On sunshine...actually no - it should be - 'On SunShine'...no, on SUN SHINE...............

What a week! The god-forsaken bog I live on has had four days of unbroken sunshine, blue skies and warmth. It's unprecedented - at least in short-term memory it's unprecedented; and we love it - we Irish becomes even more Irish when the sun shines - in Ireland only of course. I feel like I'm on holidays with all my neighbours. We're all rambling around in shorts and strappy tops and sandals - and that's only the men! Even the older lady who normally walks up the road wrapped up like Michelin Man has been spotted sitting outside her front door stripped down to cardigan, blouse and skirt and ...drumroll...NO TIGHTS!  

It started on bank holiday Monday - it was a gorgeous day after a disappointing Saturday and Sunday which were dry but dull and still a little chilly. So when I woke to the sun I plonked myself out the back garden with books and newpapers and read and dozed my way through the day. Well, that's what bank holidays are for. Then came Tuesday and whaddya know - the sun was still shining. Y'can't do any housework on a sunny day (Housewives Commandments No 5) so out to the garden again with me - this time I did actually take a break from sunbathing to walk the dog and cook a dinner (not at same time natch!). Wednesday - S.L.O.D.G -still sunny! I started to feel guilty over spending another day in the garden so bought a few plants and did a little weeding to ease my Irish Catholic guilty conscience over actually enjoying myself doing Sweet Fanny Adams.

Today is Thursday and I had an appointment to meet an illustrator in Malahide for a series of books I have planned for HRH The Story Queen. I couldn't believe it - the sun was still shining; I've decided it's shining because I decided not to go to the Continent on hols this year . God must've looked down and said 'That poor woman - I better send a few rays her way.'

I walked to Malahide; it was a beautiful morning to walk along the Estuary - drinking in the beauty of Nature on my doorstep. I got on like a house on fire with the illustrator - she's brilliant and on my wave-length so I think we may be poised for WORLD DOMINATION. Or at least 26 county saturation! I walked back to Swords after the meeting marveling to myself that this is now what I call work. Work! Hah!

Tomorrow I'm into Fighting Words in the a.m. and have a Story Queen date with a five year old in the p.m. Oh and yeah - the sun is supposed to shine all weekend as well........I may never leave Ireland again.

The Tyrone Guthrie Centre

Well – this week finds me yet again in my second house/home. And the beauty about being in this enormous rambling creaky old house for brief (too brief) a period is that here I have no bills to worry about, no meals to prepare or beds to make, no cleaning to be done, no washing – endless bloody washing to be put on, put out, taken in, sorted and redistributed; then the whole bloody cycle starts again.

I love this place. I love the people who work here. I love the laughter with them - the slagging and the inevitable smutty chat. Smuttiness is good. Almost as good as flirting.  Flirting and laughing and smutty talk make the world go round.

 I love the silence and the space. I love the erudite conversation and hilarious discourse around the table at the evening meal. I love the food. Good food. Great food. Almost as good as sex food. Even almost as good as chocolate food!

This time I’m billeted in the Morning Room where I write with a morning cuppa for an hour or so. I don’t know why it’s called the Morning Room as the sun never quite reaches it at any time of day. After breakfast I take a stroll, the length of which depends on how well the work is going. So far it’s been going well. After another hour or two I take another break. Maybe wander down to the sitting room (where I sprawl as I’m writing this) and gaze at the lake which can be either still and eerily flat or glint with dancing sunshine. I am quiet. The house is quiet. The silence here is really extraordinary – it has a quality to it I have never felt (heard?) anywhere else – not even in my beloved Donegal. They say the earth hums in B flat. Well, the Big House definitely hums a different note.   

At lunchtime I might run into one or other of the guests who are here – one’s rarely bored with people staying in Annamak – all with fascinating tales to tell. Someone should write a book set in this place. A good old murder mystery maybe – g’wan all you crime-writers out there – double dare ye!  The house is an ideal place in which to set a ghost story – and the story of the ghost in one of the rooms here invariably comes up. People believe what they want to believe – its called faith.

