Christmas Ads

 

I don’t mind pre-Christmas ads in general, and actually I love the one in the picture above.   I know we need toy ads from about September to help the little people decide what they want from Santy.

And I suppose I don’t really mind the supermarket and department store ads shouting at us from October about ordering turkeys, sure what else would they be doing?

Although I’m not impressed by the Marks and Spencer ad this year, it’s like a short film based on Alice in Wonderland.  It’s very annoying.  Particularly when that amazing looking model Rosie something or other finds herself in her bra and knickers twice during the ad. That’s extremely annoying.  Or at least it is for me.  His Nibs might quite like it, I'm afraid to ask.

Generally speaking, it’s the ads that have nothing to do with the festive season, but where they just throw in the word “Christmas” to create a panic, that annoy me most.

There’s one for a strange product that seems to be a sort of brush that you put on the shower floor.  Then when you’re having your shower you just put your feet in and brush them.  Apparently there’s a pumice stone on it too, so you can remove the dead skin on your feet as you go.

This is not a Christmas product.  Yet the ad finishes with a shouted “Get perfect feet for Christmas”.
I suppose for the ladies who will be celebrating the festive season in black sequinned dresses and four inch strappy shoes, getting perfect feet for Christmas is a priority.
But I think those women might have lovely feet anyway.

For those of us whose only essential outfit for Christmas is new flannelette pyjamas with Santy or Rudolph on them, getting perfect feet for the season is so far down the list of priorities as to be a pointless dream.
Isn’t it enough that we all spend flip flop season getting pedicures and using lotions and potions to have the feet of a child, without having to re-start that whole caper in November?
If we have to have nice feet as well as everything else, I’m not doing Christmas this year.

There’s another ad that yelps at us all to order a new sofa or bed now, and take delivery of it in time for Christmas.

Christmas is one day.  A day when, in my experience, the morning is spent with every surface covered in scraps of wrapping paper.  In the afternoon everyone is asleep, and in the evening most people are drunk. 

I’m not getting new fecking furniture.  It’s hard enough to buy the presents and the food and the drink and everything else without having to buy new furniture as well.  
And we all know that if we need new furniture, it’ll all be reduced to half price in January anyway. They can feck off.

Although there’s one furniture store currently running a very irritating ad, promising to give the January sale price on any sofa bought now.  What’s the point in having a January sale if everything is reduced in December?

Now we’ve not only bypassed the usual six weeks, and bounced directly from Halloween to Christmas, this crowd have galloped past the whole season, and launched us straight to the January sales.

I think it's Aldi who are suggesting lobster for dinner.  How do you even serve lobster?  Do you give it to your family with its shell still on, effectively turning Christmas dinner into a talent show, where etiquette and agility are awarded points at the table? 

I wouldn’t have a clue how to tackle a fully shelled lobster.

Apparently you buy it cooked.  So do you serve it cold?  I can’t imagine a cold dinner at Christmas.  It’s all too much to think about, really.  Again, they can feck off.  Poultry will be fine.

Sainsbury’s asked their customers to record their special Christmas moments last year, so that they could use them in their ads this year. 

The one with the kids recording a Christmas message for their Dad in Afghanistan when he arrives in the door to surprise them is a complete tear jerker.  Maybe it’s only my tears it jerks, but I very much doubt it.  I’m not that hormonal.

But the one with the family tramping through the forest dragging their Christmas tree behind them just makes me feel inferior.  We do well in our house to drag the artificial one out of the attic in time for the Big Day. 

Can you imagine His Nibs and I going to a forest to chop down a tree, dragging it back to the car park, getting it into or onto the car, bringing it home and decorating it?

We have rows in the supermarket, just buying our groceries.  There’d be war. We’d have split up by Christmas.
That’s not a  normal Christmas family moment.  At least, I don’t think it is.  Surely it’s more average for the man of the house to be sent out to get the tree, since the lady of the house has to do everything else?  He arrives back with a tree that’s either too big, too small, too narrow or too bushy, and she gives out about that for what seems like hours.  Then the rest of the day is wasted with him trying to stand the tree up in its bucket, cursing and swearing and insisting the whole Christmas business is a waste of time anyway?

There’s no videoing each other happily dragging a large tree through a forest, laughing and teasing.  In reality they’d all be eating the faces off each other.

It also annoys me that ads for completely random things now end with “makes an ideal gift for Christmas”. 
This evening I saw one for a flexi torch.  It’s a torch that the ad suggests you might like to carry in your pocket, car or handbag.  It’s a normal torch, but has a flexible handle almost two feet long.  The handle, the ad proudly states, is bendy, and has a strong magnet in the light up bit.  Very much like a torch that Inspector Gadget might carry.

The example they give of where this torch could be very handy is when you drop your keys down a grate.  You just whip out this torch, stretch it out, light it up and can see clearly into the grate. The keys will stick to the magnet, and are easily retrieved.
I’m not the most imaginative of souls, but I can’t think of another single time when a stretchy magnetic torch would come in useful.

And the ad ends with the suggestion that it would make an ideal Christmas present.  Not for me, I may as well tell you.  If someone handed me this piece of tat and tried to pass it off as a Christmas present, I would spend the day wearing my very, very sulky face.

I must warn His Nibs.

 

 

Does Life Begin at 40?

 

 

Right.  I'm three weeks into my forties.  I've coped well so far, I think. 

In fairness, this could be because I've been accepting flowers and cakes and presents and affection of all types.  I've had a whale of a time.

But now, sad to say, the cakes (yes, plural.  There was three.  They know me so well)  are eaten, the cards have been taken down, and the vouchers have been spent.  The glory bit is over, and I have to get on with being a woman in her forties.

The big day was a Saturday.  I had great fun for the weekend, but when Monday morning rolled around  and I had to get up and go to work, I decided that maybe I would start embracing this new stage in life, and become a grumpy old woman. 
Feck it, I thought, why not?  I'm forty, I may as well go a bit mad.

I was moany on Monday, testy on Tuesday, whiney on Wednesday and all-out psychotic on Thursday.

On Friday my sister and brother-in-law were bringing my two small nephews home to our fair land, and I abandoned the grumpiness and started getting all excited and giddy at the thought of seeing them.

