Birth Club

Things that are a Very Bad Idea, especially when one is six-and-a-half-months pregnant and it's a Wednesday night less than two weeks into the new school year:



Reading about Rotherham's sex dens of iniquity and shame.

Eating far too much (admittedly divine feta, pea and mint) omelette.

Twenty minutes of half-arsed yoga and guilty push-ups.

Three West Wings. No. I don't care if it gets you to the end of Season Five, young lady. Never again.



All of these are terrible, terrible ideas and will leave you a broken woman. 


So we have started our antenatal classes. As anticipated, equal amounts of comedy and horror. After a bit of chatting and some tea and snackage (snacks: a cool 8/10 - there was cake, chocolate-coated waffles, butter biscuits, jaffa cakes and grapes) during which one of the blokes showed up all of the others by saying that his reason for doing the course was to 'learn how to become a more supportive and loving birth partner', the men were hustled off into a corner to play with a plastic pelvis and and curiously coral-lipped baby doll and the women's conversation seemed to segue effortlessly into full-on horror mode - like, talking about things I have NEVER EVEN HEARD OF starting with 'perineal' and ending in 'massage' (DO NOT GOOGLE. DO NOT YOUTUBE) and questions about 'ordinary' Belgian birth practice, like the 95% epidural rate in some of the bigger hospitals and enemas and episiotomies almost as standard. 

At this point, I was having a mouth-agape Kurtz moment while everyone else seemed to be nodding sagely.  I need to do some reading, clearly. 

But anyway, we're not really supposed to talk about it, let alone blog about it. It's kind of like Fight Club. Nevertheless, I shall try to stock up on some suitably anonymised comedy-horror moments and report back. 


Things that are a Very Good Idea on a Thursday (last lesson of the day, Year 9):

Poetry needs more white gels from Lahndahn, innit. 

Advice for Writers

my pinterest

It is Book Week at school, people. Cue my moaning on Twitter about having to find a literature-related fancy dress costume for Friday (I'm toying with plaits and a sign hanging around my neck reading THIS GIRL TELLS LIES). 

I could get a bit evangelical here, but I won't - suffice to say that it's a real pleasure to work in a school that sincerely values reading as opposed to to tagging it onto the bottom of a whole-school agenda to satiate an Ofsted inspector who's been told to look out for some literacy. Oo, a poster with a book on it! In a room that used to be a library but is now full of computers! Ahem. 

Liz Lochhead was the surprise guest speaker today for Key Stage 5 students. Needless to say they were studious and thoughtful and appreciative and asked some intelligent questions.

One boy who asked if she'd written her poetry with the intention of twenty students in a classroom somewhere poring over every detail of it. "Och, no!" she said. "I didn't write it to mek you suffer!" Cue laughter. But then she said, "I wrote it because some people might like it. Some people won't. And you have to find something that you like in whatever you're studying and enjoy. Within the constraints of exam board requirements and all that crap." Cue more laughter. 

She read some of her poems and talked about them. She started with Bairnsang and the male patriarchy in Literature ("The way it had to be said/was as if you were posh, grown-up, male, English and dead.") and finished on patriarchy, too, with Men Talk ("Women natter, women nag/women niggle niggle niggle") - which I didn't realise she'd written after reading a book by Dale Spender.

And I was in heaven. And she signed my book (nerd). 

And then she gave out some advice for writers. It's reproduced below. 

This woman speaks the truth. Enjoy. 

***

All the good advice about writing is very simple.

So straightforward it's all been said before, but it's probably worth reminding ourselves of. I know I have to tell myself all this, and I have to do this every time I get going on something new.

1. Write what really interests you, not what you think you ought to be interested in.

2. The old five senses. See it, touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it. Turn yourself into it, said Ted Hughes, and the words will look after themselves. Well, certainly I have to turn all my censors, inhibitors and ego, and false sense of myself as a writer, and certainly any attempts at cleverness off - in the first draft at least.

See, it's only when you read back what you have written down, tasting and testing the words as words and sounds you can see where you have captured a bit of life in the language, an image, a wee detail - and that won't necessarily be in the bit that felt like it flowed or had the fancy words, but often in the bit that you struggled over and in the end, och, just put down what would have to do for now....

3. Throw away all the bits that don't have bits of life in them, keep these surprisingly honest and vivid bits, the bits that, to tell the truth, surprised you - mibbe by their simplicity - and start again with them.

