I am writing this on Saturday, 29th February, which makes it Leap Year Day. Currently, the sun is shining in a blue sky although there has been a flurry of raindrops against my window.
I woke early this morning and decided to do my shopping straight away in order to beat Jorge the approaching storm, which is due to hit the West of Ireland in the next hours - two counties are on red alert. Not surprisingly, nearly everyone had the same idea. My shopping took longer as I stopped and chatted to any number of acquaintances. In Ireland, the big topic is always the weather: 'Cold, isn't it?'; 'Lovely to see the sun'; I wonder will we get the storm?'
I have stocked up on crispbread and cans of soup - just in case I come down with the coronavirus and have to self-isolate for 14 days. I can't believe I wrote self-isolate! What a whole new range of words can evolve around a storm! We now have a storm warning nearly every weekend. It used to be "strong winds" now its galeforce, gusting up to 150 kmph. Even worse are the rainfall warnings. The ground is saturated, there is no place for the water from swollen rivers to go so they burst their banks and swamp huge areas.
The newspaper headlines which I glimpsed in the supermarket carry assurances from the racing folk that the Cheltenham Festival will go ahead. I sincerely hope so as I enjoy watching this on television and always put on a few small bets. It is bad enough that the Italy/Ireland rugby match has been postponed but our human rights are in danger if the horse racing is off the cards.
I have a sore throat today, so I will stay at home and keep warm - that North wind nearly took the skin off of my face on the way to the shops this morning. I will do a bit of writing and then I will make a pot of tea and watch Casablanca.
Here's looking at you, kid!
Saturday, 29 February 2020
Friday, 21 February 2020
This Writing Life
We are almost two months into the new year and I have finally settled down to write my next novel. It will be a contemporary romance/family tale set during the Christmas period. Until I started writing it, I felt something was missing and yet I was reluctant to sit down and work out plot details. As usually happens when I write, I made several starts and changed several characters. Now that I have written the first 10,000 words, the characters themselves are driving the plot as they say in publishing circles. So I am pretty sure of the ending although not so sure how the characters are going to get there.
I started writing when I was around twelve years old. I still remember why I started. I grew up on a farm and we had been bringing in the hay. This involved putting a chain under a cock of hay and having the horse haul it into the haggard. I bet there are some readers who are scratching their heads and asking what's a cock of hay/what's a haggard? - that is a measure of how farming has evolved. Nowadays we have silage for the animals instead of dried grass = hay. Silage is made from fermented grass stored in a silo. Not half as romantic as cutting the hay, putting it into cocks when it is dry and then hauling it into the haggard, all the while with an anxious eye on the weather. That's progress for you.
Haggard according to my modern Collins dictionary is "looking tired and ill". In Ireland, the Ireland I grew up in, a haggard was almost always an area adjacent to the farm yard or what once was a farm yard. Traditionally this was an enclosed area on a farm for stacking hay, grain or other fodder. It probably comes from some Gaelic word. Never mind, it is hardly ever used nowadays. Another bit of useless information to enrich your conversation at a social event.
Anyway, as children we used to sit on the cock of hay as it was being dragged into the haggard by the horse. We got a lot of fun out of this, as we did out of so many simple things, and I remember that I wanted to put it down on paper, this feeling of summer and the sweet smell of the hay and the pungent smell of the horse's sweat. And that is why I started a story called "Lily in the Country", which of course I never finished. It did give me an appetite for writing, though, which has stayed with me.One of the nicest compliments I received was last year when a reader having read one of my crime novels set in the Kerry mountains, told me "I thought I was there".
The first rule of writing is BIC = butt in chair. You keep writing until you get it right and maybe then a reader tells you something like this and it really makes it all worthwhile.