But it hasn't all been fun and games and bad behaviour.

Unfortunately, I've been rather busy lately.  I haven't had a day off at home for yonks.  The upshot is that I have the whitest hair I've ever had in my life.  And I can't get it done next weekend either.

By the time I get my hair sorted out the white part, which doesn't usually get much further than a stripe at the top of my head, will be stretching down to my ears. 
This is not making me look less than forty.

I got some vouchers for my birthday, and had decided to buy myself some lovely makeup brushes. 

Actually, that isn't really true.  I didn't decide to spend the voucher on the makeup brushes.  My beloved brother, who was much braver than me when he was turning forty himself, asked what I would like.  My reply was swift and certain.

"The contouring and blending eyeshadow brushes from Esteé Lauder please."

"Jesus Christ" he said.  "Are you speaking gibberish? What do you want? Answer me properly."

So I asked for a voucher to spend on makeup brushes. 

Going to the beauty counter to get the brushes led, needless to say, to my buying unplanned makeup, which I was delighted with. 
I've tested it, played with it, admired it, and arranged it as attractively as possible in the bathroom. 
The only problem is with wearing it.  Nothing can detract from my snow white tresses and so there seems little point in even slapping it on.

I have recently suffered from a dull ache in my right knee.  I've never worried too much about it, I've a bad habit of sitting on my legs.  And my considerable weight is enough to put any joint under pressure even when I'm just moving around, sitting on it as well is too much for it to cope with, I suppose.
Anyway, in the three weeks since I turned forty the dull ache has developed into a sharp pain. 
There is no explanation for this deterioration other than my advancing age.

Twice last week I forgot social engagements.  I completely forgot plans to go out for lunch one day, and for after work drinks another day.  It's not that I wanted to miss these outings, I most certainly didn't.  But I genuinely and completely forgot them.

Three times in three weeks I've found myself starting sentences with "I don't approve of", which can't be a good sign, surely?

And more and more often, I find myself reaching for the teabags rather than the coffee jar. 
Tea, the choice of my mother, and her mother before her. 
Rather than coffee, the choice of young city slickers who walk around with Starbucks cups and complicated orders for semi fat latte mochachinos rolling off their tongues as if they were reared to it. 
I wonder if this means anything?
I’m guessing that it doesn’t mean I’m getting cooler, the older I get.

On the other hand, as part of my "using up my birthday vouchers on impractical things" project, I bought not one but two liquid eyeliners. 
Fair enough, I’ll have to die wondering whether I could ever have mastered the “flick” out the corner of the eye that the young and the gorgeous use every day.  If I tried a flick the eyeliner would just run into one of my crow’s feet and highlight it, for all to see.
Still.  Two liquid eyeliners.  It’s a comfort.  It would appear that despite my advancing years I'm not willing to give up the ghost just yet.

I've made the necessary hair appointment and will have conker brown tresses again before the week is out.

I went on a walking tour, yesterday, with a great group of people I know. 

I was fairly nervous, to be honest.  I wouldn't usually be one to trouble anything that can be defined in terms of "walking".  I was fairly sure that I'd either have a heart attack trying to keep up with everyone else going up a hill, or that I'd fall head over arse getting through a ditch, or over a stile. 
It was the kind of walking tour that involves climbing through ditches.

But although I had to make sure I didn't try to talk for a few minutes at the top of the hill, lest everyone know that I was far more out of breath than the 68 year old who was coming behind me, I didn't collapse, or fall over, or make a show of myself at all, really.

To celebrate this affirmation of my ongoing youthfulness, maybe I should go another way. 

Rather than just become a grumpy old woman, I could lose the run of myself completely.  The older I get, the worse I might behave.

I might start drinking on a much more regular basis. Maybe even on work nights. 
But only a small glass of wine, there's no need to go mad altogether.  It takes me two days to get over any more than a glass these days.

I think I'll start wearing makeup in an inappropriate way, i.e. wearing far too much, and in the wrong colours, the way old ladies who don't give a feck anymore tend to.
Except that would be such a waste of my new Esteé Lauder brushes.

I could start eating the face off everyone who annoys me.  I don't want to risk an ulcer or even a stress induced stroke from swallowing my temper all the time. 
Unless my rudeness is likely to make the person not like me, or even cry.  That's what I usually do when someone eats the face off me. 

I might stop doing anything I don't want to do. I might refuse to do what I'm asked, no matter what it is, and no matter how selfish it is not to do it. 
Unless it's a work thing, I suppose, I can't afford to lose my job. 

Maybe I should just carry on as I'm going?

I went to college in my twenties, so that when all my school friends were moving up the career ladder, and getting married, and being grown up, I was drinking in the afternoons and going to class for about three hours a day.

I’ve had adventures around the world I could only have dreamt about, when I was in my teens.

I’ve got the kind of friends that you usually only read about in books, funny, supportive, willing to put up with me.
And of course His Nibs and I remain a pair, and although we have our moments, he's an excellent friend.
I must say, it’s really not a bad life.

Maybe I don't need a new life philosophy, just because of my age. 
Maybe I'll just carry on doing more or less whatever I want, as I have been.
I know I usually enjoy a good moan but, dare I say it, is it possible that I'm doing absolutely fine, regardless of birthdays?

Oh No, the big Four Oh!

Well, it's finally happened.

I first got concerned about yesterday ten full years ago, the day after my 30th birthday, when I realised that the next big one was my 40th.
But ten years seemed like a long time, and it all seemed so far into the distance that I shrugged off my worries, and carried on.

A decade, I'm afraid to say, isn't actually that long of a time after all.  For it's been and gone and I'm forty.  Forty years old.

It's a bit confusing, because I cannot understand how I got from being sixteen to here, in what feels like about ten years.  But I'd been warned, and I am brave, and actually I don't mind turning forty.

Why not, you might wonder.

It's because, actually, there's loads of advantages to turning forty.
I'll give you a few examples.

At forty, I can say to my much younger friends and colleagues, the ones in their twenties especially,
"I am old and wise, and you should listen to me".  They don't take any notice of me of course,  but most of them feel so sorry for me for being old that they pretend to listen.  And then I get to blather on to a rapt-ish audience.

