pets

I did an interview with The Newsletter this week on the topic of home-schooling- here is the unedited sweary version for SWB readers…

Anyone know the Crowded House ‘Four Seasons in One Day?’ Well, that’s my life at the moment, except replace four with eight, or maybe ten. I ricochet back and forth between feelings of exhaustion and ennui, gratitude and griping, busyness and boredom.

The most stressful element of my day is definitely the home-schooling. I quickly get frustrated when I see that my children’s academic progress has gone into a swift decline since lockdown began. When I look at what they are producing presently I turn into a raging harpy. ‘Have you ever HEARD of a full stop?’ ‘Yes, fifty-five take away fourteen IS  forty-one but since that is a PLUS sign the answer is sixty nine.’ FFS. There is much sniping and sighing when I have the audacity to point out these mistakes. When I asked  my nine year old to give me a couple of adjectives last week, the little s**t replied: ‘Mean and nasty’. How very encouraging.

I dug out some of their school-books from previous years, and there was yet more evidence that my home-schooling techniques are rubbish. A quick flick through and I saw  positive comments and gold stars- ‘Go you! Amazing! Wow!’ What is abundantly clear is that that they lack both the inclination and ability to concentrate at home with me.

Last lockdown LSB used to blithely say ‘Send them up to me!’ when he heard raised voices below. Since then, he has installed two large monitors on the desk where they used to sit. ‘Not much room for them here,’ he says. Since January he has a significantly larger number of meetings for which is attendance is, apparently, mandatory. Obviously, I am not remotely suspicious about any of this. Useless f**ker.

I did not choose to join a religious order because I didn’t fancy a life of servitude, but this appears to have happened anyway. I am now bringer of breakfasts, server of snacks and deliverer of the Key Stage Two Curriculum. Sometimes I try to do put the laundry on while they ‘work’ but have discovered that this is a complete waste of time.

Does anyone else feel as though their brain is being hacked in half with a blunt machete? The See-Saw app is fiddly AF, so if I’m not at their shoulder to oversee what they’re doing they merrily press ‘send’ and send their teacher a load of rubbish. Some of the work coming home is new, and while teachers patiently and with enormous effort, post explanatory videos, I still need to sit with them as they do most of the activities.

Afternoons are spent with my trying to avoid a visit to A&E as they treat our living room furniture like a jungle gym, vaulting over tables and hanging off the banisters. Last Lockdown LSB had to screw the leg back into the sofa and so far this time we have bid farewell to a kitchen chair. Sometimes I feel like a life in a convent would be preferable; at least it would be quiet.

And yet, when I am not strung out multi-tasking, I often feel a sense of relief. Latterly when I was teaching in a local grammar school, I was aware of the pressure which staff and pupils alike where struggling under. It was an absolute f**king melt. This was the result of not knowing whether exams were taking place or not, and students were doing their nut about what they had missed. Tensions ran exceptionally high. Peter Weir is as qualified in the role as Educational Minister as Trump was in the role as President. Not a notion does he have, and running his own party’s agenda to boot.

So are there any upsides? Well yes, of course. When it snowed this time two weeks ago it seemed like a gift- we took the girls to the local meadow with their sleds and played for hours. I didn’t have to navigate icy roads and sit at home wondering whether the school would be open or not.

There is also the sense of celebration when the weekend arrives. Late afternoon I escape, lighting a candle and doing some yoga. Even if it’s just a fifteen-minute practice I feel like it’s something ‘just for me.’ Also, just for me, is the can of wine which I crack open every evening at seven. These are tough times, and if you can’t savour how the flavours of elderberry and green apple marry together in a sparkling white now, then when can you?

I realize, that although life is strange and frightening, that I am lucky. Annoying as they can be, I have a family and a menagerie of pets to keep me busy and (sometimes) amused. Being on my own would be infinitely worse, so when I feel myself close to losing my temper I try to remember this. I try. People I try. But let’s face it, I often fail miserably, please tell me you do too. Solidarity is key for my sanity.

Folks, send me some good vibes because seriously, I have not come up for air. So you think Dominic Cumming had a bad week. Did he, I ask you, have a visiting cat who took a dump on his freshly laundered sheet and a dog who then pissed on the scrubbed mattress to mark her territory? No, all that frigger had to do was pack a box and do the humiliating walk of shame along Downing Street. (How I smiled.) Anyway, back to the poo incident.

Should your partner or off-spring be applying pressure that you source them a dog or cat for Christmas, demonstrate caution. Think carefully about the following: animals and their digestive needs are complex and specific. If only they could defecate on demand and in appropriate places. When it rains (ie, all the f**king time in November, was there EVER a more heinous month?) our animals exhibit reticence about leaving the house to do their business. Our dog will BOUND out the door if we produce her lead and rustle her coat, but if we hold open the back door and gesture that she might have go out and relieve herself,  she looks at us with huge doleful eyes. LSB bought himself a large golf umbrella to watch the children play football. Now, he dons his old trainers and takes the brolly out so the dog can pee and poop undercover. He is a good sort, auld LSB, but little thanks does he get, especially from children and pets.

On Thursday he was beavering away at his desk and entertaining notions of a having a wee jog to himself at lunchtime. Entering the bedroom he did a double take, as there, on our duvet colour, the cat had shat extensively. He had cart the duvet into the bath and shower it down before washing it. Only the night before I had laboriously changed all the bed linen, endeavouring to turn our clutter filled mess of a room into something warm and inviting  One night. One night we got to enjoy this and the cat sullied it.

It gets worse. Coming home, I went up the stairs to survey the wreckage.

‘I thought you said you’d washed AND dried it,’ I called, my voice tremulous with desperation.

