Not always according to plan …

Question: What do Col John ‘Hannibal’ Smith of the A-Team and Scottish poet Robbie Burns have in common?

Answer: No obvious one, I admit. They’re an unlikely pairing, but there exists commonality in their thinking nonetheless. They both have commentary to offer on the subject of planning.

Hannibal’s catchphrase – ‘I love it when a plan comes together’ – evidenced the successful execution of many a fiendish plot to champion the underdog, evade capture and beat the system. Invariably, said plans involved scams and stings, lots of vehicle modifications and the use of heavy artillery. It always worked out – and, despite the copious explosions and daredevilry, nobody ever sustained an injury that couldn’t be fixed with a dog’s lick and a bit of sticking plaster. Each team member brought their own special talents to the task, and the plan always came together beautifully. Hannibal grinned the grin of the victor and chewed his beefy cigar. TV fiction at its best, and the 1980’s audience lapped it up.

Robbie Burns, on the other hand, was a bit more real-world and pragmatic. In his poem ‘To a Mouse’, he apologises to the little beastie whose nest he accidentally destroyed with the plough, and tries to comfort him by telling him that sometimes things just don’t work out – ‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.’ In other words, no matter how detailed and careful your planning, things can go wrong. In modern parlance, it means that, despite your best efforts, things can still go arse over tit.

Unfortunately, I’m identifying more with Robbie than Hannibal at the moment. Despite my best efforts, several things have ganged agley lately.

The first plan that went south was in mid-July. The hubby was celebrating a big, roundy birthday and I wanted to do something a bit different for him. He was born in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, but left it as a small child. We have now, though, returned to live in Roscommon – not too far from Castlerea –  and I had what I thought would be a brilliant idea to reconnect him with his roots. I joined the library in Roscommon town and set about searching the local paper archives to see if I could get any mention of his family in his early Roscommon years. It was a light enough yield, but there was a yield nonetheless. I started to get excited.

Then I got really excited when I found an article about the late Nurse Cissy Doyle, a midwife local to the area at the relevant time. I never met the woman, but I had heard so much about her. She literally – along with the hubby’s mother, of course – gave him life.

His birth was premature and traumatic. His young mum – with one elder child aged 18 months – went into labour two months early in a flat above what was then Finch’s garage in Castlerea. The doctor and midwife were summoned, and a scrap of 2lbs 12ozs entered the world. No crying. No breath. After some minutes, the doctor put the scrap in a shoebox and put him under the bed. Disposed of. He told Nurse Doyle, apparently, to tend to the mother. There was nothing else to be done.

But Cissy refused to give up. Hot water, cold water, and finally, after about 20 minutes had elapsed, an eye-dropper of whiskey. Then, the little scrap blew a small bubble from the corner of his mouth. According to my late mother-in-law – who recounted the story many times – Cissy’s very words were ‘I have him’.

And indeed she did. He was literally wrapped in cotton wool and tinfoil and, with the dedication and love of these two remarkable women, he was coaxed to strength over many months.

Cissy became my mother-in-law’s best ally. She delivered No 3 in Castlerea also, and when the family moved to Athlone, she moved in with them nearing the due date of delivery to tend to No 4. What a woman.

So I was fiercely excited when I read an article in the archive about Cissy’s family donating to the local library a journal recording her midwifery practice. I thought it would be lovely to get an image of the journal cover and an image of the entry for the hubby’s arrival. I planned to get it framed and include photos of the hubby, his mum and Cissy. I was way ahead of myself googling fancy frames and printers, and had a perfect vision of what the end product would be. I thought it would be a nice way to reconnect him with his roots and celebrate the occasion in a meaningful way. It would be all the more meaningful given that his lovely mum died on his birthday in 2019. Who knew all those years ago how significant that date would be.

But, despite my best efforts – and, indeed, the very best efforts of many other people – the plan just didn’t come together. Cissy’s journal, it seems, was returned to the family at their request. But, even if it had still been in the library in Castlerea, it wouldn’t have been open to view because of data protection legislation.

Where it began … the Birthday Boy revisiting the scene of the crime.

So I set about trying to find and make contact with the family directly. I met with great co-operation from everyone I approached, but, unfortunately, ran into cul-de-sacs at every turn. Eventually, I just ran out of time and had to admit defeat.

The second part of the plan didn’t fare much better either. The plan for the actual birth date was to spend the day in Castlerea with the family. Our daughters, son-in-law and grandson had assembled for the occasion, and I had visions of walking the Demesne en famille, visiting Cindy the elephant’s grave, doing the playground with the grandchild, lunching in Benny’s, visiting the Railway Museum and having happy, shiny photos taken all over the place.

Emm … didn’t really happen. It was probably the wettest day of July – if not of the year. We toughed it out with brollies and raincoats, and unanimously revised the plan. We managed the lunch in Benny’s and the museum visit, but that was it. There was no perambulating, no playground, and no Demesne visiting. We had, though, a good day despite the relentless rain. Kudos to Sean Browne in the Railway Museum – the highlight of the day, much enjoyed by all.

Discovering mutual acquaintances. The hubby on the left in deep conversation with Sean Browne in the Railway Museum.

As it happened, the least-planned, last-minute element of the birthday celebrations turned out to be quite delightful. Hubby is a sometimes Parkrunner, and has done the Castlerea Parkrun several times. We had planned to do it as a family on the birthday weekend, and it worked out beautifully. It was still raining, mind you, but it didn’t dampen the enthusiasm. Furthermore, daughter #2 had contacted Castlerea Parkrun to ask for a birthday shoutout on the day. They did more than give a shout out – they all signed and card and presented him with a lovely cake on the day! How thoughtful!

A family affair. I won’t lie, though – I didn’t run … I had my gorgeous grandson all to myself for half an hour.

So my mega-birthday masterplan didn’t quite work out, but I don’t consider it a total failure. There was a truly heartwarming byproduct. I was blown away at how willing everyone was to help – Lorraine in Roscommon library, Mary in Castlerea library, Kathleen in the County Council’s community office, Christina McHugh of the Roscommon Herald, Colm in Castlerea Supervalu, and, of course, Sean Browne from the museum who knows everything. Indeed, himself and the hubby discovered mutual acquaintances and had a great chat about old times. The plan to reconnect him with his roots worked out after all, albeit not how I had envisaged. My thanks to all – they were helpful and gracious despite my neediness and pestering. And thanks also, of course, to the Parkrunners – a really lovely touch.

But Cissy was still very much on my mind on the day. He owes her a lot, and so do I. Only for her, a very important plan could have been seriously upskittled.

Plans, it seems, as per Robbie Burns can gang agley. But sometimes – like the A-Team – they can come together. I’m grateful that Cissy was channelling the spirit of the then unknown Col John ‘Hannibal’ Smith on that momentous day in July 1953. When she saw that little bubble, she might just as well have said ‘I love it when a plan comes together’. Herself and my mother-in-law. A truly formidable A-Team.

Thanks Cissy.

Knock three times

East is east … but west is best

NOC NOC. Who’s there?
Me. Definitely me. ✈️💕

Until about six months ago, Knock meant only one thing to me – the memory of awful school tours in primary school. If you attended a Catholic primary school, and you lived within reasonable striking distance of the holy shrine, chances are your annual school tour destination was Knock. A pilgrimage rather than a tour. I never remember being brought anywhere else. We’d all pile on to the bus in the early morning and yawn our way through every single mystery of the Rosary. We’d have prayer fatigue by the time we reached our destination.  The only respite from the praying was the singing – Hail Holy Queen on a loop.

The destination itself was more of the same – more rosaries, more litanies, and more hymning. The only relief from it was a spot of shopping at the holy stalls.  We’d all arrive home with over-priced plastic Virgin Marys and bottles of holy water for our mammies. If the pocket money stretched, we’d opt for the plastic Mary with the suction cup for sticking on the dashboard of the car. Our return-journey entertainment as we prayed and hail-holied our way home would be to practise with the suction cups on the bus windows. Lick the cup, whack it on the window, and yank it off again with a satisfying kind of ‘pop’. The highlight of the day.

Since those schooldays, Knock held no appeal for me. The very mention of the name evoked all those negative memories and plastic-coated, suction-cupped shivers. 

But no more.  Knock now means something entirely different and positive for me.  Well, not really Knock, as such, but NOC – the airport. NOC is the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) airport code for Ireland West Airport Knock, but really, everyone just calls it Knock. Mind you, it’s 20km from the village of Knock itself, but it was the brainchild and vision of the late Monsignor Horan who was Knock’s parish priest for many years.  Indeed, when the airport opened in 1986, it was originally named Horan International Airport.

Monsignor James Horan – the visionary behind Ireland West

I’m not going to recount the story of Ireland West Airport here, interesting though it is – you can read all about it at: https://www.irelandwestairport.com/about_us – but I will tell you why Knock is now music to my ears.

Like everyone else, we struggled with the Covid restrictions and lockdowns over the last two years. It’s not that we’re international jetsetters or anything like that – we’re not – but we are regular visitors to Edinburgh, the home of our youngest daughter, her husband, and our only grandchild. Pre-Covid, we’d be there at least three or four times a year, and we’d certainly plan our trips to be there for special occasions. Covid meant we lost out on our little man’s second and third birthdays and Christmas 2020. We were in withdrawal and pining.   Then, in July ‘21, when Covid restrictions were lifted to the extent that we could fly again, we were first in the queue. As was our pre-Covid norm, we flew out of Dublin.

It was not a good experience. I’ve always found flying out of Dublin stressful, but I just accepted it as a necessary evil. First of all, the drive from where we live via the M7 and M50 can be unpredictable, and parking – even though we always pre-booked short-stay – can be pretty stressful too. Depending on your parking luck, you could have a long, cold walk to the terminal, and, eventually, another half marathon to the gate.  It’s never been a pleasant experience, but the happy prospect of seeing family at the other end helped to take the edge off the stress.

