I could be a morning person, if morning happened around noon.

I love sleep.  My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?

– Ernest Hemingway

I’m not sure that early birds should ever marry night owls. 

I should know, because I am a Lazy Daisy whereas His Nibs is one of those people who, at the first beep of the alarm, jumps out of bed, into the shower, into his clothes and out of the room in an unnervingly short time.  We’ve been living together for almost twenty years, and this difference in our personal habits is no easier to deal with now than it was the day we moved in together. 

On a Saturday or Sunday morning his early bird tendencies suit me down to the ground.  He gets up at all hours, usually around 6a.m. (allegedly.  I wouldn't know), escorts the dogs out to the garden to complete their ablutions, feeds them, and then gets on with productive things like gardening. 

I snore on into the late morning in peace.

Then, when I finally wake up, I roar out the good news that I am now conscious, and would like a nice coffee, please.  As soon as possible.  Immediately, in fact.

Because he is a good man who loves me, and he enjoys a quiet life, he brings me a coffee.  Rory, delighted to see me finally awake and available to give him endless attention, jumps onto the bed and I lounge there, like a queen, drinking coffee and petting the dog or reading a book, until I take the notion to get out of my pit and get on with the day.  But that’s only on the weekends.             

Every second week, His Nibs and I travel to work together.  His Nibs, because he is bonkers, insists that we’re both in the car ridiculously early.  He considers himself late if he’s not in the vicinity of his workplace an hour before his shift starts.  He spends the time drinking coffee, and standing outside the building smoking and greeting early arrivals in an insanely cheerful manner. 

I, on the other hand, consider things a roaring success if I arrive anywhere, including work, within twenty minutes of the latest agreed time.  I spend the spare time before work on these early mornings sighing and cursing my ill fortune in being landed with such a punctual spouse, and generally being difficult.

On the mornings when we commute together, His Nibs wakes me by giving a good few shouts at me to get up.  I refuse.  He insists.  I refuse again.  He takes the duvet and runs to the spare room with it.  I explain why it is unfair that I have to work for a living and try to make it clear that I cannot be expected to go to the office yet again, he tells me to stop blathering on and get up, and I go back to sleep.  Then he shouts furiously that I’m to get up and get ready, and that I can sleep in the car.

This is to remind me of the fantastic system he set up to make the commute easier.  He drives.  Every day.  And while I could just sit in the passenger seat with my head bobbing about like a deflated football on a stick, we go one step further.  He makes me a car bed.  His Nibs prepares, in the morning, by leaning the passenger seat back quite far, and putting my car pillow and car blanket on the seat, in a bed like fashion.  And in the winter a pair of slippers for my added comfort.  In summer there is a sleep mask for my use in the glove compartment.

I eventually stagger out the front door, stumble around the garden, and finally fall into the car, where I instantly, and I mean instantly, go back to sleep, only to be shaken awake when we get to the Big Smoke. 

The arrangement is, that since His Nibs does all this driving, I park the car in the mornings, because by the time he through the traffic he is desperate to get out of the car, and into the coffee.  And in the evenings, I finish before him, so I go and get the car and have it at the door when he finishes.  Then I jump back into the car bed and go to sleep again.

There’s been a couple of hairy moments.  I wasn’t happy the morning I was greeted  by a laughing colleague, who had been in a service station buying milk on the way home the day before, and had met His Nibs.  Who invited him, invited him if you don’t mind, to have a look in our car window on the way out, to see what a fine life I have with him.  I was so deeply asleep at the time that I didn’t even know we’d stopped for petrol.  Not only had we stopped, but His Nibs and this man who I know personally, had spent a few happy moments laughing in the window at me snoring.

Another day the sun was too bright, despite my wearing my sunglasses, so I pulled my summer car blanket up over my eyes (yes, I have seasonal car blankets), lest my sleep be disturbed.  When His Nibs was stopped at a Garda checkpoint he was asked to wake me up, to prove to the Garda that he hadn’t killed me, I am just a very deep sleeper.  That was when we equipped the car with the sleep mask.

As I write this, I realise that His Nibs sounds like a saint. It’s worth noting that if I didn’t have my car bed, I’d moan and whinge and thrash myself about in the car all the way to work.  So not all his actions are for my sake.  Better a sleeping peaceful wife than a tempery fishwife, I suppose.

But neither weekends nor commuting together are the real problem.

No, the real trouble is the mornings when I’m supposed to go to work early, and he isn’t.  So I have to get up and drive my own sorry carcass all the way to Dublin.

And on those mornings chaos reigns in this house.  As usual, His Nibs gets up ridiculously early, and deals with our pets.  Because he is on late nights for the week, he wants to go back to bed.  But I’m doing my usual refusing to get up and begging for “five more minutes”.

He knows perfectly well that if he goes back to sleep I will also go back to sleep.  I will snore and snooze the minutes away until well past the latest time I can leave at to reach the office on time.   His Nibs doesn’t like trouble, and he is very well aware that we need both salaries to keep a roof over our heads. 