Because we're now in our forties, and have been together for more than half our lives, His Nibs and I have found a nice little groove where we're so used to each other we can have small or massive rows or drive each other absolutely bonkers, and know that it's fine, we've done it all before, there's no need for a drama.
In our twenties (and for part of our early thirties, if I'm honest) we got into the habit of the dramatic row, where we found ourselves both packing our bags, arguing about who was leaving,  racing to get to the car first.
I'm glad that's all behind us.

On a similar note, on the odd occasion that I get out, in makeup and maybe heels, and go to the pub at night time, I can have a good look around at all the boys, and wonder whether some lovely lad over in the corner could be persuaded to run away with me.
Then just when I think it must be almost time to go home, the pub suddenly fills up with fabulous gorgeous young women in five inch heels, and what looks like just their knickers, and I realise my days of trying to tempt boys are over, and I can go and get a bag of chips and be in bed beside a snoring His Nibs before midnight, and before I make a fool of myself.
It's a lovely feeling, as it happens.

But what have I learned, over my four decades?  What pearls of wisdom have come to the surface?
Well quite a few things, actually.  And it's taken me forty years to learn some surprisingly simple lessons.

I may as well use this auspicious occasion to list a few.

Tears are a last resort, not a first one.  Young ladies, listen to me, for I am old and wise. 
I overplayed my hand on this one, early in my co-habitation with His Nibs, and in doing so lost my pride, my power and my dignity.
I've given up with the waterworks now.  These days, I just go bonkers and mental and insane with temper.  I find it's just as effective as tears.  Unless I get so angry I start crying, which happens more often than I'd like.

Next, one of life's most important lessons, in my opinion.  I wasted all of my teenage years, and a good proportion of my twenties, worrying about how I looked, and what people thought, and whether they were talking about my most recent weight gain, or whether I don't wear makeup often enough.
I used to hiss at poor His Nibs if we were having a spot of bother in public.  God forbid that anyone might think we weren't the happiest couple on earth.
And I used to make up excuses not to go out for lovely dinners, or go on spa days with my friends.  God forbid , again, I just tell them I couldn't afford it.
At 40 though, I've realised that everybody is so worried about their own weight or their spot or the fact they haven't had sex for ages, or the fact that they've reached their overdraft limit before the middle of the month, that they honestly don't give a flying feck what's going on in my little world. 
So now I just do what I like, and assume anyone that notices the things I used to worry about is a nosy fecker, like I am.

I've learned that it's nice to have a job, and at least to know there's a salary coming in at the end of the month, so you can pay the mortgage and not end up living under a bridge. 
But if you find yourself worrying about what's happening at work when you wake up during the night, it's time to take a long hard look at yourself.
Basically, I've learned that actually everyone can't be an astronaut or a nuclear physicist, or the CEO of a multinational company.  So chill out, do what you can while you're there, and then enjoy your time out of work.

I've learned that the myth that gel eyeliner is easy to apply if you buy the correct, expensive brush is a load of nonsense, and tomfoolery of the highest order. 

I've learned that not everyone likes me, and that's okay.  I used to try really hard, when I was very young, to be well liked.  I gave it up.  And funnily enough, I think the proportion of people who like or dislike me remains the same. 

I've learned that cooking takes far more time than eating, and so is a waste of time.

It's good to finally be safe in the knowledge that I am a person who is limited in my abilities, and my focus.  I now know that it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever run a marathon, or become a gym bunny, or get a Masters in English Literature.  And that's okay.

No matter how much you want to live in a clean house, unless you live by yourself and go around the house in one of those white spacesuits that crime investigation people wear, it's not going to happen. 
If you have to spend more than half the time you're in the house cleaning the fecking thing, then give up. 
Either pay someone to clean your house, or accept a reasonable level of mess.  It's just not worth it.

The older a woman gets, the more important her tweezers becomes.  This is a not a happy lesson.

As a bit of an outsider in the world of children, I've learned that a small child is often the funniest and most clued in person in a room, and that they should always be carefully listened to.

I've learned that the posher, more important career wise, or glamorous person in my company, the more likely I am to fall over, spill food all over myself, or accidentally start swearing like a trooper.

But most of all, I've had a good long think for myself.  I've realised that I had more fun in my twenties than in my teens.  I had more adventures in my thirties than in my twenties.  I can only assume that I'll have more fun and adventures in my forties than I've ever had before.  So how bad can it be?

Bring it on, that's what I say.

Wedding Day Blues

I read a fascinating story in the online newspaper the other day.  A couple in the UK became engaged, which of course is usually a happy enough story.  Unlike some, they moved at a reasonable pace, and proceeded to actually organise a wedding. 

Without the eight year cooling off period His Nibs and I considered sensible.

I have no idea why, but it was decided that the groom would take full responsibility for booking the registry office and for completing all the official paperwork.

He failed to complete either of these tasks, and believe it or not, decided to keep this information to himself.

On the morning of the wedding, the actual morning of the planned nuptials, he finally became hysterical about the whole thing, couldn’t bring himself to confess, and decided that the best thing he could do would be to phone a bomb scare into the registry office.

So that’s what he did.

I’ll repeat that, because it’s so insane I think it bears repeating.  The man never booked his wedding, never told anyone, allowed the whole reception, dresses, cars, and everything else to be organised by his fiancé, and then on the morning of the wedding telephoned the registry office and told them there was a bomb in the building that would explode forty five minutes later.

He then carried on with the day, in fake blissful ignorance.

The bride arrived, along with the bridesmaids and the guests and family and who have you, in her full wedding regalia, to be told that the building had been evacuated and no wedding would be taking place.

Can you believe it?  I think he should have at least turned up early, phoned the bride back, and told her not to bother coming, since the wedding was off.  At least she wouldn't have been left standing on the street like a fool, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Anyway, he said nothing, and that was, as my mother would say, the rock he perished on.  The bride was outside the registry office, looking at the pointless panic of policemen and bomb disposal experts searching for a bomb that didn’t exist, and happened to ask some official what arrangements would be made to re-schedule her wedding.

