sees red

Right, so today I’m talking cleaning. Yes, cleaning and tidying and all that household nonsense. I realise that this may be risky, and you would be quite entitled to think, ‘what depths of banality will that woman not plumb?

But it feels like every time I chat to friends, we take a collective sigh when we think of the state of chaos into which our homes have descended. Over Lockdown I have looked around and often felt an acute sense of nausea. Granted, some of this has been my own fault. It was me, for example, who wanted a dog, despite knowing full well that it would lead to a messier home and less time to clean it because of pet related duties. I brought that on myself. I didn’t, however, bring about the triple whammy of home-schooling, my own work situation, and keeping a family clean, (ish) nourished (somewhat) and entertained (occasionally).

Some people are just naturally quite tidy. Neither my husband or myself fall into that category, and it would seem that our progeny follow suit, except they’re ten times worse, the little s**ts.

I’ve decided to accept that there’s more chance of Bernie Ecclestone making it to his child’s graduation ceremony than there is of me getting (and keeping) my whole house to an acceptable level: so instead I will just focus on a couple of areas. I need a some places where I can retreat without taking something akin to a panic attack.

Last year I visited a friend of mine and was upset to see that her living space was pristine and devoid of accumulated shite in all the corners. (VERY bad Feng Shui, apparently, cluttering your corners).  She has two teenage boys, works full-time and owns a dog. I was affronted. I wondered briefly if we could still be friends.

‘How the f**k do you manage this?’ I asked.

‘The rest of the house is a bombshell,’ she said. ‘Don’t even think about going up the stairs.’

‘Phew,’ I thought to myself. ‘That’s the girl I know and love.’

If you’re short on time and jangly of nerves, my sagacious friend suggests, that you keep one area tidy, and make it the place where you spend most of your time. Like myself, my pal has a kitchen/dinner/den set-up, and all of it was lovely. My expectations aren’t that high. I can’t manage to keep my dining table clear, and a week after school has ended, it still groans under the weight of books, colouring paraphernalia and God knows what else. But I’m getting increasingly ratty with the children if they leave their truck around the living area, especially in the evening when I’m counting down the seconds until it’s unwind-on-the-sofa-time. Marie Kondo wouldn’t be standing for any of their nonsense.

Then there’s the island, where crockery jostles with bills and newspapers and wineglasses that don’t fit in the dishwasher. It is where hope comes to die. But we have decided to adopt a ‘clear island’ policy, and are trying to keep it clear. That way, if at least two surfaces are free of crap my nerves feel less ragged. So if the island is swept clean and the coffee table is home to nothing but a scented candle, I can just divert my eyes from the catastrophe that is the rest.

My policy in the front room is just to keep the door closed. I can’t bear it right now and I’m not venturing in for another week to start cleaning. The same goes for the downstairs bedroom. They are too awful to contemplate as the girls have annexed them as play areas and they are littered with their detritus: Lego, lots and lots of Lego.

Now I can’t possibly sign off without mentioning toilets. As you know, the Mothership is keen on inspecting the level of cleanliness of my toilets and then passing comment before donning gloves and reaching for the Domestos. I’ve never had much success with keeping the sheen of the bowl up to her lofty standards.

‘It’s coming that time,’ I said to LSB earlier. ‘Restrictions are lifting and she’ll be back in and may have a stroke when she sees sees the limescale situation upstairs. I don’t want that on my conscience.’

Now as I’ve mentioned in that past, Himself is a great fella for leaving the housework to me, but didn’t he get out his phone and start googling ‘Top Tips for Toilet Cleaning’. The next thing he was heading up the stairs armed with baking soda, vinegar and a scourer. I came back from a walk in Ormeau Park and the glean off the loo nearly blinded me.  I think he felt that he had to atone for swilling pints most of the weekend, and so this cleaning spree was his penance. Either way, I’m not complaining: two clear surfaces and a sparkling toilet and it’s only Monday evening. And the pubs and eateries are open again. Hurrah.

