Road Rage

Two and a quarter hours, it took to drive home tonight.

I’ve done the journey door to door, in an hour, once, when all the lights were green, and there was no other traffic on the road.  We’d left the city centre at eight thirty in the evening, and I think Ireland must have been playing  a match or something.

On an ordinary day, if there’s no real traffic, and you get lucky with the lights, it takes an hour and fifteen minutes.

Today it took two hours and fifteen minutes, and needless to say we were in His Nibs’ car.

I hate driving His Nibs’ car, and being the contrary pair we are, he hates driving my car.  He says the seat in mine is uncomfortable.  I say his speedometer doesn’t work, his car stereo doesn’t work, and for some inexplicable reason, if you drive the fecking thing at more than fifty five miles an hour there’s a very real danger that boiling oil will start spewing out of the engine. 

Not that there was any chance of driving at fifty five miles an hour today.  Wishful bloody thinking.

His Nibs went to sleep, of course.  He was right, I would have done the same.  Anything is better than sitting there looking out the windscreen and going nowhere.  I thought the pig noises were a bit much though.  I know he’s a snorer, God knows I know, why do you think I look ten years older than I am?  It’s lack of sleep.  But it’s hard enough to listen to him at night, without listening to him during the day as well.

So with no functional radio, his snoring, and the angry growl of a slowly overheating engine were the only things I had to listen to.

In these situations, where there’s such a sudden stop to the traffic, I like to turn on the radio at news time and find out why.

We stopped at Junction 8 on the N7, and didn’t get into second gear again until Junction 10 on the M7.  By Junction 9, I was practically eating my fists.  All I wanted to hear was the AA report, where they say something like “the traffic is stopped dead until Junction 10, then it’s fine”. 

I’m the same in the dentist.  I need to know what time the suffering will end at.  Since there’s no stereo in the car, I tried turning on my phone radio.  It’s one of those ones where you need the headphones to hear the radio. I don’t have the headphones.  So I tried His Nibs’ phone.  Apparently the radio doesn’t work if it doesn’t have much battery.

Why is it that every time I get onto a Luas or a train, there’s a large group of teenagers, listening to dreadful music on a phone that doesn’t need headphones?  Yet the only information I can get in the car is that the hundreds of euro I’ve spent over the years on anti-snoring devices for His Nibs has been a complete waste of money.

Then, of course, there’s always a twit who makes everything worse.  Like the gom who decided the outside lane was moving faster than the inside one, even though we were all stopped, bumper to bumper.  So she turned to her extreme right and stopped her car across both lanes.   When the inside lane eventually started moving again, but the outside one didn’t, we were all stuck.

Not to mention the crowd of eejits who decided, about two hundred metres before the Naas exit, to fling themselves into the exit lane, tear down it, and then almost immediately screech to a halt and start indicating right to re-join our lane. 

I struggled to control myself.  Actually, if it wasn’t for the very unusual looking man in the next lane, who kept rolling up beside me in a purple Suzuki Wagon R, I don’t think I would have made it.

It’s impossible to describe this man.  He was very, very odd looking.  And he had the most intent look on his face I’ve ever seen.  As if driving the car in stopped traffic is like playing one of those electric buzzing games.  It was like driving along beside Mr. Bean.  He fascinated me, I admit it.

 

 

Finally, we passed Junction 10 and I got up to third gear.  At this point, His Nibs woke up, and wondered why I was wearing my cranky face.  When he finally noticed the time, and that we should have been at home at least ten minutes previously, the penny dropped.  He wondered why I hadn’t just driven down the second lane, if the one I was in was so backed up.  I managed not to give him a belt in the chops.

Then he suggested that since I was so uptight and stressed out, maybe he should drive.  Just as I finally put the car into fifth gear.   I refused.  I don’t know why, maybe I’m a martyr.

When we started moving again, there was nothing to indicate what the delay had been.  Not that I was hoping for mangled limbs strewn across the motorway and burn marks all over the road surface.  Jesus no.  But I had assumed there’d at least be roadworks, or a Garda checkpoint, or even two drivers squaring up for a fist fight, their cars abandoned in everybody’s way.

But there was nothing.  No explanation whatsoever.  Just an hour of our lives that we’ll never get back, and a man left coping with a psychotic wife for the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WLTM, GSOH, Meeting Mr. Right

I’ve known some couples, in my life, who’ve met through blind dates, or internet dating, or similar.

Obviously not all of these reationships work out, but then not all relationships work out full stop, do they?

Some people seem to judge these relationships ("he met her on the Internet, you know!"), as if everyone who tries internet dating is trying to buy a Thai bride.

I think it’s a great idea.  Instead of wandering the streets hoping to trip over some perfect person, you get a chance to say what you’re looking for, and weed out the time wasters before you bother yourself putting on your makeup and straightening your hair until it begs for mercy.

If I got myself all gussied up and found myself across the table from somebody who liked Black Sabbath, or was a militant vegetarian, I’d count the night as a disaster.  If he didn’t want to eat meat, fine, but if he kept shouting at me about the suffering of the chicken, I’d leave immediately.

All in all, I think these ads are a good thing.  Most of the time.

My friend Florrie, who is almost eighty eight years old, is a subscriber to a magazine that will remain nameless, but which is printed on newsprint rather than glossy paper, and prides itself on having been an Irish favourite for over a hundred years.

The back page of this magazine is given over to the “Penfriends” page.  Needless to say, nobody sends in their profile because they actually want a penfriend.  No, it’s a meeting page.  Which is fine, except that Florrie kept the magazine this week and actually showed me one of the ads.  I was highly amused. 