At which point she was informed that there was no wedding booked in for that day.  I must say, the registrar must have been pretty surprised, first a bomb scare, and then a full wedding party turning up to watch the drama.

The groom was arrested before the day was out.  I don’t imagine they needed Inspector Morse to  work it out.

He’s facing jail.  Apparently there’s no question of not getting into very serious trouble when you bring out the bomb squad and the police to evacuate a civic building, under false pretences.

What an utter pair of gobshites.  Not just him, but her.

Maybe this sounds sexist, and maybe it's just me (though I doubt it), but seriously. 
Who would accept a proposal, put the groom in charge of ALL the paperwork and booking the actual wedding, and then proceed to arrange dresses, the reception, flowers, music and all the rest of it, secure in the belief that the boyfriend has completed all tasks in the correct and legal manner?

If I’d told His Nibs that he was in charge of this aspect of our wedding, I’d still be a spinster today. 

When we had an appointment with a strange little priest in Dublin to get his Pre Nuptial Inquiry Form, His, now, not mine, he tried to pretend he had flu and send me in his place.

When we went to visit the priest who was actually marrying us, His Nibs didn’t feel comfortable with how well we were all getting along, and started giving him cheek, much to my horror.  This was the parish priest where I'm from.   My mother would have had a fit if she'd heard him, the little pup.

There was absolutely no question of my assuming all was well and spending the run up to the wedding comparing fabric samples, and leaving my much loved His Nibs in charge of the official bits.

I don’t know enough about this story to decide if I feel sorry for the bride or not. 

Maybe she questioned the groom at appropriate intervals about the bookings he was supposed to have made, and he lied into her face and left her to turn up to a bomb disposal outing.

Or maybe she’s such a fecking eejit that she never asked him.  In which case I feel no sympathy whatsoever for her.

I think it’s interesting, though, that although they haven’t married, the couple are still very much together.  Hmmm.

Dear Winter

You nearly had us foxed this time.  Usually, when we’re all wandering around in our flip flops and t-shirts, you arrive about the middle of August, and ruin all our fun.

I must admit, it was pretty clever to wait until the night of 30^th September to show your bold face. 

I bet I know what happened. I bet Mother Nature rang Father Time yesterday evening.

“Shite” she would have said “we forgot to send winter to the Irish.  They must be in a heap with confusion, the poor eejits, I’ll sort it out now.”

“Ah don’t worry about them” Father Time might have responded.  “They’ll be grand, it’s nearly knocking off time, we’ll leave it till the morning.”

And I bet Mother Nature went along with it, probably tempted by Father Time’s invitation to come out for a post work vodka on a Monday evening.

Or maybe it's just me who likes to think of the forces of nature fraternising in this way.

One way or the other,  the poor harmless Irish all got up for work this morning, to discover that winter had arrived, literally, overnight.

It took His Nibs and I almost two hours to get to work.  It usually takes an hour and a quarter at most.
There was water sitting on the surface of the N7.  Maybe the traffic jams were caused by this, with everyone being very careful of aqua planing and other frightening possibilities.

But I think it was because we were all so confused.  I think the weather has been so nice for a couple of months that we all became confused and bewildered, and forgot how to behave in the weather conditions that prevail in our fair land for about 363 days a year. 

Nobody could handle the water being sprayed up on windscreens from the lorries driving ahead of us.  Nobody could cope with the poor visibility, or the need for lights on cars in the middle of the day.

Or maybe everyone was just so depressed at being plunged unceremoniously back into our usual weather that all the motorists just stopped on the N7 to cry their fecking eyes out before they got to work.

I suppose we’ll never know.

All I know is that you’re back with a vengeance today.  I can hear the wind whipping around the house, and the rain slapping off the windows.  It’s a sound I haven’t missed, to be honest.

I suppose you think you’re clever, Winter, don’t you?  I suppose you think you had us all on the edge of our seats, hoping and praying you’d forgotten about us this year, did you?

I’m afraid I have news for you.  We’re Irish.  We may have all been a bit crestfallen when we came out our front doors this morning.  But actually, ever since the sun put his hat on last May, we’ve been looking at the blue skies, and daring to go out without a coat, while all the time muttering under our breath “This won’t last, it can’t do” and “We’ll pay for this, once the winter comes”.

You’ll have to try some other nation.  We knew, deep in our hearts, that this was coming.  The Irish are just too cynical for your trickery.
But if you want to feck off again and send the sun back, feel free.

Guess Who's coming to Dinner?

 

It’s highly unusual, in our house, for His Nibs to walk into the kitchen and find me up to my elbows in hot soapy water, washing the teapot and sugar bowl and jug.  And, of course, the cups and saucers.  He knew there was something going on as soon as he saw me. 

“Is someone coming?”

No, I lied.  Nobody was coming.  I told him that I was just being an excellent housewife and dusting and cleaning my Saturday afternoon away. 

He decided to make coffee and watch.  Fair enough, I suppose, as my Granny used to say, what's rare is wonderful. 
When he opened the fridge to get the milk, though, and saw the enormous raw chicken, and the bag of baby potatoes, my dishonesty was revealed.

“Cop on now” he told me.  “You must think I’m a fool.  You’re washing the teapot, and there’s actual food in the fridge.  Someone’s coming, who is it?”

Happily, our Saturday night visitor was someone we’re both very fond of.  There was no reason for me to lie. 
But when I make the effort to dust and polish, I don’t want him immediately assuming it’s because there’s someone coming to our house.  Even though that’s invariably the reason.

I assume that every kitchen is like ours?  By that I mean dotted with lovely things that never ever get used, unless there’s a visitor.

We’re the type of people that make cups of tea by flinging a teabag in a mug and then leaving the teabags in a damp pyramid until they threaten to topple over.  In our defence, we do have the special little teabag dish for the purpose, we don’t just throw them on the counter top.

It’s a shame, really, because we have at least three nice teapots.  But most of the time they sit unmolested, free to get dusty and manky looking, until a kind friend agrees to come and chance eating with us, giving the pottery a little moment in the sun, all shiny and posh, for just one evening.

