that my middle-aged varifocalled eyes are particularly challenged by drivers who refuse to dip their headlights. I’ve only driven this road alone perhaps a dozen times and I certainly won’t be doing it again at that time of day and year. Thoughts of a burger from Melly’s Chipshop in Killybegs sustained me from Enniskillen. The flippin’ place had closed an hour early. So I contented myself with a bag of salted peanuts and rang Jemser for directions to the house we had rented. He had travelled up earlier in the day with son #2.
‘When you pass the Haven and come over the brow of the hill, with Kilcar spread under you and Sliabh Liag in front of you, take the first left in Bavin and ‘tis the first new house you’ll see’. And I’m supposed to be the writer in the family.
‘So, first left after the Blue Haven?’ I queried.
‘Aye.’
The battery in phone died and I faced my bete noir. That bloody road between Killybegs and Kilcar, I’ve claimed since I started driving that it is worst part of this particular journey. I’m used to straight well-lit roads, lots of traffic, traffic lights and roundabouts not these unlit terrifying twists and turns, swoops and dives, dips and climbs of the windiest steepest road in Ireland. And manic young male Northern drivers.
I missed the Blue Haven – a large pub/guesthouse/restaurant. It was closed, unlit and therefore to my urban eyes unremarkable. And before all the Donegal ones start commenting – I have no sense of direction, poor spatial awareness and know no geography! I ended up at the junction for Kilcar and Carrick and knew I had to turn back. I actually turned back twice before I finally found the ‘first left after the Haven’- mainly because to me every house set in off the road looks like a left. I went astray.
I arrived and the ‘how did you do thats’ began – if I knew I wouldn’t have done it in the first place! The house is stunningly beautiful – a new build fitted for comfort and convenience. I was immediately in love and delighted that the economic downturn that makes such a rent accessible to us. Son#2 was thrilled to see me – Christmas could now begin and he had been dying to show off the house to me – to show me all the things he knew I’d love. They had a big fire in the grate and big smiles on their face to greet me. It was like a big warm hug. That coming home feeling.
The house is extraordinarily comfortable and we all slept well; I woke early and thrilled to the view from the window. I was glad later I had savoured it, for the day closed in – as it only can in the wilds of Donegal and all day there have been sheets and gusts of soft fine rain drifting ahead of and whirling with gusts and gales of wind that howl down the chimney; the wind surely knows how to blow up here, but it was housetrained by the warmth and smell of a turf fire. I love that smell.
I decided to make scrambled eggs for brunch. A treat. When I cracked the first egg into the pan I laughed. It was a double yolk. Double yolked eggs always remind me of Mam, and I called son#2 to show him the yolk and to tell him Mam’s story.
One week before Christmas some time in the early Seventies, when in our house there were six children under the age of ten and the family was particularly broke one week. Not our 2011 kind of broke – we almost always have access to credit. Real broke. Suburban weekly waged no land broke. No money in your pocket and no way to get any broke. There was money coming of course – my father was always employed and his wages mercifully arrived every Thursday.
This particular evening- perhaps it was a Wednesday - there were a few slices of bread for our tea but there was nothing to put on it. There were three eggs in the fridge so she decided to do us ‘egg-in-bread’; yummy - a slice of fried bread with a circle removed into which an egg is broken and fried. Half a slice of egg-in-bread would have to do us. She was upset; she wanted to give each of us our own slice of egg-in-bread. But it had been a tough year.
When she cracked the first egg it was a double yolk and it lifted her heart for now there would be four nutritious yolks to share between her six children. She cracked the next and it too was a double yolk. She thanked her God in prayer. But when the third and final egg from the fridge was cracked and it too was a double yolk Mam decided it was a miracle - her God would always provide for her and hers.
Mam wasn’t overly religious, she went to Mass and raised us loosely in accordance with Catholic teaching and after she lost her only sister she certainly became more convinced of a life after death. In the last terrible year of her life her faith gave her comfort and acceptance. I envied her that faith, it is not mine. But when I saw that double yolk this morning it made me smile and think of Mam – feel loved by her, hugged and kissed for Christmas. Welcomed home –many many miles from that house where with Dad she reared us, fed us, dressed us. Loved us.
I cracked the second egg and son#2 and I both roared with delight. Another doubler!
‘Mam, Mam!’ he exclaimed, ‘let me do the next one. Oh Mam! – it’ll be too weird…’ carefully he hit the egg on the side of the pan and yes, it was a third double yolk.
Coincidence? Another miracle? Voices or signs from another dimension? I don’t care what it was. Son#2 and I jumped with delight and hugged each other, he shouted ‘Hiya Nanny!’ with that grin of his that lights up his whole freckly completely Irish little face. I felt my heart and soul well with a wave of love; that emotion most of us only ever feel on a couple of occasions every year – and always to do with family.
The day meandered on and Mam has never left me – everything I did seemed blessed with the feeling of love, putting up a few Christmas baubles and lights, chatting with Jemser and son #2, laughing at the dog’s antics – I even got a snooze on the couch! I haven’t had a snooze on the couch on Christmas Eve since…well, never! And now son#1 is about to arrive and although the girls can’t be here physically I certainly feel very close to them emotionally.
We will gather in Drimreagh for ‘the feast’ in a little while - a Christmas Eve tradition started many moons ago by our beloved Teresa Cunningham. And the kisses and hugs, teasing laughter and song will go on - and family will continue to arrive – in one way or another.

A Happy Christmas to all - and to all, a good night.

The Story Queen's Christmas Tale

2011-12-10T07:36:00.000-08:00

I am full of love and good cheer this afternoon. I went over to Balbriggan Library to do a story-telling session with the lovely children of North County Dublin where I was warmly welcomed by the lovely Assumpta Hickey and her staff . The library was beautifully decorated - complete with tree, lights and sparkly things. An imitation fireplace was in place with a certain gentleman’s red trousered legs protruding from the chimney.

Of course as soon as Queenie landed to the smiles of the children nothing would do her but to peer up the chimney and have a shouted one sided conversation with the great Santa Claus. We entered into storytime with my personal favourite ‘Baby Owls’ by Martin Waddell, then rambled through ‘Stickman’ and ‘Adam saves Christmas’. Then we had a little break and a chat about Santa and what he might bring. One little chap informed me he had THREE Christmas trees and a little princess wanted to know could she wear her dressing-up costume next time she came. We discussed Christmas gifts and how many hugs and kisses one should give ones parents to ensure their sound mental. We discussed the importance of being nice to one another. All nice schmaltzy stuff.

I finished off the Christmas session with (natch) The Night Before Christmas’ – more for the parents than the children - the language, though beautiful, is archaic and many of the terms would mean nothing to today’s smallies. Then I distributed Story Queen stickers and placed my crown on each little head in order to transfer a very special Story Queen dream into each mind for tonight’s bedtime. The children escorted me to the steps and I made a gracious hand waving exit. They loved me. I loved them.

So home I came full of good cheer and heart bursting with love of mankind, realising that the saying God is Love is really the wrong way around. Love IS god. And the trusting simple love of little kids is the purest love of all. Nothing can beat the delight we get in giving pleasure, time and assistance to our fellow beings, particularly the children in our lives. It is what differentiates us from animals and brings us closer to the sublime. Home, family and contentment are what we all strive for. It is not always attainable, it has to be worked at and sometimes it fails – but try we must.

Here endeth the lesson. Now, where did I put my Santy hat………

Lovely libraries

2011-12-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

I sat in the beautiful library in Rush this morning – an old church converted with great sympathy and sensitivity by Fingal Couny Council as a facility for the citizens of the area. The church’s external structural appearance is as it has been since it was built; walk indoors and you find a thoroughly modern library, with the clean lines and aesthetics of the 21^st century. This, combined with beautiful wood paneling and shelving (oak I think), glass, off white and red seating areas , creates a very peaceful space. The late winter sun shone through glorious stained glass windows and ensured that the hush throughout the library was honoured with dappled multi-coloured sunlight. Wonderful.

I think it is a fitting use of a space that was originally built as a place of worship but was also always meant to be a place of community, a place where people could gather and be silent for a while. The acoustics in the church/library are fabulous too. I’d love to attend a carol singing service or any other kind of choral event there. Wouldn’t it be beautiful to hear again voices raising the roof in harmony and celebration? What are songs but musical stories? Perfect in a library.

On top of all that beauty there is of course the very reason for the libraries existence - thousands upon thousand of words hidden between the covers of books. All any one of us has to do is open a book and begin to learn. I asked a distinguished author once if he had read any so-called commercial women’s fiction, he’d read one or two he said but in general he avoided the genre because he learned nothing from it. I suppose a lot of that fiction has to so with emotion around a love affair; and men don’t seem to ‘do’ emotion around love affairs – or perhaps they do but they don’t bother analysing it in the minutiae that we females do. Generalisation of course but……. am I making any sense?

Speaking of genres, yesterday we went enfamille to dublincity (103.2)fm to talk on Jimmy Kinahan’s afternoon programme. I read from my book, the Jemser sang a couple of songs as did son#1 and pal and son#2 was assistant producer. Jimmy asked me that difficult question -what genre was my book? I hesitated because that was one of the reasons I couldn’t get a publisher to back ‘The Heron’s Flood’ (available herehttp://www.amazon.com/Herons-Flood-Evelyn-Walsh/dp/1463765916 ); it does not slot neatly into any genre. It’s not a crime or psychological thriller – although there is a murder in it; it’s not misery lit – although both of my protagonists have had their share of misery; I don’t think it could be classified as ‘chick lit’ (I don’t know enough about fashion, sex or the art of shopping); it’s not literary fiction – I’m not quite there yet and may never get there unless I get more time to both read more and read better; I facetiously call it ‘hen-lit’ as I thought it would appeal to hens like myself – in other words the fiction buying public!

We had a great half hour with Jimmy and the boys in particular blew the socks off those listening. I do be fit to burst with pride when I hear them sing, they are really so talented We got a laugh to because Jimmy mistakenly called their song ‘Angel’s Roost’ ‘Angels’ Delight’! Of course we all immediately pictured that smooth viscerally pink desert. But we didn’t laugh and I didn’t interrupt anyone, then or at any stage –as is my wont, Biddy Butt-In kept her trap shut! We’re a family of pedants really – I think the males are all worse than me but they say I’m the Queen of pedantry. Reminder to self and all – the Story Queen is appearing in Balbriggan library this coming Saturday December 10^th at 11am for a special Christmas story telling session with the lovely children of Balbriggan and surrounds. If you have an under 7 in your life bring them along – it is always a great session and best of all like everything in Fingal Libraries -it’s free!

Light up..........

2011-12-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

The Christmas lights in Swords were switched on last week and it makes the village look so pretty. Some bah-humbug creature was standing behind me at the ‘lights on ceremony’ and he grumbled ‘The country’s going down the drain and the bloody council are spending money of feckin’ fairy lights and feckin’ dancing bears’ – the latter a reference to the excellent troupe of children’s enterainers who amused the local children as they waited in the cold for the magic to begin. Mr Grumpy was late middle age (natch) and a dapper little chap ( why are grumpy old men always dapper).

Now I take his point but for the Universe’s sake mister lighten up a little. Let’s keep a little pretty magic about the place to gladden the hearts of the smallies and to welcome home for Christmas all our sons and daughters who have had to leave our shores for work elsewhere. We may have less money and more worries but we’re still a damn sight better off than 90% of the world’s population.

Because at the moment – with our politicians telling us we have to tighten our belts, pay our debts (not that I personally accumulated ANY of this debt) and grin and bear it; and the constant battering of our eyes and ears by hysterical reportage in print, on radio, televison and d’interweb, it is hard to keep a positive outlook and live simply in the moment.

I’m not starving in the moment, nor am I cold. I’m not without shelter or love. I’m one of the lucky ones. So I will try to live as a child does for the next few weeks. Look forward to Christmas. To spending time with family (even if we are killing each other!). To exchanging small gifts and cherishing each other, eating together, laughing together.

And clapping with delight at a dancing bear and some sparkly lights on a village street.

The Government Inspector

2011-11-29T15:48:00.000-08:00

Just in from one of the best night's theatre I have ever experienced. If you have to beg, borrow or steal a ticket to see Roddy Doyle's adaptation of Gogol's 'The Government Inspector' now playing at the Abbey theatre do so - you won't regret it.

There is a huge cast of characters who are brilliantly choreographed around a stunning set. The show is directed by Jimmy Fay, who previously directed Doyle's version of 'The Playboy of the Western World' in the Abbey and indeed there were times in tonight's show when I was reminded of Playboy. Basically a stranger arrives in town and because of rumour and innuendo it is assumed he is a government inspector come to flush out corruption in the local government. The outsider Khlestakov (played brilliantly like a manic Johnny Bravo by Ciaran O'Brien) is a chancer of the highest order and he plays upon the fears, greed and idiocies of the community; he charms their women, flatters their men, makes promises he cannot make and ultimately robs them blind.

At times the stage was as deliberately crowded as a scene in a pantomime - characters rushing about and getting nowhere. Organised chaos - much like our government in a flap. Except the actors knew exactly what was going to happen next. The ensemble acting was superb - not a bum note struck. Roddy Doyle is a master of dialogue and he has a great eye for the ridiculous. He has lifted Gogol's play out of 19th century Russia and planted it firmly in the ruined administration and ghost estates of 21st century Ireland.

All performances were brilliant but I'd have to give a special mention to Don Wycherly as the Mayor - it's a huge role - very very physical and he makes it look easy. He always has a great presence on stage and it is hard to take one's eye off him, his timing is superb - he even managed to step slightly out of character while in character to rope the audience in as fellow culprits in the 'another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into.' Marion O'Dwyer as the mayor's wife was a treat and her heavy flirting with Khlestakov was a joy to watch. Class.

I really cannot recommend this show highly enough. Even the programme, complete with cut out characters from Martin Turner is entertaining.You'll laugh yourself silly and also come away a little sobered by the fact that the cast of clowns on the stage are a fairly accurate portrayal of the leadership (or lack of it) in Ireland over a number of years. Brilliant.

Mourning the end of being a Mammy..............

2011-11-28T12:27:00.000-08:00

We have a new baby in our extended family. My youngest brother and his wife had a beautiful baby girl earlier in the month and they named her Elizabeth after our beloved departed mother. Of course we are all wearing a path out to their door to ooh and aah and admire this tiny little creature. She's so incredibly beautiful and perfect. You forget how small babies are - and this lady was born a big baby, in fact the 0-3months baby clothes were no good to her, yet she still seems tiny. The whole family are besotted with Elizabeth. Oscar and Liam at eleven years old were up to this the youngest members of the family. They are particularly pleased at losing this title- now they are someones big cousin.

My sister-in-law bought a beautiful deep red pram for Elizabeth. I envied her. I always loved pushing the pram. I don't think I ever felt as proud as when I pushed my babies in their prams. I was important. Finally. I was someone's Mammy- the best thing in the world to be. Oh! I so miss my babies! I love the adults my children are becoming but I miss that incredible mother baby relationship. Molly - our new dog- has taken some of the sting out of the loss for me.. I love coming in the door now to be greeted with her going insane in a paroxysm of delight. Her heart beats so fast I'm afraid she will have a heart attack, she is quite beside herself with sheer unadulterated joy at seeing me desperate to get up in my arms and smother me with affection. This reminds me so much of the reaction I used to get from my babies when I would come back into their view after being away for a while. With no words the only way they could express how they felt was by laughing and using their physical selves, wriggling, lepping and dancing a jig. It is quite quite wonderful to be loved like that. And a privilege. And it is only for such a short while. As soon as the child starts school they start to walk away from you. They come back - but in a different relationship. Suddenly you're not God anymore - Teacher is God! Then the peer group takes over and eventually down the line the chosen partner.

But despite the sorrow and the feeling of being not needed anymore I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything. There are certainly plenty of days when I could happily leave home and stay away for a very long time but I'd come back. Mammys always come back. I think that is why my favourite children's book is Martin Waddell's 'Owl Babies'. If you haven't read it to a smallie in your life get your hands on it - I guarantee you'll both love it.

The Remarkable Story of MeeJahLittle

2011-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

Did you ever hear of MeeJahLittle and how he disturbed a whole country - nay, continent- nay, world with his foolish alarms?

Well, MeeJahLittle was running around in Mad Money's garden enjoying flowers and fruits not his when an apple dropped from a tree and fell on his head. The apple was overblown, scabby, filled with worms and such and had to fall. But MeeJahLittle didn't wait around to work this out - off he ran shrieking to find MeeJahBig.
'Oh! MeejahBig' he said, 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling!'
'Why how do you know?' asked MeejahBig
'Didn't I hear it with my own ears and see it with my own eyes and part of it fell on my head!'shrieked MeejahLittle.
'Oh Lord! Come then, let us run as fast as we can,' said MeejahBig. And off they ran to find MeejahBigger .
'MeejahBigger! MeejahBigger! The sky is falling, the sky is falling,' screeched MeejahsLittleandBig
'How do you know?' asked MeejahBigger.
'Well, MeejahLittle told me!' squawked MeejahBig
'And I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears and part of it fell on my head. Twice.'Shrieked MeejahLittle
'Lord save us!' cried MeejahBigger, 'We must run as fast as we can.'. And off they ran 'til they found MeejahBiggerAgain.
'Oh! MeejahBiggerAgain,' they caterwauled 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling!'
'How do you know' gasped MeejahBiggerAgain.
'Why MeejahsBigAndLittle told me' cried MeejahBigger.
'MeejahLittle told me' squawked MeejahBig.
'And I saw it with my own eyes heard it with my own ears, part of it fell on my head twice and then rolled along my back.' shrieked MeejahLittle
'Lord between us and all harm!We must run, we must run!' harumphed MeeJahBiggerAgain. And they ran and they ran until they found MeeJahNormous.
'MeeJahNormous!MeeJahNormous!The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' they all roared
'How do you know?'queried MeeJahNormous
'MeeJahsLittleToBigger told me!' harumphed MeejahBiggerAgain
'MeeJahsLittleToBig told me too' cried MeeJahBigger
'MeeJahLittle told me first' squawked MeejahBig
'And I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, part of it crashed down TWICE on my head THEN rolled along my back and THEN fell on my toe.' shrieked MeeJahLittle.
'We better tell the people on the edge' decided MeeJahNormous. 'It's our duty.'

So they all ran as fast as they could to tell the people on the edge. And the people on the edge all ran over the edge screaming
'The sky is falling, the sky is falling' and then fell down, down, down into the abyss. And all this from the foolish shrieking of MeeJahLittle.
The End

And we're off............

2011-11-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging this at 3pm because I intend to be somewhat inebriated this evening. My book launch (book available here The Heron's Flood ) kicks off in three hours. All the books and wine and soft drinks have been delivered to the venue. I had a few calls from people unable to attend but I haven't let it phase me too much. I'll be there, my lovely boys will be there as will the Jemser. My colleagues from the Council will be there as will my neighbours. some friends are even driving over from the southside. Imagine! They have their passports so they'll be okay.

I have the hair and make-up done. I look quite nice. I even got the nails done and can't text anyone now! The guna is hanging on the outside of the wardrobe winking balefully at me. Still not 100% about it. Hope I pull it off. If I don't you can see evidence of my faux-pas on my Facebook page tomorrow, when I eventually surface.

I'm quite relaxed now - everything is done and if anything goes wrong it won't be my fault - it will be something outside of my control. Son#1 and pal are going to sing the song they wrote after I read from the novel - they are the real stars of the night. Seventeen, handsome talented and intelligent, they have it made. I have it made having them do this for me. Even the dog has picked up on my mood and is cuddled in against me here sleeping peacefully.Son #2 is going for a sleepover in his cousin's house so I don't have to worry about him (thanks Ais!) So now I'm just going to chill, practice reading SLOWLY and enjoy one of the biggest days of my life.

Small Lives.........

2011-11-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

I'm faffing and fluffing about driving myself and everyone about me demented with worrying about all sorts of ridiculous 'might happens' around this flippin' book launch. And thank the Universe for my lovely calm Jemser. Nothing can phase that man - he is the complete antidote to my panicking. I know I give out about him (it's allowed) because he is so laid back that at times I wonder is he awake at all. But Lord, it can be lovely to come home to all that serenity after a day's flapping. In my small life this book launch is the biggest thing (barring the birth of me boys) that has ever happened; I'm not coping very well with it.

Jemser has found a way of making lost things unlost. Instead of praying to St Anthony and promising him cash he stands in the middle of the room and says 'Did anybody see me aul'...(whatever the item is, glasses,keys,wallet)'. It is vital to get the wording exactly right. 'Where's me aul'' or any other variation just will not work. Anyway my purse was on the missing list today. I searched the kitchen/dining room/living room several times. Panicking because I needed it and had to leave the house half an hour before. In the end I used the incantation and as soon as I said it I spotted the miscreant purse. Sitting smack bang in the middle of the kitchen table. 'Smagic. Swear.

This evening I had to drop in copies of my novel 'The Heron's Flood' into the lovely people in the Gutter bookshop on Temple Bar's Cow Lane. I'll be reading from the novel in the shop on Wednesday November 16th. It's a beautiful shop - an oasis of serenity in a busy, busy world. I could feel my breathing slowing and my eyes wandering over all the lovely titles - but I resisted buying. The house here is falling down with books.

I enjoyed a little ramble around Temple Bar. I popped into the National Photographic Archive of the National Library of Ireland to see the 'Small Lives -photographs of Irish childhood 1880-1970' Exhibition http://www.nli.ie/en/udlist/current-exhibitions.aspx?article=22944ccb-3163-4924-8066-b6e5f9512d56 It's a fabulous exhibition, well worth a visit. I smiled at some photographs and and almost cried at others. One of my favourites was of two children in Henrietta Street during a (I think) May procession sometime in the 70's . The little fella in it had a tee shirt on that I recognised as identical to one that was in my family too, it went from one brother to another to the youngest during that time. Must've been a Dunnes one - I think they were walking the streets of Ireland at the time.

Then off with me it the Irish Writers Centre to attend their screenwriting course - a lovely lively discussion with great people. And it took my mind off the launch, losing myself in the imagination of creating with others a treatment for a screenplay. 'Sall go.

Four more sleeps..........

2011-11-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Me nerves are shattered. I can’t understand my agitation. I can dress up as the Story Queen and ramble around towns in the North County, talking to children in a posh voice and not feel the slightest bit embarrassed. I’m not considered shy – but believe me I’m dying inside like everyone else at drawing attention to myself. But the persona I have created for myself (that Evelyn Walsh one) is in a lot of trouble.She has to read her own words aloud this coming week.

The launch of my debut novel ‘The Herons Flood’
(available on http:/smashwords.com or http://www.amazon.com/

is this coming Wednesday evening in the atrium of County Hall in Swords. I walk that atrium several times a day on my way to and from the Council department I work in. I’ve invited half of North County Dublin, my family, friends, colleagues, local papers, other writers etcetera etcetera. If they all turn up - which they won’t as only an average of 20% of people invited to a book launch actually arrive – the place will be jammers. My biggest fear is that I will be standing there with my husband and sons like a Billy-No-Mates, reading aloud from the novel and feeling like a complete and utter idiot. Calm. Calm. Breathe. Phew.

The guna ('dress' to the non-Irish speakers (needs a fada tho’)) was abandoned when the men in my life declared it a ‘no’. I absolutely hate all that trying on of outfits, parading about the house in an awful sweat and still not getting it right. I end up going off in a huff to run myself a lovely bath and only return to my gobshite males when I am safely wrapped up in mismatched pj’s and a fleecy dressing gown

Then my wonderful colleagues (people I am privileged to call friends) got hold of me and persuaded me the guna was lovely. I just had all the bits and bobs accessorizing it wrong. So on their advice off with me to Penneys and I bought a pair of purple (YES!) tights and a bit of an aul’ yoke with a purple feather on it to pin to the coat yoke I’m wearing over my Mary Quant style dress.

I didn’t know this was what the guna was until it was pointed out to me. I don’t normally do gunas, or make-up or hair or nails. I’m actually only barely female in my interest in girly things and I blamed Rebecca De Havalland for turning me into a girl last year. I think I thought I couldn’t be interested in clothes and be taken seriously. I’ve only just realised nobody takes me seriously anyway! I know I’ll change my mind a thousand times between now and Wednesday about dress, tights, shoes etcetera but at least I had a girly shopping hour on bits ‘n bobs.

Anyway to add to the excitement one of my flash fiction pieces ‘Bird’ was published in the Irish Times today Yay! Here it is.http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/1105/1224307084540.html When I read it (and tutted at myself over several words), I laughed. In the story a woman kills her husband. In the opening chapter of my novel a woman sits with the body of her husband – a garden shears protruding from his chest. I think I see a bit of a thread going through my work. Poor aul’ Jemser – Be Afraid….Be Very Afraid………

The guna's got..........

2011-11-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

So I have to have the book launch now. I thought it was a fairly nice guna – not a bit like my normal very (VERY) casual style. Cheap – of course. A bit flapperish. Maybe a tad slapperish. A bit shiny. A bit short. No cleavage and a little see through shrug. Black patent (pretend) leather boots to finish it off. I quite liked the ensemble. I was rather proud of myself for daring to wear it despite my bulk. I asked my fashion advisor - son #2 ‘wotcha reckon?’ His face fell. So did mine.

‘It’s a bit…’

‘A bit what?’ sez I

‘Well…I don’t want to be mean’

‘Go on. Tell me.’

‘Them shiny yokes,’

‘Discs’

‘Yeah. Discs.’

‘What about them’

‘I mean if you were like …eighteen and skinny and stuff it MIGHT be ok.’

‘So it’s too young for me? Or I’m too old for it?’

‘Yeaaaaaahhhhhhhh’

I’m deffo wearing it now! Or me tracksuit. Just to spite the little fecker. Although I’ll probably get cold feet about me flapperish slapperish guna.

Anyway it doesn’t matter what I wear because my beautiful sisters and sister in law and nieces and step nieces will all be there. And they are a bunch of seriously good looking well dressed wimmin. Maybe if I do a shimmy and shake me discs I might get noticed. And then I’ll run a mile!

And if you can’t make it to the book launch (Weds Nov 9^th 6pm County Hall Swords) there’s a reading in the Gutter bookshop in Temple Bar on Weds 16^th Nov at 6.30pm. Or you can buy it here

http://www.amazon.com/Herons-Flood-Evelyn-Walsh/dp/1463765916/

It's all go..........

2011-10-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Will someone please, please, please tell me why I decided to self-publish this wretched novel? Oh I forgot – I’m the publicist as well as everything else so it’s not wretched, it’s wonderful, luminous, tear-jerking, heart-warming. Basically it’s written!

