The Roman Cailíní

It’s all excitement this week. End of first term and it’s Y4’s turn for assembly. As they are learning about all things Roman, the women in our house have to go donned as Roman soldiers. So, no pressure, I had to make a costume. This is a challenge. I am not creative. I can’t do fancy fairy cakes or make Christmas decorations. Our house, growing up, didn’t have a plethora of pipe cleaners, coloured crepe paper and glitter. The inside of a toilet roll or cornflake box at a stretch, maybe. Who, in all fairness, ever had pipe-cleaners at the ready? None of the houses on our row, that’s for sure. More often than not we couldn’t even find a scissors, don’t mind paper glue.  The most I can stretch to at birthday parties are RiceCrispie buns and even at that the crispie to chocolate ratio is like a dodgy concrete mix, more stones than cement. But I have to say, Mary-Make-n-do-Fitzgerald would be propa proud of my endeavours to make a Roman soldier costume from one of the many cardboard boxes stacked in the garage. I didn’t even need a grown up to help me. There isn’t a shred of tinfoil or string left in the kitchen after my capers. The McCarthy crest was sourced, complete with Latin motto (had to get down with the local lingo of them Roman boys) and ensconced on their armour.  Hence my Roman Cailíní were fortis, ferox et celer as they marched around the school hall with their legion, prepared for battle. Just as well I went to some effort as many others had pulled out all the stops.

After assembly we are like coiled springs. A mix of anticipation and agitation. It’s tangible. Our first trip home to the auld sod is imminent. ‘Are we going on the blue plane or the green plane to Ireland’ asks the Middle one. It’s always the blue plane which necessitates packing belongings for a family of 5 for a week into A4 sized envelopes. I hate tha! It’s the strangest feeling.  I should be excited but the exhilaration of going home is tainted with knowing we have to come back. There will be more goodbyes. We are returning as visitors to our homes. I question whether I have any emotional fuel left in the tank. Nonetheless I cannot wait to see everyone.  The kids will meet their Irish school friends and exchange tales of who is playing with who and their favourites on XFactor.  I look forward to walking down Quay Street, maybe go for a pint in Naughtons. You don’t hear ‘how’s things!’ or ‘how ya gittin on!’ in Thame. It will be nice to tune into the Galway accent and top up the kids Irish twang as the English one creeps in.  I miss the sea so off to the Prom and after kicking the wall I may be found at the top of the tower in Blackrock filling my lungs with Atlantic air. I might even sleep in the shelter for the night. ‘Well...are ye settled yet’ will be difficult to answer. It’s early days. An Irish lady I have got to know ovah, has been living here 20 years. Still finds it hard coming back following trips home to Ireland. That’s comforting.  The Youngest wonders about the smell of people’s homes and thinks that the house in Galway will have lost our smell. She’s right, each home has its own aroma. She hopes her clothes come back from Clonmel and Galway with a smell of the Nanas’ houses. I’ve no doubt they will. 

Sums it all up

My head was all a spin last week with numbers, NAMA numbers, all 50 billion of them. Don’t get me started. I don’t have the energy for a rant. There is no leadership. There is no accountability. There is no empathy. How could there be, from politicians living in a bubble. Hell will freeze over before any of them will raise their hand and say ‘sorry, we got it all wrong’. Told ya not to get me started. I’m in a tizzy this week with more numbers. My head feels like a snow globe, when I lie down all the digits float into the space surrounding my would be brain. It’s numeracy here, not maths, not even sums as it was in my day. It was easy then, plus, minus, equals, divide by, carry one over and off ya go. Here, in primary school, they do things differently and all I’m hearing between sobs and frustrated pulling of hair is ‘that’s not the way Miss used to do it in Ireland’. Now The Middle has decided she doesn’t like sums anymore even though she’s a dinger at them. She sets herself high standards. I know it will click. I will have to dig deep for the patience and tenacity required. The mathematical language is dissimilar. There’s talk of chunking and arrays and woe betide ya if you mention ‘carry over’. We are not to teach our children maths the way we were taught, teacher told us at a ‘Multiplication for Mums and Dads’ evening. Sure what else would you be doing of a Tuesday night. The response in our day, at the kitchen table doing homework, (while the dreaded stew with the sneaky parsnips boiled on the range) to a cry for assistance with maths was ‘I don’t know anything about equations, ask your brother’. And the rows continue over the lack of decent pencils and no toppers.

