charity shops

Last weekend I opened up my Mac and up popped a window decreeing: ‘Groundhog Day’. No shit, I thought ruefully, sure isn’t that every day? This month has been long and dark, and the logistics of working full-time, imposing some sense of order on my house and acting as PA and Chief Entertainment Officer to my offspring, is proving hard to manage. Balls are being dropped all over the show. Friends have been neglected, appointments missed, and many are the chores left unfinished.

I was in puerile form altogether last week and thought that urgent action was required. I needed a pleasant Friday evening to obliterate all thoughts of Brexit, embrace frivolity and make room for joy. Isn’t that a brilliant phrase? It could be the title for my memoir: ‘How a Sour Wee Bastard Made Room for Joy.’ I don’t think it would exactly fly off the shelves though, as folk may find the juxtaposition too hard to fathom and assume I was either a sanctimonious twat, or a more rotund and decidedly less effectual Marie Kondo.

Back to Friday night. I did some yoga (which was very joyful) and then met my friend Arlene for a tipple and a Chinese meal. In we trotted to The Northern Lights first where we met a large shaggy haired lurcher. ‘This is what I LOVE about this lace,’ I gushed. ‘You get to drink some wine AND stroke a lovely dog.’

‘You and I are VERY different,’ said my friend, who doesn’t share my enthusiasm regarding the animals, either in or out of a drinking establishment.

We caught up over a Sauvignon Blanc before making our way down towards Macau by the bridge. But en route, as we passed the Concern Charity Shop, what should I spy but something that looked suspiciously like a bed pan, set prominently in the window. We had been walking at quite an accelerated pace since I heard that Macau did wonderful deep fried aubergine and I was keen to get stuck in. ‘Hang on there,’ I said to Arlene. ‘I need to get another look. Perhaps my eyes have deceived me.’

My eyes, however, had not. It was indeed a bed pan, although labelled (incorrectly I think), as a ‘Ceramic Vintage Douche’, selling for the princely sum of £10. ‘Who?’ I stuttered. ‘Why?’

‘You need to find out,’ said Arlene, ‘I need to know the rationale behind this decision.’

‘What sort of a person,’ I mused, ‘starts into their January clear-out, finds a bed pan, and thinks, “I’ll just drop this down to the charity shop.’’

‘What next?’ said Arlene. ‘A vibrator? ‘Just one previous careful owner?’’

How we chuckled.

That made me think of my first car, a lovely Nissan Micra, red in hue and dinky, like a motorised ladybird. It had ‘one careful lady owner,’ who only ever drove it between Bangor and Donaghadee. It was pristine when I got it and remained that way for all of 10 minutes until I rammed it into my parent’s back gate and later into a bottle bank at the old Co-op on the Lisburn Road. ‘Oh, I am vexed,’ The Mothership, used to say, upon seeing the latest dent. We called it ‘The Sour Car’, for obvious reasons.

We were still talking about the bed pan as we tucked into our pork dumplings. ‘It’s quite a personal item, though isn’t it, to give in to a charity shop?’ said my pal.

I nodded vigorously. ‘I can’t imagine saying, as I ‘Marie Kondo’d my house: ‘here’s a dress I’ll never squeeze into again; a Denby cup and saucer and oh, that bed pan I have kicking about under the bed.’

‘Some weirdo might buy it though for other uses,’ she said.

‘Like what?’ I said, hastily swallowing down a mouthful of wine lest I choke.

‘Did you not read about that post which almost brought down Mumsnet?’

I shook my head, oblivious to this altogether.

‘You know, the husband who had a post-coital clean-up routine involving a beaker, which prompted his wife to post a message asking if this was normal behaviour?’

My eyes widened. I definitely hadn’t heard of this, for I’m sure I would have remembered.

‘It’s a very funny read,’ said my friend. ‘Be sure to check it out.’

We got back to the Ormeau bed pan. She suggested that I purchase it and put it to immediate use as a planter for some geraniums. ‘It could be a short story,’ she said. ‘From the point of view of a bed pan. ‘Living My Best Life’ you could call it, with before and after photos.’

So on Saturday morning, despite feeling the effects of the previous evening’s exuberance, down I trotted to ‘Concern’ see if it was still in the window. And yes, there it was, nestled under a china tea set, a box of spoons and a blue tinkly bell. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good root round a charity shop, as my return to work has put paid to such excursions. This was a worthwhile venture, however, as I picked up a spangly top, a pink woolly jumper, a Nora Ephron book and a jigsaw for the children, (complete, I’d like to add, as there ought to be a dark corner of hell for anyone who considers it acceptable to donate a puzzle minus a few pieces)

As I paid up, I asked the gentleman on the till about the bedpan. ‘There’s an item in the window labelled ‘a vintage douche’ and I just wondered if you anything about it?’ He looked at me quizzically.  ‘A what?’ he said.

