marie Kondo

One new thing a month: that’s the task I set myself when I took the career break. The year out turned into two and I’m thrilled to say that come mid-August this summer, instead of dragging myself back to the chalk face, I’m heading to Spain on hols instead. So as my third year out approaches I’ve stayed loyal to my resolution of doing new things. And this month it was an ambitious one, to host a supper club, from the SWB residence, no less.

Broaching this with LSB (My husband, Long Suffering Bastard for any new readers) required some tactical manoeuvring. I sneakily waited until he was at a wedding in Liverpool and rang him the day after, when he was feeling less than sprightly. His resistance was lowered, and I could sense him shaking his head and acquiescing into his hair-of-the-dog pint. The last time he went away he ended up taking me for a slap-up lunch in Balloo House, followed by a visit to a woman who re-homes cats in Killyleagh. He came home with a lighter wallet and small tortoiseshell cat. An evening in the company of randomers sounded perhaps less daunting, and certainly required less commitment.

“You’re doing what? A nutter, that’s what you are.” That was the reaction from most of my friends and acquaintances when I told them. “That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?” said another. “Like how many, ten strangers, sitting in your own house?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Wouldn’t catch me doing that.” “Look,” I wish I’d replied, “I’m not lying naked on a table and letting them eat sushi from my less than perfect form. I’m roping a couple of friends in and cooking a meal for some people to come and hopefully enjoy.” So we planned it, did it, and you know what, we’d do it again. It was brilliant craic and no one got poisoned or got hammered and wrecked the joint or was insulted or offended (I think). People came on their own but left in twos and threes to walk down the road together or share lifts. Everyone laughed. A lot. Not enough laugher these days.

Mind you I wasn’t laughing mid-week when, distracted listening to my hyper off-spring I burnt my rice and fucked up the main course entirely. My friends, (valiant guinea pigs that they were) tried to be supportive about the bland chicken they were fed. “What made you choose a Lebanese theme?” they enquired, tactfully. “You know,when you’ll admit yourself that it’s not your forte?” Well I blame the Guardian weekend magazine. There are only so many Ottelenghi recipes you can read before you start getting z’atar and pomegranate molasses on the brain. I had a fine cauliflower salad in Kaffe O one day and I thought to myself, I have to get into this Middle Eastern Cookery lark. So a plan started to form and between a few of us we made it happen.

My mum raided her cupboards for extra tablecloths and napkins and provided matching glasses. (You see Marie Kondo? This is why you dn’t go fecking everything in the bin). Claire (the other half of Supper Club) took her children to Botanic Rose Garden and collected a selection of rose petals to dress the table. There were trial runs and and more trial runs.

On the night itself LSB was roped in to keep the children off side and the French au pair did something special with potatoes. Once we’d removed the rice (and the children) from the equation it was grand. But the real star of the show is my friend Claire, one half of Harper’s Yard. I post about Claire and Martina often on my Facebook page because I have the greatest respect for them. Being a self-deprecating Irish woman I think “Ooooh, that would be a good idea,” then I think of everything that could go wrong with the plan and talk myself out of it sharpish. But these two are different. Claire’s English and Martina’s from the Czech Republic. They have a quiet confidence about them and are happy to give something their best shot.  Must importantly, their gift for doing things well is infectious.  On the night itself, my chicken was neither bland nor stringy.

So, we had eleven people round our table on Saturday evening, and what a diverse and international group we got. A Greek, an American, an English girl, a Chilean, and one brave man who came with his wife and had the best of craic. Two of my friends came which was lovely because it gave me a bit of encouragement to see two familiar faces, but to be honest, even had they not it still would have been fine.

One guest, the lovely Lyn who runs Hola Muchachos Spanish club, arrived with a basket of veg from her partner’s allotment. (orange beetroot if you please and it was cracker). Others who weren’t even drinking still brought a bottle, and everyone was hugely complementary.

Something we often forget, is that people are generally kind. I think if you’re a curmudgeonly old  bastard you probably wouldn’t put yourself through a night with strangers in someone else’s living room. A few weeks ago I went along to Haypark Supper Club for an evening of Thai cuisine. The food was restaurant standard and the hosts were incredible, welcoming us with a G&T Far Eastern style (Thai basil I think) and feeding us until we were almost ready to expire. I’d go again tomorrow except they’re nearly always booked out. Everyone there was lovely too, and do you know, even if the food was a bit shit, I wouldn’t have minded. If there’s openness, laughter and hospitality, that’s already a lot on the table.

