Up The Airy Mountain..

It’s the fine weather, you know.  Makes everything look better.  Why does anyone go abroad, one says smugly, when everything is so much nicer here.  Lovely little country, green and golden.

That’s how I felt today as my Fairy Godmother whisked me away to her mountain fastness.  I didn’t even have to do any driving, just loll back giving the odd direction -  just to show that I was, in fact, alive.

Daffodils, tulips and grape-hyacinths nodded a welcome in multicoloured rows – all planted by the diligent fingers of my hostess.  Birds pecked at feeders fat with peanuts, the males outshining the females in their striking plumage. Lovely airy house with wonderful view across the glen. Labrador frolicked at the sight of human company, miraculously trained not to intrude into the sheltered sunny-spot that overflowed with window-boxes of herbs and fruit (and cabbage plants waiting to be transplanted).  What industry had created such a haven, and didn’t expect me to do anything except enjoy it.

It is a place where fairy-tales could be imagined – I’m sure I saw some peeking through the trees as we sat there. 

I just know its going to be a lovely summer.

Whodunnit

I’ve always been fascinated by detective stories and detectives. It’s strange, because I don’t really like the murders, just the solving of the puzzle.  Can’t take the blood and pain, but like the brain-work.

I suppose Miss Marple was the first detective  I came across  in books.  Once I saw the films I went off her a bit.  She was so old, for a start, and maybe it also was because she was a bit dithery and I could see into my future and feared I’d end up that way. 

I should have mentioned that in the main, I like my detectives to be male and handsome.  I find it makes it easier for me to read the book or watch the screen happily.

There was Stratford Johns in ‘Softly Softly’, a TV series in the seventies.  Kids were either strapped into chairs or let loose on the street (depending on the season) so that I could watch that at 6.30pm without fail.  There was Inspector Wexford ( a bit slow he was), followed by Bergerack,  (I still like him, John Nettles, I mean, in Midsummer Murders although he gets through an awful lot of bodies ),  Then there was the wonderful John Thaw as Inspector Morse.  We built a ‘family night’ in our house around him when the first series began.  A women’s night, with my daughter and the transient girlfriends of my sons, complete with crackers and pate and red wine.  Ever so sophisticated. The men in my life usually found the programme too slow and tedious, but of course we girls were all half in love with Morse and didn’t care how much opera he listened to, beers he drank, or time he took to unravel the tale.  Now that a couple of years have passed I have even become quite fond of Lewis – the replacement of Morse in the series.

But my favourite Detective has to be Brunetti in the stories by Donna Leon.  Not only does he solve crime in the wonderful setting of Venice, but he appreciates good wine and gourmet food, adores his wife (bless her heart, I don’t resent her too much) and his two quite normal children.  He introduces me to that wonderful place as he takes note of the streets he walks along, and the boats he hops on and off.  And  he manages to bring romance to the readers of the books who (in my experience) range in age from 30 to  well, a lot older…..  You should check him out.

Did you know?

Did you know that there is a ‘talk like a Pirate’ Day – I think its the 14th September. I know a lad who got detention because he wouldn’t stop even after lunch-break, replying to serious maths questions, ‘arr, it be around forty-five point nine, surr’

I think Hallmark invented this day – and probably designed cards to go with it (or the other way round, whatever…)

Half Full or Half Empty?

Normally I’m a half full person – my glass is half full (unless I’ve been tippling, of course, in which case it’s actually empty but I still hope for another little drop).

And so it was over Easter.   Sun danced in the heavens.  No, I didn’t actually see it this year either, but I nearly did!  Two minutes earlier and I would have witnessed this sight that my father got us out of bed for every Easter morning.

Garden looked lovely, leaves sprouting as if they had just invented the idea of recreation.  Birds singing from 5am since the clock went forward – especially the lovely blackbird opening his yellow beak and dropping wonderful sounds into my head.  No 1 grandson moved garden stuff around creating ‘bird place’ with seeds and bath and shoving the sprawling rosemary bush, covered in its blue spring outfit,  back into some kind of shape.  I’d prune it if I had the heart and the energy.

Even the fact that a lingering cold still has me wheezing and coughing didn’t damper my ardour.  I reigned supreme in my domain and drank in the beauty.

And then today the sun vanished – or was it my brain that had gone grey?  Crows and pigeons raided the seeds, scaring off the Great Tits and the Blackbird, leaving only the brazen robin picking up the husks.  Sky was leaden and low.  Everything was too much trouble.  I’m sure I saw a black dog (just a little one) lurking in the foliage around the garden shed.