And like us all I thought that was all I had to do. But I ended up being writer, editor, computer nerd, publicist, events organiser. No wonder I haven’t been well lately – up to high doh and of course sleep pattern gone to the dogs so utterly exhausted and was about to cause a major row in work by exploding over something utterly trivial. So I went to doc who gave me a note for the paid job and a talk on over –stretching myself, plus a handful of sleeping tablets which I hate taking because they make me so zombie like the following day. And unfortunately I can’t switch off the whole book thing now. It has its own momentum at this stage and it doesn’t help that I need to do it all myself. And the more I do and the more hours I put in the better the book sales may be. Although I could have a team of people working on my behalf and it still might sell no more than a handful of copies. I might break even by the end of next year and then I won’t feel guilty and self-indulgent about spending so much time and cash on making my dream a reality.

F**king guilt. The story of my life – I’ll never learn to stop fretting over things over which I have no control, or feeling guilty about putting myself first. And worrying never made anything happen faster or better. And not putting yourself first means no-one else does either. You devalue yourself. And in the heel of the hunt if I don’t cover my costs what do I lose. Money. And as I am constantly saying ‘it’s only feckin’ money.’ Thank God for the credit union. So if the book costs me a few thousand I can cover the losses with a CU loan and pay it off gradually – with my paycheck from my reasonably paid full-time job, boring it is but we’ll never starve and I don’t think anyone ever died of boredom. If anyone ever does it will be someone in administration in a large organisation!

So what news on the novel. Well it’s up on smashwords as an e book and as a paperback and e book on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/The-Herons-Flood-Evelyn-Walsh I’m launching the book on November 9^th in Fingal County Hall thanks to the lovely staff of the Building Facilities Unit and the Libraries Department. Heroes and heroines one and all. I’m nervous about it. Funny, isn’t it? I have no problem talking in any situation or in performing on stage in a play but I’m really nervous about reading from my novel on the night. I’m afraid I’ll be so emotional that I’ll end up crying and make a fool of myself.

Won’t be the first time. And I’m damn sure it won’t be the last!

Me babbies in their cute oneseys

2011-10-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

My house gets more eccentric by the day. Son#2 needed new shoes so down with us to Penneys after school. He hasn't quite hit puberty - although he's getting there-so the purchase was relatively painless. We're heading to Donegal to look after Granny tomorrow as Jemser and son #1 will be at the Mick Hanly songwriting showcase in Gibney's in Malahide. (it's complicated)

Anyway I wanted to pick up a little gift for one of Jemser's nieces and my eyes lit up when I saw these one piece fleecey jumpsuits in fun designs. I picked one for Eilis and son#2 declared he HAD to have the tiger one. I caved. I 'm a sucker when it comes to me babbies in cute PJ's. All my favourite photos of them are of them all clean and scrubbed and shiny-faced in new jammies waiting for Santa to come and bring them EXACTLY what they asked for.

We landed home and son#2 was raging I hadn't got one for him - I roared laughing. At seventeen I thought he would take himself far too seriously to go around in a one piece fleecey outfit. But no, thank the Lord he is still in touch with his inner child. Now, he'll pump half a can of hairspray into his hair and adjust his jeans until exactly the right amount of jock is showing and obsess in front of the mirror for an hour before he goes out, but when he's home he's home - and like us all he loves closing that front door and collapsing into his own space. And even if he is dressed as a cow (I kid you not, a fleecey cow complete with hood and ears) we'll accept him.Actually I decided I'd prefer to see him dressed as a cow rather than see most of his underpants!

So I went back down to Penneys (yes I know I'm a gobshite) and bought him his cow fleecey oneseys. And when I got home the two boys dressed down in their new outfits and I took their picture. Santa's not coming in the morning - but I have another lovely picture of me babbies happy in each other's company. As I age and they grow I'm aware that the opportunities for such photos will become fewer and fewer. So I'm going to cherish every moment that I can take these snaps - these little moments of pure unadulterated joy and laughter in a busy and sometimes bleak world.

And then I went off to a poetry open-mic session in Malahide where I met the lovely Sarah Marie Griff ( the girl I should have been) and her lovely young man Kerrie. Sarah is a wonderful poet/playwright/author and we will hear a lot more of her in years to come. She too is full of fun and laughter and I betcha she has a fleecey onesey somewhere in her home! I finally read some of my poems in public and yes my voice shook but no I didn't cry! And I'm delighted with myself for finally breaking my duck when it comes to my poetry. It's gas I can get up on stage and read someone elses work without a trace of nerves - but reading my own stuff just gives me the collywobbles.I feel such a fraud.

Then I look at my sons and at kids like Sarah and I say 'thank god', that uncertainty we Irish (certainly we Irish females) had, that inferiority complex that so many of us felt seems to be retreating. About bloody time.

A Good Deed Doer.............

2011-10-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

I decided to light the first fire of the winter this evening - the Nutella was hard in the jar and that's always a sign that it's time to get the coal scuttle out. SoIi drove over to the local petrol station to buy coal and briquettes. When I was paying the young girl serving started laughing - '
Will ye look at those eejits,'she said 'The kids locked the doors from the inside and the keys are in the ignition'.
While I waited for my fuel to be loaded into my car I watched the unfolding drama. It was two young men , friends I think, and they were shouting to the kids in the car - twins aged three - trying to get them to pull the button up. One of the young men started shouting a little aggressively. I walked over.
'Will I try the Mammy touch?'sez I..
'Jesus Missus - any touch would do, the little feckers hit the button down but either don't understand or just haven't the strength to lift it again.'
'What about the boot?'
'That's out too - central locking'

The twins were in matching childseats and although they were thin and supple no amount of manouevring could get them out of the seats. They were able to tip themselves forward enough to reach the button on the door but not the keys in the ignition. They were starting to get a bit upset.While the lads and two men who had stopped to help were discussing options I amused the kids, making faces, laughing,telling little stories showing them the packet of sweets they were going to get when we got to them.. Someone behind me said 'You could get on of those mobile locksmiths?'
'Ive' no money and its me girlfriends 21st and she's going to kill me!' was the answer. I laughed.
'Don't let money ever stop you over something like that - call them I'll pay them and you can pay me back whenever you have it'.
The relief on his face was worth the offer.
'I can;t let...I can't...thanks.'
Someone had produced a screwdriver and a hangar and one of the men managed to manouevre the wire down to the button but the child couldn't hold it against the button with enough force to allow the man to pull it up. 'One more thing, then we'll go for the locksmith said the man. He used the screw driver to force the top of the door open and one of the lads stretched his hand down but his arms weren't long enough So my arms (not too fat -thank God!) were called up and yep my big long arms proved just the thing. Pop! And the door opened. The kids roared laughing and then said 'where's the sweets?' Before I left I got them to repeat five times for me 'I must never ever ever push the button!'
. They were lovely lively little fellas and there father was far too relieved to have them out to give out to them. The poor divil - it was his first car and he had only just taken possession of it. There was no real damage to the door and they weren't too late for twenty-first. I'd say he'll remember that party for the rest of his life.And I'd say he will never ever get out of his car again without putting the keys in his pocket. He was a lovely young fella , gave me a big awkward hug and thanked me. I'm happy for him and happy for his boys that they have such a nice Daddy. There is hope for the future. At least I think so.

The World's Worst Salesperson..........

2011-10-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I ended up in my family. No smart comments siblings please! My maternal uncle and my paternal grandfather were salesmen, my mother too - and canny with it. Two of my brothers are in retail- I'm lovin' the consternation of James Adams Auctioneers at the prospect of the brother's EuroGiant moving in beside them in Stephen's Green! One of my sisters makes a large part of her living from selling at outdoor markets, another sister works in a high-end fashion shop and is brilliant at it. Me?I couldn't plamas a donkey into eating hay.

I set out for a walk this morning, I've been a little fraught of late and find physical exercise helps relax tense muscles. I ran into neighbours, the lovely Jack and Teresa and reminded them of my book launch on November 9th. I explained self-publishing to them and they were surprised a the amount of work involved in actually getting a book out there. I told them not to buy the book - I didn't think Jack (or any man) would like it and sure let them wait til the library gets it if they really want to read it. I don't know how I'm going to sell any books if I keep telling people not to buy it!
'Sure, it's probably crap anyway,' sez I 'and I'm supposed to talk it up - it just seems shameful, self praise etcetera'. I mentioned Facebook, Twitter and blogging as ways of publicizing the novel.
'What's blogging?' sez Teresa. I explained.
'I'll be blethering about you two this evening' I said.
'So you just blether away about anything and everything - it doesn't have to be on a topic to do with writing?' asked Jack (I'm paraphrasing - forgive me Jack!).
'It doesn't - it's just a way of making contact with people. People love chats. Chats are lovely. Like a Christmas Card,' pointing a the two boxes in Teresa's hands. 'Mother of God' sez I, 'you're not at that crack already?'
'Ah they were cheap' sez she, 'and I send a lot of cards. I keep swearing I'll cut back every year. But you know Evelyn - I love getting a card.'

I knew exactly what she meant. a handwritten letter or card is still a joy, somebody thought about you and took the time to write your name, a little good wish and your address. Someone out there in the real world - not this internet world - really cares about you. Well - enough to send you a little hug via the Post Office anyway.

A woman I worked with for many years retired last year. I didn't make it to her 'do' so the following week I sat down and wrote her a three page letter reminiscing about some of the funny moments we had as colleagues and on nights out. I got a phone call from her the following week. Mary had been so touched by the letter that she had rung her sister in England to read it to her. She told me she cried when she read it because in recent years she had felt herself very cut off in work. Years ago if there was a work difficulty you'd drop into another person's office or pick up the phone and query it, while shooting the breeze. E-mail (for Mary's generation anyway) hadn't replaced that human touch properly. I felt sad for her, I hadn't realised how unhappy she had been. And all for the want of a chat.

So this week, make An Post and someone you haven't seen in a while happy. Send them a little 'thinking of you' note. I bet it'll be paid back in waves of thoughtfulness.Oh yeah, and go out and buy that wonderful debut novel of Evelyn Walsh's 'The Heron's Flood.' https://www.smashwords.com. Buy one for your Aunty for Chrimbo.

Viko Nikci is wreckin' me head............

2011-10-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

I thought I talked a lot. Actually I know I talk a lot. But I met my match today. I'm attending a screenwriting workshop at the Irish Writers Centre and the tutor is Viko Nikci, a charming American man who blew me away with lesson 1. D'ye know the way I'm always saying Carlo Gebler is God? Well I reckon Viko Nikci might well be the Holy Ghost. The guy has such incredible passion for what he does. You can only sit back and admire as he harnesses all the intellect and nervous energy he possesses and channels it into whatever he happens to be talking about.

Passion truly is the difference between the great and the mediocre. Mr Nikci has passion in buckets. I hope I manage to catch some of the drips from the buckets as he barrels past. I thought doing Marina Carr's playwrighting workshop in Listowel was wonderful, like trying to catch bubbles. Viko Nikci's approach is something similar except in his case I think it is like trying to catch mercury - there is a shrewd business sense in there too. He explained the difference between script and film to us, made us push our boundaries out a little, challenging us to come up with reasons why one version of a story should be told over another. The only thing is the so 'n so got me so fired up I cannot sleep so am resorting to knitting and watching re-runs of old dectivey things on the telly. At least I have the dog for company! And I just remembered - I have to do a blitz in work tomorrow before our lovely storekeeper comes back froom extended sick leave. I'm so-o-o-o tired!

Naturally Speaking..........

2011-10-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

This may well be a short post. I'm using a voice recognition programmeme, mainly because I'm suffering from repetitive strain injury and am unable to use my left arm in any repetitive action for their foreseeable future. No crude jokes please! It is so peculiar to sit here and talk at a screen and see my words dancing out without any physical movement from me barring the movement of my lips. Jemser is delighted. For years he has been pleading that my incoherent speech is the reason he fails to carry out those little tasks that lifetime partners tend to ask of each other on a daily basis. Now he thinks that my speech will be controlled by the speed at which the NaturallySpeaking programme can understand me and he will be proved right. Of course, the real reason Jemser doesn't listen (or rather doesn't hear) me is because a)he is an aul fella with waxy ears and b) he’s male!

All coddin’ ‘n jokin’ aside this programmeme is unbelievable. And it cost (including extra RAM) under €100. I'm going to have a lot of fun with this although it does feel like cheating. One of the best things about the programme is its ability to avoid typos and punctuation errors. I do find I'm saying ‘delete it’ a lot but I'm sure as the programme becomes used to my hiberno English and my manic speech patterns we’ll get along fine. Imagine all the shite I can now come out with, my imagination not now limited by the speed at which I can or cannot type! It's a mad, mad, mad world.

I wonder how it will work if I'm writing poetry? I still use a pencil and an unlined notepad when I'm working on a poem, I love the scratching sound and can glide off into another world as the words form themselves. There is something very visceral about poetry, it seems to unearth something within me at a much deeper level than anything else I write, say, or do. Most of my poems are poor and there are very few I show to others. I am often afraid of the emotions they lead me to and so tend to camouflage those feelings with clever quips or flippant phrases. In speaking these last few sentences to my ‘DragonBar’ and seeing them appear as words on a page I feel uneasy; as if something outside of myself has accessed the darker reaches of my mind. I'm sure I’ll get used to it. I have to if I want to continue to write, sparing my body the discomfort of RSI – but I think I won’t abandon pencil and paper just yet.

There is a man I know the claims eventually we-the human race-will merely have to attend our paid employments for a couple of remote minutes daily, permitting employers access to various areas of our brains, and the rest of the day and night will be ours. Imagine! All those hours to spend with those you love, or alone-whichever one chooses-learning, loving, laughing, being. Telling machines to do the tasks we hate, only spending time doing tasks we enjoy. Utopia. And feck it! I’ll be dead and miss the whole shebang!

Self Publishing – the path to stressful living

2011-10-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Right. I’ve gone through the conventional publishing route and barring swallowing my pride and accepting that an editor MIGHT be right and the fact that as a writer I was at the bottom of the food pyramid I emerged relatively unscathed.

I’m now almost at the end of self publishing my novel ‘The Heron’s Flood’. I have the book launch organised (thanks to Fingal County Council for a space for the launch), friends, family and colleagues are all lined up to cheer me on, hopefully buy a book and have a drink with me on the night. I have distribution outlets arranged, publicity ( all done by moi) ready to roll, the novel has been edited re edited and read by five different people for grammar and the interior formatting was done beautifully by Catherine Ryan Howard. I even have the money in place to order a few hundred books – in the hope that I’ll eventually break even on them and cover my outlay. So what’s wrong sez you.

Everything. I’m boll**ed working full time and dealing with the stresses and strain of being an office manager in a badly staffed area. I spend most of my 9 to 5 working day cajoling people into doing things they really shouldn’t have to do. And because they like me they do it – but I know it’s not right as do they. Then I have the moody teenager in son#1 at home who can’t wait to get out of school but still hasn’t copped that unless he puts in SOME work in the next couple of months he will have to put his plans for world domination on hold for another year. I have an eleven year old in son#2 whose hormones are starting to roar and, bless him, he needs me to moan at. I have the wonderful Jemser who is a tower of forbearance but even I am sick of the sound of my whiney voice moaning about things over which I have no control. So I try to bite my tongue around him – because I quite like him and I’m used to him at this stage so I’d rather not lose him. But biting my tongue means bottling up how I feel . And I’m not supposed to be typing - I don’t count blogging – that’s just scribbling. So I bought a voice recognition programme – I’ll let you know how I get on. If it works there will be blessed silence from this blog because I will be able to ramble on interminably in the voice of one of my characters on whom I will dump all my problems and he/she can work them out.

I’ve digressed. As per. What’s now holding up the book is the jacket design. I used a company recommended by someone and they have it a month so I was expecting great things. Not only did I not like what I got back they got the bloody title wrong. That’s bad. But they seem like nice people so I’m giving them a second chance. We all deserve that. Jemser says I think everyone is like myself - throwing myself one hundred and ten percent into everything I do. He reckons most people will do the bare minimum required by them from others. Is that true? I don’t think so. I hope it’s not. I have to keep hoping that too otherwise I’d be another one to shrug and say ‘what’s the point’ There is always a point and as human beings we have to think we can make a difference – through being passionate and committed at what we do – no matter what we do. If you’re going to be a gardeners be the best gardener you can be, ditto a parent, ditto a writer, ditto a graphic designer. Of course in all things creative what is one man’s gold is another mans brass. So I’m sure my designer just picked up the wrong vibe from what I wanted. How the hell can I be a writer if I can’t articulate what I want my work to say?

Rant over. RSI acting up so I’ll have to stop. I feel better for the rant though; all is sweetness and light in my brain and I didn’t have to annoy Jemser by wittering on about it.

Watch this space for launch date.

Menary's Mania........

2011-10-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

I always thought Menary's was a kind of a hick shop. I don't know why but I always associated it with beige twinsets and tartan pleated skirts. I was pleasantly surprised when I stuck my head into the Menary's in the Omni Shopping Centre in Santry. It was, co-incidentally, the weekend they were showing the world (well, North City Dublin) their new range of wares.

I always liked Menary's household stuff , I think they source a lot of their homewares from the same suppliers Arnotts tend to use. But I thought their female fashion was always a little dated, and if I noticed it then it must have been really bad! Well, it's not any more. They had really gorgeous stuff in store today - I particularly liked the Klass collection they have. Really nice garments at affordable prices for middle aged bats like myself. I'm a low maintenance woman and cheap and cheerful Dunnes and Penneys does me fine but I'm delighted to have a new shop I'll enjoy wandering around when I feel in need of a little retail therapy. I don 't think online shopping will ever completely replace the shopping mall experience. I love to touch garments, see how tactile they are. Is it a peculiarly female trait? I've never noticed men wandering about feeling the corners of garments with a slightly dazed look on their faces!

I bought myself a few little things plus bedcovers for son#2, a new frying pan for Jemser and a spatter pan which he won't use and I'll end up giving out about as I clean me hob. When I went to pay because I was spending over a hundred euro they threw in a butchers block of stainless steel knives worth fifty euro! I was delighted, I got the set we already have free in 1995 from the milkman in Celbridge, and it has served us well. I wonder why people give me free knives? Are the trying to tell me something? H'mmmmmmmmm!.

Not a post about the Presidential race, insomnia and weather

2011-09-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

TWO insomniac nights this week. My body clock is all over the place, I had a bad throat for a couple of days so was sleeping a lot of the day away. It was killing me to have to take to the leaba because the weather in Dublin has been glorious all week. An Indian summer - I don't ever remember it being this warm this late in the year. I think the country's body clock must be is all over the place too. I hope it stays warm and sunny for another while, we could all do with a little vitamin D before winter arrives. And arrive it will.

I was suppose to blog about the race for d'Aras but I can't be bothered. I looked at the media shots of the magnificent seven and am dreading the wall to wall coverage that will be inflicted on us over the next few weeks. Honestly, not one of the candidates could hold a candle to our last two magnificent Presidents. Our Marys. There certainly is Something About Mary when it comes to Mrs Robinson and Mrs McAleese. Brilliant ambassadors for our country - intelligent, warm and utterly devoted to their job. I have been a David Norris supporter all along and am delighted he is getting the opportunity to let the people decide to choose him or not. But he needs to stop talking and start listening. He is an erudite dapper man and I think him being elected would demonstrate how grown-up Ireland has become, how we can think for ourselves now, are no longer dominated by a Church that kept us in the dark ages by controlling the education of the very young, indoctrinating them from birth thus ensuring Rome's coffers could continue to be filled by pennies. Doesn't it just kill you that everything , everything seems to come down to money. Even God.

Michael D Higgins is another erudite man and he too would make a fine President. I honestly could not vote for any of the other candidates - no matter what they say. they just have not the gravitas I think the office needs. So that's it - my non-blog about the Irish Presidential Race. Best of luck to all the candidates

Company in the wee small hours........

2011-09-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

On my weekly insomniac night tonight and it's not so bad now there is a living creature who keeps me company through the night. Mollie is the newest addition to our family - an adorable bichon freise pup who has stolen all our hearts away, She has replaced the remote control as the signt of supremacy in the house. Whoever Mollie chooses to bestow her friendly little face and warm affectionate body on is King of the Hill.

We haven't had much luck with pets really, Sylvester and Tuppence our rabbits froze to death last year in a snap frost the day after I mentioned we ought to be taking them into the garage for the winter. Son#2 devastated. The year before that we got Dora, a terrier cross mongrel from Dogs Trust but I made the unilateral decision to return her after a week because her bad habits were too ingrained for inexperienced dog owners like us. I still feel terrible when I think of poor aul' Jemser's face reacting to my insisting she was going back. He loved her and he looked like a disappointed little boy. Do we ever out grow our childhood emotions?

We've had a few hamsters - they mostly lived out their natural lifespan of two years.They all had weird names Skibbley was one of them, Hermione another. There were a pair of adorable zebra finches that son#1 killed by mistake when he fed them slow release plant food pellets instead of bird seed. Cyril the canary flew away when his cage was knocked over in the garden one summer evening - I hope he had one last glorious flight in freedom. There was an anarchic budgie who HATED me and would only let son#1 handle her. She always pecked me and gave out when I cleaned out her cage or replaced food and water. Ungrateful little bitch! She fell off her perch one night and son#! was devastated - I think that was the last time I saw him cry - he was about twelve, he's seventeen now.

Pets, apart from their general cuteness and company, offer a great way of explaining grief and death to children - sounds heartless I know but as life is only a preparation for death it's no harm introducing them gently to the hugeness of death as fact via our animal friends. Kids can then see that life goes on for the living, we respectfully bury the deceased pet, talk about them kindly and move on. I think I feel an aul' ramble on about Death 'n stuff coming on.

I have no fear of death, I think it'd be nice to have an endless coladh samh (stop worrying family - I'm not suicidal!). I've done my job - turned out two gorgeous talented intelligent boys in sons #1 and #2 and aided and abetted in turning out two brilliant bright and beautiful women in stepdaughters #1 and #2. I feel very privileged to have been allowed to mammy these people. I look at them in awe sometimes and think -'I did that. Me!I helped make them what they are.' Along with the Jemser of course. We didn't make such a bad team really. I think it was Jim's Mam Teresa who said 'you get the children you deserve'. It's true - what you put into your kids you get back in spades. I loved them - told them I loved them- gave them the gift of books books and more books, told them they could be anyone, do anything they wanted to do and that the only limit on them would be their own fears and that the only way to conquer a fear is to face it and pass through it.

I'm giving meself a pat on the back. And a virtual hug. Well done Evo - top of the class.

A lovely lady............

2011-09-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

My sister’s mother-in-law died last weekend and we buried her on Monday. Anne and Bert had been married for more than fifty years and Anne slipped peacefully away on a bed in the living room of the home they shared, the living room in which they held their wedding reception all those years ago. I thought it very fitting that it was the place from where Anne took her leave of us. Of course it is a huge wrench for Bert and for their children, grandchildren, in-laws, extended family and friends and my heart and thoughts go out to them all.

Anne passed away at 9am Saturday morning and within a hour or so had the country screeching with delight when Ireland won their match against Australia. Her son is a huge rugby fan. He’s also a Dub – so Anne sorted them for the All-Ireland too. Good on ye Anne, we knew you’d organise a little luck for us. Anne was a big fan of my writing. When I had my first story published she sent me a lovely letter ( isn’t getting a hand written letter so caring and intimate) complimenting me on the piece and encouraging me to complete the novel I was writing. Writing is such a solitary painfully slow game and every ounce of encouragement is necessary. Anne’s letter will always be cherished by me. The novel was completed and will be published next month.

Anne was a home bird and lived for her husband and her family. Bert and herself were like Darby and Joan, tootling away together fully content with each other after half a decade. I was only in their house twice but on both occasions I felt relaxed the minute I walked in. Their house was warm and comfortable and loving, full of the smells of baking and the sounds of life. Anne idolised all her grandchildren and was a tremendous help to her daughter and her daughters-in-law in caring for their children. Anne believed in the core values of family, home and happiness, good food and laughter. She loved to yap and I was always glad to see her at family functions. She had a way of immediately putting you at your ease. My own dear mother – who sadly died far too young over twenty years ago - and Anne got along like a house on fire. They both loved a bit of style and never went anywhere without a bit of ‘lipper’ and a touch of eye shadow.

Wherever Anne is she is at peace, all toil is over. I know she will look out for all those she had to leave behind and will be cheering on her grandkids at whatever ventures they choose for themselves. We were lucky to have known her.

Ar dheis De go raibh a h-anam

2011-09-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

I meant toblog about this on Monday. But I’ve had a mad busy week and as I’m not supposedto be using my left hand it takes me ages to type anything. I was in Balbrigganlibrary last Saturday morning doing my ‘Story Queen’ routine.

I getdressed up as a panto queen complete with crown, rope of pearls, red patentleather shoes and stripey tights. Then off with me to the Junior section of one of Fingal's libraries where I lead a forty minute interactive book reading session with acrowd of under sevens.

Last Saturday the children in Balbriggan librarygot totally involved with me. A friend of mine was there with her beautifulsons but I’m afraid the girls took over that day. There were two little girlsin particular both aged about four who decided they wanted to join in witheverything.

‘Can we have a chat instead?’ asked one.

‘Now dear, when I’ve finished this story wecan have a little chat, is that ok’.

‘Of course,’ sez she.

So off wewent with Owl Babies by Martin Waddell complete with a chorus of ‘I want my Mummy’ says Bill from everyone.

‘Is it timefor the chat now’ she persisted.

'I want to chat too,' said smallie no 2

’Tell mewhat you want to talk about’

‘Em…m…m..teacherhas that book,’ pointing to Farmer Duck.

‘Shall Iread that for you then dear?’

She noddedand I demonstrated how they were to quack and cluck and moo and baa along withme. As I twisted around, clucking like a hen – as one does - my hoop and traingot all twisted and much hilarity ensued.

We readseveral more stories and at the end my little friends insisted on picking up mytrain and escorting me to the top of the steps leading from the junior library.I was bowled over buy the love I felt from them all. I had to stay in the loountil I thought the kids were all gone. I hate destroying their illusions. WhenI thought the coast was clear I left the library and walked back to my car andwho was in the car parked next to mine only my little chatty friends! So backinto Queenie mode I went.

'Don’t mindthat I’m not in my dress dear. I couldn’t wander about the town in it – whypeople would think I was quite insane. Now I must rush. The King is waiting forhis dinner.’

I think Igot away with it.

My Will.

