A new dawn, a new day, a new shed.

Things have been motorin along here in Thame. The usual old hum drum of domestic servitude coupled with finalising a thesis and attempting to study for an exam has increased my points in the ‘don’t talk to me about tiredness’ debate. My brain could be heard eatin itself at times. It has been busy. Before we knew it the girls’ First Holy Communion was upon us, which we celebrated back at home.  The Small Man’s passport arrived only the morning before we flew back to Ireland. Not funny. I think Mr Postman questioned my mental health after the reaction he got when I signed for it.   The Communion was a themed event, a ‘Bring-a-Mug-Bring-a-Chair-Bring-a-Dessert’ gathering. We had a blast, organised chaos in our empty home.  Our two girls and their classmates, gorgeous in their innocence. Families and friends all catching up. The weekend ended with my final degree exam. Suffices to say there was cramming. I could have gone the Red Bull route and pulled an all-nighter but fearing heart palpitations and possible cardiac arrest from that stuff, tay, Lucozade and Polomints saw me through. Content with the break and knowing that after five years it is finished I feel a great sense of achievement. It is akin to running a marathon. At the start you can never envisage the end but  one foot in front of the other, you get there. I kinda miss it already. Sadistic, I know. I will have to find a replacement shed/allotment/garage. It was my space, my project, a reason to hide away and foster thoughts. Throughout the year, amidst the turmoil of the move and the absorption of the kids emotional highs and lows, it was a welcome constant and acknowledgement that I was apparently able to do something right. Allegedly. 

Blue and Yellow Makes Green

I must be the only thirtysomething (hangin in there) who’d never done it. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never tried it, you’ll love it’ veterans said. ‘Don’t do it at the weekend and you need to know exactly what you want’ was the advice. Well, that’s not me for a start. Not good with choices, a biteen indecisive at times. And it isn’t off the ground The Youngest licked it, turning into her ‘aul one. She has trouble deciding which cereal to have (just a choice of two, it’s not a hotel buffet breakfast after all). Bless her. As for clothes, just as well she has a uniform, that’s all I’ll say. Thus, I have avoided it like the plague, for many reasons. ‘You will come away feeling inadequate’ one of my inner voices said. ‘You will have no more excuses’ the other voice said and that one has a tofty condescending Oxfordshire cadence to it. But alas there was stuff to get and an executive decision was made, we’d give it a go. SatNav set to the great Blue and Yellow Mecca of Interiors...IKEA.

Off to Milton Keynes with the pair of us of a Monday morning. Himself blessing himself walkin through the doors. The anxiety building already. I don’t like big shops. I get discombobulated. Dundrum Shopping Centre made me dizzy the one and only time I was in it. As for Macys, it just vexed me and I came away hangin for a pint. If I had the reddies I’d get meself one of those personal shoppers. Now with IKEA it’s angst at a whole new level. Those Blue and Yellow people mess with your heads. That’s another motive for not setting foot in the place,  there is the chance that forever after one might feel a slight pressure to have all things in their place.  Anyone who has had the IKEA experience, and that was everyone except me, will know what I mean. Yip, those little rooms they have set up all nice and organised. They should just put up a few banners, in really big writing shouting ‘come on then, get a grip, you could do this to!’.

You may have seen it in some real life houses where people allegedly live. I certainly have over here. Everything aesthetically pleasing, atmospherically lit, cushioned, countered, shelved, shuttered and drawered to within an inch of itelf.  And not a sign of a faux leather couch in site. But what you don’t see in these all very ideal IKEA rooms are the piles that gather on the end of the kitchen counter, hall table or wherever.  Like a small tip for random things. The arbitrary items that escape from the handbag or the schoolbag or wherever...leaflets, bills, hair clips, lip gloss, a glove, glasses case, loose change, half eaten apple, packet polo mints, unsharpened pencils, more bills, used bus and cinema tickets. So the Blue and Yellow people who design these ergonomically exquisite spaces really think of everything. Ergo, no excuse for clutter, for bits and bobs. I am no longer an IKEA virgin. Regrettably, my predictions were correct, my inner voices spot on. It will take more than wicker baskets and a few shelves to organise my life. Now where did I put that half eaten apple? 