This first post-Covid flight was more stressful than the norm. It was a day’s work trying to maintain social distancing at the airport. It was pretty much a free-for-all in the security queue, and I was really quite uncomfortable about the whole experience. Coming back into Dublin a few days later was equally uncomfortable – very busy, and, again, little or no social distancing.

When we started to think about another little jaunt at the end of October 2021, we remembered that Ryanair had started an Edinburgh service out of Knock.  We have a little bolthole in Co Roscommon, so we decided to head for there, fly from Knock, and see how the experience compared.

Terminal Building Ireland West Airport Knock Photo: irelandwestairport.com

Arrivals at Knock – The other half at the foot of the plane steps. A little more to the left and the aircraft nose would be almost in the door.

There is no comparison.  Knock is a joy.  Everything about it is just so easy.  And I’m not saying that based on just one trip. We did it again at Christmas, and for the third time a couple of weeks ago.  We have Knocked three times.  And, if possible, it just gets better. When we were embarking on our most recent trip at the end of March, social media was ablaze with tales of 2-hour+ delays navigating security in Dublin. We approached Knock wondering if, perhaps, they might be experiencing delays too.  According to themselves, they were … in that it took five minutes rather than three to get through security.  I can live with that.  We parked the car at 2.40pm; got our bag checked in at bag drop; got through security; had a fairly comprehensive browse and made a few purchases in duty free … and was sitting down with a frothy cappuccino at 3.15pm.  I tweeted @Irelandwest to compliment them on this positive experience. They responded … and apologised that it took so long. The record is, apparently, something like four minutes from carpark to boarding gate.  I mean, where else would you get it?

And it’s not just all this speedy, calm, stress-free airport navigation that I’m in love with.  It’s a friendly place too. The people are nice. I’ve struck up conversations with staff in the shop, in the café, toilet maintenance people, and so on. They go about their business with a quiet efficiency, and are all very pleasant and happy to bid you the time of day. When you tell them you think Knock is great, you can nearly see the little glow of pride.

When is a runway not a runway?
When it’s a racetrack, of course.

They’re lateral thinkers too, it seems.  When is a runway not a runway?  When it’s a racetrack, of course.  On Saturday 10 September at 5pm, the runway is the venue for the Runway Run in aid of charity partners The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust and the Sensational Kids Charity.  What a wonderfully creative use of resources.  The other half has signed up for it.  (I haven’t, but I’ll go to spectate.) More info about the event here: https://www.irelandwestairport.com/news/ireland-west-airport-announces-new-charity-partners-for-2022-and-the-return-of-the-5k-runway-fun-run

Before that, though, the next Edinburgh trip is already booked for mid-June. I’m expecting departures might be a little busier then, given that the routes to the sun will likely be well subscribed. It might even take 10 or 15 minutes to get to the gate.

@Irelandwest will be gutted.

@Irelandwest

When hospital is bad for your health

Time was, we complained about trolleys …

There’s been chat recently about the notion of rewarding frontline healthcare workers for their efforts during the awfulness of the pandemic.  I support the suggestion wholeheartedly – hats off to them – but there was an aspect of the dialogue that made by blood boil.

Nowhere in the conversation did anyone mention that maybe it would be a good idea to ‘reward’ these frontline healthcare workers by fixing the very broken system they work in. I’m not suggesting anything outlandish – just enough to make their day-to-day a little safer and less stressful on an ongoing basis.  Just enough to allow them to interact with people without being stressed out of their skulls and living in fear of angry reprisals. Just enough to let them do the actual job they signed up for, and maybe derive just a little bit of job satisfaction and professional pride.

I say all this after a visit to Tallaght A & E last month.  I’ve been there several times over the last few years, and I know it’s a busy station, but this most recent visit beat Banagher.  I wasn’t the afflicted one on any of these occasions – I was acting in the role of comforter of the afflicted – but I came out of A & E on this most recent occasion with a headache, a backache, and a severe case of the red mist.

The patient on all these occasions was my sister.  For context, I need to tell you a little more about her.  She’s mid-70s, widowed, no children, lives alone, has survived three separate cancers, has had two hips replaced, one knee replaced (she walks with a crutch), has a dead left arm due to a failed shoulder replacement (three surgeries – two here; one in the UK – all completely unsuccessful), has a pacemaker fitted, has a history of TIAs and brain bleeds, has hypertension, and has seriously reduced mobility.  She blacked out in her kitchen on one occasion and opened her head off the kitchen units – that was one visit to A & E to get her head stapled.  On another occasion, she ‘died’ – she passed out in a swimming pool and was technically drowned.  Ambulanced to A & E on that occasion. She has lots of adaptations in her home now, and has a carer for 1.5 hours a day – an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. In short, she has a complex medical history and multiple challenges.

On Monday 13 September, she rang me at about 6.30pm to tell me she’d had a fall.  She didn’t really know what happened.  But down she went and hit her head off the metal kitchen bin.  Luckily, she didn’t open herself this time, and she didn’t lose consciousness. She has a panic alarm on her wrist, which she pressed, and the designated neighbours rocked up and got her off the floor and into her chair.  She said she was OK, but she sounded rattled and upset.  I was worried about her.  Given the history of TIAs and bleeds, I wasn’t happy.  The HSE ads on the telly are always telling us that time is of the essence in the event of a stroke. I told her I’d come up and bring her to A & E to be on the safe side. I felt she needed to be checked over.

I live in Co Laois – about an hour and a half’s drive from her (depending on the M7).  By the time myself and t’other half got there and got her manhandled into the car, it was about 8.30pm when we got to A & E.  Tallaght was the obvious place to go – it’s five minutes from her home; she’s been there many times as an A & E patient, an out-patient and an in-patient; she attends the stroke clinic there; and they have all her records.

The first alarm bells starting ringing as we pulled up at the door.  There were people sitting on the mask-strewn, liquid-stained, filthy pavement at the A & E entrance.  The automatic doors were permanently open because there were people sitting in the mat-well area inside. We slowly made our way in to the main area and it was like a war zone. There were people everywhere. Some standing, more sitting on the floor, some even attempting to lie down. Social distancing was simply not happening. The allocated seating area – now with chairs bolted to the floor and surrounded by fixed Perspex screens – was heaving.  Every chair was occupied, and there were yet more people in this area standing and sitting on the floor. 

We carried on to the reception desk and shouted our woes for all to hear through masks and screens.  The receptionist took the details and told us to ‘take a seat’.  There wasn’t a seat to take.  She asked my sister if she’d be all right to stand.  She said no.  She was on the verge of keeling over at that stage.  I asked if there might be a wheelchair.  She didn’t think so.  She came out from her office into the main waiting area and roared at the assembled company – if there were relatives occupying chairs, could they please vacate them in favour of patients.  Nobody moved.  I steered the patient over to a wall, and half parked, half propped her up and went to look for a wheelchair.  No joy. 

Eventually, a kind soul offered his chair.  We accepted gratefully.  I got her seated.  I stood beside her, shifting my weight from one leg to the other (not in the first flush myself, and standing plays havoc with my back).  I was tempted to join the throng of those sitting on the floor, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get up again with any degree of agility or elegance.  I would remain standing.

At 10pm, we were called into triage. I had a small moment of panic at that point – I couldn’t get her out of the chair.  With one dead arm, and severely reduced movement in the other one, she can’t lever herself out of ‘ordinary’ chairs – she has one of the tipper-truck jobs at home.  With the new Perspex screening in place, I couldn’t get in properly beside her to catch a good hold of her to hoike her up. I kept shouting ‘we’re coming, we’re coming’ – it was taking so long to get her moving I was afraid they’d think we’d left.  Eventually, another kind soul took pity and helped me to hoist her out of the seat.  We finally got into the triage nurse. I heaved a sigh of relief. Everything would be OK now.  

The nurse put her through her paces, amongst which was a blood pressure check, which registered a reading of through the roof and up into the sky.  We listed out the previous falls, TIAs, blackouts, wobbles and so on, and waited for the verdict.  The triage verdict was that she was placed in the ‘urgent’ category.  I wasn’t, naturally, happy that she was categorised as ‘urgent’, but at least ‘urgent’ means something will be done, right?  She’ll get a trolley and see a doctor soon, right?

Well no.  The estimated wait time to see a doctor was shaking out at ten hours or so, the triage nurse told us. She apologised. Nothing she could do about it. OK. So let’s get her on a trolley and try to get her comfortable at least. Er … no.  No trolley.  So where do we wait?  Back out in the war zone. On a chair.  If there is one. 

I told her my sister would never hack a ten-hour wait on a chair – it would actually be bad for her health.  There wasn’t, that I could see, even a coffee machine. There was a water fountain but no cups – which is fine if you have the mobility to bend. The nurse apologised again.  She said the best she could do would be to tell her superior about the urgency and see if a trolley could be magicked.  She qualified this by saying she believed it wouldn’t happen, but she would go through the motions of doing it. We returned to the waiting area.  There was no chair.

At this point, we were both close to collapse – her with fatigue and stress; me with anger. Again, a kind soul gave up their chair. I got her seated and went outside to ring t’other half whom we’d left outside to do the parking dance. I vented. He listened.  It helped. I made a decision.  I’d give it an hour – if she lasted that long.  If there was no trolley forthcoming, I’d take her home.

‘Imagine rocking up to a hospital for help, only to feel that being there would make things worse.‘

At 11pm, she was very tired, very sore, and very stressed. The sea of humanity on the dirty floor seemed to be growing. I manhandled her out of the chair, and we brought her home. As a courtesy, I checked in at reception on the way out and told them we were leaving. I told them I was concerned for her health – it would be safer to bring her home.  The receptionist’s exact words: ‘I don’t blame you’. Imagine rocking up to a hospital for help, only to feel that being there would make things worse. Is this really what we’ve come to? Regrettably, it would seem that it is.

