Do You Like My Tight Sweater?

In addition to my Walter Mittyesque image of myself as a linguist, famed wit, social flutterby and writer of no little renown, I also fancy myself to be wonderfully creative and crafty. I have a box full of scrap paper, scissors, string and sweet wrappers that I refer to as "my treasure trove" (though I don't call it that out loud, lest Andrew confuse it with his "treasure box", which is full of sweets). But; bar the occasional pressed flower pritt-sticked to a crookedly cut card and presented to a forgiving grandparent, there is little actual evidence that I have any talent for twee.

I come from a long line of crafty women. My mother is a seamstress (currently making a dress for me to get married in) and her own mother is an accomplished knitter. Mam has tried over the years to teach me how to sew, but her efforts have all been in vain (I lack natural aptitude and any inclination to apply myself). I still go behind her back to have my dad sew on my loose buttons.

Being able to sew would be great, I think, and I imagine that if I really wanted to I could be Vivienne Westwood, only cuddly and with less makeup. But I'm lazy, and too chubby for haute couture.

So instead of persevering, losing weight and learning to cut cloth, I decided I'd learn how to knit. I think it might be a manifestation of my "oh fuck I'm getting married and I need to start doing grown-up stuff" crisis (November 2009-Present). If I am someday to become a mother, I want to be able to punish my children by dressing them in ill-fitting striped tea-cosies.

A new wool shop has opened in Rathmines called Knit 'nd Make (the 'nd breaks my heart) and I'd heard they were running classes on Saturday mornings for beginners so off I marched one weekend, fresh-faced and full of resolve.

A little bell tinkled when I entered the shop. The proprietor was serving another customer. I stood like a gom in the middle of the floor, afraid to touch anything in case I broke it (in a wool shop) and waited for them to notice me. They seemed to be wearing matching hairbands. "I'm looking for something a little stronger" her customer said, "a Margaret Thatcher blue, if you know what I mean". She said it like she was laying down a gauntlet. Yer woman had her measure though, and handed her some balls that put a little moué on her mush and made her flounce for her purse. "And for you?" she asked as she closed the till. I was still standing there afraid to touch anything without permission. I froze, cowed by her conversation with the Thatcherite and feeling hopelessly out of my depth (again, in a wool shop). "I'm going to get my nana to teach me to knit!" I announced, with all the pride and exclamation of a five-year-old child. I'm 29. "What do I need?" I added, somewhat redundantly, as she pointed out some balls of thick thick wool and handed me two chunky-ass needles. "Try a scarf".

I bought three balls and trotted on over to Harold's Cross, feeling positively bohemian with my bagful of wool. I convinced myself as I walked that Nana would be only fucking delighted to impart her knowledge to me and have me take up where she left off when the arthritis began to gnarl her fingers. Not literally, though. She was probably working on something really complicated.

Her face was a picture when I announced after lunch that she was to teach me to knit. She looked gutted. "Would you not get your mammy to teach you?" No, Nana, you're far more indulgent. Ten minutes in I had mastered a plain stitch. She offered to teach me purl too, but that would have been too much all at once. So she sat and watched me knit up about half a ball, fidgeting at the awkward way I held the needles. After about half an hour she grudgingly congratulated me (with a little prompting) on being a wonderful student. "We'll all be getting nice thick scarves for Christmas, from a nice thick!" She chuckled to herself, delighted with her joke. And then "What made you pick the colour?"

It's a custardy, mustardy yellow. Rolled around the needle, it looks like corn on the cob.

"Will Andrew mind you knitting?" she asked. "Some men do". She didn't expand on this so I have no idea what she was getting at. I said I didn't think so, but that I'd ask. He just laughed and said "only if we end up staying in to watch the Late Late on a Friday". And then "What made you pick the colour?"

"Does Andrew knit himself?" she asked later, perhaps thinking that like cricket, it's just something that Protestants do. "Some of the best knitters are men, you know." I took her word for it and told her that no, he doesn't but that I was sure he'd wear the things I'll knit for him. "That must be love" she giggled, eyeing up my handiwork.