So he starts shouting and roaring and giving out and insisting I get straight out of bed and go about my workday.  And I lie there moaning and groaning and once again lamenting my ill luck, and saying how unfair it is that he can stay in bed and I can’t.  And then he points out that I’ll be home at least three hours before him in the evening.  And I say that that’s no good to me now, when I want to sleep.  Then the argument gets sillier and sillier until we find ourselves both wide awake, roaring at each other.

 

It's a miserable time.  Even though His Nibs likes the late shift, as he gets to avoid the traffic on both journeys, I hate that week.  Because it costs a fortune in double petrol and parking.  And because I get exhausted from all the driving and the loss of my car sleeps before Monday is even over.

This week is one of those weeks when His Nibs is on late shift.  I had no problem getting up this morning.  This is because as soon as I opened one eye and saw him, I nearly fell out of the bed with fright. 

As I said, I’m a night owl.  I love night-time.  Even when I’m getting up early and His Nibs isn’t, I usually go to bed well after him, and well after I should already be asleep.

Last night I decided to be grown up and mature and well behaved, and I went to bed at a reasonable time.  I’d say it was the first time this year I had the sense to go to bed early.

And how did my husband spend this time he had alone?

Did he do the ironing?  No. 

Did he write me a love poem? No. 

He fecking well shaved his beard off.

He has had his beard for twenty years.  He was in his twenties when he first grew it.  And being but a slip of a lad he had no focus and was forever messing it up when he shaved.  So he’d shave the whole thing off and start again.  It was an unpredictable time.

But ever since he learned how to trim it, he never shaved it off again.  Neither of us can remember his being clean shaven in at least fifteen years.

I think he should have woken me up with a shout of “I shaved off my beard, look, look!”

But he didn’t.  Instead he stood by the bed, leaned over so he was too near me, and started shouting at me to get up.  He put the fecking heart across me.  I thought we had a handsome burglar,  that some ridey stranger was so overcome by my feminine wiles that he’d broken into our house in the early hours to declare undying love. 

To be clear, this is highly unlikely to happen, and I wouldn’t want it to.  I’m happy with the ridey non-stranger I live with, thank you.

He frightened the life out of me. 

 I wasn’t pleased this morning, I like his beard.  But I’m already getting used to it.  He looks grand.  Of course, being the contrary pair of goms that we are, he’s now decided he misses his beard and is growing it again.

Putting the Ass in Embar-Ass-Ment!

I do love to cry.  I’ll cry at the drop of a hat. -Miranda Hart.

-And me.

I do not flatter myself that I am a gracious type of person.   I almost always say the wrong thing on any social occasion.  I tend to hang around with His Nibs as much as possible, because he’s in the same boat and we rely on each other to deliver a sharp puck in the ribs when one of us takes a wrong turn in a conversation with normal people.

But in a lifetime of faux pas, and making a holy show of myself and talking too much, I‘ve rarely been as horrified and mortified as I was the other day.

His Nibs and I have three dogs.  They have destroyed our house and rule our lives, but we love them dearly.  You know the way child free people are often a bit odd about their pets? It’s as if they have more time and energy to give to a pet, and go too far.
I don’t mean we dress them up in little outfits and push them around in prams.  We’re odd, not bonkers.  But we are so soft on them that they have no manners or training at all.
The smallest one is a Westie.  His name is Rory.  And I can say this, because they’re not children, and I'm not their mother, but he's my favourite.
I don’t know if any readers have ever owned a West Highland Terrier.  They’re described, by www.hillpet.com, as “smart, independent, and a little stubborn…they are tough, determined little dogs…a handful to train.  They do not always feel the need for human direction."
Rory absolutely never feels the need for human direction.  I don’t think he sees any reason why he should do anything he is told.  Nor does he understand why he is expected to eat dog food rather than human food.  Even though he’s eating the best dog food money can buy, and we're usually having toast.
He is also very clever.  Clever enough to know that if I ask him to behave himself, and he refuses, that I am big and he is small and I can pick him up and stop his boldness.  His most effective method of getting his own way is to be affectionate and waggy tailed and follow me around looking delighted to be with me, and I’m an eejit I'll let him do what he likes.

Finally, you ought to know that Rory can’t bear being groomed.  And this is where our real story begins.

His Nibs usually brings Rory to the groomers because he creates such an almighty fuss.  Rory goes so loopy that he has to be sedated.  For a haircut.  Now in fairness, is that reasonable?
Anyway, because he needs to be sedated, he goes to the grooming salon attached to the vets practice, so a qualified person can administer the necessary drugs for him to have his hair cut and his ears cleaned.

I tend to fall for the dog’s nonsense.  He cries and begs to be brought straight home.  He barks and whines and generally carries on as if he’s going to be killed and served on a platter.  And I always feel absolutely awful, and stupidly offer to stay with him, or to just take him home, or do whatever it is that the dog wants me to do.
And then the groomer has to send me away in disgrace, because the dog is in no danger and is being bold and spoiled, and I’m falling for it.

So His Nibs brings him in.  Because he’s a more rational person than me.  When Rory starts carrying on, His Nibs just tells him to behave himself and to “man up”.  I think His Nibs might think that I'm making the dog into a bit of a diva.
Rory was due to go to the groomer’s on Monday.  Due to a series of unfortunate events, His Nibs wasn’t in our house on Monday morning, and it was left to me to escort Rory to his appointment.
As I’ve said, he knows when he’s dealing with an eejit.