We made a new plan. T’other half and I would stay overnight with her, but we’d have to leave early in the morning. The whole thing had happened unexpectedly and too late in the evening for me to rejig a medical appointment of my own.  Another sister would come up in the morning to bring the afflicted one to her own GP and be guided by his wisdom.  There would be a short gap of a couple of hours, though, from my departure and my other sister’s arrival.  I warned the afflicted one not to get out of bed until the other cavalry arrived.  She promised she wouldn’t.

But she did.  And she fell again.  She pressed her panic button again, and this time the posse of neighbours called the ambulance.  They said they’d bring her to Tallaght.  She refused to go.  To echo the receptionist on the night … I don’t blame her. It would have been like going back into a burning building.

As I write this, she’s in the Blackrock Clinic after being admitted through their A & E department.  Doing OK and will hopefully be fit for discharge shortly.  Fingers crossed.

But my thoughts are still in Tallaght and the red mist still rises when I think about it.  I have absolutely no quarrel with the staff – they have my heartfelt sympathy.  I was so sorry for the triage nurse in particular.  Imagine the embarrassment of having to tell a patient that the clinical assessment indicates urgent medical attention … and then having to tell them that they’d have to wait at least ten hours for that ‘urgent’ attention.  And wait on a chair … maybe … if you’re lucky.  There was a time when we complained about long waits on trolleys. That, it seems, was in the good old days.   

So I’m all in favour of rewarding these people for their hard work and dedication during the pandemic. Give them money.  Give them more holidays. Whatever.  I can’t help thinking, though, that it would be no less than their due, and a more enduring reward, to give them the basic tools of their trade. Give them a work environment that supports their skills and gives them a bit of professional dignity and pride. They shouldn’t have to work in a system that is counter-productive to its very purpose.  

They shouldn’t have to apologise to 75-year-old woman in need of ‘urgent’ medical attention that they can’t even give her a chair to sit on.

Woolly thinking

Sheepless in the Curragh

Recently, daughter #1 arrived in for a visit (she was our pandemic bubble), and thought she was telling us something we didn’t know.  She had been reading Patrick Freyne’s book – OK Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea – and was surprised to learn that she had something in common with the author.  They’re both army brats. And both lived in married quarters in the Curragh Camp.  Not contemporaneously, I don’t believe, but they both belong to a reasonably small subset of the population who have the living-in-the-Curragh-Camp experience in common.  A slightly different experience for both of them, I expect, as P Freyne alludes in the first chapter of his book to the fact that there was a cinema in the Camp when he lived there. By the time we moved there, the cinema was history. 

Patrick Freyne’s book is available on Amazon, easons.com, in bookshops, and is previewed on Google books.

Everything else alluded to, though, was still very much in place – the water tower, the two churches, the swimming pool, the red-brick terraces, the shop, the hospital, the firing ranges. We lived there from 1994 to 2003, and chatting with the bubble-daughter evoked a lot of memories and reminiscences.  When we went there first, we lived in the end house of a small terrace, with a little postage-stamp garden out the front, and a back yard, back lane arrangement for dustbins, washing line and the like.  The bedrooms were good-sized, but the kitchen was small and poky.  Above all, though, the place was cold.  Moving in in July, it wasn’t that noticeable, but, when winter hit, it was baltic.

We subsequently moved house within the Camp early the following year, progressing to one of the ‘big’ houses – one of the ones P Freyne refers to as having separate servants’ stairs. It did indeed have servants’ quarters with a back stair serving two bedrooms that were separated from the rest of the house by a door – presumably lockable.  The approach to the house had a short-ish but rather grand driveway lined with mature trees.  There was also a coach house at the end of the garden with a loft room for the groom, and a separate entrance gate for the coach and horses.  All rather grand in its day, but quite defunct and tired by the time we got there.

 The excitement of this move for me had nothing to do with avenues or servants’ quarters. The thrill for me was that the ‘big’ house had central heating.  What I didn’t realise was that the house was so big, the central heating was only installed downstairs.  And even at that, the radiators never got past tepid. If anything, it was colder than the terrace.  The radiators ran off a solid-fuel Stanley range in the kitchen, and the only thing that kept us warm was the physical activity of lugging in fuel and feeding the hungry beast. We eventually sourced a firm of heating engineers who converted the solid fuel to an oil-fired arrangement, complete with a time clock – not that we ever used the timing functions; it was set to ‘on’ all the time.  The place was no warmer, but at least we didn’t have the relentless chore of feeding the firebox and cleaning out buckets of ashes. 

And it didn’t solve the problem of the arctic conditions upstairs.  The bedrooms were large with high ceilings and fireplaces.  Three (maybe four – I can’t remember) of the six bedrooms had servants’ bells on the wall just beside the mantelpiece.  These were, presumably, in bygone days, wired up to the bell box installed above the door in the kitchen, allowing their lordships to summon a minion to tend to the fire and perhaps bring a drop of port while you’re at it.  Regrettably, the bells no longer tolled, and they certainly never tolled for me.  The Upstairs Downstairs-type wooden bell box in the kitchen was silent for the duration of our tenure, and, even had the bells worked, there was no-one to answer them.  Batmen were a thing of the past.  Hudson had left the building.  (Or Carson for the later Downton Abbey generation.) Interestingly, there was also a push bell in the bathroom.  I never quite decided its application.   

In addition to the constant challenge of keeping warm, there was the added challenge of cleaning. Being an old house, it wasn’t overly endowed with electric sockets.  That, coupled with the sheer size of the place, meant that something as mundane as hoovering demanded a deal of organisation and planning.  It became an industrial chore. Extension cables were required.  There were millions of windows too.  With small panes. And tricky latches.  If we lit the fires upstairs – and we often did when we needed to boost the paltry output of our millions of electric and gas heaters –  that meant that we lived with a film of ashy dust on everything.   

And then, of course, there were the sheep.  I don’t wish harm on any living thing … except sheep. Living in the Camp turned me into a sheep hater.  Thousands of them literally roam free on the Curragh, and roaming free means roaming with an air of arrogant impunity right through the Camp.  They shat everywhere. Their browny-green knobs of evilness were everywhere you looked. It was impossible to go for a walk without getting destroyed.  It was something of an inevitability of life in the Camp. No matter how careful and vigilant you were – and we all were – it was a fact of life that there would be sheep shite walked through your house and into your car at least once a week.  

No preventative measures worked. We observed in total disbelief one particular occasion when a small flock of them stood pondering the cattle grid at our gate.  A few tentative pokes at it with their ungulated toes let them know that it would be foolhardy to attempt a crossing.  We watched with a certain smugness, confident that everything this side of the grid was our sanctuary. They pondered some more.  Then, the cheeky, shitty leader of the pack lay down and barrel-rolled sideways across the grid. Bold as you like.  And the rest followed … like sheep.  The most powerful of our defences breached.  A gutting defeat.

And shitting everywhere was not the least of their sins.  My malevolence towards these dirty animals was born out of a traumatic incident about a week after we moved into the Camp.  The move was, for me, akin to relocating to a different planet.  A culture shock that I wasn’t prepared for.  Yes, it was a big change for all of us, but I think I was the one most impacted.  This total immersion into army life was, for me, mind-blowing.   Bubble-daughter and her sister were familiar with army paraphernalia and practices, having been immersed in them from birth. They knew nothing else. Furthermore, there was an excitement to the move for them that only comes with youth.  

For hubby, it was a perfectly natural, normal existence. He too knew no different, having been an army brat himself, later progressing to donning the green suit.  He’d spent most of his life from childhood on the perimeter of the Curragh, he’d lived in the Camp for the duration of his cadetship, so the environment was no novelty to him. His Dad served there; his mother taught in the girls’ school; it was normal.

But it wasn’t my normal. My normal was different.  There was no army tradition in my family, and, despite having married into it and thereby gained some peripheral, third-party experience, we had never before ‘lived in’, so to speak.  I moved from the honeymoon stage of culture shock to the anxiety stage in about two hours.  I felt I was in some sort of a cult.  A collective of some description. I felt a bit like Captain Jean Luc Picard encountering The Borg.  Lower your shields.  Resistance is futile.  Assimilate. 

A day or so after we moved in, in an effort to feign assimilation but really to cheer myself up, I went to a garden centre in Newbridge and spent a small fortune on shrubs and bedding plants.  I spent the day potting up window boxes of petunias, lobelia, pansies, marigolds, fuchsia, things I don’t know the name of, trailing things, pretty things.  The postage stamp garden was a riot of cheerful colour by the time I’d finished.  I felt so much better.  Maybe I’ll eventually settle and move on to the acceptance stage of this culture shock.  Maybe it’ll all be OK. 

The very next day was the day I became a dedicated, card-carrying sheep hater.  Being brand new residents of the Camp, we didn’t know about the garden gate protocols.  You never leave your garden gate open. Never. Not even for a minute.  Ever. 

With a little bit of hope in my heart after the flower therapy of the day before, I got up to face a new day and get on with things. I looked out the window to a scene of complete devastation in the garden.  Everything was destroyed.  Pots lay upended with compost scattered everywhere.  The window boxes were pulled to the ground with nothing but the remnants of a few stalks remaining.  There was sheep shit everywhere.  We hadn’t latched the gate.  The evil woolly bastards had feasted overnight.  Except for the marigolds.  They didn’t eat the marigolds.  Rather than that being any consolation to me, it just turned me off marigolds.  I can’t be doing with them now because they simply remind me of sheep.  I hate sheep. Or, as the emerging social media conventions present emphasis –  I. Hate. Sheep.  Hate is a strong word, but I use it deliberately, and there will never be redemption or forgiveness.  When the outbreak of Foot and Mouth hit us in 2001, it was a gift to me.  I was sorry for those whose livelihoods were at stake, but it had a silver lining for me.  In order to curtail the spread, the sheep were removed from the Curragh.  We were shit-free for about a year. It was blissful.

