Day Two De-Tox

Not scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and strong coffee

The irony of the juice diet is you've no energy to exercise, the dog is looking forlorn as I skip her daily walk, though the storms, grey skies and relentless rain would put you off anyway. OK, it's only day two, so the energy should be back by tomorrow, it says that on the tin.

The great comfort is my neighbour, Kerry, with two small children, also back in college - in Limerick! - is doing this too. We had a smoothie breakfast together. We're going to work in our bedrooms, as far away as possible from the usual desk, where snacking is a reward.

I wrote three articles last week, including a review on a ski trip in France I did the week before, went to college every night and out all weekend, no bother.

I didn't sleep last night, with the orchard of apples, plantation of bananas and field of beetroot that's inside me.

If I had to walk to the shops now, I couldn't. But it's only 11.45, I've tidied up a review of Morlaix in Brittany, for this week's Sunday Independent, and next up is a law assignment Zzzz

New Year: Are you nearly a *New You* yet?

Lunch

How many de-toxing, juicing,  5:2ing and stonking get-fit regimes can magazines come up with? My first resolution is to ensure cost centre #2 takes all the party packs of crisps and jaffa cakes to his room. The kitchen is a danger zone, coffee, warm toast and sizzling bacon aromas waft across my work area which is way too close for comfort.

I stood for what seemed like hours watching juicer demonstrations in Brown Thomas recently, while everyone else was buying DVF wrap dresses or vertiginous Louboutins. Wish I hadn't given away the food processor I got as a wedding present, I'm sure it sliced peas and peeled grapes, but what are children for anyway? The juicer was fascinating, but too expensive, the blender beside it, a Kenwood KMix would take up less space in the kitchen. They patiently explained to me how it worked, I waited a half hour for them to find me one in the stock room, no hurry then, it’s only 300 euro to park for the afternoon. They only had it in red, I struggled with that, but i'd never get on the path of new year new you if I didn't start there and then.

This machine will be transformative, we’ll be renewed with  inspirational  soups and exotic smoothies. I stocked up on bananas, apples, celery, ginger, blueberries, pineapple and low-fat yoghurt and handed the lot to CC#2.

Children must have useful hobbies, they can never learn early enough how to peel and chop. By the time I had all the vegetables prepared for soup, the kitchen was like a compost heap. Hours later we had two delicious smoothies out of several kilos of fruit and gallons of bland vegetable soup which I managed to spoil by adding cayenne pepper to give it a kick.

That evening, to confirm I was truly on a health programme I cycled 2 miles to the pub. While out the back, I met a blonde, smoking doctor. The subject of girth somehow crept into the conversation and she told me she lost half a stone with a juice delivery programme, just three days she said. I was hooked, we lit up another one and downed more wine.

I already know I'm a new, new  me, there's loads of things I can't do anymore, tolerate late nights and loud pubs, can't watch University Challenge with the same pleasure, my brain is fried from college. Things that used to really bother me, don't. Window envelopes are top of the list, if you don't open them, no stress. Political corruption, wastage, pension overpayments and general unfairness bothers me, but there's always Twitter to give the impression that you are actually delivering your message to the offender.

In landladyhouse, my flame-haired Texan prospect found a room she could move into the very next day. I've to decide between a pretty young woman with thousands of tiny black hair plaits, doing a PhD in chemistry, a german IT specialist who’s very German and an Italian who struck me as very German. But then, I haven't brought myself to read about the Italian lodger who killed his landlord over a chess game, mainly because I was in France when it happened and I assumed it was in some crazy part of Europe. No. He's incarcerated around the corner from me.

I’ve a craving for someting that's decidedly intoxicating.

The bottles of juice arrived yesterday, I started the beetroot juice this morning and managed to get through a night in college, despite the off-license industry holding their annual awards in our dining hall, with welcoming free wine and beer as we walked in. Only 68 more hours to go.

Yes, Ma'am

Missing her friends

I've given up on the lodger interview process. It's time to let the dog decide.

I've had the Sudanese anaesthetist, weighed that up as a good idea to have a doctor in the house. He was keen, promised to sign any regulations, never heard from him again. Only today CC#2 asked if I knew that muslims are not supposed to shake hands with women, that'll be the reason; I always profer the hand in welcome, the eye contact. I could be looking for a room one day.

