Writing for life

Mid-term was here…. goodness knows where the weeks had gone, but gone they most certainly had! Our house was a hive of activity in the run up to the school holiday… or at least it should have been.

We were having friends over to stay for the holiday… a family of five we hadn’t seen for over three years, and who hadn’t seen our place in West Cork since we moved down here nearly six years ago. Naturally we wanted the house and garden in tip-top shape before they came, and it was going to be a case of all-hands-on-deck to get everything done.

And then the winter vomiting bug paid us a visit.

The winter vomiting bug is a nefariously gregarious little microbe. It thrives on company, likes to spread itself around, and brings all of its friends along for the party. Once one person in the family gets it… that’s it, everyone gets it. It started with one of the twins… moved on to the other one and then hit the little one and my wife. Three sleepless nights and around ten wash-loads later it was my turn.

I’ll spare you the unpleasant details, but I will comment on how well behaved the children seem to be when they’re genuinely sick. They were little angels one and all – I’m talking complete personality transplant here. There was no cheek, no back-chat and they didn’t have the energy to run riot as they usually would. So apart from the vomiting (and the ceaseless cleaning and washing that entailed) things were in fact much more serene than usual around here.

Except of course serene wasn’t what we needed… not with visitors arriving. By the time we’d recovered enough to think about it we only had a day to prepare for our guests’ arrival. Instead of “action stations” it was more “panic stations” as we struggled to shrug off illness-induced lethargy and get everything done.

It was a little fraught, but we more or less made it before our friends arrived with their three children. Six kids, one house: pandemonium reigned.

I don’t know how my mother-in-law managed with six kids for all those years. It was complete and utter chaos… but in a fun way. While we were catching up with old friends, the children were busy making new friends… which, when you think about it is kind of neat.

I’m just praying for some good weather this week – because if we can get out and about with the children all will be well with the world. If we can’t, we’re pretty much snookered.

West Cork is terribly limited when it comes to indoor activities. If it’s raining there’s very little on offer, and lets face it, for all its good points it tends to rain quite a lot here. If the sun shines there are plenty of beaches, walks and all sorts of fun outdoor places to go… but everything is weather dependent. Unfortunately the weather is the one thing you really can’t depend on!

I often wonder why on earth nobody invests in providing more indoor activities in West Cork. Surely there’s scope for something like a bowling alley in Clonakilty, an indoor play area in Skibbereen, and other things of that ilk in Bantry or Dunmanway? I’d imagine such places would be packed to the rafters on soggy weekends, of which there is no shortage.

But that, as they say, is another story. For now we’re focussing on catching up with our guests, and making sure that the girls enjoy their school holiday. With their new friends to play with at least that shouldn’t be too much trouble.

(Photo by rbieber on Flickr)

Just spotted these Kronomy timelines after following links from Guy Kawasaki’s “How to Change the World” blog.

As a Welshman living in the South West of Ireland, I have to say I’m paying only cursory attention to the US election antics, but I wanted to share these timelines here because I think they give those of us who are distant from the front-line of the campaign a quick, convenient and entertaining snapshot of both candidates’ backgrounds.

Here’s Obama’s timeline:

Barack Obama ´s life path
Support Obama Share this timeline

And here’s McCains:

John McCain ´s life path
Support McCain Share this timeline

This is the first time I’ve encountered Kronomy… and I have to say it’s pretty cool, and looks incredibly slick. I haven’t played around with setting up a timeline of my own yet… if you have let me know what you think in the comments.

Had to write a quick post to announce the launch of a unique new wedding date site for couples in Ireland. I have an interest in wedding sites, mainly because we run our own photo wedding invitation business, and naturally we keep an eye on what’s happening online in the weddings space. (NB. I know our site is in dire need of a facelift – it’s on the To-do list).

Last week saw the launch of an exciting new website on the Irish wedding scene: Weddingdates.ie opened its virtual doors on Friday (24/10), and offers a unique facility that helps engaged couples in Ireland to select their ideal wedding venue.

Simply enter your preferred wedding date and the county you want to get married in and Weddingdates.ie will return a list of venues in that county with reception availability on your date. It’s simple… and priceless. No more trudging through the golden pages and ringing around laboriously to come up with a shortlist of wedding reception venues who can accommodate you: Weddingdates.ie does it all for you.

This is very different to the swathe of run of the mill “Wedding directory” sites that simply list service providers. This is an indispensible tool for engaged couples.

When you’re planning a wedding anything that can reduce the time, effort and, lets face it, the stress involved is certain to be a huge boon. And that’s exactly what Weddingdates.ie offers.

If you’re getting married, or know someone else who is, why not head on over and take a look. If you’re a hotel manager, and your hotel isn’t featured, you might want to remedy that pronto!

The site is the brainchild of Ciara Crossan, who I had the pleasure of meeting briefly at a SOHO Solo / Cork Open Coffee joint meeting a few months back. Congratulations Ciara on a great concept, a great looking site and something that I’m sure will make life easier for countless Irish couples over the coming months and years.

