Every Little Helps

Step away from the Rancheros

Got up super early this Monday while Gentlemen Lodgers and Cost Centres were captive to zzzzz’s. Cost Centre #2 needed a lift to his final exams and I wanted to beat the traffic, though we are only three miles away. I try to write early in the morning, like serious successful authors say they do, except I find I tackle one word of scrabble from the night before instead.

I am saddened by the death of Donal Walsh, the brave Kerry teenager, taken at sixteen after his battle with cancer. That despicable word. The good really do die young. His message to other teenagers is cool, his parents must be incredibly proud and equally devastated. It reminds me we must treasure and forgive our sons when they stray wayward. Easier said than done.

I didn’t intend to write about this, its just when you get up on Monday morning you never know WTF is ahead. And I was going to write a cheerful post about top shopping tips. Which I will anyway.

Having dropped CC#2 to the RDS and watched him with a lump in my throat, saunter, seemingly carefree, with a bottle of water and a sheet of paper, I did several u-turns to extricate myself from the excess of moms and dads taking pity on their offspring and trying to get them near the gate. The sign that says UCD Exams, still gives me a labour pain.

I carried on with hairy mutt to Tesco Merrion, apparently the most expensive Tesco in the world. I’ve researched this, not extensively, but I’ve tried Lidl and Aldi once or twice and get lost in the aisles, get frustrated trying to find the coffee or cereal we eat and give up. And find the total bill no less irksome than a Tesco one. Except they do loyalty cards and I had clocked up 22 euro of free money. So, what’s not to like?

A lot. They really squeeze the Irish suppliers, so there is hardly a margin to survive on and that's how you put people out of business, this is clearly a fact, as Philip Boucher Hayes said it in his RTE documentary, What's Ireland Eating and they don't want to be sued, you know.

It's over two weeks since I’ve done the Big Shop, pre hospital I think, so emergency Spar runs in between. But with four men in the house, there was a dearth of loo roll, I believe we were down to one sheet per bathroom, no washing powder or dishwasher tabs, it was time to do an actual shop and there’s nothing I loathe more than pushing a trolley in Tesco. Most products are now reduced to two choices, own-brand and one other cheapo they found in eastern Europe. Once you’ve got used to where to find the stuff, they switch the location or randomly place special offer alerts in front of items not on special offer and you find you bought two of something you don’t need. And to give them back you need to join the long customer service queue, every second time I find an overcharge or dupe like this.

Here’s what I re-discovered about arriving before 9am on a Monday, the carpark is empty, no four-wheel drives to scrape my slim car. The aisles are empty; nothing has moved since my last visit, the checkouts are even empty. And Top Tip for saving money, the wine section is closed, so no temptation to see what special offers they have on a merlot or a pouilly fuisse, I mean, at ten euro its £7.88 in old money. I still convert. Sadly. Wine was way dearer eleven years ago. So, big saving there, on the pocket and elsewhere.

Mutt and I have time for a walk on Sandymount strand and it’s still not ten o’clock. I phone ahead to CC#1 who is in bed and put in a request to have shopping unloaded and stored, my second biggest hate. It’s time for me to get back to writing and get ready to meet a film-maker at lunchtime. Which turns out to be a great flowing chat with his producer colleague and well, watch this space, as they say.

Best Foot Forward

When I had two good knees

Wednesday morning I'm at St Vincent's Trauma Clinic and the wait isn't so bad except there's nowhere to rest the throbbing leg. I have a book, Tatty - the name, not the condition - an iPad to write on, forms to be filled in for a mindfulness class, which ask all sorts of mood questions in different ways just to catch you out.

There are quite a few leg and arm cases around me, young and old, the main problem is the audible tv show on the wall, Jeremy Kyle, with crazy mean people saying crazy mean things to each other.... a teenage mother who doesn't know who the father is.. I think that's all a bit depressing for the outpatients already in pain. Everybody is studiously avoiding watching it, except the man beside me is trying to explain it to his elderly mother and keeps repeating ‘it’s all about sex'. It's really too early in the morning to be listening to him too. So I'm assiduously clacking at my keyboard, looking busy.

The student nurse calls me in, the orthopaedic doc can't read the notes, I explain in detail from memory what the damage is, then the senior guy arrives, he talks about skiing a lot, slightly embarrassing, I feel guilty taking up their time, although, all the cripples outside have foot, knee and leg injuries and they probably had a stupid fall as well. A new knee brace is fitted to keep the joint from rocking (what a pun!) and off I go in search of an iron to replace the caramel clogged one at landladyhouse because I forgot the gentlemen lodgers like to iron their shirts.