I started writing when I was around twelve years old. I still remember why I started. I grew up on a farm and we had been bringing in the hay. This involved putting a chain under a cock of hay and having the horse haul it into the haggard. I bet there are some readers who are scratching their heads and asking what's a cock of hay/what's a haggard? - that is a measure of how farming has evolved. Nowadays we have silage for the animals instead of dried grass = hay. Silage is made from fermented grass stored in a silo. Not half as romantic as cutting the hay, putting it into cocks when it is dry and then hauling it into the haggard, all the while with an anxious eye on the weather. That's progress for you.
Haggard according to my modern Collins dictionary is "looking tired and ill". In Ireland, the Ireland I grew up in, a haggard was almost always an area adjacent to the farm yard or what once was a farm yard. Traditionally this was an enclosed area on a farm for stacking hay, grain or other fodder. It probably comes from some Gaelic word. Never mind, it is hardly ever used nowadays. Another bit of useless information to enrich your conversation at a social event.
Anyway, as children we used to sit on the cock of hay as it was being dragged into the haggard by the horse. We got a lot of fun out of this, as we did out of so many simple things, and I remember that I wanted to put it down on paper, this feeling of summer and the sweet smell of the hay and the pungent smell of the horse's sweat. And that is why I started a story called "Lily in the Country", which of course I never finished. It did give me an appetite for writing, though, which has stayed with me.One of the nicest compliments I received was last year when a reader having read one of my crime novels set in the Kerry mountains, told me "I thought I was there".
The first rule of writing is BIC = butt in chair. You keep writing until you get it right and maybe then a reader tells you something like this and it really makes it all worthwhile.
Monday, 27 January 2020
Writing Letters
I was tidying up my Christmas cards last week. They are getting fewer as time goes on and more people communicate with me via WhatsApp. Some friends still write me a Christmas letter and I really enjoy this. It is so rare to get a handwritten letter these days. To be honest, as my writing has deteriorated in direct relation to how often I use my laptop, my friends all get a typed letter from me. I would be ashamed to inflict my scrawl on them. I used to have nice handwriting though.
I am old enough to remember letters as the usual way of communicating, especially if you lived abroad as I did. Phone calls were expensive so only made in emergencies usually. I know that I wrote to my siblings once a month, filling at least four sheets of A4 with my handwritten news. It would take me over an hour to get everything down in a legible hand. I remember, too, what fun it was to receive letters from family and friends. I would usually wait until I had a quiet time in the day to read them. I'd make myself a cup of tea and take my time over each letter. Some of my correspondents were better at communicating than others, of course, although all letters were very welcome.
Looking back, I have to ask myself: what did we write about? Did we have more fun in those days, more things to communicate? The kids were small,of course, and a lot of news centered around them and their progress. We wrote to each other about places we'd visited, about people who had visited us and about our return visits to them. We added snippets of news about politics or the latest scandals. We always seemed to have something to say and we took the time to write it.
Clicking on an email is no substitute for the pleasure of receiving an envelope with your name and address on it and the certainty that the letter it contains will entertain you as no perusal of Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram can - despite the photos which you can click through at leisure.
I am old enough to remember letters as the usual way of communicating, especially if you lived abroad as I did. Phone calls were expensive so only made in emergencies usually. I know that I wrote to my siblings once a month, filling at least four sheets of A4 with my handwritten news. It would take me over an hour to get everything down in a legible hand. I remember, too, what fun it was to receive letters from family and friends. I would usually wait until I had a quiet time in the day to read them. I'd make myself a cup of tea and take my time over each letter. Some of my correspondents were better at communicating than others, of course, although all letters were very welcome.
Looking back, I have to ask myself: what did we write about? Did we have more fun in those days, more things to communicate? The kids were small,of course, and a lot of news centered around them and their progress. We wrote to each other about places we'd visited, about people who had visited us and about our return visits to them. We added snippets of news about politics or the latest scandals. We always seemed to have something to say and we took the time to write it.
Clicking on an email is no substitute for the pleasure of receiving an envelope with your name and address on it and the certainty that the letter it contains will entertain you as no perusal of Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram can - despite the photos which you can click through at leisure.