We missed the opportunity to see renowned child psychologist, author and TV personality David Coleman speaking in Skibbereen recently. We were both kicking ourselves afterwards, because goodness knows a bit of child psychology would come in handy at the moment.

Come to think of it, child psychology is something of a misnomer. You’d be better off calling it parent psychology… because at the end of the day that’s what it usually boils down to when you see these TV programmes or read the books. It’s always the parents’ behaviour that’s analysed and the parents attitudes and responses that need to change. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those shows on the telly or skimmed through one of the accompanying books (hey, I’m a working parent… I don’t have time to read cover-to-cover) that really examines the child as the root cause of behavioural problems. It’s always down to the parents in the end.

Why did we miss the talk? Why does any parent miss anything? You guessed it… it was child related. The event clashed with a committee meeting for the local playgroup that my wife needed to attend, which meant I had to stay at home and mind the munchkins (not babysitting – apparently, if its you’re own children it doesn’t count). None of our children actually go to the playgroup any more, but the curious thing about West Cork committees is that once you’re on one it’s extraordinarily difficult to get yourself off again.

We toyed with the idea of a babysitter, but given the girls’ track record at bedtime recently we weren’t comfortable subjecting anyone outside the immediate family to the ordeal. And so we missed what was, by all accounts, an illuminating and insightful glimpse into the world of parent/child psychology from a real expert in the field.

The word expert, especially when its associated with a TV personality, usually has me diving for cover. It brings to mind ghastly images of pseudo-doctor Gillian McKeith, making me shudder involuntarily. I also don’t subscribe to the notion of the childless parenting experts. People like Gina Forde of “contented little baby” fame, and “Super-Nanny” Jo Frost. Their one-size-fits-all approach to parenting is, to coin a Jo Frost term “un-ass-eptable”. Good thing she’s not helping children with their speech, I always think.

I don’t really see how anyone can be an expert in parenting until they have first hand experience of being a parent. It’s not like basket weaving or swimming or origami – where studying the intricacies of technique qualifies you to pass that wisdom on to others. Parenting is too fluid and dynamic for that. It’s a unique relationship between two people – and it’s different between every parent and every child. I really believe that the only real expert in parenting your child is you.

And sometimes that’s a depressing thought… because occasionally it feels like I’m not very good at it. In fact, sometimes the girls even tell me I’m not very good at it, which is much worse.

While I don’t hold any truck with patronising self-proclaimed parenting experts, David Coleman seems different. First of all he’s a “been there, done that, still there, still doing that” bona fide parent, and has official, verifiable qualifications… which makes a refreshing change in the field. He also readily admits to the challenges he’s faced himself as a parent, and to the fact that he doesn’t always get it right. Like all of us he’s learning this parenting lark as he goes along.

Instead of patronising parents Coleman empathises with us, instead of dictating solutions he offers genuine guidance and support. It was a shame to miss his talk… but when you’re a parent, no matter how much you wish it could be otherwise, parenting always comes first.

Picked up a link to this photo on Twitter (click on the image for the original image on Twitpic) it’s a shot taken by @clodaghkelly at her local SuperQuinn.

Sums up the government’s medical card fiasco so more eloquently than anything I could write… no further commentary required!

Image via Wikipedia

Both James T. Kirk and Jean Luc Picard had it wrong in Star Trek’s opening credits. Set against the inky backdrop of the void, punctuated by a billion lustrous pinpricks, the USS Enterprise prepared to engage its “warp drive”. The incumbent captains voice, steeped in authority, yet tinged with a dash of wonder, would utter the iconic words “Space, the final frontier….”.

But of course it’s not really, is it? It’s a frontier, certainly… and one that we are only starting to explore. It’s vast in a way that perhaps we’ll never comprehend: it’s scope, it’s potential and the challenges to human ingenuity that it’s exploration presents are unimaginable. But I have no doubt that, given time, humanity has the capacity to rise to those challenges.

The title of “final frontier” belongs, I believe, to something much closer to home, something equally perplexing, deeply personal and perhaps because of that more frightening by an order of magnitude than anything we’ll encounter in space. It’s a frontier that’s of this earth, and yet also, perhaps, more than that. It’s a frontier that, ultimately, no living person can avoid. I’m talking, of course, about death.

I’ve been pondering death this week – not in a morbid, brooding way, but in terms of how we react to the death of another, the way it reminds us of our own mortality, and to appreciate the things that are important in our own lives. My wife’s “Nana” passed away last week, her departure leaving much sadness, upheaval and reflection in its wake. She was 89 years old, and had lead a full and active life, but somehow age, and a grudging acknowledgement of the inevitability of a loved one’s departure, does little to ease the pain of losing a parent, grandparent, sister or friend.

