Writing for life

Published in the Wow! supplement of The Evening Echo

Technology does a lot of things to make our lives easier. Every day we use our mobile phones, our computers, ATMs, credit card machines, POS systems (or computerised “tills” to you and me) digital television systems that automatically record the programmes we like… without tapes. The list goes on and on and on, and everything is talking to everything else over myriad global communications networks.

(image by Homer Township Public Library)

If you think about it for too long your brain would starts to sizzle gently in your cranium… but that’s okay, because you tend not to. Most of us aren’t that interested in how it all works… we’re just happy that it does, because all of this digital wizardry makes our our lives just a little bit easier, allowing us to squeeze more into our busy lives. There are times though, when technology makes life harder, and that can be especially true for parents.

Why? Because technology is everywhere and our children are often better at using it, and embrace it more readily than we do. Mobile phones and the internet are obvious examples… while many parents struggle to understand them, to the children of today they’ve become practically second nature. That’s worrying on lots of levels – but mostly because it means we’re incapable of keeping up with them… let alone keeping track of them.

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“Dad!” shouts the little one.

“Yes,” I say, taking a sip of coffee without looking up. She grabs my arm, commanding my full attention.

“Y’know this baby,” she waves a small plastic doll in my face. I wonder what’s coming next. “Y’know what her name is?” she continues. I admit that I don’t. “Well, her name is Melina…” she pauses for dramatic effect, “… but for short you can call her Jasmine.” Pleased, she beams at me.

My brain wrestles with the concept for a moment, and then gives up… something it does with remarkable regularity when confronted with the bizarre logic of a four-year-old. The four-year-old mind is a law unto itself… or at least our four-year-old’s mind is.

There’s also a short circuit somewhere in her nervous system that links her brain directly to her vocal chords, bypassing the usual filters and balances. She never shuts up, and says whatever pops into her head as soon as it occurs to her. One minute she’ll come out with something incredibly perceptive and insightful that has you reeling; the next she’ll utter a stream of incomprehensible gibberish… but with all the conviction and authority of a seasoned expert. It’s entertaining and exhausting at the same time; sometimes you just wish she had an off-switch.

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Are we mad? We must be mad!

Less than a year after our last road trip to the continent, which regular readers will remember ended in disaster (crumpled car, officious French police, hospital, an early flight home and protracted wrangling with insurance companies), we’re about to do it again. We’re going to France… and we’re taking the car!

After last year’s debacle we were all set to spend a wonderful summer at home in West Cork: celebrate the fact that that we live in an area lots of people choose for their holidays. But events have conspired against us. My sister-in-law is getting married… in France, and so we’re ferry bound once more.

The ferry is absolutely the best option with the kids. Flying was always difficult, but it’s an absolute nonsense these days… particularly with the low-fares airlines, which are all as bad as each other. Stealth charges and phantom taxes levied on a per passenger basis, minuscule baggage allowances (which attract more charges), unallocated seating and the unholy scrum that ensues at the gate, lacklustre on board service and arrival at an airport miles away from your destination are all bad enough at the best of times… but when you’re travelling with children, my advice is forget it.

The ferry, on the other hand, is a veritable joy. For a start you can pack what you like – and with a roof-box fitted to the car there’s plenty of space for everything you might need. That means you pack too much… but that’s okay, because nobody’s nit-picking over the weight of your luggage. There’s also no problem with legroom… there’s plenty of freedom for the kids to run around and play, and loads of activities and amenities to make the voyage a pleasant experience for all the family. The best thing about travelling by ferry is that the journey becomes as much a part of the holiday as the destination.

The girls are as excited about the spending a night on the boat as they are about the trip itself. Ordinary things like having your own cabin, sleeping in bunks, and having a shower are transformed into a great adventure by virtue of the fact that they’re aboard ship. Then of course there are meal times – eating in the on-board restaurants as the ship pitches, rolls and yaws is a novel experience, and they love going “outside” on deck, watching the sea birds and looking for dolphins.