Over time, assimilation continued.  The Camp was definitely quite a bizarre place to live, but it also had a unique charm and offered some weird and wonderful experiences. At the time, it was the Army’s hub, and it bustled and buzzed with activity every day. There was a military band based in the camp – the band of the Curragh Command – and it wasn’t unusual to witness informal concerts as they practised for some occasion or other. A full marching banding belting out Sousa within touching distance as you hung out your washing. Or the lone piper who practised early in the morning at our front gate. The first time that happened, I thought I was hallucinating.  The only other person I knew of that had a dawn piper was the Queen Mother in residence in Balmoral. 

And, although I held no rank and was not a trained fighter, I won some battles. On a summer morning, I looked out the window to see a young man standing on the avenue eyeing up the beautiful laburnum tree. He wore a hard hat and a sort of harness thing with a rope looped over his shoulder. A chainsaw sat on the ground next to him.  I went out and introduced myself, and asked him what he was up to. It transpired that the Department of Defence had contracted a firm of tree surgeons to assess and make safe all the trees in the Camp.  The laburnum had been deemed unsafe and was coming down.  My laburnum.  The most beautiful, golden tree on the avenue.  

I brought the hard-hatted youngster in and made him tea and a bacon sandwich.  I told him I thought his work must be very interesting indeed, but that if he put as much as a fingernail on my laburnum, I’d deck him.  The ketchup which he’d liberally applied to his bacon butty would be nothing to the massacre that would ensue. I would turn his own chainsaw on him and remove his limbs one at a time.

He had orders, he said.  I told him those orders had just been rescinded. By me.  The foreman was sent for.  More tea was made.  Amicable agreement was reached.  So long as I understood the laburnum might not withstand the next gale … don’t park underneath it … laburnum seeds are poisonous … yadda yadda yadda.  The laburnum stayed.  My little hard-hatted, beharnessed friend was actually a bit disappointed at the civilised outcome. He admitted that he’d secretly hoped it would come to a stand-off where I’d chain myself to the tree and make the national news.  

There were many other quirky, unique experiences during our time there.  I became the informal choir mistress to several classes of junior cadets who were tasked with singing at the commissioning Mass of their senior classes who were about to become new officers. For a few weeks before the commissioning event, these newbies would be (literally) marched up to the church a couple of times a week for me to put them through their singing paces.  Whether they had a note in them or not, they all sang to attention under my baton and the watchful eyes of their class officers.

Other pre-commissioning involvement provided more interest and hilarity.  After the commissioning Mass, the new officers would be presented with their commissions by the Minister for Defence at a very formal commissioning ceremony.  Swearing allegiance, and stuff like that.  The arrival of the Minister and the commissioning ceremony itself were occasions of pomp and precision, so timings and drills had to be practised. I got to be the ‘ministerial’ driver on the practice runs the day before the ceremony.  The nominated ministerial pretender – suitably suited and booted – would hop into the back of my car, and we’d take ourselves off to the roundabout at the Curragh exit off the M7. There, the motorcycle escort would assemble.  Then, when we got the crackly radio nod, we’d drive in formation across the plains and sweep majestically into the Camp.  (The only time in my life I have ever been flanked by motorcycle outriders.) Then, we would all reduce our speed in synchronised fashion until we all came to a gradual halt at a designated spot – a spot that would have very senior people waiting to attention, and allowed space for the car door to be opened fully so that it didn’t maim anyone and Mr Minister could emerge with ease. It was all precision stuff, and the real thing always looked polished and effortless.  I wonder if all the Ministers over the years knew just how much effort went into the preparation.  Perhaps they do, but they’ll never know how much the pretend Minister and his driver cried with laughter as they made their way across the plains.     

So, over the years, assimilation and acceptance occurred.  There are many more memories I could recount and tales I could tell.  The ‘big’ house hosted many parties and occasions over those years,  and I’m glad it got to enjoy the buzz of company and a bit of chaos.  We were, I believe, the last family to live there.  After we left, it became offices.  I hope they put some heating in upstairs.

And I hope the laburnum is still there in all its golden glory.  It was my little victory.  My message to the cult that I was still capable of independent thought.  Sometimes, when I remember our time there, it all seems a bit surreal.  There were ups and downs, good times and weird times.  Some things I remember with genuine fondness; other things I was happy to leave behind.

And that means the sheep.  Little woolly bastards. 

   

2020 – send it out with no bang.

” …this misappropriation of the poor exclamation mark has served to relieve it of its serious duties.”

For years, I have been waging war against exclamation marks. If I come across them when I edit, I take pleasure in removing them. When I see them in unsuitable places and contexts, I die a little inside. Only a few of them – a very few of them – are ever appropriate and deserving of life. I despise them.  

Well, perhaps that’s a little strong.  I don’t despise them.  I actually feel sorry for them.  It’s more correct to say I despise them when they crop up where they shouldn’t be. They are a perfectly valid punctuation mark, but they are largely misunderstood and, accordingly, misused.

Exclamation marks – called ‘bangs’ in the business – should live up to their name. They are supposed to exclaim an emotion or a feeling that, were you to give voice to that emotion, your tone and body language would convey your excitement, displeasure, alarm or whatever the emotion might be.  

But somewhere along the line, a myth grew up that exclamation marks in your writing will make it sparkle with wit and hilarity.  You want to write funny?  Throw in a few bangs.  You want to write really funny?  Throw in lots of them. 

Here’s the thing. Writing funny has little to do with exclamation marks. Yes, all writing – irrespective of genre – needs to be supported by proper punctuation, but the ‘funny’ comes from you – your ideas, your thoughts, your personality, your expression and your skill. F Scott Fitzgerald considered that using exclamation marks in writing is like laughing at your own jokes.

Apart from being irritating and unfunny, this misappropriation of the poor exclamation mark has served to relieve it of its serious duties. It now has a reputation of being casual and informal and a bit ditzy.  Not to be taken seriously. Therefore, even though you might be trying to convey something profound, or alarming, or very important, the presence of the exclamation mark at the end of such a statement serves to trivialise it. 

And, in tandem with the growth of this casual informality, comes another inappropriate shift in usage – the use of the exclamation mark for emphasis.  Put the two together, and you’re merely emphasising the unfunny. More a fatal gunshot than a bang.  

Here’s an example that illustrates the point. For whatever reason, some people choose to announce personal, family news on various social media platforms.  Sometimes it’s the worst of news – they’ve been bereaved.  It’s not unusual to see a raft of (probably well-intentioned) comments along the lines of:

Really sorry to hear your mam died! 

So sorry to hear this news! RIP!

See?  See what we’ve done to the exclamation mark?  We’ve turned it into the drunk auntie who always sticks her foot in it at family gatherings. 

And I’m starting to see evidence of drunk-auntie syndrome as people start writing their Christmas cards and their reflections of this very different year. Writing Christmas cards for some people (me included) is a chance to scribble a few lines of family news to those we don’t see often. A little digest of the year’s happenings. The highs and lows, the ups and downs.  That sort of thing.  This year, we all have the same tale to tell; the same theme. It’s been a truly bizarre year.

This year, the cards will contain reports of cancelled weddings; loved ones dying alone; grief unshared; mothers birthing alone; lost livelihoods; lost relationships; increased domestic violence; cancelled family visits; lonely, frightened cocooners; anxious children; sometimes unbearable social disconnection.  It’s been a year like we’ve never had before.

And the recounting of it deserves no levity or trivialising. That we have survived it is, I agree, a cause for – if not celebration – certainly, gratitude.  First and foremost, gratitude to all those essential workers who kept the wheels turning, and gratitude to  who did their best to put systems in place to steer us through it. Huge gratitude to the health workers who literally put their lives on the line.  

It’s been a heavy, wearisome, worrying time. It has taken its toll.  It has certainly not been funny, or trivial or casually laid back.  It’s been, at least, unpleasant and confining for most, and it’s been truly horrific for some.

So let’s keep the exclamation marks out of it.  They just don’t belong in the discourse of 2020.

I won’t be starting my notes to friends with: 

What a year!

That bang at the end completely misrepresents the sentiment. It makes it sound as if the year was a whirlwind of partying, socialising, busyness and endless entertainment.  Like it was a real fun time.

Let’s just remove it. 

What a year.

Absolutely nothing funny about it.  

Up light; down heavy

If you went to a convent primary school in 1960s Ireland … then maybe look away now.

As September draws to a close, the nation’s children are settling into the new school year. And, whereas they mightn’t be exactly thrilled at the prospect of being back at school after the long holidays, I don’t think any child of this modern era feels the fear and dread of school so often experienced by past generations.  The old regime was a harsh one, and, for many, schooldays were definitely not the happiest days of their lives.

Depending on your age, where you went to school, and what kind of school you went to, the image at the top of this page will either:

1.  be meaningless to you, or
2. it will strike a cold terror deep in your heart that will root you to the spot, and flood your mind with unwelcome, dark rememberings.

If you fall into the latter category, sorry for inflicting it on you.  It means you’re approaching senior citizenship (or have already reached it); you received primary education in Ireland; and you went to a convent school where you were taught by nuns.

The image in question is simply a copybook. I was browsing in a newsagents one day last month and, given the month that was in it, it was heaving with school supplies.  Next thing, I spotted the copybook and I think I might have had a small heart attack. (Well, maybe not exactly a full-blown heart attack, but a decent bout of palpitations accompanied by a cold sweat and a small bit of wobbliness.)