He jumped into the car with glee, delighted to be singled out from the others for a jaunt out into the world.  He was waggy tailed and happy all the way to town.  He even jumped out of the car quite happily.

Not like me.  It was Monday morning, and I’d sort of missed His Nibs, and my hormones must have been at me or something, because I’d woken up feeling a bit dramatic, and only got worse.

When we got to the door of the vet’s, Rory suddenly realised where he was going and sat flat on his bottom, refusing to move another inch.
I dragged and hauled him in to the reception area, where he started jumping up at me, and scratching at the leg of my jeans as he does when he wants to be picked up.  (Yes.  In the same way as children hold their arms out to their mothers when they want to be picked up, my dog puts his front paws on my legs and scratches me until I pick him up and carry him around for a bit.)         

When the groomer came out to get him, Rory started to whine and cry.  He started reaching his front paws toward me, in a begging way, to be picked up.  And when she finally dragged him away, his little claws were dragging along the floor in his effort not to be left behind by me,
As he went through the door, he barked pathetically for my help.  From behind the door I could hear him crying.  He really was very upset. I was having visions of him being distraught and terrified for the next two hours. 

Now, as I’ve said, my hormones must have been playing me up that day.  I felt sorry for the dog, but in my heart I knew he was perfectly safe. 
I was definitely tired, because in His Nibs’ absence, I was the one awoken at all hours of the morning, when the dogs decided to begin their day.   To be completely honest, I may or may not have had a quick bottle of wine to help me nod off on the Sunday night.  And it was a Monday morning.
His Nibs wasn’t around, so there was no need for me to make any effort to control or behave myself. 

But still, there was no need for me to start crying.  Not roaring now, but sort of sniffing and squeezing out a tear, maybe.  I felt sorry for Rory, but this was pure self-indulgence and nonsense.  I knew that. 

But sure, if you can’t indulge yourself on a Monday morning, when can you?

As I made my way to my car, I met a woman outside the vets.  She was also in tears.  I was unhappy to see that she was holding a teacup Chihuahua in her arms.  The dogs eyes were rolling in her head, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe.

Jesus Christ, I thought.  Her dog is dying.  The poor woman. One of our dogs died a couple of years ago, I knew how sad she must be.
I stopped to make sure the woman was okay.  Well I couldn’t just march past her and pretend it wasn’t happening, could I?  I was just offering support.  She told me the awful tale.  Her little dog wasn’t going to make it, all hope was lost.  The tears were dropping off this woman’s face as she told me.  I was horrified, obviously.
She accepted my condolences graciously.
“And how about you?  How’s your dog?"
Jesus Christ Almighty. Has there ever, in the history of the world, been anyone who could such a total mess of a simple errand like dropping the dog in to be groomed?  This woman, when she saw my miserable face, obviously thought we were in the same boat.  What could I say?  Honestly now, what would you do?  I could hardly tell this poor woman, whose dog wouldn’t last the day, that I was crying because my dog was having a haircut, could I?
But I certainly couldn’t lie and pretend I was in the same situation as her.
"Oh, ahm, well,  he’ll be ok.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s staying her for a while.”  This was technically true, but I could feel my face burning with shame at what I was implying.
“I’m sorry.  I hope he’ll be ok.”
How kind this woman was, in the height of her sadness about her own dog.
And what a low down scurrilous lying fiend I was, taking her sympathy because the fecking dog was having a fecking haircut.
But can you imagine the look on her face if I’d told her?  If I’d said “Oh, he’s grand, he’s only here for a pampering session.”  How awkward would that have been?  She was waiting for an answer.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, thanks.  They’re not too worried about him.”
Well, they wouldn’t be, would they?  I literally ran away from her.  I was ashamed and mortified. 

When the groomer rang, two hours later, to say that His Majesty had had his wash cut and blow-dry, and his pedicure, and was now refreshed and fragrant and ready for collection, I almost asked her whether the Chihuahua woman was still outside.
Because His Nibs still wasn’t home.  What on earth was I going to do if the Chihuahua had rallied, and the woman was still there, and I had to stroll past with a perfectly healthy, freshly groomed dog?

She wasn’t there.  But it would have served me right if she had been, and if she’d given me a good belt for myself.

I’m serious this time.  I’m never dropping a dog to a groomer again. 

Beauty is pain - but how much pain??

"If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is:

who cares ? - Tina Fey

I wasn’t going to share this story on the blog.  Because it makes me sound like the stupidest woman in Ireland.
But two weeks ago, I took it upon myself to comment on the relationship status of a teenager who is a complete stranger to me. 
Last week I blathered on at some length about how other people deal with their children. 

Maybe it’s time that I put myself in for a bit of judgement, I'm feeling brave today.
Here goes.... 

I almost never leave my house wearing makeup.  I go through short phases of putting it on at some stage of the day, but there’s no true commitment there.