‘I had,’ he replied,  following me in.

‘Oh God,’ he said.

The bed was soaked, in what could only have been a deluge of greyhound pee. Tilly has somewhat appropriated our bed during the day, and therefore took it as a slight that the cat had used it as a toilet. More cleaning ensued. A cleaning frenzy, one might say. My hands, once smooth and wrinkle free, now have the reddish hue of an eighteenth-century scullery maid. It’ll take more than Vaseline Intensive Care to sort them out.

All weekend, we have been washing. Clothes that I have worn to school and don’t want to wear again, lest Covid has woven its insidious way into the fabric. Towels from giving the dog a bath; school uniforms; my husband’s sweaty sport’s gear. I try to get my detergent from Refill Quarter but I can’t be arsed driving over so I’ve just put an order in with Smol to test drive those. I’m stressed, people. Owning pets is another f**king job. Don’t let anyone persuade you otherwise.

But as I type this, Tilly has come up the stairs and curled up beside me, emitting soft, greyhound sighs. Her coat is fragrant and shiny from her bath yesterday, and occasionally a little paw reaches out and brushes my leg, as if to say, ‘Sorry about the pissing, I’m just getting used to my new abode.’

If it is a job, ultimately I love it. I’m just very, very tired right now. However,  reading this wee article on Medium just made me think again how gorgeous she is.

Are you ready everyone for this morning’s tirade? Because, this week, (although we’re only mid way through) I am at the end, the very end, of my tether. I am demented, driven daft and distracted (all at the one time) by the state of my f**king house. Even worse- a lot of it is my own fault. I wanted a dog. And, it turns out, there’s rather a lot of work involved. Animals it seems, attract other animals. Would you believe it another cat has rocked up at our back door, ambling in out of the brambles out of the back. The children thought that Bramble would be a suitable name for him, but given his rotundity have christened him ‘Fat Bramble’. With his vocal range and girth he’s like the feline equivalent of Pavarotti. He is a beautiful tabby and white puss with a temperament to match, unlike our dour and truculent Izzy, who’s only pleasant when you’re dishing out her Sheba. Problem is he has wreaked havoc since he arrived. The aforesaid Izzy took immediate umbrage, blamed the dog for this outrageous intrusion and decided to go for the poor greyhound. The dog ran off in terror and took a massive dump in the living room. All this before 8am. It wasn’t the best start to the day. My house is in a big enough state of chassis without these shenanigans.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a little video about my endeavors to recycle because I was going at it great guns. I had a system and it appeared to be working because I had actually just managed to off-load a lot of stuff for TerraCycle. But people, it seems that I am being thwarted at every turn. The dog.The f**king dog. She’s a sight hound and can sniff out anything food related in a matter of seconds. However she likes to wait until we are out and then she goes on the hunt. We left some sourdough on the counter and went upstairs. When we came back down that was gone. As we had run out of green compost bags I had also scraped some peelings and leftovers into a foil container. It was on the floor, licked clean. Then the blighter headed into the front bedroom where I am storing all my recycling. She found the bag of cat pouches which I had painstakingly washed and ripped a load of them to shreds- the floor was dotted with fragments of foil, catching the light. And no matter how fastidious one tries to be while cleaning, there was a distinct aroma of Sheba ‘Prime Cuts’ and ‘Fine Flakes in Jelly’ lingering in the air. That’s the last time I’ll be doing that.

The truth is, I could actually spend my entire life cleaning the house and sorting the recycling and it still wouldn’t be done. On Monday night we went down the Ormeau to Shed (Eat Out to Help Out oh yes, please I am in) and you’d be entitled to think ‘check her out, having her dinner in a restaurant of a Monday evening’ but the truth is, I instigated the meal by saying to LSB: ‘If I have to look at the f**king state of this shit show a second longer lives are going to be lost.’ ‘Let’s book a table,’ he replied. Few things cheer me more than a glass of Shed’s cracker of a Prosecco. 

Other people get a skip. They get a skip, and they f**k everything into it and take back control of their lives. I can’t do this. No, instead I go around to their skip and start hauling out stuff that they’ve chucked into it. I can’t help myself. I can’t bear the thought of adding more to land fill, so round I go, lifting out plastic sea-shell shaped sandpits and elderly storage units and chipped plant pots. ‘I will put this on Freecycle,’ I say, giving myself a self-righteous pat on the back. Indeed I intend to, but it doesn’t happen.

So yesterday I took action. ‘Feck this feeling miserable business,’ I thought. We had a new chest of drawers and a Billy Bookcase arriving from Action Cancer on the Ormeau so this spurred me into action. I popped some clothes belonging to LSB on a Facebook Zero Waste site and they are being collected tomorrow. I popped an ad on Gum Tree for a dog bed I thought we might use but never did. I sorted out some of my recycling, asking my children to help.

I felt a bit better.

To sum up, if you want an easy life, don’t get pets, unless you really like the smell of Dettol. Have no principles at all. F**k everything straight in the bin and to hell with the oceans.

I considered this, briefly, Then I thought, wouldn’t it be awful? I wouldn’t be here now, tapping away on my laptop in bed with a greyhound lying alongside, keeping my right leg warm. Life wouldn’t have the same richness if I could make the coffee in the morning without my cat shouting at me. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror without a sense of revulsion if I wasn’t obsessed with recycling. I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t policing what everyone was putting in their bins.  It would be a half-ass life really, and who wants that? And if anyone wants to claim Fat Bramble that would be great. (Or if not, offer a cantankerous tortoiseshell a home so peace could resume here. I think that would be a fair exchange. )

(This is Tilly, hugging her trauma blanket after Izzy went for her). 