2011-09-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

Those ofyou that know me know of my abiding love for the works of Will Shakespeare.OMG! I love that man. The music in his words, his puns and double entendres, his passionate love scenes his love of the dramatic, his sense of the ridiculous. I wonder can men be bawds? If so Will was both bard and bawd. I read something recentlyabout him and I’m para phrasing it here - I can’t remember it exactly nor theauthor. It described writers as magpies who love not shiny objects butinteresting words, or little bits and pieces of information that are stored inthe database in our brains to be taken out and mulled over and regurgitated insome piece we write, perhaps even years later.

Writersneed a smattering of psychology and of philosophy. We don’t need to read allphilosophies or examine all psychological analysis, we can simply rob something from a book onsuch weighty matters, we usually have inquisitive acquisitive minds. The internet was a godsend to us for it gives us access to information that might have required a lot of effort otherwise. You cantell a fiction writer from his\her library. Its contents will neither flatterthe eye nor indicate any systematic capacity for reading. Instead of neat rowsof well bound books you will find dog-eared books on witchcraft, animaltraining, second hand dictionaries and guides to punctuation and grammar. Un scholarly history books, travel books, somegreat writers some contemporary writers, some not so great writers who simplytell great tales, notebooks full of odd facts picked up in pubs, betting shops,knitting circles, cobblers, shops, on buses, in taxis, on the radio.

What noamount of academic training can bestow on any potential writer (and we all havepotential) is the gift of words. It cannot teach the fundamental skill ofputting words together in surprising patterns which seem to reflect somepreviously unguessed truth about life. And this was Will’s great ability – hetold truths in a new way to an undereducated populace who lived short brutallives. Of course they weren’t even then, new truths. All the great truthswere already there, and have been since Man first stood erect and thought. People may not have experienced them at that stage but thatdoes not mean they did not exist. So reading, reading widely and listening andobserving are all vital to any writer of fiction and I believe that there must also be an innate curiousity about everything about ability to work things out for oneself.

Why am Itelling yiz all this? Sure, ye probably knew it all already!

Non violent Fighting Words

2011-09-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

I attended my first Fighting Words session of the new school year today. I always enjoy my mornings there but this bunch of eight and nine year old lads from St Joesph's CBS ( Joeys) in Fairview were classic. I laughed until I cried. And fair play to Sara Bennett facilitator extraordinaire, who controlled the energy in the room and pulled a hilarious story out of the kids called 'Where is the Evil Anymore' about Tiguar (halfTiger/half Jaguar) and his friend Stop Talking a parrot who wouldn't stop talking . Here's a link to it if you want to read more. http://www.fightingwords.ie/news/todays-story.php .

One of the rules in Fighting Words is that we try not to use violence in the stories and Sarah explained this to the children. One child asked 'what's violence?'. Sarah explained the word in simpler terms and I thought about the little incident. I wonder will we ever see a world where violence is an archaic word. A word that 98% of the population wouldn't understand because there is none. A word that only archaeologists historians etcetera understand? I'd love to be around in that world. A world full of balanced happy people contributing and living in their society on good terms with all about them. A world where people like the ones in my home abound. People who are loved, people who love, who sing and read and talk and above all listen to each other.

Lack of communication is the main reason for all frustration, frustration that tips into anger and cause rows. If we listen - really listen- to what our children are saying, our older people our disenfranchised through lack of education or the inability to nurture never having known nurturing. Every society, every country, every world and be judged on how it treats those on the fringes of that society. This is the message of every great teacher since time began, the message of Plato, Sophocles, Jesus Christ, the prophet Mohammed, Buddha, Martin Luther King. Bring me your old, your sick and your lonely. Nurture your children. Love one another.
Will we ever get there lads?
C'mon - sure we'll give it a go.

Sleepy September Sundays

2011-09-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

I had a really lovely day today. I woke early (which I normally love on a Sunday because it means I can sigh contentedly roll over and kip for another few hours) but I was anxious to get on with proofing the reader's copy of 'The Heron's Flood' to check for final final final changes. So I read this WONDERFUL novel until about half ten when himself shouted up that the stirabout was ready. So up, washed and togged within twenty minutes (I'm low maintenance) and savoured the porridge with sultanas. I denied myself even so much as a glance at the Sunday papers because therein lies ruin - I lose at least two hours of my life every time I do that; then moan that there is nothing in them. The wonderful Colm Toibin was on the radio chatting about his upcoming play'Testament' in the Dublin Theatre Festival. It is about one of the much sung but strangely poorly depicted (in terms of theatre) historical characters - Mary, mother of Jesus. There is definitely 'something about Mary' and I am really looking forward to this play, particularly as both Garry Hynes and Marie Mullen are involved. A must-see of the Festival methinks. Plus Colm's mate Loughlinn Deegan chose one of my favourite tracks as a song he associated with Colm - Tom Waites 'I hope that I don't fall in love with you'
Then meself and son#2 hopped into the car and headed for Balbriggan's Sunday open-air market. My sister has a stall there and I visit the odd time - always at this time of the year to pick up my winter fireside rug from my lovely rug man with whom I have my annual natter, solve the problems of the country and always walk away with a lovely rug for under thirty euro, can't be bet. I bought some home made blackberry jam - early but feckin' gorgeous, a few cute second hand 'ormadils', proper mucky misshapen carrots and real dark green cabbage. I also picked up two sporting books for Jemser and Kurt Cobain's 'Journals' for son #1 - mesmerising for insight into a brilliant but, I think, not fully rounded mind (I'll be killed for that). Poor bugger. Great market - sometimes full of crap but you'll pick up the odd gem, don't bring too much cash and in general kids over five love it, it's always worth it for the characters. Particularly worth it to view with amusement the fleeing traders who trade in the perennial counterfeit DVDs, illegally imported cheapo fags and sometimes electrical tools of dubious origin who run with their wares as the Gardai pay at least three visits over a six hour period.

Back home and Jemser had the dinner underway - Championship Sundays = early dinners. That man makes the best gravy in the 26 counties. I re-read 'Dancing at Lunaghasa' (son #2 is studying it for the Leaving) as I had a cuppa and was mesmerised again by the language characters and symbolism. A classic. The Sunday roast, roasties and two veg with a glass of red knocked me out so I had a three o'clock six o clock snooze. It was great to wake up refreshed at five oclock with the All-Ireland over (hard luck Tipp) the dishes done and feeling refreshed enough to write a little. Mind you I have RSI and am warned off. But Jesus lads - I'd crack up if I couldn't blether. BTW, can you get RSI of the mouth? Probably not, for I'd surely be crocked if you could. It had been raining when I fell asleep earlier reminding me of many wet Sunday afternoons when the kids were smaller and fractious, I couldn't drive and Jemser wouldn't budge from RTE and the GAA. I often felt like strangling someone before teatime. Changed times.

It was a lovely evening so I did a little late season dead-heading - the garden is struggling but still looking well. I went for a ramble and a bit of a think and now I'm settling down to some knitting for the expected new arrival ( after a eleven year gap) into the Walsh clan. This babby is going to be the only babby ever born. Deffo. And the most wanted, cherished loved and adored baby too. And YIZ BETTER MAKE ME AUNTIE VERY SPECIAL!!

I might even read the Sunday papers after a while.

The Wolfman Cometh............

2011-08-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

I felt twelve or thirteen again last night. I spotted and couldn’t resist buying a DVD called the WolfMan earlier on in the day. It was made in 1941 with a cast that included Lon Chaney Jnr and Claude Rains. I roared laughing watching it because the special effects and melodrama are now so dated and OTT. But it explains where my love of the dramatic comes from. I could never resist the old black and whites especially the horror and crime ones. It was hard not to laugh last night at the tears rolling down Lon Chany’s face as he sat in his vest and rolled up trousers to view with horror his increasingly hairy legs. The whole hoo-haw in the village after ‘the wolfman’ strikes and kills a second victim is more reminiscent now of the over amplification and exaggeration that is used by cartoon or panto characters for an increasingly tech savvy bunch of pre schoolers.

It didn’t scare me (well, not much). But by god it reminded me of baby-sitting in my uncle’s house in Swords aged about twelve. The kids would be long asleep and I sat on his couch – all lights off only the flicker of the telly for company munching through a bowl of rice krispies ( I thought they were so rich and sophisticated because they bought Rice Krispies!) and being absolutely scared shitless. When Tom and Margaret rambled in from wherever they had been I used to pretend that I fell asleep on the couch – the reality being I was too scared to go up the stairs. We lived in a bungalow ( another reason I thought they were rich!) and the shadows on the stairs were just too much to handle. Lon Chaney was a complete ham but I reckon Claude Rains was a great actor. Himself, Clark Gable and Charles Boyer. I was a sucker for those suave, intelligent and so-o-o-o- sophisticated - totally unattainable to a young wan from the Mun, which was great because if I had ever landed one like that I wouldn't have had the slightest idea how to behave. I am a complete romantic, love tales of people dying for love - of lovers being torn apart by circumstance and dying alone and lonely far apart from each other. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Old Curiousity Shop - I don't care what Oscar Wilde thinks I bawled me eyes out at the death of Little Nell. Precious Bane, David Copperfield I could go on all night. I wallow happily in the sentimental. Sure look at the title of me blog – still one of my favourite movies Bette Davis and Charles Boyer. ‘ Oh Gerry – why wish for the moon when we already have the stars – as he lights two fags and hands one to her.

How on earth did I end up with Jemser? Although he did record a song for me for one of my birthdays. 'I'm gonna love you forever, forever and ever amen. As long as old men sit and talk about the weather as long as old women sit and talk about old men.' Aaah! Mebbe he is a closet romantic.

On being hirsute in Funtasia

2011-08-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

Took son#2 and pals on their end of the holidays day out yesterday. It was meant to be the day before but the Waterpark in Drogheda we wanted to go to was jam packed and thank the universe at ten and eleven they are now old enough to understand compromise .So I arranged to take a full day off work yesterday – thank you lovely employer about whom I constantly moan and we visited an almost empty Applegreen service station on the M1 for a snack (how on earth do they expect to make money on those?) and pretended we were in America and then went to our local swimming pool as a consolation prize.

So yesterday morning we set off for Co Louth. I love that Louth accent. People always sound as if they are about to burst into joyous Munchkin-like song. Anyway we were about the third or fourth car into the car park and only had to queue for about twenty minutes before the squad got access to the fun and games. Thank the universe I no longer have to shave and trim unsightly hair ( who ever said it was unsightly?- I think the odd stray pube can be a little –well…tantalising-at least until one is thirty five years of age) and pack my aging white flesh into a bathing suit and not embarrass myself or my children by parading my disgraceful lack of discipline and interest in my physical appearance for the world to sneer at. Now I can sit in the carpark of these ‘fun’ places and read my book, write or doze. All perfectly nice acceptable things for a Mammy to be doing.

It's a good day out for kids and at €11 each for an unlimited time it is reasonable. Be warned though it's popular and they reach saturation point at 400 so have to restrict access until some people leave. My lot spent three hours in it and would have spent longer only hunger drove them out to me. There is a huge Tesco and Lidl nearby and an outlet shopping mall if you wanted to sit and have a coffee and felt comfortable enough leaving them in the waterpark. They do an online deal where you can get a reduced access price to their sister amusement park in nearby Bettystown. As I queued I was chatting to a family from Kerry who were on a midweek break availing of a nice four star hotel nearby and doing the run of things in the area. Much easier than hauling all the smallies onto a plane for a tiny apartment and worrying about sun burn for two weeks.I'm getting old. Deffo. When I see the advantages of a holiday at home over a sun holiday. Mind you most of the holidays I've had in my lifetime have been at home and I always enjoyed them - well, almost always!

Now comes the Winter of my pen's content

2011-08-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, bad pun for a blog title - but it is almost the end of the school holidays and once my sons settle back into their routine I can get back into mine. I wondered why I was so edgy and irritable the last few weeks. It's because me writing has gone to pot. The only real writing I did over the past ten weeks was a rough draft of a new story and some scribbled ideas for children's books. And the rough draft of the story was written in the middle of one night. I did a lot of proof reading and organising re my book launch done but no serious work.

I write very little in the summer. I suppose we get so little decent weather in Ireland that I feel I should be out and about in it, gardening or walking or just sitting in my garden reading. I try to persuade myself that reading is a neccessary part of writing ( which it is) but not the psychological thrillers and murder mysteries I favour as back garden reading material.

Anyway when this last week of entertaining the troops is over - we have our annual Zoo visit and a trip to Fantasia - the waterpark in Bettystown- planned. I'm on half-days all week so we might fit in a trip to Butlers chocolate factory as well - now that I'll DEFINITELY enjoy. I have the schoolbooks and uniforms sorted. Imagine I now have one child going into his final year of primary education and one into his final year of secondary. So come this day next week all my excuses and procrastinating must cease and I must adhere to my two hours a day six days a week, and five hours of a Sunday with my bum on the seat and my fingers on the keyboard rule.

I'm looking forward to it - no messing about idly flicking onto Facebook every half hour or going from one link to another on Wikepedia or watching endless ridiculous clips on YouTube. Here's hoping I produce something of worth over winter 11/12. I'll keep you posted.

I'm gone a bit odd............

2011-08-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

No smart comments about the title of this post please. Ok, maybe I should have said odder. I've been incarcerated in the basement of the office building since mid May computerising a stationery stores system and doing the work of the storeman who is off enjoying himself having a hip relacement (joke Michael!). At one stage in my thirty years with this organisation I worked in Building Facilities and used to joke that I had control of toilets and canteens and was therefore all powerful. Now I have control of bog-roll and photocopy/print paper so I have ABSOLUTE control of the place, which appears to run on both items judging by the amounts I have to buy and distribute.

Nobody likes me in this job. They told me so. 'Michael's so nice - you're an aul' wagon' they cry when I query their use of any item. One gormless young one had the misfortune to tell me she needed rubber bands urgently to which I replied 'Brain surgery is urgent dear. Rubber bands are not'. It never ceases to amaze me how excited people get about stationery. They label everything they requisition as personal to themselves. If there is one thing I cannot bear it is a stapler with someones name tippexed on it. The stapler belongs to the employer not the indiviual employee - the employee is merely allowed use the stapler whilst they work for the employer. It's the same with rulers, notebooks - anything that can be labelled is labelled.

I think it's a regression to childhood. You know, when you got all your new school books copies, pencils erasers etc and laboriously put your name on every item and felt all pleased and grown up with yourself. On top of these childish souls there are a number of 'serial' shoppers. Some people think it quite alright to leave their own office and disappear to Stores twice or three times a week looking for one or two items. The new computerised system will put a halt to that particular gallop as in future all orders must be e mailed . So I'll have even fewer visitors.

I can't even have the radio on as there is no reception in the basement. The storeman won't be back until the end of October - at which stage I will quite definitely be do-lalley. I like to gab and gabbing to yourself is no fun because you never know the answers to your own questions, well I don't. Am I making sense? Probably not. See, I told you I was losing it.

I didn't think this particular job would bother me because as a writer I often spend hours at a time staring at a computer screen lost in the world of my characters. However I like that work and often have to drag myself back to the real world. Keying in and counting stock items of rubber bands, tabbed folders, staple extractors, sellotape, stamp pads, paper, notebooks, envelopes and their prices is, to say the least, mind-numbingly boring. A redundant turnip could do it. So yes I can be happy working alone, but only when I'm doing something I'm passionate about. It's difficult to get excited over the advantages of a finetipped pen over a ballpoint biro.

I can't believe I have written a blog about my incredibly boring employment.

To counteract the hacking away at my soul I throw my energies into the Story Queen and the fiction writer when I get home. The Queen's reputation is growing and I even have business cards for her now! The fiction writer is getting nervous about her book launch next month - she hopes she doesn't lose too much money on it (so does her husband!). The Queen and the author keep the storekeeper relatively sane........as for the mother,wife and housekeeper, well, that's another days blog.

Doubting Thomasina

2011-07-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

I spent most of today reading through the copyedited proof read version of my novel. It’s shite. Not the editing - the editor did a great job and would highly recommend her ( Emma Sherry). This is about the one hundred and seventieth time I’ve read the bloody thing and I won’t be in the least bit surprised if it sinks into the oblivion it deserves. I’m bloody tired of the whole thing and yet I have to spend more hours of my precious free time on it.

Yet I still insist on publishing it. Why? I don’t bloody know. It’s not going to cost me much – a little organising and some hours on the laptop plus plugging it left right and centre. But why in the name of God am I doing all that for something I have intense doubts about? I have a full-time reasonably paid job (which I hate) a home and family to care for – you’d think that would be enough for me. But it’s not – like himself ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’. But will I ever? Will publishing this finally close it off for me. That’s it – I did it wrote a book and got a copy of it for friends and family. Now get on with my life.

I don’t think so. Writing has become almost a compulsion for me. Even though my typing technique is crap and I spend most of my time correcting typos. Even though a lot of what I write is discarded, binned, deleted. Why do I still keep f***in’ doing it? I can’t change the world with it. I can’t even change myself with it. But I can’t stop. I can’t move on to finishing something new until this novel is finally between two covers – no matter how crappy it is. Maybe by the end of next month I can finally open up a new blank screen and winking cursor and start on my REAL masterpiece.

Then I heard of Amy Winehouse’s death. And I felt guilty for being alive whilst she was gone for there was real talent. And look at the amount she achieved in her short short life. By God that lady could write and sing. What a poor demented soul she was – what a pity she didn’t make it through the miasma. And I looked at all I had – my husband, my boys, my extended family and friends and realised that I already had what was important to me and maybe the tragedy is that many people don’t ever ever realise that until it’s too late. So I’m stopping feeling sorry for myself and self doubting etc – I’m just going to do it and shag the consequences

Diary of Liam(11⅓) and Oscar(11¼) in Pwllheli, Wales – last piece

2011-07-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

This is our last blog…are yiz sad? Evelyn’s not. She says it will be at least ten days before she can think of anything without some image of a bodily function leaping to her mind or worse, lips. We don’t know whether we’re insulted or pleased.

We had a bit of an adventure on Thursday. Evelyn was meant to shoot us take us shooting but they were all booked up until Sunday so she didn’t get to MURDER US STONE DEAD. Instead she deliberately lost us on a barren headland somewhere in North Wales. We would have preferred to have been shot. Being eleven and however many fractions you might be and finding youself lost (??!!) in a foreign country is double scary. Even if everyone speaks English. They all have funny accents and tried to make stupid jokes that were supposed to comfort us but were just STUPID.

What happened was this. We rented bikes because we were going for the Oscie sock burning ceremony and the site of this ceremony was (according to Evelyn) about a fifteen minute walk – which meant thirty minutes - and come on we’re eleven we don’t DO thirty minute walks. There was a bit of a hoo ha with Oscar’s bike but Evelyn got it sorted (she can be useful sometimes – when she’s not trying to lose us) and off we set. Now she says she called ‘turn right’ when we called back to see which way to go. But we all know her sense of direction – anyway we didn’t hear her and turned back the way we thought we’d come. ‘Cept it mustn’t have been the way or more probably she went her own sweet meandering WRONG way.

So we started looking for her – we rode back towards the site (all of three minutes). Liam thought he heard Evelyn calling ‘Leee-ummmmm’ but wasn’t sure. So we decided to go back to the Spar and tell the lady there about our missing Evelyn. So she called security and they came down to the shop. They – well, he - had no flashing lights, later we remembered it was a dark green kind of van thing, Liam thought it was probably some kind of crap Volvo. So he – the security van man- started to take our details and tried ringing Evelyn’s mobile but it wouldn’t ring ( he didn’t use the international code). He made a stupid joke about us trying to get him to ring some mental number in outer Mongolia and cost him a fortune and we tried to laugh but we couldn’t. Liam was starting to get upset and Oscar was trying to stay calm. And then out of the blue – out of NOWHERE- Evelyn walked around the corner outside the Spar. That was it. We both laughed and felt like crying at the same time and felt safe and mortified at the same time. And of course she did her ‘Owl Babies’ Aul’Mother speech “ ‘WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS!! Sure ye knew I’d come back’ ”. Well, of course we knew it – but still….y’never know.

So off we went – this time together – and it was a lovely day and nice and cool on the headland even though it was MELTING on the caravan site. And we had the Oscie Sock Burning Ceremony – and it was terribly sad and Oscar filled up even more than he had when he thought Evelyn had been abducted by Aliens – or men in a dingy white van . And the photos are on FaceBook. Then we placed crisps (smokey bacon natch) on our tongues to remind us of the burning to the crisp of holy holey old socks. Photos on FB also – don’t tell the blasphemy police. So that was that. We explored a bit and we started to see Evelyn’s point about views and fresh air and stuff and then we said P-P-L-LE-E-E-E-ase can we go back so we can go into the fifth circle of Hell for a swim. And she sighed her deeply tired Evelyn sigh and smiled her ever-suffering Evelyn smile and heavily got to her middle aged swollen feet and gathered up ALL the bags and plodded along behind us commenting loudly on the beauty of the countryside and coast line and ozone laden air and the ingratitude of the yoof of today…. But we didn’t hear her because we were miles ahead on our bikes. We knew she wouldn’t get lost again.

So we went to the NINTH circle of Hell (I thought it was the fifth…No, it was the first Oshutup) pool. We enjoyed it.

As it was our second last night Evelyn said she’d take us out to a proper overpriced site restaurant. We thought it was lovely but we weren’t paying. The desserts were deadly. Chocolate ice-cream stuff. Yum – Liam said that after the death-by-chocolate dessert it was the next nicest dessert he’d ever had. Evelyn said that at least the used proper Cos lettuce in the Caesar (she made us put that in – all leafy green things are fake especially lettuces (lettusces, letucises..lett..le….###) and cabbages (cab##......) from Cosmania))(and why would anyone call a bowl of green….. …fodder (that was Liam – he has an agricultural background))after a Roman Emperor))) but then she moaned commented about the overuse of parmesan LARGE CHUNKS and the marked absence of……..then we stopped listening because© >>>>>>>>>>>© was on the large 52 inch flatscreen TV on the ©…………………………© we can’t say for fear of being sued for copyright©

And then it was Friday……..and it was dull..no….. more than dull ..it , wait for it, it RAINED. We felt really at home, well Evelyn did especially, she said it made her all nostalgic for Wexford in 19-oh-dot…Evelyn had said she would take us back on our favourite paying thing on the site for our last day so we picked pedaloes ( well, we couldn’t go back to the Tardis ‘cause it wasn’t on the site). So she got up after only FOUR ‘what time are wes’ – which is good for an adult…’specially before ten a.m.
So we were on the boating lake by half-ten. She doesn’t hang around when she makes her mind up. We found even YOUNGER ducklings than the first pedalo day and she did the kissy thing again, and it was really quite funny the way the eejits followed us and we decided we actually wouldn’t like to fall into the boating lake….it was a bit..well…not to be rude, but ‘ absolutely MINGIN’’ ( we are in the UK!). We felt sorry for the birds. But they looked happy and healthy enough.

So. It was Liam’s friend from Swords birthday so we spent most of the day with him and his family. We went to Burger King (Oh yeah, oh yeah …more junk food!!) and then go-karting and then back to his mobile for cake and happy birthday and then …Evelyn gave in under pleading eyes and relentless rain and said we could go to the Arcade with the last of our money. And then it was time to have a pickin’-out of each other few hours and write our blog and then it was bed time and we cannot believe our holiday is over. And it was good. But it’ll be nice to get home to our own beds and our own couches and X Boxes and the way things should be.

And most of all – to our Mam and our Dads. WUV YOU ALLXXXXXXXXX
Liam and Oscar.

PS: Thanks Mammikins/Auntikins – we reely reely reely apreceeate appriche, are glad you took us to Hafan Y Mor. DBL WUV U xOxOxO

PPS: That PS is an incorrect representation of our last words as we would never – ever - ever mis-spell that word…but yes Evelyn/Mam you deserve a thank you…and we do love you! And thank you for saying MIGHT to Spain next year - we don't care that you think we won't want to go...we're always going to be eleven inside!!!

Grown- up Ps - I love you! I really enjoyed my time in Wales with the two babies (so far) of the Walsh Clan. They were - for the most part - great company, although I admit the giddiness did get on my nerves at times. But they are both intelligent, articulate funny and best of all loving young men. Whoever they end up with in years to come will be getting well-balanced partners. Didn't we do a grand job on them!

Diary of Liam(11⅓) and Oscar(11¼) in Pwllheli, Wales – blog 3

2011-07-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

First we have to apoligise to the whole of Wales and especially Pwllhellians or Pwllhellcats or whoever for spelling Pwllheli incorrectly up to this - we will never ever do it again. Ever.
Tuesday was another warm day but hazy instead of sunny. Evelyn agreed to come to the pool with us first thing but she only stayed ten minutes. She said later it was like the fifth circle of Hell and far too full of Hardy’s Madding Crowds. Whatever that means. Ok it is a bit too warm and a bit packed and there isn’t really a swimming swimming pool and it’s a bit old and there are a lot, an awful lot of really small kids and their parents in it but …well…it is a campsite and a holiday camp and all…so…anyway she had to stop at Starbucks for a grande skinnilatte with an extra shot to get over the ordeal. Whatever. We stayed in the pool for a couple of hours, we still think it’s great - then came home for lunch and then we went to the go-kart track which was great fun. Then we came back and annoyed Evelyn for a while until she jumped up from her lazing chair and said ‘Right. That’s it. You’re coming for a walk’. A WALK!! Someplace there’s no shops! Or anything to do!

It actually wasn’t too bad. We went through the forest and did ‘Lions and Tigers and Bears- oh my!’ No-one is ever too big for the Wizard. Evelyn was Dorothy (she had the check shirt) Oscar was Scarecrow (because of the socks) and Liam was Lion. It was hilarious and Evelyn kept trying to scare us and was really, really so not scary. Until we got a bit lost and she had to guide us back to her by the sound of her voice. And Oscar got a ginormous scrape and Liam got nettle stings ( see evidence on FB photos) so we felt like real explorers. Anyway we found her and then the coastal path and she was right – it really is lovely. We climbed down onto the rocks and threw stones in the water. Then we came back and had dinner and after dinner we went back down to the rocky beach with Liam’s friends from Swords. Then we came back and Oscar did the dishes (YES _ ACTUALLY WASHED AND DRIED DISHES AND POTS) (Mam – don’t mind them it’s lies all lies – wuv you Oscie xxx ( I don’t know how to wash dishes and I can’t learn, I have dishes dyslexia or maybe I have an allergy to washing up liquid or maybe I hurt my dishes washing hand forever or maybe watching Liam wash them traumatised me beyond belief) still wuv you Oscie xxx), Then we made plans for an official Oscie Socks Burning Ceremony – more of which on Friday. Then we had our giddy hour and a half (it’s an official hour and a half where utter idiocy is totally acceptable). Then we couldn’t believe another day was over. It’s going scarily fast now. Caernarvon Castle tomorrow so we better go to bed. Night.