I’m no better about my hair.  I wait for the perfect storm before attending the hairdresser.
The perfect storm involves a number of factors.  My hair has to be snow white at the roots, at least one inch at each side of the parting, I need to have been paid that week, and I need to have a Saturday free. 
When all these things are in place, I ring for an appointment. By then it’s too late to book in for the Saturday.  By the following week I’ve spent all my money, and the whole caper starts again.

Now for the worst confession of all.  Once my hair is horrible enough,  I start not caring about my eyebrows. I have mental eyebrows.  Very Ernie-esque, when left to their own devices.

But I decide, sure feck it, things are so bad now, that nothing will improve things.  I’m not proud of it.  But it’s the truth, and I’ve learned to live with it.
Happily, I have a colleague who hasn’t learn to live with it.  She’s the only person in my life who says things like “your hair is ridiculous, sort it out” or “your eyebrows are horrific, have you no shame?”.  Lately, she made a comment on the eyebrows.  I made up some excuse, but she wasn’t having it.
She told me there was a great place around the corner, good beauticians and inexpensive, and to get myself over there before the day was out.
I went over at lunchtime.  It’s a hair salon on the ground floor.  Absolutely tiny, and shabby enough to be called grotty.  Or horrible.  As I walked in, one of the young stylists turned to me, and shouted that he hoped I was there about my eyebrows.  Which caused everyone in the place to spin around and look at them. I went red and shuffled my feet and nodded, and he called a girl who looked young enough to be making her Confirmation to see to me.
She looked sorrowfully at me, and I asked for a 5pm appointment.  She said that would be fine, but made no attempt at all to record our conversation or even pretend she had an appointment book.

I went back at five, and the tiny girl arrived up the stairs, followed by a woman who had perfectly lovely eyebrows.  It crossed my mind that she’d probably been having her legs waxed or something, and had come in with the nice brows.  Because this salon was giving me a funny feeling.  A bad funny feeling.  My brain was telling me to leave immediately. But I knew I looked a holy show, and in fairness, the place had been recommended to me. 

I followed the girl down a very narrow stairs, to the “beauty salon” in the basement.
More bad feelings.  The room was divided in two by a flimsy partition wall.  To the left was a storage area, holding two large hairdressers chairs, presumably being saved up for when they get a premises big enough to house them. 
To the right was what looked like the kind of bunker that kidnap victims are usually hidden in.
There was a beauticians bed, where the waxing was to take place.  Beside this was a cheap self standing shelving unit.  At the end of the tiny room was a washing machine.  Between the end of the bed and the washing machine was a pink plastic shower curtain.  I don’t know what the curtain was in aid of.
When I got onto the bed, my head touched the partition wall on one end, and my feet the plastic curtain on the other.

The girl had very limited English, but it was a lot better than my Chinese.
“What you have done?”
“Ah, well, remember I asked at lunchtime?  Eyebrows, underarm, legs?”
“No.  I no wax leg.  Take too long.  I very tired.”
Jesus.  “What time are you closed at?”
“Seven.”
“We have plenty of time, don’t we?”
I was going on a little spa break the following day with a beloved friend who I have never seen looking less than fabulous.  I needed a leg wax.
“No.  I too tired.  No wax legs.”
I hoped to talk her around as we went along, and I had no time to make an appointment anywhere else, so I suggested we get started and see how we get along.
“OK.  Eyebrow first.  Close eyes please.”
I closed my eyes, but nothing happened.  I opened them again to make sure all was well.
Just in time to see a stick hanging over my left eye, the wax just dropping off the end.
Thank God blinking is so natural.  If it had been any other part of my body in peril, I wouldn’t have been quick enough to get out of the way.  As it was, I closed my eye, just as the large blob of hot wax landed on my eyelid.

She’d fecking well waxed my eye shut. 

There was a brief, horror filled silence.  Then the girl started shrieking.
“Oh no! Oh no!  I sorry.  I so sorry.”
I like to pity myself at times like this (not that there’d ever been times like this before, but you know what I mean).  I would have preferred to lie back and be taken care of, by a capable and intelligent person.
There was absolutely no chance of that happening.  My beautician (and I use the term oh so loosely) was panicking. 
In fact, she’d lost the run of herself completely.
“Please no shout, please not shouting, I have baby in China, I want bring baby here, if lose job, no baby!”
Now.  I really want this girl to get her baby.  But my eye was glued shut by hot wax.  I tried just rubbing it off.  Big mistake.  It took quite a few seconds to unstick my hand from my eye.
“Calm down.  How do you remove wax?”
“Yes, yes, I wax off!” she responded as if I’d made a brilliant suggestion.  She moved to get more wax from her bubbling pot.
“No, no more wax!”  Christ Almighty.  “Breathe, take a deep breath” Why was I calming her down?  “How do you remove wax?  How would you get the extra spots of wax off someone’s leg when you’re finished?”
“I get a strip, I wax it off."
“No, I don’t want my eyelashes waxed off.  Seriously, how are you going to get the wax off my eye?”
She stared at me wildly.  “Cold water?”
“No.  Cold water will only cool the wax, and set it like cement.  Come on now, there must be something you can use to remove wax, think!”
After a few seconds she came to a bit and removed the wax with some sort of cream.  It really stung, and my eye felt raw and sore for ages afterward.
Now I know anyone with a brain would have gotten off that bed and gone straight home, not stopping to discuss payment.  But she’d gotten so upset, and I was still thinking about the poor baby in China, waiting for its mother to return.  She’d panicked, but sure, these things happen, don’t they?  I lay down again, and she carried on and waxed my eyebrows.

