Desperate in Delvin

I bit the bullet.  I’m blaming my male cousins and brothers.  ‘Sure, you are still lovely Lucy.  Fellas would fancy you, especially now that you have learned how to plough a field’.  They give me tips for internet dating.  I’m horrified, ‘still lovely’.  They mean well, but I feel like an ageing horse, getting my teeth checked, to see if there is any life left in the old nag.  So before I declare myself fit for pasture, I did it.  I signed up for internet dating, on a whim, early one Sunday morning, after another weekend on my own with my mutt.   

But what to share? Oh gawd, the template is looking for a photograph.  Maybe I should upload a pic of my dog.  He’s better looking than me and it would show what an animal lover I am.  It’s times like this that a burka seems like an attractive form of dress.  I opt for a discreet photo, instagrammed to death. 

Then there is the small matter of my name.  With a name like Lucina, there isn’t much hiding.  Adding a simple ‘d’ could give me a disguise.  I opt for honesty. 

Then the much dreaded questionnaire - likes, dislikes, inspirations, the ‘tell us about you’ and ‘what you are looking for’.  I feel like giving up there and then and resigning myself to old age, with just me and my mutt.

A few credit card details later and I’m live.  Within minutes, I swear, minutes, guys send messages saying that they want to meet me.  All before 8.30am on a Sunday. I marvel at the wonder of technology.  I have almost planned my outfits and picked my restaurants.

The novelty doesn’t last long.  Desperate in Delvin*, 62 sends me a virtual wink and another.  And a few days later, another.

Kinky in Kinnegad, 72, sends me a message saying that he thinks I’m sexy.  I’d like to send him a virtual slap of a hangbag, but there isn’t such an icon.

Gorgeous in Galway, 31, is actually gorgeous and I wonder why the hell he is internet dating and more to the point, why he is looking at my profile.  I find it hard to believe that his intentions are honourable.

There’s lots of faceless men out there, like Unhappily Married in Urlingford, 38 who don’t upload photos and seen pushy about chatting, as if this opportunity is what I’ve waited all of my life for. 

The Teacher in Thurles, 37, also faceless, writes 'your lovely'. I reply, stating 'for a teacher, your spelling isn't the best'.  He doesn't know what I'm on about.  'You're', I prompt. We mutually agree to 'leave it'.

Ego in Ennis, 51, another of the faceless crew, insists that he has provided plenty of information about himself on his profile and that if I had read it properly, I would 'clearly see' that he would provide photos by email. Out of curiosity, I ask for pics, which he emails.  He has Donald Trump hair to match the inflated sense of himself presented in his profile.

Dapper in Dublin, 39, looks promising, but then says that we live too far away from each other for a date.  I try not to sound desperate and resist asking him to check the route on AA Routeplanner, like I already have.

Other fellas probably really should have taken a bit of advice on how to take selfies for the purposes of actually getting a date.  A lot of photos make them look like they came straight from Crimeline, with photos taken directly from their PC, showing double/treble chins off to their finest.  And do they not realise that I can see their socks and jocks on the radiator behind them?    

The questionnaires that the guys have completed start to bore me to death.  Who actually gives a monkey’s what their favourite meal is (but, FYI, a large proportion of men seem to prefer their mothers cooking, which is all well and good, but this isn’t a site for a replacement Irish Mammy)

Then there’s the guys who use way !!!!! too many !!!!! exclamation !!! marks !!!! to show what a fun !!!! guys they are !!!!  So, flipping !!!!!! hilarious !!!!

And don’t get me started on the guys WHO USE BLOCK CAPITALS.  It’s as hilarious as the exclamation marks, but IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING AT ME.

Or the ones that use text speak.  No, I don’t want 2 talk 2 U LOL ‘K?

And then there’s the LOL’s and ‘LMAO’, when it’s-just-not-funny. 

There are lots of lovely, genuine guys out there in cyber love land.  Some send lovely messages and mostly I send nice messages back, wishing them well, but saying that I’m not interested.  Some send messages back saying that mine was the nicest rejection they ever received.  They don’t know that I have had years of experience turning down people, as gently as I can, for grant applications.

