saturday 16 August 2008
It’s a wet Saturday here in Galway and I am back in the hometown to celebrate my brother and sister in law’s 25th wedding anniversary and to remember the Dad who is gone 3 years. We went to a Mass tonight during which he got The Mention and it was extra lovely because the priest speaking knew him. In fact he was the one who saw him off at his funeral. Very fitting as he’d known him and they’d gone racing and had a few pints over the years.
I shall add some extra pints to my menu now as…wait for it…I finished the book!!!!!! I fell allowed the exclamations marks here though I normally don’t use ‘em too much.
I am writing this in the bar just as we begin our merriment.
I trust you will all have noticed that I have re-introduced capital letters where neccessary…this is by popular demand.
Ian (brother) is looking over my shoulder and says hello to you all – he is excited that there is a he night here (they look great i have to say) and they are staying the night in the hotel, as is he, and breakfast tomorrow looks like an event PLUS we ‘got’ Mass tonight which counts as the Sunday attendance so all is well….
nasties 15 August 2008
well, only c16 weeks to go on the building work so we’re FLYING through… i wish i could tell you it was a major somethingorother we’re having done with the time that’s involved but it’s not really – just have decided to being this old gal up to spec environmentally as well as attaching a small other bit (extra loo and shower EN SUITE – ooh, get us!). it’s the nasties that are awful and not necessarily to do with us but may stretch WAY back…the house has been here since 1842 so it has seen it’s fair share. latest is some urine build-up under the main bathroom…in a ceiling over part of the kitchen = urgh, not major but just a wee (oops) yeuch moment. sorted now and all made good so twill NEVER happen again. it would be interesting to catch a glimpse of whoever is living here after we’ve shuffled off our mortal coils and hear what they have to say about what we’ve done and what we’ve left behind, intentionally or other wise.
the G not sure AT ALL about the ‘improvements’ – she thinks we’re mad to have stopped access to some of the bits of the house she thought best about it…i hope i remember what they looked like, or what it was like to have that space, when the time comes to reclaim it.
this day 14 August 2008
my dad is dead 3 years today = not good. where has the time flown away to, by the by, and when will i get over the notion that he JUST MIGHT walk in the door and say something wicked and all will be well, even though i was with him when he took his last breath – which was such a privilege but i still ALMOST think i will see him again, presumably because i SO want to?
sent all but 2 chapters of the book to my editor = v good. the second last one now all but ready to go too…the last one – who knows, as i keep changing my mind about what should happen or where the story should end = possibly not good (the prevarication, that is)
am seeing the mclynn clan on saturday in my hometown of galway as my next in line brother is married 25 years to the wonderful Curly and we’re having a doo = very good. it’s also important to see one another at this particular time of the year and of our lives (see above re The Daddy)
the sun is shining, as well it might. life goes on – ain’t that a kick in the head…
akimbo 13 August 2008
Himself is back from a fortnight at the Edinburgh festival – he swears it was 10 days but that’s irish men for you – ask any irish woman to move eight inches right or left and you are guaranteed a scant four…nuff said…
trouble is myself and the G had settled into a routine – me working, me making sure she had enough rubs and treats to get through the day what with the disruption of the building work (which she is still SO unimpressed by it’s untrue) me having a sneaky snooze mid afternoon etc, and we had pretty much moved upstairs also. now there is a 3rd amigo to the bunch and he has his own ideas about stuff he KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT. so, we are being patient until he learns the new rules but he has barely 24 hours or he’s out (she’s the one who makes the rules not me, take it up with her) he has been warned and is trying his best. fingers crossed for the Richie.
in the meantime Herself is so pleased with her newly appointed cat litter that although she still goes out into the garden she prefers to come back in and do her business in the tray…hmmmm…
still raining.