The early afternoon I dedicate to a little thinking and reading, then try to write for another two hours. Then dinner. Oh! Annamak dinners! Depending on what stage people are at there might be long chats over glasses of wine. Or, as happened on my first night her, a few songs from musicians – what voices they had! What songs they knew – wonderful. On another occasion some years ago there was an art exhibition and story reading from other guests.

When we wind up for the evening I sometimes stroll in the grounds or if I have some detail on my mind return to the desk and write again. I give no time to mundane tasks – barring showering of course! In Annamak I simply am.

The other Evelyn Walsh will be back here next week.

Namaste. 

No more rushin' around.......

The beauty of early retirement is that for the first time in your life you have lots of time to do all the things you always said you wanted to do but never had either the time or the money. It can also be the worst thing. The cold gray short days in the six weeks after Christmas nearly drove me insane. I wasn't able to write and the course I wanted to do was delayed in starting up so I had a lot of time on my hands. I cleaned everything that stood still, then started on the things that move occasionally (the men in my life!). I read until my eyes were sore and found there is never anything but rubbish on the blasted screen in the corner. My hands started cramping from knitting and it was too wet and cold for me to garden - anyway there isn't much to do in that period. I even resorted to going to the gym.

Just when I thought I could stand it no more and was considering buying paint to paint walls that didn't particularly need painting Ireland did what Ireland always does; she threw me several days together of hard bright winter sunshine. O Joy! I got out of bed early every day and walked the feet off myself in all the lovely coastal villages that you find in Fingal, my favourite being the coastal path that runs from Malahide to Portmarnock. People were smiling at each other and I heard greetings of 'isn't it a grand day' and 'great day thank God' over and over again. I even managed to get some washing almost dried out in the fresh air! In February! They say a lot of medics take vitamin D pills all winter or use those seasonally affected disorder lamps to reduce the mental health problems that a shortage of daylight seems to cause. I think I'll follow that regime myself next year.

Anyway today I was walking in Rush, a lovely little seaside village that sits on the coastline. It was absolutely Baltic and as the library wasn't open when I finished my walk I stopped into a little restaurant and coffee shop called The Thatch on the main street. I was their only customer at that hour and I settled myself and my paper into a table by the fire. A friendly young man brought me a latte and a scone to die for. The scone was just out of the oven and of course I ladled on the butter, the jam and the double cream - thus negating the benefits (fat wise) of my brisk walk. I noticed that they had a good lunch and evening meal menu and I will certainly go back at some stage to sample those menus.

And so to the library to work. I'm working on a new ghost-writing project just now and a few short stories as I'm struggling with my second novel. I've put it to one side for the moment and may or may not go back to it - the beauty of being your own boss! The library closes for lunch which is a bit of a nuisance but I sat in my car and had a sandwich then went for another walk, calling into the charity shop where I picked up some more than serviceable garments, a cushion (don't tell Jemser - cushions do his head in) and a little giraffe ornament for my collection. The things people throw away! Lots of the clothes looked as if they had only been worn once or twice. This will be remembered as the throw-away period of history. Back for another few hours writing and a bit of a chat with a nice young man who, like me. had to leave his house in order to ensure he did some work. Didn't work though - we both ended up wasting time talking. Chats are lovely though and, yes, I know I'm not supposed to talk in the library!  

On Writers' Block.......

I haven’t blogged for a number of months because I haven’t written anything for a couple of months. I always thought writer’s block was a myth – something procrastinating writers used to justify their lack of output. Well it’s no myth. My words abandoned me last November and I have been so lonely without them. I blamed my new medication, thinking it had dulled my senses and rendered me incapable of opening myself up to the truth that comes when I am writing well. I worried that I might never write again.

           

But Oh Joy! The creativity started to flow again recently! And I am swimming with it - caught in its current, buoyed up and perfectly safe. I cannot force this to happen. It has a life of its own. I often sit looking at a blinking cursor or contemplate a white page waiting until the first sentence comes. There are many false starts but when the work is going well my fingers can hardly keep up with the words that spill onto the page. The marshalling of them into a coherent whole will come later, much later - on the seventh or eight draft. But for now I just write. And write and write and write.