She worked in silence.  The atmosphere was tense.  I wished for the soft lighting and plinky music that nicer establishments usually provide. 
Eventually she finished, and turned to the rickety shelf to take down her mirror, so that I could approve the work.  As soon as she moved the mirror, a scissors fell from the shelf and landed, point down, mind you, in the middle of my breast bone.
It didn’t really hurt actually.  But there was a lot more drama.  In all the fuss I didn’t even notice, when she showed me the mirror, that my eyebrows were absolutely awful, messy and barely smaller than when we’d started.

I still didn’t leave.  She wanted to make time to do my legs, just to make sure that I knew how sorry she was.  But even I'm not that stupid.  I'd probably end up in a wheelchair.  We were just going through the “are you sure?”, "It’s fine” conversation when she, for absolutely no explicable reason, rubbed my exposed belly.  (I’d let her do my underarms.  I wasn’t just lying there in the nip).
“You have lovely skin”.

A belly rub.

I jumped from the little bed and flung my top back on as quickly as I could.  I was just leaving when she threw her arms around me, and hugged me.
I had finally, at long last, become terrified of the place.  I paid her of course.  I think I even tipped her.
The following day, when I met my friend in the hotel, one of the first things she did was to take a tweezers from her handbag and tell me I couldn’t go around in the state I was in.  I shaped my eyebrows in the hotel bathroom.
So now I’m doing my own eyebrows.  I’m traumatised, I can’t face another salon yet.  I’m not great at it. In fact, my right eyebrow currently has a bald patch in the middle, and what I can only describe as a combover.

What do children teach you? Patience.

 Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare - Ed Asner

A quick disclaimer.  I have no idea what it's like raising children.  We don't have any.  There's quite enough drama in our house without adding any new people to the mix.  The following is my observation only.


I was absolutely amazed, the other day, to hear a mother I know tell her child that if he didn't behave himself she would "cut the arse off him with wallops."

I couldn't believe it.  I looked at the child, expecting him to faint with shock.  Instead, he stood behind his mother, raised his eyebrows as high as they’d go and mouthed "Grrrrumpy" at his brother, so clearly that we could nearly have danced to it.

No part of him even suspected that he was getting a wallop.  In fact his behaviour was completely unaffected by the threat.
So she told him to stand in the bold corner.  And he used the time to teach himself to do handstands.  Apparently, it is vital that he learn to balance on his hands only, and not use his head.

I always thought you could almost guess what age a person is by the way their mother threatened them as a child.
For instance, if you were regularly told you were going to be "reddened" then you're probably a child of the 70's or the 80's. 

In case any readers were born in a gentler time, that meant that your mother was suggesting that she would hit you on the bottom until it turned bright red.

This was in the days when it was considered perfectly normal in Ireland to hit a child with a wooden spoon, a source of terror to Irish children for decades.

I'm told that the 90's was the decade when children's social lives ran completely out of control.

So grounding was a regular threat in those days. And the naughty step made its unwelcome appearance.  

Apparently 90's babies were threatened with the wooden spoon only in the most serious of situations, in an almost nostalgic attempt by their mothers to gain some control.

 The babies of the new millennium, it seems, are threatened with withdrawal of favourite toys.  The favourite toy, almost invariably, is a computer game, tablet, or iPad.  Almost all children are told these days that if they don't behave they'll lose their screen privileges. 
And naughty steps and bold corners and thinking chairs are still in regular use.

In a matter of a few decades we've gone from children running away at the mention of the wooden spoon, to laughing at the idea of being hit.
Which is obviously fantastic. 

I cannot stress this enough.  I have absolutely no time for people hitting children.  Easy for me to say, I suppose, not being a parent myself.  But that's my opinion.
I'm delighted that it's so abnormal to hit children that the very thought of it is laughed off by them.

Once I realised this child knew he wouldn’t be walloped, I burst out laughing at the old fashioned craziness of it. 

Also, I find "wallops" a very funny word.  Now that I've grown up and won't be getting any wallops that is.

It's years since I heard a parent so blatantly threaten to hit their child.  If I ever thought about it, I would have assumed that these threats went out with the actual hitting.

Which made me wonder how today’s parents get their children to behave themselves. 
Most people openly admit to threatening to take iPads away and so on.

A quick check with some of the mothers I know revealed that even though they never hit their kids, they’re not above threatening it when things get very bad.

It gives the children something to roll their eyes about.

But what about the parents who get to the point where they've taken away the favourite toy, which doesn’t help, and they're starting to lose their mind, but don't want to threaten to hit their kids, what do they do?
I asked one mother, this week, whether she threatens to hit her children.  And I got a confusing response.

 "No, I threaten to put them in the maggot bin."

 There was a brief silence.

 "What maggot bin?"