Since it’s International Women’s Day I’m in the mood for chatting about periods. Aren’t they a right pain in the arse? I’ve been on about them before, but as a topic I don’t feel that they get enough air time. Presently, mine are being very annoying, arriving at the most inopportune moments. Take November, for example. We were headed down to Dublin to see Liam Gallagher, and as I’ve mentioned before, I think he’s a bit of a gobshite so I wasn’t overly looking forward to the gig. I was, however, excited about a night away minus  off-spring, and in a happy turn of events, Himself had actually downplayed The Spencer which turned out to be a plush establishment with Egyptian cotton sheets and mood lighting and velvet throws, just the thing for an unencumbered pair.  How jolly, thought I. Well, I wasn’t through the door til the period came on, with an almighty splosh and a whoosh, all over the shiny white bathroom tiles. How I wish I was exaggerating.  That fairly put paid to any shenanigans of an amorous nature, I can tell you.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but they are becoming more irregular, heavier and as a result are having a desperate impact on my moods, as LSB would testify in a heartbeat. As soon as he hears pots and pans being clattered about in the kitchen; detects my inability to recollect the whereabouts of my purse, keys or mobile phone, or witnesses my uncharacteristic desire to clean, he knows the bastard is on its way.

The Mothership loves a good rant and rave about them too, ever since she visited the South of France in the 1960s.  All excited she was, about a swim in the warm and enticing Mediterranean, unlike the freezing Atlantic in Portstewart to which she was used. One solitary swim she got until the frigger arrived and spoilt her holiday. She was very young and innocent and hadn’t a notion about tampons, (feck they may not even have been invented back then) so she sat miserably by the water’s edge, watching as her friends frolicked about in the waves. I don’t think she’s over it yet, truth be told.

(Folks I’m telling you, the phone call I’m going to be taking later will be worth listening to, saying the like of that.)

But that’s what they do, periods. Spoil your happiness. Wreck your sex-life. Give you cramps and nausea. Oh, and now of course, we discover, they contribute hugely to plastic pollution. 11,000 sanitary products is what the average woman uses during her lifetime. That’s a wild statistic altogether, isn’t it? Imagine being a wee turtle, going about your way merrily, fins a-flapping, when along come a shoal of Always Ultra. Must be a powerful shock to the system altogether.

And the thing is, for anyone of my generation, having any other means of dealing with them is not immediately apparent. Until my 39^thyear, I’d never used anything other than a pad or a tampon. Then a couple of my friends mentioned using a moon cup. It took me a while to get my head round this, and it took me even longer trying to figure out how to get them in and out. It’s possible that the husband, at one point, may even have been enlisted to aid the removal of such an item, as I became familiar with the extrication process. I recall that on this, the most difficult of occasions, I tried to text friends from the bathroom for advice, but they just sent emojis of fishing rods and pairs of pliars. 35 minutes I recall I spent, trying to get the fecker out.

Happily, there was another solution which I found infinitely easier. My friend Kirsty is the founder of Shared Threads, an organisation which makes reusable pads from recycled cotton. Kirsty sends most of her products out to India, and has initiated visits to schools where she goes out, armed with her trusty supplies to educate young girls on how to manage their periods. On these trips she has also taken supplies into women’s prisons to deliver her bags of brightly coloured pads to help women without any sanitary items at all.

Today I went along to an open day at her studio in Portview Trade Centre on the Newtownards Road in Belfast. I’m familiar with this area for the wrong reasons: the congestion, the murals of paramilitary groups, and the towering bonfires which spring up mid-June. But under the sunflower yellow of Goliath, is Kirsty’s studio with a Root & Branch Coffee Shop tucked snuggly underneath. Bright sunshine lit the whitewashed walls and the fresh smell of coffee greeted us as we wandered in.

All around were women and children, cutting cloth and sewing pads from bright oddments of material. There was chat and biscuits and small boys playing with Lego and Rubix cubes. I brought my friend Alison, who swiftly took a pew, carefully snipping out patterns and chatting to the lady beside her. It was ever so convivial.

My kids quickly got in on the action, sketching patterns and cutting out and popping the odds and ends into bins.

God, it was gorgeous. As you know, I’m a miserable fecker. I love nothing more than a good auld bitch and a complain. But I love community more. It pleases me no end to see people coming together to share what ever skills they have in pursuit of a common good, for women who have a far more shite time than the rest of us. So if you have a moment, check out Shared Threads online and see what other projects Kirsty has coming up.

As for my periods, I’ve managed to make mine almost plastic free, between Kirsty’s pads and the occasional use of Yoni sanitary wear, I’ve given up on Always Ultra altogether. It’s a small change, but ultimately, I feel, a significant one. And by talking about this, it’s also a  brilliant way to break down barriers, because we stop making them something that we should ever feel embarrassed or awkward about. I’m starting more and more, at the age of 40, to appreciate my body, and what its been through, and what its created. If I do have a fecker of a period, and need to curl up in the sofa with a vat of tea and a bag of chocolate digestives while watching repeats of Sex and the City, well I’ll take that, thank you very much, and frankly, be quite glad of the excuse.