I won’t be renewing my membership when it expires this week.  I’ll dust myself off and regroup.  But in the meantime, Maybe in Meath, 45 isn’t looking half bad.

*Names have been changed to protect the deluded

The Blessing of the Graves

My father was always a man in a hurry.  He was in such a hurry at his 70th birthday celebrations in a restaurant last year, that he blew out the candles on his cake and had actually left the establishment while I was in the toilets with the children.  In his defense, with the squirty soap, hand dryer, and various contraptions to be examined, the toilet trip took longer than expected.  And there was an 'urgent' football match on TV at 2pm, so urgent that it was close to an emergency.  The family joked afterwards that we would spoon fed him in a chair for his 80th birthday.  But that wasn't to be, as John Russell departed this life 6 weeks after he blew out his candles.  No messing around.

Today is his birthday and I stood at his graveside over the weekend, at the annual Blessing of the Graves in Kingscourt.  Surreal indeed.

I've come to the conclusion that the ideal place for speed-catch-up with family, school friends, people you half-knew but didn't realise you how you knew them and neighbours is actually The Blessing of the Graves.  Don't knock it unless you have tried it.  And let's face it, the financial donation is cheaper than buying a round in the pub and there's less drunks.

There is a predictability to who will stand where, given the static positioning of the various family graves.  Family representation varies over the years.  New additions to the families appear and others take their rest under the soil.  Children play in the chippings and compost on the graves.  Older people rest in their fold up chairs.  There is mighty fashion to be seen and the grey headstones are outnumbered by floral arrangements.

As it happens, it's also a great place to meet people who read my blog (Who Knew ?? Like, seriously ? It's slightly mortifying, but also kinda lovely).  I meet someone who I only know through social media. We hug and I laugh that until now, I had no idea of what height she is, having only encountered her through postage stamps sized photographs on a screen.

All the fretting about being there had passed.  It oddly, feels nice.

The reality of the situation hit home when the priest, in his opening remarks acknowledges all of those who were standing beside a loved ones grave for the first time.  Thankfully he doesn't dwell on it, but I feel a pain in my heart for my lovely mother standing there.  She looks so vulnerable. Hopefully next year won't be so hard.  The first is the worst, or so they say.

I came across this photograph the other day. It's my parents, my brother Derek (with THAT haircut) and little me at the seaside in Port, Co Louth.  The sea is just over the horizon.  Can you smell it ?  I can hear it.  Whoosh .... It feels like I remember that actual day, but I wonder if that's possible as I am so young.  We went to Port every summer, so maybe it's collective memories remembered through that photograph?  The bumpy texture of the seer-sucker thin cotton dress is so familiar, as is the salt water in my mouth, as my father splashes water at me in the sea, the taste lingering long after the event.  The odd sensation of feeling rough sand sprinkled through the cool, slinky grass.  The safe feeling of the weathered palm of his farmer hand against my leg.  I keep the dress for years for a teddy.  Maybe that's why I remember?

I attended a dance performance by Theogene (Totto) Niwenshuti, a Rwandan dancer and scholar, in Maynooth University last week, as part of Kildare County Council's Dance and Movement Summer School.  Totto has survived genocide.  The audience, were led into the performance across scattered clothes, shoes and a number of people lying still on the floor.  They lay in the same direction, face down, as if they had been shot dead while running for their lives.  Individually and collectively, we sobbed quietly for massacred men, women and children and how helpless we all felt, at this scenario and the countless similar scenes worldwide.

Afterwards, an image of my fathers boots paired up the back hall way when I arrived home on the day he died, keeps coming to me.  I think about the absolute privilege that he had of dying peacefully in his own house, surrounded by family and the privilege we had in giving him a funeral that he would have approved of.