When we woke up on Wednesday it was MAD HOT – like Spain or Italy hot- and Shewhomustbeobeyed said we still had to go to see this castle in Caernarvon. Like, it’s been there since 12ninety-something , it could have waited another day or two. Liam was particularly grumpy – he’s nearer to teenage grumpy than Oscie is – according to shewhomustetcetera. But when we were pulling into the carpark we started to laugh – we could see why she wanted us to go to see the bloody castle. Oscar spotted it first and called it for what it was – but Evelyn said no no no – it was a portaloo obviously for building work – but she was laughing. Then Liam nearly had apoplexy (whatever that is) ‘It is! OhMiGod it is! The Tardis. Oh…. that’s the episode where they filmed load of it in different castles and where…then he went off on this big long description of the whole plotline which you can pick up on any website about the Doctor. See, Liam claims Dr Who is not a drama series – it’s documentary according to him – more - it’s a way of life.

So we went up and had our pictures taken with the Tardis in Caernarvon Castle. We had a quick look around the rest of it but sorry – the Tardis was the highlight , who needs history when you have possibility? Evelyn muttered about paying twenty quid to see an abandoned police phone box…but she was laughing. So then we had ice creams and bought new Oscie socks ( and I got a cool t-shirt Mam - Oxy. Xx) and we were MELTING. So Evelyn saw this fountain and had the DEADLY idea that we should run in and out and try not to get wet. Liam got SOAKED. Oscar didn’t even wet his little finger.

Evelyn is a bit annoyed about this …but….well….we think the highlight of the whole holiday so far was the drive back to Pwhelli from Caernarvon. See - Liam had to take his shorts off because they were soaking and Evelyn stuck them out the back window where they flapped like some demented flag the whole way back. There was great music on the radio and we got in a good mood then some insane burrowing immortal beetle got into the car and Oscar could NOT kill it no matter how hard he tried. And he REALLY tried. But it kept disappearing. And we had been talking about xxxx and xxxxxxx and (bodily functions) so naturally we wondered was the beetle got worming its way up his xxxx where it would lay its eggs and produce dung beetles. Of course then we had to mention xxxx milk and pexxxds and nose jobs and infidelity because of undried dishes and then Evelyn SHRIEKED ‘shutupshutupshutupshutup’. Well. We stopped – for thirty two seconds then exploded …and got worse. And she did a constant low mumbling about sublime to ridiculous and how there was only so much pre pubescent children a person could take. Poor her.

She only let us stay in the mobile for ten seconds when we got back before chasing us down the road to the pool to get rid of our elevensness. Sheesh. Aul’ bxxxx –( wuv you Evikins XOXOXOL). So we stayed there for ages and came back, showered, annoyed her some more then went off to Adventure Golf (Oscar beat me Dad – boohoo - so I got no chicken Curry – Liam OOO) Oscar got three birdies and an EAGLE and Liam got two birdies and two pars. We did our ONLY Burger King dinner of the holidays, then a DVD ‘cause we were wrecked and we thought it might compensate a little for our X-Box withdrawal (which is remarkably tame) then the playground. And now we are WrEcKed – but best things were the Tardis, the burrowing beetle and the giddy giddy giddiness.

And tomorrow Evelyn is taking us shooting……………

Diary of Liam(11⅓) and Oscar(11¼) in Pwehelli, Wales – blog 2

2011-07-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

Firstly Oscar would like to point out that he is Eleven and One Sixth but we can't find one sixth on the symbol inserts and our editor is crap. Secondly we are definitely not doing this every night. It’s too like homework so this is a doubler and we are getting a homework pass for one night.

Sunday was another lovely day – although Evelyn said the rain on the caravan roof woke her during the night and reminded her of childhood holidays in Carne in Co. Wexford. She said it felt good – made her feel safe. That’s weird – but it’s ok because we still love her (Evelyn - butt out of our blog).

Anyway Oscar was especially glad about the weather because it meant we could do the pedaloes. Oscar has a bit of an obsession with pedaloes. His type of obsessing is different to Liam’s obsessing – Liam worries loudly and keeps time checking and talking about the things he obsesses about. Oscie just gets this dreamy face on him and says ‘I so-o-o-oo love ..’obsession’..or ‘Imagine in only a few hours I’ll be doing …’obsession..’’obsession’..is so cool…’’…you get the picture?

So Evelyn kept him waiting for HOURS because she says denial is good for building character. Like…who wants to be a character? She claims that giving in immediately to eleven year olds’ obsessions means they move along straight away to the next one/thing and obsess about that. I mean, c’mon, they’re PEDALOES!! While we were waiting we hired this double buggy kart thing. It was great fun and we were wrecked after it. It’s hard work because only one of us pedalled while the other one steered. Liam nearly got us killed going down a hill MAD FAST – but we didn’t die and we fell about laughing because it was such a buzz.

Evelyn did us a great deal on money – things like buggies and pedaloes and Adventure golf are dear here so our tenners wouldn’t go very far. But we’re not allowed tell you the deal because then Jim would KILL her for being a soft touch and an eejit when she’s not – she’s a nice kind middle-aged woman who just understands what it’s like to be a poor destitute kid (that bit is her again).

We did the pedaloes then – BRILLIANT. Even Evelyn enjoyed it despite grumbling about having to do it ( we needed an adult and she’s the only one we know here!). She said that being pedalled around a boating lake by two young gentlemen was really rather nice. It was alright until she started making kissy noises at this duck and ducklings and the duck seemed to understand her and started to follow the kissy noises and the ducklings followed the duck, so we looked like the Pied Piper of the Hafan y Mor boating lake. We had to pedal like LUNATICS to get Evelyn away from the duck and stop the ~~sheeshin’~~ ~~flippin’~~ feckin’ kissing noises.

It was really sunny then and Evelyn wanted to sit in the sun and read the papers. So we went to the pool and we stayed for HOURS. The slides are really brilliant and there aren’t huge queues or anything so you can go up and down real quick. The flumes have big queues so we didn't bother with them We were absolutely wrecked and STARVING after it so we came back to the mobile and showered and flopped about on the couch while Evelyn cooked us pizza. Then we went to the playground - it’s a really good adventure playground not a little kids one and we were meant to go for a walk with Evelyn after that but she fell asleep and we stayed -like REALLY quiet so when she woke up it was Top Gear and Liam won’t move during Top Gear and after that we were all too lazy and Evelyn was still sleepy. We made a mad home movie on Oscar’s iPod and then we had rubbish for supper and that was the end of Day two

On Monday we got buggy carts again and Evelyn went for a big long walk along the coast and came back all going on about wildflowers and dolphins and how really like Wexford (except with hills) this place was. Then we went into Pwehelli to get a chair for her to sit on outside the mobile because her back is knackered and she can't sit on the grass anymore and Liam bought a Top Gead dvd and Oscar bought a Mr Potato Head (we know, we know – but he likes Mr Potato Head and it’s his money so…). It was weird because all the people in the Asda talked Welsh to each other and Evelyn said wasn’t it a pity we Irish didn’t do the same. But why would we want to speak Welsh – we wouldn’t understand each other! (we knew what she meant, we’re not thick – just eleven). Then we came back to Hafan Y Mor and played Adventure golf and were both crap but it was fun and Oscar got a birdie on one hole and Liam a par (there was no back nine Dad – Liam, OO).

We went to the shop and bought horrendously sour sweets called Toxic Waste and came back to the mobile and made another video on the iPod by O&L Productions showing Liam’s face as he ate some of the sweets except we called them Squoxic Waste in case we got sued or something. And Oscar did the commentary really serious like it was a very intelligent scientific research programme. It was really funny. Then Evelyn asked Oscar were the socks he was wearing his favourite and he said ‘no’. So she asked why he was wearing them since Friday and he said his Mam hadn’t packed him any other socks (boo-hoo). Evelyn said he was like a poor orphan with only one pair of very holey socks to his name ( but it doesn’t matter Mam – I have at least seven more toes to break through the material before they’re useless – I still wuv you – Oscie XX). Anyway Evelyn came up with a solution to the sock problem but its too boring to write about.

Evelyn wanted to work more on her Courtown tan so we went to the pool again for ages. Then we had dinner and we all agreed we didn’t think the Welsh mince was as nice as the Irish mince. Liam’s friends from Swords arrived and we went to the arcade with them. When we came back Evelyn said that was it – ABSOLUTELY no more arcades for the rest of the holidays. We don’t really care. There is loads of other stuff to do. And we’re wrecked again now so we’re going to bed. Because we like to get up early to do all the loads of stuff there is to do. Byeeeeeeeeee

Diary of Liam(11⅓) and Oscar(11¼) in Pwehelli, Wales – blog 1

2011-07-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

Unashamedly based on ‘Diary of Stephen(7) and Peter(6) in Auntie Mary’s cottage in Co Mayo in August 2000. And mainly for Mammy Grimes.

Evelyn says we have to do this because we will be delighted when we are old like her to have a written memory of it. Sheesh. And we know she’s going to edit it and put words in our mouths (or on our page – like SHEESH, and MEGA-like- WHO says that? But she won’t print impolite language because the Grimes’s might read it and they don’t do impolite language – YEAH!!). But that’s ok – because we love her (see, she put that bit in).

On with day 1.

We had to get up mad early – like - the sky was orange and red and Evelyn told us about red sky in the morning being sailors’ warning but we thought she made it up. Anyway it looked weird. And there were about twenty mega minutes where we talked really loudly at each other non-stop trying to be better than each other at saying random stuff. And then there were - like - no cars AT ALL on the road and it felt like maybe the end of the world or something. Then Evelyn told us to SHUT UP for ten minutes. So we whispered and snorted back laughs and did sniggers over all any kind of bodily emissions or excretions (see, she put those proper words in as well). Sheesh! We’re ELEVEN! What does she expect – intellectual discourse on the non-existence or otherwise of a god?

Anyway, we got early to the ferry because Liam was appointed Operations Manager and he’s really anal about being early for everything, even worse than Evelyn. So we were first in the queue and Evelyn stayed in the car dozing and enjoying the sunshine and the birds and stuff and we went over to this café where this really horrible woman tried to ignore us. She was one of those adults who thinks kids aren’t real people and glares at them and tries to make them feel like dog poo on a shoe. But we still got something to eat – but it was horrible. Then we waited and waited and waited and finally got on the ferry and Evelyn found a comfy seat to sit and read and doze (she does a lot of that) and we went off exploring. And we found this deadly arcade. So we came back to Evelyn and asked for our daily tenners and she did that thing with her mouth where it looks like an ~~arse~~ bottom and frowned and only gave us £3 each because she thought that was enough to spend in ‘one of those places’.

So we went back to the arcade, played a few games and went on deck and around the ship and explored but that was boring so we went back and asked Evelyn for the rest of our money. So she gave us the lecture about how a tenner was way too much to spend in an arcade especially before half past nine in the morning (even though we’d been awake for hours so it was basically half past TWO, ~~Jesus~~ Sheesh) Yeah, yeah. If we wanted to spend all our daily allowance or even all our holiday money before we even got halfway across the Irish sea why did she care? It was our money wasn’t it? Liam said that (he never knows when to shut up) and Evelyn’s ~~arse~~ funny-shaped lips got tinier. Like, why did it bother her, we knew the rule about no more money. Mams!

Then all the money was gone and the movie they had on was crap and Evelyn lost our comfy seats so we had to wander about until we found somewhere else. Then we had a marathon session of Hangman and Evelyn hung us with ‘aggravation’ ‘seasonally’ and ‘disobedience’ and Oscar won with ‘popsicle’ and ‘cheeseburger’ and Liam tried to be smart but got caught with a word that wasn’t even a word. Then Liam won with ‘Po’ but Evelyn disputed the use of placenames and rivers and stuff – but he still won. Liam caught her ‘ectoplasm’ before we were hung. It was a great giddy laugh, ‘cept Liam gets a bit thick when he loses and Evelyn gave him a bit of another lecture. Families.

We were getting tired and fed up but then it was Holyhead and Evelyn had a panicky minute when we got into the car ‘cause she had left the radio on. But the battery was Ok and Liam stopped having heart failures about the nearly shame. Then we got pulled in by Customs into this shed and Evelyn nearly killed a woman by letting the car jump a tiny bit. But everyone laughed so that was ok. The customs man was really nice and we all laughed when Evelyn declared us eleven year olds as ‘prohibited and dangerous substances’. They didn’t arrest us but Oscar was glad he had his birth cert to prove he was – like - Oscar. Then we saw a nearly crash with three huge HGVs. But it was ok, just a nearly.

Then we drove for about forty minutes and stopped at a supermarket in Caernarfon and bought loads of stuff – mostly goodies because we were on hols – but stuff like spuds and bread, pasta, meat and even vegetables and fruit (hi Mam – from Oscar xx hi Dad – from Liam oo, see - she is looking after us (she put that bit in too)).Then we got back into the car and it was hot and Evelyn kept going on about the lovely scenery and all we wanted to do was get to Hafan Y Mor and the campsite.

Then we were here and it was huge. Like - really big and lots and lots of people and Evelyn was a bit nervous about that. And our mobile wasn’t ready and we had to wait but that was ok because we had a look around and there was LOADS to do. Like pedalos on a lake and karts and quads and a huge adventure ropeworks place and a deadly indoors pool with huge slides and loads of playgrounds and archery and fencing and even a shooting place and just too much to write about. Then we got our mobile and it was like MILES from all the ain noisy part that Evelyn hated and it was DEADLY. Even though after a few minutes we had it all messed up and homely it had like one big couch and one small couch and a real sized telly and a DVD and a proper cooker not just a few rings and a mad toaster and a micro and THREE bedrooms and two bathrooms, one with a shower and sink and one with a toilet and sink which Evelyn thought was a good idea because then there wasn’t a horrible smell of poo when you took a shower. And it was spotless. So Evelyn was thrilled. We had to help take all the stuff in and mooched about for a while to have a rest. Then we went swimming – even though there was this weird lady at the pool who was trying to be funny and really wasn’t so we had to come back for money for the lockers and we didn’t really want to go back because of the weird woman but Evelyn made us so we did and we were glad cause the slides were the best ever. Nearly as good as at a proper Water Sports Place.

Then we were just wrecked from being up so early and travelling and stuff, so Evelyn made us pasta and chicken and we put on a DVD and ate rubbish for the rest of the night. Evelyn wanted us to go for a walk with her and we said NO! and when she came back she rambled on a bit about how she wished she was an artist because then she could capture the hills and the sea and the sky and the way the light kept changing and we wished she’d shut up. Then she started writing and she did – at least from her mouth.

Then she said we had to say what the best thing was about the day and what the weirdest thing was. Even though we told her we hadn’t really DONE anything and she went off on another ramble about getting up as early as birds and crossing the Irish Sea and coming to another country and a wonderful holiday home and stuff. Even though all we meant was like we only just got here so how could we know what was best?

So we said the arcade on the boat was best (Evelyn threw her eyes up to Heaven) and the weird women in the café and at the pool was the weirdest. We wondered were they related. Her best thing was the scenery and her weirdest was the fact that the planters outside the mobile beside us had real compost and artificial flowers. We think she needs to get out more. Off to bed now and the next day we…………(certainly won't be writing as much.....)

Self printing - the new self publishing

2011-06-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Okay. I’ve decided to do it. I’m self printing my novel ‘The Heron’s Flood’ with Create Space, Amazon's subsidiary where one can avail of a print on demand system. I’ve done my research (many thanks Catherine Ryan Howard in particular). I am having the book professionally edited ( many thanks to the lovely Emma) I have my artwork (many thanks Ken Walsh) and with Ginnie Gale of Create Space's help I should have my book up and out there before the end of the summer. It will be available in print form and as an e book. I will be having a launch in Swords and probably another in the city, more of which later in year.

I’m so excited. I spent about four years all told on this novel and until I publish it I will not be able to move on. I have to dust my hands of it once and for all. The worst that can happen is it will have cost me a couple of hundred euro. Although I haven’t been able to get any publisher to take it on I know it’s good. I mightn’t know much about much but I love a good yarn and I know one when I write one! Every agent and publisher I sent ‘The Heron’s Flood’ to asked to see more and then turned it down because they didn’t feel it was commercially viable – probably because it’s not literary fiction nor is it 'chick-lit' but somewhere in between and it didn’t fit any of the genres into which books that aren’t literary fiction or the horribly patronising term 'chick-lit' seem to have to be slotted.It fell between two stools and they didn't know what to do with it. It’s bewildering. As a writer you have something to say. You say it as best you can and the world of publishing then tries to label it.

It’s a story. That’s all. A book I’d like to read. It has characters I can empathise with. It’s sad. It’s funny. It gives hope – even in the darkest of hours there is hope. It’s about people, about love, about life from the everyday to the horrific to the high-days and holidays. It deals with domestic abuse and depression – tough subjects but subjects which touch many of our lives in different ways but it deals with them as everyday commonplace events in the flawed everyday lives of my characters. It is shocking what people can become used to, accept and feel nothing can make a difference. Until something snaps. And then..........

I hope my novel might make people understand what it is like to be caught in a repetitive cycle, a cycle that is too hard to break out of because of conditioning. If it gets even a dozen people to purse their lips and say ‘Hmm, I can see now how that can happen’. It also poses a big moral question, a great bookclub topic. Is it always wrong to take a life? Under what circumstances can we as a society say

‘We understand, go, you will not be punished.’

I drove Jemser mad for a couple of months pondering this.

'Jesus, Evelyn', he said 'you’re getting all worked up over fictional characters!' And I was, because for me they are as real as the people who sit around my house every evening - living breathing thinking sentient beings. Actually my characters are more living breathing sentient etcetera than some of the creatures sitting about my house making it look untidy!

So there yiz re. Yiz better all buy it!! And nominate me on Joe Duffy’s Christmas book list. So I can make loadsa lolly, pay me debts, go on a four day week with the paid employment and produce loadsa more books by writing one day a week. I’ve hooked up with a lovely Polish illustrator so there will be kiddies books coming soon too!!

Ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump........

2011-06-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

I am a complete cynic when it comes to magic, fairies, angels etcetera. But I have been moved recently from cynic to ‘well, maybe…’. We must be open to everything, for without openness and a willingness to observe and learn how on earth can we grow into the beautiful rounded human beings we ought to be?

My dear friend Sam Stone, a man with a wonderful story to tell is life partner of the beautiful Debra Reynolds from Naas in Co Kildare. Debs is a ‘hedge’ witch – so called because she belongs to no coven, rather she practises her craft alone and has a deep and abiding belief in the possibilities of a good potion or incantation delivering to one ones heart's desire. Debs and a friend recently set up a card-reading business, they arrive at your house where you have gathered together a group of friends/family and host a card party for these ‘Soul Sisters’. For a fee of thirty euro a head Debs or Karen Pickering (her friend) will read either Angel cards or Tarot cards for you.

There is something about both these women. Something indefinable – which we of course immediately attempt to label, define, put in its box and file under ‘that’s that’. You would immediately feel you have known these ladies all your life when you meet them. They are intuitive, spiritual, good people and you know they will listen to you, assuage your fears and above all give you hope for the future. Yes, there’s a fee – but it’s a damn sight cheaper than a therapist’s or counsellor’s fee or than handing over your life, morals etcetera to any organised church.

They say God is dead in the Western World, since Darwin’s theory was expounded and people became more literate and educated and realised that the creationist theory put forward in the Bible might be just that, a theory, story, parable. This, coupled with the cover-ups on child abuse in the Catholic Church, means that many have turned their backs on organised churches. People want the freedom to think for themselves, to connect with their inner selves and above all to find peace and contentment in the hurly burly now, now, now world we of the first world live in.

Debs and Karen provide this moment’s stillness. They listen to you, observe reactions and – as both ladies firmly believe in their powers as seers- read the cards as they fall. If you are open to what the ladies are trying to do you will gain a lot from your session with them. I’d certainly recommend them to any of my friends.

Apart from all that it’s a great excuse to gather together a bunch of friends and neighbours, chat and laugh and have a few drinks. As it was my house of course there were songs that had to be sung. And no better man to sing them than my Jemser! Sam (Deb’s hubby) went to the pub with Jem while the ladies weaved their magic and they rejoined us at the end of the reading sessions.. We had a great night. There is so little time to share with our friends and neighbours now that the moments we do get together are all the more precious. I had to work today so I scarpered to bed at the witching hour and left Jemser singing with the rowdiest bunch of North County Dublin housewives you have ever heard. They left once everything alcoholic in the house had been drunk and every song they all knew was sung. I know it was bright out when I heard the front door slam for the last time!

So ‘gwan- do yourselves a favour – get your pals together and contact Debs at debrareynolds95@yahoo.co.uk . You won't regret it.

Assisted dying..........

2011-06-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

I watched an incredibly moving tv programme this evening on assisted dying. Terry Prachett, the great English novelist has early onset Alzheimer disease and in the programme he explores the whole concept of people with intensely debilitating terminal illnesses ( although life is a terminal condition anyway) having to travel abroad to get help in committing suicides.

Terry’s big fear is of the day he cannot write. Unable to communicate. He already has an assistant to whom he dictates his work as he cannot manage the keyboard anymore. As writers we have a duty to mull on these matters, to articulate for others what they may find hard to articulate. We have a duty to present both sides of the argument, tell the truth and shame the devil (great cliché). Tell our characters’ truths and through them analyse humanity to enable us to understand ourselves.

Terry talked to people all over Europe on the matter. An upper middle class wealthy English man with motor neurone disease. This man and his wife travelled to Switzerland so that he could be assessed. He got the green light and despite his wife’s misgivings he drank the killing draught. He was incredibly calm and dignified and I was glad he was able to die in this way on a beautiful snowy Swiss winter day with nice gentle Swiss assistors. He made some intelligent comments on how time moves at different.

’Be strong my darling’ he said to his incredibly brave wife, then with a few grunts and moans he drew his last breath. It was a beautiful death – if that can be said.

Terry talked about some aspects of assisted death that make him nervous. He talked very movingly of his wife who wouldn’t come on the programme, she feels differently to Terry and wants to nurse him through the illness to the end. He wants to spare her this. He talked to a man in a hospice who feels the choice should be there. He talked to the widow of another writer who did die by assisted suicide. He talked to a 42 year old man with MS who suffered deeply from depression and has failed twice in trying to take his own life. Once with three months supply of morphine – which certainly should have done the trick. His first thought when he ‘woke up’ after five days was ‘oh f**k’.This man had an assisted death planned for that weekend. He was rather flippant about it – self defence I assume. Terry’s assistant put it to him that his decision was selfish as did the young man’s mother. But the man explained why he had to do this and his mother accepted that decision. He was incredibly brave. So was she. He did go through with it and his mother went home to the UK alone.

Suicide is a very very lonely place – there is only you and the mess you know you’re leaving behind. As human beings we should all have the right to die with someone holding our hand. It is the very time we should not be alone. Not afraid and alone.

Dignitas in Switzerland also assists those who suffer from ‘a weariness of life’ to die. Dignitas believe it is a basic human right to die when one chooses, they say the very knowing you can go often gives people strength. It’s an expensive business though – 10k, but it is a non-profit organisation apparently. The dying house is based in a very beautiful part of the world, in a little blue house in the Swiss Alps – a very peaceful place. Even though it’s in the middle of an industrial estate.

I hope I never have to assist anyone to die, I do not think I could live with myself afterwards. But equally I hope that the option will be open for me if I ever become that miserable because of any mental or physical illness.

Carpe Diem.

Android phones and cerebral sex.........

2011-06-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Modern life continues to fascinate me. Cloud computing. Devices that 'talk' to each other. A language I only understand point ten percent of and struggle wildly to keep up with if two tekkies start talking to each other.

I needed to upgrade my phone. My faithful old Nokia was creaking and something had to go. So I went into one of the ubiquitous phone shops and chose the most reasonably priced relatively up-to-date phone I could. The young one was very obliging and her fingers flew over it as she set things up for me. I was hanging onto my old number etc so she went to remove the old SIM card. She burst out laughing.

'That must be at least ten years old',

'It's twelve actually.' I replied. I bought my first mobile phone when I was expecting sn#2. I had held out against them up until then, I didn't particularly want to be contactable 24/7, but being heavily pregnant and 39 made me err on the side of caution.

Anyway she placed my now obsolete Sim card into this tiny reader and a virgin Sim card beside it closed the lid, hit a few buttons and zingo the data on one went to the other.

'Isn't that deadly!' I marvelled. 'Y'know, I read somewhere that they reckon we'll all be having cerebral sex in the future. Won't that be great. None of that aul' messin', we'll just bang foreheads and zingo - orgasm passed from one brain - which is where it starts - to another.'

She looked at me mouth agape and then laughed again.

'Well my fella certainly mind-f**ks' me,' she said. Then clapped her hand over her mouth. 'I can't believe I said that. OhMiGod! I'm morto.'

'Not to worry,' I said - 'sure, you're in your aunties. I won't tell anyone if you don't. Men don't have internal monologues anyway, they are for the mostly part physical creatures. We on the other hand have a much deeper spiritual dimension to us.' I was wildly generalising of course but at least I gave the child a laugh on a dull Wednesday lunchtime. I probably should have told her I blogged.

My phone is very nice. Or will be when I figure out how to use it.

I wonder will I be still about when they work out this cerebral sex thing and would it be possible without using intuition and instinct. I think I'd like a go of it. Maybe.

This will be the summer....

2011-06-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

This will be the summer he will remember all his life. The summer he turned seventeen. The last really carefree one. For many many more summers he will hopefully be working or travelling. This summer is that last pause before he runs from adolescent to man.

This will be the summer he starts to control his breathing, to spare his voice. This will be the summer he writes and writes and writes, thousands of words, hundreds of song lyrics and melodies. This will be the summer the band gels and starts to get gigs. They have already been invited to Listowel to a few different venues. An event organiser approached them and asked them to open for some band at a festival in Cork.

This will be the summer he spends stravaging around the town with his huge circle of friends, playing football, music and X-Box games. Eying beautiful girls. Laughing, talking, singing - always singing. This will be the summer of long days and even longer nights. This will be the summer he may well drink far too much as he camps out at Oxygen, his first big music festival. The summer he dreams of maybe one day playing at a festival like this. This will be the summer he practises his frontman patter.

This will be the summer he starts to network, the summer he meets other long established musicians and songwriters. My baby boy is well and truly gone, my teenager is just leaving. I hope some day the man comes back to me. And we can reminisce about this summer.