With its red and blue lines, this was the copybook you graduated to when you finished two years of infant classes – baby infants and high infants.  You moved on to first class, and with that move came the promotion to writing with pen and ink.  After a year of scraping with chalk on a slate in baby infants, and then scrawling with a pencil in high infants, the prospect of writing with a nibbed pen and ink was a thrilling rite of passage into the senior ranks.

I wasn’t quite six years old when I went into first class – I had started school a few weeks short of my fourth birthday.  Back then, there weren’t really rigid rules and regulations about the starting age – you went when you were sent. And if, like me, your birthday was in late September, you started before you were four.  If you waited until the following September, you’d have been deemed to be ancient.  Remember, there were no pre-schools back then, so you were whooshed off to proper school as soon as you could manage the toilet without (major) incident, and you had passed the stage of mid-morning napping.

I was not a tidy child. Not in any sense. I had no natural instinct – nor, indeed, ability – to be neat and methodical in anything I did. I admired – envied, even – order and neatness in others, but it eluded me.  My body didn’t help me.  I was a gangly child, with limbs that very often did their own thing.  In my head, I could visualise the perfect result to an action, but the vision was seldom achieved.  As an adult, I understand why.  In those early school years, that vision wasn’t my own.  It was someone else’s perception of perfection.  Someone else’s requirement.  Someone else’s expectation.  Their standard; their definition; their demand.

So, my little six-year-old hands didn’t cope well with the new demand for perfection with pen and ink.  The deal with the red and blue lines in the copybook was that your capital letters and your ascenders reached up to the red line; and your descenders reached down to the red line below it. Your ordinary, lower case letters were confined between the blue lines.  Furthermore – and I don’t know if this was a global rule or just something dreamt up by the sadist teaching me – your upstrokes had to be light, and your downstrokes heavy.  Up light.  Down heavy.  Up light. Down heavy.  It was a mantra.

No evidence of the ‘up light down heavy’ here. And not a blob in sight.

Sr Rosario was my teacher in first class.  An evil woman.  She could have taught Torquemada – the cruelest of the Spanish inquisitors – a thing or two.  Homework was copious, and always included a sentence to be inked four times on a page of the red-and-blue-lined copybook.  Up light. Down heavy.  It had to conform to her shade of perfect.  Nothing else would do.  Up light. Down heavy.

My efforts were never acceptable. She had three favourite ‘A’ words that I heard every day: appalling, atrocious, abominable.  Her face would redden as she’d pull my ear – a good hefty tug per screeched ‘A’ word – and then she’d move down the alphabet to her favourite ‘D’ word – Disgrace.  I lived with it.  I braced myself for it every day.  My brain continued to see the vision of perfection, but the neural messages never quite made it to my fingertips. I accepted it. The three ‘A’s and the ‘D’ became part of my norm.

But then she upped the ante. One fateful day, I presented a particularly sorry effort that seemed to tip her right over the edge.  And it was all the fault of a small piece of batch bread.

I was new to the business of rubbing out ink. Tippex didn’t exist then, and, anyway, it wouldn’t have been acceptable.  The work of the devil himself, don’t you know. I desperately needed to rub out an ink blob, but the ‘ink’ side of my rubber was hard as the hobs and dirty, and, if anything, it made things worse.

Then I remembered someone saying that a piece of bread was good for rubbing out. I plucked a lump from a fresh batch loaf and went at the blob with alarming results.  My curiosity and enthusiasm yielded nothing other than a dirty hole in the page. I girded myself, yet again, for the three ‘A’s and the ‘D’.

But a holey page, it seems, was akin to the work of Satan himself.  As Sr Torquemada examined my efforts the following day, she started to shake and change colour.  First, I fancy she paled a little; then she achieved a vivid shade of red. She flung the copybook on the desk and marched purposefully to the top of the classroom.

There she armed herself with her meter stick.  The meter stick was a wooden affair – a meter long, as the name might suggest –  with a handle on it.  About two inches wide. It lived on top of a cupboard next to the cane.  She used it to draw lines on the blackboard.  On this occasion, she used it on me.  She pulled my arms from my sides and turned my hands palms up.  She administered, with all her apoplectic might, two vicious slaps to each palm.  Up light. Down heavy.

I remember the sting and the redness.  I remember looking at my hands as the welts grew like little white-hot mountain ridges on a red landscape. I remember the wide eyes of my classmates as they looked on in fear and dread. I remember thinking that I hated her. I remember desperately wanting to go home.  I remember wondering why I wasn’t crying.

But it didn’t end there. My mortification was not yet complete.  I was to be further punished. I was pulled by the ear back to the baby infants room and told to re-do the homework … in pencil.  Demotion. Degradation. Disgraceful. The final humiliation.

And still it didn’t end.  When I returned with the work re-done, there was more of the meter stick.  Four more down heavies.  Because, apparently, I ‘could have done it right in the first place’.  I didn’t cry.  I said nothing. Didn’t try to explain about the batch loaf. There was no point. To attempt a defence would have only added fuel to the fire of her raging fury.  Instead, still dry-eyed, I turned to make my way back to my desk.

She stopped me.  Her huge, black form towered over me; the over-sized rosary beads hanging from her waist still swinging and clicking from her rapid race to beat me to my desk.

She caught my long hair and led me to the corner.  Facing in.  She gave my hair another tug.

‘You’ll stand there until the tears run down your cheeks and you can dry them with your hair like Mary Magdalene.’

So there I stood.  Facing in.  Stinging palms.  Pounding heart.  No tears.

I couldn’t cry.  I wanted to.  I wanted it to end. I thought about sad things. I thought about  people dying. I  thought about the black babies that we brought our pennies in for.  I pictured their sad little faces that peered at us from the mission collection box that stood on Sr Torquemada’s desk. Poor mites, we were told. They had nothing. Our pennies would buy them a drink of water. They made me sad.  I thought about all the things that normally made me cry.  Nothing. Lacrimal glands and tear ducts firmly on strike. Dry-eyed.

So there I still stood.  Still facing in.  Palms still stinging.  Heart still pounding.  Home time came and went.  Everyone left.  Including Sr Torquemada. When I hadn’t arrived home at the usual time, my brother was sent to find me.  When I got home and recounted the events of the day, I got tea and sympathy.

But that was it.  Parents of that era were powerless against the clergy. You didn’t take them on. They were above the law and they knew it. Sr Torquemada was not the only perpetrator of crime in the school building, and I was not the only one who was abused – assault and battery (under the euphemism of corporal punishment) happened on a regular basis in other classrooms too, and the sight of small children exiting the building with red eyes and red palms was normal.

Happily, all has changed. Corporal punishment was banned in Irish schools in 1982 and, since 1996, it is a criminal offence.   I know the current generation of schoolchildren face their own challenges – bullying, for instance, although it has always existed, and will always exist in any peer group, has transferred itself to social media platforms and is difficult to police.  But at least the adults in the room are aware … and they’re not the perpetrators.

As I carried on with my shopping (when my pulse returned to normal and I’d stopped sweating), I witnessed mams and dads with happy, carefree children buying uniforms, runners, pens and pencils and general back-to-school paraphernalia.  Apart from the enormous drain on the parental purse, the whole business of back-to-school preparation is not met with the same dread of yesteryear. 

Imagine. Fifty-something years on in a newsagents in Portlaoise, the random sight of a simple copybook pinned me to the spot and regressed me to that 6-year-old child who couldn’t – wouldn’t – cry.

Proud of my defiance   …  Me – 1 Sr Torquemada – nil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gaga Nana

I’m back. How long I’ll be back for, or how regularly I’ll post remains to be seen.  But I’ll try. (If I can remember how to upload this, that is.)

Lots has happened on my planet since my last musing. The most important, exciting thing, though, is that I’m a granny. Well, a Nana. My gorgeous grandson arrived on 31 March 2018 and I’m besotted. But, because of all the crazies out there, and because he hasn’t reached the age of reason and consent, I won’t post photos and I won’t give out any of his personal information.  GDPR goes for babies too, you know, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that he’s the cutest, cleverest, most good-looking, most sweet-natured child that ever was born. He is a wonderful, miraculous mix of both his parents.

His arrival, though, has made me remember and reflect a good deal.  It’s natural, I suppose, to think back to the days when this baby’s mum was a baby herself, and to remember one’s own ineptitude and, comparatively speaking, one’s ignorance.  It’s clear to me now that, back then, I knew nothing. It’s a miracle my children made it to adulthood.  Much, gentle reader, has changed. And, while many of those changes are excellent, some of them are, perhaps, not so cool.

In terms of impressive changes, I have to put the whole baby paraphernalia up there. Most baby accoutrements these days are impressive.  Top of my ‘most improved’ list is the business of sterilisers.  The microwave steriliser is a revelation to me.  A drop of water in the bottom of it, a few minutes on full power, and … bingo.  Job done.  When I think of the old process of making up a solution of Milton in a huge big orange buckety thing and waiting 24 hours for it to be ready.  And all the clothes you ruined because you spilt the Milton in your sleep-deprived state.  Penance and torture.

Next up is nappies.  Disposable nappies existed way back when, but they were pretty much unaffordable for everyday use. If you were going visiting grandparents on an overnight or a weekend, maybe, you’d splurge on a packet of disposables. The norm was terry nappies – which had to be laundered and sterilised, all of which was quite an unpleasant process.  The nappy liners – which were the big advance of my generation and a revelation to my mother’s generation – were certainly a help in containing the (sometimes very liquid) bottom matter, but they only contained so much. And sometimes, a very wriggly nappy change could result in the liner working itself off site, so to speak, leaving the next nappy change quite interesting.