There’s also the linen placemats.  Last Saturday could be the first time they were used, actually, even though I’ve owned them for at least five years.  They're an effort to wash and iron, so I don’t usually bother.  Please don’t ask why I ever bought them, because honestly, I have no clue.

The napkin holder was also dusted off and given a moment of glory.  It had to be, once we discovered that although I have bought napkin rings in the past, I haven’t gotten around to getting actual proper napkins yet, so the paper ones had to do.

And I remembered to put the only three matching plates we own on top of the pile, so that when I took them out it looked like we eat off matching crockery all the time.  And I used the grown up, matching cutlery, that doesn’t bend when you look at it, as if Uri Gellar was the dinner guest.

I forgot to whip out the carving cutlery, though.  A lovely Newbridge carving knife and fork set we got as a wedding present.  It has its own little wooden box, which must have been opened at least four times by now.

Happily, I remembered to do the pre-visitor check list.

Have I hidden the ironing basket?

Have I closed the doors of all messy rooms, and possibly locked them if things are particularly bad in there?

Have I done the spot check in the bathrooms, even though I'd just cleaned them an hour before, just to be sure?

Had I threatened His Nibs and the dogs to be good and sociable at al costs, even though the payback is to let him have full control of the telly for hours of GAA the following day?  There was no need for this one, actually.  Not when his Nibs likes the visitor.  Still, it's better to be safe.

The last time my friend came to eat with us, she was unceremoniously handed a Chinese takeaway menu at the front door, and told to make her decision fast, as His Nibs wanted to go and collect the food and be back in time for some film that was about to start.

She must have been surprised and, I like to think, impressed, when she saw a large chicken, roasted and ready to be served.  I’d say she nearly took a weakness when she saw me putting potatoes on to cook.

The fact that I had cooked chicken and potatoes was enough, I thought.

The vegetables were pre-washed, pre-peeled, and pre-sliced.  All I had to do was fling them in the oven to roast.  They even came with a little yoke of dressing to be put on once they were cooked.  Dressing for cooked vegetables, what the hell happened to us?

I decided not to make stuffing.  Mainly because I have absolutely no idea how.  Apparently it’s very easy.  All you need, I’m told, is breadcrumbs, onion, sage and something else.  Butter maybe? 

By the time I bought all those things and learned how to put them together to make them edible, it wouldn’t be worth it.  Especially when you can buy it ready made in Marks & Spencers and fling it in the oven.  And while I was putting the stuffing on anyway, sure I might as well throw in a little box of those roast potatoes M&S also do.

So basically, all I cooked was chicken and baby potatoes, and the rest was ready made.  And yet it looked (I hope) like I made a dinner.

Needless to say, dessert was very much along the same lines.  And our generous friend brought a supply of fancy desserts as well.

We had a lovely time. I was very grateful to my friend for coming, as it goes.  It takes a certain amount of courage to come to dinner in Chez His Nibs and me.  You never know what you’re going to get to eat.  Or, in fact, if you’re going to get anything. 

On Sunday morning, standing in my clean kitchen, I was pleased to note that there was more than enough leftovers to feed us Sunday lunch as well.

For a moment I considered embracing cooking as a possible future habit.  But feck it, it wasn't that nice.

 

Dear Car

I’ve had just about enough of your nonsense for now, thank you.  Kindly stop causing trouble and expense, and do what you’re supposed to do.  Just take me where I want to go, cost me a fortune in petrol and road tax and insurance as agreed, and behave yourself.

I don’t know why I’m so attached to you, you little fecker.  Maybe it’s the same sort of mental hiccup that causes people to stay together for years, well after they’ve lost their looks and become cranky and shouty and difficult. 
I’m assuming, for example, that when His Nibs looks at me, he sees me as I was at nineteen, when he first met me.  I hope he doesn’t notice the stones of extra weight, the grey hair, the lines and wrinkles that now adorn me.

In the same way, when I look at you, car, I don’t see the scrapes and bumps and I don’t hear your rather persistent cough when I drive you.  In my head, you’re still the same sleek and shiny model you were when I bought you, when you were just a year and a half old.

You’re making it difficult now though.  It hasn’t been a great few months for you, has it?  First of all, at the end of May, we had that bit of trouble that resulted in your whole back door having to be replaced.  The less said about that, the better.

When you went to have your NCT, still with your back door in flitters, we discovered that you needed a new pigging steering rack.  I was not impressed with that little development.  Especially not at the same time as the door had to be replaced.

When His Nibs was kind enough to go out last week to change the oil filter and plugs, I expected no trouble.  I wasn’t pleased to hear that your bonnet no longer opened.  What the feck would cause such a thing?  I’ve never even heard of that happening to a car before.

Once again I took you to the very nice and reasonable, (and quite attractive) mechanic that His Nibs uses.  If this caper doesn’t stop he’s going to think I fancy him, I’m at his gate so often.  (This possibility is only scary because it’s true, I kind of do fancy him.)

You’re a pain in the arse, you really are. 

His Nibs, having more common sense than me, had suggested that I get the plugs and oil filter and so on sorted out while you were in the garage anyway, and I agreed.

It was just another disappointment, when I collected you this evening, when you started jumping around the road after a mile or so, and a new and unknown yellow light presented itself on the dashboard.

I had to U-turn, and go back to the mechanic again. And not in an approved u-turn space, as it happens.  His Nibs would have had a fit. 

I didn’t want to do it, at seven in the evening, the man has a life and a family, and probably wanted to go inside and stop having to deal with gobshites.

And that’s mostly my problem with you.  That you make me feel and sound like such a complete gom.

When I’d collected the car, I’d done so in more or less silence. Or at least what passes for silence for me.

“Hiya.  I’m here for the Nissan.  Is everything ok with it?”

“Yeah, it’s all sorted out, I fixed the bonnet, and changed the oil, and the filter and the plugs, it’s ready to go.”
“Thanks a million, here’s your money.  Bye now.”

All very simple.  Even though it’s no secret that I’m a person who likes to talk, I try not to blather incessantly in situations where I won’t know what I’m talking about.  Because I always end up sounding like a complete twit.  So our transaction was completed in a dignified and swift manner.

But when the light came on, and stayed on (I could have ignored just an odd flashing light) and the car started sounding like it had emphysema, I got a bit panicky.

