Absent Fathers

CC#2 wants a quiet celebration of his 21 years. Just his parents, his brother and the lovely Orlanda. My ex-husband - pause, while I think of a funny name… I can’t - and I haven’t lived in the same country for over fifteen years, and we've navigated these milestones very well so far. It works, in that I bring the boys up and he visits for special occasions. You never know how these things are going to turn out; leaps of faith were frequent in my past. Like everything else over the last few years, there is a lot of pressure on us. When it comes to parental issues, all I can say is the children come first.

Clarice was confirmation sponsor for CC#2 and I wondered if she'd like to join us. The birthday boy was delighted with that idea and I’m very glad she came. My sons have grown up in the company of my girlfriends, many of whom have been like honorary aunts, as I've no sisters. And I've much appreciated when these ladies have stepped up in the early years, to collect them from school or watch them for an hour. Now the boys display a great fondness for them, especially Cruella and Clarice. As these women are now more likely to give them career advice or simply indulge them.

Not having seen ex in nearly a year, I arrive with a studio portrait photo of the boys and our dog, which he’s delighted to receive and brings out the baby photographs from his wallet, I don't even have those. They’ve all had a few pints, and are on the mellow side. Next thing, the dad recalls the night that CC#2 was born, or rather the whole day hour by hour, including the rugby score. It's always funny to watch the faces of big boys when you talk about their babyhood, or rather, their jaws hang open, especially when their girlfriend is present. It's no harm to be the centre of attention for one evening a year. So, I for one will continue to be a pain in the neck about birthdays.

We make our way to Chez Max, our favourite French restaurant, where you’re guaranteed snails dripping in garlic sauce and a sense of being out of Dublin for a few hours, albeit with rain pounding overhead; I hope it will be a night CC#2 will remember, for all the right reasons.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Cap Horn

Absentee Boyfriend is back on the radar with a long held promise of a trip to the snow. It’s supposed to be tomorrow, Saturday, apparently the tickets are booked. And just in case, I’ve re-arranged the same clothes in my ski bag that have been sitting in it for two years. They smell fine.

As soon as he told me, I vowed to go on one of those fasting diets. And to do some core strength exercise every day. Vows, vows, vows are for nuns.

He said bring a swimsuit in case the weather’s bad. Not enough to slip and slide all over the slopes but to bear milky white limbs in a spa too. My friends are more excited than I am, so I garner some of their enthusiasm and try to visualise the fun. Even though I’ve been on ski trips with ABF a few times before, we’ve never actually skied together. He of the heli-skiing, off piste, pure bravura style, me of the ‘want to keep life and limb together’ and get down that hill in one piece style.

In fairness, I met him on my first ski trip when he was on crutches, so he had time to give me a bit of guidance in getting on and off chair lifts, me, like an ungainly frog, legs and arms akimbo and falling at his feet, ho ho. I only took up skiing 5 years ago so I could bring the cost centres on fun family holidays. The R word happened quite soon after the first holiday, plus they were still too adolescent to see the benefit of an activity trip with mother and soon found more interesting teenage girls to hang with instead.

Thinking it might be something I could mix with business and research, I obviously invested in all the gear so I’d be ready to go at a moment’s notice on clients PJ’s. That whole R thing scuppered the PJ’s as well. Anyway, it will be good to escape Dublinlandlady.com for a few days, it’s not even for a week, but I think home is in fairly good hands; until I just mentioned it to Lodger #1.

‘What? A free house? You do know there’s a Leinster match tomorrow, so you won’t mind half the team back here?’

‘I’m locking my bedroom door.’ I say

‘Ah, I’m a bit past all that,’ he smiles wryly.

While it's still pelting down outside after three days, getting out of the country to anywhere right now would be a thrill. Suddenly the thought of four party residents in the house colours my enthusiasm just a tiny bit. While I’m partaking of après ski it’s going to be après match in the burbs.

Alternative Derivatives

Cost Centre#2 is going for an intern interview, the suit has been dry cleaned and the shoes borrowed from CC#1. I helped to hone the CV months ago, had numerous goes at Strengths and Weaknesses, but he won’t listen to me when it comes to interview tips. And I’ve even brushed up on them recently with recruitment friends – here’s one to remember STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result – basically have a few readymade examples of where you sorted out the bosses mess.

Tristan Davenport helpfully steps in, as a former recruiter he knows just how to approach this with stealth strategy and as a good luck charm loans CC#2 the perfect tie. When it comes to financial institutions, markets, gilts, bonds, derivatives, equities, liquid and otherwise, I’m just a little at sea, not totally, mind, I read The Big Short by Michael Lewis, and even he was surprised he was ever employed by Solomon Brothers. So I hope CC#2 gets good news soon and segues seamlessly into his Masters, with a lot of help from the bank.

