Musings on a Life Quite Ordinary

Earlier this week, I was tagged by the delightful and talented HotCrossMum She challenged me to list my top ten things in my perfect man/woman. There’s no point listing my top ten for a man, because my beloved man is smokin’ hot.   How could I possibly be limited to just ten things that make him perfect?   He broke the mould, I get a toothache just looking at him – Hi Babe, how’s work? Luckily, I have been blessed with a large number of fabulous women in my life.   I really do have a lot of them.   From family and friends, to other mothers I’ve met through my kids, I’ve always got someone to reach out to, be it with a crisis, for a laugh, for a cry, for a moan, for a bitch, or just for a ramble about nothing. So, this should be easy, however again, narrowing myself down to just ten things has been a bit of a challenge in itself, but here goes: My Perfect Woman 1.        Is an honest person, no matter how hard that is.   E...

One day, while at a friend’s house watching her freak out over the volume button on the TV being on an odd rather than even number, it occurred to me that lot of people I know have some funny quirks.   Some people may call them obsessions, but I’ll go with quirks because they’re not doing any harm.   I think. One friend washes her hands constantly.   Another cannot and I really mean cannot shake hands with anybody.   Another can’t handle his pen being moved from exactly where he left it.   I also know someone who has to have their tea bag left untouched for exactly 1 minute 40 seconds in a cup of scalding water and don’t dare squeeze that thing as you remove it.   Ok, the last one is me, but what’s wrong with developing a method of making the absolute best cup of tea.   There’s nothing worse than looking forward to a lovely cuppa and then taking a mouthful of tar or worse – dishwater. Ok, it’s possible that it is just me and my friends.  ...

This week marked my Dad’s birthday.   He’s no longer with us, but I like to remember him on his birthday even though he wasn’t a fan of the day himself.    We clashed a lot, my Dad and me, especially when I was younger.   I complained about him, argued with him, scoffed at his ideas, ignored his orders and regularly used my all time weapon against him - contradiction.   There were months at a time when if he said black, I said white.   I wish I hadn’t.  He was a good man, his heart was in the right place and right to the end, he tried his best.   Which is the most any of us can do. It’s much nicer to remember the good stuff.   Like how he could create a gastronomic masterpiece without a recipe.   His laugh.   His collection of hobbies from fishing to brewing beer so strong, one bottle left me a dribbling incoherent mess.   His loyalty to RTE Radio 1.   His kindness to anything with four legs.   How he gave me a bag...

When I was 9 I wanted to grow up so I could cycle a bike to school. When I was 10 I wanted to grow up so I could be a Charlie’s Angel. When I was 11 I wanted to grow up so I could eat chips every day for dinner. When I was 12 I wanted to grow up so I could wear make up. When I was 13 I wanted to grow up so I could babysit. When I was 14 I wanted to grow up so I could go to a debutants ball. When I was 15 I wanted to grow up so I didn’t have to go to school anymore. When I was 16 I wanted to grow up so I could drive a car. Some time after that I did grow up (more or less) and discovered it wasn’t all that great after all. The thing is, at no point on this journey through my childhood and teenage years do I ever remember wanting to actually do the really serious stuff that goes along with being an actual grown up. How did two 9 year olds who live near me learn how many points are in a bar of chocolate and a packet of crisps?   And why would they care? Why do we live in a...

Remember buying sweets by the quarter pound or the half pound or maybe even one eighth of a pound if you had already spent most of your pocket money and the sweet shop keeper was nice? Pear drops, satin pillows, pips, cough drops, mint imperials, rhubarb and custard and my all time favourite – cola cubes.   I loved cola cubes; I would suck the sugar off the outside and then nip away at the corners until I hit the heavenly reward of gooey chewy stuff in the centre.   My mother still remembers one day in her kitchen after school when one of them took her filling clean out of her tooth. I loved them so much in my teens that I actually wrote their name on my pencil case which was one of those geometry set tins that had been dropped, sat on and stepped on so many times over the years that I could barely fit one red and one blue pen in it by my last year at school.     I still have it somewhere. I did write Kola Kubes in an attempt to be cool, but then I also belie...