I don’t like those dashboard lights.  I always assume that their illumination in the first in a two step process.  And that the second step is the engine blowing up.

So back I went.

“Hiya.  Sorry for coming back.  (Why was I sorry?  Why?  The light wasn’t there when I gave him the car, surely it was his problem to sort out?)  There’s a light on the dashboard.”

“All right.  Which light?”

“The yellow one.”

“But which one?  What does it look like?”

“The one above the oil light.  The yellow one.”

Now this is what I mean.  I own you, and have done so for years.  Being asked what light has come on and only being able to respond “the yellow one” makes me look like a fool.

The mechanic sighed, and stopped what he was doing, and fetched a little machine yoke, and came over to the car.

“Has this light been on before?”

“No.  I’m sure it hasn’t.  Because I would have gotten panicky if it had, so I’d remember.”

More of it.  I was trying to conduct myself as though I can run a life and a job and a household, and now I sounded like I shouldn’t be left in charge of a cat.

Apparently, one of the plugs, supplied by me, was damaged.  He asked me whether there was any chance it had been dropped.

“No.  Not really.   Sure where could it be dropped from?  It’s been on the floor of the car for weeks.”

He looked at me.

“On the floor where it could have been kicked, or stepped on, or some other damage could have happened to it?”

“Oh God yes.  I’ve been stepping on the bag and everything.”

It seems that the plugs used in cars should be handled in the same way as light bulbs.  And our mechanic has quite strong feelings about it. 
It seems to bother him hugely that people don’t take this seriously, and then blame him when he puts the plugs in cars and the cars won’t work properly.

So I got into a small amount of trouble with him.  I had to promise never to mistreat a plug again.

He had to put one of the old ones back in.  So I have to go back to the auto factors next Saturday and buy another plug and torment His Nibs to change it again.

Will you please control yourself?  I have enough to be doing with a job and a house and a husband and two dogs and the rest of my life without throwing money and time at you.  That’s quite enough nonsense for this year.  Cop on.

Or I’ll sell you to a farmer to use as a henhouse.

I've Started so I'll Finish

Did you ever start something, and then go too far, and end up sorry you ever started it?

I’ve had a couple of days off work this week, and obviously, being Irish, assumed it would be lashing rain and that I should take the opportunity to sort out our box room.

His Nibs and I live in a three bedroomed house.  Happily, so far, we still sleep in the same room (keep your fingers crossed for us).  The second biggest bedroom is the guest room, referred to, like in everyone’s house, as the spare room.

It’s odd, how it’s called the spare room.  Because to be honest, it’s anything but spare.  We couldn’t do without it.  It houses the out of season clothes, the fancy weddingy type outfits that I only ever wear once and don’t have room for in my wardrobe but keep “just in case”, and my entire shoe and handbag collection, which is a bit of a feat for any wardrobe, to be honest. 

It holds some books, the director’s chairs we drag out when we have more than four people at our kitchen table, and the empty suitcases.  Now how is that spare?  If we got a lodger into that room, we’d have to build an extension just to hold all my stuff.

Anyway, because we’re very anti-social, and the box room is actually the size of a box, we decided when we moved in not to put a bed in it.  We (I) decided it should be the “book room”.  We bought  a few bookcases, and I started making free in Waterstone’s and Chapters of Parnell Street in a way I never could have when we lived in the one bedroomed flat in Dublin.

Giving a room a name like the book room is an absolute fool’s game.  I know every box room ends up containing a load of crap, but if you actually call it the book room, and the walls aren’t entirely lined with books, it’s open season on the room.  Eventually we ended up with no floor space at all.

 

About two years ago, this room was equipped with a desk and a nice leather chair.  It was now the writing room – have you ever heard anything so pretentious?

It was one of those “if I build it they will come” moments.  I thought if I had a writing room, I’d be worn out coping with all the ideas I’d have for the Great Irish Novel. 

Putting the desk against a blank wall was a terrible idea.  Sitting down, with no ideas whatsoever, and both literally and figuratively facing a blank wall is nonsense. 

So this week I decided I’d re-arrange the room, so that the desk faced the window.  In the same way as facing a blank wall left me devoid of inspiration, I assumed that facing out into the world would lead to a world of ideas and creativity.

When I decided to sort out the book room, I decided I’d allow myself a full day to get through all the books. 

I’m such a moron.  I thought once the books were re-arranged, the work would be done.  There was to be three piles of books .  Books for the charity shop, books that would stay because I love them so much I need to have them to hand, and thirdly books I love but am not going to read again soon because I have them on the Kindle, or I’ve  just read them, and that I don’t want to part with.  These books were to be put in the attic.

His Nibs thinks this is a stupid idea.  He reckons anything that goes into the attic is really in a holding area.  That everything up there is on its way to the landfill, but I haven’t made my peace with it yet. 

I begged to differ, citing the Christmas decorations as an example, but he says that doesn’t count, because anyone with a bit of sense would put the decorations in the landfill and stop trying to turn our lives into Miracle on 34^th Street for two weeks of every year.

I also decided to put the CDs in the attic, since I only ever use the iPod.  Just so you know, CDs are ridiculously heavy and difficult to get into a tiny attic.

Now, I started off great.  I started flinging books into piles on Tuesday morning with some gusto.

The trouble is, the weather’s fabulous, and I know I won’t be getting any more days off to enjoy the sun.  So basically I’ve been running up and down the stairs and in and out of the garden caught between my conscience and my desire for a golden glow.  Usually armed with a book, allegedly so that I could decide which pile it belonged in.

So I made a bit of a production of the work.  His Nibs is an easy going soul, and doesn’t like this kind of carry on.  He just likes everything to be left alone.  Because usually, when things aren’t left alone, he’s dragged into a load of work.  Work that he doesn’t want to do, and doesn't approve of.

So he wasn’t delighted when he returned from work yesterday to find the entire floor of the spare room covered in books, bags and boxes.  And two empty bookcases on the landing.

There was a suitcase and about six bags of books in the hall, ready for their transfer to the charity shop. 

