jennifer 18 April 2010
For those of you wondering why my middle name is Jennifer my understanding is that before I was born my Dad wanted to call me Pauline and my Mum favoured Jennifer and when I eventually popped out they tossed a coin and Himself won, hence Pauline Jennifer McLynn. I spent a summer on holidays at my grandparents’ house in Sligo aged 8 or so when I insisted on being called Jennifer and wouldn’t respond to anyone using the P word…but come schooltime again I reverted to Pauline. The late , great Padraig used to call me PJ from time to time, along with a range of other names – he was always changing people’s titles and once a very young cousin of mine was known variously as Naioka, Jungle Girl or Hammerhead for the duration of her stay with us.
OZ 16 April 2010
Himself is in Australia and 11 hours ahead. He is in our tomorrow, we in his yesterday. So, I wondered if he did something there and got on a fast plane home, with a good tail wind and going in the appropriate direction around the world, might he get here ahead of his own Antipodean deed and be able to deal with its consequences? It’s a big question and if the answer is ‘yes’ I feel I may have cracked the 4th dimension, or the time/space continuum (if indeed that is a mystery – well, it is to me so that must count) or perhaps the theory of relativity (I know that’s done on a regular basis by brainboxes, but not the likes of me…)
Meanwhile at the phone shop my SIM only contract has taken forever to process because, even though I am an existing customer and will be using all the same bank details etc, we hadn’t put my middle name onto the new form…the rejection felt overwhelming for a while but, hey, I’m so over it now.
SO, back to the major questions like why did I ever have to give my middle name for something? It’s Jennifer, by the way…
stranded? 15 April 2010
I wonder if I’m stranded. All airspace over these islands is closed right now. Iceland is making its presence felt, again – firstly, it started off that whole banks collapsing trend and now it’s volcanos going off, spewing dust into the air and the wind deciding to bring it to us. I had planned a busy little 10 days to a fortnight of hopping over and back between London and Dublin by plane (and whinging about it in these pages) but it seems that unless I want to do the train/ferry thing (such a lot of wasted hours involved that way!) I will be a tad more static than previously anticipated. I am armed with inhalers (mild asthma) and the copy edit of the manuscript (ie plenty of homework to keep me going) so I can sit this ‘crisis’ out. And it might just be a little beautiful because according to the Met Office we may have a lavender sunset tonight because of the volcanic dust in the atmosphere.
I found the missing knickers – in a bag I haven’t used for a few weeks…(so there! to all of you who thought smut – chance would be a fine thing…)
japan 14 April 2010
I am really losing it – thought I had actually blogged yesterday…but hadn’t…one of my ‘elderly’ moments…and it so could have happened – as my regular visitors will know I have often surprised myself with blogging quite well and cogently while blotted.
Anyhow, it was a day of some excitement because my Mum in Law, Angela Cook has written her first book AN ALIEN IN JAPAN – a travel/memoir of her time in Japan, where she went aged 58 after realising she was in a rut. We launched it last night in a great, new, independent bookstore called The Gutter in Dublin’s Temple Bar. It was a wonderful evening and much fun and chat and wine was had. I met up with a whole load of people I hadn’t seen in ages. And I got to show off my ‘tan’. And even the white wine that got spilled on my frock (not by me, for once) has dried without staining the dress AT ALL! I’m taking it all as positive vibes and good omens and an end to the negativity that I have allowed myself to fall into a bit recently.
In that regard, I think I’d be so much better if the lovely G cat was still here – I really miss her so much every day and the big spider creatures aren’t the same by way of a pet at all (at all).
My travels begin again later – it’s time to collect the copyedit of the manuscript…EEEK! Though it’ll be good to have a last thorough sweep over the beast that is Novel Number Eight, which is called THE TIME IS NOW by the way.
Funny thing on the radio this morning – one of my favourite broadcasters, Ray D’Arcy, was answering a query about harvesting blackberries and without thinking said as kids ‘we just picked them from my granny’s bush’ – needless to say there was a silence in the studio then but for strangled sounds of everyone trying not to laugh….
legs 12 April 2010
I am not great with the bigger spider. I don’t mind the cute tiny ‘money’ ones that fly out of trees and leave gossamer threads. They seem to invest anything I leave out for that ‘line dried freshness’ when the weather is good – my friend Fiona Looney, playwright and all round domestic goddess insists this is the ONLY proper way to dry clothes. I have no GREAT problem with small to medium ones that dart away when they see me and I them (I too tend to dart off on these occasions, much to their relief I am sure). BUT I am in mortal dread of the bigger lads with the hairy legs and (often) eyes out on stalks. I will scream BUT I would never kill one (I have a notion they’d make a mess anyhow and I’d be as horrified by that as any other aspect of the encounter). However, from time to time, the larger version of the arachnid turns up in the house and saunters about or, rather, moves TOO QUICKLY from one side of the room to the other and in an erratic fashion (from my point of view). I read somewhere that this is the larger male in search of a female so lucky spidey gal wherever she is as I am sure my guys are the Bodies Beautiful of the spider world. Recently, a fine specimen jogged by and I was in time to open the back door for him and off he went into the garden. All well and good EXCEPT I am now actually a bit worried about him and here’s why – are spiders territorial? Is he going to have to fight every other male out there’? AND if he was/is an indoors spider, will he be able to hack it in the Great Outdoors?
