This revived blog thing isn’t going so well, is it? The problem – apart from my own lethargy, obv – is that the blog hosting sites are just dreadful. I would switch, but I did that already, and I can’t annoy you all AGAIN*. So: Sorry about the ads, peeps. Nothing to do with me. (If it was, there’d be ads for gin, dog-walking services, and boarding schools.)
The sun is shining on Dublin, and the temperature is a balmy 15 degrees. The dog has taken to lying out on the (cold, wet) driveway, sunbathing, and I am contemplating cleaning the windows, because the effect of all this bright sunshine is that I’m realising just what disgusting animals my children, with their sticky hands and mouths, are. In my line of vision is not one, but two sets of hand prints and three lip prints. Why would anyone kiss a kitchen window??
Ireland is a much much nicer place in the spring than in the winter, and I am hugely hopeful that the summer will be even nicer again. Because Lord God, this winter has been ROUGH – long and cold and wet and very very boring. Honestly, it’s no wonder I jump on a plane as often as I can. Since the last post we have returned to Singapore for a week, and had two weeks in Florida. I have been home from the latter for five minutes and am already plotting the summer trips. Clearly, my requirements are that it needs to be hot, ludicrously expensive, and retain the death penalty. (Alas, I have vowed to go no further than Europe for the foreseeable future, so the death penalty thing might need to be revisited.)
The problem with going away is that you have to come home again. Like most people, I love coming home – living out of suitcases, notwithstanding the abundance of sunshine and government-sanctioned murder, gets tiring after a while. But frankly, not as tiring as the homecoming. Yay! cry the children, as they climb into bed or pick up a toy or raid the fridge. What they do NOT do is empty a suitcase or do 57 loads of laundry or cry from jetlag or stare aghast at the dirt which has somehow, magically, accumulated in our absence. (I even had a few hours of Is It Worth It, but a walk on the pier in a freezing gale – balmy sunshine my arse – has cured me of that.)
Speaking of magic, we surprised the kids with a trip to Universal Studios last week. What was most magical of all was how NBC managed to part us from so much money in such a short time, AND make us feel good about spending it. Yes! we said, we would LOVE to pay $9 PLUS TAX AND TIPS for a small drink. BRING IT ON. A wand, you say? A piece of useless plastic tat, with no magical qualities whatsoever, for the bargain price of $70? YES WE CAN (Sorry Obama). A ticket to join a marginally shorter queue, so we only have to wait two hours instead of four to climb aboard one of Hagrid’s motorbikes for the two-minute ride of our life? $450? GIVE IT TO ME. Reader, we got them all: the drinks and the wands and the motorcycle rides and the express passes. (Also: the burgers and the fries and the t-shirts and the stuffed animals and the extra-large – blessed be – glasses of Californian wine.) The magic was great, but the financial ruination even greater.
And thus now we are poor, and cold, because Irish spring is a deceitful mofo, all bright and sunshiney but suddenly TEN DEGREES (where did the earlier balmy go?). So now all I can think about is being warm, and maybe also al fresco dining (or really, drinking), and children froliciking, semi-clad, in the outdoors and definitely not curled up wearing nine pairs of pyjamas and an Oodie, staring at a screen. Unless of course they’re researching warm sunny countries nearby which are cheap and easy to get to and don’t have too awful a human rights record. Because that really would be magical.
*Just to be a PITA I’m trialling posting this on the “old” blog site to see if the Russian bots come after me again. Apologies if you’re being bombarded from both sides and your head is spinning (И ПРИBеТ РОбОТЫ!)
Relentless Laundry 
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