Boxed in

In our wisdom (not!) last August we packed up everything from our home in Galway to make this move.  I mean everything. There were even logs in the log basket. Much remained unopened, predominantly books. Boxes and boxes of them and at that I have given scores of them to local charity shops. But there are many, however, I cannot part with. Today, I again found myself with tape and boxes, shifting and lifting and moving. The removal truck now makes its way from Oxfordshire to Galway with our surplus to requirements. No room at the inn. The double bed where the children were conceived is gone back too. The Small Man relegated to a single bed.  I should have got them to take the Christmas tree as well (still in the back garden). I can now make my way to the tumble dryer in the garage without the bicycle pedals cutting the shins of me each time. The lady across the road from us lives in her garage. Always, her derriere high in the air, head in the freezer. I saw her face for the first time today when she complained about the removal truck. Perhaps she might fall in and keep her husband company.  No one really gives you any advice before you move. Hindsight is mighty. Makes you wonder about what we use, what we need, how much accoutrements we accumulate. I now think my objective in life should be to get rid of all my possessions over the coming years, buy a van and let the rest of the world go by (oh and invest in a Kindle). Life would be much simpler. No? I should adapt the minimalist Ryanair ‘Just the shirt on your back’ attitude, less stressful. Flying home last Thursday morning the nice lady checked my bag with her big cereal box. She grimaced, I grinned. She might have taken my shirt.   

I’ve come to love that Dublin Galway motorway but in one direction only. Like a child on Christmas Eve I bombed it home, bursting to see them all. ‘Are ya settled now?’ , this question I cannot answer. We used to live in Dublin and Co Kildare, for a good few years, before all the by-passes. Each Sunday evening our heads would hang low, heading back East in the aul Ford Fiesta. As I walked the prom Sunday morning, that gloomy feeling was back again but more intense. I used to relish approaching the ‘Departures’ sign in the airport. Not anymore. And I know I’m just across the water. I can come over and back with relative ease. Still, it’s a Galway thing. There are many who came to Galway to visit or work, and never left, including the man I married.  Chatting to a nice lady in college on Friday I discovered she lives in Dubai. I asked her, what brought her to Dubai, ‘Bloody husband’ she said. She asked me what brought me to England, ‘Bloody husband’ I retorted. Enough said.

Psychometricity

Now I don’t know about you but I’m sick to the back teeth of all of them blatherin on, on the radio, and the internet about the state of the nation and lack of leadership. We are, allegedly, a democracy although last week the goings on were far from democratic. For years we’ve been electing leaders but in recent times the process aint workin. Hypothetically of course, might it be possible to fit the right person to the right job and in this case the most important and difficult job in the country? Think outside the box (I know, I hate that aul jargon too!). Why not advertise for the job? ‘Taosieach wanted. Must have copious amounts of common sense. Should possess leadership qualities with a real commitment to learning and personal growth. Must be able to do sums. Preferably be creative. Experience not essential. On the job training will be provided. Salary negotiable for suitable candidate.’

The use of personality measures and ability tests for employee selection has expanded since the early 1990s. It is intimated by many psychologists that a person’s behaviour may be predicated with the benefit of a detailed account of that person’s psychological traits. Now, before the argument begins, for all those academics who say it can, there are as many who believe it cannot. Nonetheless, Costa and McCrae have made a nice packet out of their Big Five model, narrowing us all down to five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism). Whether you believe it or not, it’s out there, in the ether. So if www.FindYourPrinceCharmingWhoLeavesTheToiletSeatDown.com uses psychometric personality testing to do a Lisdoonvarna on would-be couples, why don’t we, as a country, advertise for candidates and whittle them down using similar measures? However, leadership is hard to define. We need a worthy leader, with the capacity to lead, direct and inspire in a manner that has merit, integrity and esteem. Do all that but with a vision. And be sound as a pound as well. So, is there a relationship between leadership and personality and ability? It is intimated there is, with much emphasis on extraversion, conscientiousness, openness and intelligence. The link between empathy and leadership is less investigated than other traits but should not be discounted. Surely an empathic leader is what we’ve been missing, someone who can listen to what others say and have the ability to read accurately the reactions of others. This leadership business is a complicated matter and even if the potential candidates had the smarts to do the job could they learn the woolly empathic stuff?  Now ability (intelligence) is another kettle a’ fish. Ability tests, I would agree, are indeed contentious. Nevertheless, the right person would need the ability to assimilate and interpret large volumes of complex information. On the other hand these intelligence tests, it could be said, do not allow for divergent thinking and what we really need now is a creative open leader, surely.   So why don’t we give it a try. What have we got to lose. We’re crocked anyway. ‘Wanted. Worthy leader.’ You’d never know who might surface. 

Sound Out

I’m prone to living in my own head. Not good sometimes. This week I took a trip down literary memory lane. The catalyst was Soundings and those of an age will remember the Leaving Cert poetry book with the squiggly green cover. It’s back on the shelves by popular demand, as the fella says. A gift for Christmas, it livens the elegiac connections in the grey matter. My school copy is buried in the depths of the attic at home no doubt, covered in notes, doodles and love hearts. I also gave a copy to a dearest friend who celebrated a birthday last week. I wished I was there to reminisce with her as we both loved that textbook. Much of our enthusiasm is down to some great teachers who taught in the old alma mater,  The Mercy, Newtownsmyth. We all had our favourites, some of the stanzas, couldn’t make head nor tail of them. It had all the hits. The inspirational odes of the Romantic Brat Pack;  Shelley,  Keats and Wordsworth.  There was Kavanagh’s insightful ‘dance in Billy Brennan’s barn’.  I was blown away by Clarke and his lyrical ‘The Planter’s Daughter’  as ‘men who had seen her/Drank deep and were silent’. And, of course, the emblematic  ‘September 1913’ where Yeats’ poetic voice rings true today as the bankers and politicians who ruined the country ‘fumble in the greasy till/And add the halfpence to the pence’. 