Word for word, the ad is as follows:

Single Irish Professional female, wlthf  sincere, single Irish male, 30-40, professional, academic, rural background, must be ns and nd, kind, caring, trustworthy, honest, genuinely seeking love, romance and long term relationship, keen interest in animals, nature, wildlife, going out, midlands area but ala, must be willing to travel, please incl recent full length photo and phone no with letter.

There were three of us women in the house when we found this ad, and I have to say, we were all hysterical.

“wlthf” stands for “Would like to hear from” – I thought these ads were limited to WLTM – would like to meet.  This woman can’t even commit herself to meeting this paragon of virtue, she can only promise that she would like to hear from them.

ns and nd mean non smoker and non drinker.  I don’t think I know a man in his thirties who doesn’t drink, but of course I could be wrong.

ala is All Letters Answered – to be honest, if I was a teetotaller man in his thirties who loved animals and was desperate for love I don’t think I’d contact this woman.  I’d be afraid of her.  She sounds quite demanding.

She wants to meet a man in his thirties, who has a professional and academic job, he can’t be from the city, he’s not allowed to drink or smoke.  There follows a number of required attributes.  He must like all the things she likes, as well as going out.  I can’t help wondering where her favourite place to go out to is, considering that he’s not allowed to have a drink .  He must also be willing to travel to be with our lady.

If this man exists, I’d quite like to meet him myself.  He sounds lovely.  I’m sure even His Nibs wouldn’t resent my throwing myself at this kind, caring, trustworthy, honest man.  There’d be no real competition , would there?  I’m not saying that His Nibs doesn’t possess all these virtues.  But he doesn’t.  He’s honest and trustworthy, but I’d have to think about kind and caring. 
He didn’t seem to give a flying feck on Friday when I hobbled myself.  I fell off a footpath and twisted my ankle.  When I filled him in on this almost accident about eight hours later, he didn’t really react at all.  He certainly didn’t offer to drive home, then insist on gently massaging said ankle and bringing me cups of tea.

The thing that amused me the most, though, is the request for a full length photograph.  Is that a euphemism?  If you write on this page that you want a full length photo of this man, is the secret message that you want to see a snap of his willie?  I’m absolutely dying to know.  I asked His Nibs to reply to this woman just to find out, but he’s refusing point blank.  He says he’s having enough trouble coping with me without walking into a load of trouble with some mad stalker.  Also, he says the woman who’d make it worth giving up smoking isn’t yet born.  I presume he means other than me, but I don’t like to ask.

I asked him what he’d put in his own ad, if something was to happen between us.  He didn’t seem enthusiastic, he muttered something about “exhausted, short, bald man just wants to be left alone”

I hope he’s joking.  Surely his experiences of love have been positive and life affirming? 

Surely when he says  he is exhausted, he just means because he’s been gardening all day?  Could it be that he is exhausted by my various ideas and demands?  Could he be disinterested when I read out strangers’ ads to him, and when I attack him for eating the grapes, since I am clearly a fat person and should be encouraged toward fruit?

Surely not?

 

Shacking Up - An Update

After reading my last blog, Niece and her Man decided to relieve me of the suspense, and bring me out on Thursday night.

I was delighted, almost beside myself with the thought of being out in the Big Smoke after half past eight in the evening, wearing make up, if not heels, and very excited about meeting this man who Niece has fallen in love with so quickly.

He’s lovely.  I had no need to worry so much.  And very patient, I thought.  And they’re lovely together, so much so that instead of referring to them as Niece and Man, I’ll now be calling them Romeo and Juliet, for obvious reasons.

One of the things I liked most about him, was that although he's obviously mad about her, he's not too eejity to see the wisdom of those of us who've known her for longer.  He's absolutely refusing to put her on his car insurance, for instance, when the moving in together is complete.

We started the evening with just me and her having a drink, I suspect she was taking the opportunity to try to get me to behave myself for the evening. I thought that maybe she wanted to give me a list of questions she’d like me to squeeze in as the night progressed.  It turns out that she hadn’t warned him about a couple of my little quirks.

Like the fact that I’m very very nosey indeed.  Not that I want to know how much a person earns, or what their mortgage costs, although if they want to tell me that’s fine.  But I definitely want to know things like how couples meet, or what they’d call their children if they had any, or why they’re getting so serious with my niece so quickly.

Poor Romeo, he probably thought he was just joining his girlfriend and her auntie for their regular after work dinner.  I doubt that he had any idea that I would be more or less interviewing him. 

Actually, interviewing him mightn’t be an accurate description.  I interrogated the poor soul.

And he must be stone mad about her, because instead of telling me to feck off and mind my own business, which he had every right to do, he answered every question, and I honestly believe he was telling the truth.  Of course, I’m not stupid enough to believe that there was no gilding of the lily when I asked him, for instance, about his alcohol consumption or whether he’d ever tried illicit drugs, but I came away from the night believing he is a good and honest man, which is exactly what I’d hoped for.

And if my niece is going to say that she wasn’t remotely interested when I started questioning Romeo about previous relationships, how long they’d lasted, who’d ended them, and who, if anyone, spent a month crying into their cornflakes, I’m sorry to say I don’t accept that. 

I’d have absolutely loved someone to come along and ask His Nibs his entire life history a couple of months after I met him.  It took me about five years to find out everything Juliet heard last Thursday night.

That’s the thing about being a martyr to nosiness.  You always have to apologise for it.  Everyone seems to think it’s a character flaw, it’s never given the benefit of the doubt and counted as a virtue.  I find myself, when I get talking to people at parties or in the post office queue for that matter, and I get one interesting nugget about their lives, informing them that I’m frightfully nosey and will now ask them a series of questions, and to tell me to mind my own business when I go too far.