Dirty nappies were consigned to a large bucket filled with a solution of Napisan, and the sight of bits of poop de jour floating in the bucket is an image that is difficult to lose.  They were then washed – with more Napisan – at the hottest wash your machine could manage (and my first washing machine was a twin-tub … which I still miss). Mind you, there was something very rewarding about seeing a washing line full of snowy-white nappies blowing in the breeze (no dryer at that point), but it really was quite hard work.  I believe there’s a trend back to terry nappies these days for environmental reasons, but I don’t buy that. I reckon I wrecked the ozone layer and warmed the globe all by myself such was the amount of chemicals I used to sterilise things.  And the amount of energy I used heating water to a million degrees to wash things was definitely not environmentally friendly or economical. And then, of course, there were the horrible, non-biodegradable plastic pants.

Baby furniture too has become sophisticated in its design, and is comparatively affordable. With a visit from my little prince in the offing, I’ve bought some gear to make the visit comfortable for everyone. I was absolutely wide-eyed at being able to buy a decent-quality high-chair in Ikea for €14. OK, I know he’ll grow out of it at some point, and something else will be required.  But, for the moment, the €14 one is safe and easy to clean. There’s also a travel cot in situ which is sturdy and comfortable and didn’t cost the earth.

The next category is a mixed-feelings one. I love it and hate it in equal measure. I applaud the advances, but I long for the simpler days. I’m talking about baby transporters – buggies and car seats specifically. I’m all for the focus on increased safety, but holy mother of the little baby Jesus himself, have they ever gotten complicated. And big. If you’re new to grandparenting, or if you think grandparenting might be in your future, just go to your local supermarket carpark and observe the inelegant ballet that is getting a buggy and a child into and out of a car.  The buggies are like lunar modules with adapters and extensions and add-ons and clip-ons and baskets and windows and sunshades and more besides. Some have three wheels; others have ball-like wheels; some have interchangeable moorings to take the car seat or the pram top depending on the voyage; some face baby in; some face baby out. Some probably make tea, for all I know.  But they are all HUGE!

 

And modern-day car seats – although significantly safer that those of bygone days – are another minefield of engineering and moorings. There are separate bases with lights and beepers that need to be fitted just so – that is always assuming that your car has the proper receivers in place.  As with the buggies, there’s baby-facing-front and baby-facing-back ones which, after a little bit of reading and research, seems to me to be a vexed question as to which is best.  And there are rules and regulations about baby ages, heights and weights, and booster seats and seatbelts and all to that.

And then, when you finally figure out what kind of seat you need to suit your size and shape of baby, and it’s all fitted and ready to receive the poor bewildered dote, the fastening straps and buckles are the work of the devil himself.  I know I should support the safety advances – and I most certainly do – but it’s just all so different, so fiddly and so comparatively difficult. I challenge the designers of these items to maintain the advanced safety features, but make it all a little more intuitive and manageable.

Mind you, when I think about the car seat my grandson’s mother was placed in as a baby and toddler, I have to admit its safety features were lacking.  Once she figured out – at about age 2 – how to open the buckle, we were screwed.  We were alerted to this new skill on a car journey where her daddy was driving and I was in the front passenger seat.  All was going swimmingly until, like lightning and quite out of the blue, the driver felt two little hands covering his eyes.  Herself had engineered a dextrous escape and decided it was a wonderful opportunity to play a game of hidey peep with her daddy.  After that, we were merely going through the motions.  We’d strap her in, but it was anyone’s guess when she was going to free herself.  Long journeys thereafter meant many stops and many re-strappings.  And toys.  And books.  And we sang a lot. Anything to distract.   There were no iPads or in-car DVD players in those days.

In-car child restraints in my own childhood didn’t exist. Seat belts didn’t exist, even. On a Sunday afternoon, we all piled into the family car – unbelted and unrestrained – and my place, as the youngest of the family, was on my mother’s knee in the front passenger seat. That was normal and acceptable back then. And, in the summer, my brother and I helped our uncle on the farm. Our Da would drive us out there in the morning and Uncle Gerry would drive us home in the evening, him driving and us sitting – untethered –  on top of the bales of hay in the back of the lorry. In those days, a normal, charming, folksy summer sight. These days, reckless endangerment.

So yes. Things sure have changed here on Walton’s Mountain. The year since my little prince’s birth has been a revelation.  I now know what a tummy tub is – basically a big, clear plastic bucket for bathing your baby in.  It’s impressive.  It allows the baby to assume the fetal position, and because they’re quite contained, you have more control. And you can put it on a table top and save your back.  Very cool.  I also know what a snot sucker is – basically what it says it is … a tube to suck snot out of your baby’s nose.  Most will come with the title of ‘nasal aspirator’, but it’s basically a snot sucker.

The Snotsucker. Image from FridaBaby.com

FridaBaby call it just that.  And if you don’t fancy using your own suck power, you can get electronic ones. Not so cool.  I’m also now acquainted with grobags, foot muffs, electric breast pumps, room thermometers, baby gyms, baby wraps, baby slings, soft play centres, ball pools, and nappies that have a line on them that turns blue when your baby pees.

I have also become well acquainted with the series of ‘That’s not my … ‘ books.  Millions of them.  That’s not my giraffe, That’s not my bee, That’s not my unicorn, That’s not my puppy, That’s not my zoo.  Heaps of them, I tells ya.  Otters, meerkats, owls, squirrels, cows, foxes, hedgehogs, goats.  And on and on and on.  They’re published by Usborne and the series has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. I would have said that any old brightly coloured book would be much the same as the next to a small baby, but, I have to admit, this series with the addition of tactile, textured patches included in its very durable pages seems to engage the little less-than-a-year-old souls more than other nursery tomes.

by Fiona Watt. Illustrated by Rachel Wells Published by Usborne Books. One of millions in the That’s not my … series

So I have really spent the last year in wide-eyed wonderment at a lot of the changes – and not just the changes in the kit and caboodle; the changes in thinking and practices too.  It seems to me that much of what I was told to do years ago has been overturned.  Perhaps I’ll revisit this soon and bore you with another post that will likely start with the phrase most often on my lips these days … ‘In my day …’

In the meantime, if you intend transporting a baby or small child in your vehicle, you could do worse than check out the Road Safety Authority’s Guide to buying a child car seat.  There’s some very good information and illustrations that might help you work your way through this minefield.

http://rsa.ie/en/RSA/Road-Safety/Campaigns/Current-road-safety-campaigns/No-Child-Car-Seat—No-Excuse/Buying-a-child-car-seat/

So, till next time … safe travels.

Scotland the brave – not the Braveheart – on September 18

I love absolutely everything about Scotland – but Braveheart doesn’t do it for me… for very personal reasons.

The Saltire meets Big Ben. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

‘Land o’ the high endeavour
Land o’ the shining river
land o’ my heart forever
Scotland the brave.’

The other day, www.journal.ie carried a feature which remembered the making of Braveheart in Ireland in 1994. In the article ‘Here’s what it was like to be part of Braveheart’s epic army’, Lar Joye recalled his experience of being an extra on the set of Mr Mel’s blue-faced blockbuster. Lar and several hundred FCA troops – now known as the Defence Forces Reserve – provided a readymade, flexible, interchangeable army of extras who were happy to turn their coats at the whim of the shooting schedule. They fought alongside Wallace with Scottish heart and enthusiasm, but were equally adept at portraying the forces of the Crown. They didn’t much care, I suspect. They were young, it was summertime, and they were getting paid. In the iconic scene where Wallace’s army showed their contempt for their foe, the ‘Scottish’ army, en masse, mooned the English. Irish FCA bums were bared with gleeful, mischievous abandon.

And those bare bums are now 20 years older – a fact that rocked the Journal’s interviewee. Tempus fugit, folks. In those intervening 20 years, many in the business would say that the making of Braveheart on the Curragh plains did a lot for the Irish film industry. We got an opportunity to showcase Ireland as a location; Irish actors got work; local economy benefited… yadda yadda yadda.

In 2008, The Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) honoured Mel Gibson with their first ever Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema Award. In their lengthy pre-awards press statement at that time, they eulogised and gushed and said how wonderful Mr Gibson was. They made much of his Irish roots and praised him up, down and sideways for the making of Braveheart. Mr Mel choosing Ireland as a location for the epic tale of William Wallace seemed to have elevated him to deity status in the eyes of IFTA.

Are you sensing that I have a bit of a hump here? Well, you’d be right. You see, like Lar, the FCA extra, I was also in the Curragh 20 years ago – except in a different capacity. And my memories are not coloured as happy as Lar’s. I seriously fell out of love with Mel Gibson that summer, and he’ll never win me back.

As a family, we moved to the Curragh from Donegal in July 1994. When I say the Curragh, I mean the real Curragh – the actual military camp. In those days, the other half wore a green suit and was transferred from Donegal which was, at the time, a heart-breaking move and one that took a good deal of coming to terms with. As is always the case in these matters, our biggest concern was the children. They were an almost-teen and a very young teen at the time and we worried about them settling. They were excited about it all but also full of trepidation about being in a new place with new people, new friends, new schools and all to that.

When I heard that Braveheart was being made on the Curragh with the camp as its base, I was charmed. This, I thought, will be great. This will ease the pain for the kids. It’ll be exciting. There’ll be a buzz about the place. Sure we’ll be tripping over the half of Hollywood. We’ll be down in Centra getting our sliced pan and we’ll be rubbing shoulders with the great and good. And who knows? Mr Mel might even call in for a drop of tea. His mother’s people are from Donegal and his second name is Colmcille. Sure we’re practically related. The kettle will be on the boil at all times and he’s more than welcome to drop in for a cut of soda farl and cup in his hand.