eh???? 11 April 2010
Em, what’s this now? Where is the groaning buffet that I will choose my breakfast from? Surely some oversight on the part of the management of this (not quite 5 star) home I have returned to…At least the ants are hiding (as opposed to all over one corner of the kitchen) and there is a cold, crisp sunshine going on outside.
I see my spelling was a bit random in yesterday’s blog – I plead use of the hotel’s computer and a strange and reluctant keypad. Also, I thought I’d be utterly foxy and check myself and Himself in on-line so I went through all of that only to be denied the boarding pass and had to queue at the airport anyhow – just that little smack of disappointment from technology that somehow also underlined the fact I was leaving a lovely place and facing back into life.
HOWEVER, I am so much perkier than I was. I really had hit an unusually low one through exhaustion and burnout and was seeing problems where there weren’t any and kind of despairing, really, and that’s not ‘like’ me. I’m not saying everything has fallen magically into place but mostly it’s all back to the way I can manage it and so I sing the praises of the recently renamed Tenerific, wonderful island, and the power of the sun to make The Happy. Oh, and St John’s Wort seems to be great stuff too…
Villa lost the F A Cup semi final though…while I was queueing at the airport cos I hadn’t actually checked us in, in spite of my valiant and plucky efforts – another little smack for P…but, as my brother Ian has texted, ‘next year, segnorita’ – bless him for that as in the hotel, even though I was clearly under my own name, I was called Senora Cook throughout – I didn’t mind at all as it sounded lovely when they elongated the Coooooook but it’s nice that me bro used their term for Miss and not the elder lady’s Missus.
check 10 April 2010
Well, time to go home and I so dont want to. Ihave fallen for sunshine and the idea that a person could have it everyday in their lives, even if not ALL day long. So, after my meltdown I have melted in Tenerfie and return to rainier isles refreshed and healthier (my nails for instance have grown and look lovely) I will certainly be back. Right now I am off to buy some lace fans that i HOPE I will need suring the Irish and British ´summer´
For those of you who like a good thriller can i recommend THE SNOWMAN by Jo Nesbo – my holiday read and just great
fried 8 April 2010
brain fried, body freckled – will report all later, when i have an all/something/anything to report aside from lying by a pool reading and soaking up those lovely rays…
forgot 6 April 2010
Here’s how chilled out I am – oh, and also how fried my brain was yesterday after lying in hazy warmth all day reading a thriller – I was on the internet arsing about and still completely forgot to blog. I have to move my sorry ass to the library to get wifi signal so by the tie I copped to what I hadn’t done I was a collapsed heap of melted human back in my room. Blissful, though, the old sunbathing and being warm outdoors. Breakfast was had in full sunshine today and I find I could grow to like that…
The entertainment in the hotel is great each evening – it is presently the habit of the Cook/McLynn household to have a glass of vino tinto (the local wines are lovely) in the bar before going into town for dinner. There is usually a duo playing and singing and all quite splendidly cheesy stuff. The Boy From Ipanema was a particular triumph last night. It sort of reminds me of holidays when we were teenage in Strandhill in Sligo. We’d all go to the pub in the evening and there’s be 2 local lads with a keyboard or guitar and a drum machine banging out middle of the road/country ‘n Irish stuff and no doubt dreaming of playing REAL rock music – one of them was usually called Dessie.
rapido 4 April 2010
Watching premiership football with the commentary in Spanish is a new pleasure. It is also VERY busy. The commentators not only speak really quickly but also get very excited indeed. Pronounciations of names are a delight – edwina van der saar anyone? I also love their analysis – someone can be super statico or super solido, say, but the winner for me and a phrase that is now used regularly as I urge Richard to approach a bar is ‘super rapido’.
There is a lovely little library in the hotel where people leave books and others can take some away. I’m helping myself on a daily basis and will leave what i have finished when the time comes. It coincides with a lovely email to the site from a man who has just finished SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND the first Leo Street) He found it in a little hotel in Vietnam and finished reading it in Cambodia – he also enjoyed it greatly so HOORAY all round.
Cloudy again today but it just doesn’t matter – chillin’ is happenin’, all is well