The funny thing is, people very rarely tell me to mind my own business.   Maybe I have an inbuilt filter that stops me before it’s too late, but I doubt it.

I once met a friend of my brother’s at a party, and asked him about his children.  He had a number of them, (four if you must know), all by different mothers.  So I asked him what his mother thought about his getting so many different girls pregnant.  Not that I particularly cared, I just wondered how far he could go before his Irish Mammy gave him a belt in the ear for himself.  My brother, our host for the day, was absolutely horrified.  But his friend told me honestly, his mother wasn’t impressed, she was always going mad over the whole business, but loved every one of her grandchildren with all her heart. 

At the same party another friend of my brother’s informed me that he was still living with his ex and their child, but that he slept in the spare room.  He didn’t have to tell me that, I didn’t ask him.  Maybe he’d heard about my chat with the first lad, and knew what to expect so he just thought he’d spit it out, I couldn’t say.  Anyway, I informed him that I didn’t believe him, he had quite the twinkle in his eye and I knew by the look of him that he was enjoying certain benefits that he didn’t want to admit to.  He’d admitted all within minutes.  My brother couldn’t believe it, his friend had been denying all this to him for months.  And he never hosted a party in a pub again.  Or at least not one I was invited to.

I know nosiness isn’t a great thing.  I know I should try to control it.  But I hate being told half a story.

I honestly don’t want to know how often people have sex, how far in arrears their mortgage is, or whether they eat their five a day.  It’s the human interest stories that fascinate me.  I like to think I’m a people watcher.  People are the most fascinating things on earth. 

In restaurants and pubs I stare at the other couples and wonder why they’re not speaking, or what he just said to make her raise her eyebrows like that,  or why they’re holding hands and being so romantic when they look like they’ve been together for twenty years.  Although that might be jealousy more than nosiness.

One way or the other, I can tell you Romeo’s full work and romantic history,  how he gets on with the different members of his family, and even how his parents met.  But I won’t.  It’s private.  Don’t be nosey.

 

 

 

Shacking Up

One of my much loved nieces is in love.  She met a man, a few months ago, and although she hasn’t admitted it to me, I get the impression that she’s stone mad about this one, and is hoping it will last a while.

I haven’t met the lucky man, but am reliably informed, not just by the niece, but by her mother, a tougher audience, I assume, that he is absolutely lovely.  I’m sure he is, and I’m looking forward to meeting him.

Because both of their current leases are up soon, and they are young and impetuous and have fire in their bellies, they’ve decided that feck it, they’ll take their chances on getting a place together.

I hope it works out great for them, I love her very dearly and want her to be happy, and don’t want her to have to untangle a big mess in a few months, with a broken lease, a broken heart and, presumably, a pissed off landlord.

And it is because I love her, and I’m sure I’ll like him very much but only in an appropriate way, that I don’t want them to be disappointed when real life hits them in the face, about six weeks after they move in, and they finally get out of bed and stop grinning inanely at each other and look around them.  And so I’ve sorted out a little “Top Ten Tips” for them.

1  Darling niece, unless you have met the only Irish man I’ve ever heard of with a bit of laundry decorum, please prepare yourself for the fact that you will find dirty socks and underpants on the floor of your home at some point.  And not necessarily in the bedroom.  It could be in any room.

 In my experience, there is nothing to stop a man from removing his socks and jocks in the kitchen, in the hall, or anywhere else, and leaving them in a friendly little bundle for you to walk on in your bare feet.  I hate that.

2  Dear Man I haven’t met yet, and so am not rude enough to name in a published blog, and will therefore refer to as Man, aren’t you a lucky divil?   Isn’t my niece absolutely gorgeous?  She is a natural beauty.  But her beauty doesn’t come as naturally as you might think.  Her hair isn’t like that through pure good luck, you know.  In fact, it takes some time and effort to get it like that. And her eyelashes aren’t naturally sooty black, obviously, not when she’s so fair. 

 I suggest that when you start your flat hunt, you insist on a place with two bathrooms. Believe me when I tell you that unless you take my advice you’re going to spend a hell of a lot of time banging on the bathroom door.

3  Dear both of you – it is never ever okay to assume that you’ve made a good impression and can now proceed to behave as you see fit in front of the parents.  I say this as a woman who spent this weekend apologising for His Nibs behaviour, not to my mother, but to His Parents!  He has turned his back on his good behaviour training to such an extent that he can’t behave himself in front of his own parents now, never mind anyone else’s.

 This does not lead to a happy and tranquil atmosphere once the parents are gone home.  Just continue to behave yourselves, always be nice to Mammies and Daddies, no matter who else you’re bold in front of.

4  Dear Man, kindly do yourself the service right now, of throwing out your books, not bothering to upload anything new to your ipod, and leaving anything else that you might like in the line of hobbies behind you.  My niece likes talking even more than I do.  And unlike me, she seems to expect to be listened to, and replied to. 

There will be no time in your future for sitting around getting to the end of your book in a leisurely fashion.  You’ll be too busy listening to, and answering my lovely niece.

5.       Dear Niece.  Remember, for God’s sake, that now you will be sharing your flat in a relationship way, that your roomie will probably get in the habit of opening the bills.  This means that there will be no more ignoring bills, or throwing them in the fire unopened.  You may want to be careful what you buy on any jointly held cards. 

Dear Man, on the same note, feel free to open the bills, I am not going to visit the little pup in Mountjoy if she persists with her bad behaviour.  Someone will have to deal with these issues, and if you take her on, you take her bills too.

6.  Dear Man.  I love my niece, as you know.  But do not let her drive your car.  Not unless you have a secret and very healthy bank account for the express purpose of paying her clamping fees and parking tickets.  She doesn’t worry as much as she should about things like legal parking and so on. 