While he’s at the interview I’m at a Swiss Private Bank Investment Seminar. No harm in finding new readers for the as yet unpublished book I think. Back in the day when I gave fine art advice to collectors the bank reckoned I could bring in some business, which I’m sure I can, just not this year or next.

I learn that we’ve just come through the Great Moderation period, 1970-92 and we are now experiencing a cycle of weak growth which may be the New Normal. They are a more positive than a bullish lot, these particular bankers from London, their analysis is creative and attention holding, which is good considering my ability to be distracted after five minutes. I learn a lot about how things went spectacularly wrong here and elsewhere, mainly serial human error in positions of trust and regulation. We knew that, but it’s helpful to see it explained in photos and epithets. The emotional side of the brain comes in for quite a lot of stick. But I recognise a lot of the attributes that make up a good investment analyst.

I think I’d be good at that job and ask the very demure blonde girl who joins us at lunch how she entered the investment banking milieu. With a degree in history, she replies. I’ve one of those, and a masters, what are the chances I wonder? I’ve no babysitting or maternity-leave issues anymore. An ideal candidate really, I love analysis and creating narrative. I was put in my place recently by a Dutch ex-banker who told me I could never be employed by a financial institution, ‘why?’ I asked incredulously, accusing him of chauvinistic bias, ‘because you can’t be brainwashed,’ that’s another way of saying I’m past it.

That evening I attend an exhibition of satirical cartoons at a friend’s venue, the Bar with No Name. I’d commissioned a cartoon from the artist for the Absentee Boyfriend’s Christmas present. When I saw it first I was reluctant to give it as a gift, ABF looked like a down-and-out on skis. He loved it though. Men like that sort of thing, having their idiosyncrasies accentuated; it doesn’t work quite so well for women. Most of the work was sold on the night, a great achievement , as the artist is an architect of some repute who is supplementing design projects with his talent for satire.

I was surprised to see another friend behind the bar and asked if he was helping for the night, ‘No,’ he replied, ‘it’s better than drawing the dole,’ this was a man with two city centre takeaways, and told me he had to close them recently due to exorbitant rent. Greedy landlords, adding to the unemployment queues, you know who you are.

The next alternative career announcement was from Baron Von Reichterscale, I’m calling him this because his personal land, air and sea speed record is off the R-scale. He’s thinking of packing up his high-tech, high-end, business, because there’s so little of it. And opening a restaurant. Well we all have to eat, and he’s great fun, so I’d go. In fact, I want to be chief waitress.

Paddy's Weak

Bank Holiday’s are great if you’ve a job, you really appreciate the time off, for me it’s a time to catch up on filing, fiddling with bills, wondering why the phone isn’t working, did I forget to pay? While the rest of the country is still recovering from its immersion in green pints, it’s just another day for taking stock. Paddy’s Day has been Paddy’s Week for a long time. And quite frankly, I’ve discovered Paddy’s very WEAK too.

Great Cheerleader just to grab your attention!

My neighbour Lara, whose husband is in Sydney for over a year due to their being no work here for him, invites me to join her and her children for lamb roast and I am mighty appreciative. While she is studying computer science in the hope of getting an IT job and is often distraught with its incomprehensibility, she thinks my taking in lodgers would be harder to cope with. I’m getting used to it I tell her, with endless time spent on job applications and re-writing my book, I’m lucky to have good men in the house. When her children have left the table, we wonder where our lives went; her husband and I were both in businesses related to the construction industry. Our work went into a NAMA graveyard and the only jobs on offer were to the ex-bankers and estate agents who lent money and estimated ridiculous values to create the bubble.

I am especially relieved with my current lodgers, after the Latvian experience, better to stick with what you know if you have to share your house. Here’s a thing, when Kovac left here he put a sheaf of papers into the wrong bin, while transferring them to the green bin I noticed they were applications for Child Benefit. That’s strange I thought, he’s only in the country three weeks and he’s applying to have 200 euro per month sent to his child in Latvia. It seems he was put right on to it before he arrived.

On Tuesday a brown envelope with a harp arrives and, unusually, I open it, as it could be a VAT refund from last year for 20 euro or something. A booklet falls out, LPT. Oh, no, I put it right back and when cost centre #1 joins me for breakfast I ask him to read it and figure out what it will cost.

‘It doesn’t give you a figure,’ he says, ‘you have to go on the website and work it out yourself.’

‘Please do it for me,’ I ask, not wanting to waste any writing time on Property Tax investigation.

There’s quite a disparity in sale prices around here, from 500k to 72k we discover, down from 1million at the height of the boom. I can’t believe the 72k, must have been one of those bank auctions. How unfair on the owner to endure that slap. Anyway, we reckon the tax could be as much as 700 euro per year.

‘Well if I have to find 700 euro to pay that, I’d have to earn at least 1,000 euro,’ I say to the finance student.

‘Then by the time Revenue gets it, they will use up 350 on Admin, PR, Booklet design and print, Ads, Marketing Agencies, Pension, oh, overtime, days off, you know – at least 350 euro.’