I love you son.

I'm not c*rs**' ennymore - it's lazy

2011-06-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

How am I goin' to express myself without 'bad' language? Despite my articulating vociferously that no language is bad.... it's just what we regard as bad is someone unable to find the word they're reaching for - I'd love to know what the Shakespearian equivalent of 'f**k is........in Harry Potter land it's 'he who shall not be named'.

Anyway. I had a great day. Actually I had a great week. And I'm .. ..extremely tired ( as opposed to bl**d**' bol***e*). What am I to do? Apparently both my beloved ellipses and 'bad' language are banned. I suppose I could just shut up.

Ah no. ( a suggested ellipse break.. ....) today was the Flora Women's Mini Marathon. Over 40k wimmin running, jogging, walking and mostly TALKING around Dublin to raise cash for all the worthy causes out there.

JM&HSJ ye could see the oestrogen in the air - it was actually very scary. I often wonder what would happen if people - you, me and all we know decided to sit back and not do anything to support the cause that effects our particular family. Would our aged, dying, sick - our children, our local communities/passions send out their men to battle with our elected leaders?? The men would gladly go but would anything be changed? War does change things, mostly when the men are so depleted that as a race we have to say 'STOP'

So - today ( a nephew claimed there were forty thousand Sunday Dinners not cooked in Ireland today) - Sisters Are Doing It For Us All. And congrats to all. Our little group, a baker's dozen, raised over two thousand Euro for the Donegal branch of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland. That's a lot of hours for some beleaguered family. An hour for a carer to go for a much needed walk.Two hours for a family to gather relaxed for a meal. Three hours for the primary carer to snatch much needed sleep. It cannot be emphasised how vital each and every one of these hours are.

Thank you all our sponsors. We may have walked and talked - but you put your hands in much depleted, well taxed and extremely hard earned wallets/purses/pockets. WE LOVE YA!!! xxx

The last piece

2011-06-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

Well, our trip to Listowel ended last night and we have to head back to the heady world of work, school and (in Jemser's case) ironing and cooking. It was a fantastic few days and my babies are already making plans to return. The weather helped of course, but the reason we all enjoyed it was because we were all happy. We all had our own things to be at and at them we were! The last day of the workshop got a little heated from time to time today, I felt profoundly sorry for the only man in the room, a nice gentle young man- although he lives with three females so was probably well used to dealing with oestrogen! I learned a lot from both Marina Carr and the other participants in the workshop.

Had a chat with Billy Keane and for the craic I'm putting Debs Reynolds (hedge witch supreme) and her beloved Sam Stone (fence sitter) in contact with Billy. Debs and Sam run a NFP organisations called SoulSearchers in which they investigate reported hauntings in various pubs around Ireland. Sam uses technology to try and explain away Debs' assertions of hauntings in any building. Another excuse to travel to Listowel. As we had sworn off family holidays it was great that Listowel offered something for each one of us - and it's all so bijoux that it worked a treat.

My three males all busked, son#2 tinkling out 'The Entertainer' on the somewhat randomly abandoned piano in the Square. He was chuffed with himself and it's lovely to see someone who is not a natural performer taking their courage in their hands and just letting it all flow. Well done #2! We love ya. For me that little moment was the icing on the cake, it reminded me of the sigh of satisfaction son#1 would give as he sat, as a very small child, and held in his hand the final piece of a jigsaw. 'Now Mammy', he'd say 'the very las' piece.' And I'd clap as he popped it in. Thank you my lovely Listowel. See y'all again very soon.

Queen of Stories in the Kingdom........

2011-06-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

Another wonderful day in the Kingdom.

The workshop with Marina Carr ( whose paternal family it transpires hails from the same small village in Co. Donegal as Jemser) continues to impress. The talent around the room is scary. My brain is always stretched in Listowel. Sometimes the ideas spinning about are so elusive, like bubbles - you can be afraid to catch them for fear they'd burst.

The older lads are having a complete blast. they wrote a song. And Mick Hanly said it needs no fine tuning. They thought they had died and gone to Heaven. They made cash busking. They were invited to support another performer tomorrow night. They have girls eying them up. They definitely think they've died etc.

The Queen of Stories attended a storytelling session in Listowel library given by the lovely Roisin Meaney from Limerick. The children were superb. Bright and beautiful and full of life. They liked the Queen and she liked them. Roisin may well invite the Queen along another day.

The younger lads paid two trips to Ballybunion beach, X-boxed, squabbled and made-up and stuffed themselves with rubbish. Another successful day. Jemser drank pints, sang and rambled. He may never go home.

So off out now to the Saddle Bar in Listowel to hear my boy child sing his own song. It really gets no better than this

Poetry and music and lots of lovely chats..........

2011-06-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

We are all enjoying our Listowel Writer’s week. Today went swimmingly. I attended the lovely Marina Carr’s workshop of writing for theatre and was surrounded by lots of interesting people. Each with our own tale to tell. We talked of internal monologues, of Shakespeare, of Pinter and Strindberg, Lorca and Friel. All surnames because they need no other name to identify them or their work. Of course they are their work. We banged about ideas, some so light and elusive that they slipped away before I could grasp them and study – see them for what they wee, break them down and build them back into a pattern that satisfied me. There are a few actors on the course and they livened things with their interpretations of our work..

Jemser was taken to play the most beautiful golf course in Ireland in Ballybunion by the son of our landlady. He had a great day. He said he felt he had never ever played a golf course until today. And he played well. Which always helps.

Son#2 and pal – once the hair was straightened - did Mick Hanly’s songwriting workshop – Mick aided and abetted by Micky McConnell, two of the best songwriters in Ireland, nay – the world. The boys had a blast and are fully geed up for tomorrow – a little tired from too much alcohol last night and the nervous strain of busking for an hour on Main Street this afternoon. Me heart was fit to bust with pride. They earned a few bob – more than the minimum wage and it’s untaxed of course so they’re quids in. Can you say that anymore? Should it be Euro in? Doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Son #2 and cousin played X- box in the am and in the pm I took them out to Ballybunion where they played in the breakers – ‘twas deadly they said. But of course they wanted to go after half an hour because ‘there’s, like, nothing to do’. I bring them all the way to the county Kerry, give them the Atlantic Ocean and there’s nothing to do. And don’t you just hate it when your mother’s voice instead of you comes out! Anyway we headed back to Listowel and I fed and watered them. They enjoyed rambling around the town, highfived John B.’s statue and bought expensive plastic crap in a shop (their own money) which within the hour they were sorry they had spent.

So that’s it. I’m off to see Mick Hanly gigging in the Saddle Bar. Are yiz jealous?

Writer's Week Listowel#1

2011-06-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

June 1^st 2011

Posted late because of my WWW ineptness - not wrestling.

Ok. Landed in the Kingdom of Kerry – to me capital Listowel- but people have other favourite Kerry towns. Found the gaff we were booked to stay in for four nights and was pleased fit to burstin’. We had been done proud by the Writer’s Week Accommodation Officer Norella and our landlady Marsella. After last years’ jaw dropping disappointment (on my part) over our Sydney accommodation I had given up believing Internet descriptions of temporary housing. But this lovely wee house within a ten minute walk of the buzzin’ metropolis that is Listowel over the next four days is perfect. Even better, the landlady sourced a hair straightener for son#1 when it was ‘discovered’ that because I finally left him to pack for himself – the big lummox – he forgot hairdryer and hair straightener. I cannot believe it!! This kid spends at least twenty minutes on his fringe every morning, Jemser and I have had to take out bridging loads to cover the cost of gels, mousses and bloody hairspray over the last couple of years. Not to mention the ungents, ointments and doctors visits for scalded foreheads because of said bleedin’ straighteners! What is it about hair? And shoes? There must be a PhD in there somewhere.

In the background as I type (under the lovely influence of a wet substance not boiled) there are two eleven year olds who, with the incessant sounds of bullets and people in pain question each other as to ‘why are you settin’ those zombies on me’. The answer, although extremely original is scary – so I won’t tell you.

Other than that, meandered down the town to opening night – official ceremony too long sorry lads – but it is. Picked up, as is my wont – somebody said I'm like the Pied Piper, children seem to attach themselves to me. I love them, love discussing the absurd with them. The lovely siblings of Max from Dingle who was awarded a prize in the limerick competition kept me company with their Mam for a while as they waited for their big brother to receive his award. Go Max!! I met the cutest little babog then, Nia, in the lobby who hasn’t hit her first year yet sitting with her Dad waiting for Mam – who is a literary agent - was out networking. It’s hard enough being a writer – I can only imagine how hard it is being an agent – that elusive conduit to the publisher who can deliver the written word to the reader in the preferred format.

However difficult the Internet has made life for publisher I think I sympathise most with the agent. You believe in your client. Think he/she has a product you both love and think you can sell. Then have to battle against the clamour of every other bloody agent who believes the same thing. You have clients getting pissed off waiting in the slowest of slow games – the written word – setting up on their own, discovering that – actually I’ll never hit the million but I can write, people will read and I can also afford to eat and send my kids to college. So **** all you who said 'No'. I can! Is feidir linn.

The bigger publishers will survive. They have enough resources to adapt. The tiny publisher will also survive, it was never about having enough to eat there. But the agent? The medium sized non-specialist publisher?? Hmm……….I will watch with interest.

I’m glad I’m only a writer. I’m just doing what I must.

Talk soon.

Citywise..worldly wise..

2011-05-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

Had a lovely couple of hours in Fighting Words in Russell Square, Dublin this evening. There were a gorgeous bunch of girls in from Citywise school in Jobstown, Tallaght. These kids were aged between nine and eleven and what surprised me most about them was their emotional maturity.

I don't think I have ever come away from Fighting Words without learning something. Most of the primary school sessions tend to be really, really funny - the more absurd the story line the better they like it. And all girl groups can go the romantic route. But these lassies looked at, and developed - without too much sentimentality the themes of loneliness, feeling different and the saving grace of friendship - in whatever guise it presents itself. They were very very adult in their analysis and understanding of human feeling.

This particular bunch of kids loved to read (hence the maturity - don't say any different) and we chatted about books, Jacqueline Wilson is a big favourite as is our very own Roddy Doyle. But they told me too of a book they're reading in school 'Tom Crean -Antarctic Explorer' . One lovely little one confessed she normally likes 'totally girly' books but Tom Crean was deadly, she'd love if he had been her uncle and she thought that sometimes 'real life stuff can be very interesting.'I love that kid!

So as usual ( or at least for the fourth year in a row) I have kicked off my Listowel break with a visit to Fighting Words, where the future of readers and writers is being nourished. And God, it makes me feel happy!

Queen of Stories

2011-05-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

Now I know I'm on me holliers and promised faithfully not to text, email or Facebook for the week. But I didn't rule out blogging. Did I? Did I?

Well, to hell with that - blogging is how I work things out. How I pull sense from the babble of noise that is modern life. Plus it's Writers Week in the lovel Listowel so I need to be practising like, practising all things writerly - reading, writing and possibly drinking the odd sip of nectar. I'm heading there with all my boys on Wednesday. Isn't it great when your family can enjoy some part of that most solitary of pursuits, writing.

Anyway I set out to blog about stories - and their importance in all our lives. People keep saying the novel is dead. The novel will never die, it will exist in some form always. What are movies, TV soaps, songs, plays bu the same thing as the novel - stories I'll do a couple of blogs when I'm down in the Kingdom of Kerry but my internet connection isn't a given where I'm staying so ye may have to wait to hear all about this year's festival of writing, reading, music, poetry, drama and whatever other cerebral pursuit you can think of. We won't mention the prodigious amounts of alcohol consumed. Alcohol may stifle creativity (actually, it does) but it can be a lovely lubricant so you can steel up your nerves and approach that writer/poet to tell them how much they mean to you. I think all of us have one book or poem or song that 'gets' us. We all read or hear something somebody wrote, one other person, who totally totally understands what it is to be our very own self and that person wrote it down - our stories our lives - so therefore we love that writer who empathised so thoroughly with us. Actually, as Listowel is a tiny town and the great and good mix with us 'pretend' writers lubrication is quite probably needed by self same authors to put up with the fawning of their 'No. 1 fans'!!

Back to the substance of this post. I am developing a 'character', a person who tells stories, either reads them or makes them up as she goes along. I started batting this idea about with the Senior Librarian in Fingal County Council and I eventually suggested a Queen, a Story Queen who will arrive at children's local library and read them a story - discuss stories with them and generally just have fun. I have the costume - its gorgeous, ridiculous but gorgeous, I have my crown, my story bag and my cloak and all I needed were children to practise on. So off I set to Skerries in North County Dublin where there was a street festival to celebrate the ending of the RAS - don't ask me, it's a bike race thingy. The lovely Mary of Magic Carpet Theatre Company was face painting and I sat along with her in all my regalia and read stories to some beautiful children. The location wasn't ideal but the kids LOVED the Queen of Stories. I asked them would they come to their local library to hear me reading and I got a huge affirmative YES. We decided a PJ evening might be nice as opposed to the original idea of a Saturday morning. So I already have groupies in Skerries who will all come to see me when I visit.

But lads. I has such fun! Whatever fun those children had (real smallies, the under sevens) I had it in hundreds. And on the way home I thought about it. There I was - an overweight plain middle aged suburban woman in a ridiculous costume and a plastic crown - glorying in it!! No, actually that's the wrong word. I was absorbed. Totally, utterly absorbed in the task in hand, the fact that I was the Queen of Stories, the fact that I had absolutely THE best stories to tell and above all the fact that those kids were as absorbed as I was. That's what made it. That absorption, a connection. I wondered on the way home why doing something like reading stories to children made me so happy. Most people would die rather than be seen in public in such a get-up, let alone reading aloud. A lot of people can only bear their own children, a lot of people even find their own children too much.

I think what it is is when I read - particularly the classic fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers - I conjure up my beloved long gone mother. I conjure that complete and utter security. That feeling of loving and being loved. That knowing that no matter what my parents loved me and would always love me. Mam read to us every night when we were small, it was a very important part of our day - the full stop if you like- and it was the nicest part of every day too, she 'did' the voices, she cried, she laughed. She lived those stories and with her we lived them too. I can still hear her gulping to hold back the tears as the little Match Girl slowly fades away.

And now I feel really privileged that - at a stage in my life when my own kids don't even want to be related to me, let alone have me read to them - and at a stage when grandchildren are a dim and hopefully not too distant nebulous idea, I have been handed this gift. A gift that, once a week, perhaps more, I can dress up as the Queen of Stories and share my love of the written word with the wee ones, the ones who will quite probably end up being my carers in my dotage.

So if you hear of the Queen of Stories visiting your local library over the next year or so borrow an under seven and come along. Who knows, it might remind you of those utterly secure, utterly content childhood days - and even in the worst of childhoods there were these days, days of hope and happiness. Even if it doesn't it will be creating a memory for the child you bring along! And best of all, it's a free memory! Always the best ones.

Is Enda a Leprechaun?

2011-05-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

I'm fit to burst with pride. Didn't our little isle look deadly on the telly? And it's being beamed into countries all over the world. Between Barack's visit (we're on first name terms now) and Lizzie last week and Leinster winning at the weekend Ireland is certainly on a roll. All over the land people sat glued to their televisions open mouthed at the sight of one of the most powerful men in the world delivering an address to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in Dublin. And he talked to someone's Ma on their mobile - I'd say the secret service were having a canary. And this after a walk about in Moneygall - he's one of the O'Bamas of Moneygall don't y'know - where he supped a pint and had a look at his ancestral home, the home his ancestors left because of poverty and starvation.

Barack Obama epitomises the American dream, the dream of possibility. And he told us that - told us to believe in ourselves and his famous 'yes we can'. I certainly felt empowered by what he said. And his cupla focail were perfectly intoned, he had a grand blas. G'wan Barack, ye good ting!

But top marks of the day have to go to our own Enda Kenny. He gave a rousing speech to introduce President Obama and I admired his delivery of that speech, he is an impressive orator not something I realised before this. It set me to wondering. Mebbe our Enda is our very own leprechaun?Mebbe it is he who has the map to the pot of gold? He certainly seems to have a magic touch and since he took on the role of Taoiseach the country's profile has been high for lots of good reasons. I hope we can make capital on that profile and exposure on the world scene over the next few months.

We have a great little nation, let's keep it great.

2011-05-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

Night Surfing

I have the most eclectic taste. I just realised it tonight. You lot probably knew that little fact about me already. Why am I always the last one to know these things about myself? I’m probably too busy sticking my nose into other people’s business to notice my own life!

I occasionally (actually it’s becoming more often) suffer or rather I endure insomnia.

Once I used that quiet time to clean my house, but I got over that one! Now I mostly read or write or surf the net. I just looked at my purchases tonight from my surfing. It’s a mad random shopping list. I bought three books of poetry ( two Billy Ramsells and one Grace Wells, keep their names in your head for you will hear more of them). Then I went on to a costume shop's website and bought two Queen’s outfits. A Queen needs at least two gunai (Marmo or Jemser, will ye fada and grammatical me Irish). Then I went onto a wig shop page and bought meself a nice little granny bun.

My latest adventure is reading stories to under 7s in Fingal Libraries on Saturday mornings. I’m calling myself ‘The Story Queen’ or is ‘Queen of Stories’ better?

So I decided to buy a costume or two. Isn’t it great to be able to dress up when you’re fifty and not worry about looking ridiculous? Because you are ridiculous. But isn’t it glorious to be ridiculous!!

So not only do I get to be the Queen, I get to pick all my favourite children’s books and read from them to an (I hope) enthusiastic bunch of smallies. And they’ll love me!! And I’ll feel all important and special! Ain’t Life grand.

BTW ye all better sponsor me for walking the mini-marathon on the June Bank holiday. I’m walking with my sister-in-laws in aid of the Donegal branch of the Alzheimer’s Society. They have been a marvellous support in helping the family look after our beloved Teresa, Jemser’s Mam, Now there is a Queen beyond compare. I wrote the poem below some years ago when the illness started. It is such a horrible disease for everyone. Although Thank the Lord Teresa has been very peaceful for the last few weeks. I love you Teresa Cunningham and I love all your wonderful family and your beloved Kilcar! Are ye all feelin’ the love?

Teresa’s Eyes

Teresa’s eyes, not yet inarticulate

Plead for understanding

She sits. BeWildereD

In the dimmed light

Of blown CoNNections.

Frustration clamping lips

She cannot

Trust

to form

Words

no longer kn-wn.

Sometimes

that obscene shroud of mist

will thin.

Teresa’s raucous laugh begin

Hands clap, face lifts, eyes glint

With Our Teresa.

But mist rolls in again,

Muffling sound and skewing vision.

Will thicken to FOG

Before

Night

falls

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

2011-05-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of Martin McDonagh's work and if anything he wrote ever appears in Dublin I'm there. Meself and himself went to see the Beauty Queen of Leenane in the Gaiety last night.

We left the car on the northside of the city and ambled across town at our leisure. We had been worried about parking restrictions because the other Queen - herself from England- is in town. The city looked really well, maybe we should have royal visitors more regularly - the pictures being beamed out all over the world will certainly look great. Lets hope it imports lorry-loads of tourists with nice tourist Euro to spend in our benighted little island. We're rarely in the city anymore and it was lovely to stroll down O'Connell Street, over the bridge then up past Trinity and up Grafton Street. There was precious little traffic and lots of people were doing as we were - ambling, looking and listening.

The theatre wasn't full but it was a Wednesday night and the Gaiety is a big space to fill. The set was brilliant, the main living area of a cottage in Leenane in Connemara, complete with sound effect of a stream constantly burbling outside. I love Leenane, one of the best days I ever spent was on a boat in Killary Harbour with Jemser, sons#1 and 2 and 2 nephews. My favourite photo of Jemser was taken there, he was leaning on the rail of the boat, pint of Guinness in one hand and fag in the other, chilled beyond belief. We ended up back in the pub in Leenane where Jemser duly sang a song to the mortification of the children! So I have very happy memories of the area.

This production of the play is a young Vic production and a fine production it is too. I'm not a purist - there are those who claim that only Druid can get McDonagh or Synge right- Druid are indeed superb with these works but there is plenty of room for others to showcase McDonagh's work. The performances were all spot on. I loved Rosaleen Linehan's Mag Folan ( although I must admit when I think of the character it is Anna Manahan I will forever see) Johnny Ward was a suitably jumpy and impatient Ray Dooley - full of the self importance and ego of youth. Frank Laverty caught the pathos of Pato perfectly. My heart wept for the man and his missed opportunities. The tension between himself and Derbhle Crotty's Maureen was palpable, a finely tuned balance of comedy, passion, desire and sheer bloody sadness.

But it is Derbhle Crotty's Maureen Folan that stole the show for me. She was fabulous. I saw her in 'The Field' earlier in the year and she stole that show too. Ms Crotty is at the top of her game at the moment and from her slight form and superb voice she portrays passion, frustration, sarcasm, violence and great tenderness with apparent ease. A really fine performance and she interprets McDonagh's work in a manner I think would please him.

The only thing that jarred for me in the play was the lack of the Sacred Heart lamp! There was a big crucifix over the mantle, maybe the Lamps were in the upper (or lower) rooms in Leenane!

A'must-see' if you haven't already done so.

On birthdays

2011-05-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm officially 50. I suppose I'll have to grow up now, stop dreaming and navel-gazing.

Only joking. I'm still twelve inside, full of possibilities and love of the world. We had a great night last Saturday for my party. The hall I booked was a tad too large (to say the least) but I had invited the world and his wife and being me I had to err on the side of caution in case they all turned up. The drink was the cheapest in the North County but it was still too dear for the teenagers who nearly got us all thrown out because they were skulking outside and drinking cheap as chips lager and vodka. Drink is way too cheap and accessible. A litre of vodka at twenty euro means that at some stage we are going to have teens dying of alcohol poisoning.

Anyway, we sorted it out ( what good party didn't have a row over gargle?). The band were feckin' briilliant and they put their hearts and souls into it and (once it became clear Jedward weren't going to win the Eurovision) they had everyone up bopping, teens and friends and neighbours all together. Son#1 is a great frontman, comfortable with mikes and stage etc. The poor aul' divils had to learn off loads of songs from the Eighties for me and they did it. These are the fellas that wouldn't open a school book to save their lives but can apply themselves with such diligence in music. They're a great bunch of kids and there is hope for this country if they are in anyway indicative of the next generation. Intelligent, confident beautiful people, all in touch with their respective creativities and concious of work/life balance. I hope they will all continue to knock on my door as they grow into adults.

I felt sorry for son #2, he's only eleven and was like a lost soul, not sure enough of himself to sit with the teenagers and bored stiff with the drunken adults. ~I was one of the first to leave my own party!He just had to get back to his bed and the comfort of his own surroundings. Anyway the neighbours all landed back as did the teenagers and I was last to go to bed at 7am Sunday morning. At one stage I looked at my Jemser and there he was sitting on me coffee table guitar on his knee bellowing out every song he knew to the delight of the eight females who were around him!! He's some man for one man.

My beloved friend Brid Conlan from Ennistymon in Co Clare travelled up for my party and at one stage I felt as if I were in my early twenties again, dancing the floor with her and talking and drinking and laughing and drinking and talking and talkin an d talking. It was Brid's dad who coined the phrase 'it's the talk that's killin' the people'. A wise man Mr Conlan for was he not paraphrasing Will Shakespeare's 'there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so'. Brid has the most marvellous store of funny stories, craic and songs - ~I love the very bones of that woman. But not enough to get me out of the leaba the next morning. Sure it didn't bother Biddy. Herself and the teens cracked open the champagne and had another bit of a singsong, old soldiers never die and old partygoers just keep on livin!

So that's more or less it. Oh! Except for the hilarious conversation I had with a sneezing fifteen year old girl and one of her boy friends. To the best of my recollection I told her - very seriously - that an orgasm was just like a good sneeze except hopefully longer! I think we all wet ourselves laughing!

Glorious weekends in North County Dublin

2011-05-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

It's not natural. The sun shining for two consecutive weekends (long weekends at that) is enough to convince my burnt Irish craw that something in the universe is shifting. And I love it. Bring it on, baby. I'm definitely evolved from something feline. I love to stretch all my limbs and arch my back then turn my face to the sun feeling my troubles falling behind me. I'm just a big fat lazy old tabby lolling in the sun soaking up its energy. I don't care if its not natural - it's bloody brilliant.

May is often the best month of the year weather wise in Ireland and there are lots of places in North County Dublin where I live where one can ramble on a fine day. The Estuary in Swords/Malahide can be beautiful at sunset as can any of the beaches within a fifteen minute drive of my suburban home in Swords. I'm particularly fond of Skerries but there are great beaches at Malahide, Rush, Donabate and Loughshinney as well. We're spoiled for choice in North Dublin with parks too. Ardgillan Demesne, Skerries Mills, Newbridge House and Farm are all beautiful places to ramble through ans all are child-friendly. The libraries in Malahide and Rush are well worth visits too (although they close on Sundays). Both buildings have been lovingly restored and I love the way they have used the old confessional boxes in Rush library as sound booths where one can listen to music or audio books. Ingenious.

It's a pity there is still limited access to the castle and church in Swords. The restoration seems to be taking forever and of course public money for the job has dried up now. The church is really beautiful and its restoration had been extremely sensitive. I still dream of having a book launch there some day. With a red baby grand in one corner and one of my musical friends tinkling away as people mill around sipping wine and telling me how wonderful my writing is. Dreamer? Yes, perhaps - but once I'm still breathing and writing there's hope. Isn't there?

I Have Seen The Future...........

2011-04-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

D'y'know what? I'm fit to burst with pride. The band Son#1 plays in were the opening act of a terrific line up in 'The Slaughtered Lamb' pub in Swords Co Dublin this very evening. The pub was built on the site of a long defunct abattoir hence the unusual name. Mind you, the lads' band has a quare name too - 'The Milgram Device.'

The gig was to raise funds for the South African NGO charity SAEEP, the gig's organiser Aoife Rodgers is just finishing her second year in media studies in Colaiste Dhulaigh and is looking forward to her stint of volunteering in South Africa this summer.

Everyone in Dublin (actually in Ireland) has a 'Bono' story and most Dubliners of a certain age (between 40 and 60) claim they were at the now famous Dandelion Market gigs where U2 and the Prunes started out. And everyone just knew they were witnessing the birth of something big - or so they say!