4. Don't explain. You don't have to give the reasons for going there or the co-ordinates on a map. Consider cutting off the beginning and the end paragraph or stanza of what you have written - and do this once you think it's finished and cut down to the bone already. No 'vamping till ready', no summing up. Just trust your reader to be right there with you in the middle of the place you are writing about. Get in, get out and don't linger said Raymond Carver. 

5. Don't try and describe your feelings. An emotion named is an emotion obliterated from any text. Stick to those five sound senses, stick to objects and actions, what's done, what's said. Get this right and all the feeling in the world will be in this. 

6. It's all in the details, in the particular. Small things. Plain words, probably, But which ones? Ah, I said the advice was simple, I didn't say it was easy...

7. Enjoy yourself. Struggle with not enjoying yourself until you begin to, very much. 

(If I can't, or won't, it's usually because I'm not obeying Rule Number One.) 

Book Q&A

Book Q&A Rules

1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover
3. Answer the questions below
4. Tag a few people to answer them too
5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you've tagged them
6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you've taken part!

What are you reading right now?
My Mistress' Sparrow is Dead, edited by Jeffrey Euginides. It's a collection of essays and stories about love - but none of that schmaltzy stuff. It's all about love as characterised by loss. It's wonderful thus far.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

I have a Miranda July book that comes hotly recommended by a friend, so probably that. Although I have to read Susan Hill's I'm The King of the Castle for school at some point soon...

What 5 books have you always wanted to read but haven’t got round to?
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - it passed me by.
Anything by Rushdie. Never read him - despite the death fatwa, which is a bit of a pull, I'll admit.
The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell. Bedford is always banging on about it, and it's got a Smiths connection which should have been enough reason. Haven't gotten around to it yet, though.
Can't think of any others right now...

What magazines do you have in your bathroom/lounge right now?

I have given up magazines, deciding that they're destructive to self-confidence and consumerist-encouraging drivel. Oh, I AM lofty, ain't I? I started buying the occasional health and well-being magazines (WOMEN'S RUNNING, grr) but realised that they essentially print slight variations of the same articles every month. The only regular publications through the Bedford door are Farmers' Weekly and Private Eye. I only read the 'Farmlife' section of FW, and Matthew's column when he's in.

What’s the worst book you've ever read?

The first Twilight book made me want to die. Bloody Bella swishing her hair about and wondering why all the boys fancied her. Gah. A serious book? The Old Man and the Sea, by Hemingway. Jesus. I think this painting by Harland Miller pretty much sums it up...

Harland Miller is ACE

What book seemed really popular but you didn't like?

Birdsong. Just couldn't get into it. Maybe I need to try it again.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?
Currently, The Marriage Plot by Euginides (quelle surprise). However, previously, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer or The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. They tend to bring on a 'OHMYGODYOUREALLYNEEDTOREADTHISHERE'SMYCOPYTAKEITTAKEIT!'-type conversation.

What are your three favourite poems?

Simon Armitage

Oh Christ. I'm going to interpret this as 'Which three poems instantly come to mind when you're asked an impossible question such as 'What are your three favourite poems?'

Um, in which case I think Out of the Blue by Simon Armitage - a very human account of 9/11 - is pretty mind-blowing. An Arundel Tomb by Larkin is a typically-Eeyore-esque (and therefore Right Up My Street) reflection on the transience of life and love. And Macbeth's 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow' solilquoy is so utterly nihilistic that it cannot help but speak to my miserable side.  And is written in verse so it counts, yeah?

Where do you usually get your books?

I tend to have a big quartley splurge in a second hand book shop (see recent trip to Hay). Otherwise, Amazon. Sorry.

Where do you usually read your books?
I read voraciously on holiday. I read more in 10 days than I can manage in four months

When you were little, did you have any particular reading habits?

I remember going to the Galleries library and getting out Puddle Lane Books. Then I remember being in the elite reading group at primary school; we were allowed Different Coloured Banana Books to everyone else. Woah. I read anything and everything, including the back of the cereal box. 

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Euginides. Couldn't. Stop. Reading.


Have you ever “faked” reading a book?
Yup. Bleak House was a set text in my first year at University; I used it as a door stop and not much more.


Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?
I have a few versions of Gatsby because they were too beautiful to resist. I love Faber and Faber covers, though. I bought Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars because it was just too beautiful for words. Never read it. Criminal.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?

Mallory Freakin' Towers. The My Best Fiend books. The Anastasia books. Sweet Valley High. Emily of New Moon. I was a completely indiscriminate reader. I remember being thirteen and reading Jane Eyre alongside Maeve Binchy's Light a Penny Candle. And I might have cried more over Light a Penny Candle.

What book changed your life?

'Changed your life' is quite a bold statement. However, John Diamond's The Big C was a bit of an early branch-out for me from the usual stuff I was reading at the time, and you're all the better for branching out as a reader, I fink.

What is your favourite passage from a book?
Impossible to say.

What are your top five favourite authors?
Jeffrey Euginides
F Scott Fitzgerald
Alan Bennett
Patrick Kavanagh
Jonathan Safran Foer

Mebbes. This could change pretty regularly.

What book has no one heard about but should read?

I love the Foyle Young Poets books, which periodically drop into my pigeonhole at work. There's a lot of unspeakably good young talent out there.

What 3 books are you an “evangelist” for?
The Secret History, Donna Tartt.

Anything by Alan Bennett - Maybe Untold Stories as a cheat, as it includes so many different examples of his writing.

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene.  

What are your favourite books by a first-time author?
Once in a House on Fire, I think, was Ashworth's first book, and is wonderfully accomplished.

What is your favourite classic book?

P'raps Jane Eyre. It was the first classic I loved. 

5 other notable mentions?
Tarry Flynn - Patrick Kavanagh. I wrote about it here.

Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence. I love its earthy diaglogue and the entirely accurate representation of family tensions.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson. Found it in a bookshop in Bangalore (err, how?)  and devoured it.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - one of the most quotable books EVER.
Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald. Better than Gatsby. Now there's a claim.

***

I got this Q&A from this lovely blog, and I shall endeavour to tell Louise that I have nabbed it. To tag? Well, Bedders should get off his backside and write summat. Really, this is a more developed Books That Made Me Me slot, but I like it because you get to slag off books you hated, too. Hurrah.

I'm off to Bruxelles pour le half-term, innit? You'll be glad to hear I'm going to do an intensive French course over the summer so my Franglais may not be with us for much longer. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Word Magpie

Two bookish snippets that are gnawing at me.

"This is one moment
But know that another
Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy."

-T.S. Eliot

//one moment//

Which leads seamlessly into this one:

"So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle-classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it's irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and it splace in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place."

-Jeneatte Winterson, 'Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?'

//hold that thought//

I love these words and what they do to me. They make my heart beat a little bit faster. They fill me with conviction and remind me of ideals. Ah, man.

//feed your imagination//

No more eggs or yoghurts, please.

Hello. Remember me? Jesus. That was a bit of a mental week and a half.

Tonight I left work 'early' - quarter to six - after arriving 'late'. That'd be quarter past seven. I've been doing similar for the last week. Then arriving home, eating a spartan/weird tea of oatcakes/blue cheese/Twirl Bites (Bedders has been away, hence any kind of food-regularity has gone out of the window) and marking like a machine. 

I've been begging Di, HR Manager and Queen Of The School (I Heart Di) for an hour's cover here and there for my non-exam classes (which amount to the princely sum of two hours a week) to sort out a myriad of issues it'd be wholly unprofessional to go into on here.

essays

I've been gritting my teeth a lot, ignoring bellyaches and having Actual Dreams About Controlled Assessment. Scratch that - Nightmares. Oh dear.

But hey. Stuff is sorted. Ish.

All that, and I've rented out my house in Leeds, been to Newcastle, saw Don Williams (his voice is a total parody of a country singer's - like honey and cigarette smoke - "Sing it again, that's real purdy..."), been to Manchester to meet up with Richard and company (farmer by day, wedding chauffer by night), eaten a really, really bad Chinese and got a BUS back to Leeds instead of the train - I almost wept - had a medical for my new job (fighting fit, huzzah) and fretting about my total lack of inclination to go running. But tonight, though, I welcomed back some normality.

Hello, normal life. I've missed you.

I've been for a slightly better run. I've voted. OK, so I don't do it every day but it still makes me feel like me. I've read (yesterday's) paper and a bit of Private Eye. I've embraced my seventeen year old by spotifying some Skunk Anansie after hearing it on my new radio station of choice, Absolute90s ("She's a LESBIAN, you know," I remember people saying knowingly at school. Oh, the scandal). 