En route, I get the call from the Sunday Times to say they're going to run the story in the News Review section, I was just thinking a little column in the opinion page, if anything. They want to send a photographer. Holymotherofdivinesweetjesus. Tesco don’t have any irons, we’ll have to try another day, so I leg it home for Mr De Mille and get ready for my close-up. I put a black jacket on over the tracksuit bottoms which conceal the chunky knee brace and try to clear a space on the table so it looks like a tidy office.Mr De Mille does his best lights, camera and action, I want to smile into the camera, its eleven years since the event I am interviewed about, but a jolly face won't work.

At this point I’d like to remind the dublinlandlady reader that levity, not brevity, is the soul of wit, and I am departing from the serious matter of the interview by making light of my domestics while more than slightly traumatised by the idea of the piece in the paper.

With all this going on, I’ve managed to overlook an important meeting in the courts, in Smithfield which couldn’t be further from landladyhouse on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, so I superlash into town and hope legal counsel hasn’t got the clock ticking. If I had any idea how this case was going to start, never mind end, I’d write about it, so we’ll all have to wait in suspense, it’s another one of its kind, testing Irish legislation, when I’d rather get on with writing another book.

After all that, the new, new thing, I think, is Mindfulness, a sort of talking yoga for the mind and body. Anyway, it’s a recession by-product and I’m lucky to have been given a place on this course so I must turn up even with all the trials of the day. I think the idea is to be conscious of your thoughts, and how they’re interpreted, choosing to step back or let them stress you, I’m still figuring it out.

I arrived in time for the meditative body scan, where we must start with focussing on the big left toe, as I lie on the floor, warm under a blanket, restful after the hospital, photographer and court; I concentrate on the toe and rub it against the fur of my Ugg. I think of the Boston amputees, the dance teacher, the little girl who loved Irish dancing, and am so grateful to have that toe. I can’t think of anything else except how lucky I am to have all the toes on each foot attached to my legs and, albeit one wonky knee.

Father's and Sons' Day

Laduree from Tristan. Too gorgeous to eat, maybe not....

Will there be a card? A drawing hastily executed? Flowers? Chocolates? Breakfast made? I am up writing early on the Sunday designated for making mother’s feel special or at least appreciated for pushing a trolley around Tesco and filling the fridge now and then. Cost centre #2 comes to my desk and hands me a white paper bag with a name from the distant past, it’s so old, it’s chic and vintage, in fact, these days the name must represent triumphant survivalism. Golden Discs. I know I can download anything I want, easy, instant and leave it stuck on my computer or iPhone, but he heard me say I wanted to buy this CD and with HMV closed didn’t know where to go anymore. You see, CD’s can be lent, like books and uploaded. The first CD he ever bought me was Kylie, which I still love for driving long distance. My special mother’s day treat is Lykke Li. A sort of husky Bjork meets Bob Dylan meets Patti Smith, I recommend.

In the afternoon, the cost centres and I make a long overdue visit to my brother who is undergoing chemotherapy. We’ve had a few cancelled visits when he hasn’t been feeling well and hope today will be a good one. It will be the first time in years that his sons and mine are all in the one room. His wife and I have prevailed on them to co-ordinate a few hours off on Sunday afternoon, away from soccer, rugby, work, cinema, girlfriends and, most popular, bed. After the essential photo calls, we settle down to watch the England v Italy game; a sport I never thought would bind me to my sons.

I want to invite my brother and his sons to cost centre #2’s forthcoming twenty-first celebrations and try to pin CC#2 down on the details.

I offer to do a dinner at home for his friends, the local homies, not everyone he knows. These days the twenty-firsts are often all-boy dinners and plus ones aren’t invited. CC#2 and his girlfriend don't go to each others parties much, but get on exceedingly well all the same. There is a new breed of woman out there who is content to walk the dog with her student boyfriend as a date. Tolerant but not surrendered; there must be a book in that.

In response to the offer he says he doesn’t want any fuss, no party.

‘But don’t you want me to do something special; just have your friends here for beer and pizza?’

‘My friends here drinking beer and pizza wouldn’t make me feel special,’ he says.

‘Oh.’

‘Going out with you, dad, CC#1 and my girlfriend would be special.’

You can’t argue with that. Now I just need to find a very loud restaurant.