I Believe It Was The Actor Nick Berry Who Said...

My nana turned 78 last Sunday, and we celebrated with a cemetery mass in Mount Jerome. Sure what else would you be doing?

She was anxious to get there ahead of time, though didn't fancy our chances of getting a seat. The gothic chapel is tiny - I remember it from my grandfather's cremation. We walked up the avenue and saw what must have been a couple of hundred people sitting higgledy piggeldy on headstones. Umbrellas bloomed as it started to rain, colourful nylon domes mushrooming amongst the graves. We took a pew, she on the headstone of a Dorothea ("I don't like to sit on the actual headstones" she said, as if she does this most Sundays, "but it's just the right height for my bum") and me at the base of the Wilde family memorial. The two women next to us were wearing binbags as raincoats and sucking sweets. They didn't offer us any.

Nana was struggling to remember the priest's name. They'd rigged up a PA, previous years having taught them to cater for a crowd. He was stalling, kick-off wasn't for another fifteen minutes and he didn't want anyone to miss out. Nana didn't fancy his waffle much. He gave good mass, this fella, involved the community in the ceremony and encouraged the congregation to join him in song. "I'm not like Robbie Williams or one of those fellas, now!" he joked. The oul wans didn't blink. I laughed. The PA broadcast in intermittent bursts and the crowd outside sang with him, filling in the gaps. "You'd need your Grandad here for all these old-time hymns" Nana said.

Had we had Grandad there we wouldn't have been there at all, we'd have been back in Mount Tallant cooking dinner. Grandad's in a wall, in what they call the "garden". We went down there after mass, to visit. It took us a few minutes to find the plaque with his name on. Nana pointed out the blank one beneath his, told me that that's where her name will go. She said it matter-of-factly.

We went to dinner in the Angler's Rest, because my brother had been there the night before and she thought the name sounded nice. She took her time on the stairs. Dinner was good, the waiter had a burst blood vessel in his left eye and called us "darlings". I dropped her home early that evening - she thought my aunt might drop by later. She was in great form, she'd enjoyed her mass and being treated to dinner by her grandchildren and their handsome squeezes. She went home happy, I went home in tears. I was anxious about starting my new job. And I was heartbroken for my Nana. She'd hate that, and I shouldn't be, because she's alright.

It's Not Off The Ground I Licked It

It was Thursday evening. Jelly, I thought. I haven't had jelly in years. I rooted around at the back of the cupboard and found two packets of raspberry jelly. That'll do. And fruit. All I could find was pineapple, and tinned pineapple at that. Does raspberry go with pineapple? Probably not.

I wanted a good set, so I put both packets in. Remembering how frustrating it was as a child when the lumps refused to dissolve, I took the kitchen scissors to the slippery blocks and cut them into slimy little nubbles before adding the boiling water. Andrew used to eat bars of jelly as a kid, instead of chocolate. I thought he was disgusting. I popped a square of it into my mouth. It was disgusting.

I chopped the pineapple rings into raggedy chunks and spooned them into the warm jelly. They smelled of tin, not coconut, like fresh pineapple does. I don't like fresh coconut much, but fresh pineapple smells like furze and tastes like sunshine. Tinned pineapple smells sad, and tastes a little bit lonely.

They floated. I hadn't expected that, and for some reason I found it horribly disappointing. Perverse, really, as floaters are generally more exciting than foodstuffs which sink. I think it was at that point that I realised I wouldn't be able to eat it until the morning, and that I didn't really want to eat it anyway. How depressing.

It was a ridiculous episode, and alarmingly typical. I don't know where I get these notions or why I feel a compulsion to tell you about them.

I had a bowl of jelly for afters in Nana's on Sunday evening. Somewhere along our conversational meander she mentioned that she'd had a cup of Oxo the evening before. I asked her if she meant Bovril (which is also mankygank) but no, she meant Oxo. She dissolved cubes of beef stock in hot water and drank it. "Funny" she said, "I didn't enjoy it". I'm not fucking surprised. We're not that different, my nana and I.

