January...hate tha!

If Carlsberg were doing most depressing months, it would probably be January. For many reasons, some of us even have a long list. The credit card doesn’t know what hit it, hot to the touch, the liver is in shock and as for the jeans...must be the tumble dryer surely, Himsel must have changed the setting. Back to those dreaded early mornings that feel like the middle of the night and as for homework, it should be banned. In all honesty though, I must admit, I kinda like getting back to some routine. It’s good for the aul noggin, allegedly. However, this time of year comes with one of those niggling annoying tasks that you just don’t want to think about. There it sits all forlorn in the tree stand, Billy-No-Mates on the patio, all by it ownself, looking in at me, aware of its redundancy. Yes..the Christmas tree. Ya see, in Galway it was lobbed with loving care behind the back of the shed down the end of the long garden. Before we left I counted 5 of them all brown and on their last legs. Just lying there, not bothering anyone, not an eyesore, between the shed and the bushes, just slowly decaying to mulch. On mature recollection there were 2 others which Galway Grandad kindly chopped up.  Each tree marked another year.  Here, in this new space where we are endeavouring to adapt there will be no pegging of said tree behind the shed. There is no behind the shed. We don’t have the approved brown bin to dispose of garden waste either. We don’t have a fireplace in which to burn it. Maybe we’ll stew it and eat it? But for the moment it shall stay there, until it is prioritised up the ‘to do’ list. It may be a while. Might even do for next year.

Meanwhile, down at the school the playground meeting area is alive with chat of how, where and who the holidays were spent with. Tarantino Woman told me, in Thame talk, she spent it with ‘her brotha-in-law’ as her ‘motha-in-law has downsizzzzed and isn’t hosting anymo’. Translated to Galway spake..the mother-in-law sold the big house and ya couldn’t swing a cat in her new gaff.  Indeed the vernacular here is peculiar to my ears betimes. Thankfully, they don’t all sprechen sie Posh. Nonetheless a trip around the local Waitrose does require one to reset one’s ears to genteel mode. The nice staff at the checkout always apologise for keeping you waiting, even when you haven’t been waiting and were first in the queue. Cracks me up each time. When asked ‘will you be needing any bogs today, madam’ they just look at me in a confused fashion when the answer is ‘no, you’re sound, thanks’.  I can hear the different intonations creeping into the kids’ voices. After a week at home they had lost it and the Galway accent was strong, but it’s skulking back in there again now that they are back at school and with their new friends. What can one do? Time to increase the frequency of trips to the West, I reckon.