My eyes water. Wind, sharp and stinging, pushes my hood down and drives me back. I lean in, but not in a Sheryl Sandberg way. I’ve got 58 minutes and five tasks. Stocking fillers. A fancy gift box. A Secret Santa pick-up. Stamps. A book. Dark shapes huddle under hoods,
Last week I wrote about the books my kids loved this year – 28 recommendations from my kids to yours – so this week I thought I’d post about the books I loved in 2018. There are lots of “best books” newspaper articles and blog posts at the moment, and
One night a few months ago, I made a third attempt to get my six-year-old interested in Cabin Fever, a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book by Jeff Kinney. I read it for him as his bedtime story, promising he could have a second story if he didn’t like it. There
“We want you to be branch manager.” I hung up the phone, those out-of-the-blue words still ringing in my ears. It was 2006, and my department was being outsourced to another financial services company. And now apparently they needed a branch manager. I was thrilled – for a whole millisecond.
Five o’clock Thursday. Peak domesticity. The washing machine was swirling. The dishwasher was whirring. The sausage rolls for Friday’s lunch boxes were half-cooked. The shower was running, the heat was heating, the lights were on. Until suddenly, mid spelling-test-prep, they weren’t. The house was in darkness. Myself and the spelling-test-prepper looked
Every year for the last four years, September and October have been a little challenging* in our house (*all-out chaotic messy nightmare). The fact that this four-year timeline coincides with my departure from my office job is surely neither here nor there – no doubt something other than my presence
So I could couch this in all sorts of domestic and parenting terms. I could tell you a story about the challenging day I had last Thursday; dashing home at 3 o’clock to make a curry, make school lunches, and supervise baking for the school cake-sale. I could tell you
As I picked up my middle-child from football training tonight, she said, as is her wont when it’s just the two of us, “So how was your day?” “A day of two halves,” I said, thinking back. It went something like this: One half: My eldest decided to make pancakes yesterday morning,
A few weeks ago I took the middle child out for a lunch date to Dundrum, preceded by a trip to Claire’s for some new hairbands. When I opened my phone cover to take out my Laser card, it wasn’t there. Nor was my parking ticket. I had a credit card
Oh September, you crafty devil. From opposite corners of the ring, we faced each other, eyeing each other up, ready for the 30-day bout. You picked me up, you shook me, you slammed me down – over and over. But I knew you were coming for me, and I braced myself, and I
“Mum, give me three words that describe me,” one of you said to me last night, as you twirled around the sitting room, fifteen minutes after you first said goodnight. “Enthusiastic, enthusiastic, and enthusiastic,” I said, and you laughed. “Okay give me three that don’t describe me.” “World famous singer.
It’s half past two. One child keeps dawdling behind (then running ahead) while another is sad because something happened at school but she’ll tell me at home, and the third is annoyed because I keep interrupting what she’s telling me – to find the one who’s dawdling behind (or running ahead). It’s three
“I think the optimal solution – just like kids – changes all the time.” Ciara Garvan wanted flexible work that could fit around her three children, and having spotted a gap in the market, founded WorkJuggle.com, an agency that matches people to flexible roles. Here, she talks about her SAHM
Way back in 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, when Justin Bieber was knee-high to a grasshopper, and the boom was surely going to last forever, my husband and I said “I do”, then danced the night away in Cabra Castle. For perhaps the first and last time in our
I was driving somewhere – dropping the kids or picking them up – when I saw her. A woman, a bit older than me, kneeling at a flower bed in her garden. Weeding or pruning or sowing or tweaking, one or all of the above. And the image stuck with
Once upon a time, we went on lots and lots of day-trips. In 2014, I put together mini-reviews of our trips that summer, including Tayto Park, Clara Lara and Rathbeggan Lakes. I did something similar in 2015, when we tried Wells House, Powerscourt Waterfall and Kia Ora Farm. In 2016, I
When I was about thirteen, I remember reading Flowers in the Attic and realising pretty quickly that it was a good thing my parents didn’t know what it was about. I’d been stopped from reading Judy Blume’s Forever a few years ago, and had learned to be more careful about
I need to preface this post with a caveat: we went to Union Lido campsite in Italy for the second part of a two-centre holiday, the first part of which was spent in Bella Italia. We had an incredible time in Bella Italia, and had agreed that it didn’t matter
Looking through old photos in my dad’s house one afternoon, I found a picture I had never seen before. It was taken in the early 80’s and showed a group of us on picnic at the beach. Studying it gave me a surge of nostalgia for a time I don’t remember at
