My mother was a martyr to travel documentaries. If it wasn’t Judith Chambers on Wish You Were Here, it was Alan Whicker in Whicker’s Word, or Michael Palin’s Great Railway Journeys. I thought it was a bit pointless watching these shows since her illness prohibited her ever travelling to any of the destinations. Now I …
I’d like to talk to the screen writer of this bizarre dystopian film we’re all living in. They seem to be fond of sudden plot twists that I, for one, never see coming. I wasn’t prepared for the abrupt school closures on 12th March, in fact I was only in my local supermarket that day …
Learning to ride a bike is a rite of passage. Once you’ve mastered potty training, walking, and reciting your ABC’s, cycling is generally next on the list. Not for me. Bicycles were, to my overprotective Dad’s way of thinking, ‘deadly dangerous’. Even though he had always been a cyclist down home as a boy in …
This whole thing is just a dry run for retirement, right? There’s a bloke on my course who claims to be my husband. He’s here all the time, but I shouldn’t complain, he seems very nice. However, this constant co-living requires a lot of compromise. They say a zebra is a horse designed by committee. …
God, I miss hugs. My Uncle Tom died seven years ago, had he lived, he would be due to celebrate his 100th birthday this August. As a child, I spent summer holidays on his farm in Tipperary where I knew him to be a strict man around whom you had to behave. As an adult …
There is a town in Western Central France called Oradour Sur Glane. It has been preserved as an abandoned village since World War II when all 642 inhabitants were marched to the town square and massacred by German troops. President Charles De Gaulle ordered that it be left exactly as it stood on 10th June …
My biggest fear these days, and believe me I have many, is that we will completely lose our sense of craic during all this. We are all being so good, so obedient, rightly so, but don’t we also have to maintain a spark of devilment. I have discovered a few trigger words that make me …
I wonder what name the history books will give to this strange time. If World War II was referred to in Ireland as ‘The Emergency’, I propose we call this one ‘The Inconvenience’. Everyone is being put out. Older people asked to stay locked up at home, young children tolerating new and inexperienced teachers with …
Recently I received a gift. It was a rectangular box, the kind that looked suspiciously like a fancy selection of chocolates. I prepared my face to light up my thanks to the giver, until I unwrapped it to reveal . . . a Fitbit. I’m a very straightforward person. I have no problem giving heavy …
Sometime readers, if you are very good, I will share with you the secrets of my shopping list making and grocery shopping management. It is, if I say so myself, my finest talent. Years of taking down lists dictated to me by my mother have stood me in good sted and I plan my week’s …
Ordinary Plenty 