Tuesday, 7 January 2020
New Year Resolutions and All That. A not quite serious look at New Year Plans
Reading the Sunday newspapers last weekend, I was amazed and amused at all the advice and baring of souls the Lifestyle sections contained. Talk about over-sharing! It is bad enough that we are forever being given tips on how to manage Christmas as if it were some infectious disease instead of a happy holiday time. Mind you, with all the over-eating and alcohol consumption, it could be considered a health hazard. I always want to shout: take it easy, have soup and sandwiches, play board games with the family and maybe - weather permitting - take a leisurely walk before sitting down to tea and Christmas cake. Ban mobiles for the day and get everybody talking if they haven't already started while playing Monopoly or Scrabble or whatever your fancy is. That lost art, conversation, is better than anything on the television. Everyone will find it so much more fun once they get used to the idea of talking to each other.
But to return to my topic, we have stars and celebs giving us their take on what they did wrong and how they are going to fix it in 2020.
Before we make out that list of getting up at 5 a.m. to go running, doing an hour's yoga (Namaste!), nibbling on a lettuce leaf, let's just stop here and ask ourselves the all important question: are you happy with you (despite all your faults and not looking like the latest fashion icon, are you happy with the you of you, in other words)? I would say, you are just fine. Yeah, maybe you put on a pound or two over Christmas, or you were rude to Aunty Beth or told the people next door that you all had flu so you couldn't go to their you-knew-it-would-be-deadly-boring bash. That's what being human is all about. You don't have to share it with the whole world. You can tell yourself that you'll try and do better, be more tolerant, use less plastic, take the bus to work. That's all good, but it doesn't mean that you have made a mess of things. It just means that, like the rest of us, you are human.
I have also seen lists which give ten ways to improve your life. Abraham Lincoln said something like "folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be". That is the glass half full, half empty idea. It isn't easy with all the social media cant that is out there. I mean, who came up with the expression "imposter syndrome"? That's just trying to scare people who are doing their best.
New Year resolutions? I haven't made any in years. I used to, mind you. I tried giving up cigarettes a lot of times and one year even made it to April when a colleague brought me duty-frees and I thought what a shame to waste them. (I did finally give up smoking but not at NewYear). Alcohol-free January? No thanks.
The golden maxim is everything in moderation: work, play, food, alcohol, shopping. Life is for living. There are no repeats.
Have a great 2020 everyone!
But to return to my topic, we have stars and celebs giving us their take on what they did wrong and how they are going to fix it in 2020.
Before we make out that list of getting up at 5 a.m. to go running, doing an hour's yoga (Namaste!), nibbling on a lettuce leaf, let's just stop here and ask ourselves the all important question: are you happy with you (despite all your faults and not looking like the latest fashion icon, are you happy with the you of you, in other words)? I would say, you are just fine. Yeah, maybe you put on a pound or two over Christmas, or you were rude to Aunty Beth or told the people next door that you all had flu so you couldn't go to their you-knew-it-would-be-deadly-boring bash. That's what being human is all about. You don't have to share it with the whole world. You can tell yourself that you'll try and do better, be more tolerant, use less plastic, take the bus to work. That's all good, but it doesn't mean that you have made a mess of things. It just means that, like the rest of us, you are human.
I have also seen lists which give ten ways to improve your life. Abraham Lincoln said something like "folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be". That is the glass half full, half empty idea. It isn't easy with all the social media cant that is out there. I mean, who came up with the expression "imposter syndrome"? That's just trying to scare people who are doing their best.
New Year resolutions? I haven't made any in years. I used to, mind you. I tried giving up cigarettes a lot of times and one year even made it to April when a colleague brought me duty-frees and I thought what a shame to waste them. (I did finally give up smoking but not at NewYear). Alcohol-free January? No thanks.