It's unlikely that my father's boots will be worn again.  My three brothers grew to be much taller than my father, so much so that my brother Eoin handed down his pair of size 8 tan leather confirmation brogues to him.  It was the source of much amusement at the time, but JR didn't take kindly to being slagged about that.  He would be raging that I told ye.  Sorry Da.  The memories keep you close.

The Kitchen is Closed

So, my foreign students went and left, as they do and I've figured out how to reset my Facebook settings from Spanish back to English.

So folks, but if any of you are looking for any class of hospitality in the coming weeks, don't bother coming to me.  I can direct you to a lovely hotel down the room.  If you insist on coming here, I can point you towards the kettle and the fridge.  I can't guarantee fresh milk, or biscuits, so it's best that you BYO.  (Naturally, there is a universal exception for wine).

I can't stand over the quality of my toilet facilities either.  It's been three action packed weeks of having two teenage boys here, on top of my own 8 year old one.  All I'll say is that, over the last three weeks, that I have reminded of a poster that my aunt Kathleen and uncle Ciaran had in their bathroom when I was a child, bearing a poignant poem that still has developed meaning over the years -  'If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat'.

If you would like early-morning homemade pancakes any time soon, can I suggest the Bay Tree in town?  Because I'm done.  At least until Back to School.  The same goes for packed, flipping, lunches.  I won't fret over a balanced diet, human hair, dog hair in food.  If I run out of mayonnaise or milk, we will do without.  (If you are balking at the idea of dog hair in food, just think of it as protein supplement - you heard the ads about keratin in hair, right?)

As for the Socks & Jocks.

Let's face it.  Laundering clothes and undergarments is a chore.

Your children's - You tolerate, only because you love them.  And to gather ammunition for later years. Who, may I ask, invented white, or pastel Socks & Jocks for little people? I'll tell you -  Someone who doesn't have little people, or who doesn't do laundry, that's who.

Guests Socks & Jocks.  Let's just say that there's a limit to what one will do in the name of international relations.

If anyone needs me, I'll be the one lying back on my own couch, slathered in fake tan, drinking wine at 8pm, because night time Josephine Le Taxi has turned off her sign until the end of August.  I may, or may not wear a bra.  I might be cutting my toe nails.  I might be reading, or writing a blog, like I am now, hooray ! (And just for the record, I'm fully clothed as I write this).

I may actually sit down for the full duration of a meal.  The meal may be cream crackers and jam, or some sort of flat carbohydrate with a paste from a jar.  It's unlikely that there will be a table cloth, or napkins.  There may not even be a plate.  My excuse for not shopping is that I need supplies to go down to allow me to 'see what's there' and to create a better view of the mould in the fridge.

There will be no extended queuing for my one-toilet-only Hobbit House, and if there happened to be, I'll ask my children to pee in the garden.  The bringing of electronic devices into the bathroom shall be strictly prohibited.

I may or may not wash the stack of dishes in the sink, or maybe ever, as an experiment on self-cleaning.

But if truth were told, the house seems quiet and I miss hearing The Spaniard belting out tunes from the shower.

Feeling European

It's the final days of having a Spanish and French student in Poppy Cottage, and the hobbit house will soon to return to a teenage-boy-less zone.

For most of the stay, I've had a rotten head cold, that thankfully no one else in the house has caught. A few days into the visit, I caught my thumb in a door, which was excruciatingly painful and made simple things like starting the car and preparing food difficult.  Had it been just myself and the children here, we probably would have lived on breakfast cereal.

I've already discussed feeding the students in a previous blog.  It's only in the last week that I realised though, how much they all love drinking the milk here.  Apparently the milk in both France and Spain isn't a patch on ours.  I can't buy enough of the stuff.

Getting two extra people up and out in the morning has been a little stressful.  Most mornings, I am standing at the back door jingling keys, with my eye on the clock and sweat on my brow.  All being well, I have dropped off my children for the morning and the students for the day and am sitting at my work desk with a cuppa by 9.20am.  My employer gets great value out of me as I pack a full days work into the morning, before dashing back for a 2pm pick up with the children.  I've used the two hour window before the students arrive home to prepare for 'Back to School'.  No lastminute.com here this year.  The Spaniard noticed that I 'shop a lot'.  I laugh.  If only it was for the fun stuff.