The Italian fella doing a PhD didn't want to leave without signing an agreement, 'give me two days to think about it',  I asked. He soon found something else. Then there was the 73-year old man who’d lost his fortune and home, he told me his life story in half an hour, I knew it wasn’t for him, I hoped he’d refuse,  he did, the distance from the bus stop was too far.

Since then, nothing but a deluge of requests from girls, I’m thinking the ban on women from the cost centers will have to go. Many are Italian doing PhDs in UCD, good for us if we’ve got such attractive learning programmes. And I love Italy, I could swap homes with their families, practice the lingo. But they're all too young; I’d inherit another child, just when I'm out of motherdom.

There's a 30-year old from South Africa who doesn't even want to see the room, her company will sponsor her, she sent a photograph, gorgeous, too like the beautiful model who died in Oscar Pistorius' home. She's with a cosmetics company, what's not to like? Too keen, and I bet she won’t want to share the cost centre's bathroom. On hold.

I reply to all of them, being very frank about the fact it isn't a fun student house-share, think of all you wouldn't want as a 22-year old in 'fun Ireland', suburbia, mum at home, who'd want that?

A flame-haired final year vet student arrived yesterday, she called me ma'am, she's from Texas, the dog was stashed in a bedroom, her bark is worse than her lick. I liked this girl, big time. Tess (the dog) has had nobody else to play with since 8 December when the entire family that shared her since she was a baby, emigrated. First it was the husband, two years ago, now his wife and three children have joined him. Tess had to put up with me and the costcentres squeezing in a bit of run with her, her girth is embarrasing, not far behind mine.

I let her out of CC#1's bedroom where she is confined while I write, as she barks the house down when anyone approaches the cul-de-sac. She and the Texan bonded, she could have her own private vet. Forget the sons; the dog rules.

That was so TwentyThirteen

Farewell Thirteen

When I started this blog 365 days ago I didn’t think I’d survive until today with the new lodging arrangements. 
Sadly, my first man, Adam, is leaving me after a year of harmonious absence and the applications are rolling in for his room. 

Once again, I have to think about people in a way one never wants to, picking at personality traits that might set your teeth on edge or wondering at their bathroom usage. 

I can’t put it in the ad, but it’s only open to males, as they have to share a bathroom with my sons, who keep it surprisingly tidy. But still, I could be sued if I advertised for men only. Or could I? In contract law, is it an offer or an invitation to treat? Will their consideration be considerate or considered? In land law, will I be licensing the use of a room or providing a benefit – this was much easier when I was legally ignorant. 

In January '13 I certainly didn’t think I’d have covered first year Law by now, seeing as I only applied online after a few drinks with some barristers and decided I could do that job. Driving to lectures every night was the least appealing prospect, but that’s turned out to be a great way to dissect the day. Only problem is food havoc, not only eating before and after lectures, but snacking on jellybabies during them. 

Some male friends were perplexed at my decision; they thought it was absolutely bonkers ‘at my age’ and ‘what was the point?’ Lectures are a great pleasure, law touches every part of our lives and it's fulfilling to learn something new. Yet brushing with the law is what most of us avoid, while others live by litigation. 

That's all great, but then the first exam day came, and I knew what those men meant. The fear of the blank page, the trick questions, the memory failure, the fact that I might have studied all the wrong stuff. The big hall, the rules, the silence, the scarified looks. Then it was all over, and I had a cramp from writing for two hours, having done all the things we were warned not to, putting down anything that came into my head.

Is it any wonder I haven’t blogged in two months? That, and a defamation suit if I write about my student colleagues or, worse the lecturers. I even did a mooting competition, a mock trial, giving full expression to someting I only practiced on my children before, arguing that I am in the right...

The one thing about the legal world is it isn’t ageist, as such. People practice well into their seventies (I'm being very optimistic). The revered, former Supreme Court judge, Catherine McGuinness, qualified as a barrister at 42, that’s still young as far as I’m concerned. 

So when it came to the King’s Inns Christmas Ball I thought a good cross section of the class would go, not so. And being prevailed upon to go by the younger socialites, I just had to dust off the ball gown and tiara and step back into the 19^th century ballroom.  Then it was the vengabus to a nightclub til the early hours, gosh it’s fun being out with 20-50 year olds in tuxedos and gowns with one thing in common, exam anxiety.