It’s not all plain sailing though… there are downsides to travelling by sea. First there’s the weather. Calm seas are great, but rough crossings can be difficult. A bit of movement is fine… it just adds to the excitement, but seasick children (and parents for that matter) doesn’t get the holiday off to an auspicious start.

Then there’s the fact that you end up on the north coast of France, which can mean a long drive on the wrong side of unfamiliar roads before you reach your ultimate destination. But then again, you are in your own car, the children have lots of familiar things to keep them occupied, and regular stops along the way can turn a tedious road-trip into an enjoyable part of the holiday.

There’s so much to like about France outside the big cities… especially the connection they have with food. Stopping en-route to eat in small rural restaurants is affordable, enjoyable and the quality is generally outstanding. The kids are really looking forward to the holiday… and so am I, despite a little trepidation in the wake of last year’s experience.

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I was reading an article a week or two back about the perpetual problem of overcrowding in primary schools. Our esteemed Teoseach, Brian Cowan’s, use of the F word in the Dail had spawned the “witty” headline “F is for Failure”, above an article that went on to explore in some detail how six years ago the government had vowed to tackle overcrowding in schools during its term of office.

Apparently the commitment was to reduce primary school class sizes to a manageable 20 pupils, in line with international best practice. The reporter who penned the article seemed surprised, shocked, and even a little indignant that the government had broken its promise and shown a healthy disrespect for international convention. Which kind of makes me wonder how long they’ve been a political correspondent… but that’s another issue.

The fact that the government don’t seem to take the issue of primary school overcrowding seriously is typical, and spectacularly short sighted. It’s an unfortunate fact that young children – the foundation on which the future of this country will be built – are rarely afforded the priority they deserve when it comes to the allocation of limited governmental resources.

Let’s face it, when you’re confronted with a derailed health system, spiraling crime and an economy showing signs of stalling, taking a broader view can be a bit tricky. But while the subject of class size is perhaps easily sidelined… to do so shows a remarkable lack of foresight on the part of the government. So, nothing new there then!

Primary education is one of the most critical steps in a child’s development. It’s when they learn to enjoy learning… or not! Neglect the crucial early stages in learning, and what you churn out of the other end of the system is an army of disengaged youth – which of course only exacerbates the economic and social problems that distract politicians from tackling the core issue.

I guess it’s the same old story. Your average government minister is primarily looking for quick fix solutions: things likely to bear fruit and make him or her look good before they face re-election. Successful educational policy, by its very nature, demands a much longer term view, and it takes a while before you see measurable results out of the other end.

And so instead ministers jump from one problem to the next, implementing short-term solutions that rarely endure to deliver long-term results. It’s knee jerk politics of the worst kind, and it seems to be on the menu in Dáil Éireann far too often.

While overcrowding crops up in the news with alarming regularity, it’s not a problem that’s distributed equally among all schools. For small rural schools the problem can be exactly the opposite: too few pupils can be as much of an issue as too many. The very same week I read the article lambasting the government’s record on overcrowding, we enrolled our youngest daughter in the local National School. Come September she will be the only child in her class. Yes, you read that right… the only child!

Great, you might think… no overcrowding problems there, and you’d be half right. The problem is that just last year the school reached the critical mass of pupils needed to qualify for a third teacher. As is common in small rural schools, multiple years are accommodated in the same classroom, sharing the same teacher. Getting the third teacher means that the number of pupils in the school are now distributed between three educators in three different classrooms, which means that class sizes are currently manageable. Now, with only one pupil starting school next year, they’ll probably lose the additional teacher… pushing class sizes up again.

In our topsy-turvy education system, it seems that even having less pupils isn’t a solution to the overcrowding problem. Something, somewhere, is terribly wrong.

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Published in the Evening Echo, 28/05/08

We have a computer in the corner of the living room. It sits there innocuously, switched off for most of its life. This is the family PC – which really means the kids PC, as both of us grown ups have our own laptops these days. It sees only occasional use – but as the kids get older they’re using it more and more.