The weather, in case you haven't noticed, has been completely pants.  All of my recent slaving in the garden was undone, as the humidity encouraged jungle-like scenes to develop. On top of that, my lawnmower gave up the ghost.  Apparently it just needed a minor adjustment.  Mr Lawnmower Man didn't even charge me for fixing in, but had the machine for 10 days, while my 'football pitch', as the Spaniard called it, grew out of control.   I try to compensate for my overgrown sporting facilities, telling him that the luscious grass is what makes our milk taste so delicious.

The washing machine, in solidarity with the lawnmower, also packed in the other day.  Fan-bloody-tastic.  I was extremely thankful though that I, at least, hadn't given away my previously unused tumble drier, which has been working overtime in the last few weeks. It doesn't know what's hit it.

Speaking of washing, last week, my neighbour's student came to my house for dinner, before a 7pm disco.  There was a great sense of excitement in the house, the shower was on overdrive and there was no sparing on the deodorant.  The student stood before me with his socks.  'Will you wash these for me for tonight please?'.  'Tonight' was now 90 minutes away.  My Domestic Goddess had been maxed out for the day and I say no.  I offered to give him a pair of mine instead.  He's not impressed. I ask if he would like an individually wrapped Cadbury's chocolate mini roll.  He asks if I have something else with caramel.

I spent the first week of the stay fretting over an interview for a job, something that was advertised with an extremely short deadline.  I slapped in an application at the last minute and was notified of interview a few days later.  It's been YEARS since I went for an interview.  This one required a three minute presentation.  I thought about it and researched for a few days, all while getting used to the presence of teenagers in the house.  I wrote my (not half-bad, even if I say so myself) presentation, complete with a nice range of left-of-centre images, all timed to 3 minutes flat. Almost as soon as I had it complete, I decided not to attend for interview after all.  My heart wasn't in it and doing an interview for 'the experience' just wasn't my thing.  So, if any of you out there need a presentation on Arts Participation, I've got one going a beggin'.

In the middle of all of this, I've managed to get delicious slices of  'me-time', including a mad dash to the Galway Film Fleadh on a Saturday.  A manic five-hour round trip, I managed to see the premiere of 'Revolutions: A Roller Derby Story', directed by Laura Mc Gann, had catch ups and networked like you wouldn't believe.  A few snatched hours in Kildare Village, shopping for me, 'a little' and a luxuriously long lunch for one.  I happened across an Irish food promotion and has Presseco and cake for dessert. It's the little things, isn't it?

My dog is delighted with the rare scraps of meat in a usually veggie-only household.  My children love learning elaborate handshakes and the stamp of approval for their new branded sports gear.  'Just Do It' is the new catch phrase in the house.  Oddly, the setting on my Facebook page have changed to Spanish, all by themselves.  Having a good 'Wiffy' connection here has been has a big bonus for both boys.  

Then there was the unimaginable attack on Bastille Day in Nice.  I worried about discussing it with my students the following morning, as the true extent of it unfolded.  They took the news better than I expected.  Neither of them knew anyone involved and I guess that teenagers world's is quite insular. And maybe, there's an element of becoming desensitised by it all.  I worry that my own children will come to regard this sort of thing as 'normal'.  Nonetheless, I was glad that the students, led by the school principal, had an opportunity to discuss it together in school that day.  After the attack, the fallout of Brexit and the more recent coup in Turkey, I will fret until I know that both of my students catch their flights and get through airports safely.   I imagine that all Irish families who have had European students this summer will feel an enhanced connection, and solidarity with our European neighbours after what has happened,  during our watch.  It's hard to know what to say after that.

Channelling my Irish Mammy

It's a fortnight now, since our Spanish student arrived in Poppy Cottage for a three week language school in Athy College.  He was joined by a French student five days ago.  In the intervening period, it seems that the equilibrium has shifted many times in the house.  The only constants has been the rather miserable weather, the endless supply of laundry and me, standing in the kitchen preparing food.

