I read recently that the number one skill today's child will need for the future is empathy. In my time, it was a second language. Yesterday, Alan mentioned that he'd started to encounter more and more articles concerned with working from bed - what to wear, how to exercise, what accessories one might need. It … Continue reading You Learn Empathy From Seeing It In Action
I Think
1980s Mammy Has A No Nonsense Approach
Right now, if I was to name the person I identify with most in the universe, it would have to be Mel Gibson's William Wallace. You know - the lad with the blue and white face from Braveheart. Can you recall the scene where there's an entire army rushing towards his band of Scots, wielding … Continue reading 1980s Mammy Has A No Nonsense Approach
It’s Not About You
Where to start at the end of the weirdest year that was? It's been many things but intense is the word that sums up my own personal 2020. So intense that I, personally, took to crying in carparks and rambling around the Burren rock a lot. Because that sense of intensity had very few outlets … Continue reading It’s Not About You
Other Kinds of Beauty – Like November
If you allow it, the lure of November is irresistable. Everything naturally quietens down and runs to earth. The darkness closes in and everything gets pared back. If you think the Burren looks luner in mid Summer, you should see it now. Further exposed, with the ash and hazel and hawthorn laid bare and the … Continue reading Other Kinds of Beauty – Like November
A Good Enough Mother
I totally lost it the other morning. Flipped the lid. At my four year old. Why? Because she was being a normal four year old. It's a side of me I absolutely hate. If anybody saw me in the moments where I'm freaking out at my children I would be excruciatingly embarrassed because I know … Continue reading A Good Enough Mother
I’m Looking For The Rainbow
Lads! (Writer hushes and looks over her shoulder to make sure we have indeed made it). We’ve made it to mid-term. And though we are still in the middle of a colossal storm of utter crap, you or an adult near you may be that bit saner for having had the children back at school … Continue reading I’m Looking For The Rainbow
Connection Means That We Feel It All
Have you ever had an existential crisis at the hairdressers? I'll be honest - I have one at least every two years. 2020 has been all about the little things. Little kindnesses, as my mother-in-law said the other day, that can turn your day around. Or even your week. Socially distanced chats at school pick-up, … Continue reading Connection Means That We Feel It All
Bonkers
I haven't gone bonkers in quite a while now. Well - at least not since my now sister-in-law's Hen Party where I went absolutely bonkers and got head-scratchingly lost in the mire that is Limerick City's grid area on my way home and complained at reception that my room was no longer on the floor … Continue reading Bonkers
That Bit More To Lose
I recently got to go home. Home home, like. To the place I've known all my life, where my father looked after everyone's breakfast and my mother looked after everyone's dinner and in between I drank hot coffee and saw some siblings and caught up with my best friends. At last. It felt so good. … Continue reading That Bit More To Lose
All’s Fair In Love And Pest Control
I spotted him approximately one mili-second before I might have stepped on him. My wellington-ed foot barely avoiding direct contact. A dead rat (I couldn't look away), a flat dead rat (I couldn't avoid the seeing), a fat flat dead rat just by the gate in the yard. Oh sweet divine. I ushered the pup … Continue reading All’s Fair In Love And Pest Control
i am Laurie m 