Way back at the start of Lockdown a couple of friends asked if I could do book reviews. So, I’m getting to it, finally now, just as restrictions are being lifted. But hey, isn’t it almost summer and yes, we’re less likely to be on a beach on the Costa del Sunshine, but there will hopefully be time to read a book or two anyway, even we are freezing our backsides off in an Air B&B in the back end of Mayo for want of nowhere else being open. (And yes, I am aware that it’s been roasting, but perpetual pessimist that I am, I’ll be amazed if it lasts all summer.)

My first recommendation is The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman, which I took with me on my girlie weekend to Barcelona. Much as I love my friends, I was so captivated by the story that I carted my sun-lounger to a shady corner of the roof terrace so I could lose myself in the narrative. I didn’t budge for two hours, not even for a glass of cava, so I’m telling you, this is some read. And when I finished it I wanted more- so much so that the next day I started it again from the beginning. I’ve never done that before.

And, I kid you not, I chose it based on its cover. Standing there I was, in ‘Books Paper Scissors’ and I said, ‘What’s that you have there now Paul?’ because it looked so fun and whimsical with its bold red jacket with a yellow canary perched upon a shelf. It all got a bit meta- me in an independent bookstore looking at a book about a small bookstore. However, the obvious difference is that in this story the proprietor is a Hungarian Jewish émigré who has survived Auschwitz and come to live in the backwater of Hometown in Australia. Here she meets Tom, a divorcee sheep farmer, and the two form an unlikely couple.

Tom is a pragmatist, and like the rest of the straight-talking townspeople, he finds Hannah’s bohemian eccentricities mystifying, but it is this clash of culture, often expressed through snippets of dialogue which make the story so engaging.

Hillman is the master of ‘show don’t tell’. A powerful example of this is when he describes how Hannah and the clutch of survivors of the ‘slave army’, carefully ration any food they manage to find as they journey through a freezing Poland: ‘A bag of ten hard sweets was divided up, two minutes per sweet by strict count in the mouth of each woman.’

In another vignette Hannah offers to help Tom dig a channel for the flood water to drain away after a Biblical downpour. He is amazed at her ability to dig, her steady handling of the sodden earth belying her slight stature. He wonders if this was something she learnt in Auschwitz, but hardly dares ask.

The novel skips seamlessly between past and present, as Hillman uses flashbacks to tell Hannah’s story set against her current life in Hometown with Tom. This is no ordinary love story- it is a testimony to the human psyche’s ability to not only endure, but to flourish. Although a short novel, Hillman manages to create a vivid depiction of small-town Australia and post-war life in Budapest with a startling clarity. And Tom. Dear God. Everyone needs a Tom in their life. As the novel unfolds, Hillman builds upon his character with tiny details, so that by the end of it, you mourn that he doesn’t belong in your close circle. The world needs more Toms, and more books like this one.

I read it a third time, over Lockdown. Something about the language soothes and settles me.  We could probably all be doing with a bit of that right now.

So, it’s January, as you may have noticed. I’m frozen, tired and not even feeling smug and virtuous because I’ve neither given up  wine nor embraced a meat-free lifestyle. Last night a friend put a picture of her steak dinner in a local bistro up on Instagram, which prompted me to think: ‘Take that down before you’re lynched!’ I am just properly NOT in the form for any class of self-denial. I am working full-time. I have two small, demanding children. I am trying not to think about the pending apocalypse. Boris Johnson is still PM. Trump is still President. How are earth are people managing NOT to drink? If you’re doing Dry January and still managing to stay remotely positive then I applaud you.

Equally, I extend my admiration for my friends, who in growing numbers have embraced ‘Veganuary.‘ Sometimes, (and I know this makes me a bad person) but I wish my friends could be a bit more rubbish, just to make me a bit better about myself, and my limitations. Maybe I could live without drink, or TRY to be a vegan, but definitely not as a double whammy. And not in January. I can’t even manage to SAY ‘Veganuary’ without it sounding like some sort of invasive gynae procedure. I think the NHS may have missed a trick in not coming up with ‘Vaginuary’, to encourage more women to get their cervical smear test over early the year and look forward to brighter things ahead. While on the topic of lady bits, check out the new candle range from Gwyneth. Dear God. Whatever next?

However, as a nod to a healthier attitude towards my innards and climate change, I have been experimenting in the kitchen with hearty soups and dhals. My red lentil dhal, in particular, was a thing of great beauty. But having given it a great deal of thought, the idea of never eating a soft boiled egg or a bagel slathered in cream cheese would make me very sad indeed.

But instead of feeling shite about what I’ve NOT managed to do, I’ve been thinking back to something I did last year which brought me much happiness.  At the risk of being perceived as a sanctimonious do-gooder and all round pain-in-the-hole, I shall elaborate. Lately I’ve been noticing features on Radio 4 and shared articles on social media on the benefits of doing good and I’m thinking, feck, these guys might just be ON TO SOMETHING.

At the school where I’m currently teaching we got word of a BBC initiative  to encourage children and the elderly to read poetry and then bring them together. It was thus named, imaginatively, ‘Poetry Together’. ‘How fabulous,’ I thought to myself.  As a preliminary exercise I went along to a local residential home with my  offspring and read some poems: Pam Ayres, Wordsworth, Marriott Edgar, (quite the eclectic mix.)  Initially my children looked a bit sullen but I made them go round with a bowl each of Murray Mints and Butter Balls, which perked them up a bit. The next week the Small Child even managed a tiny smile and by the time our third visit rolled around they were actually saying ‘Is it time to go yet?’ The residents were brilliant, some of them sparky and acerbic, which I enjoyed very much. I was giving off about how dreadful my children were one evening when one grey haired lady chirped up: ‘What did you bother having them for if they’re so awful?’