This piece was written today, February 3^rd in St Maur’s Church in Rush in North County Dublin. The church has been converted into a library and is a beautiful space to work in. There is just the right amount of noise in it as librarians and borrowers amble through their day. When  I lift my head from the screen I can look at beautiful wood, a vaulted ceiling or magnificent stained glass windows. It is incredibly energising. The wind was high and  howling around the outside of the church today suiting a piece I was working on that needed that energy. It fed the writing, I could barely keep up with it. It is an amazing feeling. Pray God it doesn’t desert me for too long ever again 

The Last Summer

I went to the Gate theatre with the Jemser last night to see 'The Last Supper' - a new play by Declan Hughes. I didn’t know what to expect. Declan has written a number of plays over the years none of which I have seen and more recently he has taken to writing thrillers set in Dublin which have been well received. Declan co-founded Rough Magic Theatre Company in 1984 and directed many of the company's productions.

Anyway the play is set in two time periods one in August 1977 and one 30 years later in August 2007. Four lads from the south side of Dublin await the results of their Leaving Certificate in 1977. They are in a band – the band is about to give its first (and as it happens its only) performance. It is a summer of exploring ideas, their sexuality, of fun and wonderment about the future. The world awaits them - one lad is a dreamer, one determined to make money, one running from his dysfunctional family. There is a girl involved (isn’t there always). In 2007 we again meet three of the men and the woman – all now in their late forties and life has happened to all of them.

It’s not a terribly original play but I’m not into experimental theatre anyway and I thoroughly enjoyed it as did Jemser. We both thought the second act much stronger than the first mainly down to the presence of Gary Lydon as the  adult character of the lad who was determined to make money. He has made money, lots of it, from the Celtic Tiger – which is just about going to come crashing down about his ears. Really strong performance. For us the play was nostalgic – more so for me. I did my Leaving Cert in 1978 and a lot of the pop culture references resonated with me - although I wasn't into it at the time I couldn't help but notice it.

The play reminded me of the blog I posted in the summer of 2011 re my own young man  - link here .

http://ev-allthisandheaventoo.blogspot.ie/2011/06/this-will-be-summer.html I hope his journey through life doesn’t leave him as faintly disappointed as many of the characters in last nights play were by their own lives.

Anyway – it’s a good night’s theatre particularly if you were a teenager in the late Seventies, early Eighties. It’s running until  for another few weeks. Go see.

A Pet Day.......and a Competition!.

Yesterday was a glorious day in Ireland. A glorious week for the most part. And boy did we make the most of it, The children were back at school but as soon as they arrived home they changed into shorts and tee shirts and headed out to play We on the East coast have been basking in temperatures in the twenties and the weather has been settled and mild.

Brother#2 reectly took a ten month lease on a house on a beach in Wesford so I drove down with Oscie and Liam and Mollie to have a lok. The spin from Dublin to Wexgfor is lovely particiularly when you go through Wicklow. It was lovely to see all the bales of hay lying uncovered in the fields to help them dry out after a somewhat sodden summer. Speaking of which - my haiku on wrapped bales in Donegal fields is below.

Crow pecked, white x’d bale:

Gleaming plastic buddhas in

rosary-beaded field.

We  arrived at lunchtime and as soon as the lads had togged themselves up they went straight down to the beautiful unspoiled little beach with dog and ball in tow. After a swim in the Irish Sea (which was suprisingly warm) a vigourous game of football was played. Mollie went into a frenzy trying to keep up, I sat up outside the house with Dad chatting and enjoying the sun. After about an hour I walked down steps to the beach conscious that Liam had no sun cream on him. He is so fair-skinned even a half an hour leaves him sun burned. As it happens they were heading back to the house ad because Molly had been in swimming and running around like a whirling dervish on the beach she was completely shattered. She actually couldn't stand! We had to lift her and carry her back to the house.There is loads of space and light in the house and it not only sits on the beach , it is adjacent to a golf course so is slice of heaven for those who enjoy swimming, walking and golfing.

After we ate we went back to the beach to walk its length. Molly was rested by then and was happy to join us. We ran into four other Bicho Freise. What do you call a collection of Bichons? A Bubble of Bichons?a Yip? Prize for the most original title! But the prize is only a copy of my novel 'The Heron's Flood.' Still, there might be an ul' aunt you'd like to give a good read to for Chrimbo (see I mentioned the C word ...and the sky didn't fall in) Dusk was gathering so we started to walk back to the house. the moon came up, it was in a spectacular last quarter and it hung low in the sky like a gigantic slice of lemon.

