Proud parenting moments, motorway hysteria and the Poop of Death
And so it came to pass that we were packed and ready for the off. God alone knows why, but we’d decided that I’d take the car on the ferry, accompanied by one of de brevren, while Hubby flew over with the other one. This was a bit complicated, but we’d already booked our flights and then realised we’d need to take a car. Dammit. A quick check of the ferry booking showed that in a spectacularly proud parenting moment I had forgotten to book my allocated child (number 2) onto the ferry and a panicked phone call to Irish Ferries ensued (whilst holding on the line, I imagined him standing on the quayside with his suitcase, sobbing gently as the ferry slipped out of the harbour).
Still, that sorted, we faced our next hurdle: packing a furious Ninja Cat of Death into the cat box. Not as easy as you’d think: crowding round the cat box, we’d get half of her in, then the other half would bite someone and they’d let go of their bit of the door and she’d escape, then everyone would shout at the person, and they’d have to go and get her from under the sofa again. Half an hour later, bleeding and battered but otherwise unscathed, we set off, trying to ignore the yowling and hissing emanating from the box on the back seat.
The child, somewhat hidden behind several bags of absolute necessities (I won the argument about not trusting the shippers to take Larry the Lobster – he’s made of papier mache and is a bit delicate, okay?) was allocated the position of Chief Navigator and did a valiant job of shouting directions over the clank of baking tins (what? they’re precious). We were doing really well until the M40:
Chief Navigator: ‘Urgh, what’s that smell’
Me: ‘Oh, we’re probably just going past a farm or something’
Chief Navigator: ‘Did you take the turn for the M40? Jesus, WHAT is that smell?’
Me: ‘I think the Cat of Death has done a Poop of Death’
We pulled over. NCOD had made her displeasure at being cooped in a cat box squished between two duvets perfectly clear. Gagging and dry heaving, we weighed up our options:
Put up with the smell for another five hours
Risk going in with the seething, spitting emanator of foul smells to clear it up
Leave her on the side of the road and leg it (joke, joke – no, really…)
Sadly, we knew what we had to do. The Chief Navigator held the box still and I got the short straw. Luckily, when I’d moaned about taking the devil cat on the ferry, English Grandma had come up with a brilliant plan: disposable Pampers changing mats, black bags, heavy duty rubber gloves and Dettox wipes. It was pretty easy for the Chief Navigator to fend off the snarling beast with his free hand while I donned the Marigolds and used a cunning ‘pull and roll’ manoevre on the changing mat and its festering cargo.
On the road once more then, the windows wound open to clear the stench and an even more livid NCOD hissing foul and inventive death threats from the back seat, we did really well bar a short moment of hysteria somewhere past the M6 Toll (well, it’s confusing):
Chief Navigator: ‘…get to junction 15 of the M56, signposted Runcorn’
Me: ‘Yup, I’m here, taking the turning now’
Chief Navigator: ‘…keep right’
Me: ‘Bollocks. I took the turn! I took the frigging turn! We’re going to Runcorn! We’re going to miss the ferry and get lost and go round in circles and be stranded somewhere near Runcorn for ever. I’ve never even heard of Runcorn! We’ll starve to death and the police will find our emaciated remains years from now… or the NCOD might escape and live off our flesh, turning into some sort of zombie cat of death…’
Chief Navigator: *sigh* ‘Take the next exit, go round the roundabout, and go back the way you came’
Me: ‘Oh right. We could do that too…’
Arriving at Holyhead just as they were loading the ferry (phew), we grabbed some nice comfy seats and were soon nodding off, coming to just as the twinkly lights of Dublin appeared in the distance. Returning to our vehicle, we checked the cat box and found a pair of glittering black eyes shooting burning death glares in every direction. The Cat of Death had survived the journey.
The Chief Navigator rolled down the window, ignoring the yeowling, which had resumed at even greater volume. ‘Ah, Ireland. It even smells lovely.
Me: ‘You’re right – fresh gorgeous, Irish air
The Chief Navigator: Much better than the Poop of Death at any rate
Me: ‘Amen to that’.
Home.
I never made a secret of the fact that I didn’t want to leave Ireland. In fact, when I wrote this, I was probably the lowest I’d ever been.