‘Well it’s labelled a ‘douche’, but I think it’s just a bed pan,’ I said. He raised an eyebrow and said that he’d have to see it for himself. Out he trotted after me. ‘No idea where that came from,’ he said. ‘I only work here on a Saturday.’ Do you think it will sell?’ I asked.

‘Goodness yes, he replied. ‘People always buy this sort of thing. Anything useful goes very quickly.’

He was very pleasant, the man, and seemed quite amused by my line of inquiry. I do like Concern, although it can be pricier than other charity shops along the Ormeau. One gets more of a bargain in The Hospice Shop, as indeed I did, a few minutes later, picking up an M&S leopard print skirt or £3.25. Once, in Concern, I lifted a pair of roller boots for my Older Child. They were £8, which seemed to come as quite a shock to the elderly gent behind the till.  He said, and I quote, ‘Jesus Christ, I thought you were meant to get a bargain in here,’ and gave them to me for a fiver.

So there you are folks. What I want to know is this: would any of you good people either think to heave a bed pan into a charity shop, should one be  lurking on your premises, or would you be inclined to buy one? I’m not convinced this particular pan was worth a tenner by the way, but you may strike lucky and get an understanding chap when you go to make your purchase. It looked in need of a good scrub too, although any residual urine, could, I suppose, bring on the growth of any potential herbs or plants. You know me- always looking for the sunny side….

I was tearing round M&S on Sunday evening, just as they made the announcement that we had but 10 mins left to make our purchases and get the f@*k off the premises. I was picking up a fitted sheet that The Mothership had ordered for me, since she was helping the kids tidy up their cesspit of a room the other day and happened, unfortunately to peer into mine.

‘I’ve never seen the like of it,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘That bed of yours is like something a dog would sleep in.’

‘Well the cat does enjoy a good old snooze there,’I quipped.

She ignored that. The Mothership has very firm ideas about cats taking liberties, and her cat would get short shrift should it venture near a duvet.

‘I’m going to go online now,’ she said, ‘and order you a fitted sheet with extra depth because that’s what’s required for a mattress of that size.’

‘Can you get extra depth fitted sheets?’ I asked.

She was incredulous.

‘Nine years you’ve had that bed and you STILL don’t know what size of sheet to buy? What planet are you on?’

‘I just thought all fitted sheets were shite,’ I replied.

That didn’t please her one bit.

Anyway, she rang to tell me that there was a brushed cotton fitted sheet waiting at M&S Forestside for me and I was to pick it up and report back. Unfortunately, she told me this on Thursday evening after I’d been out to La Taqueria where I knocked back a Piso Sour and two fish-bowl sized glasses of Tempranillo.

‘What about the new sheet? Is it nice and warm on these cold nights?’she asked,  the next time she called.

Well I hadn’t a clue what she was on about. No one should tell me anything after 9pm of an evening, regardless of whether alcohol has been taken or not. I have huge difficulties retaining information these days.

The penny dropped anyway and down I raced at ten to six on Sunday, where a lovely girl found my order and said wasn’t I lucky to have such a lovely mother.

‘My mother wouldn’t be buying me a sheet,’ she said. ‘She’d be telling me to get my own.’

I agreed the on occasion the Mothership could be very kind, but that on others she could be an absolute melter. The girl smiled in sympathy.

Then I saw my pal Kristina waving over. ‘I have news!’ She said excitedly.

Now, normally when someone says that, you expect them to announce that there’re expecting or engaged or suchlike. But no. Kristina told me instead that she’d been sitting in Kaffe-O and got chatting to a randommer about the bedpan I mentioned on the blog in February.

I have become almost obsessed with the fact that the Concern charity shop on the Ormeau Road has had this grim looking bedpan as part of its window display for weeks now, and are charging a tenner for it.

‘Tell me more,’ I said, disregarding the fact that is was now 5.55pm and I still had the dinner to buy.

So, it turned out that Kristina had been in Kaffe O,  explaining to her son why she wouldn’t buy him a game of Connect Four from The Concern Shop because it was £1.50 dearer than a brand new one on Amazon.

(See? Didn’t I tell you that Concern was a rip-off? They don’t know what to charging.)

As she pointed this out to her child, the lady beside her chirped up and said that she too, found the prices in Concern rather steep. She said that she’d ALMOST bought the ‘vintage douche’ the week before because she had a plumber in fixing her toilet, thus rendering it out of action. However, (and this makes me want to meet this woman because she sounds like my sort of individual) she did the maths, and worked out that she could go to The Northern Lights and drink several half pints of cider, for the same price as buying a decrepit bedpan. This option enabled her to make use of their facilities, without the indignity of peeing into a receptacle and trying to dispose of the contents while a plumber looked on.