It’s half-term and we’ve decided to book three nights in a hotel, instead of the usual two, so we can ‘properly relax’, (LSB’s words). There is a flaw in the plan though, as after booking the accommodation, we discover that they don’t have a kid’s club. Suddenly the relaxing bit seems ambitious. The bar better serve VERY good wine, I tell LSB, who looks slightly crestfallen when he sees the depth of my despondency.  ‘Just have very, very low expectations,’ says my friend when I complain to her later. ‘That’s how I approach holidays.’

When we arrive at the Fitzpatrick’s Hotel in Dalkey, however, I’m rather taken with it. There’s a sort of dilapidated chic about the whole affair. ‘New elevator coming soon!’ reads the sign, as we take the stairs.  The carpet is threadbare, and we have a veritable hike to our room, along three long corridors. This ALWAYS happens to us, like the way the departure lounge for Belfast flights used to be at the furthest outpost of the airport, in case the IRA blew it up. LSB calls it a ‘Bring a packed lunch’ trek. ‘How was your room?’ I’d ask after each business trip. ‘BPL’ he’d always say. This hotel has a faded grandeur about it, and it’s full  of grannies having afternoon tea, buttering scones and talking in hushed tones. There’s a whole table of pensioners playing poker and a bespectacled looking girl knitting a jumper. I think we’ll fit in here ok.

The kids swim time doesn’t start for another 30 mins so we sojourn to the Library Bar for what a ‘pre-swim fortification beverage’.

‘Just giving you a heads up,’ says the barman, as he pours a Guinness for LSB and a Chilean red for me, ‘there’s a strictly no children policy in here from 6.’

‘Very wise,’ I tell him. And don’t fret, we’re very quick drinkers; parenthood does that to you.’

‘I hear you,’ he says, mournfully.

The swim though, is more bearable than anticipated, because in the bar, I spy another couple, knocking back beers, while their children play on their devices. I sense kindred spirits. (Initially, I was agin the concept of tablets, naively thinking that kids glued to their screens, and not participating in conversation was a dreadful thing.  I’m 100% over that now, if it means an end to the relentless pestering that happens in the absence of screen entertainment.)

LSB says that the drive has tired him out and orders another Guinness, and I introduce myself to the family and we head to the pool together.  It’s all very jolly, as their daughters are in their teens, and are very tolerant of my pair, making sure they don’t drown while I chat to their mum, Louise. It’s a skill of mine, farming out my kids. I make vague apologetic noises about inflicting ourselves upon them. ‘No bother at all,’ says Louise, who turns out to be all the craic. ‘Sure I’ll keep an eye here and you head to the hot tub,’ says her husband. I’ve already warmed to this crowd a great deal.  Like me, Louise gave up work for a while, and while I fanny about still ‘discovering what I want to do’, she’s a full-time carer for a paraplegic. ‘I could have been a paraplegic,’ I tell her, ‘But luckily I broke my C7. Another centimetre up and that would have been me, needing my catheter changed.’

‘That would have been shite alright,’ she says, ‘but it’s surprising how much you can do with a broken back.’ Barry’s always asking me to fetch him things and I’m like, ‘Enough of your ordering me around, do it yourself!’

I look bewildered. ‘Seriously? Disabled from the shoulders down? What do you want him to be doing?’

‘There’s apps for everything these days,’ she explains. ‘He drives his own car and gets around rightly. You should have seen the clip of him though when I first took over.  Used to be sitting there, in these crappy auld tracksuit bottoms. I said to him, “I know you’re in a wheelchair and all, but are you trying to look disabled?”‘

‘How did that go down?’ I inquire.

‘Ach he has a sense of humour. Some days, anyway. We went to Next and got him jeans, and a proper haircut at the Turkish Barbers. Know what he’s up to now? Sending me links to clothes he thinks I should wearing! Told me the other day, that I looked ‘frumpish.’ ‘Frumpish?’ I said to him. ‘Least I knew better that to dive into the shallow end.’ They nearly threw us out of the café we were laughing that much.’

She’s taking him abseiling next month. I don’t doubt it. He’ll be parachuting next.

Unfortunately, the Small Child decided she’d had enough of the swimming and was shivering like a  drenched whippet at the side of the pool. Reluctantly I clambered out of the hot tub. ‘I could chat to you all evening,’ I told her, ‘You’re a hoot.’ ‘No bother,’  she smiles. I wish we could be friends.

(Tune in tomorrow or the next day, when I’ll have found the strength to write about our dining experiences down in Dalkey.)

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.