Computers are an essential part of children’s lives today. Acquiring mouse and keyboard skills are as crucial to them as learning to wield a pencil, perhaps more so. When I was born computers were about the size of the local library and cost as much as a house. By the time I was 11 they’d made it into the home – but although I was a zealous advocate at the time, the truth is they were pretty useless; the ZX Spectrum, Commadore 64 and BBC Micro with their 64K of RAM and games and programmes saved on audio tape. They were less powerful and of much less utility than the average mobile phone today.

Things have developed so quickly over the last couple of decades that, if you had time to stop and think about it, it would make your head spin. Computers have become so ingrained into our lives that our perception of them is fundamentally shifting: they are no longer “technology”, they’re as much part of the furniture as the living room sofa.

What amazes me is how readily children take to computers. Skills that can take adults years to master are absorbed in a matter of minutes. They find things intuitively – click, double click, windows, files – they just “get it” on a level that adults rarely grasp. We learn this stuff… they just seem to feel it. It’s astonishing to watch.

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Published in the Evening Echo 21/05/2008

Watching “Wild China” on the BBC tonight was amazing. I never knew, for example, that wild Asian elephants still survive in the forests of central China, or that gibbons – which I thought confined to South East Asia – still roam the canopy in some of China’s forests. The sheer diversity of life unfolding on the screen was staggering – plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals.

But like so many of the world’s wild places, the amazing biodiversity of these Chinese forests is under threat. Much of China’s virgin rainforest has been felled to make way for rubber plantations – rubber that’s helping to fuel the inexorable rise of one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The economic imperative, as so often seems to happen, overrides the environmental one: short term gain taking precedence over long-term vision.

Much closer to home, we’d spent much of the day looking at biodiversity on a much smaller, but equally fascinating scale in one of Ireland’s wild places. Ireland’s National Biodiversity Week is running from 18 to 25 May this year, scheduled to coincide with the United Nations International Day for Biodiversity on 22 May.

“Biodiversity Week is Ireland’s contribution to a global celebration of biodiversity which aims to increase awareness of the importance of biodiversity and promote action to tackle the loss of many of our species,” said Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley, TD, as he unveiled the nationwide programme of events last week. “This is the second year that my Department has supported Biodiversity Week and already it has developed to the extent that we now have over 200 events taking place throughout the country.” And I have to say it’s a laudable effort in a country where we have plenty to redress when it comes to our environmental credentials.

Keen to get involved, and to expose the children to more of the wonders of Irish nature, we headed out to a Biodiversity Day event at the Irish Natural Forestry Foundation’s headquarters in Manch Estate, Balineen.

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Published in the Evening Echo, 14/05/2008

A non-too-bright thrush has chosen to build this year’s nest in the bush outside our kitchen window. What’s wrong with that, you might ask… well, there’s nothing wrong with the bush per se, it’s just where it’s situated.

The bush is pretty big bush, with lush, dense foliage that offers plenty of cover and shelter. It’s also high enough to mean the nest is pretty safe from ground-dwelling predators. All in all it’s a pretty good nesting site – apart from the fact that it’s just outside the back door, which puts it on the children’s flight-path as they head from the house, to garden and back again. With the weather improving, they’re doing a lot of coming and going… and peace and quiet around that particular bush is going to be in short supply.

I spotted the nest a few weeks ago. Standing at the kitchen sink one morning I noticed the parents flying to and fro. A quick look when they were out of sight revealed the nest wedged firmly between the boughs of the bush at about my shoulder height. Chancing a quick peek inside I counted three perfectly formed, beautifully speckled eggs nestled in the moss-lined cup. Having confirmed the nest was in use I beat a hasty retreat to allow mum to return to tend her clutch.

Ever since I was a little boy I’ve felt a rush of excitement at finding a birds nest in spring. There’s something wonderful about being so close to the genesis of new life that’s both fascinating and inspirational. Seeing the parents come and go, hearing the chicks clamouring for food, and witnessing their incredible journey as they grow and eventually fledge.