Imagine: it worked out better value to spend the afternoon in the pub, drinking cider, than to buy a second hand piss pot in a charity shop.

However, my pal was keen to highlight the absurdity of the whole conversation given that they were in Kaffe-o drinking oat-milk flat whites at the princely sum of £3.40.

But this, people, is what I flipping love about Belfast. It’s the craic. Imagine if you were sitting at a cafe in South Kensington, or at a bar in Bath. Would you be able to start chatting to a random person about whether a piss-pot was a tad overpriced or not? I doubt it. And that is why, despite the fact that the weather is shite;  most of the politicians are climate-change denying morons, and why a single accident on any of the arterial routes brings the city to a standstill, is why I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

It’s the third week in January, when statistics indicate we will have abandoned our New Year’s Resolutions, be dreading the credit card bill and be cursing the grey skies and present cold snap. Mind you, I’m relieved to feel the chill because, no word of a lie, three weeks ago I saw what looked suspiciously like blackberries ripening in the brambles outside Forestside.  Global warming isn’t just imminent: it’s here, upon us and scaring the s**t clean out of me.

Thus do we remain apathetic, or make some tweaks to our consumerist habits and do the world a favour? We do the latter people! No point sitting around getting depressed, no Sirree. On Friday morning I took a trot down the Ormeau and partook of a fine coffee with a friend in Root and Branch. It’s a jolly place isn’t it, if you don’t mind channelling your inner hipster and thinking ‘less is more’ with your thimble sized cup. I’m helping my pal run a pub quiz for Tour Guide NI, a fledgling business, organising local events for tourists. I’ve never been a quiz master before but I’ve been to enough to know what makes a really bad one. We’ve all sat through some abysmal quiz with an entire round devoted to soap operas (BOKE) and another one based upon obscure geographical facts that no one has any notion about and a collective gloom descends. The WORST is when the compere feels they’ve missed out their role in life as a comedian, and attempts humour instead of getting on with the rounds. Excruciating.

Now, if there’s one benefit to the new Netflix show: ‘Marie Kondo Tidies’ it’s that there’s fabulous buys to be found in charity shops, since the masses are leaping upon the band wagon and f**king out anything which doesn’t ‘spark joy’. The phenomenon has reached the Ormeau, if ‘The Hospice Shop’ and ‘Concern’ are anything to go by. I was tempted by Chanel inspired classics, 50’s inspired glamour and boho chic kimono pieces. I settled on a frock which looked every bit Desigual but from a company I’d never heard tell of. The lovely lady in The Hospice Shop told me that they find it hard to shift dresses and skirts. I just don’t understand- the stuff is gorgeous. And do you know who needs bright pretty ensembles? Teachers, that’s who. Kids love a bit of glam- who wants to sit looking at someone clad in beige or black, especially wee primary school kids who look at the same person all day. We had a geography teacher in school who was the personification of bland: her clothes were wishy washy and she was zero craic to boot. The Mothership, who used to sub-teach (ever since ditching her job to go gallivanting round Africa) and always chose her work clothes with tremendous care. I remember her looking out quirky pieces of jewellery and selecting lovely outfits since her lecturer at Stranmillis had said, ‘children like that sort of thing.’ She had a ring which looked like an eye that the wee boys in particular loved staring at it.

I recall too, that once you’ve worn a jacket into work and lugged around a few dirty old books, and had wee kids coughing and sneezing all over you; that your clothes get past their best very quickly. One therefore resents shelling out a fortune, and who wants to support fast fashion with all those dyes and micro-plastics flooding the rivers in Bangladesh. 

So to cheer up a mizzly morning, take yourself down the Ormeau. Craic was ninety in the shops and you can sate your inner shopaholic guilt free. Check out my new ensemble (minus the shoes which I wouldn’t last 10 minutes in. I’m clumsy enough without heels, even if they are beaut.) Another top tip, if you happening to be organising a PTA event or pub quiz and are looking prizes, is to have a gander at all the loot IN the charity shops, and pick them up at a bargain price. You could make up all sorts of goody bags and create some much sought after and original raffle prizes. Plus, you’d have a fun morning outing. You see? January isn’t so bad after all…

‘Oh Dear God,’ I hear you moan. ‘First it’s the coffee cups, then it’s the plastics, and now it’s the clothes on our backs. Give us a f@*king break., we’ve enough to feel guilty about.’

In fairness, I was the same when all this green living lark started. One minute you’re doing ‘meat-free Monday’ and the next you’re a militant vegan making your own soap and shopping only at farmers’ markets. It felt like there was always some nutter trying to make you feel shite about your life choices, and if you listened to them long enough you’d become a zealot yourself.