So we’ve made a decision. Probably the biggest decision we’ll ever make. And we’re going home. Back to Ireland. Back to lovely English Towers. Back to the Boat Road. Back to fields of cows, home made bramble jelly and finding sheep on your front lawn in the morning.
Back to find out how D-next-door and his fiancée (also D-next-door – that’s going to be confusing) are doing (the brevren can’t wait to see little C and gorgeous Lou). They’ve got a dog called Riley – can’t wait to meet him too). Back to see if Mrs Lovely’s got the kettle on (she has), and chat with Poppy’s Mum. Back to see Olly for a drink at the Pundertakers.
Back to school buses and places shutting for lunch and driving miles to the supermarket, and no Waitrose. Do I care? Not one bit.
I can’t wait. The boys are looking forward to seeing their friends – sad to leave the new ones they’ve made, but we made the decision as a family, and we feel it’s the right one.
I was saying goodbye to my lovely friend Foxy this morning. I said that I wished we’d never left – that it messed the kids about and in my heart, I knew that it was the wrong decision. ’Well maybe it was worth it, just for you to realise exactly where you belong’, she said. And she’s right.
It’s where the heart is. Where you’re happiest.
Home.
The Fear
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m never going to be a candidate for Parent of the Year. I swear too much, I’m too messy (thereby inviting sarcastic responses to ‘tidy your room’), I do not adhere to proper mealtimes and the ironing pile often reaches the (cobwebby) ceiling. I always thought I did okay, though, in a kind of ‘out there’ parenting way.
But moving back here to surburbia, after four years in rural Ireland? It’s scary. I’m out of my depth – out of my parenting league.
In Cavan, although there was the odd ‘tearaway’, kids were on the whole terrified of their mams. They behaved. There was discipline and order. I liked it. An Irish Mammy takes no shit. Her kids do their homework, show respect, and get to bed early on a school night. Okay so health and safety is a little wobbly, but whether or not the kids wear crash helmets, they are out with their mates on their bikes, playing footie and GAA and getting home before it gets dark OR ELSE. In Ireland, exams are everything. School is important, and everyone knows where they stand.
Here, though? Parenting is so much more liberal. Oh I’m not talking those irritating ‘luvvie mummies’ at the playground who go ‘oh my little poppet is just expressing herself’ as the devil-child pulls your kid’s pigtails, I’m talking SCARY liberal.
Take, for example, a recent party. It’s the talk of the school. Some parents allowed their 15 year old daughter to have a house party. I don’t know them, so I don’t know where they were, but seeing as their little petal posted all the photos on Facebook, I’m pretty sure she had their blessing. It was a beautiful house, too.
There was drinking. I’m talking serious drinking. There was smoking. And then (a natural progression), there was vomiting. There were all sorts of other shenanigans as well. One child (and yes, he’s a child – he’s 15 years old) got so drunk, he passed out and his ‘friends’ shaved his eyebrows and half his head (only stopping because the electric shaver ran out of power).
Drive around this little patch of suburbia on any given Friday or Saturday night and it’s the same old story: lads (with their jeans around their arses in that strange teenage manner) clustered around someone’s house holding beers; girls, barely 15, clutching glasses of wine, eyes unfocused, plastered in make-up, cleavages hoiked, knickers barely covered in tiny skirts…
Reckon it’s innocent fun? Am I being a fuddy duddy? Want me to get a life? Tell that to the parents of Paddy Higgins, who fell to his death after a drinking binge with his mates, or the mum and dad of the 16 year old girl who collapsed and died at a house party in nearby Cookham back in October after drinking nearly five times the legal limit.
So where do I stand on all this? Well firstly I should say that I was the teenager from hell. I’ve been there, done that and worn the t-shirt. So therefore, nothing gets past me. This stuff, though? It makes my teenage years look like an episode of Milly Molly Mandy.
I think I’m just about as far removed from most of these other parents as possible. House parties are out (either here or anywhere else – the only vomiting ever done in this house will be if someone’s ill, thank you very much) and so is going out boozing. I want my sons to have a sensible attitude to drink, so their first beers will be with us, as a family during dinner or maybe the odd one on holiday. There will be no alcohol abuse, no vomiting, no smoking and certainly nothing else.
Our style of parenting, believe it or not, makes kids like my son the odd one out, but I don’t care. I might not be parent of the year, but my son knows damned well what our values are and will respect our boundaries or face the consequences.