I thought this was marvellous. ‘Sometimes they’re alright,’ I conceded. ‘I did take you for ice-cream after school, didn’t I?’ I said, nudging the Older One.

‘She did actually’, she confirmed.

Nice to know they have my back.

So when it came to taking the pupils from school down for the ‘official reading’ it was all a lot easier. It helped that I was familiar with the place, because when organising any trips these days it can be a stressful affair, with about a million risk assessment forms and God knows what else to consider. Given my past experiences, that’s probably just as well.

But, to my utmost delight, it all went swimmingly, better even than expected. (That’s the joy of being a pessimist, any positive outcome is always a tremendous boon).

I had prepped the kids with some questions to ask, and one wee fellow went straight up to a lady and said ‘Hello! What pets did you have when you were young?’ She was all pleased, and told him about her lurcher, who according to her father, was even better than the border collie for rounding sheep. All the kids circulated, chatted away unselfconsciously without any awkwardness, before performing their poem. A few even volunteered to read out their own limericks. I was almost in tears with the loveliness of it all.

I’ve decided to continue to call in when I can. One afternoon we borrowed Fred, our friend’s springer spaniel and he went down an absolute storm. He’s nine now and a sedate sort of a fellow, thus a perfect fit for a care home. We did, however make the mistake of going at lunch time and he would have had an elderly gent’s beef and cabbage swiped off his plate had I had not a mighty grip of his lead.

That same day we got chatting to a lady who had been an evacuee during the war and had been sent to live on a farm in Tyrone. She said she missed it dreadfully when she got back to Belfast and had loved animals ever since.  I’m thinking of getting on the line to Streamvale Open Farm and seeing if I could get the lend of a few chicks, or maybe a rabbit. That would make for a fun visit.

In contrast to all these good vibes, a couple of times over the holidays I found myself in the city centre. It was a frightful experience altogether: most people had the faces gurned off them, and I overheard a few irate gentlemen opine that ‘it was all fucking shite, so it was.’ I agreed with them entirely.  All the horrible mindless consumerism doesn’t appear to be making us any happier. Maybe volunteering would be a better way to spend an afternoon, (or part thereof.)

It’s true, as Phoebe from Friends once said, that there’s no such thing as a selfless good deed. Anytime I take a trip to the home I leave feeling a bit more contented with my lot.

So you heard it here first: altruism is the new drug of the twenty-twenties. In the midst of all this horror-show it’s lovely, actually, to take some time with a few nonagenarians and take a few deep breaths. It’s soothing for a troubled soul, and makes me feel less bad about the glass of Primotivo of an evening. I guess if we do what we can, in whatever way works best for us, we can ignite a few sparks as we wait for the spring to arrive.

‘I NEVER WANT TO SEE ANOTHER PUMPKIN,’ I said last year, with feeling. Last November I had set myself a challenge to do one positive a thing every day. It damn near killed me. I attempted to take the ‘zero waste’ approach to Halloween. I failed miserably in most respects but I did end up carving a lot of pumpkin. People started bringing me their Jack-o’-lanterns  that otherwise would have gone to waste: all that pumpkiny goodness languishing in landfill. I couldn’t bear it, so I set to, peeling and chopping and popping them into boxes. I ended up posting pictures of them on FB to see if anyone fancied pre-prepared veg for soups and curries.

‘Please, let there be an end to the pumpkin,’ sighed LSB. This was ironic as it was he who bought the bastard thing in the first place with the intention of creating a festive decoration.  He then proceeded to leave it there, staring at me until November 1^st when he conceded ‘there wasn’t really much point anymore.’ I never would have started any pumpkin related nonsense had he not started the shenanigans.

And then, THIS year, what does he trail home from Sainsbury’s but the biggest f*ck-off sized pumpkin that one could ever imagine. He arrived with it on the 26^th October, at half past five, precisely half an hour before twenty guests were due to arrive for the Older Child’s 8^th birthday. This, I’m sure you will agree, is not the best time to start carving a mammoth squash, when there is beer that needs chilling and floors that needs sweeping and wives that need a fortnight in St Lucia* booked before they explode with rage and the sheer exhaustion of existence.

On the 27^th October the children asked could they carve it, but we were too busy clearing the post-party debris to contemplate such a chore. On the 28^th they enquired again. On the 29^th we were heading to the Roe Valley for two nights and attention was diverted as we tried to catch the cat to cart her off to her ‘pet retreat’ in the Castlereagh Hills. She seemed to sense her impending departure because upon awaking she did a large shit in our shower; a most unpleasant surprise, and frankly not very ‘birthdayish’, as the Small Child opined. Of course she then legged it, refusing to return. Her reservation thus had to be cancelled and favours called in from LSB’s Dad to come and feed her, with dire warnings to check the shower on each visit.

‘NO, THE PUMPKIN IS NOT BLOODY COMING,’ neighbours heard me shout, as I dragged my bags to the car. The Older Child by now seemed to think of the pumpkin as a family member, or perhaps a pet, rather like Father Jack and his brick but with more nutritional value. We nearly had an episode, which I now call ‘Mother Close to Tears Prior to Departure’ which happens on most trips and has LSB saying, ‘we’ll get you a gin at the airport,’ or in this case, ‘Here, just drink that can of Sauvignon Blanc in the car. I’ll drive carefully.’

I thought I’d left all pumpkin related woes behind, until I heard a ping:

‘I’m going to have to make a soup when we get home,’ I muttered miserably to LSB.