But as the list of ‘Things that Kill the Planet’ grows, from exhaust fumes to excessive plastic, it’s tempting to say ‘Ah feck it,’ and order an extra large McDonalds for lunch after a shopping spree in Primark.

But let’s not. Instead of feeling over-whelmed, I have tried to make small, subtle changes to my lifestyle, which make me feel slightly better about my life choices. It also helps me self-flagellate less about the size of my carbon foot-print as I fly to Spain not once, but twice this summer.

And as I mention it, looking out the window it seems indeed that summer beckons. Finally! The sun has emerged and how my heart doth soar. But. One of my first instincts when the seasons change is to liven up my look. I’ve conditioned myself to wear a lot of dark colours and I don’t want be wandering round the Ormeau looking like the angel of death on a bright day.

However, since I’ve embraced this eco-friendly business, I can’t in all consciousness go buying whatever I like without checking the label.  I’m now thinking more about how my buying habits affect the people (mainly women) slaving away in piss-poor conditions so we can buy tee-shorts for £3. So I’ve been directing my energies (or what’s left of them; is anyone else knackered at the moment?) into sourcing some ethical brands and having a good nosey round the charity shops. Let’s be honest, there’s plenty of those in the locality.

I’ve been a keen ‘charity shop shopper’ ever since I met my mate Maureen Faloona during the PGCE at Queen’s. Many’s an hour we spent merrily browsing on Botantic Avenue when we should have been brain-storming lesson plans for the leaders of tomorrow. But no, we tried on heels in Action Cancer instead.

Kindly my friend from The Newsletter sent along a photographer so I could show some of the wares in the local Hospice shop on the Ormeau Road. I’ve tried not to look too sour in the photos, although when the Mothership saw the ‘beach look’ she shook her head and said ‘Never smile like that again. What were you thinking? You look very odd.’ Cheers Mum.

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/lifestyle/charity-shop-chic-1-8479158

I need to listen to my own advice. But I didn’t, and I went to the shops and it was fecking awful. I know, I know.  I’m all about my forays to charity shops; about experiences instead of material goods, and home-made truffles instead of a box of Miniature Heroes, but I’m also a realist. Sometimes, you have to buy knickers and socks and a new laundry basket from TK Maxx because your children have made a sleigh of your old one, by attaching a dressing-gown belt to the handle and tugging their sibling and a multitude of stuffed animals about. Said laundry basket is now buggered and a jagged edge threatens to take the hand off you every time you look at it.

Anyhoo, the Mothership, and I hoofed it to Bloomfield Shopping Centre, which bears little resemblance from how I remember it in the nineties. The M&S was so big and cavernous that we found ourselves wandering around gormlessly like Father Ted when he got trapped in the lingerie section. It was like a maze, particularly since the aisles were blocked by folk with trollies full of food.  A law should be passed, stating firmly that trollies don’t belong, EVER, in the clothes section, because the aisles are too narrow to accommodate them and consequently all movement is reduced to a standstill. Very irksome, when all you want is to grab your size 12 full briefs and find the nearest exit.

But it was Next which committed the greatest faux-pas, by cranking up the in-store muzak to ‘wreck the nerves entirely’ level. Dropping the latest beats from DJ ‘Deck-the-Halls-and-Rob-da-Manger,’ it created a frenetic atmosphere with a beat so pounding and intrusive it rendered any considered shopping an impossibility. I lost all ability to make a decision, and before I knew it I’d sought out a shop assistant. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘but would you mind finding your manager, and making the case that this is a shop, not a night club, and that I can’t concentrate with that din?’ Her smile faded, but she diligently trotted off. But the music wasn’t turned down, or at least not in the three minutes I lasted before seeking sanctuary outside. The west wind blasted a wet drizzle into our faces but it was still better than the alternative. ‘That was horrible,’ I said to the Mothership, who agreed that indeed it was.

Later I told LSB the craic. ‘The thing is,’ he said, as he tucked into a Tunnock, ‘they don’t really want you there. You’re not the right demographic.’

‘What the actual f**k?’ sez I. ‘Not the right demographic? I’m their ONLY demographic!’ Always quick with a retort, he piped up, ‘Their perceived demographic. They make the mistake of thinking they’re trendy.’

He’s right, isn’t he, auld LSB. Who else do you think shops in Next only women in their forties, picking up bland office wear or choosing stuff for their kids or the ubiquitous baby gift?’

I was chatting with my friend over brunch earlier, and asked if she felt the same about shopping these days. ‘Of course I do! she replied. Her pet-peeve is stores with lighting so subdued that you have to employ the torch on your phone for a better look. Once she had to explain to a store detective at Hollister that she wasn’t stealing a denim jacket, she just wanted to see it in the daylight, to see whether it was black or navy. Turned out it was dark green.