 One lovely summer's day, her children were playing nicely in the garden.

They have one of those environmental compost bins.  Not the wheelie bin that's taken away with the other rubbish, the round ones that you actually make compost in.

The sun was shining, and when there's heat, of course, there's flies.

And when there's flies and heat and warm damp vegetation composting in a bin, there may eventually be maggots.

Disgusting creatures.

Anyway, on this glorious summer's afternoon, the maggots in the compost bin thought feck it, they'd come out and sun themselves for a while.  They duly began creeping out from under the bin.

The children were horrified.  They started screaming like lunatics, causing their loving parents to come galloping to their rescue.
The maggots were quickly dealt with, and life went on.

Except the children would never even approach the compost bin again.  They're terrified of it.

And then one day these same children started being really, really bold. 

Turning off the television didn't work, and taking away their toys didn't work. 

Their mother was starting to lose her will to live, when she remembered their fear. and announced that if the children weren't good, she'd put them in the maggot bin.
She was really, really desperate.

But it worked so well that she now uses it as necessary, when they're being completely out of order.
One of her children recently showed signs of losing the fear of the bin.  And so my friend brought this brave soul out to the garden, stood in front of the compost bin, her hand on the child's shoulder, and talked about it all.

"There it is.  They're still in there.  The maggots.  And they're STARVING."
The threat still works.

Another mother also made an interesting confession.
She has three children, and one in particular is as wild as a goat.  A child with a heart of gold, funny and affectionate, just not able to stay steady and behave himself. 

You know the type of carry on.  He throws tantrums, and has also been seen to land a sibling a vicious belt when he thinks he can get away with it.

This child has never felt the sting of a slap, happily. 

But his poor parents are running out of ways to get him to behave himself. 

He does not appear to give a flying feck whether every toy he owns is taken away or not.  He can always amuse himself wrecking the place.

They were getting to the end of their rope.
So a few days ago, in the middle of this boy's throwing a really stunning tantrum, his mother decided she may as well get a bit dramatic herself.

She threw herself from the room in noisy (though fake) tears.

She ran upstairs and threw herself on her bed and continued the sobbing.
The boldie is, as I said, a golden hearted child, and if she could get him to witness this, she knew he'd start to realise that he was upsetting her with his behaviour.

Eventually, the perpetrator of the boldness crept, on his belly, into the room.  She had her hands over her eyes to hide the fact there was no tears, so she pretended not to see him.

He bundled himself under the bed, and just lay there.

Eventually, she'd been fake crying on the bed and he'd been listening from under the bed for so long that it was getting ridiculous.  So she decided to move things on.

A few fake sniffs, and real sighs.  And she said loudly,

"It's just so terrible."

She paused, to give him a chance to crawl from under the bed and promise never to be bold again.  But he didn't react.  She thought he might be falling asleep so she jumped off the bed, while she still had his attention.

With the sort of drama normally reserved for daytime soap operas, she sighed.

"I just can't take it.  I'll have to give him away.  It's so sad.  I love him so much, and I know he loves me, he just can't seem to be good."

And she left the room.

The child came downstairs, played in a civilised fashion, was nice to his siblings, then hugged his mother, told her he loved her, and for the first time ever, went to bed without a word of complaint.

And they had a lovely chat.  The boy knows he's going nowhere, but that his boldness upsets his Mammy so much that she over reacts. 
I'm sure he's not going to turn into an angel, but at least he's learning that she isn't just shouting at him for fun when he's bold, it genuinely upsets her.

All I'm saying is this.  Every parent I know feels guilty every time they even think about threatening to hit a child.  Everyone thinks nobody else does this, that they're the only one who can't control their children.

I really think they’re mistaken.

And they can always take heart from the fact that we live in a happy world where children know they're loved and cherished, and not a burden to those in charge, and that they don't appear to take any of these threats seriously at all. 

Young and In Love?

I had to go to the phone shop today.  I'm not fond of the phone shop, but then I suppose nobody is.  My mobile phone contract had expired and I was afraid that I'd be cut off without warning.

 

I was also afraid, as I stood in the inevitable queue, that they would give me a new phone and then charge me for it. I wanted a free phone.  It's a week to payday, and I'm having my usual trouble. There is no money for petrol or food, never mind fancy phones.

The girl who served me very quickly confirmed that the contract could be renewed on the spot, with a free phone.  I checked that it would be an iPhone. 

There's people who live far from my house who are extremely close to my heart, and I need to have a good long look at them on FaceTime at least once a week.  Some of these beloved people are small children and I have to keep physically seeing them to ensure they're still the same, and haven't turned into hairy six footers with deep voices and questionable girlfriends while I'm not looking. 
That's what usually happens when I take my eyes off children for any length of time.

So there we were.  She got me to sign a new contract, and gave me a phone.  Then she asked me if I knew my Apple password.  I would have sworn on His Nibs' life that I knew it.  She asked me if I wanted her to set everything up for me.
I don't imagine it's that difficult to set up an iPhone, especially when you're only updating from one model to another.  But it turned out her feet were killing her, and she wanted a chance to sit down at one of the little tables for a while.

She seemed like a nice girl. full of chat.  I love teenagers, so I was delighted to go along with it.