I think in those four years, I’ve caught a little bit of Irish Mammy. And do you know what? I’m dead proud. And I’d go back tomorrow.
Bloom in the Park
I don’t think there’s really a day goes past without me missing Ireland. I miss our lovely house and our wonderful garden, our friends, our neighbours, even our chickens.
I also miss being able to go to Dublin, the wondrous, fabulous city that it is, for museums, restaurants, or just a quiet bimble along the banks of the Liffey.
I’m especially gutted at the moment, because I’m going to miss Bloom in the Park. For five days across the June Bank holiday, the 70 acres of Dublin’s Phoenix Park is transformed into a colourful wonderland. Bloom in the Park is like the Irish equivalent of the Chelsea Flower Show, but it’s not just about flowers – there’s tons for foodies too.
The Food Market is one of the biggest attractions at Bloom and this year’s Food Market will be Bloom’s biggest yet. With over 40 artisan food producers, the market highlights the very best that small artisan producers from around Ireland have to offer. The market has everything from handmade chocolates and baked goods to farmhouse cheeses and the finest Irish honey.
Even better (or worse for me), each day, my lovely mates at the Irish Food Board, Bord Bia will be hosting four live demonstrations on the Bloom cookery stage. Featured chefs will include award winning chef Neven Maguire, the amazing Darina Allen from Ballymaloe Cookery School and fellow foodie blogger and author of Good Mood Food, the gorgeous Donal Skehan (I’m sobbing now)…
To add insult to injury for those of us not able to make it, there’ll be fab demonstrations of ‘forgotten’ food skills from Ireland’s past: cheese making, butter churning, apple pressing and fish smoking.
If you’re based in Ireland or lucky enough to be visiting over the bank holiday, tickets are on sale on www.bloominthepark.com or by calling 0818 300 260. No booking fee applies and kids go free.
Bloom 2010 will run from Thursday June 3rd – Monday June 7th. It’s just not bloody fair.
To Ireland, with love.
So that’s it, then. Packing has commenced, the chickens have been collected in a trailer and carted off to their new home, and in a very short time we shall land back on terra firma in the good old Kingdom of United.
I have mixed feelings, frankly. When we first moved to Dublin I was miserable. I missed my friends, my family, the familiarity of having lived in a place your whole life; bumping into people you know in Tesco (frankly, being able to even go to Tesco without an hour’s round trip). It was rotten. The children hated their new school (#1 was the only native English speaker in his class), everything was alien, everything shut for lunch, or on a Monday, or on a Wednesday or had to be requested in writing, and I lasted about 6 weeks before I fled home, leaving poor Hubby blinking in a bewildered fashion in a big empty Irish house.
Still, we made it back. And with a new school for the boys, a new dog (the wonderful and much missed Becks), a new friend in Jenny and a new blog to take up my time (EnglishMuminIreland.blogs.ie – where it all began), I started to settle in. The Irish are a wonderful breed: open, friendly, always up for a laugh, never too busy to help… With Hubby’s new job we found ourselves here in Cavan and from the moment we walked over the threshold of English Towers, we felt at home. With the lovely C next door already terminally ill when we arrived, a sad by-product of being able to help in small ways like minding children or fetching medicine from the chemist was that we (selfishly) felt needed and wanted very quickly. We made friends with The Lovelies, the Galway Cs and Poppy’s Mum and her family (if you’re new here, check out ‘All about me’ at the top of the screen for more info), all via D, who was unceasingly generous with both his time and his friends, and have felt happily and contendedly as though we were home for the past two years. D now has a new, lovely lady in his life. The children are delighted and so are we. We wish them all the love and happiness that they so deserve.
But things change. The Recession came and bit us on the bum and it’s time to move on again. I’ll miss the beautiful countryside, the wonderful people and the laid back lifestyle, but the hustle and bustle of town life is calling me back too. Living in this huge house with the dog and the chickens and the lovely garden has been a massive adventure for us all. The children have made lifelong friends, received a fantastic education and enjoyed some amazing life experiences. They have benefitted immeasurably from their time here, as have the Hubby and I. We’ve been lucky enough to share this fantastic place with our friends and family when they came over for our wedding blessing and have even been welcomed into the new community of the church by the kind and gentle Revd Craig - something I never would have imagined in a million years. I know we’ll return so much more open to new experiences, and with a fresh appreciation for all the people and places that we’ve missed over the last four years.