As the inheritors of all the Anglo and sundry developer debt write-off, my two student sons need to take heed of what they’ll be stuck with.

As CC#1 butters his toast and reverts to texting all and sundry, I do a quick calculation, ‘That means it will take the property tax of six houses in this cul-de-sac to meet the annual child benefit to one 5-year old in Latvia, where they will be getting their own benefit anyway, and that's just one child living abroad. Worst of all, none of the money will be spent on Irish milk, bread, school uniforms, shoes, or even a night out with the missus. And Kovac won’t be paying property tax, car tax, VAT, water charges, bin charges, or….

Oh Dear, Why are the Paddy’s in Leinster House so weak? Do they not see what they are doing to Irish families, breaking them up and burdening them with untenable taxes, turning people out of their homes, while not providing any chance of employment?

It’s all very well having a matey pint with Christine Lagarde in Doheny’s, but Joan Burton and Michael Noonan need to take a look at what the IMF and ECB are really doing to this country; getting gold stars for your homework isn’t filtering down to the hardworking, educated masses, it’s breaking up families and breaking down people.

Boys will be Boys

I forgot there was a big Irish festival coming up until I drove into town last Thursday night with a sore bum after being on the horse all morning and couldn't get a parking space at 7pm. Not a good plan with a farewell dinner at Ukiyo, for friend heading to Japan. I thought I could be good, not drink, save taxi money and park for free. Not a bit. After 40 minutes circling for a space and barricades everywhere for Paddy's Week, I had to use expensive BT carpark and time my visit under two hours. Such are the cutbacks if you go out more than once a week.

Ten years after our stint in UCD School of Architecture, a mix of planners, architects, historians and generally stalwart mates gathered for her nibs. I'm very picky on cultural cuisine, if the food is good the room is usually awful, this place had both going for it, I wish I could have stayed for the karaoke, but I could feel rigor mortis setting already from the ride.

On Friday, cutbacks necessitate using the bus, if timed well with the Dublin Bus App, it’s a military exercise, parking near the bus stop and keeping warm in the rain, while preparing to make a mad dash, with correct coinage.

I’m having the long awaited tete a tete with Clarice, and trying a new wine bar, La Ruelle, a bit quiet and old-couply, in a converted garage that would have been better left as a rough space with random tables and grungy gasoline atmosphere, but was more like an airport concession, a missed opportunity and waste of design money. I prevailed on Clarice to go somewhere else within walking distance, what about the Unicorn? Now there's a place that would laugh at you if you turned up on a Friday night without a booking a month in advance. Table for two, no problem. Starters only, no problem, Wine for 20 euro, no problem, hassle free cheap night, no problem. Early home, no, er, problem.

Nearest thing I can find in my Photos to a a Bad Boy

Basking in my healthy Saturday morning, the sun is shining and I leave the front door open to avail of every last ray. A figure appears, 'Don't ask' he says as he waves away my lingering salute.

Tristan always looks like he's come from a meeting with David Cameron, as in just left Downing Street. He has that soignée swagger, with a finely cut cashmere coat that just doesn’t look like he’s met Inda in the Dail. Whereas if I was ever to turn up at 10.30am after a night out, I imagine my little dress and heel highs would be a bit of a giveaway. He stows quietly away to his suite.

Fast forward to Saturday night and all the male sleeping beauties appear dressed to kill. It's not even worth mentioning the clash in Rome of Ireland v Italy, so profound was our loss. But there's an air of celebration among the male denizens of this house and one by one they despatch themselves to something or other in celebration of the French saint who banned snakes in Ireland. I feel like Cinderella, Lodger 1 and 2, cost centre 1 and 2 are all dressed up and have carriages waiting. I can be very philosophical about having nothing to do or nowhere to go, it was meant to be. I'll be up for my yoga on Sunday morning without a 'will I or won't I' moment.

It's Sunday morning and there I am, again only one alive and in the kitchen and the front door opens, I see the tan leather shoes first, then he approaches the kitchen. 'Triss' I announce, thinking he might need an Americano on his way to the suite. But it's Adam this time.

'Ah, all the men are coming home round the same time,' I say.

'You're running a bad boy establishment' he said, or something to that effect.

Sure.

I had to smile though; the last thing you want to see when you come in at that hour is your landlady. He struggles with the kettle to make a cup of tea.

'Were you not out last night,' he asks incredulously, it being the great Irish annual worldwide drinking night in the name of all Paddies, allegedly. Therefore, the one I’d rather be home watching tv and doing laundry, dodging the boxer gridlock as it dries on the warm floor.

'Ah, no' I stammer and ramble on about preserving brain cells and economy.

'What?' he says, 'all you have to do is put on a short skirt and you have guys like me buying you drink.'

Hmmm.

Did I give away all those short skirts?