I guess when you think about it it’s like the whole parenting palaver distilled into a few short months: finding a partner, setting up home and bringing youngsters into the world, followed by a frantic and exhausting struggle to provide for them until the day they finally fly the nest. In one way I guess the birds have it sussed… they have the whole process done and dusted in short order, and then take the rest of the year off. We, on the other hand, sentence ourselves to the best part of twenty years of hard labour.

The girls were thrilled when they arrived home from school and I showed them my discovery. I lifted them up and showed them the nest very briefly, explaining that we had to be careful not to disturb the mother to make sure she didn’t abandon the nest. They were so excited… and that filled me with a deep sense of satisfaction.

There are those who would argue that letting the children see the nest is wrong – that nature should be left well alone. In the interests of environmental conservation, they argue, we should shield nature from people, isolate it, protect it. I couldn’t disagree more.

By letting children experience and understand nature first hand, you’re doing far more good than harm. You see, when you shield nature from children, you’re also shielding children from nature, and that’s a mistake.

Books and classrooms are all very well, but the relationship between children and nature needs to be hands on: kids need to experience nature first hand to foster and encourage their inherent fascination with the natural world. Fail to do that, and they disengage; disengaged children grow to become disengaged adults… and we’re all painfully aware of the environmental damage they can cause.

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Glengarriff Lodge,

Glengarriff,

West Cork,

Ireland

A few weeks ago we spent a wonderful weekend at what has to be one of the most enchanting houses in the whole of West Cork, perhaps the entire country. Nestled on its own little island between a fork in the Glengarriff River, this thatched former hunting lodge of the Earl of Bantry is like something straight out of a childhood fantasy.

Set in three acres of beautifully tended gardens, surrounded by mature trees that blend seamlessly with nearby native woodland, the fairytale house sits gently in this idyllic rural landscape. As we drove over the little wooden bridge onto the island I had to pinch myself to make sure what I was seeing was real. This was Glengarriff Lodge… and it was absolutely breathtaking.

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Rated 5/5 on May 8 2008

Vote on Calvin’s reviews at LouderVoice

LouderVoice review tags: Accommodation, West Cork, Glengarriff Lodge, Self Catering, House

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Who do you really work for?

It’s not a trick question, it’s not that I suspect you’re involved in some sort of shady commercial espionage. It’s a simple, straightforward query:

• Do you work for your supervisor?

• Do you work for your line manager?

• Do you work for your HR Department?

• Do you work for your CEO?

The answer, of course, is none of the above. When you break it down we go to work for ourselves. Whether we’re self employed, working on the shop floor, of a high-flying executive with a swanky corner office… we work to support ourselves, our families and the lifestyle we’ve chosen to live. Work is a means to an end, and while you might enjoy, or even love what you’re doing, ultimately it’s just a vehicle for your financial security, personal achievement and development, fulfilment and, ultimately, happiness.

Unfortunately we tend to forget all of that. We get caught up in the frantic hustle and bustle of working life. Long hours, stress, unrealistic expectations, unmanageable workloads and tortuous commutes conspire to erode the very things we’re working to secure.

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Published in the Evening Echo, 30/04/2008

When we first saw him standing in the boot of the VW Golf he was so tiny, helpless and utterly gorgeous that we fell in love with him instantly. You couldn’t help but want to take him home and mind him. So we did.

But wait… you need a bit of background. We’d arranged to meet friends in Kenmare. On the trip over the Cork Kerry mountains they came across a forlorn, abandoned little creature, bleating desperately on the windswept roadside. They looked for the newborn lamb’s mother, but she was nowhere to be seen, there was no farm in the immediate vicinity, and no way of identifying who owned him. Lost and abandoned he would surely die… they could either leave him to the crows and other scavengers, or step in and rescue him.

Perhaps the right choice would have been to leave him to his fate… but how many of us, faced with such a dilemma, could leave a helpless baby to die? I suspect not many. And so they brought him into Kenmare to meet us.

Now, this must be a fairly regular springtime occurrence in Kenmare… because they went into the local pharmacy (not the co-op or farm-supply shop… a regular pharmacy), and lo and behold, they stocked rubber lamb-teats and ewes milk replacement formula.

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