I think that’s why the roads are going to hell, actually, and so full of potholes.  The State has lost a fortune in revenue since Niece got rid of her own car.

7.  Dear Niece.  Fight like a tiger not to get Sky Sports, or any other sporting channels.  Do not get in the habit of watching Match of the Day, or five hours of GAA every Sunday.  Once you go down this road, you’ll never go back.  I fought this battle for about fifteen years, and then lost spectacularly, to my great regret.

8. Dear Both of you.  Do not listen to the people who insist that any human who is not a Neanderthal goes home from work every day and chops and mashes and mangles vegetables for an hour.  It is absolutely fine not to cook, unless of course you end up having children.  It’s not okay  to starve them.  Until that happy day, don’t let anyone pressure you.  You can live happily with only bread for toast and cereal in the cupboards.

9.   Dear Niece.  This is an important one.  Choose your battles.  When the honeymoon finally ends, and you start having rows, and you will my darlings, you will, be careful. 

Tears are a last resort, not a first one.  And if you start threatening to leave him every time he leaves his underpants on the floor, you’ll soon lose all your power.  He’ll never take you seriously. 

If, however, you have the wit to save the drama for the big stuff, you’ll have him in the palm of your hand when you let the tears drop sadly from your big brown eyes.

10.   Dear Man.  I have to tell you now, before you start flat hunting, that she’s worth it.  Worth what?  you might wonder.  Worth the fact that we, her family, would not be considered completely sane by everybody.  We’re a noisy, unruly, shouty bunch.  There will be times when you wonder why you ever got involved with us. 

But we all love her with all our hearts.  And there’s loads of us.  And if you ever mess her around, or make her cry for any reason other than dramatic effect (see 9 above), we’re coming after you.  All of us.

If, on the other hand, you’re always nice to her, we’ll embrace you as one of our own.  Which is probably worse.

Best of luck young lovers, may every day be a joy to you both!

Going Potty

Have you ever seen the Rowntree's Randoms advert, where a woman asks a passerby for directions, and he responds by speaking gibberish, using completely random words that make no sense when put together?

You know the one, he starts saying things like "No problem monkey biscuits, turn trumpet at the underpants and go ice cream"

That ad jumped into my mind today, when I was out for my lunchtime trot with a dear friend, the mother of a two year old girl. 
My friend and her husband are facing the massive challenge of toilet training a very wilful child, who may not think it's a good idea to stop wearing nappies.

Anyway, we were walking along the street when we had our Rowntree's Randoms moment.  I was thinking about what I should get for the children of another friend, who live in Nicaragua, and who are long overdue for a present from Ireland, when my friend said

"We may have to take the sound chip out of the potty."

What? I asked her.  In my harmless world, this isn't even a sentence, so I assumed I'd misheard her.  She repeated the sentence, and it sounded exactly the same. 
I admitted to her that I had no idea what she was talking about, and she looked at me for a moment. 

"You're right" she told me.  "It would be simpler to just not put the batteries in."

I had to stop walking to concentrate

"Potties don't have sound chips or batteries" I told her, as if I was talking to a moron.  "They're just little plastic piddle vessels"

As usual, I was wrong.

Brace yourself, if you are child free, or if it is many years since you trained your children.  For the humble potty, ladies and gentlemen, has gone high tech.

The one this little girl of my acquaintance has been equipped with, blew my mind.

It looks like a tiny toilet, complete with lid.  Which I was fine with, obviously. 
It is festooned with pictures of Minnie Mouse, of which the child is very fond, in order to encourage her to get involved. The potty is also available in a Mickey Mouse version, less pink, and more boyish I suppose.
It has a lid, and converts into a sturdy stepping stool, which will be very handy when the whole business is successful, for the child to use as a step up to the grown ups toilet. 
It has a detachable insert which fits onto the family toilet, again for when the user is ready to progress the project.
Most mind blowing of all, in my opinion, is the fact that it has a little Minnie Mouse arm out the side, which is used in the same way as a flush handle on the toilets we're more used to.  But instead of flushing away the contents of the potty (and it's a wonder it doesn't) when the child "flushes" the toilet, there is a celebratory round of applause and cheers of congratulations from the potty.

The whole thing is called the "Minnie Mouse Potty System" - which is fair enough.  It is a system, it's not a potty as I know it, certainly.

And of course it's far, far, more attractive than the blue or pink bowls we had as children.

My friend is worried that her daughter will get so used to being cheered and applauded that she will use the potty as a toy, and not as any kind of training aid.

When I was checking that out on Google, I discovered that parents can also buy something called a "Carry Potty" - a mobile potty that folds up into a little case with a handle a child can bring around with them, for emergency calls of nature.

I don't know if I like the idea of that.  All very handy, I'm sure, but I wouldn't like to see a potty being unfolded on the bus, or in the middle of a restaurant.

Potties can be bought with almost any well loved children's character on them, to encourage an allegiance with the item.

In America, my research has revealed that you can buy "Potty Diapers".  Nappies which sound an alarm when they come in contact with the first drops of moisture.
Alarmed nappies.  Now in fairness. 

You can buy a potty that comes with its own roll of toilet paper hanging off it, which would probably be handy, actually.
And there's "Potty Prize Boxes" and "Potty celebration stickers" for the big moments of success.

There's a potty which comes with a stand attached, to hold up the ipad and amuse the child while they're awaiting the big moment.
I'm not making this up, I'm actually putting in a picture to prove that I haven't lost my mind.  It's called the iPotty.

It makes the Minnie Mouse system seem positively pre-historic, in comparison.

An absent minded parent can buy a "Potty Watch" - worn like a wristwatch, it's basically a stopwatch that counts down the seconds and sounds an alarm when it's time to put the child on the potty.