Of course it’s only when the sun goes down that I’m really able to get into the swing of the thing.  Because the garden is full of moths and loses its lustre,  and once His Nibs gets home the television moves from dreadful daytime TV to intelligent documentaries, so there’s nothing to distract me.

I got the books and the notebooks back onto their freshly dusted shelves yesterday.  I became so enthusiastic that I decided I wouldn’t be able to sleep until it was all dealt with.  At four o’clock this morning, His Nibs appeared on the landing and strongly suggested that I go to feck to bed and stop making noise.

He didn’t agree with my suggestion that now that he was up he may as well hop up into the attic there and then, to deposit the bags and boxes standing in the spare room.

I had to go into the attic myself this morning.  Well, I didn’t have to.  But sadly the enthusiasm had continued, and I was inflicted with an “I’ve started so I’ll finish” type mentality.  Anyway, I didn’t want to be tripping over the attic stuff for months while I begged (nagged) His Nibs to get on with it.

 That yellow insulation stuff is incredibly itchy and annoying.

This is exactly what I mean.  The very odd time I take a notion, I tend to throw myself into it with far too much enthusiasm. 

A quick tidy up, maybe a belt of the hoover, and a half hearted re-shuffling of the furniture would have completed the work.  But I had to go all out of course, hang new stuff on the walls, get rid of half the contents of the room, stuff ever more rubbish in the attic.
I absolutely hate the part in the middle.  You know when you think you’re doing great, then you look around and discover two rooms and the landing have been rendered unusable, and there’s absolutely no way back?  That you’ve gone too far and you have to finish the stupid dusty carry on?

I’m proud to say that I finished the job.

Fair enough, my car is currently out of bounds, there’s barely enough room for me in there.  I look forward to driving around the local towns tomorrow, looking for charity shops and deciding which is the most worthy of my fabulous donation. 

Happily, the cleaning lady is coming.  She doesn’t like working when I’m in the house.  Mainly, I suppose, because I follow her around and ask her stupid questions, and never know the answer to her more intelligent questions like “Is there any hot water?”  Also, my old trouble re-surfaces.  I can’t stop talking to her, and trying to talk her into stopping for coffee, when all she wants to do is get the whole thing over with and go home to her family.

I’ve already texted her to tell her that the impediment to cleaning the boxroom has now been removed, and to feel free to go on in and hoover and dust in there, just like every other room .  I also hinted that I’d like a bit of praise for my good work.

I’m sure she was delighted to hear from me.

For Better, For Worse

 

It’s been a very bad week for celebrity marriages.  Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones have split up, after fifteen years together.  Clint Eastwood and his wife are finished too, after seventeen years, Brian Ferry’s marriage is over after just two years, and that lovely ridey man from Miranda has split up from the woman who used to be in EastEnders, after seven years of marriage.

And yet His Nibs and I march on, despite very bad behaviour on both sides in the recent past.

Not the kind of bad behaviour that results in strangers jumping out bedroom windows in their underwear, obviously, or that means the mortgage money is gone up someone’s nose in the form of white powder, but still, not good behaviour.

There was no row or anything, not until Thursday night.  While I was smiling at His Nibs and trying to be overly nice because I was afraid he’d find out how many unpaid for beauty products were in the upstairs bathroom, little did I know that he was smiling at me and hoping I’d never find out about the mini flood.

When I say unpaid for beauty products, I haven’t started shoplifting, although maybe I should, the way I’m carrying on, but things bought on credit cards and overdrafts that have not been paid off to the bank yet, and are therefore technically unpaid for.

I am absolutely aware that overdrafts are created for emergencies like food and petrol to get to work, when you’re waiting for payday.  They are not for spending all next month’s salary before you even get it, and therefore forcing yourself back into  the position of having to live on someone else’s money again next month.

I know that in my head, but my heart doesn’t seem to understand, and seem to labour under the misapprehension that since I turn up for work when I’m supposed to I’m entitled to every treat I see during the month.  You know the type of thing

“I don’t have the money for it.  I really shouldn’t buy it.  But feck it, I work hard, I deserve a treat.”

I always use this line, even when I’ve had a treat the day before.  Or even, on some unhappy days, in the same lunchtime.

Anyway, let’s not focus on my misdeeds.  Back to the mini flood.

Very early last Wednesday morning, His Nibs put our dogs’ water bowl on the kitchen counter, beside the sink.  Despite careful questioning, he cannot explain why he didn’t put the bowl in the sink.

His Nibs hates being late in the mornings.  I hate being early, and am not fond of being on time. 
His Nibs couldn’t find his boots, and this was tormenting him.  I had not made my appearance yet, and his boots were missing, and the clock had crept past leaving the house time without any progress being made.

So he put the bowl on the counter, turned on the tap, and obviously temporarily out of his mind, went to find his boots.

Our dogs are a terrier and a sheepdog.  They are not Irish Wolfhounds. Or elephants. They are normal sized, and have a water bowl to match.  Normal sized, not a five gallon drum.  By the time His Nibs had located his boots, shouted up the stairs at me to get a move on, and wandered back to the kitchen, the bowl had filled, and the water was flowing merrily over the counter top and onto the floor.

I hate this type of messing, and His Nibs knew perfectly well that I’d take the opportunity to mop it all up and sigh and moan and be a martyr and tell him to go on without me, I’d think of something.  Which of course he couldn't do.  If he caused a flood and then left me to clean it up and went to work without me, he'd never hear the end of it. 

No, he knew I wouldn't leave the water there, and he'd have to join in the clean up , and between the jigs and the reels we'd have been lucky to be in work by lunchtime.

Rather than suffer this delay, he reasoned that the kitchen has a tiled floor, the water wouldn’t do it any harm, and he closed the kitchen door and went to shout at me from the bottom of the stairs again.

Of course while all this was going on I was upstairs moaning and whining about the little gremlins that get into my wardrobe at night and sew up all my clothes so that they’re smaller than the last time I wore them.  This involves a lot of sighing, and flinging tops into the corner of the room, and on very bad mornings, some tears.

Eventually I came down the stairs, and headed for the kitchen, to get my handbag.

“Will you please get in the fecking car?” His Nibs yelped.  “I have your bag, here, now come on, we’re late”.