So to those who came, thank you, and maybe we’ll do another in the autumn. In the meantime, I have to get thinking what my new thing this August is going to be….. any suggestions welcome (but I am NOT doing the naked sushi thing).

• Thanks to The Vineyard and Kaffe O on the Ormeau Road for putting up posters
• Check out Haypark Supper Club (posters can be found in Bread and Banjo on the Ormeau.)

Here’s the Sour-bike. You may have seen it of late, chained forlornly outside the QFT or Kaffe-O, or the Errigle. It should have a sign, ‘Abandoned by one hapless owner’. Since LSB and I started the building work, we’ve left everything at our behinds, principally our keys. I’ve been pedalling off without a care, popping on the lock before realizing I’ve no means with which to unlock it and get home.

That is how stress manifests itself with me- I lose stuff. While at Queens I lost my bank card so many times I was on first name terms with the staff from Lost and Stolen at Nationwide. LSB clearly suffers from the same condition, since his set of keys were left on Air Coach to Dublin at some point over the marathon weekend. On Monday the hole in the wall swallowed my card while I buggered about with my phone, and later on we mislaid the gas card for the flat. “You are f**king kidding me”, sighed LSB: he thought his days of pay-as-you-go amenities were long gone. It was cold. It was wet. And it took us 2 hours and much aggravation before heat was restored and tempers soothed. “Don’t even think about coming home without wine,” said LSB between gritted teeth, on my third foray to the shop. Thank God for the quality selection at the Vineyard.

Next I mislaid the remaining key for our family car which I needed to take the kids to Bangor. I was like a creature demented- there was no way I missing my mum’s mince. A mother on a mission for mince- it may sound ridiculous, but the thing is, my version resembles Victorian gruel, whereas mum performs some form of alchemy with meat, tomatoes and Worcester sauce, transforming mere ground beef into an epicurean delight. Luckily, I’m on good terms with the nursery next door so the boss leant me car seats to shove into the other motor. Thus I wasn’t denied the simple pleasures of a dinner and an infant free hour while mum dutifully played ‘shops’ and painted with the girls. The Wise Old Elf came in from an afternoon quiz, and put on his party piece- ‘the naughty dinosaur’ where he scarpers around after the kids and they shriek and hide and I drink a cup of tea in a different room, far, far away, wishing it was wine but making do. The key turned up in the one coat pocket I hadn’t checked the next day.

It’s all made me think: when I was at a work I was stressed out and demented, and though freed from its shackles, I’m still a blundering idiot. Mind you, it runs in the family. The Wise Old Elf lost his wallet last week too. After ransacking the house and pestering half the shopkeepers in Bangor he found it lying in a pile of crap at the bottom of his wardrobe, having fallen out of a hip pocket. It wouldn’t happen to Marie Kondo. The chucking out recommences tomorrow…..

It seems to be very much a first-world problem to be bemoaning the amount of stuff we accumulate. People speak of Marie Kondo in deferential tones; there’s hardly been a women’s magazine without a feature on how to ‘declutter your life’ and in doing so find health, wealth and happiness. As I have previously mentioned, friends of mine have bought her book and successfully parted with a third of their belongings and claim to be feeling the better for it. So I buy the book, but feck me, I’m bored. And frustrated. Poor wee Marie Kondo; I mean why were social services never involved? This is a young girl, a middle child obviously short of attention, who shunned socialising entirely to spend hours upon hours, sorting out the contents of drawers and cupboards. I mean would her parents never just have taken her to the park, arranged a play date or at the very least have sat her down in front of the telly with a packet of Tayto or a Happy Meal? (or seaweed crisps and smiley sushi or whatever constitutes a kids’ treat in Japan). There has to be some form of OCD or anxiety disorder there. At one point she is ‘almost in tears’ when she discovers a slimy residue, not only on the bottom of her shower gel but also on the base of the wire rack on which it sat. This is referred to as the ‘disgusting slime episode.’ God, that must have been horrific. My heart goes out to her.