So is shopping just for the young’uns? Is internet shopping the future and does it herald the end of the high street and a as a result a trip out with your mum ? I don’t know. All I know is that my wee wrecked head can’t deal with the reality of actual forays these days.

The Mothership’s been on. As usual, the conversation began without preamble.

‘I don’t think you’re right in the head,’ (that was her her opening gambit.) You’re a busy woman, or so you keep telling me. You’d think you’d know your audience.

Some gentle probing finally unpicked what she was getting at. On Thursday I was on with Frank, giving off about supermarkets peddling their Christmas wares. In August. I mean, HEAVEN HELP US.

I’d popped into TK MAX last Sunday and had been affronted by the Halloween stock on display; but Christmas? That’s too much to thole altogether.

The Mothership had taken umbrage when I’d suggested that instead of stocking up on the tubs of Celebrations, that shoppers visit the charity shops instead, buy some pretty containers and chuck in some homemade treats.

Who has time to be standing scrubbing jars to fill with sweets that YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOURSELF? Who do you think you are, Kirsty Flipping Allsopp?

Now it was my turn to take offence, because last year I DID blend biscuits and melt chocolate and roll Bailey’s Cheesecake Truffles and they were, even if I do say so myself, MARVELLOUS.  I mentioned this on Frank because I love thrift shopping and I also think it’s a nice festive activity to do before Christmas. The children could even get involved, although I added that an essential prerequisite is that they wash their hands well, as the recipient will be less grateful if they get E-coli.

The big stores have a quare cheek on them. They maintain, that by hauling out the holiday merch that they’re helping the savvy shopper manage their budget, but they’re a bunch of scoundrels, if you ask me. It’s all a cynical ruse to plant the idea that Christmas is just around the corner and generate anxiety for their own Machiavellian ends.

Their stationary will be full of notebooks with ‘Live For The Moment’ emblazoned on the cover, while the stock in the seasonal aisle sends us into a frenzy about a holiday five months away.

They know rightly, that most people, unfortunately myself included, have zero will-power. Who can resist the lure of a chocolate pick-me-up as the dregs of the year draw to a close, and you’re fraught and frazzled and foundered. Chances are that the tubs will be torn into. It’s a win-win for the stores, as they make double the sales. Case in point, there’s always a wine deal in Sainsbury’s* at the end of November. Brilliant, I say to myself, when I spot the jaunty bunting proclaiming, ‘25% off Six Bottles or more!’. Every year, I think I’ll organise my presents and have them all ready. And every year, without fail, we drink the lot, and back we go to replenish the cupboard, LSB’s ears ringing, amid such reprimands of, ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SANK YOUR DAD’S CHÂTEAUNEUF DE PAPE?’

So I’m not suggesting that people don’t budget to spread the cost, or get themselves organised early, or even that you go full-on Nigella in the kitchen. But there are other retailers I’d rather support, and local markets and charity shops need our money more. My advice?  Find out what creative souls are in your area, making their own soaps and candles, cultivating and potting up honey and jams. I know what I’d rather find in my Christmas box.

*other rip-off merchants are available

Can you imagine, what with all the awful stuff happening in the world right now, the added horror of not having your bin collected? I’d be pure raging. That’s precisely the situation facing many residents in the Lisburn City and Castlereagh Council Area. I hope the tossers at the top start prioritising what’s important and rewarding the workers who help us manage our waste, before the situation becomes truly disgusting, with bins lying for weeks without being emptied. One would imagine, what with the proposal for a twelve and half percent hike in rates, that council workers on the bottom rungs might see a share of this. Yesterday I was chatting to John Daly, who was standing in for Frank on the U105 Phone-In, about how to manage our rubbish and our recycling in the home, so that we don’t consign mountains of waste to landfill.

Here are a few of the points I made:

I saw a request on Facebook for bedding donations for Almost Home Animal Shelter. I had an old duvet, a couple of pillows and some elderly towels, so I thought, now there’s the very place! The Mothership doesn’t like to think of animals being chilly, so she had a root about the hot press and gave me some items of which she was looking rid. The Small Child also contributed her old dressing gown. A delightful volunteer arrived at my door and was delighted with the rake of stuff we had. She sent me a photo of a cosy bed yesterday, made up for a little dog called Bella, complete with colourful dressing gown. This is a brilliant way to recycle bulky items which would otherwise end up being turfed into landfill. It’s a win-win for wee creatures everywhere.

Anyone fancy a spot of can crushing? You know all about my foibles when it comes to bin-hoking and can-collecting, but this week LSB took a boot load of cans up to Bryson House in Mallusk and got £20 for his trouble. This is an excellent fund-raising idea for any sports or youth clubs. All they need are fizzy drink enthusiasts, somewhere to store the cans so they don’t get all wet and dirty, and a van to transport them up to Mallusk. Check here for details.