When my friend and I had our conversation today, I thought it was fascinating that there was so much to think about in buying a potty.  Then another friend, who I was telling about the Minnie potty, said she'd start training her child soon.  But she had to go shopping first.

Extra clothes, naturally.  Those Kandoo wipes that a child can use for themselves, possibly some small prizes for successful ventures, a plastic mat to be put on the floor under the potty, a clothes horse for the inevitable extra washing in this manky weather, the list was enormous.

I know I know nothing about this area of life, but I'm astounded at the industry that's built up around potty training.
Am I the only one?

Love Letters

 

His Nibs and I watched a documentary tonight, about Mallory, the famous climber who tried to climb Everest in the 1920’s, but died in the attempt.  Nobody knows for sure whether he made it to the top or not but two climbers who’ve done the same thing with the same equipment as George Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine would have had, succeeded a couple of years ago.

George Mallory’ body was found on Everest a few years ago, and the only thing missing from his belongings was a photo of his wife, which he’d promised to leave at the summit of the mountain if he made it to the top.

Mallory was in a very happy marriage, and the whole documentary was peppered with quotations from letters he and his wife wrote to each other during the expedition.

The documentary led me to start thinking about love letters, and His Nibs to start wondering whether he should climb Everest, just “because it’s there” – as Mallory himself said.

I’ve never had a proper love letter.  Certainly nothing like the ones the couple on this documentary were writing to each other, swearing undying love, and going on about staring up Mount Everest and thinking it’s the second most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Of course, these days, there’s no real letters anymore, is there? I write the odd one, actually, because I think it’s a lovely thing to get. I even have fancy matching paper and envelopes to write them on. I think a personal letter sends a bit of a message, that I’ve bothered my barney to sit down and write down my interminable ramblings, been a grown up and bought a stamp, and generally gone to a little bit of bother. I seem to be alone in that though.

I can’t remember the last time I got a personal letter.

We've had the opportunities for love letters in our house.  Plenty of opportunities, in fact.  His Nibs has been allowed off on numerous little adventures unaccompanied, some of them up to three weeks long.  I’m pretty cool that way.  Especially if he’s blathering on about going somewhere I have no interest in.  I just say that I want him to do all the things he wants to do in life, and that he should go.  He never puts up much argument.

Anyway, in the days when His Nibs is far from home, I invariably ask him to email me to let me know he’s safe.  I know his limits.  There’s absolutely no question of him writing a letter. So I only ask for emails. 

He always mutters a promise that he’ll forget before he gets to the front door, so I make him stop what he’s doing, which is usually packing or looking for his passport or something.  I make him stare me in the face and take me seriously.  I ask him to commit himself to long emails letting me know everything that’s going on, and how much he misses me. 

And he does email, when he has to, about once every four days.  And the mails are never more than a line and a half long.  They usually just say that he’s having a great time, and that he misses me and the dogs.  All of us, as a threesome.  Nothing directed at just me at all.

Then at the last minute he sends me a long and complicated mail with full details of his flight home, in order that I can collect him at the airport.

I’m no better.  I try to mail him messages of love and longing, but I always lose focus in the middle of them.  So they usually read something like “I wake up every morning thinking of you…..and irritated beyond reason because the tap in the bathroom is still dripping, you HAVE to fix that.”

Or maybe “everything is really boring without you.  Well, not everything, the cooker blew up yesterday, which was quite exciting, and I’ve had to put a new one on the credit card, so don’t use yours too much over there.”

Not exactly the stuff of wine and roses, is it?

Maybe the day of the love letter is over forever.  I think it’s a shame though.  Instead of pages of beautiful script on vellum paper, blotty with fountain pen ink, we now get texts arranging to meet up, and that’s on a good day.

Maybe there should be an International Letter Day, when everyone has to write a one page letter to one other person, full of niceness and warmth and no giving out?  Will we start a campaign?

 

                                                                                                                                  

Operation Middle Aged

I was the bravest of warriors one morning last week.

As middle age continues its merciless and insane march on me, a new problem has raised its repulsive head.

Skin tags.  They’re rather unattractive things, at the best of times.

The one on my neck was absolutely repulsive.  And so big that it was like a second head.  Or at least I thought so.

I’ve been walking around for weeks, holding my hand up to my throat, in an attempt to cover it, and looking like an alarmed lady from an old film.

And wearing scarves that I’ve grown quite fond of really, and might continue to wear in happier days to come.

I know that everyone noticed it.  They were all very nice and didn’t mention it but it was unmissable.

The last time I saw my doctor, after I’d put him through my usual litany of ailments, I told him about the skin tag.  Like everyone else, I’m sure he’d noticed it, but he was probably too worried about his patients who are actually sick to think about it.

He had a look at it and told me not to worry, that it was harmless.  I hadn’t been worried about that. I told him that as far as I was concerned it was more noticeable than my nose (not dainty itself), and that I wanted it gone.

He seemed surprised, maybe he doesn’t consider me to be a person with a neck that needs to be unblemished.

Anyway, he told me to let him know the next time I was going to be in his surgery, and he’d deal with it.

On the Friday, I rang his receptionist.  I gave her my name, and told her that Monday was the day I’d be attending for my surgery. 

I’m only messing, I didn’t say that, I just told her to let the doctor know I’d be there.

She seemed bewildered.  So I let her know that I’d been told to give some notice, because the GP would need a local anaesthetic and something to cut the damn thing with.  I tried to make a joke about him possibly needing a crash cart as well, but she had absolutely no sense of humour and started reassuring me that it wouldn’t come to that.