So, once more into the breach we go, after a year that started in trepidation, living with strangers, coming 'out' about D v. Ireland, getting book reviews and opinion published, becoming a legal student, I know 2014 will be another hard slog for all of us, but we’ll get there yet. Please let it be soooooonnnnnn!!

The Bank Blog - Intimate Relations

Not long ago it was only tech giants like Dell pulling out of Ireland because of the high wage cost, but now the banks, those cushy numbers with money to burn, so to speak. Or is that bondholders not to burn?

Never mind, the fact that two banks with which I had intimate relations are leaving my life says it all, the bigger my intimate relations the greater the betrayal. Note to self: get things in perspective.

Zebra print jeans from 'No Romance', pity about the pint

I had a summer job in ACC in my teens. It is my only claim to working in a bank and a pin on a circuit board could do my job a million times faster now. I was one of about ten in the filing department. All we did was roam up and down the aisles of files whispering, gossiping and misfiling. It was my first introduction to life outside the convent; the filing department was a place for people with no training in anything other than the alphabet. I met my first gay man, there was an art student who talked about nude modelling and sex, there was a Northern Ireland militant woman, probably lesbian, but there were only rumours that they really existed then, it was gloriously colourful. That was the year of Michael Jackson's ‘Rock with You’, Queen's ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and the one and only truly fabulous Blondie ‘Call me’, and she's still performing, Blonde Power.

That filing department was where many bank managers began, no doubt there were similar cases in other banks, and when they all grew up they lent lots and lots of money, like billions that they didn’t have, because they weren’t exactly trained in finance or economics (this is just a theory, but a good one). So that is why when the young people in the filing department and the untrained governance people in politics all grew up, we had a catastrophic meltdown that hurt all the other people in the country that weren’t property developers. Which all comes back to me writing a landlady blog and having two strange men roam about my house, along with two very familiar sons, who for the rest of their lives I’m likely to see little of, as they emigrate along with all their highly educated peers. Leaving us with the filing department to run the country again.

My intimate relationship with Danske Bank is slightly more grown up but we’ve grown apart slowly as the account dried up, the distance makes the break a little easier. In the nineties, when I’d had enough of being an employee, having to ask my boss for a couple of hours off to get home to a sick baby and him asking me what the au pair was for, I decided the only way forward was to work for myself, then I could be a stickler for time and never give myself holidays. I opened an account in what was then National Irish and was looked after by Christine, the most personable female manager of any institution I’ve encountered. She was interested in my work (I was an interior designer when there were only ten in the Golden Pages), smoothed out problems and made things happen, she was a real voice; as alien a thing in today’s telephone button banking, as my time in filing.

Now I’m a student again, bringing sandwiches into college, I’ve got to find fees for the next three years and that’s how the Credit Union came into my life, I’m just one step away from buying savings stamps in the post office. Oh No. I feel like I’m in the eighties again, without the figure. Time to dust off my jumpsuit and grab my headband, ‘don’t leave me haaaanging on the telephoooonnnne’

The facts of the matter are, er, em...

The Hallowe'en Kids 1994, sob

It was the born again moment, when in a slow dawning the class realised that all our random, roaming, tangential thinking patterns would have to be erased; we were now being trained as 'legal minds'

The tallest man in the class put his head in his hands and cried 'I want to leave this course.'

Sitting at four tables, facing into little groups, some well experienced, skilled people kept coming up with the wrong answers, 'but, but, but, what if?' we cried.

'No, no, no.' She in the black regalia repeated.

'Don't get seduced by the facts, what do you have to remember?'

Blank faces all round.

'La, la, la,' she hinted.

Somebody hesitantly suggested, 'Law'.

'Cor-rect,' she hissed.

Terrible thing, I am now dreaming in law-speak and find myself starting sentences with 'the facts of the case are'. 

Bewilderment is a great bond, this mixed bag of a class are going to the local pub for a Hallowe'en fancy dress party on Friday, enthusiastically. And you should see the local pub. Scary even when it's not Hallowe'en.

And in a happily accidental change in reading pleasure, I'm enjoying American legal theory. My prodigal lodger came back from a long odyssey and is already gone on another one. He was here long enough to introduce me to Jack Reacher. I told him my head was numb from law books and he reckoned if his classics-oriented wife liked 'One Shot' then I would too.

So, I have Jack Reacher in bed, as have millions of women before me, yet he's still refreshing. The only thing about Kindle, I can't even stroke the page, safe text guaranteed.