It goes without saying that I was wrong about knowing my password, so everything took much longer than it should have.  Again, this suited me, because I was about to learn fascinating things. 

She randomly asked me why I didn't want a Samsung phone.  Nobody had offered me a Samsung phone, but I didn't mention that. I told her why I need the iPhone, for FaceTime.

She informed me that she doesn't like Samsungs anyway, that she won one worth €700, and gave it away, to her friend Sam.

(Sam is not his real name, obviously.  She was just taking a little break, not offering me the chance to send her business into cyber space.  Also, I can't get over the fact that what looks to me like a perfectly normal phone costs €700, but that is not the point of this story).

Very generous.  Maybe I'd tell this tale to a few of my own friends, in case I was missing a trick.

Then she remembered to ask me if I wanted insurance, leading to a quick chat about iPhone  screens etc.  I brought up the sad tale of the tablet recently broken in flitters by the Boldest Dogs in Ireland.  "Aw, she said "how many dogs have you?"  Barely giving me a chance to answer, she said she had half a dog. 

You'd have to ask, wouldn't you? My imagination was running riot. 
"What do you mean, half a dog?"

"I own it with my friend Sam."

The dog lives with Sam, but they both own it, and she sees it every day.

A close friend indeed, I thought. 

She blathered on, as teenagers do, and told me that she was in Offaly for the weekend, with Sam.  They are now fighting, so unless they make friends, they might have to have a custody battle over the dog.

"Was it a big fight?"  I'm definitely getting nosier as I get older.

"It was stupid. He was driving to Offaly, and I was driving him mad, singing and giving him the wrong directions by mistake.  And he had no patience.  He told me that when we got to the hotel I should a nap, because I was so hyper.  And I told him to feck off, he's not the boss of me"

I assured her that all aspects of her story were familiar to me.  I'm constantly in the same kind of trouble with His Nibs when we're in the car.  The only difference is that I fall asleep the instant anyone suggests I take a nap, so things don't get so serious.

As she went on with her story, I lost my focus, thinking of the small details.  She gave Sam a valuable phone, they share a dog, they went to a hotel together.

"And then" she went on "when we got to the hotel, there was a double bed and a single bed in the room".

Oh.  Maybe they were just friends.

"So I said we should shove the two beds together, you know, for the laugh.  And so we'd have a massive bed."

No they weren't. 

"And so we did.  But then he slept on the very far edge of the single bed, sulking.  I may as well have been in the bed on me own."

I was bewildered.

I had already been informed that she's 18, he's 19, as part of the "You're not the boss of me" section of the story.

I also knew that they both lived with their parents, hence the timeshare dog.

What in the name of Christ has come over Ireland's 19 year old men, if they get to spend the night in a hotel with their girlfriend and avoid all touching because of a row in the car?

I thought that it wouldn't matter to two teenagers if they had beaten each other senseless in the car, that all rows would be forgotten at the door to the hotel room.

I couldn't wait for her to stop talking so that I could start questioning her, busybody that I am.

"Sam's not technically your friend, is he?  He's obviously your boyfriend."

"He's my friend."

"Your friend with benefits?"

"Jesus.  How old are you? (I had the grace to squirm) No, he's my friend."

"Your friend who you share hotel rooms and dogs with."

"That's right.  My friend."

This was fecking ridiculous.  If it was one of my nieces I could have roared at her
"Are you going off with him or aren't you?"
But this was supposed to be a simple business transaction, and the girl was a stranger.

I was trying to slow the phone's downloading with the power of my mind.  I had to know what was going on before I left the shop.

"And does Sam have other friends like you?"

"No.  He's my friend that's not allowed be friends with other girls.  In fact he's not allowed really know other girls.  Or breathe the same air as them."

"Right.  Why can't you just say that you're his girlfriend, and he's your boyfriend?"

So she explained it to me.  Apparently, if they gave themselves such titles, things would change.  They'd be invited to nights out as a couple, and there would be some sort of expectation, and people would be going on about the future, and moving in together and "When you get married" and so forth.  She is not prepared to be involved in such nonsense, so they're just friends.

"But sure what difference does it make?  Isn't it just words really?"

"No."

This caper has been going on for a year.  She told me they had a friend-iversary in March.  A friend-iversary.  For God's sake.

When my lovely nieces, both in their twenties now, were teenagers, I discovered from them that the dating world had become a difficult and complicated place.  You could be seeing someone, meeting someone, or dating someone, all before you were going out with them. 
I still don't know what the difference was. 

And all these terms now obsolete?  Because it seems we've gone one step further.  You don't see or date or meet or even go out with anyone.  You're friends with them.

His Nibs and I will have to stay together forever.  There is nothing on earth that could drag me into this world of mystery and trouble.

Can you imagine going off with some lovely lad on a Friday night (those were the days!) and having some nutty teenager jumping out of a hedge and shouting at you to take your paws off "her friend"? 

Can I just say, in the 90's, which is when I met His Nibs, things were a lot simpler.  You were either going out with someone or you weren't.  I don't remember any different levels of being someone's girlfriend.
His Nibs had loads of friends who were female.  To the best of my knowledge he wasn't going out with any of them.  In fact he still has loads of female friends.  I'd better find out what his definition of a friend is these days.