My mother was with us for the weekend, exerting her bad influence and generally encouraging me to  behave badly (see last blog for details) and she was staying until the morning of the doctor's visit.  She decided to come with me, just so I’d have someone to pity me when I arrived out with the ludicrous white tape holding a pad of cotton wool onto my throat.  Or in case I needed a blood donor.  Joking, again.

Anyway, in I went, and told him why I was there.  He knows I have a penchant for the dramatic, so he was very business like, and told me to get straight up on his doctor table yoke. 

I think I got confused between an anaethetic wipe and an antiseptic wipe.  I know that doesn't really make sense, but I hadn't even thought about the possibility of an injection.  But he came at me with a needle.  He told me that I’d feel a little jab, which I did.

In order to encourage him, and be supportive, I told him that it really hadn’t hurt at all.  But he’d only just put the needle under the skin.  While he tried to give me the stupid injection, I started feeling a bit anxious and unhappy.  So  I started talking to him.  I was sort of blathering on about nothing in particular, and he had to tell me to stop, since he had a needle in my throat at the time. 

That shut me up.

I didn’t feel the skin tag actually being cut off, it was fine.  But the white tape and cotton wool did me no favours, especially with my double chin resting as it was on the little white pad.  It looked like it was holding my head on.

And my advisor (mother) was incorrect.  He didn't just snip it off with a scissors or something.  It was a little scalpel.

Truly I am brave.

Love at First Sight

 

I wasn’t expecting it.  In fact, I’d be hoping against hope that it wouldn’t happen.  But today, once again, I got into trouble for falling in love without warning.

It’s all my mother’s fault.  She has decided, out of the blue, that she’s fed up buying frying pans.  She tells me that she’s sick of burning the arse out of the ones she’s been using to date, and she’s decided that if she goes with the quality stuff, it might be a bit slower to lose its mojo.

So, since she was in our house for the weekend, she wondered today whether we should make our way to Kildare Village, so she could go to the Le Creuset outlet, and think about spending more on a frying pan than she did on her first cooker.

I was worried.  I’m familiar with Kildare Village.  And the Le Creuset shop is directly beside the Radley shop.  Radley is a British brand that makes lovely leather handbags.  I’m very fond of them and have been known to buy them quite frequently.  Even though I can’t afford them, don’t need them, and will never get full value out of them.

I voiced my concerns to my mother.  She is aware of my weaknesses, and didn’t argue with me.  We agreed that we would avert our eyes from the Radley shop, pretend it had closed down or something, concentrate on frying pans, and not look left or right on our way into the shop.

And that’s what we did.  I didn’t even sneak a look at the window display on my way in.  I was a warrior.

The trouble started when my Mam couldn’t choose a frying pan.  They had a crazy range, different sizes and depths, and made of different materials, and what have you.  I’d love to say I was fascinated, but I wasn’t, in truth.  I did my best to be interested, but there isn’t much you can pretend to like in a kitchen shop, when you never cook.

My mother knew this, and I think she had mischief on her mind. 

Also, an expenditure of the type she was undertaking takes some consideration.  You wouldn’t like to buy the wrong pan, and then discover you needed one with a lid, or it wasn’t deep enough to cook a stir fry in, and that you needed to buy another one.

She was almost sure which one she wanted.  We decided, however, that she should think about it for a few minutes before doing the deed.

We wandered out of the shop, promising to return.  The woman in there couldn’t have made it more obvious that she didn’t believe us, and insisted we take a catalogue setting out all their products with us.

We paused outside the door.  We looked at each other, and started to slowly turn right.  That was our mistake.
I asked my mother where she thought we might think about her frying pan.

“I don’t know” she said “we could just wander around.”

By the time she had the words out of her mouth, we were stepping over the doorstep into the Radley shop.

And that’s when I fell in love.  It was sitting there, on an eye level shelf, waiting for me.  I think it might have actually been waiting for me.  It looked as if it should fling itself off the shelf and straight onto my shoulder.

I actually caught my breath, and grabbed my mother by the arm.  The same thing has happened to her, in the same shop, so she knew exactly what was going on. 

“Should we go somewhere else?”

“I can’t.  Not yet.”

The shop assistant smiled at me.  She had probably hoped it was a friendly and welcoming smile, but she looked like a shark staring at his dinner.

“Nice to see someone falling in love at the door.”

I closed my ears to her.  I wouldn’t be tempted.  It looked expensive, even by Radley standards.  And the television licence and ESB bills are almost pulsating with impatience on the phone table.  Not to mention the household charge from last year, which we have yet to register for.

I just stood looking at it.

It’s black, made of butter soft leather and slouchy and casual in shape.  It has two short handles as well as a long shoulder strap.

It’s perfect for me.  It can easily hold all my bits and pieces including my kindle, and a couple of notebooks in case the plot for the Great Irish novel hits me while I’m in the queue in Boots.

“How much is it?” my mother asked.

I was actually stroking it.  I took a deep breath, and drew the price tag toward me.  For the second time in minutes, my stomach flipped.

I’ve often spent far too much on a bag without really thinking about it.  But never this much.  Even I, in my most foolish moments, would draw back from a handbag at this price.

If only I hadn’t loved it.  My beloved mother offered to lend me the money, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept, not for a handbag.

I have to admit, I was pretty sad to leave it. 

That happens to me sometimes. I see something and I want it so much I’m willing to sell my soul for it.  Usually handbags, or shoes.  Sometimes a lovely notebook.  But no notebook I’ve ever seen is so expensive that there’s absolutely no way I can swing it.

 I turned to my Mam

“Quick, let’s go back and get your pan, before my heart breaks.”