I'm tellin' yiz now. And I'm putting it in print. The Milgram Device will be the biggest and best bands of the next decade. For a start the lads are very easy on the eye - 'cept for them bloody low slung jeans - PULL UP YOUR PANTS boys!! The girls will idolise them ala Beatlemania and the lads will want to be them - I can hear it now -

-'That Seamus has gorgeous cheekbones,'

-'Oh no! I like Liam - he looks foreign - Spanish or from Belgium or something'

-'Isn't Barry just the cutest fella ever - and OhMiGod he is THE man with that guitar - move over the edge Edge.

-'Oh no, I'm mad about Jack he's so cheeky looking. I bet he'd make me laugh all day'

-'What are ye all talking about - Alex the drummer is the main man, and he comes up with most of the original stuff'

-'And what's their manager's name? Ryan? He's not half bad either.'

- 'I'm movin' to Swords - it's full of talent!

Seamus and Liam share the vocals and both boys have a great quality to their voices. They can play too. Seamus and Barry share lead guitar ( and love it) and Jack bouncin' on bass are superb and of course Alex the drummer gives it welly with panache! What impresses me most about these lads is that they are writing original material as well as doing covers of ...don't ask me, I haven't a clue - I think I recognise the name Biffy Clyro but whose names escape me - I'm sure Pete Doherty comes into it somewhere. Anyway the five lads packed in a thoroughly enjoyable half hour slot and came down off the stage buzzin'.

So in thirty years time everybody in Dublin will be claiming they were in 'the Lamb' at the first official gig of 'the Milgram Device'. And I can say 'I told yiz!' Mammy's never wrong - 'cept when she's wrong of course - but she means well!

Smells of Happiness

2011-04-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

One Wednesday afternoon in the spring of 1968 my mother walked me down Grove Road and onto the Ballygall/Finglas Road to collect my library tickets from Dublin Corporation’s mobile library.

The procedure of book borrowing was explained to me and three green library tickets, little stiffened cardboard pockets which bore my name, address and borrower number in beautiful handwriting were handed to me. I longed to work behind the little counter in the mobile library. To be surrounded by books all day, to breathe in their gorgeous smell. To any bibliophile that smell is heavenly – it means peace and contentment. Rows and rows of unopened books packed onto shelves and exuding that aroma. OhMiGod! I fell in love that day and have been happily enslaved in that love ever since.
The sense of anticipation that that smell produces in me has never lessened. As a child that smell meant that soon I would have unread books again. Three books! Together! I almost always read each book from cover to cover the day I borrowed them. Then I could start again, re-read them – eking them out a chapter or two at a time, trying to ration them until the mobile library returned.

I shared a bedroom with my three younger sisters, at that time none of them were readers, preferring to play and chat and laugh at bed-time, decibel level rising until Dad came to the bedroom door and asked mock gruffly ‘Who’s doing all that talkin’?’. Back to mousey whispering and giggling until one by one they dropped off to sleep. I had to be the last one to sleep. It was my job. I was the eldest you see. I would have read in bed but I didn’t have a torch and the light from the Sacred Heart Lamp wasn’t bright enough to read by. Believe me – I tried. And so I’d fall asleep thinking about books, transposing myself, my friends and my sisters into the worlds described in the of Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton among others - all worlds a galaxy away from my suburban Irish childhood.

Between the ages of seven and thirteen I read every single book in the Junior section of that mobile library – a lot of them twice or three times. Then - oh joy! - a permanent library was built on the Ballymun Road, a fifteen minute walk from my home. It took some years for the smell of newness to wear off both building and books and for the library to attain its correct bookish smell. My parents weren’t readers and as I didn’t go to college I had little to guide my reading.

I love a good old murder mystery so Agatha Christie was one of the first adult authors I read, then I went on to historical novels like those of Jean Plaidy, then to thriller or blockbusters novels by Leon Uris, Forsyth and Ludlum. I don’t remember there being any ‘chick-lit’ type books about then – I think Jilly Cooper or alternatively Mills and Boons books were the nearest thing to what is now called women’s commercial fiction!

Eventually I widened the scope of my reading - there’s only so much Hercule Poirot a body can take - and I started to read to learn something – but still read fiction. I loved Solzhenitsyn, Carson Mc Cullers, Anita Brookner, JG Farrell, Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham. I ‘discovered’ Hardy and Dickens. Anything set in India during the Raj or in Europe around either the First or Second World Wars fascinated me.

When I started working any spare cash I had was spent on books. No clothes or make-up for me! I could now afford to surround myself with my own books which I kept in a faux mahogany bookcase I bought in Arnotts of Henry Street. And from that day to this all my lovely books are waiting for me when I came home every evening. Waiting for me to open their covers, to sniff them with contentment and seep gently into their pages; letting them come to life, whipping me off to some other world where people like and unlike me have great loves or losses, great happiness and great sadnesses.

At this stage I have several other bookcases and I therefore have my special smell on tap! I like to think that my booky smell and, of course, the special smell of tiny new babies as my life’s aromas. The smells of my happiness.

A PMT poem...sort of...it's a lament really

2011-04-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

P.M.T.

Bloody Hell!

Why do

They

Assume that

Am obligated,

By my missing ‘Y’

To care for Life’s minutiae.

God Almighty!

What unnatural law dictates,

That irritating tasks require

attention

on those very dates

That I’m

Least capable.

Please!!

EXPLAIN

Why only

Cadbury’s Wholenut

And Tayto Cheese and Onion

mixed, yes

- mixed-

will provide the comfort

that I need.

That Stupid Man!

He hears but doesn't listen

his head is full of sport

And silly things

like pints and politics

No room for me.

'Just P.M.T.'

An acrynomic diminution

For a hurricane of hormones

Velocity immeasurable

Batten down the hatches

It’s gonna be a bumpy night

Cheers, Evelyn

St John Paul II NS and Fighting Words

2011-04-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I went along to one of the Fighting Words morning sessions to cover it for the local freesheet. The paper aren't going to use the piece now so ye get the privilege of reading it here instead. Basically because I'm too lazy to think up something to be bloggin' about.

The Right to Write

Fighting Words, the creative writing organization founded by Roddy Doyle and Sean Love and based in Wexford’s Independent TD Mick Wallace’s building in Russell Square opposite Croke Park opened its doors two years ago. Fighting Words is based on the successful model of 826 Valencia co-founded by renowned American writer Dave Eggers in San Francisco. Fighting Words provides writing field trips for primary school children and writing workshops for secondary students and adults. Their purpose is to encourage the use of the written word in all its forms to improve communication and express creativity.

It was to this wonderful space that the children of Ms McMahon’s 4th class in St. JohnPaul II’s school in Malahide came on Wednesday March 16th. A lively morning ensued and the children with the aid of facilitator Anne, typist Caroline and illustrator Marie produced a fantastic story about Tom, a fish who was allergic to water and so was forced to survive by living in a hamster ball of soya milk. Assisted by his best friend, Snivel Bottom ( a horse with a pink mohawk), Tom decided to approach Jilly Billy a wizard scientist (who happened to be a dog) to help him overcome his allergy problems therefore enabling him reach his goal of becoming the best seafood critic EVER. Phew!

The children came up with brilliant idea after brilliant idea and the Fighting Words team (volunteers and permanent staff), the children’s teacher and classroom assistant were put to the pin of their collars to keep up with them. The future of the written word and the creative talent of North County Dublin is safe while we have these bright sparks about. The children’s work, which was published on the day by the crankiest editor in the whole Universe – or at least the twenty-six counties - Mrs McConkey can be viewed online at www.fightingwords.ie along with the work of many other national school classes throughout Fingal and the greater Dublin area. Teachers and individuals interested in booking a session in Fighting Words should contact the centre at info@fightingwords .ie or 01-894 4576. Be warned though, there is no charge for any of the services Fighting Words provide and sessions can book out quickly.

Is the Dog really Black?

2011-04-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Just emerging from one of the bluest funks I've had in a long time. Some weird viral stomach thing didn't help - usually if I'm physically well I force myself out of the bed, feet on the floor and try to work that black dog out of my system by cleaning everything in sight or better still, if the weather is ok, gardening.

So I started to wonder about the expressioon 'the Black Dog of Depression', I know the dog very well, we have a guarded respect for each other in that he knows I will battle him to keep him in his kennel - or at least chained up most of the time. In return I know that, unleashed and allowed to roam free, he will not only not stray away from me he will actually perch on my shoulder and growl lovingly into my ear eventually crushing me under his great weight.

But my 'personal' black dog isn't black. He may have been once - a long time ago, when I let him get too close. Normally he's grey. Some days he's just a shade of very light grey - so much so that he is almost invisible. They're good days. But other days the bastard is coloured that deep, deep lowering glowering grey that you see in the clouds as they sit heavy over the earth just before a thunderous summer rainstorm. All-pervading.

When I 'found' writing I finally found a way of expressing myself - a way of working out and explaining, primarily to myself, what it is to be ME. To walk in my shoes all anyone has to do is read what I write. It's not to everyone's taste, I can be dreary. I can preach. Be didactic. I'm even more irritating when I'm full of the joys! But I can also be glorious. And the odd glorious phrase or sentence can build and build into something - a poem, a novel, a story.

My blue funk/black dog/grey fog wasn't helped by recieving three rejections over two days for some of my work. But when I actually thought it through, and I had to wait for the dog to fade before I could think, isn't the fact that although I receive rejections over and over again but continue to write and send stuff out to be rejected mean that I know, in the deepest recesses of my being, I know that writing is what I must continue to do. Being published is merely the bonus.

The words seem to have been buried somewhere inside me for over forty years. When I started writing I wondered aloud about that. Where had they been hiding? Everything buried must sooner or later emerge. Anything living that is. And that's what writng does for me. It makes me feel alive, makes me know that I too am human. I too am like everyone else. I always felt different ( family, do not run for the men in white coats - I said different not special!)and I was, am, I mean everyone is. Jesus I feel like an existentialist teenager. It's just that until I began writing I couldn't articulate me. Mind you I talked plenty. But said nothing. Writing makes me understand me better. If I can't understand me how can I expect anyone else to?

So they're my bons mots for Easter. Wait till your dog goes grey then blue then fades to almost invisible and carpe the diems that are out there to be carpaid until he starts growling again. Then run like ****!

At least that's what I think I meant to say. Eventually.

Jemser update

2011-04-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well thank the universe this week is over. Jemser is on the mend and is actually starting to enjoy all the attention. He's still quite breathless and has pain if he laughs or coughs but it's not as bad as it was. Pneumonia. I couldn't believe it, he didn't even have a cold before it! According to the docs pneumonis is very prevalent in the community at the moment and it is this time of the year and October/November when they see most cases.

Now that he's a little better and finally has a proper bed in a ward he has started to interact with other patients. 'I keep meself to meself' he declares and then proceeds to tell me in detail the story of his fellow patients. Of course this being Ireland the first thing one has to do is find the connection between yourself and the random person next to you. So far Jemser has two of his fellow patients sussed. One man's sister-in-law worked with us both, better still another man hurled with my father in the fifties and sixties and stayed in the house of a friend of ours when this friend was but a baby. I'm sure he'll have the other two gents sussed out before I'm in again tomorrow.

Stepdaughter#2 was in visiting when I arrived at the hospital and we left together after an amusing and peaceful visit. As I drove her to the train station she remarked on the long and happy conversation she had just had with her Dad. I had noticed hat both Jemser and myself were engaging in conversations that meant something rather than the simple passing on of information. So I thought about all this. Y'can't beat a good aul' think.

It's the television. Deffo. The feckin' television is ruining all our lives. It sits in the corner malevolently staring at us if it's off and then when it's powered up it fills your eyes and ears with images and sounds - all driven by subliminal advertising of course- drowning out any thinking you might need to do. I've often commented on Jemser's attachment to the remote control and there is frequently a little power struggle going on between my sons for same. I think when Jemser comes home I will declare one evening a week a 'Repubic of No-Telly' night. That way we can all sit together (or not) and chat.

Chats are lovely - that's the sentiment printed on one of son#1's tee-shirts and he's perfectly right. We've all forgotten how to chat and laugh together outside of a public house because the box in the corner, or the laptop or some other electronic device(gaming consoles) is demanding our attention. They are robbing us of our most valuable asset. Our time.

So that's my rant for the week - turn off the bleedin' telly and get chatting!!

The Jemser (a long post)

2011-04-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

Before you start reading, if you know him and I haven’t contacted you please note the JEMSER IS FINE!

Me poor aul’ hubby, Jemser, went and gave us all a terrible fright. He pulled something in his back when he was helping his Mam into bed about ten days ago. Teresa has that cruellest condition of all, Alzheimer’s. But back or no back Jemser still went off playing golf on the Monday after his weekend in Kilcar. He came in truly crocked, tried lying in the bed half the day, tried walking it out, lying on the floor – everything. Eventually he gave in and went to the doc last Thursday. She prescribed Difene and anxi-calm (valium) to relax the muscle spasm and help with pain.

He was still in bits on Friday but come Saturday his back felt a lot better, although the pain had moved first to his neck and shoulder and then his stomach. It was like severe indigestion when it hit the stomach. I slagged him over mysterious moving ‘man-pains’. Anyway he was recovered enough for us to head into town and see our offspring ( two in his case, one and one on loan in mine) gigging. It was a great night and we met up with a lot of old friends, we laughed and sang and had the craic (see last post for details).

However Jim paid the price on Sunday. Not hung-over, Jim doesn’t do hangovers. But he felt fluey, shivering and clammy to touch. The pain in his stomach was worse. He didn’t eat and slept most of the day, taking paracetamol and Difene for pain. Monday morning he felt better and we decided we’d go ahead with the mid-week break we’d booked. Our annual ‘save the relationship’ break, our boys kindly minded by Jemser’s daughter#2 (the offspring on loan as per first paragraph). So I got ready me bunnel ( my overnight bag for non Donegal readers)and he slagged me over the amount of stuff I was taking for two nights - men do not understand the ‘just in case’ principle that many women use in packing, particularly in Ireland where we don’t have climate, just weather – in all its unpredictability.

Unfortunately Jemser was up most of that Monday night with pain, shortness of breath and he worried when he saw blood in his sputum and urine darker than it should be in the toilet bowl. If you’ve ever heard Jemser sneeze or clear his chest you will know how noisy he is and how he delights in giving a blow by blow description of his bodily emissions. The blood shut him up.

So, instead of heading to a nice four star in Carlow for a relaxing few days we headed for the G.P. who promptly gave him a letter for Beaumont Hospital. I had permitted son#2 to stay home from school because the child is cut out of me, a complete worry-wart. He overheard me telling someone on the phone about the blood and started to cry. He would have fretted all day in school – the not knowing killing him. Before we came back from the doctors he had googled ‘pleurisy’ ‘pneumonia’ and ‘fluid in lungs’ – which were what we thought we were looking at. The poor divil. He has inherited my worry gene and my curiosity gene. Then to top it all he has his father’s ‘don’t believe it until you see it yourself‘ gene. Although son#2 will believe it if Stephen Fry says it as Jemser will if Micheal O’Mhuireheartattack says it.

Then followed a worrying few hours, although Jemser was triaged and sent to X Ray within forty minutes of arriving at A&E. Staff wonderfully courteous and kindly. After X-Ray he had a cat-scan and finally an ultra sound and they put him on an IV antibiotic drip then a saline drip as he was very dehydrated. He was in good form. Flirtin’ and slaggin’ the nurses as is his wont. Cracking silly little jokes with me. Repeating himself. But I could see the fear in his eyes as he could see it in mine.

The hospital said they’d have to hang onto him for a few days to investigate what was going on, there was blood in his lungs and his kidney function was ‘impaired’. I went home and packed a bunnel for him, dumping out my nice ‘save the relationship break’ clothes. I had to buy him pyjamas with an instruction from him to make sure they weren’t those bloody short sets. I did a ‘just in case’ bag for him, extra socks and jocks and any toiletries I though he might need. I brought the bag in and he was dozing on a fireside type chair in the acute medical area of A&E. He looked incredibly vulnerable. I chatted to one of the nurses, a lovely woman. It is alarming how quickly you assimilate all the medical terms and talk knowledgably peppering your sentences with them. Terms you never thought you’d need.

They found him a trolley for the night, a little narrow but grand according to himself, even better they found him a room on his own ( I think it was a broom cupboard) when they heard his snoring. He had a grand kip. I lay awake half the night, planning his funeral. Jesus- he'll come back and haunt me if I slushify it on him.

He met the medics this morning and pneumonia driven pleurisy was their diagnosis. A slight complication in that there appears to be a cyst on one of his kidneys which they want to investigate further. But he looks a lot better and feels ‘grand’ except for pain about the kidney when he coughs or sneezes. I’m grand about it all except when I google his symptoms. I think someone should come up with an app to block your search engine when a loved one is sick. The only condition I didn’t diagnose him as having was pregnancy, although he even has some of those symptoms, swollen feet, slight nausea, a general wooliness about him.

So today he’s happily ensconced on another trolley in a day ward in the hospital until the bed manager finds a bed for him (I hope our bed managers are better than our bank managers proved to be).Did you know that they use disposable pillows in hospitals now? Apparently it works out more cost effective than laundering them. I wonder are they bio-degradable?

They’ve taken so many bloods from him he feels like a cow with a dry udder and is wondering should he have a pint of the black stuff to replace all that iron. I suggest broccoli. Son#1 hasn’t gone into see him yet, he was too busy making an audition video for a venue where the band hope to perform their second real gig and his Da and I fully approve of his priorities. I contacted daughters #1 and #2 and put their minds at rest. Both extended families have been given the story. Mobile phone companies made a fortune on us all this day. The slagging and comments from them all (particularly the Drimreagh crew!) were hilarious and Jemser isn’t supposed to be laughing – ‘cause it hurts.

Son#2 came in with me this evening just to be sure to be sure.Doubting Thomas. We laughed, slagged, teased each other and talked shite. Just like being at home really. Except for the drip. And the pyjamas. He said I was carrying my fascination with Auschwitz too far, when I looked closely at them, yes, he looked like an overgrown ‘boy in the striped pyjamas’. It wasn’t deliberate. We got a laugh out of it anyway as the stripe is where the resemblance ends. For a fella with so much wrong with him he looks rudely healthy.

I’ll be glad when it’s all over.

It is at times like these that one realises what’s really important in Life. People. Us. People you love. People who can drive you mad at times but who are always – always - there for you, as you are for them. People who love you. And what matters to me above all else is my little family, the four kids we have between us. Us. His family from Kilcar. My family from Ballymun. The families that extend as children grow, find partners and continue on the bloodlines.

The rest of it, the jobs, cars, shopping, houses, rows, entertainment, politics, finances. All of it, ALL, is irrelevant unless the people you love and who love you are well and happy. Only then is all right with the world. At least with my world.

Me Babbies..............

2011-04-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I turned into an almost fifty year old twenty something on Saturday night last. I had a date with Jemser. I had no kids in tow. I forgot about teenage angst. I even put on slap!!And we got on the DART and arranged to meet very dear, old old friends (not OLD just hanging about a long time!), family and whoever happened to stick their head into the upstairs space of Toners in Baggot St. It was weird. Like deja vu all over again. 'Cause d'y'know what - Celtic Tigers may have come, roared their lungs out and scratched all about them but Toner's of Baggot St (upstairs) is still the Toner's of Baggot St (upstairs) that I spent many happy weekend nights thirty years ago.

This is what I love about Dublin. It has all these mad little scruffy (sorry Toners - you are fundamentally scruffy...and celebrating same!)venues all over this mad, bad, sad and deadly capital city. In which are the most unbelievably talented and stoic artistes. Singing and playing. Covers, original stuff, interpreted stuff. Above all a deep and abiding love of music by people.

The opening act were three young men, youths, all three only barely half way through their teens. They were three fifths of a band called 'The Milgram Device' (google it). We will hear more about these young men. They were magnificent. Young, earnest, full of life and fun. They played a varied set, including numbers from Biffy Clyro, Pete Doherty and Mumford and Son. Apparently they're writing their own stuff too but aren't yet ready to share it with the rest of us.

The main event came on after a respectful ten minutes to allow us recover from the enthusiasm of the Device-ees. Oh Lawdy! It was a wait well rewarded. How do I describe Riverwide? Well, for a start they have three glorious female voices in Rachel Cunningham, Cathy Mc Evoy and Emma Bolger.Then they have all these deadly musicians about them. Like the finest bass guitarist of his generation Paddy Joyce. Like Ian Finaly, saxophonist extraordinaire (plus he's first rate at other blowy (things!) Like Frank Bolger on percussion and Marian McEvoy on fantastic lead guitar and banjo (despite her protesting she couldn't!!)

And I didn't get home 'til after 3 am and en route I stuffed my slightly inebriated self with a burger 'n chips from a chipper before we got a Nightlink bus from the centre of the city to my 'village' of Swords in Nth County Dublin. And I felt twenty (maybe twenty-five) again. And I also felt almost fifty and happy about that too. Our future is safe folks, I have seen the future of our nation, and it pleases me greatly.

Ps I admit a bias, Seamai of the Milgram Device and Rachel of Riverwide are respectively my son #1 and my stepdaughter #2. But I'm an impartial observer!!

Ikea. Heaven or.....?

2011-03-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

As a nation we Irish had developed certain routines that were followed for generations - particularly on a Sunday. Mass was a big one, over 90% of us attending almost every Sunday until very recent years. Sunday dinner another biggie, families sitting down together around a joint of meat or a roast chicken. Some of us even got dessert on Sundays.Ice-cream and jelly or home-made apple tart with a taste of whipped cream or even better a pouring of thick yellow custard. Yum.

The GAA since its inception has been a huge part of most Irish Sundays. As time rolled on and we became a little more prosperous the Sunday drive or spin became a form of torture that I don't think was peculiar only to Irish children. All jammed (without seat belts) in the back seat, younger siblings on older siblings' laps; the 'baby' sitting on the mother's lap in the front passenger seat as the father drove his squad to some freezing beach or alleged beauty spot to admire the scenery. Constant fighting, World War 3 in the back seats of Ford Cortinas all over the country.

Then came a rash of DIY and gardening centres that spread like a contagion all over the country. Sunday shopping was introduced and the desires of the home and garden enthusiast were whetted or sated by a ramble around Woodies or Atlantic wher one could debate the merits of vinyl silk over satin finish. Cash became flash for a brief but glorious period and that's when life became about 'want' not 'need' and shopping centres all over the country were thronged with people spending, spending, -spending - all day Sunday. We worshipped at the altar of shopping for non-essentials. It became a national pasttime.

Well, the mad excesses of cash have been swallowed into the black and bottomless pit that is our banking crisis. So Sundays - what now to do? I'll tell ye where I think everyone goes on a Sunday now. At least most Sundays. Ikea in Ballymun is swarming with bodies.Surging. Filled to bursting by shoppers in every age-group wandering around, coming in to pick up a picture frame and maybe treat the kids to some Swedish meatballs and going home with two new duvet covers, some decking, loose covers for the sofa, throws, rugs, glasses, a new cuddly toy, a fabulous lamp, a few plants, the cheapest coffee table in Ireland and shite! did we leave enough space in the car for the kids?

I love Ikea, love all their nice bright funky practical designs in both furniture and soft furnishings, love all their little nik-naks too. But on Sundays in Dublin Ikea is sheer bloody Hell.HELL!!And Hell is packed. One may well have to circumnavigate the carparks three or four times before one battles with another car for that coveted space. Once inside you just have to go with the flow of the crowds. You invariably spend far too much time and money in the store and then you have to queue for ages to pay despite over thirty paypoints all being manned. So I'm never, ever, ever EVER going to Ikea on a Sunday again. I'll go some nice quiet evening or afternoon Monday to Wednesday when everyone within a hundred mile radius of Ballymun is somewhere else.

I am a marketing man's dream. I fall for all their ploys; prove all their statistics. So I think I'll send Jemser next time I want something from Ikea. He is the only person I know who can go in to that heavenly of hellish place and only buy what he went in to buy. I'll save a fortune. But my house will be a little duller. I wonder what my imagined great-grandchildren will be doing with their Sundays in the future? Food for another blog methinks..........

Another bit of an aul' rant...........

2011-03-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

I’m fed up. I’m fed up with providing solutions to people who –for whatever reason- refuse to even consider same solutions. Of people who will always think the negative ALWAYS outweighs every positive in anything one tries to do. Of people who will not change the status quo or even attempt to move on, at an imperceptible two tiny steps at a time; those who declare ‘it will not work’ before thinking about it. I’m fed up of people who are Doom-Sayers, Nay-Sayers and who quite simply would rather have the bloody grievance than consider doing something about it. I’m fed up of people who refuse to think for themselves – not out of any intellectual incapacity but out of fear or sheer bloody laziness. The mind is a muscle, use it or…

So. After considering what might possibly go wrong, DO NOT use said possibility as a reason why not to do something. Weigh it up against the positive, think it out; follow the thought. We’d all still be grunting at each other if Homo Sapiens had decided not to bother inventing society or the wheel or electricity or pasteurization or hammers, nails, clothing, language, etcetera etcetera - just in case something might go wrong. So will all the grievance bearers who won’t think around daily problems please head for the nearest cave and sit there moaning to the other grievance bearers until death us all do part.

Now for ye.

Phew – I feel so much better, all the tension in my shoulders is gone – pounded into my keyboard. Isn’t this blogging a great yoke altogether!

A Letter to St Patrick

2011-03-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

Well Pa,

Here we are again. It hardly seems a year since we celebrated you last. But the sun comes up and goes down and the days pass no matter who is in charge - or not.

Remember you banished the snakes for us once - back in the day? I suppose you heard about the feckers getting back in? Wormed their way right up to the shoulders of the gatekeepers, dripped poison into gullible ears as golfclubs were swung and champagne quaffed. I suppose that’s snake nature. Bit disappointed in the gatekeepers though.
But ‘twasn’t only the gatekeepers were taken in, we all were - thought we deserved … stuff…. possessions – you know yourself. Built D’Arbey’s Castles - all over the blasted country. Of course the whole shebang – never anything but smoke and mirrors- came tumblin’ down and down we all slithered – right down to zero. Beyond zero actually - into the dark side – a scary place, I can tell you.

Mebbe you could pay us a visit soon Pa, do a sweep through the long grass with your upturned scepter, to check the snakes are well gone – or at least de-fanged to prevent the same sorry mess re-occurring. We’re awful sorry we lost the run of ourselves. Honest. We’ll try our best to learn from this debacle. I’m sure yourself and the other saints get pissed off with us feckin’ things up all the time. You’re really very forgiving, I suppose that’s what makes you all saints.

I think this time we might get it right. Y’heard about the horror in Japan? The earthquake and tsunami were horrendous – but Christ, the radiation contamination danger on top of that. They say nuclear power is the cheapest form of energy. But at what price one life? Or one sick child?