So there’s those maths. Then, there are my own stats. I have to master a fancy Excel package, all by my own self, for a research project. Here’s where Himself comes in.  I have him driven demented. Chi-squares, Spearman’s rho correlations do not float my boat; I got on fine without them up until now, thank you very much. Discombobulated is the only way to describe my demeanour at this present moment. The trajectory for the book-window-outside wheelie bin has already been worked out and I didn’t need any maths for that. It will just take maximum force and velocity.

Regardless of all things numerical the kids have found their groove in school and out, with the calendar full of social engagements and activities. The bell rings regularly for them to come out and play and now the problem is trying to get homework done before they go out. I’m not complaining. Some of the mums are trying their damdest to coerce me to join the PTA. One of them informs me of the executive committee’s (remember this is a primary school) modus operandi  ‘we work ratha well togetha...as deputy cha and cha, she’s strotegy and I’m spin..do join us..we need oll the help we con get’. Whatever you’re having yourself, but I’m washing my hair for any of those meetings. I don’t mind making the tea, stacking chairs, cleaning up or supervising children but not the PTA. Fireworks display, book fairs, cake sales, movie nights in local theatre are all marked in the calendar. The school’s hard working fundraising committee know how to skilfully extract all that hard earned City cash from the Land Rover glasses-on-the-forehead crew with a fab black tie do apparently organised for early next year. I’ll have to dust off the gúna déas nua and heels for that one. Nathin like a bit of turkey and ham followed by copious pints, heels off and ‘hands..touchin hands...Sweet Caroline..oh oh oh’, a good old social. I’ll be looking forward to that one. 

No flowers please. RIP 'G' plates

As the weeks roll into each other there are tears and laughter, joy and sorrow, trasna an uisce. This weekend was tinged with sadness. We had a loss, a removal. No flowers please. A sad day for me, laced with nostalgia. Yes...the time had come to remove the ‘G’ reg from my jammer. I had moral support from Nana and Grandad who were over to visit. The house was filled with anticipation and excitement to see them. Grandad Jeep always likes jobs, so drill in hand, he carried out the dirty deed. I wanted to beat my chest and don a black mantilla for the rest of the day. Had I a mantelpiece it might take centre stage, akin to an urn. This was the only car I’ve had with G plates and funnily enough it meant alot, like a badge. I will truly be coming back as a visitor with my new yellow reg. ‘That’s the start of it now’ were the responses from the West. With the plethora of hoops one has to jump through to register an import over here, emotions of sadness were coupled with a sense of achievement.  There are forms for everything in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate. There were C of C’s, MOTs and off to the man behind the hatch at the DVLA. I think they should change the agency name to the DDTDWAFC (Don’t Darken This Door With A Foreign Car). The Department for Stupid Questions came up with these on a Monday morning after a feed of porter I would think, ‘Why did you live in Ireland?’, well it just so happens I was born there and I’m Irish, that’s why. Another, ‘How long will you be living in the UK?’, well, you tell me sunshine, if you have a crystal ball there on your desk give us a gander will ya? But nonetheless, another bureaucratic box ticked.

Thus the Galway plates take pride of place in The Small Man’s bedroom. The times they are a changin. The long and whining road of adolescence approaches, far too quickly. Spots, rancid feet and the wearing of an attitude, are coming down the tracks. He had his first disco recently. Trinny and Tranny weren’t needed to decide on his attire for the night, the only criteria I gave him was no soccer jersey or tracksuit bottoms. So, all sharp in shirt and jeans he looked tall and handsome with the hair all Justin Beberish, waxed within an inch of itself. If his Grandad saw him there’d be talk of ‘cutting gibbles hangin down in your eyes’. Like the ballroom of romance all the boys were on one side, all the girls on the other. We arrived to collect him early and had a peak at them dancing. I wanted to get stuck in but that wouldn’t have been good for his street cred. Well able to throw shapes, he thankfully hasn’t inherited his father’s non-dancing gene. Red faces and the sweat pourin off them the boys and girls spill out. ‘I’m going clubbin when I’m older’ he said. The thoughts of it put the fear of God in me. ‘Did they play Bruce?’ ‘No mum’ ‘Any U2’ ‘Ah, no mum, they’re pants’ and the friend said ‘they only played Pendulum once’. Who are they when they’re at home? I am now officially old. The Small Man goes into spasms if he hears Christy Moore or Radiohead. Shockin. I’ll learn him yet. ‘So, did you say thanks to the birthday girl for a fun night?’, I enquire ‘God no, that’d mean I had to talk to her’ was the response. The times they will change I fear, but not for a good while, I hope.