We trotted back next door, where the frying pan, the sole purpose of our journey, was bought and paid for.  There was one a draws for customers going on, you know the type, give them your email address, and you might win a €100 voucher.  I must have been wearing my utterly miserable face, but as well as giving my Mam a form for it, the assistant offered me one. 

For a second, I had a shiver of excitement.  Maybe it was a voucher for Kildare Village in general, and I’d win, and the handbag would become possible.  But no, the voucher was only for the kitchen shop.  A casserole dish wouldn’t be much consolation, I felt, so I didn’t even bother.

When we got outside I insisted that we have a sit down on a bench.  Still outside the Radley shop.

There’s no easy way to say this.  I bought the bag.  On the credit card. 

I’m begging now, but NOBODY can tell His Nibs, he will go absolutely bananas. 

Obviously I’m overcome with guilt and shame.

But I love the bag.  Which makes the guilt and shame difficult to maintain.

I’ll be sleeping with it right beside my bed tonight.  So I can pet it during the night. 

Feck it, I might even bring it into the bed with me, if His Nibs is sound asleep.

 

 

 

 

Lost Weekend Part Deux

Last Sunday I blogged about my Lost Weekend. It was a moan really, about how I'd been too frightened to go to my friends birthday party because we had some snow, which had frozen and become dangerous to drive on.

In case you didn't read it, or didn't retain the information therein (and why would you?) I was sad to have missed it because it was an 80's themed party, and I had my costume ready.  I never have a costume ready.

I can't even think about the last time we went to a costume party without shuddering.
It was about eleven years ago. I was wearing a horrific horrendous devil costume, made of nasty polyester, and His Nibs waited for his brother to get dressed up in drag, then put on his brother's clothes and went as him.

It's the kind of thing we don't really get into the swing of, in our house.  That, and dressy up affairs.  To be honest, we usually only go to places where I don't have to wear a dress, he doesn't have to wear a tie, and neither of us has to visit a costume shop.

So I was quite looking forward to this one.

It turns out it was a fantastic party.  For the first hour, as people arrived, the music was TV theme tunes of the eighties.  I'd love that, I'm a bit nerdy about things like TV theme tunes.

One guest came as Shergar, and another as Inspector Gadget.  There was a Boy George, a Madonna, (the Like a Virgin years), and a Michael Jackson. Part of whose costume was his wife's red leather jacket.  No Cureheads were present, so I would have been quite original. 

The treats included pina colada cupcakes, and strawberry daiquiri cupcakes.  They had rum in them, and anyone who has spoken to me since my holiday in Nicaragua knows that I have a new found fondness for rum.

Best of all, the tables had large bowls of retro sweets on them.  There was flying saucers, Wham Bars, sherbet fountains, Frosties, and Love Hearts.

It would have been worth risking life and limb for that bit alone.

The cake was a rubik's cube, as was the mother of the birthday girl. 

By that I don't mean, of course, that she was wearing a massive cardboard box around her middle, it was a far more dignified outfit, with a rubik cube inspired dress, handbag, and hairpiece.  This picture isn't the Mammy of the birthday girl, but the outfit is the same.

 



The music was excellent, I'm told.  Not the usual mish mash of anything that reached the top ten in that decade.  The playlist was worked on with gusto for some nights in advance by a man with music in his heart and his soul, and only the best got through.

All in all I was still feeling a bit moany about missing all the fun.  So today I started lamenting my bad luck to a friend of mine.

She clarified with me that we'd had an inch of snow, covered by a thick layer of ice, and that I couldn't go to a party.  I could, however, drink whatever was available in my house, eat, sit by the fire and wear flanelette pyjamas, and watch dvds.

Yes, I had to concede, she was correct.

Then she told me about her partner's Saturday.

Being a good father, he had taken his son and a friend up the Wicklow mountains, where they were going to ride around on motor bikes, or scrambler bikes, or something else boyish.

Without any warning, it started to snow. This being the Wicklow mountains, there was a complete white out and within minutes the poor boys couldn't see ten feet in front of them .

Sadly enough, the two fourteen year olds were off on their bikes at this stage, so the unfortunate father had to run around panicking and shouting and trying to find them.  Which he did, eventually.

After a little while, when it became obvious that the snow wasn't going to stop, and that in fact the roads had become somewhat impassable, he rang my friend, his loving partner, for rescue.

She reasoned, correctly in my opinion, that if he couldn't drive down the mountain, it was probably unsafe for her to drive up it.
His father became involved, and apparently rang the Gardai for advice.
I think there was a few steps in between, but suffice it to say that Mountain Rescue became involved.

But Mountain Rescue were having a busy night.  Before they could rescue our adventurers, they had to save a coachful of tourists who were stuck at the Sally Gap.
Mountain Rescue have a jeep, and had to bring the tourists to safety four at a time.  A whole coachload of them. 
I won't say where these tourists might have been from, but it was a place where they don't get much snow. So the tourists kept getting off the bus and wandering off, without appropriate protective clothing I might add, and taking photos of snow on branches, and snow on rocks, and snow in general.  It was a good while before the rescuers could satisfy themselves that they had all been rounded up and brought to safety.

Four hours, our boys waited.  Four hours up a snowy mountain, waiting for rescue, frozen, hungry and trying not to get irritated with each other in the confines of one car.

They got down the mountain eventually, although he had to leave his beloved car behind and hope it would still be there, and in one piece, when he got it back.
They were dropped off in Roundwood, then they had a further wait for a lift back to their homes. 

Where our hero was met by a hysterical girlfriend who was so amused at him being brought to safety by Mountain Rescue that she hadn't even got a vat of steaming homemade soup ready for them.  Actually, she hadn't even boiled the kettle.

There's always someone worse off than yourself, they say.

