Six o'clock. Hazy sunshine. A nippy evening chill creeping in, but these hardy soccer players don't care. Shin guards on, socks pulled high, shorts and proud club jerseys. Running to the pitch, racing for the first kick of the ball. Eight, nine, ten years old, one thing in common - a love of the beautiful game. Oh, and they're all ...
This Easter holidays, along with some very nice things (like getting keys to our new house - hurrah!) the kids and I did the following: Went to a tile shop and picked tiles Bought a towel rail Went to a kitchen shop and picked cupboards Went to the new house to meet the painter Went to ...
I can't think straight. I can't breathe. I feel like someone has poured glue inside my head. And the thing is, it's not "someone" who did it, it's me. My own dumbass system, over-reacting to pollen - producing histamine because it thinks it's under attack. "You're not under attack, dumbass," I tell my insides every ...
There's no such thing as a perfect parent - even the kindest, most calm parents have off days (and I suspect it's a good thing for kids to know parents aren't perfect) but apparently more than half of Irish parents feel they're failing, and this feeling is amplified by the internet and social media. So from ...
I'm bracing myself, gearing up to make the call. Not an important call, not a life-changing call, just a call. To a plumber. On my mobile. To his mobile. From the room where the coverage is usually (but not always) okay. Where the call is least likely to drop, or result in "Sorry. . . ...
I've posted snapshots on the cusp, on the verge, and on the couch, but now I'm very firmly on the hunt - I need a house. It's almost three months now since we sold our house and moved in with my dad, and the whole "the property market picks up in February" morphed into "March - that's when ...
We were talking about Mother's Day recently (I suspect I was reminding my kids how much I like lie-ins, breakfast in bed, and lunch in nice restaurants, or just anywhere that doesn't involve cooking it myself) and one of the kids asked when Children's Day is. "Every day is Children's Day!" I said. How so, they wondered. ...
Dear 9-year-old me, It's that time of year again - that time you used to love. The bit in between the pancakes on the Tuesday and the chocolate eggs on the Sunday. The forty days of giving stuff up. Lent. I remember how carefully you decided on the rules each year - no cheating for you, no ...
If you're a campsite person, you'll have had the conversation; the one where you chat with the people in the mobile home across the way about which campsites you've been to and which ones they've been to, and which ones were great and which ones were awful. Who you stayed with, the size of the pools, and ...
If you've done this, you know the drill. Saturday morning is house-viewing morning. Particularly so when the clock is ticking, because the old house is gone. And every time, you get your hopes up. We certainly do. This could be the one. Sure, it's not quite the location we want, and it looks a little cramped ...