Now I’m going to get a big rock and throw it at that black dog ; and get a glass that will be entirely full, at least for a little while; and turn on my radio and hope that Seamus bloody Heaney will have stopped reading his poetry interminably as he was this morning. 

I mean I love poetry and stuff, but some days, y’know, you are just not in the mood for beauty!

Why?

Why can’t I write when I want to? 

Why do I keep seeing flaws in my story even before I get a word on the page?

Why did I take the brush and destroy a reasonably good painting, just because it annoyed me?

Why do I want to cook loads of things at a time – enough for the next four days, when all I need is just one meal for right now?

Why do I lie in bed when I have loads of things to do, staying there until it is just too late to get even one thing done, then moaning at myself all day?

Why do I not go to bed when I’m tired, and hang on until I

a) can hardly get upstairs or

b)get new life and sit up till 2am watching something stupid on TV?

Why will I not do my homework for meetings etc when I have time instead of waiting until the last minute?

I am a mystery to me!

Tribunals

(Found this from some time ago….and they’re still going on – thought I’d give it a whirl!)

Tribunals sit for years and years
Confirming our most awful fears
That those elected to take charge
Were making their own fortunes large
By marketing their eloquence
For bye law rulings that were dense;
And making sure that they got more
For a successful Section 4.

Bewigged persons buzz round
Sometimes claiming to have found
A case in nineteen forty nine –
A legal case, not one of wine –
That said a witness was a fraud
Because he kept his loot abroad.

Our hero first was Gogarty
Who had the nation roar with glee
As he told how he met with Ray
Without discussing actual pay.
When he asked if he would get receipt
For payments that had been discreet
Was told that he was out of luck
(The very words were, “Will we f**k?”)

Charlie Bird reported well, ‘e 
Told us nightly on the telly
The ins and outs of this and that
Of all the cats that got so fat.
While RTE with Vincent Brown
Provided the best show in town
With actors playing Liam and Ray
‘Negotiating’ in their way
For money that we now repent
Was not in our best interests spent.

A meeting that took place (or not)
Disturbed the tribunal a lot.
Amnesia hit their brains collective
Until a counsel found defective
A statement made by Bert the Boss
Saying he was at a loss
To deem an hour of chit and chatter
As if it was a serious matter.

On and on Tribunals go
Round and round and very slow.
And all the guys that made the loot
Do not seem to give a hoot.
They know that they’ll get off scot-free
The sufferers are you and me.
It seems that if you want to screw
The Law or Inland Revenue
for loads of money – you’re in luck
‘cos nobody really gives a damn!

Playing the Gee-Gees

It’s been a long time since I placed a bet on a horse.  I was quite a punter in my time, having been reared in Co Kildare, (where they would bet on two flies crawling up a wall). nurtured on Naas Races and Punchestown and weaned painfully off the gambling by a severe shortage of money when  I moved into my first flat.  Luckily I preferred eating & drinking more than the excitement of the chase and found that if I didn’t buy a newspaper and read the runners of the day, I wasn’t tempted.

But I have this friend, you see, who simply loves Cheltenham.  His pleasure in the famous festival is infections and yes, I fell at the first fence.  I badgered him for tips and he duly obliged with a list for day one.  My consort was agreeable enough to go to the Bookies for me.  Being royal, I don’t carry money, of course  so he wasn’t surprised to have to foot the bill.

Somehow or other my tipster friend made quite a few bob on the day, but it cost me lots.  I suspect he did more serious research after parting with information to me.  Nothing daunted, I harassed him again for the second day – this time I made sure not to get the list till just before the ‘off’ for the 1.30 and sent His Majesty the King off again – protesting this time, but I waved my sceptre at him so he quickly put his crown in his pocket along with some small change.

I had a wonderful afternoon watching the wonderful animals pounding on the green turf, seeing Ruby Walsh stand in the stirrups in celebration of yet another win, imagining the  pop of champagne corks as owners and trainers bubbled with excitement.

But there’ll be no champagne in my kingdom tonight.  Only one of the recipients of my regal approval showed in the first three – and he was doubled with an even slower equine specimen.  The contents of the Royal Exchequer are sadly depleted and I may have to declare a recession.

I wonder has my friend any tips for tomorrow?  Must send him a royal text……