I have a dream Pa. An army of windmills marching off our west coast harnessing wind and waves, feeding all of Ireland’s energy needs. Mebbe we’d even have energy over for export! Wouldn’t that be a turn up for the books Pa– exporting electricity instead of our kids!. Ah Pa, won’t it be great, row upon row of beautiful steel giants majestically harnessing Nature’s power, like an army of Fir Bolg protecting our green and much loved shores.

Just as well the world has dreamers Pa, for where would we be without them?

Yours forever

Evelyn

The Sound of Silence

2011-03-12T12:46:00.001-08:00

I started to suffer from insomnia when I was pregnant with son#2. It went away when he was born but returned in recent years. I have been doing everything in my power to banish it but still it insists. It was only last night I realised why. It is for the silence. My inner writer calls to me in the middle of the night and up I must get and sit at the laptop and wait. I need the night. Because the night brings me silence.

The silence brings it to me, that feeling, the feeling that I am on the cusp of all understanding. I listen through the silence hurting and on the other side of that note (they say it’s B #) lies the truth. And this truth is what I have been afraid of for years, for I may well not like that truth. I must be prepared for that. I will continue to disappoint myself. Truth sets us free, and this is the lesson my father tried to teach me, the lesson I would not listen to. Tell the truth, boy. He meant your inner truth. I thought it merely a phrase, a cliché badly used. But his truth is not my tuth. My truth is not your truth. This is the only tenet by which we all should live our lives. Truthfulness.

I’m not talking venial sins here, venial sins are a necessary part of life but truth with ourselves vital. If we are not truthful with ourselves we are committing mortallers, fatal blows to our inner selves, killing our inner Gods, our conscience. I suppose that’s why they are called mortal sins for they are a sin against ourselves, our bodies, our beings, demeaning us in our own eyes, not some celestial God’s, for we are truly God. Each one of us. This is what Christ and all the great writers and philosophers since time began have tried to tell us, I think. Life has whatever meaning we give it. Random stuff will happen and our lives will go astray from time to time, we will lose loved ones- bad shit happens and we will turn to drink and drugs and shopping (particularly shoes!) to block the pain. But we have to feel the pain, let it in, let the anger out. And forgive ourselves. Above all –forgive ourselves.

When I was fifteen I started to understand this but couldn’t articulate it I didn’t have the language. I tried to put it in an English essay. I remember sitting at a table writing an essay on ‘Silence’ for Beatrice Ryan, my English teacher – a woman who loved words – I couldn’t describe silence because I never heard it. I was a teenager but had never learned to like myself, I sat outside of everyone else, earnest intense – a bit bloody scary actually!. I saw a society that judged one on how one looked or dressed or spoke or on wher one lived or on the car ones father did or didn’t have and I couldn’t relate to that. So I built up walls and hid behind bookshelves. Disappeared into the worlds of Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, of William Shakespeare. Of storytellers. I was happy in these worlds.

There were nine people in our house growing up. Nine different egos. Nine different sets of needs. Not all of them could be met and the noise was bloody awful. So I wrote in this essay for Beatrice all this stuff. And Beatrice read it and recognised it as truth. But perhaps it frightened her too- for when she was returning our marked essays to us she said, ‘They were very good, but some of them were too personal.’ I was mortified. I immediately assumed she was referring to me because I knew I felt uneasy handing up the essay wondering had I overstepped the mark. That mark that everyone else seems instinctively to know but I for some reason don’t see. Or maybe I see it and say, hang that I’m telling my truth whether they like it or not.

Once I wrote a story that upset a family member – not deliberately, I knew they wouldn’t like it because it came too near the bone but it was never intended for this person’s eyes. It was an expurgation from my soul - something written to make sense of what I saw, to try to understand. Anyway, another family member said ‘you shouldn’t have written that’. I was stunned. Censorship. At my own door. Is that not what has been wrong with this benighted little country of ours? Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Keep quiet, it’ll all be the same in a hundred years. Yes, it will be the same – if we don’t speak out and stop it. I have to write it. You can choose not to read it.

So sit back, close your eyes and listen through the silence hurting to find that inner core you know is there. And accept that nastiness also dwells in your soul side by side with goodness, matter and anti-matter if you like. In order to move forward you must acknowledge the badness and vow to try to overcome it. For we are all human and everyday we must battle against our selfishness, our envies, our petty grievances. And it is only in accepting all these things and vowing to try to forgive ourselves we can

And I’m not drunk. Or drugged. Or insane. Or ‘special’. I’m Irish!

And Etty Basgetti….don’t be crying!

The Sound of Silence

2011-03-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

'Gwan the Girls........

2011-03-10T02:38:00.000-08:00

I had a lovely night last night. I was invited to read in the Irish Writer’s Centre along with other women writers to celebrate International Women’s Day. The event was organised by Eileen Cooney of the Centre of Gender and Women’s Studies in TCD in conjunction with the Irish Writers’ Centre.

The two big rooms off the first landing in this lovely Georgian building were given over to the event and I was delighted to see such a large number of young people at it. Most writers' nights I go to seem to be populated by the grey brigade (I’m one of them!). If I could find my programme I’d list the women who read but in typical middle-aged forgetfulness I put it somewhere safe last night and now I can’t find it.

Anyway, the women all know who they were and I think they’d agree with me when I say that we all instinctively write about the same topics. Big themes. Death, sex, birth and family. Little themes. Cleaning, cooking, gardening, child-rearing. Life. And do y’know what - we do it bloody well! It was a gentle humourous night, no barging maleness here, and although there were some men present, they were nice and quiet - afraid maybe to make a noise!

A lot of the women who read were in and around my own age and I was impressed to see how many of them had gone back to college as mature students and done degrees in Creative Writing. I’d love to do one. I’d particularly like to do the one in East Anglia. But I have no basic degree (‘cept in arse-wiping) and I’ve no money to indulge myself. Mebbe some rich philanthropist out there will fund me –‘gwan – y’know y’want to!

But just you wait world. Once I hit sixty and me kids are fled the nest I’m going to do degrees ‘til they come out of me ears. Philosophy, Social Studies, English Lit, History, Psychology. And I’m going to do them in Trinity College. And I’m going to join Trinity Players ( they must need older wimmin). In other words I’m going to start my life at sixty as I should have done at seventeen.

I did start in college, but because my mother worked part-time it pushed us over the income limit and I wasn't eligible for a grant. The money was borrowed to pay the first term's fees but even scraping together bus fare and lunch money was a strain on the family purse and I decided to drop out. That was the excuse I used to leave after my first term. The money would have been found if I had showed willing – I know that now. But the reality was college terrified me. Everybody seemed to know where they were going and what they were doing. Between tutorials I would sit in the cubicles in the toilets smoking and reading a book. Weird or what? I couldn’t handle the freedom, the being treated as an adult. I was a peculiar adolescent; went straight from being a child to being a surrogate parent - helping my mother with younger siblings – bossing them about. Mammying them. It’s no wonder they were always fighting with me! Bossy-boots.

So I missed out on the whole teenage and college experience and I never learned from my peers. None of my peers in the area I grew up read and I had no interest in clothes and make-up or boys. Well, I did I suppose, but I wasn’t great at picking clothes that suited me because I thought I was fat and ugly and boys terrified me. Rough, noisome creatures. So I left college with relief and got a safe job in the public service – I was only staying for six months - until I got a proper job. Thirty years later I look back and say how did that happen. If I could only time travel back and take my shy seventeen year old self by the hand and walk her through Trinity’s beautiful archway and spread the world of learning and literature and words, beautiful beautiful words at her feet. I would put my arms about her, say ‘You can do it Charlie Brown’, tell her she was statuesque, beautiful and intelligent and all she had to do was be herself. People would like her, she would make intelligent friends of her own age and her brain could be sharpened by the whole college experience.

But. If I had taken that path I mightn’t have met my Jemser. Nor found my beautiful Donegal – my spiritual home. Nor had my beautiful boys. And where would I be without my men? My rocks, they who accepts me completely even when I’m being totally irrational. Now don’t be thinking they're perfect! They're not – and no better woman to let them know that. The craithuirs. They have an awful handful with me as the woman in their lives - for the moment anyway.

How did this post start at International Woman’s Day and end with Jemser and me boys? Isn’t a woman’s mind a strange - sometimes frightening - but always beautiful place.

The Cripple of Inishmaan

2011-03-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

Jemser and I went to see Druid’s production of Martin McDonagh’s Cripple of Inishmaan last night. I was surprised that the Gaiety theatre in Dublin wasn’t full. Druid normally play to packed houses, perhaps a sign of these straitened times?

As always with Druid the set was magnificent albeit a little large for the small shop in the West of Ireland it purported to represent. Perhaps this particular theatre isn’t intimate enough for the pared-back look at claustrophobic small town and rural life Mc Donagh always gives us; the shop interior has a counter the length of which Argos would be proud! But it is the attention to detail that Druid take in all their productions that so endears them to me. The way the tinned peas and bags of flour were stocked – in a particular way that I have seen mirrored in many tiny shops all over the country.

We Irish spend most of our time looking for the flaw - ‘ye missed a bit’ – that fatal little mistake a blow-in will make that will mark him as not one of our own. But McDonagh, reared for the most part in London although spending every summer in Connemara, has us to a T - the petty backbiting, fatalistic thinking and determination to be the first with news, good or bad; our awful predisposition to sneer and jeer and our elephantine memories for slights in the past. The way we’ll back each other up – we can laugh at ourselves but no-one else shall! McDonagh holds a mirror to Ireland for the world to see this decidedly unsentimental side of our psyche.

McDonagh’s female characters are fantastic-I’m a Dub and proud of my accent but I would and go all sibilant eshs to play any of those particular ladies. They remind me of Synge’s Pegeen Mike and Widow Quinn. Strong earthy feisty women, uncowed by centuries of oppression by men, Church and State.

The cripple’s two old aunts who run the store are worry warts who appear to have been standing behind that counter for all eternity. Standing there like Vladimir and Estragon, waiting and wondering, waiting and wondering. Stoics commenting on the anarchy and amorality about them. I particularly love McDonagh’s younger women, Girleen in ‘The Lonesome West’ made a huge impression on me years ago and the character of Slippy Helen in The Cripple of Inishmaan is just as vivid. Her tongue is foul and she has no mercy and one gets the feeling she always tells the truth - and hang the consequences. No dressing things up for our Slippy!

The acting was superb as you would expect from a sterling cast that includes Ingrid Craigie, Liam Carney and Dearbhla Molloy, and Tadhg Murphys’s crippled Billy is masterfully understated. In this production (as in life) there is as much said in the silences on stage as there is in body language and in conversation. Laurence Kinlan’s Bartley makes the most irritating and hilarious clicking noise as he endlessly ponders on which sweetie to take; he's like a clock ticking away the seconds of your life.

Crippled Billy decides he can wait no longer for his life to start, passing time by reading and re reading the few books on the island and staring at the island’s cows for entertainment, so much so that half the populace think he is touched. Doing nothing – as generations before him have done is not an option for Billy. An American film crew has arrived on a neighbouring island to film ‘Man of Aran’ and all the youngsters are determined to go over and be part of this big event. Billy cannot get anyone to take him, sure isn’t he crippled and ugly and not a one on the island wants him let alone a film crew - to paraphrase Slippy Helen and Bartley. So Billy forges a letter from the doctor saying he has not long for this world and shows it to a local boatman BabbyBobby, playing on his sympathies to take him in the boat too.

The boat man does that and returns the following day with the other two youngsters but the cripple stays behind declaring he is off to Amerikay for a screen test and will return wealthy and famous. Life ticks relentlessly by in the shop, Slippy Helen wreaking havoc on the males of the island for presuming to touch her or even think of touching her without paying in some way. Johnny Pateen Mike and his ancient Mammy fight with each other to be first with tidbits of news, each hoping the other will pop his/her clogs asap.

The shop is a bit of a rabbit warren. In and out in and out, everyone saying the same thing and at the same time saying saying no thing.

The States doesn’t work for Billy and home he comes, screws up courage asks Slippy for a date. She laughs at the notion of him - plug ugly and crippled - asking anyone for a date. In despair Billy he plans to kill himself, but even this sombre subject matter has a magical touch of anarchic black comedy that only the McDonagh/Druid combination could come up with. I won’t ruin the ending for you.

What I’ve always liked about Martin McDonagh’s plays is his unflinching honesty and his wicked sense of humour. This is life parodied at a bestial level – cruelty, both physical and emotional abound. And there is certainly no sentimentality. The world claims that the Irish are a sentimental lot ( we’re not, we just cry and sing sad songs when we drink too much) and sometimes we are portrayed in a romantic way, shrouded in tales of Celtic heroes and druids, poets and scholars, brave men fighting our oppressors to free us from colonial rule and globalised religion.

Real Irish life is harsher, the elements and alcohol make sure of that and Ireland’s people are far more pragmatic than the world gives us credit for. Martin McDonagh manages to send us all up, make us laugh at ourselves while accepting unwholesome truths about our tarnished Celtic souls.

So if the show comes within driving distance of your home make sure you get a ticket - a great night out.

A New Dawn.............

2011-02-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

I know the title of this blog is a cliche but it is the only almost correct phrase to describe what is happening in Irish politics today. We seem to be finally witnessing the end of Civil War politics. Fianna Fail have taken an awful drubbing - even the best of their people losing their seats ( and they're not 'all the same'). Each party has strong people and weak people, good ideas and bad ideas, ideas which are worth trying and ideas that should be scrapped. But I think for the first time - at least in my memory of General Elections - an extremely loud and very, very clear message has been sent to our politicians. Fuck us up boys and we'll send you packing and we don't need to chase yiz with guns or bribe yiz with money to do it. We just don't want to play with you anymore - and you can take your ball, we'll make our own one. It might be made of newspaper and string or a straw-stuffed pigs bladder but we'll make do and mend. So there.

I feel relieved that it is looking like a coalition between Left and Right. A balance, I think, that will deliver better politics and accountability and a measured response to our current difficulties. We're grown up now as a nation, we don't need promises of sweeties or money to make us do what politicians want us to do. And it's great. We are witnessing the birth of an adult Ireland born today, the austerity of the Nanny state went for the most part in the last twenty years and now that the heedlessness of the teenage years of the Celtic Tiger has passed we can truly move forward as a confident, intelligent nation.

Jemser reckons that FF and FG will merge into one party within the next ten years. He may well be right. Labour and the Socialist Party will form the Left. I'd imagine the Greens will also go over the next also, they have done their job - putting environmental concerns on the table. So, a mature caring society with a balanced thoughtful government. We can but hope.

Great White in Donegal....

2011-02-23T12:33:00.000-08:00

I blogged a month ago about the shock closure of Gallagher's bakery in Ardara in Donegal and the blow it struck to the community - both in the village and in the wider Donegal South West community.

I just heard that local businessman Derek Gallagher today bought back the factory from IAWS - the international food group company he sold Gallaghers to four years ago. Big boys who put Gallaghers into liquidation. He hasn’t disclosed how much he paid for it nor should he - I hope he got a bloody bargain and managed to squeeze plenty of money from the feckers - because he said he will be re-opening the bakery end of the business. He may not be able to re-employ everyone but thinks there is a good chance he will be able to save between seventy and a hundred jobs.

It is an encouraging move on the part of Mr Gallagher and I’m sure there are many families and businesses in the Ardara area who are relieved with the news. Mr Gallagher’s family ran the business for twenty years before selling out to the bigger company although he stayed on as Managing Director.

I don't understand business big or small and I don't have the full facts. But I do understand the value of small tight-knit communities. They look after each other. Yes - Mr Gallagher will make profits but those profits only come after the local worker's wages are paid, the raw materials sourced locally are paid for and the utilities and machines paid for and maintained. Then he takes his cut and all of this trickles down to local businesses. In my last blog about the bakery I said I would recognise a voice calling halt to the march of profits before people. Mr Gallagher said that he had a social responsibility to save as many jobs as possible and provide futures for his children and his community - I like the sound of Mr Gallagher's voice.

Plus Gallagher's white sliced pan is the nicest sliced white (if that’s not an oxymoron) I have ever tasted. Donegal is another world. They do things different up there, they look after their own - they certainly make the best bread (they're good at the fish too!)

Election fatigue and the ghostly tiger......

2011-02-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

OMG another fortnight of this wall-to-wall coverage of our political wannabes and I’ll be in severe distress.
‘Switch it off,’ you cry.
I can’t. It’s bloody everywhere. Newspapers, TV, radio, twitter, facebook, blogs that I normally devour for their witty intelligent comment. The journalists and political commentators are on highs, whipping themselves and presumably their audience into a fury. This is their gladiatorial arena with the politicians as bait and us - the baying masses, I assume - urging them all on.
Ok, hyperbole - but you get my drift. And for what?

In roughly a fortnight’s time we’ll make our ticks, the votes will be counted and another shower will be in to try and stay there for a full term. Will anything change? I don’t think so but I’m old and cynical. Having said that, fifty years ago a man I could not understand anyone trusting was voted in as a TD and stayed there for forty five years. I’m not particularly a political animal. But I am an animal. And my animal instincts made me wary, very very wary of this man, hackles up etcetera.I watched in despair as he held high office and actually led our government three times over a thirty year period. And surrounded himself with like-minded individuals. By your friends shall ye know them. It was, I think , this atmosphere that started back then that led finally to the spectacular rise and fall of our unregulated banking industry and the notion by those with wealth that this wealth could continue to self-generate without anything of substance behind it. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.

So perhaps I’ve always been cycnical about politics. Mind you, it is beyond me why anybody wants to stand for public office so maybe my mindset is just incapable of understanding their mindset.

We're now a haunted nation. If the Tiger was just dead it might be ok- we could bury him, grieve a little and get on with our lives. Unfortunately he is now a ghostly tiger who will wander this land for generations. The developers washed their hands of their debts, the banks started to cry and passed it on to the Government because above all capitalism cannot be seen to fail. Why? I know it’s a simplistic question but perhaps it's one that needs asking. The Berlin Wall came down when communism was finally allowed to fail. If our banks failed and those who really owned the debt , German and British banks and bond holders or other even more globalised forces depending on which website you read - had to pick up the tab and reduce their share dividends to the already wealthy the world’s wall might collapse. But. Is that a bad thing? I think not.

Most of us would still get up each day, feed our kids, work, shop, play and the great cycle of birth, life, death would continue. It’s only the economy, stupid.

Yes, I’m cynical and jaded and no I don’t have any solutions. But at least I’m not behaving as if what happened to our lovely little country was nothing to do with me. If I hear one more outraged, unapologetic politician I might be forced to smack them. Hard. Except I don't believe in slapping naughty children.

A virtual slap.........

2011-01-29T11:21:00.000-08:00

They say actions speak louder than words and perhaps they do. Someone defriended me on Facebook recently and I was surprised at my own stung reaction. I shouldn't have been stung, it was a childish gesture on the part of my defriender (did I just make up a new word?) and I certainly should be adult enough not to react to that gesture. But it hurt. Would that I was adult enough to shrug it off and declaim 'their loss'. It set me to thinking about my emotional responses to others particularly in situations that bring out my inner child (never that deep in me). I read a cognitive behaviour therapy book years ago that pointed out that within each of us there is a parent, an adult and a child and we must train ourselves to choose adult responses to things rather than the behaviour of an emotional impulsive child or that of an overcautious concerned parent. At least I think that's what it meant.

But when someone you care about slaps you in temper and takes back the skipping rope they loaned you I'd say 98% of us react with our inner child. Because that is what this was, a virtual slap and a stomp away with a bang of the door behind the offended. And how do you claw back from the position that this virtual slapping leaves you in? I suppose you go on playing your game because you have to, life marches on regardless of Man's petty squabbles. You may not be skipping anymore but there are other games, and ultimately all any one of us ever has is our personal dignity. The only person who can strip us of that is ourselves.

I won't do that. So. A little pout, a shake of the head and onto the next squabble!

Frozen Out..........

2011-01-27T13:18:00.000-08:00

The news yesterday of the closure of the 'frozen goods' section of Gallagher's Bakery in Ardara in southwest Donegal was a huge blow to the area. It is thought that 124 jobs will go immediately as the company that now owns Gallaghers (originally a family business) has been subsumed into another yet bigger company and globalisation means amalgamating certain functions in certain areas and blah blah blah. Some actuary with a spreadsheet in a skyscraper within a Financial Centre in Hong Kong or New York or Berlin produces a flow chart and 'bam' a little town in a corner of a small island is crippled.

What this closure means, in terms of people's lives, is catastrophe. Ardara is a small vibrant little village, local people worked in the factory - whole families of them. In many houses three or more pay packets now cease to come home. The knock on effect for local shops, tradesmen and small businesses cannot yet be measured. The factory has been one of the main employers in the area for almost twenty years. For younger employees, not yet settled and rearing families the option of emigration is there. Again. Nothing personal, you were doing a good job, it's just business. Aging parents may be left isolated and lonely. Nothing personal,we don't dislike you but your job is no longer viable on our balance sheet.Again.

And so lumbering corporate giants roll on and on and on, crushing lives, extinguishing hope in individuals and families and killing off communities. Surely they (whoever 'they' are) must see that eventually they will kill off all the very consumers they need to fund their profit accounts.And the world will consist of one company, one big brother, one god - and his name is money. And he'll have no friends or family, no one to have a laugh with to lighten the gloom of a January afternoon. There will just be money, all on his lonesome.

All anyone wants is the chance to do a day's work for a reasonable wage. Somehow, somewhere, someone has to say 'halt' - people have to come before profit or at least have equal footing. I have no idea who this someone will be. But I think I'll recognise them when they start to speak. And I don't think I hear that voice in the clamour of idiocies I hear from Leinster House. I cringed when I saw Mr Bertie Aherne's latest sound byte. How on earth can that man say that the only thing he regrets as his political life ends is the fact that he didn't get a world class national stadium built in Ireland. Bertie is definitely a Martian, and he may go back to Mars and take the rest of the sons of destiny with him.

I think I think too much.

Is Harry Potter the new Jesus?

2011-01-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

I'll probably be struck off some database somewhere in the Universe that records such blasphemous suggestions. Indeed - did our much debated blasphemy laws ever come into effect? I don't really mind if I'm excommunicated - I wasn't on chatty terms with the Papa anyway. However for the sensitive please note this is written tongue in cheek - mad musings of a menopausal mama as 'twere.

On with my wondering. It seems to me that J.K. Rowling took the Bible and the Lord of the Rings and rewrote them setting them in Hogwarts, Earth and Azkabahn as Heaven Earth and Hell. Fair play. She did a great job and anything that increases reading is in my opinion a damn fine thing. I only read the first three novels from beginning to end, I dropped the fourth one half way through and broke my toe. The books just became too bloody big. 'The Prisoner of Axkabahn' was my favourite as its darkness took the whole story line to a different level.

A discussion broke out in my sitting room this evening about said Mr Potter and I threw in my 'she re-wrote the bible' comment.
'What do y'mean?' asked one 15 year old.
'Well, it's the fight between good and evil isn't it? It's what every writer is writing about - telling stories of the good guys and the bad guys and the hopeless people and the people who need to to helped. The Bible had miracles, the Harry Potter books have magic.'I answered sagely - its great being nearly fifty, you can finally get away with sounding wise - insane, but wise.
'Yeah but the Potter books are interesting. The Bible's boring.'They high-fived each other and smirked with delight at their incredible insight.
'Ah. But you're wrong,' sez I 'the Bible and Shakespeare contain all the plotlines and all the character analysis one ever needs, they are a blueprint for life. Its just that the language is archaic and the Bible in particular will have lost some of its original menaing in various translations. Basically all books are, or should be, morality tales. With the decline of organized religion in the Western world it is up to writers and other creative people to help the rest of us make sense of our lives, to enjoy it where possible for its own sake - not live for some mystical world beyond it.'
'Whatever'

I think I lost them once I started about the decline or organised religion - it was fun while Harry Potter was about, but after that... yawn.

I do wonder if there was some big bang or big whimper even and the world as we know it vanished would, in 2000 years time, there be some sort of life form wondering if Harry Potter really existed? Children making their first Holy Sorting Hat and going on to make their first game of Quidditch as a symbol of their passing into the adult world.

Yeah. I know. That's one step too far for me and all!

Next blog will be a study on the imponderable topic of Facebook-v-Twitter. If Facebook is the new garden wall, pub counter et al what in the name of all that's holy is Twitter?

Haven't I an awfully peculiar brain.

Brain Dennehy and the Bull McCabe

2011-01-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

We went to the preview of 'The Field' in the Olympia tonight, that grand old dame of theatres in Dublin's Dame Street. The theatre can be a tad uncomfortable as the seating resembles that of a Ryanair flight without the headrest - not great when you are tall and overweight. But it didn't matter because we were spellbound by the Lane Production Joe Dowling directed version of John B.'s classic play.

And a classic it surely is. It is still as relevant and fresh today as it was when John B. penned it, today's Bulls may be bankers and developers rather than land grabbing farmers but the central theme is the same. Greed, bully boys and a sense of entitlement brings disaster into the heart of every home in any community. I'm not going to rehash the storyline here, most of you know it anyway and even if you didn't all you would have to do is look out the window of your own home and you would quickly identify your Bulls, Birds and Mamies. John B had an unerring eye and ear for the human heart and soul and knitted it all together for us, his audience, in a beautifully tailored package. Bravissimo.

Each performance was a joy, the ensemble tight and the tension palpable. Well done all concerned. Brian Dennehy is a consummate actor and although he hasn't replaced Ray McAnally in my heart as the Bull he came pretty damn close. Bosco Hogan as the bishop had several members of the audience automatically blessing themselves after his sermon, this causing a ripple of laughter through the auditorium. The set was magnificent ( although the chairs jarred with me, particularly the Mexican pine one -surely they should have been more kitchen style 60's ?)But if I had to single out one performance it would have to be Derbhle Crotty's Mamie. Her portrayal of an attractive young woman trapped over the pub in a claustrophobic small town whose body and mind has been slowly drained by the bearing of nine ( soon to be ten) babies is superb. I was nearly going to go up on stage and tell her I'd give her a hand with all them weans! But Derbhle, learn to knit properly - you look totally uncomfortable with those needles - get someone to show you how to twine the wool on your fingers correctly - otherwise you'll never get that blanket finished before babby 10 arrives!

Great show, highly recommended.

Every day's a school-day...........

2011-01-13T05:19:00.000-08:00

D'ye know somethin'? This world never ceases to amaze me. You think you've seen it all and then someone tickles you from a distance and causes you to marvel at Man's ingenuity in manipulating his environment to speed things up, help life along, make it easier and more efficient.