Anyway, while the phone was completing its business, I checked a couple of final things. 

I asked her if Sam thinks she's his friend or his girlfriend.  I thought it might just be her.

"His friend.  We have a deal."

And if he introduced her to someone as his girlfriend, what would she say?  She says she'd say "No I'm not, I'm his friend."

I pointed out that that would make Sam sound overly possessive of his friends, or possibly insane.  That's the price of breaking the deal, apparently.  It seems to be quite a formal arrangement.

So were they the other kind of friends before they became their current form of friends?  I thought maybe they'd ignored each other for years, then fallen on each other like savages, the way teenagers do.

No.  It seems he was a holy show when they were young (when the feck was that?  She's 18 now!), but then she met him in a pub just over a year ago, and he'd gotten good looking.  And he'd got his teeth sorted out (I didn't ask, for a change).  So she decided to be "friends" with him.

I was fascinated by the whole business.  I've never had a better time in a phone shop.

Robin Williams

I don’t normally blog about big news stories.  In fact, I tend to avoid them.  This is partly because I usually don’t know what’s going on in the news, and partly because I wouldn’t dream of pontificating on about politics or religion or the justice system, because I don’t imagine anyone reads this kind of blog for that type of malarkey.

But feck it, some things are worth a mention.

I was sitting on my own in our living room the other night.  Even Oscar, who doesn’t usually go to bed unless someone actually carries him there, had abandoned me.
I was flicking through the television channels, when I caught a few minutes of Awakenings, with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.  I love that film.

I also love Mrs. Doubtfire, even though I’m far too old for it, in that I was well past childhood when it was released.  I absolutely love the Fisher King, Good Morning Vietnam, and the Birdcage.  To be fair, I think Nathan Lane stole the show in that one.  But Robin Williams was, as always, believable, funny and excellent in it.  And the genie in Aladdin was surely one of his best characters?

 

 

Obviously I knew I was saddened by the death of Robin Williams, but even I, in my usual highly dramatic state, was surprised to find tears escaping as I watched him.

He was known as the funniest man in the world.  I don’t know about that, I know quite a few funny men myself, and the things His Nibs shouted at that cyclist who veered straight across in front of him today were pretty hysterical.

But Robin Williams was definitely exceptionally funny.

He gave a huge amount of time to the Christopher Reeve Foundation after his friend set it up to support paralysis patients.  And after Patch Adams became a huge success he visited children’s hospices as the character.
He was also a huge supporter of Parkinson’s Disease charities, apparently.

It think it’s safe to say that he did a lot of good work.

We all know that he had addiction problems.  I’m not saying the man was a saint.

But he seemed like the giddiest maddest man in the world.

And I can’t help thinking that if he can hold out that face to the world when he was living in such pain and torment every day, we’re all fecked.

How are we to know, then, if our dear friends, or our siblings or parents are in similar pain to Robin  Williams’?

Obviously it’s a tragedy when anyone takes their own life.  And the fact that this time it was an Oscar winner and entertainer doesn’t make it any sadder than if anyone one else had done it.

But this person was familiar to us all, and so rather than leave just the family and friends of the victim with questions, we’re all at last talking about depression and suicide, openly, for at least a little while.

Sometimes we all think dark thoughts, I suppose.  I know this makes me sound completely shallow and awful, but I often think how much better my life would be if I had more money, if I didn’t have to turn up at work so often, or if His Nibs would just do everything I tell him without delay or argument.

I’m not for a second comparing.  I’m not suggesting that my sitting in the spare room sulking about my overdraft or the coffee delay when we turn out not to have milk is a life changing or dramatic event.

But I have to say this.  I was shocked beyond words when I heard what happened to Robin Williams.  He doesn’t seem to have had money worries, his family deny all reports to the contrary, and he was allegedly worth $50 million. 

We have no reason to think he was not in a loving family, he was at an art exhibition with his wife just the day before he died.  And he clearly adored his children, and introduced them to the audience from an Awards stage on more than one occasion. 

He was successful beyond his dreams, surely, in his chosen career.

And yet this insidious gripping disease we call depression smothered him. 

I don’t know if we should call it depression anymore. 

After all, if we can get “depressed” about having no money, or putting on weight, or any of life's other little stresses,  surely to call the life threatening version of the disease by the same word only underestimates it.

It’s like using the same word for “freckle” and “metastastic melanoma”.

One is something you'll be aware of but get used to pretty quickly, the other is genuinely life threatening.

Somebody commits suicide in the United States every fourteen minutes.  I don’t know the statistics for Ireland. Something overtakes people who look like they are living and even enjoying their lives. And to the unfortunate souls who are watching these people suffering, there’s frighteningly little they can do to help.

But I think we should at least try to respect that the person is suffering from a serious disease.

Robin Williams, and everyone else who ends their life because of this awful disease, is a loss to us all.

And if I hear one more person ask “What had he got to be depressed about?” I swear to God I won’t be responsible for my actions.
There's no easy answer.  So please stop asking pointless questions.