‘I’m removing that app from your phone.’ he said, having looked over my shoulder. I had signed up to Olio recently in a bid to minimise waste. They send me all sorts of interesting snippets and this one stated that the number of pumpkins chucked away uneaten in October would be enough to give every person in the UK a bowl of soup.

We came home and the pumpkin seemed to be staring at me, daring me to not to do something with it. I googled ‘how to cut up pumpkin’ on Youtube and watched an  Ozzie fellow set to with a carving knife, but even with his deliberate air of insouciance it still looked hard work. I had wanted an easier way. There is no easier way, with pumpkins, I have found. It’s a huge effort, and one could suffer injury if not extremely careful. But I persevered. I chopped red onion, garlic and red pepper, plus the persimmon fruit which we had bought earlier that day in the veg shop on the Ormeau. ‘Can we try that?’ asked the Older Child.

‘Why not?’ I said; I’m nice like that. Disappointing it was: rather bland and most unworthy of the 69p it cost. So I fecked it in the saucepan along with the rest of the veg, which I fried gently in coconut oil. I roasted the rest of the pumpkin, generously seasoned with salt and pepper and rapeseed oil. Our kitchen took on the heady scent of autumn, and for a while I was cheered, and a tad smug, if I’m honest.

Then I tried to blend it, forgetting that the last time I used the blender I had a disaster. Said disaster reoccurred, and the mixture leaked out, all over the worktop, all over the floor and tragically over my new M&S slippers.

‘FUCK ME,’ I seethed.

I managed to salvage some, and eventually blend it. If there is any good to be derived from this sorry tale, is that when LSB came in from work and I presented him with a bowlful, he claimed that it was a marvellous and exactly what he needed on a Monday, when he felt all cold and feeble. Still, if he dares bring another into the house next year he may well end up in the Royal with pumpkin issues unrelated to carving, but simply a blow from one aimed at his head.

Ach, so Judith Kerr has died. Raging I am, and she meant to be reading at the Hay festival on May 1^st.  She would have been looking forward to that. Only last week she was featured in the Guardian Weekend in the Q & A with Rosanna Greenstreet.  I’ve read several articles about her for years, writing her lovely books up in her attic, looking out over the trees in the park in her London home, often with a cat on her knee.

I’ve loved her work since I was a small child. When I was four or five, my mum took me to the Carnegie library in Bangor. I know the book I wanted, but all I could remember was that it involved a cat and a chimney. Perhaps Mog wasn’t as popular back in 1983 and my details were scant, but I recall the librarian taking ages with me, searching for it on the old Android computer and finally locating it. I was ever so pleased.

Just last Sunday  The Mothership was up and reading the children their bedtime story.  I was feeling terribly feeble and reclining on my bed in my room next door. The primary school teacher is still very much alive in my mum, and she got into the story of Mog’s Christmas with gusto,  clearly relishing the bit about the talking tree that scared the bejesus out of wee Mog.

“Mog thought, “Trees don’t walk. Trees should stay in one place.”

‘Did you know that my daddy is ‘a cat whisperer?’ I heard the Older Child say, in a conspiratorial tone. ‘He could have got Mog down off that roof.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the Mothership. ‘Your Papa too, but I wouldn’t have let him go up a ladder, on Christmas Eve, in the snow.’ And rightly so. My dad wouldn’t be the steadiest, on or off a ladder.

Do you know what else I like about the Mog books? It’s the simplicity; the gentleness of it. The way Kerr catches the quiet exasperation on Mr and Mrs Thomas’ faces. There’s a great story about Mog and Bunny, and poor Mrs Thomas going flying with her tea tray as she trips over Mog’s pink bunny toy. We’ve all been there, we parents, falling over cats and children and bastarding pieces of Lego. We’ve all been tortured with pets mewing in the night and leaving their grubby little toys in our slippers and on our pillows.

Though perhaps what I love the most, is the distinct lack of gaudiness. Oh, how I HATE the gaudiness and the saccharine shades consistent in all children’s books and TV programmes now. Bubblegum pink and lurid lime and putrid purple. I came down for breakfast and the kids had ‘Shimmer and Shine’ blaring on the TV and it was all just too much, at 7.50 of a morning. Part of me loves the slight dowdiness in Kerr’s work. In Mog’s Christmas there are the two glorious aunts ‘on tippy toe’. That’s exactly how my great aunts looked, in their cardigans and skirts that came just below the knee, taking enormous pleasure as they parcelled up our presents. All thrilled with himself is the ‘jolly uncle’, in his woollen tank top, carrying a balloon,  And  Mog herself and her range of catty expressions. I especially love ‘Pissed-off Mog’ with a slight narrowing of the eye and a flattened ear, which utterly conveys her disgust. Kerr claimed not to be a great illustrator, but I beg to differ. She captures the mercurial nature of a cat’s temperament perfectly. And Mrs Thomas in her headscarf, on a snowy roof with a fish for Mog’s supper. There’s a kindness and a selflessness to the stories- simple pleasures and a celebration of the banal.

As a refugee from Germany, Kerr knew all about precious moments. She knew about the importance of family and friendships and small, kind gestures. It’s in the faces of her characters. At the end of Mog’s Christmas when ‘the tree had stopped walking and made itself all pretty’  Nicky’s face is aglow as he shows Mog his toy car, and the elderly aunt is all chuffed with her new pair of tights, and Mrs Thomas is giving Mog a boiled egg and all is intrinsically right with the world.

My children love Mog so much that the Small Child went to the Halloween disco at school in a Mog costume. ‘I know she’s not scary,’ said the Small Child, ‘but I just really, really like her.’ I really like her too. Sleep well, Judith Kerr; we are grateful for you. You have brought us all much joy.