Many’s a time I’ve mentioned this before, but I save crisp and sweet wrappers, toothpaste tubes and coffee bags for Terracycle, through Kicks Count NI. I drop off my bags at the Conservation Volunteers on the Ravenhill Road when I’m down that way (I don’t be going down one errand, no siree!) Click on the link above to find hints, tips and local hubs for collection. It may sound overwhelming at first, but by siphoning off just a few difficult to recycle items, you will see a significant drop in your black bin waste.

You may also want to consider the following:

Trot to the Co-op with soft plastic wrapping that you can’t recycle at home. Rosetta has a wee box you can fire these into, and I save up all packaging in a bread bag. (I’m talking plastic wrappers for pasta/rice and the film off punnets of fruit and vegetables.)

Drop excess plastic bags and packaging off to charity shops; they always seem grateful to receive them.

Eliminate waste at source by bringing your Keep Cup to coffee shops or sitting in while you sip.

Give the Refill Quarter shops a blast, and try the Body Shop in town which now has a facility to bring your own containers and fill them up in the shop. I’ve taken takeaway boxes the butchers in Forestside in the past and they’ve been happy to fill them with mince for me, so I haven’t needed to take plastic bags.

Switch to reusable period wear like WUKA pants, or try a moon cup if you can stomach it. Personally this was a no-go for me after I kept getting them stuck and was almost taking myself to A&E one a couple of occasions to have the f**king thing extracted.

It’s still a source of huge irritation to me, but here in Northern Ireland we don’t have the same system for recycling everywhere, and the advice given is often confusing and misleading. For a comprehensive list of what can go in to which bins, we can access the Binovation app. This is certainly applicable to Belfast, Bangor and Ards, but I’m not sure about the rest of the six counties. My friend Mary who works for Belfast City Council, tells me that if we wash out our containers at home and provide a higher quality of material, then we will see more products made from our recycling created here in Northern Ireland. This sounds like it has the potential to boost businesses here, so maybe we could get in on some of the growth that the Tories have been banging on about at the party conference all week. ‘Green Growth’- now that doesn’t sound like rubbish to me.

‘I always feel that autumn officially begins on the first of October,’ opined the Older Child this morning, (and again at tea-time) and I agreed that she was probably right. She’s a nice wee thing, now almost eleven and facing the horrors of transfer test, but she’s coping well with the ordeal and just takes issue with the profanities I utter when I see the papers. This week’s clanger was when I exploded, ‘A Bird Came Down the BLOODY Walk?’ when I saw that some clampet had chosen an Emily Dickinson poem that’s used to be featured on the CCEA GCSE syllabus for a comprehension. For ten and eleven year olds.

Anyway, I won’t dwell on the matter, aside from to say that it’s very stressful and I’m not the sort of the individual who can thole stress easily. This, I demonstrated, when I had booked a massage for my banjaxed shoulder at 3pm on Friday, at which time I was standing in Wyse Byse on the Cregagh Road weighing sweets from the Pick n’Mix with the children as a treat. That’s right, I completely forgot about my OWN treat, and there I was, blithely discussing the merits of Gummy Bears over Midget Gems when I was supposed to be on the table having a go going-over so I was fit to run this weekend.

Appointment missed, I thought feck it, and instead fired a hot water bottle onto my shoulder when I came home. Happily, I was fit to do my parkrun on Saturday, and I have to admit, it was MARVELLOUS. I have not been feeling good about myself of late. I’m still carrying weight gained in lockdown, which is going nowhere fast given my penchant for a Nico’s Pizza (Spinachi, is my current favourite). This delight is further improved when one dips the crusts in mayonnaise. The size ten clothes in the wardrobe may well be consigned to an ‘aspirational box’ to be stored under the eaves until I catch myself on.

But the thing about parkrun, is that weight doesn’t matter. It’s just about getting yourself, (and your lardy ass) around the course, and chatting as you go. The girls do it too now and fly on ahead. Yesterday The Small Child said she’d had enough after two km, but on went the Older one, and sailed through to come in three minutes in front of her wheezing mother. I’ve tried never to be an annoyingly smug parent, but I couldn’t help pointing and announcing to fellow runners, ‘That’s my daughter!’ as she flew by.

The autumn term is long and can clean knock the stuffing out of you. The dark nights always catch me unawares and my endorphins don’t just dwindle, they seem to plummet. The Guardian featured a lovely article last week on ‘How to Feel Awesome’ and I was like, ‘Yeah right,’ but some of the advice was sound. It mentioned how joy can be found in unlikely places, and I felt a little bit of awe as I ran through copper leaves this morning, and equally thrilled when I picked up a red and pink scarf and knee length boots in Concern on the Ormeau too. The boots were displayed aloft and spotted by a fellow charity shop enthusiast who kindly passed them my way. ‘You must always look up!’ she told me. How very true, and one of the points Anne Lamott makes in her Ted Talk. So keep looking up and the world may look brighter when you look down again. I hope so anyway!