I was astonished at the scale of the funeral. It always strikes me as incredibly poignant the way that the act of saying that ultimate farewell can bring so many people together. Grieving is an intensely personal process, but it’s not a solitary one. Death, it seems, can be a catalyst for solidarity, sympathy and support.

As with everything in life, children are amazingly pragmatic and resilient when it comes to confronting death. The girls used to see their great grandmother regularly when up in Cork visiting their Nana. They were sitting at the kitchen table when we told them the sad news. The twins were upset, but stoic, and were mostly concerned about their Nana, and the fact that she had lost her mum. The little one stood up without saying a word and went to her bedroom. My wife followed her to find her sobbing into her pillow. “I’ll never be able to see her again,” she said.

After a little bit of time and a cuddle or two she was fine… but her little mind was hard at work analysing things. “Does that mean Nana’s an orphan now?” she asked the following morning as we drove up to the City. And technically, although we rarely think of it in those terms, I suppose she was right.

Now that the frantic few days of the funeral are behind us, and the formal farewells are done, the family will have time to reflect and come to terms with the fact that “Nan” is gone. Each of them will mourn that loss in their own way, but in the knowledge that they’re not on their own. They have each other’s love and support, and all of our thoughts are with them.

On a West Cork beach this Summer (during a brief respite in the soggy summer weather) I spotted this tiny piece of lustrous green glass worn perfectly smooth by the sea.

I couldn’t resist getting down on hands and knees and taking this snap – I love the juxtaposition of the manmade glass and the natural gravel. To give you a sense of scale the piece of glass is only about four or five millimetres across.

If you click to enlarge the image you’ll see what I think are salt crystals on the surface of the glass.

Image via Wikipedia

I’m already sick of hearing about Ireland’s headlong nose-dive into recession. Between that and calamity in the world’s financial markets the doom mongers out there are having a field day.

Life as we know it is about to end apparently. Except of course that it probably isn’t. Nowhere near it, in fact.

I’ll stick my neck out here and make a shocking prediction: life for the vast majority of people in Ireland will carry on pretty much the same as before – through this recession and out the other side. Macro economic cycles come and go – and on one level, yes, they can change things pretty dramatically. But the fundamentals of life tend to stay pretty constant.

The challenges we face as a family with young children in Ireland today are, strangely enough, much the same challenges as we faced when the Celtic Tiger was in full roar. Recession or boom, families still have to juggle children, manage a household, cope with demanding jobs, make the mortgage payments, put three square meals a day on the table, cover childcare costs that are the most exorbitant in Europe, and a lot more besides. There’s always too much to do, and too little time. What’s changed?

Okay, if you’re a person who likes to splurge you may have to reign in your spending a bit, but is that really going to alter your life in any significant way? I was listening to a guest on a radio show this morning who’s recession busting plan was to stop getting her car valeted every Saturday morning. Hardly a life-changing sacrifice, is it?

Despite all the doom and gloom I suspect that for most of us life in economic recession will continue pretty much as usual. There might be a bit of belt-tightening going on… but is that such a bad thing?

As a nation we’ve been spending beyond our means for far too long, availing of the hefty credit being offered to us. Being forced to really think about what we choose to spend our money on, and training ourselves to only spend what we actually have might come as a bit of a shock to the system for some – but it’s a shock that’s long overdue.

There was a guy on a treadmill on the “Late Late Show” last Friday urging people to run for Africa. He put this recession obsession of ours into stark perspective when he pointed out that, compared to the people in east Africa he was raising money for, our concerns were pretty trivial.

Of course there will be people who are hit hard by the economic downturn, and the inevitable cuts and levies imposed by the government as they attempt to re-float a scuppered economy. The recession will bite hard for some, and that’s unfortunate. I don’t want to belittle their suffering, but the truth is that for the the majority it will be business as usual, recession or no.

I guess what it boils down to is that we worry too much – and I’m as guilty of this as anyone. We’re constantly dwelling on the past and fretting about the future, when for many of us the present really isn’t all that bad, if we’d only learn to pay it a bit more attention.

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There’s nothing worse than getting back into your car after going for a walk than finding that you or one of your passengers has trodden in dog poo.

The stench in an enclosed place is nauseating – and by the time you discover it the kids have invariably traipsed it all over the carpets, the seats, their clothes and everywhere else .

Clean up after your dog

People should, of course, clean up after their dogs… but how many really do in Ireland?

Like most things here, the legislation is in place to prosecute dog owners who’s pets foul footpaths and public spaces… but the enforcement is woeful.

Is doggie DNA the answer?

In Isreael they’re taking the issue a bit more seriously… they’ve gone all CSI in the war against doggie doodoo! Seriously – DNA testing to match the poop to the canine in question and land the owner with a hefty municipal fine.

Now that’s what I call pro-active doggie detective work. So come on the Irish authorities… you’ve got some serious catching up to do when it comes to catching those canine culprits.