A pet day. 

Thalidomide and the death of a dream..

German based pharmaceutical company Gruenenthal issued an apology - the first in fifty years- to those whose lives were affected by taking the drug designed to counteract morning sickness to the late fifties. This drug was prescribed up to 1961 when it was withdrawn. More than 10,000 babies worldwide were born with limbs missing or foreshortened because their mothers had taken the thalidomide drug. Goodness knows how many miscarried. Of course the babies themselves are the chief sufferers as they grew to adulthood; many never reached adulthood, but mothers fathers siblings and extended families - all their lives were touched too because of a defect in the drug. Scandalously it continued to be prescribed long after doctors had notified the company of their concerns

Listening to the debate on radio/tv/social media about this apology this weekend brought it home to me the tragedy that befell my parents in April 1960. Mam and Dad married in 1959 and were delighted to find they were expecting a baby very shortly after their honeymoon. They were both in their early twenties, he a Garda she a shop assistant with only primary education. It was a brave new world for them. An adventure they were on together - Dad a country lad while Mam hailed from the sophistication of Marino in Dublin. On the 15th of April 1960 they were walking up Griffith Avenue towards their new home in Willow Park Crescent in Ballygall (then Finglas, then Ballymun now Glasnevin!!) chatting about the visit they had just had with Mam's parents and laughing at the antics of the new pup they had 'adopted'. Something startled the pup and she scarpered out onto the road and unfortunately was hit by a car, she died immediately. Mam was awfully upset and she felt the baby leap within her. They wrapped the dog in a bag and carried it home to bury it.

It was three or four days before Mam realised that she hadn't felt the baby move. She'd leave it another day. She couldn't be bothering the doctors with imaginings. Sure she was only seven months - it might be normal for the baby to settle down and be quieter in the last few months. She had no information barring what she could glean from hushed conversations between her mother and neighbours, she was the first of her girlfriends to marry, her older sister was married but living in the States. She was a complete innocent. On the fifth day of stillness in her womb she took herself to the GP who immediately referred her to the Rotunda Hospital. There it was confirmed that there was no heartbeat.

It was the practise at the time to wait to see would Mother Nature take her course and when she didn't labour was induced on April 25th . To have knowingly carried a dead baby inside her must have been so frightening and horrific - no counsellors then! The baby was whisked away and my Mother never saw her first son. She was never allowed hold him, never really allowed grieve My Father was allowed see his dead son and all he ever said was 'She was better off not knowing.' The baby was buried in the Angels plot in Glasnevin Cemetery - stuck in Limbo forever according the Catholic doctrine of the time. Poor little soul! Poor sad parents. They believed for years that the shock Mam had received when the dog died had in some way startled the baby in here womb. In later years Dad did say that the baby had been thalidomide and had decomposed somewhat in the ten days.

God love them - those two youthful souls - their little piece of Paradise ruined. It must've made them grow up very quickly  It is no wonder my arrival eleven months later meant total unparalleled joy for them. Mam said she never ever took her eyes off me. I'd well believe it for in my mind's eye I can still see that face, all smiles and laughter leaning in over my cot to greet me. Her smiling face. The first face I loved. Poor old Dad didn't get a look in in the love fest between the two of us! He must have been so happy to see her restored to some semblance of the carefree girl he had married two years previously.

With the passing of time  we can look at our parents' past and see the events that shape them and us. When we are living an experience we only have the now - and it is only later with the wisdom of hindsight and the mellowing of years that we can see, analyse and forgive all the shortcomings perceived or real of our forbears.

Sleep soundly big brother, wherever your little soul wanders. I grew up hearing all about you. You were loved even though you may not have had life outside the womb. I would love to have met you. It is ironic that thirty years later to the day she gave birth to you my mother found herself again in a hospital - this time at my bedside following my first traumatic mental health hospitalization. Dates had huge significance for Mam - it shows that she never ever forgot her son. Her real first child.