I don’t tend to talk politics and I’m fairly sure my readers already know that I’m a Guardian reading, Green/Alliance party voter. Is there any point getting involved, I think, when round and round we go in ever more depressing circles. It would be rather embarrassing, until we look across the water at the circus masquerading as a government there, and think, well, at least it’s not just us who are being run by a bunch of muppets.

Another reason to stay clear of politics are the nasty surprises which lurk beneath the surface. We’ve all been there, chattering away with people whom we assumed shared similar views to ourselves, when they reveal that they support some bastard party  you wish were every bit as extinct as the dinosaurs they don’t believe in. It takes time to reconcile that they’re still the same people you liked before.

I was the subject of such confusion myself once, when teaching in a Catholic Grammar school. They were a GCSE English class and I was taking them through the poetry anthology and trying to bring some awful poems to life. I always pictured the person behind the dreadful collection as being a flinty old crone who spent her Saturday evenings chaining up swings in playgrounds. Anyway, while trying to explain ‘I remember I remember’ by Christina Rossetti (she was another barrel of laughs) I let slip that I had attended a Church of Ireland growing up. One wee girl almost toppled off her stool. ‘Yes, I’m a Protestant,’ I clarified for the rest of them, most of whom were AGOG. I think they had quite liked me and felt aggrieved or betrayed or probably both, when they discovered I was one of ‘them’uns.’ They seemed quite put out by it.

Last week I was listening to the Nolan show on Tuesday morning when Vinny, (Nolan must have been on his hols) was talking about the cuts to education. I knew already, but hearing the first-hand experiences were horrifying. The funding has all but dried up, and of course the ones suffering are any children who require extra help with their reading and writing. There simply isn’t the money to pay for support staff, and teachers are already battling to get through the curriculum with 30+ pupils in a class. It’s a horrible feeling, to know in your bones, that you can’t give each child the time and attention they need. Teacher friends of mine work for HOURS, every single night. They often stay in school until 5 or 6, before going home to start into the marking and/or planning for the next day. Perhaps they’ve stayed after school to take games or drama or debating, and on Sunday morning they might pop down to Junior parkrun to encourage their pupils, or stand freezing the bollocks off themselves while their team plays rugby or Gaelic of a Saturday.

To think that at every single meeting, these teachers, who have already had their pay or pensions frozen (I can’t keep up but it’s all a shite state of affairs) have to sit and listen to an extremely glum prognosis about the school budget. ‘Don’t be even thinking about ordering books or other essential equipment!’ God Forbid the Executive invests in something important like education. As long as the sheds and out houses in Fermanagh are nice and toasty who gives a shit about the kids, eh?

And yet. Every year, because of the deeply entrenched divisions between the orange and the green, Northern Irish voters still elect the very parties who refuse to go into government and do the jobs they are supposed to do. It’s our teachers who suffer, and the parents pulling their hair out at home because their children aren’t getting the care they deserve and need.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter what scandals our politicians embroil themselves in, or what hatred they stir up when they purposely make decisions that they know will antagonise the other side. They can do whatever they want, knowing fine rightly, that when they rap on doors needing votes, all they have to say is: ‘Who do you want as First Minister? Arlene or Michelle?’ and they will get the vote, because people stick to their tribes, regardless of how abhorrent the actions of the parties are, and how little they actually care about the vulnerable in society.

So no, I don’t normally talk politics, but I’m frustrated that for over eighteen months we’ve had no government, and being a true cynic, I bet there’s all sorts of nefarious wheeler/dealing going on, but why should it be our children, our elderly and the sick in our society who have to pay the price?

We need to wake up.  Write to your MLA’s and MPs and quote what the principal of your child’s primary school said about their flat-lining  budgets and what that means for your kids. And say there’s no way you’re giving them your vote next time if they don’t sort their shit out.

Morning all. I do hope Monday finds you well and sprightly. I myself, was woken at 3am by The Small Child, who crawled in and disported herself in a manner which was not conducive to sleep, (for me, not her) and thus I found myself setting about house-hold tasks in the early hours. Yes, our kitchen does look less of a bomb site this morning but I have puffy eyes and a most pallid complexion. Upon nipping down to Sainsbury’s to purchase bread at 8.15 I had the misfortune to catch a glimpse myself in the camera at the self-service tills. It was like one of the photos one sees on Crime Watch. Anyhoo, at least I applied make-up on Friday evening when I read my story in Bangor for Tenx9. (I couldn’t have people saying ‘That Helen McClements hasn’t aged well has she?’) Those are my legs in the centre photo, as I stood on tip toes to reach the mic. Not the brightest, me. And that Paul Doran who runs the bloody event just chortled away to himself and took pictures instead of fixing it for me, the dirt bird.

I’m actually feeling better now after two cups of coffee and a tea. If you’ve time now pour yourself a nice hot beverage and see if you can identify with having the fear of God put into you at the CSSM and freezing your ass off on the beach. Here’s the story:

******

1980’s Bangor didn’t cover itself in glory. Ballyholme Beach certainly didn’t, and I should know, because I grew up overlooking it, on the Esplanade. My poor parents never anticipated living there, in a rambling 5 bedroom semi, but they’ve been there 35 years so I suppose they’re used to it now. They wanted to move to the Donaghadee Road, to a house with a sunny south-facing kitchen and a large garden where I recall there were hens. (Not that my mum ever wanted hens. ‘Terrible stupid creatures, and they make a shocking mess.’) But that house fell through and since their other house had already sold they were in a right fix, with two small children and a nana and granddad to boot. In a sort of demented frenzy they grabbed whatever was on the market and in the summer of 1983 we moved in.