This conversation is very much routine in our house on a work day morning, and so I had no reason to be suspicious.  I got in the car.

That night I commented on how wet the floor was.  I was assured that there had been a small incident with a water bowl, I assumed this meant it had been knocked over, or kicked across the floor as usual, and His Nibs immediately fetched the mop.

What he chose not to tell me, was that the three drawers in our kitchen had also been flooded that morning. I don’t have much to do with the drawers in our kitchen, to be honest.  I didn’t find out that there was water sitting in all three of them until very late on Thursday night.

I did my best to do a preliminary clean up, and spent half my Saturday emptying out the drawers, getting rid of all the soggy takeaway menus and instruction booklets that had accumulated in there over the years, washing every bit of cutlery, the linen placemats that we’re highly unlikely ever to use, and draining the manky accumulated water from the pots in the bottom drawer.

And still we’re nice to each other.  A man who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with just closing a drawer when it becomes flooded, is capable of being perfectly nice to a woman who is in overdraft just a couple of days after her monthly pay day because she is determined to buy one of every piece of makeup in Ireland.  And she is capable of being perfectly nice to him.

In fact, they're capable of being ridiculously fond of each other.

Maybe this is why my Granny always told me to only marry a man I was good friends with. You need friendship to get through these things, chemistry just doesn't cut it when the drawers are smelly or when one party insists that the ESB and phone bills aren't as important as maintaining youthful looks.

It really makes me wonder what the feck is causing all the celebrities to break up.

Goodbye Tension, Hello Pension!

As regular readers will know, I am inclined to spend far too much time and money trying to hold back the ravages of time, which are marching merrily across my face.

It’s a full time job.  If I don’t stop adding anti-ageing lotions and wrinkle removing potions to my nightly routine, I’ll soon have to start going to bed earlier just to get it all done.

My eyebrows need more attention than ever, since I plucked the snow white hair from one of them recently.  An unhappy day, by any standards.

And where my meanderings around the beauty halls of Dublin used to be about highlighting the green in my eyes and perfecting my pout, these days it’s all about skin renewal and youth radiance.

I’m a marketer’s dream.  And, of course, a gobshite.

I know it’s all a load of nonsense really.  I know we’re born with genes and cells in place that will age as they see fit, unless we opt for the surgeon’s knife or the adding of botulism.  And I’m not even sure that works. 

Having said that,  I have to say that this latest over priced serum seems to be holding its own.

I suppose it doesn’t matter if you have the visage of a teenager, once you start to creak and limp and risk breaking a hip getting into the shower of a morning. 

But for me the big news is this.  That maybe getting older is actually not so bad.  Could it be possible that I’ve been completely over reacting to life moving on, all these years?

I met a friend of mine lately, a gentleman around the age of sixty.  He took early retirement from our office a couple of years ago, and went off to pursue the next chapter of his life.

I’ll call him Jim, though that is not his name. To protect him, more than me.

If he’d simply resigned from the job, it might have been different.  But for some reason, when I hear the word “retirement” I think “relaxation.”  A time, after you’ve done a lifetime’s toil, to kick back and slide into old age, your days punctuated by lovely lunches, pleasant walks, and drinking at inappropriate times of the day.  To be honest, I think it sounds great.

But what if it's actually about not being able to afford heating in the winter and re heated food, and all your friends being dead?

Jim is an interesting person by any standards.  He always has a story.

For instance, two days a week, he takes care of his two year old grandson.  The other day, he brought the little boy to the park, to feed the ducks.

The swans came running up to them.  I’m not fond of swans.  We all know that they can break a man’s arm, of course.  But I’m not fond of them anyway.  Attention seeking feckers.  It’s like dolphins.  When I go to buy tins of tuna, there’s a happy little badge on each tin stating that it’s “Dolphin Friendly”.  I hate that.  Just because dolphins are cuter and make weird little noises. Is it ok to eat a tuna, just because they’re ugly,  as long as no dolphin is harmed?

I’ve been told that life is easier if you’re good looking, and it must be true.
Swans too.  With their snow white feathers, and making heart shapes with their two heads, and mating for life.  They’d make you sick.

 

Anyway, these swans, thinking they’re good looking and charming no doubt, came rushing up to push the ducks out of the way.  And the little boy, being a little boy, fell a bit in love with one of the swans, and wanted to give it a kiss.

I’m fairly sure a lot of adults would have explained that swans don’t like kissing boys, and maybe moved away.  Jim thought the best way to get a quick peck from a swan was to put a decent sized piece of bread in the child’s mouth and let the swan take it from there.
He cheerfully told me that he wouldn't have dreamt of doing this years ago, but that life gets less scary when you hit retirement.

Jim told me that he was fairly casually dating a number of women.  He was widowed a few years ago, in very sad circumstances.  After a long and happy marriage, Jim has decided that he has no interest in getting into anything serious again.

He says there’s great freedom in all the dating.  Nobody takes anything too seriously, and everyone gets to enjoy themselves.

I, being a rather cynical person, asked him whether all the women knew about each other. 

He confirmed that yes, they do.

I asked him if any of them minded.

“Oh yeah” he told me.  “They’re always giving out.”

That sounds like less fun.  I didn’t really know what to say, so I stood there slightly awkwardly.

“I don’t care” he told me. 

"I don't care" is a fairly overused phrase, in my opinion.  For example, I shout it repeatedly at His Nibs when he's trying to make some (usually perfectly reasonable) point that I don't agree with.  But in this case, I really, really believed Jim.  He doesn't care that all these woman are always giving out.

Now that’s the way to slide into old age.  He’s happy on his own, and has his children and grandchildren for company.  He sees a number of women, and if one gets too moany about his seeing the others, he stops dating her, on the basis that neither of them are enjoying themselves any more.

To be honest, Jim has charisma.  I doubt that I’ll have a bevy of gentlemen callers begging to take me out and feed me when I’m in my sixties. 

Obviously, I’m very hopeful that His Nibs won’t have legged it, and the mortgage having dragged to its miserable end, we’ll be in a position to go out whenever we want, as a pair.

But if Angelina Jolie or the likes of her has come and stolen him away, its nice to think that retirement isn’t all grey cardigans and beans on toast on my own.