More on charity shops here.

It’s bad to whinge, isn’t it? I mean am I a bad person? We are living up here on the hill, we can walk our dog in the meadow and we have the shops beside us where all the staff are lovely and kind and most people, (apart from one prick my husband encountered on Friday,) adhere to the social distancing rules and don’t ram their trollies up your arse while you’re checking the dates on your M&S rotisserie style chicken.

But it’s me, and I am prone to a good old moan so off I’ll go, and don’t go judging me. I’m just f**ked off at this stage. Earlier I reached over LSB for my coffee and he said ‘Ouch! You just after knee-ing me there!’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’ ‘Or DID you? said the Older Child, her eyebrow raised knowingly. ‘I think perhaps you did.’

Perceptive wee article she is too because it wasn’t long after he’d cleaned the living room and said, ‘Now I don’t want to blow my own trumpet (well you may as well as I won’t be blowing it for you) but haven’t I done a great job in there? You may want to take a look.’

What is it with men? Every flipping day I do the dishes and the laundry and hang it out and take it in and cook the dinners and I don’t go around saying: ‘Oh, wasn’t that a great load of whites I just flung on there at 30 degrees?’ or ‘Check out these pots? Aren’t they positively gleaming after that good scrub with my responsibly sourced bamboo scrubber?’

I’ve started now, so I might as well tell you what else is annoying me.

I’m pissed off with people making sourdough and posting it on social media because its’s just rude when they can’t have me round and pour me a glass of Valpolicella Ripasso and serve it up to me with a hunk of manchego and homemade chilli jam. (Yes Louise, I’m talking about you, so I am.)

I’m fed up with the Zoom and Whatsapp calls that falter when the connection’s bad and you spend half your time saying ‘Oh No! You first! No, you go on sure! You first! Didn’t quite catch that!’ Then you get chatting about something interesting and in wanders the dog. ‘Oh and here’s the dog! Isn’t she lovely!’ ‘Oooh yes!’ ‘And here’s my child! And there’s your child!’ ‘Hello, Hello!’ Cue inane waving, when frankly, lovely as your children and your friend’s children may be, you want to have a proper, no holds-barred chat that is MOST definitely not for the tender age of the under eights.

I’m also fed up meeting people in the street or over the wall and saying a million time to the kids ‘2 metres! 2 metres! Keep well back there!’ which makes any class of normal conversation impossible.

I’m narked, that instead of sitting across from my mates, all tarted up and having a grand catch up over coconut margaritas in La Taqueria, that we are waving at each other across the street, wearing jogging bottoms and clutching small plastic bags of recently excreted shit, still warm from dog’s large intestines.

I’m agitated because I naively thought, that through all of this that I might get my house in order and do a spot of decluttering, but no, sure there’s no charity shops or recycling centres open so we’re still wading through mounds of shite and sure, by way of getting a dog we just brought at whole lot more truck in.

There’s no end to dog paraphernalia, I’m finding. Rugs and coats and leads and toys and food and treats. If you land yourself with a greyhound, you should know that they are prone to a chill, so we had to get a wee coat for Tilly. We ordered her pyjamas too, much to the Small Child’s delight, but they haven’t arrived yet, much to everyone’s disappointment.

And I’m really quite distraught, that Normal People is over on BBC 3. It was so heartrendingly, beautifully shot and so true- there’s a scene with Connell in episode 10 and if he doesn’t get Oscar nominated it’ll be a crime against acting. I enjoyed the book but I didn’t LOVE it- I got frustrated with the characters, I kept thinking, just fecking GET TOGETHER and be done with it. But in the series the fragility of the pair of them was so much more apparent and convincing to me. One could see how easy it was to be misunderstood, vulnerable and insecure as a young adult, perhaps with a distorted perception of self.  I worry that with all the media hype surrounding the sex scenes (and perhaps I’m underestimating teenagers here) that the point may be a bit lost on them- but to me it summed up so much of what it is to be young and confused; feeling lost and listless at university, especially as an arts student. Navigating new friendships and articulating what it was you wanted when you didn’t know yourself: that was hard, wasn’t it? (I feel, for the benefit of The Mothership here that I have to add that there was never anything in the way of bondage in my student romances, least she splutters out her tea and scalds herself.)

LSB said he was bereft when it was over, (‘Normal People’ that is, not his time at Queen’s after which ended he felt nowt but relief) and I feel the same- I haven’t seen anything that has affected me quite so much in a while. There was just such incredible tenderness in it, and at the moment, when everything is so emotionally charged-it had me in bits.