I mean, I accept, I should hoover my house more frequently. Maybe even reacquaint myself with a mop. And I need to re-evaluate my relationship with some dresses, which, for the sake of decency should never see the light of day again. But as for apologising to my house for the clip of it, or feeling sorry for the socks that I’ve had the temerity to pair together, in a ball, well I draw the line at this point. I reckon there are enough people in this world to whom I may owe an apology, without having to start with my undergarments.

I had the good fortune to tune into Radio 4 last week and catch a snippet of John Le Carré’s biography. In it he mentioned his inspiration for the character Tessa Quayle in ‘The Constant Gardener’. This was a feisty French woman who overcame an abusive childhood and addiction to be the saviour of countless refugee and displaced children in places as diverse as Cambodia and the Congo, before her untimely death in Kosovo in the nineties. She also sounded like pure craic. As I listened, in awe at her courage and indomitable spirit, I thought, why have I never heard of this person before? And then, why the fuck are we all worshipping at the alter of Marie-bloody-Kondo, who is famous for her organisational skills and innovative folding technique? Was she standing in the French embassy in Phnom Penn, facing down officials while corralling orphans onto a plane to safety? What are we thinking?

But back up a minute, this is the world we live in. It is a consumerist society and we’re all guilty of getting our kicks from popping into the House of Fraser and doing a gleeful jig when we see the Ted Baker stuff is on sale. But since reading the ‘Joy of Tidying’ and ‘Stuffocation’ by James Wallman, I’ve definitely been a bit more circumspect with my shopping habits. I’ve bought less and I’ve given away more. A start-up toddler group has benefitted from a large pile of toys which were annoying the like clean out of me. My friends have inundated the charity shops in South Belfast with bags of clothes and books, and they’re never done firing cheques off to Oxfam and Unicef. It’s okay to take advice on how to live better and more comfortably, and these days that means reducing what we have. And if it takes reading what a certain, slightly sanctimonious lady suggests to propel us into action, then so be it.

Honest to God, the things you will do to get out of writing. I’ve read countless articles about freelancers who work from home and admit to wiling away hours on social media or having the tidiest Marie-Kondo style cupboards and beautifully empty laundry bins. They will iron pants and towels and the cat if it stops long enough, just to put off getting behind the screen and typing.

I’ve just experienced such a moment myself. I went for a quick pee there and stared at the new tiled floor and thought, “That could do with a quare scrub. I don’t think the mop’s going to cut it; this is a down on your hands and knees job.” Oooh er, that sounds as if I’m contemplating something much more lewd than a floor job. God that sounds even worse. PLEASE don’t let the mother be reading this one or there’ll be another irate phone call from a pensioner.

It’s an opportune moment for such cleaning tasks because LSB is in Dublin drinking post marathon pints and enjoying listening to people commiserate with him after he took powerful cramps at mile eighteen and had to hobble round the remaining eight in a terrible state. Well, IMHO if you will go running twenty-six miles you’re asking for a world of trouble. It’s really as well he’s down there with like-minded folks since I’m stuck here with a sinus infection and after entertaining youngsters all day (poorly, I might add) I wouldn’t be the most sympathetic to his plight.

As I was saying, this would be a good time to get a-scrubbing because the children are now, mercifully asleep so won’t be smearing the floor with dirt from their little trotters, and LSB isn’t here to wander in still wearing his trainers. I tried to implement a ‘no shoes indoors’ policy and I wasn’t even mocked, just downright ignored. I swear to God, we had the lovely new carpet in a day, a fecking day, and your man comes in from a run round the forest, not even the track, and straight up the stairs he goes, leaving bits of damp grass and dirt and f**k knows what all over the joint. I was none too pleased. And you can say nothing, for all you get is “What? All I did was come the stairs to get showered!” “Yes, in your dirty bogging shoes ON MY NEW CARPET!! “Sure it’ll be covered in juice and biscuits in no time,” says he, by way of an excuse. Well I’m not fussy about the juice and biscuits. What I am fussy about is microscopic bits of dog shit because those dogs run amok in Belvoir forest and I’ve enough to contend with without getting the Dettol out and start into that level of cleaning of an evening. Except maybe if I’m supposed to be writing. Then maybe I might welcome the diversion.

I can’t get the floor out of my head now, I’m away to give it a quick once over with the mop, as a kind of compromise.

(And I don’t really mean that runners; you know I think you’re all fantastic really, especially those doing it for charity. Great lads, the lot of ye.)