The Small Man in our house likes to look at our copies of US, a book of photos taken in Ireland by ordinary people doing all sorts of things, on the same day in October 2005 and again in 2010. He can be quite contemplative, gets that from his aul lad. He says it reminds him of home.  They’re great books, uniquely Irish. But this thing of Irish identity is hard to pin down. I tell him he will always be Irish no matter where he lives. Moving away inevitably leads to questions of identity as you try to assimilate into your new surroundings, wherever that may be. But all the while you try to retain your uniqueness, stay the person you are, especially when you have children.  In Soundings, T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ got me thinking. His symbolic masterpiece deals with the self-doubts of modern man, ya know, urbanisation, isolation, lack of spirituality, social crisis, all those light-hearted knitting-of-the- brow themes.  So, for me, ‘There will be time, there will be time/To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet’  reminds me of those who have left home and landed in pastures new, cities strange with fresh faces, by choice or without choice. Don’t change too much. It’s hard work meeting new people. Sure, when in Rome and all of that but be true to yourself. Don’t misplace your essence. And pick up a copy of Soundings..not to analyse, compare or contrast. Just immerse yourself in some of the greats.  Plug in, tune out. 

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. 

Snow you see it...snow you don’t!

What snow? There it was...gone. All that carnage and mayhem. Well...did ya get goin? Did ya get the water goin? Did ya get the heating goin? Did ya get the car goin? Did ya get a plumber? How did ya get the Christmas!! It came and it went, a strange one this year. Pressure was on this end to get out before the band of snow came our way and locked us in. So, we made an executive decision, wet washing in the machine, breakfast still on the counter, the place like a tip, rang the nice man in StenaLine and got an early ferry. All the while we watched the traffic reports and heard of trucks jack-knifing, 20 mile tailbacks on the motorways but when you drive it, against relentless snow with kids in the back, no windscreen water, zero visibility, toes frozen...in a word...stress.  I was brickin it. None of us wanted to spend Christmas here so we had our hearts set on getting that ferry. Determination or irresponsibility, call it what you will. I had visions of us as characters from a Cormac McCarthy novel, trailing the highways and byways, warding off other vagrants, car abandoned, belongings and children on our backs. There was no ‘are we there yet’ from the Three. ‘Will we get home to Ireland’ was more like it. I was never as glad to get out of the car in Holyhead. The ferry crossing a dream. From Dublin to Tipp we drove in the wee small hours on roads that can only be described as treacherous. Door to door, Thame to Clonmel, 17 hours. I think we were lucky compared to some poor divils. We could have been stuck in Armageddon in Heathrow or Dublin. Nanna and Grandad were waiting up with tea and sandwiches. Sure, what else would ya be doin of a Tuesday morning, 5am! The kids are seasoned travellers, used to being dragged around the place but that was tough going. They slept like babies. Christmas morning was great, Santa came and Nanna got drunk on ½ glass champagne at 8am in the morning. Must have been the bubbles.

Stephen’s Day packed up the wagon and headed Wesht. The big thaw was on. Wow! Everything green again. Glad to see the back of snow.  No water in the folks house in Galway but hooked up hose with neighbour and filled the tank. Meanwhile, trasna an uisce mór in New York, the Galway Nanna and Grandad were stranded, again, in...more snow.  Delayed on the way out in Dublin, delayed on the way back in NY. I didn’t envy them. We saw them for about 2 hours before we headed back. But, we’ll be back before they know it. We packed, again, and unpacked, again this end. On arrival here we gingerly turned the key, as we had not turned off the mains on departure, so eager to get going. I had visions of all our bits n bobs meeting us at the end of the road in a flood. But touching wood all was well. Nothing was afloat and no sign of leakage.

 I have learned many things this Christmas; freezing temperature of kerosene v diesel (we had green jelly in the tank), much about plumbing, how to drive in snow, the futility of rear wheeled drive in snow,  how we take water for granted, the warmth and joy of an open fire, waste of time makin pastry and mashed potatoes cause they’re never as good as His mother’s and most importantly we think we have control of things, but really we don’t...oh and the importance of thermal vests. So here’s to 2011. I was never a wan for resolutions, not starting now either.