The Five O Clock Shadow

And have you any photos of this latest one? Nana never misses an opportunity to get an affectionate dig in. The implication is that I have trailed a string of them along behind me, that I have a short short span of attention. It is flattering; I do have a short short span of attention, she's right, but not when it comes to the romantical stuff. When it comes to romanticaliness I'm all about the slow burn, the long haul, the big romance, the hard-won battles, but more often than not I come away singed. She doesn't see this because I am so mortified by rejection that I scrape off the char and swallow my pride like toast. I would rather she thinks of me as independent and flighty than insecure and um... flighty.

So she's curious about this New Thing. She liked the last one, you see - he had a big appetite (for such a skinny lad!) and was a Catholic (he wasn't, really, I don't even know where she got this from) so that was pretty much all her boxes ticked. She was all about him when I was all about him, but congratulatory and cautionary when I broke it to her that I had broken with him. You need to do what's right for you she nodded, sagely. Otherwise you can end up married, if you're not careful.

Quite.

So I show her a picture. She scrutinises it, like a mugshot. I'm not sure what she's looking for, and I wonder if she sees any of the things that I do. He has one of those chin things she says, and I wonder what the fuck she's getting at. Seeing my confusion, she reaches for the right words. You know, she says, pointing again at his jawline, a 7pm.

I nearly wet myself laughing. She asks me, deadly serious, if I plan to stick with this one for a little longer. Will he stick with you? That's the $10 question, I suppose!

I love my nana. She's priceless.

Aloysisus Wash The Dishes

It Took Two Pillows To Make That Jelly Belly

Tuesday just gone would have marked Crash Grandadicoot's birthday. He was fond of his birthdays as he was fond of Christmas - not for the presents (as he insisted that he already had everything that a man could ever want) but because it gave him an excuse to gather his family around him. I don't know why he felt he needed an excuse as not a weekend goes by where the small 2-up 2-down house isn't swamped by about a gazillion of us, but far be it from me to point this out. Maybe it was the excuse to dress up that he was really after. His Santy rig-out every Christmas was quite the thing, and he was a great man for modelling whatever winterwear he was gifted for his July birthdays.

I spent Monday evening in my Nana's along with my brother and sister, eating her out of house and home. We spent time catching her up on all our gossip and while I knew his birthday was coming up the following day, I didn't mention it. There was plenty of mention of him, as there always is, but not of his birthday. I knew that my uncle was coming over the following evening to bring her down to the Mount Jerome, where his ashes have been interred. She never thought she'd be the graveside type, turns out she is, at least on what would have been his birthday.

I thought about her on Tuesday. I thought about her all day. Wondered if I should call and if I did, what I might say to her. It's not like me - I'm never stuck for words with my nana. I thought I might text her instead, it's how I usually avoid potentially emotional or awkward situations; you can seem proactive and at the same time shunt the ball into the other person's court. And then turn your phone off. But I didn't text her. She only ever gets the first two lines anyway because she keep accidentally deleting the messages when she tries to scroll, but she's 76 (I think) so we'll let her off. What would I have said? Happy really fucking sad birthday? Thinking of you? She knows I'm thinking of her. And him.

I got a text from my mam that night, not because she was avoiding a potentially emotional or awkward situation but because she's in France. She was texting to tell me that she'd sat chatting to Grandad in a church that overlooked the local grandads at their boules (he played twice a week). She lit a candle and had a cry, but decided not to sing him happy birthday. I read the text and felt ... nothing. Swiftly followed by a sickening guilt at the realisation that I do not miss him as much as I should. And I carried on with my evening, read my book, went to bed.

This morning I am sitting at my desk in work, avoiding translation work and hiding behind my computer because I'm leaking tears as I write. I miss him much more than I had imagined.

Pet Cemetery

[Alt. title: A walk on the Powerscourt Estate, Co. Wicklow on a Bank Holiday Sunday]

The Wup is possibly the coolest name I have ever heard of for a dog, made all the cooler by the fact that this little guy lived in the early 1900s. How street was he? The Urban Dictionary hadn't even been invented yet. My dogs are named Alpha (the firstborn) and Lila (because that is her name) and I bet The Wup would've kicked their nancy asses.