And Bedders if off to Brussels on Sunday while I see out the rest of the school year. Yikes.

I think I'm a bit fraught; I think he is too. I got upset over his note for the milkman this morning.

"Could you change the order to one pint of skimmed Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday? No more eggs or yoghurts, please."

A bloody note for the bloody milkman. Sob.

Anyway, I'm blethering. I was thinking about literary references to missing someone. I thought of Elizabeth Bishop. 

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Ah, Bisto. Heavenly. I dug out my old lecture book to find the notes that accompanied it. Oo, Elizabeth Bishop - "sceptical and stoic" - "language increasingly restrained and emotional intensity behind it intensifies" - "Influenced by surrealism in Paris, but didn't succumb entirely to the dream world - too much of a New England Yankee-woman for that!" - "Philsophy in Bishop's writing ISN'T metaphysical - if it exists, it's empirical". You, like, learn stuff at University, don't you? And have time to think about stuff, hmm? I kind of wish I had hours to go through all of my old notes. Maybe I will. Maybe that'll be a Bedders-is-in-Brussels-and-I-live-on-my-own project. Along with making that wedding album, writing some stuff down, doing an online course on the iGCSE and IB and emptying the house of all my possessions...why aye. Not a bother.

I shall cheer up soon. I promise.

#Spotted

"I'm a poet. I get away with this sort of shizzle. It's called being creative, DUH."

***

Excellent literary celeb spot today. We have been in OUR NATION'S CAPITAL this weekend (say it loudly, in an American accent, just for the craic) and Bedders spotted Simon Armitage at Kings Cross.

Honestly, I should contact Heat magazine.

Little silver earring (his father thought it bloody queer). Haircut like a sailor. He got beaten up for it 30 years ago, but I note he's still sporting it.

I was, like, SO cool. I didn't say 'Hello, Simon.' Or 'I thought The Universal Home Doctor was pretty wicked.' Oh no. I just stared at him and his wife and his daughter. And tracked his movements like a hawk from under the arrivals board to WH Smith.

Years ago, I used to have another blog, now mercifully hidden away from public view. It was rather Smiths-quote laden and self-consciously introspective (pah, whaddya mean, what's changed?!).

However, I was reminded of this which I wrote on aforementioned embarassing blog.

"I'm reading Gig by Simon Armitage - so far, it's proving a satisfying and muchly entertaining read, especially given that it's a) a chunky hardback and b) was bought with a Waterstone's voucher from Christmas I'd completely forgotten about. Kerching. Last night I read the chapter 'On the Road 4', at the beginning of which he recalls an eccentric Science teacher who encouraged his students to complete "little missions" and the lesson in which he and another boy were sent outside to measure the size of the human voice. He describes the system on which they settled - Armitage's partner advancing further and further across the yard and further, shouting and shouting, while Armitage remained still, preparing to drop his arm when he could no longer hear the boy's voice. Then they'd pace out the different between them, and that, approximately, would be the size of the human voice. A pleasing logic, no?

The he dropped the clanger, if such a phrase may be used. Thirty years later Armitage was told, presumably via some Yorkshire-based friend or relative in the domestic channels through which these sorts of discoveries are usually made, that the boy, whose name and features he admits he can't even remember, had "shot himself through the roof of his mouth somewhere on the far side of the world." And he felt inspired to write a poem which muses on the idea that no sound dies completely - somewhere in the cosmos every sound, every individual utterance ever made, is still resonating somewhere."

I quite like that idea.

Some say love's a little boy...

This week, work has required me to get to grips with WH Auden.

Now let it be known, I like miserable poets. Particularly miserable British and Irish poets of the 1930s and 40s.

Miserable poets are well and truly my thing. I like the way they deal with misery. It's elegant and understated. I think you've already heard my thoughts on Thomas Hardy - now THERE was a miserable bastard - but, hey, each to their own. I once worked with a teacher who rated Dave Pelzer as a writer. That was uncomfortable. And if you share that view, well, I think it's best we never meet. Soz.