The previous owner of the house on The Esplanade had moved sharpish as well, because God had told him he was needed elsewhere. Mum said the way he talked about God you’d have thought he’d been on the phone to him that morning. God however, never suggested that he check the house for damp, install decent double glazing or fix the dilapidated garage. Thus after the expense of buying the house, my parents had the almost insurmountable task of making it liveable. The damp sea air made all the wood swell so none of the doors shut without a massive bang and one small friend told me she thought everyone in our house was always in a shocker of a mood, with doors slamming every three minutes.

Such was the force of the gale that the front and back doors could never, ever be open simultaneously, as the gusts shooting through would cause a door to slam so violently that glass could shatter and small lives could have been lost. Relaxing, it wasn’t.

And aside from two summers, when I was small, and it was hot enough for me to run around in bikini bottoms and nothing else, I almost always remember it being cold. And this seemed to really, really irritate my mother. Having spent two years in Papua New Guinea where the sea was like a ‘warm bath’ and she and her friends ran round wearing M&S nighties as dresses because the Papuans ‘wouldn’t have known any different’ since they didn’t have M&S on small Indonesian islands, she found the icy Belfast Lough a terrible disappointment. ‘It’s a waste of a sea,’ she used to say, mournfully. (I have to add here that my mum is actually from Coleraine, so this shouldn’t have been a surprise.) To this day there are regulation ‘red fleeces’ and one is often pointed in the direction of the cloakroom to avail of one before the heating is cranked up. (Why the fleeces are always red I don’t know. I assure you they’re not communists).

One summer when it rained for a solid month the sun finally emerged and everyone descended upon the beach in a ‘Carpe Diem’ sort a way. ‘Please, can we go, please please,’ we begged. We must have been quite little because we weren’t allowed to go across the road and down the steps by ourselves. With much sighing and giving off, beach accoutrements were assembled and down we traipsed. The tide must have been coming in because there wasn’t much space, and we got ourselves settled and my mother looked beside her and there was a steaming pile of dog poo. So livid was she, that our beach excursion was aborted after about 10 minutes. Back up the steps we went. ‘You wouldn’t want to be swimming in that sea anyway,’ said another disillusioned mum. ‘The sewer flows straight into it,’ and as I recall back that that was indeed the case.

When we weren’t enduring rubbish trips to the sea we had rubbish trips to the park instead. Ballyholme park was, and still is, home to The CSSM for two weeks in July, and parents, whether religiously inclined or not, rejoiced in off-loading their children for free, for a couple of hours in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? That’s because it is, unless your child’s idea of entertainment involves game after game of rounders and ‘What’s the time Mister Wolf,’ led by extremely over-enthusiastic young people. I didn’t much enjoy this type of activity, but thought story time sounded nice and settled myself, cross-legged and eager in front of a man with a flip-board. He proceeded to show one lovely picture of blue skies and sunshine and fields, a bucolic countryside scene, one could say. ‘This was heaven,’ he explained. He flipped the chart to a bleak and scary picture of dark clouds and lightning and rain. I don’t recall if there was a devil with a forked stick but I wouldn’t have been surprised. ‘And this was hell,’ he went on. ‘So we had all better be good Christian children because we didn’t want to end up there when we died, did we?’

There were some rousing hymns to follow and a few more games of Duck Duck Goose. I remember thinking what is WRONG with me because I couldn’t skip blithely on after hearing that story. I had taken it very much to heart and all the giddy kids and over-zealous leaders seemed to me like the very worst sort of people, and to be stuck with them for ever and ever seemed hellish in itself. I think I was 5 when this occurred. ‘I don’t want to go back tomorrow,’ I told my mum when she came to collect me, and taking one look at the hordes of noisy children she muttered: ‘I don’t blame you.’

As I got older I used to look out at all the young sailors in their toppers on yacht club night which was a Tuesday, and feel jealous that we weren’t a sailing family too. Rather than feeling on the outside, I was in the inside looking out, and feeling a bit odd, as if I didn’t really fit in there. But then I gave it a go and after being clattered on the head by a boom (that godforsaken wind again) I decided I mustn’t missing much, as it was actually much nicer just drinking a cup of tea on the window seat with a lovely view.

I’m aware that all of this paints my formative years in the most ghastly light. There were many lovely moments too. The kitchen may have looked like a throw back from the 50’s but that didn’t stop my Nana baking scones that were light as air, sponge cakes that even my brother’s most caustic friend described as ‘lush’ and pancakes served straight off the griddle. Other kids along the Esplanade may have been given ponies and skiing holidays for Christmas, but they never had the baked goods we had and the table was often crammed with children saying things like, ‘Look, homemade jam!’ and ‘Wow, real butter!’ (None of that Flora shite in our house). Nana’s apple tarts were so good that I felt actual pity for any child who turned up to school with a Mr Kipling in their lunch box. That, I thought, was almost tantamount to abuse.

As we got older, Mum and Dad were of the opinion that they didn’t care if their house was wrecked as long as their children were safe, so number 28 played host to teens every summer, many of whom stayed for indefinite periods of time. They didn’t change the 1970’s carpets because the gharish patterns hid all manner of stains from DM boots, and disguised evidence from vomit after someone got wired into the Scrumpy Jack. Budding musicians loved our house because it was so big they could crank up the amplifiers for guitar solos from Megadeth and Metallica and nobody complained. It was quite the place to be, circa 1994 when my brother had all his friends round for band practice, and if you didn’t mind my trying to save your soul, because by that time I’d given in & become an Evangelical myself, it was probably quite a lot of fun.