A note of bitterness here, it seems that Jyp and Tim, though faithful friends for 12 years, were killed on March 6th, 1905. Chasing sheep? Stealing pies from windowsills? Spreading rabies? Perhaps a tragic boating accident. Somebody was pretty fucking upset about it, that's for sure. I imagine a teenager in mourning being charged with the inscription, sending his parents on a guilt trip for all eternity. Or for as long as there are people like me visiting Jyp and Tim's grave, at least.

Tommy and his wife raise all kinds of questions for me. Was there a wedding with tea and cucumber sandwiches afterwards? Did she wear a veil? And a garter? Why was she added as the afterthought when she'd died a full ten years before Tommy? Is she in there at all? Magic?

Eugenie and Princess; both seriously overachieving cows, I think you'll agree. It bothers the shit out of me though that their stats aren't measurable - sure, Eugenie had lots of little cows and must have had massive udders, but Princess won two prizes. Who was the better cow?

And finally, one for precious little girls everywhere. I never had any truck with that Black Beauty, My Little Pony shit as a kid; the only horses I knew were the piebalds that occasionally wandered into our garden when the Ballyfermot cowboys let them roam untethered. So I was unmoved, but hopefully this one moves posh kids to tears.

I Probably Should Have Just Watched Hollyoaks

I came home this evening and sat down and listened to Nuala O'Faolain's interview* with Marian Finucane, and I cried.

I've been thinking a lot about death over the last while. I haven't turned goth or emu or whatever it is the kids are into these days, I haven't started saying rosaries or lighting candles, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to lose someone, and what it might be to die. Wondering if it brought relief to Conor, feeling horrified at how his death has affected his family. Hoping that it was a release for my Crash Grandadicoot, wondering how my Nana will cope with the loneliness of losing the man she has loved for more than 55 years. I spent yesterday afternoon with her and for the first time since his death I got the feeling from her that she was feeling very lonely, crushingly low. I miss Grandad, but I have been missing Grandad for a long time now, all through the long months of his illness. Now I worry for my Nana. I think of the spirit and resolve it took her to care for him for so long and I hope that the same spirit and resolve will help her to cope with his loss. But it's hard.

Nuala's interview seems to have stopped people in their tracks. It's easy to express sympathy, to offer kind words and hopes for the best. But it's very hard to sit and just listen. "Are you sure it won't give the people despair?" she asked. No, Nuala a chroí. You've made people think about what it is to be human - to be alive - agus is cúis misnigh agus dóchais sin i gcónaí.

*Broadcast on Saturday morning, it's been all over the Irish media since. Diagnosed 6 weeks ago with terminal cancer, Nuala speaks openly and with painful honesty about how life has been for her since her diagnosis. You can listen to it here or read the transcript here.

Calling It A Day

I had planned on writing a lovely post about underwear this evening, inspired by the nice ladies who hang out over at Annie's. Instead I went for a walk by the sea with my Nana where we ate ice cream and talked shite, and then came home and started reading Bete de Jour's blog. It's very good. I'm curled up in bed now and the laptop screen has acquired the distressing brightness of headlights at night when you're too tired to be driving. My flatmates have just arrived home and are slamming the doors of the kitchen presses with such gusto that I need to curl up under the blankets immediately lest I be tempted to get up and batter their heads in for making such an awful fucking clatter.

It's been a good day though.

Review: Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon

I brought my Nana to see it last night. "Good choice, a film about a guy who has a stroke and then dies of pneumonia" muttered my brother, referring to Crash Grandadicoot's recent loss (stroke, followed by, eh... pneumonia). On paper it looked like an abominably insensitive choice of film to bring a grieving widow to see but my repeated readings of the book* over the years reassured me that she would find something in it to lift her spirits.

And she did, very much. I know this because once we got home, she called everyone she knows to let them know just how much she had enjoyed it. "It was very good. It had subtitles though, and the young lad in front of me had such a big head that I kept missing the last word of every sentence. Still, I got the gist of it."

*I thought the same actually, and hesitated recently over lending her my copy. But it was that or Meet the Spartans, so I took a chance.