Well, maybe that was hoping for a bit too much, but surely there’d be a bit of associated craic to be had? The reality was somewhat different. Yes, there was a buzz about the place but it sort of lost its shine after a while. At first, it was hilarious to see burly, thirteenth-century Scottish warriors roaming around the place sucking on choc ices and with packets of 10 Major sticking out of their tartan costumes. Sometimes, you’d see scene dressers with squeezy plastic bottles squirting blood and topping up the warriors’ war wounds every so often. There were many funny moments like that that definitely raised a laugh. But, after a while, it was less funny when a dozen or so of these bloody warriors were in front of you in the queue in the shop and couldn’t make their minds up as to whether they wanted a Supersplit or a Tangle Twister.

About now, you’d be expecting a photo of Mr Mel. Sorry. Here’s the real William Wallace in stained glass. By: Tommy Dickson Photography Collection: Moment Open

And the diversions and closed roads became a nuisance. The actual film set was well guarded and nobody ‘ordinary’ could get within an ass’s roar of it. There were surly security people on duty in several locations to make sure the plebs were diverted round the world for sport lest they intrude on the newly sanctified patch of the Curragh. It meant that an ordinary resident of the camp wishing to go from A to B had sometimes to detour via all the other letters of the alphabet to get to where they wanted to go. It was all quite a nuisance. But we sucked it up in the interest of the greater good and still felt a sense of loyalty and hospitality to the whole process.

And I had a plan. The word on the grapevine was that Mr Mel and his entourage were using the girls’ school as a venue for viewing the rushes in the evenings. On the evening of July 29, my eldest daughter’s birthday, we walked up to the school to see what we could see. We were just over three weeks in the Curragh by then and I was exhausted. I was worn out from trying to be upbeat about the move; trying to tell my girls that everything would work out fine; trying to reassure them their Donegal friends wouldn’t forget them; trying to make the first birthday celebration in the Curragh something special; trying to fill the days with positive thoughts and positive things. This was going to be it. We were going to meet Mel Gibson. Afterwards, my girls would probably spend at least a few hours on the phone to their Donegal mates squealing and yakking about their close encounter with Hollywood. I was going to get at least two hours to myself to unpack yet another box and have a good, uninterrupted cry.

There were about 20 ‘ordinary’ people at the school. Not a horde by any manner or means. Civilian residents of the camp. And not a paparazzo in sight. We were confined to outside the railings. Lots of filmy types floated about with clipboards and things looking awfully important, and there were a few burly chaps with the mandatory wraparound shades.

After a while, Mr Mel emerged from the school. We gave a spontaneous cheer and a round of applause. He completely ignored us as he strode towards the waiting car in his those-heels-are-a-little-higher-than-normal cowboy boots. Realising that this was a make or break moment, I shouted out: “Mel! Come and say hello to Claire. It’s her birthday.”

He never broke stride. He never even looked in our direction as he half-shouted, half-grunted a dismissive ‘Happy Birthday’. Yes, he uttered the two words, but the tone and attitude implied that he meant two entirely different words – the second of which would be probably have been ‘…off’.  He got into the car and disappeared. We were gutted.

As we stood there eating his dust, the woman beside me said it all. ‘What a shit,’ she uttered, as the car disappeared down the road. I agreed. I jollied the girls along as we made our way back to the house that we still couldn’t quite in our hearts call home. Our Braveheart experience wasn’t proving to be quite as positive or useful as I’d hoped for. And I fell seriously out of love with Mr Mel.

By the time Braveheart hit the big screen in 1995, we were well settled in the Curragh and the misery and loneliness of those first few weeks were largely forgotten. We went to see the film and we enjoyed it. We laughed out loud when we saw the warriors in battle as we remembered them rambling around the camp with their ice lollies and their fags.

It won five Academy Awards and it did, I’m sure, advance the cause of the Irish film industry. Great. But remember, it advanced Mr Mel’s cause too. He got value for money. He literally had the Army at work for him, running it all with military precision. And he also had a local population who grinned and bore the disruption with general good humour when their day-to-day living was discommoded. A little reciprocal good humour would have been welcome. Thirty seconds out of the schedule to say hello to the or’nary folk  would have done the trick.

Twenty years on, I remember and I haven’t forgiven. I’ve actually reminisced about it a good deal this year as the film’s been on the telly several times. I suspect that the Scottish independence referendum, just around the corner on September 18, is responsible for the renewed popularity. Mr Mel with his blue warpaint and atrocious accent.   When the film premiered in Scotland in 1995, it was something of a rallying cry for the SNP. It stirred the nationalistic blood and quickened the heartbeat of every true Scot. If the referendum had been held the day after that premiere, we would likely have had an independent Scotland before nightfall.

Now, 19 years on, it seems the Yes side of the referendum debate are a little less in love with Mr Gibson’s historically inaccurate epic – described by the Times as one of ‘the 10 most historically inaccurate movies’ of all time. They’re distancing themselves from it somewhat lest the seriousness and sanctity of their cause be trivialised by the whole Hollywood ballyhoo. They want to win – but they don’t want that win to be on the back of ill-informed tribalism or a screenwriter’s romanticised notion of history. The Yes people, it seems, feel now that the association of the movie with their cause has led to their campaign being dismissed as lacking substance. As one Yes campaigner in Glasgow put it, the unionists dismiss the Yes side as being ‘all Braveheart and bagpipes’. Now that Hollywood fairytale time is over and they’re engaged in the grown-up business of deciding their future, Scotland, it seems, is a little less in love with Braveheart than it once was. They want their electorate to vote with their own brave hearts and not to be rabble-roused and influenced by Mr Mel and Hollywood’s inaccuracies. For much the same reason, the No side aren’t fans either at the moment – they’re afraid it will stir the blood and bring the Wallace wannabes out in force. So yeah, Mr Mel. Now see what you’ve done.

But I’ll give leave the last word to a commentator on the journal.ie website. Obviously, the commentator was another FCA extra back in the day. In the run-up to the referendum, his heartfelt comment reads:

 ‘twenty years ago I bared my balls for scottish freedom, they better vote yes!!’

http://www.thejournal.ie/braveheard-irish-army-1643410-Aug2014/#comments

Good luck, Scotland. But please – vote with what’s in your own heart. Your decision is about your future – not about an inaccurate portrayal of your past. Don’t let Hollywood and the grumpy Mr Mel take your true freedom.  Send him homeward, tae think again.

SNP First Minister Alex Salmond with Deputy First Leader Nicola Sturgeon. Busy days ahead.  (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Check the journal.ie website here

 http://www.thejournal.ie/search/Braveheart/

for the article on the making of Braveheart. It also contains a video of a documentary made by the Defence Forces giving behind the scenes action at the time of the filming. 

Away from the manger

We all know it’s a given that Christmas lights won’t work when you finally dig them out of their hiding place… but there’s another Christmas hex to beware of…

My wooden crib, bought years ago, is still to the good. And not a microchip in sight.

Anyone who has ever bought into the business of decking the halls will know that there’s a hex on Christmas lights.  A double hex, even.  First of all, despite putting them away carefully last time and swearing you’ll remember where they are, you can’t find them now.

You pull cupboards apart, risk life and limb climbing into the attic, dig your way through the shed contents… and still they elude you.  The second hex of the lights is that, when you do find them (in the attic where you left them and where you’ve looked ten times), they’re not working.  Everyone knows this.  It’s the law.  It’s not Christmas unless you’re lights are elusive and dead.

A familiar sight… once you find them.

But there’s another hex on the decks.  If yours is a household that observes the Christian tradition of dressing and displaying a crib, you’ll likely know what’s coming next.

If I recount a conversation I eavesdropped on last week, it’ll give you a clue.  I was browsing in a fancy goods shop in the hopes that something might inspire me on the gift-buying front.  There were smelly candles in the shape of Christmas puddings, heavily chromed angels blowing trumpets, herds of glittery reindeer, inflatable Santa boots and other assorted tat of that nature.  I was about to leave when a rather frazzled-looking older lady entered the shop and made a beeline for the counter.

The conversation went something like this:

Frazzled lady: ‘Do you do spare Baby Jesuses?’

Shop lady:     ‘For the crib, is it?  No. Nothing.  I only have a kind of a statue thing of the Blessed Virgin holding the child.’

FL:      ‘No. Not what I’m looking for at all.  My Jesus is missing.  Again.  I don’t know how many Jesuses I’ve lost at this stage.  I don’t know what happens them at all.’

SL:      ‘They’re lucky.  Some people think they’re lucky so they take them.’

FL:      ‘Bastards.’

SL:      ‘I know. Fierce annoying when you’re trying to get the crib up. We had to put a Flower Fairy in ours one year. Honest to God. But sure the children were delighted.’

FL:      ‘Do you have any of them?’

SL:      ‘Flower Fairies? No.  I think I have a box of Sylvanian Families somewhere but they’re rabbits, I think.  I don’t even have a full crib in stock.  Plenty of farm sets with sheep but that’s all I have.’

By now, I was hiding behind a display of festive aprons ho-ho-holding myself up and trying not to guffaw.  The Jesus-less lady went on her weary way, no doubt to resume the Jesus hunt in another emporium.

But it got me thinking about cribs and it would seem that Jesus theft is rife.  If you google “Baby Jesus stolen”, you’ll get over 10 million hits. Stories from all over the world tell of various crib crimes ranging from the malicious to the you-shouldn’t-laugh-but-you-can’t-help-it type.  In the UK last year, Jesus was robbed from Birmingham city centre and replaced with a rather cheerful looking garden gnome. Just this week, Jesus went missing from a shopping mall in Santa Clarita, California.  Happily, the figurine was recovered yesterday none the worse for wear.  This was the second time, though, that poor Jesus was stolen from that mall.  He disappeared in 2009 and was missing in action for eight days on that occasion.  On the Santa Clarita Valley Signal website, one of the comments under the story suggests that maybe it’s time to start microchipping Jesus.