There are three things that I ultimately wanted out of the students stay
1. That the students were happy
2. That they got on well with the children and that the children were also happy
3. That the students liked me ... and my cooking.  Because let's face it, it's all about the grub.  

Apart from the logistics of converting a dining room into a bedroom and juggling work and childcare during the students' stay, the initial thoughts of feeding two teenage boys created a big anxiety in me.  It's been a while since I've cooked for anyone other than my children in my Hobbit House.  It's been even longer since I've cooked meat.  And it's been over 25 years since I've eaten it.  It was highly unlikely that my teenagers would be vegetable loving vegetarians and they aren't.  The more animal flesh they can get their teeth around the better.

Overall, my cooking has gone down well, so far.  There has been a few blips. I couldn't help but feel slightly hurt when my Spanish student politely said that he 'more or less' liked my homemade apple pie.  'More or less?'  No extra marks for my light touch with pastry?  It appeared not.  (But if I am REALLY honest with myself, it could have done with an extra sprinkle of sugar).  My Spanish omelette had a similar response.  I thought that it looked good enough to be photographed for a magazine.  I guess it was a case of presenting sand to the Arabs and expecting them to be impressed.

This is my third time having foreign students and I have established universal food formulas that seem to work for both vegetarians (the children and me) and sometimes fickle students.  It's simple really - Any combination of carbohydrates (pasta, breads, potato), garlic, cheese, tomato and mayonnaise.  If I was looking for an easy life, we could have dined on variations of this for the duration, but in the interest of balance, I threw in a few extra dishes.  Homemade pancakes, early morning, or late at night always go down a treat.  They are like a big group hug, without anyone having to make unnecessary bodily contact.

Last night I made a Chicken Caesar Salad, with roast leg of chicken, while the veggies in the house had pasta.  A neighbour's Spanish student arrived half way through dinner.  'Can I have some dinner please, I'm hungry', he said.  I was amused as I knew he had just finished dinner with my neighbour. I remembered by friend Maria laughing about her son's 'hollow legs', that could store endless amounts of food.  'We are vegetarian you know Andrieu', I said, taking small talk. 'I know, Borja told me already' he smiled.  Hmmm ... They talked about me. I wondered if the context for the conversation was that I was a rubbish cook because I AM veggie, or if I am an excellent cook, DESPITE being veggie.  I was afraid to ask.

The students devoured their dinner, clearing their plates, then asking for some of the children's pasta dish leftovers.  The veggie bolognese got a similar thumbs up.  I dished up pancakes and chocolate spread for dessert.  They couldn't come from the kitchen quick enough.

My Spanish student put his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss.  'My Irish Mother'.

My Irish Mammy heart felt like it might burst.



 

The Boy and The Spaniard

It's almost a week now since our Spanish student arrived at chez Poppy Cottage, at silly o'clock in the night. The Boy was too excited to go to bed before we collected our student from the college.  We were all too tired to really think about the oddness of picking up a young person from a bus and whisking them away into the unknown, the unknown for all of us. The shyness didn't last long.

I felt like I had planned for all eventualities, but I hadn't thought about how having an extra male in the house might shift the balance in the house.

Well, it has.  In fact,The Boy has turned into a walking ball of testosterone. In just seven days, he seems to have acquired broader shoulders, a deeper voice, hairs on his chest and a John Wayneesque stride.  All at the ripe old age of 8.

He has also developed an insatiable appetite to show off.  This show-off-ness seems to be linked directly to undoing my cleaning efforts.  His main mode of transport around my hobbit house is his scooter, best used after repeatedly coating the wheels with mud.  Random acts such as pulling the crumb tray out from under the toaster are common.  At 10pm at night.  There's disappearing when dinner appears on the table to pretend to swim under a couch that he can barely fit under.  Why? Just why ??