I'm speaking of the ability of a young man in our office block who was able to access my computer remotely today and check something out.

'Ah Evelyn! ' I hear you exclaim - 'sure that's old hat at this stage.' Ok, Ok, - but he (once I granted him access) moved my little cursor and he not within an asses roar of my screen!. In fact he gave out to me for moving my mouse as he manipulated the pointer - I thought something had gone wrong! I swear to God I alternated between shock and then delight to witness him maneuvering his way around my PC as he checked whatever technical thing he had to check. And I chatted away to him on the phone as he did so. Actually I think he thought I was a bit mad because I would burst out 'Will y'look at that! How is he doing that! That's mad!' every so often. I actually looked over my shoulder and up at the wall behind me to make sure there wasn't some little camera trained on me ala Candid Camera. What'll they think of next!

Is there any problem now that cannot be solved with technology? I'm fifty and not particularly technically minded and all I want a machine to do is deliver me what I need when I need it. I don't want frills, apps, add-ons, plug-ins etcetera etcetera. I'm convinced everyone under the age of thirty has been born knowing how to mind read and they are pre-empting all our requests by being a step ahead of us all the time.

Now all the world has to do is to sort out climate change, world hunger, organised religion and of course what happens to the black left-foot sock when it disappears in the wash cycle. Lovely Jubbley.

New Year (ish) R word

2011-01-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

I never make New Year resolutions. I know myself too well. Every morning I make the same resolutions, to eat less, exercise more, be nicer to my family, be nicer to myself, to write a minimum of 500 words, not to moan about whatever minor ache or pain I might have (real or imagined), not to get depressed about things over which I have no control. Every night I realize I have failed, again, to keep any of these resolutions. I occasionally make the 500 word mark - if I include blogs. I'm rarely overnice to my family and y'know they're really rather a nice family - for a group of men that is. I am horrendously hard on myself. I ALWAYS overeat, never exercise enough and am on constant alert for that tiny twinge which will signify that I am about to shuffle off this mortal coil within a time-frame that will not permit me to apologize to everyone for being such a pain in the neck for the last fifty years.

FIFTY! There it is. 50. This year I will hit the half-century and although I finally discovered a few years ago what I wanted to be when I grew up I'm really not that much further along the road to achieving it. In fact, like Robert Frost's traveler, I have reached a fork in the road and know the financial and familial reasons why I should take one path but in my heart, my soul I know I want to take the other.

So what do I do? If I'm serious about writing - and I am - I will of course continue to write, albeit in reduced pockets of time. I think my bouts of depression have eased up since I started writing and I certainly find it the best way I can express myself, letting the poison out so to speak. In ways I think I'm using the financial downturn and reduction in household income as an excuse to go back to my boring office job full-time. For if I have to work full-time I have an excuse for not writing as much and so cannot challenge myself with that horrible self-doubt and procrastination that appears to be my constant companion.

Since my ghost-writing project ended I have found it extraordinarily hard to get back into my own fiction writing. Nothing is ...satisfactory. I don't know that I have anything to offer the grand canon of Irish literature, even in the commercial fiction genre, although I know that it is only the marketing departments in publishing houses and booksellers who insist on 'genres', for most writers a piece of work is either well-written or not. My writing ( on the basis of the comments in the rejection slips to my novel) apparently straddles commercial and literary fiction.

But it is the only way I know how to write. I write the stuff I like to read. Stories, stories about people, about how they feel in certain situations about them getting through each day no matter what, about the high days and holidays, the days of mourning and weeping. About life with a very little 'l'. Like most of our lives. Am I depressing you? Well I am me, so I'm off for a walk in the cold winter's night and maybe I'll come up a solution to my dilemma - although I doubt it because it's like everyone else's dilemma, Life with the big ell.

Where is Swords' Buzz gone? - Panto Day 3

2010-12-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

Some months ago I blogged about how Swords town was buzzin' - lots of life about the place, kids had plenty of outlets for their creativity, dance schools, choirs, musical groups, sport, music lessons, art lessons - whatever turns you on.

Tonight I feel like taking it all back and agreeing with the Grinch in my office who claims Swords is the most apathetic town in the North County. We had to cancel our evening show tonight because we only had six people in the audience to entertain. Normally we would entertain anyone who showed but in this case all attendees were related to cast members and were happy to wait until tomorrow to see the show. Houses have been very poor throughout the run and it is disheartening to stand on stage and address empty chairs.

But it was the small children I felt sorriest for. Truth be told I was glad for a night off - I forgot how much energy one uses in performing and an early relaxed night is very welcome. But the little 'uns were disappointed. I felt not only for the cast members under ten but for our lovely Sleeping Beauty's daughter who had come along with her father and her grandmother to see us. A perfect peach of a child, as talented and beautiful as her mother. She came backstage to be greeted by us all and to strike a blow with a sword upon the person of the wicked witch for daring to try to eliminate her mother twice a day over a five day period. She loved all the attention and went away happy enough - assuring us that she would be onstage with us all next year.

But the little soldier who marches around manfully for the Teddy Bears Picnic every performance but who has been too shy to take a bow up to now had decided that tonight was his night was more than a little crestfallen. Poor little fella.

However - onwards and upwards. And if you know anyone , ANYONE - within a ten mile radius of Swords beg them to come and see us in Rivervalley Community Centre on tomorrow Saturday Jan 1st or Sunday Jan 2nd at 2pm and 5pm. PPPLLEEEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Panto - Day 2

2010-12-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

We were all exhausted today but determined to put on better shows than yesterday. Today was the technical glitches day- spots in peculiar places, overlong blackouts and the occasional burst of music when there should be none. But we got around it all and I think our audiences (small but discerning!) were happy.

I thought about the huge amount of work that goes into producing a panto - and all of it in people's spare time - building and painting the set - the theatre company actually built a stage as there was none in the community centre. Then there is sourcing all the music and rounding up musicians willing to help out, lighting and sound expertise, make-up artistes, costumes, front-of-house, advertising and promotion, stage and music directors and the backstage staff. We have a brilliant hip-hop group perform, The All-Stars - all local teenage girls - and by God are they talented. A huge number of people in the background; then you throw a fairly big cast in on top of it including children - a lot of the actors very inexperienced but full of enthusiasm. It does seem a shame that so few people see all that work.

The show is more polished now (after 4 performances we have probably made up the rehearsal time lost to bad weather.) So if you are in the vicinity of Swords between now and Sunday Jan 2nd pop up to Rivervalley Community Centre at 2pm or 5pm and join in the fun. I can guarantee a laugh and some fabulous singing and a magical tale for the under fives. Plus our Sleeping Beauty is Russian and can say 'Jaysis' with a full Dublin accent (pas devant les enfants..and never on stage!)

I swear, we're worth it!

Panto Queen, Old and Battered, Only Umpteen-teen

2010-12-29T15:19:00.000-08:00

Well, we got through it. The first day of our Panto run that is – two shows today and the only thing that didn’t happen was someone falling off the stage. I bet that’ll be tomorrow.

Half the cast arrived with colds/’flus (depending on ones sex), caught, we decided, from third courtier (left) at yesterday’s dress rehearsal in a very large fridge which was masquerading as a community centre. The burst water pipes in said community centre hadn’t helped, although we all arrived for rehearsal suitably booted in wellies. Who says amateur drama is a non-risk hobby!

There were fluffed lines all over the place, people tripping over hems of overlong costumes, a nightmarish ten minutes ( actually two but it felt like ten) when nobody seemed to know what was happening next because the sound man forgot to hit the button with the fill-in narration. He wasn’t a very sound man for long – he was a shook man after the producer got her hands on him, it was alright though she’s married to him. For now.

Seriously…that’s ridiculous because how can any comment about Panto be serious. For a show that only had a full cast twice in the last three weeks because of snow, ice, and flippin’ Christmas we didn’t do too badly. All our really good singers sang their solos to perfection. Our fairies were farcically brilliant and Sleeping Beauty was beautiful - helped enormously by the fact that she is in her mid twenties but looks fourteen and has a delightful Russian accent. The camaraderie between Prince Valiant and Dandini was great and their number went really well – the rest of us muddled through and camped it up big time although the energy was way down by the second act of the second show. Somebody did wander into a scene where they had no reason to be and was shooed off by waspish mad good fairies! Hilarious - for those of us backstage anyway

But despite everything that went awry I sat backstage after my first exit and inhaled and felt the tingle of that - long ago and far away - very first performance again; for one brief minute. That excitement – knowing you are going onstage, not as yourself but as someone that others can relate to on a different level to ordinary everyday social interaction.

If I thought too much about it, I would have the decency to feel embarrassed that I had asked friends and neighbours and work colleagues to come and watch me practising my hobby – and pay cash to do same! I mean, it’s a bit self- indulgent. But as I left the centre (knackered) I met two little girls waiting for their Dad. They recognised me and pointed at me, whispering.

- Hello! I said - Did you enjoy the show?-
- Oh yes, said little girl#1 -The Sleeping Beauty was very beautiful-
- And the funny fairies were so funny - added little girl#2 – Oh! I wish I could have been up there too!

I laughed and waved at them and left the place with a smile on my face. Knowing that at least for those two wee girls it was as magical as I felt it should be. And above all as a cast of ordinary individuals – shop assistants, librarians, office workers, electricians, Mammys and Daddys, real people – we had strived to do out best and tell a story and ‘do all the voices.’

A story of hope, of love and laughter and song and the belief that together we can defeat the evil witch and live happily ever after.

As long as we don’t fall off the stage.

Upstairs Downstairs...again

2010-12-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

Halleluia! They didn't make a mess of it. It's not the same obviously. My Mam isn't sitting by the fire, a tiddly on the mantlepiece and her sewing on her lap. I'm not just out of my bath, tartan dressing-gowned and slippered, cup of milky tea and two Marietta biscuits, dying to see the goings on of the Bellamy household. Mam loved the Upstairs crowd, I far preferred Downstairs. The servant classes had to work harder but at least (apart from Mr Hudson) they could more or less be themselves once that Upstairs lot weren't about.

What am I talking about? Why the new three part Upstairs Downstairs that started on BBC1 tonight of course.

No. 165 is revisited in 1936 - a different world in some ways to the one the Bellamy family left and a world that is about to change again, this time irrevocably. Rose, loyal servant of the house for 40 years is the only original cast member back, helping the new Lord and Lady staff and run their house on a shoestring. A sassy kitchen maid, a wonderful cook who loves to cook but only for discerning palates, a marvelous butler with all sorts of little habits. A cheeky chauffeur. A bit of a brat of a sister to the lady of the house. Germans. Wallis Simpson. A delightfully eccentric mother-in-law. A fight over a girl. Superb costuming and casting. And of course that glorious house - always as much a character in the series as any cast member. I laughed when I saw the maid pushing and upright vacuum cleaner on the landing for I remembered being horrified that Rose and Daisy had to daily hand sweep all those stairs 'in the olden days'.

So yes, as a piece of nostalgia it fully satisfied me, I wonder what those viewers without that viewpoint thought? I did feel that the female 'upper' class characters were a little vacuous and somewhat reminiscent of characters from the endless Agatha Christie remakes, I think British TV and film really ought to move on from these - they've been done to death (bad pun - ouch permitted).

However overall it worked for me - gave me that warm and fuzzy feeling Christmas fails to give me now that Santa has deserted the house. I had a little weep and a little smile and was glad to conjure up some happy memories of childhood Saturday nights.

Plus I'm dying to see what happens next.

Randomers on public transport

2010-12-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

I only started driving a few years ago and although I don't miss waiting for completely unreliable buses, as a writer I do miss the wealth of material one overhears.

I was reminded of this last Saturday evening as we waited in a freezing station for a Dart. Two young 'wans' - scantily clad and carrying cans of cider waited too and with the neck that only alcohol can bring started chatting up son#1 and his mates. One of the lads has spacers in his ears which create a hole in the lobe that enlarges with time. The girls were fascinated and wanted to put their fingers through it, the poor lad was terrified! So I started to chat to the ladies to deflect attention from the boys. I explained how the spacers worked and young wan#1 said she'd never get them but she had a tattoo.

She showed me a nice little rose on her shoulder, then she said,
- I'm going to get something written in Hindu on the back of me neck.
- Why Hindu? I asked
- Ah I like the writing and it's kinda mysterious like, isn't it
- Unless you go to India, I opined
- Janey, I'll never go to India. I'm terrified of India and Belgium.
This statement made with wide-eyed innocence

We all erupted into laughter.

- Why on earth are you terrified of Belgium? I asked
- I saw this film once about this heroin addict and it was set in Belgium. Terrible it was.
- Where's Belgium? asked the second young wan -Is it in Germany?-
- Well it's not TOO far from it, I smiled
- Ah it doesn't matter sure I'll never be going there either.' said young wan#1!

Classic!

For Chrissake......

2010-12-18T05:22:00.000-08:00

Fr. Brian D'Arcy was on the radio this morning with Marion Finucane. It was a most interesting interview and I'd say his fellow clerics and the real Christian men and women (outside of the hierarchy) will applaud him.

Brian said that all the old certainties are gone. Church. Government. Banks. Big Business. People are frightened, nothing feels safe anymore and as we always have known but choose to ignore none of us knows what tomorrow may bring.

Brian talked about the message of Jesus Christ - the Beatitudes - and said that they are the real advice for Life, not the commandments. The Beatitudes are messages full of serenity and love. Brian also talked about being chaplain to those in the media glare and his efforts to comfort and console these people in times of great stress. Being under constant scrutiny by the whole country must be incredibly stressful, I'm sure some of our 'celebs' can only feel relaxed when they shut their front doors and seal themselves away from a public hungry for gossip and quick to condemn. To many these 'stars' are the new Gods, they are admired, influence thinking and it is hard when we find that they too have feet of clay. But as always we should practise the maxim 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

How did Christ's beautiful simple message get translated into the mess that is the Catholic Church today? It makes me weep and want to rage against Rome, demand that every man and woman within the Church walk away from their fine buildings, their art treasures and the billions in their banks.

The clergy - if they wish to really follow Christ - must walk away from all this power and glory, this - stuff. Stuff that was bought on the pennies contributed by the poor, by my mother and grandmother by your father and grandfather, on laundry made and washed by young women, on the sale of children to wealthier families, on rosary beads made by tots.

Out. Out. Out. You must leave. Throw yourselves on the mercy of your congregations - Let's see if you can REALLY follow Christ's teachings. Many do - but far too many do not. Help us . Please. Guide us through life, console us in our grief, visit our sick hold our hand when we are dying.Do NOT tell us how we should behave. Accept us, in all our wonderful flawed humanity.

TELL THE TRUTH - for it truly sets you free.

Mother Teresa's bin babies and my knitting career

2010-12-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

In 1980s Ireland with unemployment and taxation high, money was scarce even for those in employment. Sound familiar?

I was single, living in my parents' home and my social life consisted of involvement in an amateur drama group, one night’s boozing and dancing at the weekend and of course gossiping with friends. We didn’t do gel nails and hair straighteners, clothes from BT2 and designer handbags, we had no internet, mobile phone and few of us drove our own cars but having a laugh with pals, listening to music, chatting about what was on TV and admiring each other on a night out as we searched for a mate we did – much as men and women have always done. Imagine that! We aren’t such dinosaurs after all.

One thing I have noticed a return to in this recession is knitting. A friend of mine alerted me to Springwools in Tallaght. Springwools has been on the go for decades, they’ve always had loyal customers but are now experiencing an upsurge in trade thanks to the attractiveness of a non-expensive past-time and the fact that they use the internet to promote their business, a webpage, a facebook page and secure online shopping – this last a godsend to those of us who have had difficulty in sourcing yarn (particularly something a little different) over the last decade or so. The lovely Zita and her family are doing all in their power to make knitting popular and sexy again, of course those of us who always knit always knew this!

My knitting history started with Mother Teresa in the early 1980s. Two of the girls I worked with were feverishly knitting up little white articles on four small needles everyday at lunchtime (this before such things as flexitime, paninis and lattes) We made tea in the canteen ( now called staff restaurant) brought in out own sambos and bitched our lunch hour away. It was dangerous not to be in the canteen at lunchtime – because conversation always tended to be about the absent one! When my workmates explained to me that the white articles evolving on their needles were in fact vests for Mother Teresa’s bin babies I thought it wonderful. These tiny knitted garments would leave our canteen and wing their away across the world; ending up warming the tiny malnourished body of an unwanted baby. I begged the girls to show me how to knit. I drove them mad for a week, I couldn’t hold the needles or wool properly, my tension was too tight and as I smoked at the time I had to stop after every few stitches for a pull of my fag smouldering in the ashtray in front of me (Imagine! Smoking indoors! In work! Where food was consumed!)

I wasn’t a great pupil but my enthusiasm was infectious and soon I had several others signing up And we all sat around the table knitting and bitching. The lads who normally sat with us left when they saw the needles coming out. I think they intimidated them in some way, as our needles clicked so did our tongues. Perhaps we reminded them uneasily of some powerful matriarchal figure in their lives! Whatever. They left - we knitted and talked about them!

I could not finish off this little vest properly. I was a disaster and as days went by I was ripping back, cursing and attempting again to knit off in a way that would permit a baby’s head to pass through the garment, doing it wrong, re-ripping, re-knitting , re..etcetera etcetera – you get the picture. At this stage my Calcutta baby’s vest was dingy and disgustingly bally from all the abuse the wool got. In frustration one morning on the way into work I decided that I’d had enough and deliberately left the vest, wool needles and all on the bus. I went into work with enormous relief and quite enjoyed my performance of faked annoyance at tea-break that day, ‘all the bloody work’ I wailed ( I was 22 and single with no responsibilites, I didn’t know what work was!).

Hoist by my own petard – as always. My kindly workmate who had so diligently helped me learn how to knit went down to CIE’s Lost and Found that lunch time and arrived back triumphantly to the canteen with the offending garment in hand. My heart sank and I had to come clean. The girls roared with laughter and I was never, ever, let forget it. They finished off my vest and it was duly sent off to India. So at that canteen table I learned how to knit, helped dress a baby and had the best time in the company of lovely women. I went on to knit garments for myself – some successful, others not. I knit lots of little cardigans hats and bootees for the boys when they were babies, some dreadful some gorgeous. I have knit alone and in the company of others – it is intensely therapeutic. It is a skill. You can make garments that are quite truly original (not always a good thing!). But I think the thing I liked most about knitting is the conversations I have had around it. People seem to regard it as a defunct skill of a backward rural populace – and yes I know all about cheap mass produced fleece etcetera. It may no longer be as widely practised but it’ll never be defunct. Not once we have women who like sitting together and blethering, or sitting alone and relaxing while still being occupied.

So off with you now to Sprinwools.com, buy some needles and wool and start your own little Stitch 'N Bitch group – you might surprise yourself with a new found talent. At best you’ll have a life long hobby, at worst a good night in with pals! And something new to wear.

The IMF and The Magic Treacle Jug........

2010-12-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

Listening to Messrs Lenihan, Cowen and assorted hangers-on over the past week, and in particular the Budget speeches from Dail Eireann today, put me in mind of a story by Enid Blyton that son #2 loved when he was a smallie. It was 'The Magic Treacle Jug' and was one of those stories he asked for over and over again. It was about a naughty elf or goblin or brownie (one of them yokes) who spied a little old lady who had a constant supply of treacle for her pudding from a magic jug. All she ever had to do was say 'Pour jug' - or some such command (it's been a while since I read it)- and the jug would oblige with a dollop of thick sweet treacle.

Anyway this naughty little person stole the jug from the old woman's kitchen window and ran home delighted with himself, he now had an endless supply of treacle for whatever pudding he wanted or even just to eat on its own. When the goblin reached home he made himself a pudding and when it cooled a little ( very careful not to burn himself this goblin)he sat down, rubbed his hands in glee and he commanded the magic treacle jug to pour. And pour it did.

Unfortunately for our naughty goblin he neglected to hang around the old woman's kitchen window long enough to learn the magic words which would stop the treacle jug pouring. He paid dearly for his ignorance and deviousness. His pudding, plate, table, floor, kitchen, house and finally he himself were soon covered in black sticky treacle. I think the story ended when the old woman (really a good witch natch) arrived, stopped the treacle jug pouring and after she scolded the goblin she retrieved her property and left him to clean up the mess he made

So there you are - a fairytale designed to teach the under fives the basic life lesson that those who pour from any pot not their own invariably end up in a sticky mess. Maybe I should have been reading that story to the government ( and many of the people) of this god forsaken bog at the same time I was reading it to my toddler. Perhaps then the command 'Pour jug' might not have issued. We mightn't all have colluded in the sticky pouring but by god we're all having to collude to clear it up. It's that or drown in the bloody stuff.

The real problem of course is that in this all too real life there is no good witch to come along and make everything ok. The IMF have scolded us alright and we are shamefacedly trying to clear up our mess. Meanwhile the treacle jug, like the banks and developers, is sitting smugly back on the shelf - empty but intact and gathering dust. I hope if we ever use that treacle again we do so with a spell-book in hand. And a good witch supervising.

Mary Byrne's X Factor

2010-11-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

I'm not a great television watcher. I watch 'Emmerdale' occasionally, 'Casualty' on a Saturday night, and sometimes 'Holby City' on a Tuesday. I avoided all the Big Brother and Celebrity Get Me In, Out or roundabout type shows like the plague. The only draw back to this was the fact that I hadn't got the faintest idea what my fellow tea-breakers were talking about for years. But I must admit that I usually watch the X Factor if there is an Irish interest (once Casualty is over).

And by God do we have an Irish interest this year. Mary Byrne for me symbolises all that is positive, life-affirming and above all resilient about this little island of ours. That lady is giving it welly, cheered on by Louis Walsh and every man, woman and child in Ireland. Mary is single-handedly cheering us all up - it's on a par with your county team winning the All-Ireland despite being broke and bloody freezing - actually it's better than that.

I wonder do I identify with Mary because we are the same age-group and from similar backgrounds. I learned today that she too lost her mother many years ago and like me still misses her Mam. Mary only started to really flex her vocal chords in recent years (although she always sang) as I only started to find my writing voice, after years and years of voracious reading. Perhaps both of us were building up our words/songs until we felt brave enough to throw everything at it.

Son#1 sings and plays guitar and he and 'the band' are in a local competition on Thursday. I teased them that they are on their way to be Ireland's 2011 entrants for X Factor and their eyes lit-up. I see the same light in Mary's eyes - the light of self belief and drive. Maybe we could all take a leaf from our teenagers and Mary Byrne. We have today, let's get through it. And tomorrow? Well, we'll cope with that then.

Hard work, determination and above all self-belief and we can have an Ireland we can yet again be proud of.

Lecture over.Carpe Diem and........ G'wan ye gud ting, Mary.

P.S. I wonder if I e-mailed Simon Cowell would he make sure that Mary's performance next week doesn't clash with Casualty?!

The homes of Donegal

2010-11-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

Just back from an overnight in my beautiful Donegal. We were all up to celebrate the birthday of one of the Cunningham clan. All twelve of Teresa's children were there, coming from all over Ireland, from London and most especially from Chicago. It is only the second time in twenty years that they have all been together. It made for a very special night.

The drive up was fabulous - I normally groan at the thought of three and a half hours trapped in the car with my family but for once the lads didn't squabble and we were all stunned into silence by the beauty of the early evening sunset over the magnificent scenery. I commented that any tourist arriving into Ireland and travelling by car towards the Northwest would have been gobsmacked by the beauty.

The Cunningham clan gathered and gathered and gathered. The food was top class, the wine flowed, the laughter was great and of course the singing started. At one stage Teresa got to her feet and we assumed she wanted her bed . Not that lady. Dancing she wanted! As did her lovely sister and her 94 year old neighbour Brid, I danced with Brid and I swear to God the woman - a tiny wiry woman - has the grip of a thirty year old man. Unbelievable. They breed them different up in Donegal for sure.

It was great to see all the cousins, I think there were twenty of them there, all growing into fine bright young men and women. And yet, I couldn't help but wonder how many of them will have to leave this island, another generation - yet again- in order to find work? How many of them, God forbid my own boys, will end up rearing their families on foreign soil? How many times will they all be able to gather together in the one house at the same time, to celebrate a birthday, a wedding or to mourn the loss of a loved family member. It tinged the night with a little sadness for me. I hope all those cousins will look back on last night with great fondness, a night to be laughed over for years.

The making of good memories for our children is so important. Whenever any of us feel a little troubled remembering nights of good craic, company and particularly the complete acceptance of those who love us can soothe our troubles somewhat. And that is the thing I will carry with me always about the Cunningham clan of Donegal. In every home I visit there I have never felt anything but love and welcome. I have been a very lucky woman to have been accepted by these very special people. I LOVE YIZ LADS!!

The ? Factor - NaNoWrimo style

2010-11-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

When I started NaNoWriMo ten days ago I was fully enthused by and committed to the project and stared rattling off my opus. It was ( note WAS) about a woman who is confined to a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt and the relationships she forms while there - particularly with one poor woman, christened 'Maddser' by the other patients. I thought I had the whole novel plotted, was happy with my two main characters and promised myself that this would be it. The novel that would finally be published.

However.

A tangent grew into another character. A young female teenager who was a participant in X Factor and ended up in the psychiatric hospital. This young woman fascinated me and I started to explore her back story. I met her mother, her grandmother, her childhood friend, the people in her neighbourhood, her school. The local newsman who became obsessed with her and her quest for fame. Her agent, manager, the judges on the show, the other contestants. Of course I can't call it X Factor as I'm quite sure the title is copyrighted so I'm calling it ? Factor as I wait for it to title itself. You all realise of course that this initial part of the process has absolutely nothing to do with me. It is only in the edits, all 10 to 12 of them, that my skills are called for. I just sit here, giving myself tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome while my characters tell their tales. Then I have to knit all those tales together in a manner that will grip a reader.

So Maddser and my depressed first heroine have been thrown to one side and I am now writing this X Factor contestant's story. It's bloody fascinating, even though I never watch the show I would have to have been confined on a desert island with no access to any media to be unaware of the phenomenon that is this television programme. I suppose what fascinates me is the drive that must be part of the psyche of anyone who would put themselves up week after week for rejection. Jesus. At least politicians only have to do it every four years and most of the rest us can rely on an interview at a max of one a year in order to keep out chosen jobs.

My character is fragile like us all as are her family. What impact could something like this have on ordinary lives? At the moment the book is meandering all over the place ( much like my heroine's troubled mind) but I am actually enjoying the process.

Maddser will have to wait to be released from her incarceration ( unless someone wants 8,000 words on the subject!) until I let this young lady either win, or lose.