I'm not denying that he went through a horrific experience. However, he's also responsible the horrific Airport Fiction experience I go through once or twice a year. Seriously, have you ever tried to find a book that isn't about child abuse at an airport WH Smith? I've taken to hiding them behind Lonely Planet guides and naff autobiographies. Pelzer spawned an entire genre of fiction that didn't previously exist - FOR A GOOD REASON. Who wants to read about child abuse? I don't get it. People give these books to each for Christmas, for God's sake. Christ. And Christmas is statistically an annual suicide high-point. Coincidence? I think not.

But I digress. Miserable poets float my boat. So much so that when the English department decided to run a after-school enrichment club for clever kids eager beavers and we each had to nominate a Specialist Subject, Mastermind-style, I went with the misery.

"Miserable 1940s Poets. I'll think of a better name."

And of all the miserable poets, Auden is probably my favourite.

Probably. Possibly. Bah, too hard.

But it ain't all sad, is it? Look at this cheeky little devil.

you should probably join pinterest. it's wicked.

(although originally from here)

We don't teach this beauty at AS level. But I did consider it as a wedding reading

It's so jolly and bouncy. Musing on the matter of love, the line 'Is it usually sick on a swing?' never fails to raise a smile. And the final stanza is near-perfection.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough? Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

(read its jolly entirety here)

***

Some Monday Auden-loving.

Poems on the Underground

I was looking for poems on the Underground to add to my pinterest unashamed 'BUY ME' board (to be fair, it's more of an instruction for myself than for anyone else). And I found the above.

Oo, Hopkins. Oo, The Windhover.

Almost ten years ago (HOLY MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON!) I was given this poem at a University interview. I had ten minutes to read it and think about it sitting on a plastic chair in a draughty corridor and then had to speak to a Professor (Doctor? Surely they wouldn't waste the Professors' precious time interviewing the likes of us?) about it.

They were careful, mind. They didn't say 'Tell us what it means.' Poems don't MEAN stuff, you see. I didn't know that at the time, though. I was paralysed by the fact that I hadn't 'done' the poem. At that point in my education, I didn't realise it was wrong to say I'd 'done' a particular text.

If I''m honest, I still cringe a little when I think of the clangers I must have dropped at that interview. "Oh no, we didn't DO Jude the Obscure. We DID Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I reallly liked DOING Tess of the D'Urbervilles."

Y'see, I was still in that 'All-Literature-is-good-and-I-must-like-it-or-I'll-sound-thick' stage, too. Truth be told, I hated Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy's pervy-wholesome-milkmaid prose made me want to vom.

Darlings, we don't 'do' Literature. That's what I tell my 6th formers now. In a wanky, uber-sarcastic posho accent. Then I tell them they'll meet a couple of Crispins and Lovedays at University and won't know what's hit them; and, more importantly, Crispin and Loveday won't know what's hit them. Then I tell them my story about the girl in my first seminar at Durham who started banging on about the 'dichotomy within the text' and how I thought she meant some sort of medical procedure that I'd clearly totally missed.

Oh, the shame. 

Mind you, on the whole, my 6th formers are largely more concerned with how totally rad their emo fringe looks than their University prospects, so perhaps my adolescent pain is lost on them a little.  

Anyhoo. I saw this and was reminded by how ridiculous the text choice was. And of my 18-year-old-angst. And about the fact that I barely got it was about a bird, never mind about Christ.

I shall find a much better Poem on the Underground and post it over here.  

Sunlight is a Thing To Do. And it will Cheer You Up. Promise.

Googling Auden for Year 12, I came across a blog. It's called The Wondering Minstrels. It seems to have been dormant for a while, but when it was active it worked on a simple enough concept. They published a poem a day, and give some background to it. And stacks of people then commented on it.

This is the poem I came across. It isn't Auden (although there IS a Larkin poem underneath it). I read it and felt...sunny.

And after a terrible Sunday, an unspeakably dreadful Sunday night and a fairly hideous Monday, it was just what the doctor ordered.


The Word

 Down near the bottom
 of the crossed-out list
 of things you have to do today,

 between "green thread"
 and "broccoli" you find
 that you have penciled "sunlight."