Then there's the ransacking of the house to look for 'his favourite' football jerseys, to impress our footie mad Spaniard, amid Euro 2016 mania.  I adopt a puzzled look, assist in the searching and tell The Boy that I don't know where they are.  I decide not to remind his that, until last week, he hated the fabric in the jerseys (I'm not a big fan myself) and that I have in fact, given almost all of them away.  I just hope that his younger cousins don't arrive down in Nana's house sporting the gear any time soon. Thankfully, he finds a jersey that had escaped my recycling endeavors, although he can barely stretch it over his pumped up muscles.

This whole adventure is costing me a fortune.  Today I was cajoled into buying a new pair of football boots, socks and a football.  When explained to the guy in the sports shop about our new found interest in soccer, he showed us the new Real Madrid jersey, which is actually pretty cool, even in 'that' fabric. It will be next on the wish list, no doubt.

But overall, life is good.  The fridge has never been so well stocked.  I'm taking half days from work which means home cooked dinners and desserts every day.  I am digging the Domestic Goddess feeling. My sensitive vegetarian nose is just about getting used to the house smelling of meat.  It's easier than trying to convert a carnivorous teenager to my way of thinking.  And I can always dilute the smell with another rarity in my house, the scent of cleaning products.

As I write, the now over tired Boy is doing anything to avoid sleep and from his bedroom, is cackling like someone who needs an exorcism.

Thankfully, there's wine.  And it doesn't have to be Spanish

Good News Day

I had my annual trip to see my neurologist in Beaumont Hospital in the last week.

The anxiety that I felt that morning is deflected towards the imminent arrival of a Spanish student, getting the children up and out for their last day in school, a thank you present for teacher, the traffic in Dublin and finding a parking space.  I try to read a novel that I started a few weeks ago and haven't made much progress on, but the words swim before my eyes.  I'm not left waiting long.  It's a different neurologist this time, but he has already read my file before I arrive.

'Good news', he says, in a soft Kerry accent.  'The lesions that presented last year have gone'.  He showed me the MRI images and compared them with last years.  Even my untrained eye can see that there is, pretty much, nothing to see.  I'm not the best at the 'science bit' on MS, but I probably knew previously that lesions could disappearing, but I don't recall.  When I heard last year that I had three new lesions, including one on my spine, I was terribly upset.  As the year played out rather dramatically for me, with stress levels off the radar, I was worried that I could have a significant flair up.  But no, no flair up and now, it appears, three less lesions.

I have tried to mind myself as best I can.  I've taken my weekly shitty, poxy injections.  The neurologist said that the drugs I am on have been in use for 40 years now and are successful for lots of people with MS.  No all people though.  I am one of the lucky ones. I ask the neurologist if recent incidents of memory loss could be attributed to MS.  He says 'no', and reminds me of what stress can do to the body, 'you need to take care of yourself'.

I get bloods taken and the nurse is kind.  We chat and I tell her my news.  She's pleased genuinely pleased for me.  She pulls the curtain around my cubicle in the Blood Clinic and we do some relaxation exercises.  I feel like giving her a hug as I leave.

My illness in chronic, with no known cure.  I know that no new lesions don't necessarily mean no symptoms and offer no promise of further progression in the future, but for now, I feel on top of the world.  I leave Beaumont Hospital, with a cream doughnut and a strong coffee, walking past the patients in wheelchairs, relishing every puff  of their cigarettes under the No Smoking' signs.

I'm so happy that I feel like making an announcement on the lunchtime news.   I phone my mother and tell my work colleagues, but I pause after that.

Because I write, I have connected with many people through that platform, through the MS Society and with my brother who also has MS.  Many of the updates I receive from them are personal stories about new symptoms (although usually delivered in an optimistic, we-will-nail-this-fecker-yet attitude), research, advocacy and information on disease management (something I'm not so hot on).

I feel awkward, almost guilty, about announcing that I have good news, although I know that each of them will be happy for me as I would for them. My news comes at a time when there are huge developments in treatments and hopefully, very soon, a cure.

In the meantime, I'm feeling healthier and happier than I have in years.  For now, I'll bask in that.