The golden maxim is everything in moderation: work, play, food, alcohol, shopping. Life is for living. There are no repeats.
Have a great 2020 everyone!
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
A Feeling of Home
At this time of year, we are inclined to look back on what we achieved over the outgoing year and make some new resolutions for the coming one.
I have been travelling a lot in 2019 and the one thing which stands out for me is that I had the feeling of coming home each time I returned to my little apartment. I have been out of Ireland for most of my life, first in London and then in Germany in a small town close to Frankfurt. I never called anywhere home, or if I did, I did not mean it in the sense of belonging somewhere. Neil Diamond's song I am, I said, has always resonated with me. So it is nice, not to say heartwarming, to find a place I can feel at home in.
Not that I regret travelling. I met so many fascinating people and worked in so many interesting jobs over the years and I wouldn't miss that for the world.
This afternoon I am going to see Little Women in the local cinema with supper afterwards. I am looking forward to that.
I wish all my readers a very Happy New Year!
I have been travelling a lot in 2019 and the one thing which stands out for me is that I had the feeling of coming home each time I returned to my little apartment. I have been out of Ireland for most of my life, first in London and then in Germany in a small town close to Frankfurt. I never called anywhere home, or if I did, I did not mean it in the sense of belonging somewhere. Neil Diamond's song I am, I said, has always resonated with me. So it is nice, not to say heartwarming, to find a place I can feel at home in.
Not that I regret travelling. I met so many fascinating people and worked in so many interesting jobs over the years and I wouldn't miss that for the world.
This afternoon I am going to see Little Women in the local cinema with supper afterwards. I am looking forward to that.
I wish all my readers a very Happy New Year!
Thursday, 19 December 2019
The Art of Conversation
'My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation', so says Anne Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion. I am inclined to agree with her but also to agree with Mr. Elliot when he replies: 'that is not good company, that is the best'. When reading these words (re-reading actually since I have read all of Ms Austen's novels except Northanger Abbey at least twenty times or more), I could not help thinking that these sentiments were also Jane Austen's own. I would love to have been able to sit down and talk to her, because although her life was fairly confined, she had a deep interest and understanding of her fellow human beings. She found much to laugh at and much to admire and was well aware of her own critical attitude. I think that is why her novels still have such general appeal.
Conversation is an art in itself and good conversation is as rare today as it was in Ms Austen's time - if not rarer. In bygone days there was no television, no podcasts, no mobile phones. Entertainment and news were mainly distributed by word of mouth. Dinner parties were the thing as far as entertainment went, dinners and balls in the winter and the resultant gossip they produced were the equivalent of Instagram, Twitter and FaceBook today. The major difference lies in the fact that conversation with other people who have news/gossip/information to give, has to be ten times more entertaining than reading the display on a mobile. The younger generation would never believe this, I think. I have often seen groups of them sitting in cafes and all of them are immersed in their phones. Not a word is spoken among them. My only hope is that, one day in the future, people will wake up to the fact that other people are fascinating, that hearing someone talk about what they have experienced, where they have been, what they have worked at, beats thumbing through Tweets or Posts on your mobile.
Conversation is an art in itself and good conversation is as rare today as it was in Ms Austen's time - if not rarer. In bygone days there was no television, no podcasts, no mobile phones. Entertainment and news were mainly distributed by word of mouth. Dinner parties were the thing as far as entertainment went, dinners and balls in the winter and the resultant gossip they produced were the equivalent of Instagram, Twitter and FaceBook today. The major difference lies in the fact that conversation with other people who have news/gossip/information to give, has to be ten times more entertaining than reading the display on a mobile. The younger generation would never believe this, I think. I have often seen groups of them sitting in cafes and all of them are immersed in their phones. Not a word is spoken among them. My only hope is that, one day in the future, people will wake up to the fact that other people are fascinating, that hearing someone talk about what they have experienced, where they have been, what they have worked at, beats thumbing through Tweets or Posts on your mobile.