The house has since been redecorated, which is a shame really, as my 5 and 6 year olds can wreck a joint in 5 minutes flat, and I lament that every time I come home. Could you not have just left it a bit shit, I say to my folks, but I don’t begrudge them a thing. I grew up in an Enid Blyton sort of a world, in a warm cocoon away from The Troubles, in a ramshackle house, full of character. Now, when we drive up from the Ballyholme Road and see the yellow field of Ballymacormick Point catch the light, my heart always gives a little skip. It’s good they kept the family house, and one more thing for which I am grateful.

There are fewer greater disappointments in life than pish wine, and I should know, because I’m after enduring two of them, and I’m going to NAME AND SHAME. The M&S Dine in Deal: there should be a law against it. I’m after nearly spraying the book I’m reading (Country, by Michael Hughes, more of which to come) with a mouthful of the foul Daniel’s Drift, but I swallowed it back because it’s a signed copy and one which I’ll reread because it is a GEM.

The Dine-In is a take on, for SO many reasons. If there’s no rotissererie chicken on the menu, don’t even think about it, that’s my motto. The wine is usually vile, only fit to cook with, though a French person would query that. I once read a book by the wife of the fellow who runs Veuve Clicquot and she had a recipe for chicken cooked in champagne. Can you ever, EVER, imagine having the cash to immerse your fowl in bubbly for a mid-week supper? Have you ever heard the like? Marie Antoinette wouldn’t be in it. And don’t get me started on the overuse of plastic. Oops, off I go. The packaging on the veg cracks me up, and the desserts. Not a bit of need for it.

Right, shite wine number two. I came home from my holidays, all excited about white Rioja. ‘Sí, sí’ said a Catalan friend, ‘You can buy it from Sainsbury’s.’ And how serendipitous, because last week they had 25% off when you buy 6 or more bottles, (no problem there for our family) and down the hill I zoomed and stocked up. ‘Muy buen,’ I said when I spied it, and into the trolley went a bottle. ‘I shall open that for aperitif when friends visit,’ I said to myself. And I did, and some poor bastard drank it and said it was lovely but I must have been on the red for I have only just sampled it there this evening and it was horrific. No wonder they only had one small glass and legged it. Must have thought the standard had slipped something shocking here in Sour Towers.

So there’s two glasses, destined for the slop bucket, and me in a state of profound agitation with youngsters who at nine pm are like yoyos up and down the stairs. ‘She nipped me!’ said one. ‘She called me FART,’ said the other. Bring back the rod, says I. And himself ensconced in The Northern Lights tucking into chicken wings, AFTER DOING YOGA! The cheek of it. Anyone would think I’d been at a literary festival all last week or something. Me nerves.

So to sum up: M&S Daniel’s Drift Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon: let it drift on, and Viñedos Barrihuelo Rioja: pure minging. I’ll be lucky if they don’t kill the lavender out front; may need diluting, as apparently,  does urine, according to The Mothership, who looked it up on the internet.

But back to the author: Michael Hughes, the man is a genius. This is only his second novel and it’s a thriller set in Provo land in South Armagh in 1996. It’s a riveting, at times stomach curdling read, and wait for it, he’s only gone and based it on Homer’s The Iliad. Brains to burn, yon fella. So there’s all these funny in-jokes and parallels and as one who loves the Classics I’m reading it in a state of near euphoria. I’m almost demented at the thought that I’m half way through.  AND he manages to make it funny with his topsy turvy use of syntax. Now I’ve studied The Iliad and it wasn’t a laugh a minute, but I keep reading snippets of ‘Country’ out to himself when he’s trying to sleep or get a bit of work done, and I’m laughing away to myself so much I can hardly get the words out. Maybe that’s why he’s in the Northern Lights this evening and it was nothing to do with their ‘Buy one bowl of wings get one free deal.’ It’s all about the deals this night isn’t it?

In a fit of imitation being the best form of flattery, I wrote  about the trauma that was breakfast this morning in the style of Michael Hughes. This is very niche and to be honest, if you haven’t heard the man himself (as I did last week at the Hewitt in conversation with Glenn Patterson), you’ll not get it. You’ll probably think I’ve gone completely mad, but here it is and sure just skip on if you don’t get it.

 Troy via Four Winds

(In a reversal of the myth, Helen is left while her beloved takes his leave, sailing off, the wind on his back, down the Ormeau Road. The onslaught begins.)

‘Where’s my toast? I want a drink. Would you cut me out a tail? I’m making ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ for tonight.’

‘Could a mother not take her tea in peace?’

‘Here’s a pen, draw it, now.’

‘Would you whist a while, Gumtree has me rapt.‘

‘Draw. Here’s the donkey. Where’s the blu-tack?’

The clock chimes half past nine, it’s Playball time.

‘Playball! NOOOOO!’ (They loved it yesterday, but like the Ancient gods my children are capricious.)

‘Up the stairs. Those teeth need cleaned.’

The blood gets up. Brioche ground into the rug.

Chocolate stained milk up-ended. ‘DON’T YOU SLAM THAT DOOR!’

CRASH.

The mother gives a gulder that would wake the dead in Hades. Lifts off the roof.

Up rears the cat and out.

Hair uncombed, in rats’ tails hanging. Vests back to front; shorts inside out.

Fleeces wet from water wars, left to moulder on the floor.

Not a coat, a water bottle, a lunch box. All is lost and it not yet ten. My parenting in tatters and STILL A MONTH OF HOLIDAYS TO GO.

Send in reinforcements, quick.

(Neither poem nor prose, just a lamentation.)