 Resting on the page, the word
 is as beautiful, it touches you
 as if you had a friend

 and sunlight were a present
 he had sent you from some place distant
 as this morning -- to cheer you up,

 and to remind you that,
 among your duties, pleasure
 is a thing,

 that also needs accomplishing
 Do you remember?
 that time and light are kinds

 of love, and love
 is no less practical
 than a coffee grinder

 or a safe spare tire?
 Tomorrow you may be utterly
 without a clue

 but today you get a telegram,
 from the heart in exile
 proclaiming that the kingdom

 still exists,
 the king and queen alive,
 still speaking to their children,

 - to any one among them
 who can find the time,
 to sit out in the sun and listen.

-- Tony Hoagland  

I really like love the lines below:

"...among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing..."

Damn straight it is.

So smile. Be happy. Try to work hard, because that's important, you know. Working hard. Do the boring-but-necessary stuff like buying stamps (argh, I forgot) and a tax disc (oops). But also make time for the sunny stuff, because that's as important.

I've just had good news of a moeny-related nature. Could this be why a chirpy poem about sunlight and love has perked me up? Materialistic little me? Never.
     

Remedies for Stress

Man, I'm hungry. Hungry like the wolf, in the words of Duran Duran.

This week has been crazy at work. No, sack that, 'crazy' just won't do. It's been CRAZY. Crackerjack crazy. Kerrrrazzzy. But, I ask you this: do you ever find that things can get chest-tighteningly-horrifically-stressful and you think you might just do something desperate...only for everything to suddenly melt away and for you to suddenly feel a bit, well, serene?

Maybe not. Maybe that's just me. Or perhaps I have some very valid reasons for being able to manage my stress levels at the moment.

After all, no one in my family is horrifically ill. Unlike a lady I work with, whose daughter has been diagnosed with something terrible. I just remember this time last year when Dad was in hospital and shudder a little. Ugh.

I'm not ill, either. Being ill is wearisome. My immune system is proving to be a hardy little bugger this academic year **touching everything wooden around me, including my noggin**

And, to quote a farmer who sent us a Christmas card full of pragmatic advice and good cheer this year, "What is there to worry about when home is good?" Indeed.

And, finally, well the "the sun rises in spite of everything/and the far cities are beautiful and bright."

Gaaah. "There will be dying, there will be dying, but there is no need to go into that." Is that not sublime?

And that really is proving a bit of a mantra of late.

And what to do when mantras aren't enough? Have a mini-Heineken. Go on. Try it. It will change your life.

Eire. Christmas.

It is Christmas. Well, it’s Saturday 18th December, which is good enough for me. I have broken up from school. What’s even more shocking, though, is that I reached some semblance of a straight edge in my final week (i.e. shifted a sh*tpile of marking and sorted some administrative cack).

Don’t get me wrong. I still have tonnes to do (“To be a teacher, you have to be satisfied with having lots of loose ends, I think. Like, all the time...” – a slightly-less-world-weary McDonagh in 2005. She had her head screwed on, that girl). But it’s manageable.

We are off to Romantic Ireland (a fiver a pint! Woo!) for a few days post-Christmas-itself and I CANNOT BLOODY WAIT.

Things What I Think We Should Do:

Go to Kennedy’s (pub in the actual middle of nowhere. The sign is a 70s-era joy-to-behold-monstrosity complete with a martini avec olive on the sign. I doubt anyone’s drank a martini in there EVER) and have the craic with the locals. That’ll be Uncle John and Frank Spellman, then.)

Head to Nathy Brennan's in Tubbercurry for much of the same craic. It's a hardware store AND a pub. You can buy, err, nails and drink pints simultaneously.

Go to Yeats’ grave and swoon over the ‘Had I The Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths’ sculpture.

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams..."

Go swan-spotting in Sligo. There are real ones...

And bronze ones...

Take a seaweed bath in Enniscrone, complete with saltwater shower. Mm.

Enjoy feeling like a peach after aforementioned seaweed bath.

Visit Croagh Padraig. Attempt to climb it. Or at least think about attempting to climb it. Have a squiz at the Famine Memorial.

Go to the traditional music (ceol) session in Gurteen.

Go to Galway. Visit more family. Take the ferry to the Arran Islands and have a drink in Joe McDonagh’s pub. Look at the beautiful Gaelic inscriptions on the graves. Oh, I am a maudlin creature.

See the Davey girls in Clonmel, Tipperary. This may involve drinking and dancing. Less maudlin.

Visit a load of family. Have cheeks pinched by overzealous aunties. Drink several Irish coffees. Eat lots of sandwiches.

Bring. It. On.

Hurrah for Christmas!