So there you are- just something else to be raging about. And it’s Sunday night, so another week of home-schooling and cramming in your own work and housework and feeling rubbish at every last bit of it. At least the dog is happy, even without her wee pyjamas, so that’s something.

‘There’s wiser wans locked up,’ puffs a girl in front of me to her friend. I nod, wryly. It is 12.15 on Saturday afternoon, and most people are inside, where like us, they are also frustrated, as they watch the New Zealand team trounce Ireland in the rugby. At least they are dry, I think, with access to warm beverages. We, meanwhile, are getting more sodden by the second as we run under a Biblical downpour. Not yet one mile in, and with 7 to go, my spirits are sagging as much as my spare tyres.

Since making the decision to work for a living again, I have become rather rotund. Delighted I am with myself, that I had the foresight not to donate some of my maternity clothes to charity shops. With the addition of a belt, they have come in very handy the last few weeks. There are ones who float about my work, eating things like apples or maybe a mandarin for their break. I look askance at this sort of behaviour. I don’t care if it’s a posh Pink Lady from Marks and Spencer, or a Taste the Difference Clementine from Catalonia. I will be having a Lion Bar with my filter coffee after a morning of teaching, or perhaps a Toffee Crisp. Fortification is needed after seeing 90 different children in as many minutes, especially if I’ve had my pair to deal with since 6.52am.

Tragically though, the downside of seeking solace from chocolate, caffeine and the odd glass of wine (AHEM) in the evenings is that my energy levels have plummeted, and I have no inclination to exercise. And I miss it. This time last year, I would have joined my friends for a trot of a Wednesday morning; haring up the hills in Belvoir Forest and stroking the odd Labrador before stopping for a latte in 5a coffee shop. It was bliss. We covered 10k easily, and never noticed the agony in our calves because the craic was so mighty.

And this is why I said: ‘Damn it, I WILL run Dundrum’ even though for the past month I’ve whimpered ‘I’m just so tired,’ on repeat, to anyone unfortunate enough to be heading my direction. I’m a joy to be married to presently, as LSB will duly testify.

So, there I was, with 29 other Belfast Running Club members, at 10am, standing outside the Ozone waiting for the bus.  And waiting. And waiting. ‘There it is!’ we shouted, as a tiny vintage looking vehicle drew up, and on we hopped and off we chugged. Just passing Forestside we were, when it became apparent that we’d taken another club’s bus. ‘Should we just run round the embankment and go to the Errigle for lunch?’ suggested one canny member. I liked this notion: eight miles over varying terrain including 2 miles of beach is a lot for one who’s out of shape.  But back to the leisure centre we zoomed, swapped buses and set off again, this time in a superior class of a coach which included a toilet, which by that stage, we were all grateful for.

I would suggest though, establishing the whereabouts of the light switch and the availability of toilet roll, before relieving oneself. It was also an inopportune time for the driver to hit a bump on the road between Carryduff and Ballynahinch, and my head wasn’t the better for being cracked off the hand drier.

Worse was to come, when after two miles I almost jacked the run in, when I became aware of the dreaded phenomenon known as ‘chub-rub’. Wet leggings do not help this condition. I comforted myself that this doesn’t just happen to people who are nearing a size 14, and that my husband, skinny bastard that he is, had a bad dose in the summer.  Initially he blamed me and my new eco-friendly laundry cleanser, until he was told by his doctor that it was his excessive sportiness brought it on.

Still, the skies brightened and so did my mood, especially when after three miles the rain stopped and the wind was mercifully with us as we ran towards the Mournes along the beach. I was drenched; my lungs practically aflame, but with each mile came a distance between me and the stresses of the week. It does seem counter-productive, to go running when you feel knackered and grouchy, but the lift in my spirits was tangible as the endorphins surged. The members of the Murlough AC are a most encouraging bunch too, which helped somewhat. ‘Get stuck in Helen!’ roared a woman as I faltered towards the end. Another man offered his hand for a high five, but I mis-took the gesture and went in for a hug instead. I may have been hallucinating at this point. The support was immense, and the post-run spread superb. An egg sandwich was never so welcome (and let’s face it, it’s the spread we run for).

Following a dinner in the Maghera Inn that would have choked a donkey, to quote the Mothership, I was practically delivered to the door by the Executive Class Coach. Fine fettle I was in, upon returning to the house. LSB had been ferrying children back and forth from birthday parties all day. His pallor was grey and his sense of humour somewhat failed him, as I came bounding through the door, full of bonhomie and pride after my endeavours. ‘I did it!’ I shrieked. ‘I ran eight miles!’

I’ve done ‘We are Vertigo’ and I’ve just cleaned the toilet. Want some wine?’ he replied.

‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘Let me just go and put some Vaseline on my thighs first.’