Friday, 22 November 2019
What I remember about Christmas
You can't get away from it. Once Halloween is over, the Christmas decorations come out and there are bright lights, red Santas, and pretty little reindeer all over the place.
Looking back over the years, I can see that Christmas and the way I experienced it, have changed. It is part of growing up and getting older, part of the kids leaving the nest and having Christmas celebrations of their own. Nothing stays still in life.
I have very fond memories of walking to Midnight Mass underneath a sky full of stars; of our cats following us half way down the road; of hearing the choir and especially one local tenor singing "Silent Night". That song is synonymous with Christmas for me ever since. When I was in Austria several years ago, staying near Salzburg, I visited the Silent Night chapel in Oberndorf where the hymn was originally performed.
I can still taste the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (especially the Yorkshire pudding) which was our Christmas dinner - my mother did not eat any kind of fowl, so turkey was out. We never minded. In fact to this day, I will opt for Yorkshire pudding if it is on the menu. And we had good old-fashioned trifle for dessert, eating our Christmas pudding on the day after.
Later, living in Germany, traditions were slightly different. For one thing, the Germans start celebrations on the first Sunday in Advent. The first of four candles on the Adventskranz or Advent wreath are lighted and the first plate of homemade cookies is put on the table. The children's excitement grows with each Sunday as the second and third candles are lit and then it is only a few days until the fourth and final candle completes the symbol for the four weeks of Advent and Christmas has arrived.
Nowadays, I watch my grandchildren getting all excited. Every town and village has a Christmas market. I love the aroma of mulled wine and spicy hot orange juice mixed with cinnamon and ginger from the stalls selling cookies and the smell of grilled hot dogs and schnitzel.
In Germany, the Christmas tree is not put up until Christmas Eve and then the presents are piled underneath and handed out after supper that evening. Midnight services are very popular and all the churches are usually packed.
I'll be in Germany next week and will visit at least one Christmas market and eat Bratwurst, that tasty hot German sausage, oh and I will definitely have a Gluehwein or two! Happy Advent everyone!
Looking back over the years, I can see that Christmas and the way I experienced it, have changed. It is part of growing up and getting older, part of the kids leaving the nest and having Christmas celebrations of their own. Nothing stays still in life.
I have very fond memories of walking to Midnight Mass underneath a sky full of stars; of our cats following us half way down the road; of hearing the choir and especially one local tenor singing "Silent Night". That song is synonymous with Christmas for me ever since. When I was in Austria several years ago, staying near Salzburg, I visited the Silent Night chapel in Oberndorf where the hymn was originally performed.
I can still taste the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (especially the Yorkshire pudding) which was our Christmas dinner - my mother did not eat any kind of fowl, so turkey was out. We never minded. In fact to this day, I will opt for Yorkshire pudding if it is on the menu. And we had good old-fashioned trifle for dessert, eating our Christmas pudding on the day after.
Later, living in Germany, traditions were slightly different. For one thing, the Germans start celebrations on the first Sunday in Advent. The first of four candles on the Adventskranz or Advent wreath are lighted and the first plate of homemade cookies is put on the table. The children's excitement grows with each Sunday as the second and third candles are lit and then it is only a few days until the fourth and final candle completes the symbol for the four weeks of Advent and Christmas has arrived.
Nowadays, I watch my grandchildren getting all excited. Every town and village has a Christmas market. I love the aroma of mulled wine and spicy hot orange juice mixed with cinnamon and ginger from the stalls selling cookies and the smell of grilled hot dogs and schnitzel.
In Germany, the Christmas tree is not put up until Christmas Eve and then the presents are piled underneath and handed out after supper that evening. Midnight services are very popular and all the churches are usually packed.
I'll be in Germany next week and will visit at least one Christmas market and eat Bratwurst, that tasty hot German sausage, oh and I will definitely have a Gluehwein or two! Happy Advent everyone!
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