But back to my frazzled Jesus hunter.  I could empathise with her because, over the years, our crib comprised a fairly motley crew.  My crib figures were all shapes and sizes of shepherds, kings and livestock that were plastic outcasts from various crib sets borrowed and inherited from cribs gone before.  One year, we had quite a bizarre tableau of dainty little oxen being preyed over by huge sheep.  Big, woolly, Godzilla-type mutants.

I took the pain out of the process about 15 years ago by buying a wooden crib.  It’s beautifully crafted (Walsh Craft Ltd in Puckane, Nenagh, Co Tipperary) and the little figures fit on to pegs on the base board so they’re secure and not easy to lose.  Jesus in his manger is one, integrated piece so less chance of that going astray as well.  I think it’s rather lovely, really, and I’m very fond of it.

The cutest little crib you’ll see this year. I think, though, that abbreviating Association to Ass doesn’t really work here. An apostolic ass? Is that another name for the little donkey? But ain’t it cute? I hope I win it.

And just today, I came across another totally charming nativity scene.  In a shop in Roscommon, there was just the cutest little crib you ever did see on display.  Wait for it… a knitted one!  It wasn’t for sale, though.  It’s the raffle prize in a fundraiser for the Apostolic Association (who really shouldn’t abbreviate Association to ‘Ass’).  Needless to remark, I bought tickets.  And the little woolly Baby Jesus won’t be easy for anyone to steal because Mary, with her new mother angst, is hanging on to him for dear life.  Go Mary. 

But I’m still wondering about my frazzled lady and her empty manger.  Is there a Flower Fairy understudying Baby Jesus, I wonder?  Or maybe a little Lego man?  I do hope not.

I fervently hope – but not in any proselytising way – that she found Jesus.

After the thrill is gone

The Eagles play the O2 Dublin in June 2014.  This witchy woman – a fan for 40 years – is ‘worrying ’bout this wasted time’.

The Eagles play O2 Dublin in June 2014.

Something momentous happened today, gentle reader.  I’m not saying it was a good thing, but it was certainly a momentous thing and a little sobering.  And it makes me kinda sad.  I think, you see, that I have finally accepted that I’m a grown up.  I did grown-up things today and made grown-up decisions.  I spoke words out loud that frightened me.  They came out of my mouth.  Mine.  Me.  My mouth.

It’s all to do with the Eagles – Messrs Glen Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B Schmit and Joe Walsh.  They’re coming to the O2 in June next year and, when I spotted that bit of news this morning, I got busy trying to organise tickets.  The tickets don’t go on general sale until Friday but, as you might know, O2 customers can register for ‘priority’ purchases and buy gig tickets a couple of days before they go on general release.  The priority tickets for my beloved Eagles went on sale this morning.  Excellent stuff, I thought to myself.  I’ll get busy on that and get me two tickets close enough to see their tonsils.  I was hugging myself with the excitement of it all.

Before I go any further, I should explain (if you haven’t already gathered) that I’m something of a fan.  Everyone has a soundtrack to their formative, adolescent years and the Eagles provided mine.  We go back that far.  Back as far as vinyl.  I remained loyal to them throughout adulthood and missed them when they split up.  When they rolled out the ‘Hell Freezes Over’ tour, I was giddy with excitement.  They did two dates in Dublin and I went to both. The whole family went on the first night and I went on my own on the second night.  It was an indulgence.  A ‘just for me’ occasion.  It was like getting to spend quality time with a best friend you haven’t seen for ages.  I stood on my own on that second evening and fancied they were playing just for me, their most loyal and appreciative fan.  I made a banner and waved it. (It said: ‘Joe – update your website).  I sang myself hoarse.  That was some time in the ‘90s (’97 maybe? The memory cells are creaking).

Joe Walsh. Listed at 54th in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Should be nearer the top.

They came back again some years later, this time to Lansdowne Road, if the creaky memory serves.  And, of course, I went to that too.  What I remember most about that gig, though, was that it raised the flag of awareness of time marching on.  I remember sitting in my seat and observing the crowd filing in around me.  Was there, I wondered, a bus in from a day centre or something like that?  Was the local care home having a bit of a do?  An active retirement group?  There were lots of ‘old’ people making their way to the seats around us.  The men, balding and ruddy-faced, sporting the middle-aged uniform of chinos and polo shirts; the women in their white trousers, floaty tops and comfy, national-school-teacher Eccos.  How, I wondered, did we manage to get seats in the middle of this block booking?  There wasn’t going to be much support for my air guitar solo here.  I was a bit annoyed that the crowd surrounding us were so sedate and stuffy looking.

Until I looked at myself… in my white trousers and my floaty top with my bald husband at my side.  It was as if someone kicked me and reminded me I wasn’t 17 anymore.  With the exception of the Eccos (I was in runners), I could have been looking in a mirror.  It wasn’t an old folks’ outing.  It was just people like me.  Teenagers of the ‘70s dealing – each in their own way – with the relentless march of time.  The Eagles put on a great show that night but my heart wasn’t really in it.

They’ve been back in Dublin since and, whereas I made sure I had tickets, it turned out I couldn’t go.  I passed the tickets on to a pair of grateful souls who enjoyed the gig for me and bought me T-shirts which I still have and treasure.

So you can understand my excitement this morning when I saw the news of the date.  Another chance.  And, with the priority booking, I’ll get good seats.  I logged on to the O2 site and that’s when the whole grown-up thing started to happen.

First of all, I couldn’t remember whether or not I’d registered for the whole ‘priority’ thing.  I have two O2 accounts and I fancied I had registered at least one of them but I couldn’t remember which.  I tweeted the O2 help people and they identified the account that was registered.  Grand.  But then I couldn’t find the link to the priority booking area.  I tweeted again.  They sent me the link.  Grand again.  Soon… very soon I’ll have tickets to see the old friends that I grew up with.  I’ll throw out my white trousers and wear something ridiculous on my feet.  Himself will not be in a polo shirt.  Soon.  Very soon.

Except I couldn’t make my way through the next bit.  In fairness, it wasn’t my fault.  The process involves texting a number to receive a priority booking code.  I have, as stated, two O2 accounts… but I don’t have an O2 phone account.  My accounts are for broadband.  I texted the relevant number from my Vodafone phone but got a text back saying the priority booking was only available to O2 customers.

The grown-up talk was starting to come out of my mouth at this stage.  ‘Honestly, this is most unsatisfactory.’  ‘This website is really very unfriendly.  Not at all intuitive. Counter-intuitive, truth be told.’

That sort of prissy, old lady shite.  I was revising the plan about throwing out the white trousers.  I rang O2 customer care who understood my dilemma and were polite but couldn’t help me.  They gave me the email address of the Priority Booking support team.  I emailed them.  Nothing happened.  More old lady talk: ‘Honestly, in these times of economic strife, wouldn’t you think they’d be interested in taking my money.’  And so on.

L to R: Don Henley, Glen Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy B Schmit. If I’m not dreaming it, I think Timmy is married to a girl from Derry.

Then we remembered we do actually have an O2 pay-as-you-go phone that we had to buy years ago in order to get the broadband.  Himself dug that out of its hibernation and, some minutes later, we had a priority booking code.  Soon…  really very soon… there will be brilliant (if expensive) tickets.  Don’t fret, Don, Glen, Timmy and Joe… I’m almost there.

I carefully entered the code and all other required information and clicked ‘find tickets’.  That generated an offer of two tickets costing €211 and some cents in total… in Block N.

Have you been to the O2 in Dublin?  Do you know where Block N is?  I do.  You need breathing apparatus and a telescope.  And tissues for the nosebleeds.

I declined and tried again, this time trying to nominate a specific block.  The only blocks selling were N and A.  A’s not the best either – very off centre.  More tweets.  Why can I only get tickets in N or A?  They must be sold out, they retorted.  Sold out?  SOLD OUT?  They haven’t even gone on sale!  Is that not the whole point of ‘priority’ booking?  Then they said that only a ‘specific area’ was available for ‘priority’ booking.  Specifically the nosebleed and crick-in-the-neck sections, it seems.

So I didn’t do it.  The grown-up me emerged.  The prissy, adult, sensible, owner-of-white-trousers me refused to click further.  A trip to the O2 for us as a couple involves time off work, the cost of travel, parking, food and drink, maybe staying over and so on.  With the tickets coming in at €211 odd, we’d have little change out of €400. To sit and look at a pixelated screen or have a sore neck for the rest of the week?

Nah.  Couldn’t do it.  When I thought about how hard I work to clear €400, I want a bang for my buck.  I want a decent seat at least.  God knows, such has been my money-where-my-mouth-is loyalty over the years, I’d almost expect a Triple-A pass and a private audience.

‘Well?,’ himself enquired from across the room.  ‘Have you booked?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘And I’m not going to. Dreadful seats and over-priced for what they are. And I’m so annoyed about the convoluted processes and the lack of support for someone in my situation with two O2 accounts but no text-ability. Honestly, it’s just not good enough.  I feel so cheated about all this.  So cheated. My whole day is put to loss.’

That, gentle reader, came out of my mouth.  Mine.  My mouth.  That conservative, sensible, grumpy, old-lady rant was uttered by me.  The ‘70s me who sat alone on a beach in the middle of the night listening to Desperado and the sound of the ocean is gone, it seems.

I might go back on the site in a few days and see what’s available.  I might.  But my excitement and my joy are diminished.  As the lads in question warbled way back…

‘Time passes and you must move on,
Half the distance takes you twice as long
So you keep on singing for the sake of the song
After the thrill is gone.’

Never, ever buy white trousers.

White trousers. The uniform of the middle-aged. When you put them on, sensible things start coming out of your mouth. Approach with caution.