Dear Teacher, I'm writing this down because if I try to say it to you in person, I'll cry (I cry very easily) and I'll mortify myself and mortify you, and my child will never speak to me again for all the mortification, and with all that going on, I won't get to say what I really ...
It was eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, and we'd been chatting to and entertained by our hosts, Jean and Dónal, for about an hour at that stage. We'd only met Dónal that morning but we'd meet Jean two days earlier when we'd arrived in her Airbnb in Ballybunion. She had welcomed us like old friends, although having ...
After 18 months of searching, fourteen thousand buckets of tears when we walked away from our old house, seven nail-biting weeks from "sale agreed" to "here are the keys", and a month of almost-done refurbishment, we're finally in our new house. And it's bliss. Except for all the things that aren't working yet, like the oven, ...
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. ...