The Lost Weekend

I was to be a social butterfly this weekend.  On Friday I attended a book launch for an anthology of stories by some writing student colleagues of mine.

For some reason, I thought this event was to begin at 8:30.  It turned out that it was to begin at 8.  I arrived home from work sometime around seven fifteen and decided that feck it, I’d put on a decent top and even a bit of makeup and my dangly earrings, and make the effort in general. 

I used my brand new eye makeup, which comes with full instructions on how to make your eyes "pop".  I fecked it up, of course, but at least I tried.

I even used hairspray.  A rare enough occurrence for me.  My hair is so difficult that I usually slather it with expensive conditioners, try not to blow dry it too often, straighten it, beg it to behave itself, whisper my wishes to the Gods of the crazy hair, and leave it to its own devices.

 It always ends up doing what it likes, and sometimes hairspray actually makes it easier for it to go mental, because when it stands out from my head, or curls up, or whatever other mischief it is making that day, the hairspray seems to hold it in its new position.

Anyway, it turned out that the book launch started at eight o’clock.  When my friends arrived to collect me, I hadn’t even put my mascara on.  I’d lost half an hour.  The half hour in which I was to have something to eat.

That wouldn’t have been too bad in itself, had we not decided to go for a drink after the readings.  I had two large drinks in a very short time, and I admit it, I got a bit giddy.  I’m a disgrace to my bloodline, I really am.  Anyway, after the drinks, I insisted that we couldn’t go home without our midnight chips.

Midnight chips, as I’m sure you know, are the chips you eat when you’ve had a few drinks, for no other reason than you’ve been drinking, and which you normally don’t finish, having had dinner before you go out.  But I was starving. We went to the nearest chipper, and I had chips and a chicken fillet burger.  This chipper was previously untested by my friends and I, and after my two drinks I decided that anyone with such a smiley face as the man who served me had to care about hygiene, and food poisoning and what have you, and chanced it.

That was a mistake.  On Saturday morning I was quite green around the gills.   Not violently sick as such, just generally unwell. 

I didn’t notice when His Nibs woke me first, before eight o’clock in the pigging morning, because I was so busy telling him to belt up.  I thought he was sleep talking.  He kept saying I was being attacked. 
He got so offended when I swore at him and insisted that he leave me alone that he decided not to fill me in on what was happening, that my laptop had contracted a much more serious illness than mine. 

An illness that would effectively eat up its usefulness, destroy internet access, demand that I buy some extremely dodgy non-existent software to repair same, and then steal our credit card details and rob us blind for months to come.

He waited until I woke of natural causes, quite late in the day, to fill me in.

Thank God he has a laptop too, so I was able to look all this up before I did anything.  It took hours to sort out, and we had to buy some proper software to do so.  And all the time I was giving out, and panicking because every word I’ve ever written is on the laptop, including some pieces I have to send to my current writing teacher today, and swallowing nausea. 

I was supposed to spend Saturday afternoon doing a final edit and printing out a number of pieces of writing for some upcoming competitions.  I like to enter writing competitions, if only because I think that some day they'll pity me and give me a prize for effort and persistence.

Eventually the laptop and I both recovered, and I decided that I would make it to my next social engagement.

My friend was having a 40^th birthday party, and the theme was the 1980’s.  I had watched, bemused, as the ladies attending bought colourful stilettoes, and lace fingerless gloves, and legwarmers, and boob tubes and little skirts, and decided that I couldn’t go.  I just can’t compete with skinny ladies in dresses.

Inspiration struck, however.  I’d go as a Curehead.  There were quite a few of them around in the 80’s, if I remember rightly, and some of them not a million miles away from my own homestead. 

 

I bought some leggings, and some droppy, droopy black clothes and black nail varnish and eye makeup and bright red lipstick.  Diva red, in fact, a colour I don’t usually bother at all.  I’d backcomb my hair, and I’d be all set.  The beauty of it was that I was wearing the whole ensemble with flat boots, and was looking forward to partying the night away in the most comfortable costume ever.

Once I decided I was definitely well enough to make the drive to Dublin for the party, I became re-energised.  Only to discover that it was snowing.  Properly snowing, fat white flakes that sat on my car and collected, and “stuck” as we like to say in Ireland.

Of all the talents I don’t possess, driving in adverse conditions is the biggest one.  I once drove my car to the train station in the snow, in an effort to get to work.  By the time I got to the station, and rang my boss to tell her the stupid signals had frozen and there was no train and I was too cowardly to keep driving, I was more or less in tears.  I hadn't driven the car to the station.  Not in any real sense.  I'd just sat in the drivers seat, white faced and terrified, while the car sort of danced around the road of its own accord.

I just can’t work it out.  It’s like driving in floods.  I can never remember if the car should be in high or low gear, if you’re supposed to steer into or out of skids, and what the feck that means anyway.  Surely if your car is in a skid you can’t really steer it at all?

I began to fear for my night out.  And when the snow finally stopped, and froze solid, so that there was a layer of hard ice on it, I had to give up the ghost.  I was going nowhere.  I’m far too much of a gom to take to roads in that condition.  It could only end in tears and insurance claims.

I was to stay with a great friend last night.  I see her reasonably often, but her small daughter almost never.  This little girl is feisty and wilful and funny, and I want to bribe her into loving me.  I was looking forward to it.  And obviously I didn’t get to go there either.

I’ll probably never dress up as a Curehead now.  Instead of going out for lunch with the lovely ladies today I haven't even gotten dressed yet. 

We haven’t had Sky since before we went on our holidays last month, so I can’t even watch stupid weekend television to comfort myself.   Seeing what Judge Judy’s guests are suing each other over usually makes me feel better about my life. 

I suppose this could be called a Lost Weekend.