Onwards and upwards, then. Pass the bubble wrap. Goodbye Emerald Isle. It’s been a blast.
The Friday photo: what a difference a week makes
So I wake up this morning (first one up, don’t you just love half term?) and walk outside with Bert, bracing myself, to be confronted by…sunshine. I’m a little shocked at first. What’s this? The sun on my face? I rush back upstairs and fling open the curtains to show Hubby. ‘Look! You can even see the windfarm through the mist!’
This was the same view less than a week ago:
And here’s a close-up of that skyline. And then I remember exactly why I love living here. Half an hour’s drive to Tesco? Pah. I’ll settle for it, in exchange for this view.
Oh, and the Friday Fridge? It’s over at Aussie’s house.
How to win friends and influence people. Not.
Laydees and gennlemen I give you Brian Lenihan, Ireland’s Minister for Finance: tonight probably not the most popular man in Ireland.
Now you know I’m a bit blonde when it comes to financial matters, but here are the bits I understood. Briefly, Mr Lenihan’s budget today saw VAT rise to 21.5%, income tax increase by at least 1%, an increase of 8c on a litre of petrol and a whopping 50c (HOLY CRAP!) on every litre of wine and every pack of cigarettes (not that I care about the fags, natch). Motor tax rates are up by 4% (5% if your car is over 2.5L) and there are plenty of sneaky little cuts like Early Childcare Benefit ceasing at 5 1/2 instead of 6, and Child Benefit finishing when your child is 17 instead of 18. He’s also abolished the automatic right to free medical care for the over 70s and introduced a 1% income levy across the board which everyone has to pay, even if you are one of Ireland’s lowest earners. Finish that off with a nice €10 airport tax on every flight and I think that’s just about everyone he’s pissed off.
There was good news for Thrifty though, as there’s some sort of incentive for cycling to work, I think.
Oh, and if you’re thinking of self-harming now you’ve heard all that depressing news? Don’t. Not unless you can afford the €100 it’ll now cost you to attend A&E. Happy days.
Just popping out to slaughter a chicken
Now I live in rural Ireland and with that comes a certain amount of strange stuff. For example, our pub is also an undertakers, so I suppose you really can drink yourself to death there. But I’ve just got to share this one with you, because this one is bizarro in the extremo. A ‘friend of a friend’, actually, who am I kidding, you know damned well who it is, but I’ll call her FOAF, has an elderly relative who was ‘suffering terribly with the shingles’.
‘Ah you poor thing’, says my FOAF, ‘sure, I’ll take you to the doctor’
Met by the strangest of looks and muffled sniggers, my FOAF was told not to be silly, one doesn’t go to the doctor when one has shingles, nooooo, silly, one goes to Bridie (names changed to protect the criminally insane), the undertaker’s wife, of course.
‘Oh, silly me’, says my FOAF, ‘and there’s me thinking that you only go to her when you’re dead.’
So anyhoo, suspending her severe scepticism, she jumps into the car, pops her ailing and rather spotty relative in the passenger seat and sets off to the undertakers. On arriving, they are led into a parlour straight off the set of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’, complete with flock wallpaper and antimacassars, and met by Bridie’s daughter who assures my FOAF that ‘sure, Bridie’s cured so many cases of the shingles recently, she’s almost out of blood’. Gulping back her terror, my FOAF takes a seat until the old, teeny and rather spooky Bridie, complete with floor length black widow’s weeds and a rather natty floral apron, appears.
Convinced that a grinning camera crew are going to leap from behind the furniture at any minute, FOAF watches, wide-eyed as her elderly relative is asked to disrobe and then nearly has heart failure as Bridie proceeds to prick her finger and daub each little shingly spot with the sign of a cross while saying a little prayer. No, honestly. It really happened.
Ireland in the 21st century eh? Who needs a national health service when you’ve got good citizens like Bridie to spread the love (and about half a dozen other diseases spread by contaminated bodily fluids)? ‘Anyhoo’, says my obviously traumatised FOAF, ‘I thought you’d enjoy that story. I’ve gotta go, I’m suffering with a cold so I’m just off out to slaughter a chicken. Toodles’.