one chapter to go – will hand rest over midday tomorrow…ooooh, feel funny to admit that now…must go lie down – as it happens, on the new mattress = hooorah for that and, you know, i really am a romantic – it was here yesterday but i slept elsewhere till Hubby got home and we could both experience it together – no, not like that just yet I HAVE A BOOK TO FINISH (having shared too much, i shall repair to said newly furnished bed)
damp 12 August 2008
WILL THIS RAIN NEVER END???? i am trapped in the upstairs of the house most of the day, which i am slowly, but veh veh surely, turning into a wee flat. Have to, as the downstairs is like a…duh, IS…a building site. Herself is in exile above with me. i put in a cat litter for her in case the lads were making way too much noise downstairs and she was too frightened to go out to the garden to do her ‘business’. as suspected, she far prefers using it to going out in the rain. i can’t blame her, i nearly didn’t go out to get my daily sprig of McLynn mint out there it was so bad. i am VERY impressed with myself on one score, though, and that is the re-setting up of the tv. I know it drives some of you mad (well, andrew/agricola anyhow) that i love BONEKICKERS on the beeb but i had to see it tonight and also an irish programme called Failte Towers (for those who aren’t in the Repubbalic of Urland’s wet land, it’s a reality show where 12 celebs have taken over the running of a hotel and are being whittled down to a winner over a fortnight, all for charidee – it’s GREAT) The tv was lying forlorn and unplugged or connected BUT Yours Truly (a mess when it comes to technology) managed to get it all working in the front room (grandly called the study but used as a dumping ground, never more so than now what with everything in a heap) so you see, when i am desperate i get things done.
which, hopefully, is good news for the novel. i am SOOOOO close now….
actually i HAVE to finish it because, if i don’t do that soon, i will have spread so much from getting no exercise that none of my clothes will fit.
incentive, incentive, incentive – oh, and the fact that i have promised myself a lovely bottle of pink fizz when tis done…
more embra 11 August 2008
it was pointed out to me that edinburgh has featured a number of times in my books and, indeed, i hadn’t realised it but it’s true. i did point out at the book festival talk last night that the first line in my first ever book is a woman exclaiming ‘Barcelona, my hole’ referring to Dublin being the new Barcelona (but not in a good way). so, all those years ago, at my first edinburgh book festival, i expounded on that only to be told, in tight terms, that Edinburgh was the new Barcelona NOT Dublin – bit of an incident, passport stamped etc, and i wasn’t allowed back into Scotland for a time. Bright Lights and Promises almost ends with Susie Vine, main character and actors’ agent extraordinaire, visiting a show at the festival. But the thing i remembered in all of this is that most people will never spot (until now, that is)is at the end if Summer In The City a handsome Scot in a kilt is mentioned and lusted over – ladies and gents he was the moderator of our talk last night at the book festival(!) and his name is Bob McDevitt – i don’t give my Bob a surname in the book but trust me the name check was for him and he is only gorgeous. Edinburgh is a wonder. I also got some totally great sparkly shoes there before i fled today – pink sequins, silver sequins, tartan – ‘nuff said
okay 10 August 2008
okay – have to clear something up in case i look madder than usual. the Embra post went up twice for a trice so i commented on that. in the meantime the site removed on of the embra blogs and put in the oops instead…tho it wasn’t needed then with only the one embra musing…computers are perverts
Embra 10 August 2008
such pleasure tonight – back in Edinburgh at the book festival for an event with, the wonderful scottish writer, laura marney. the time FLEW by and really an hour is not enough. there are many things about the embra festival that are unique and one of those was being reminded by oisin (who is one of the gurus who runs it) about me having a row by phone with Himself on georges street at 5 am last time i was here. i had forgotten/erased it from my mind…nice to be reminded, as to forget these great sporting moments is wrong and downright careless…i consulted Himself (who deigned to join me after he had seen a student show rather than attending my event) and we both agree it was more 3am that i made the call.
i must take time out to praise and thank joyce watson who is a regular to the site and was there at the festival tonight. joyce is my conscience – if i am late with a blog or even more massively inconsistent than usual she pulls me up (quite right too) and i am all the better for it..and also the lovely glass of fleurie i am having e’en as i write. thank you joyce!
viva padraig harrington – now PGA champion too. for those of you who don’t know, he’s an irish golfer doing SO well it’s stratospheric.
i have spread in the last few weeks while trying to finish the buke – sitting most of the day only getting up only to prepare food and eat it and having some wine in the evening while sitting and then going to bed to lie down. i need to stop all of the eating and drinking and sitting and sleeping – best finish that effin novule and get fit again so…
ooh 10 August 2008
ooh i haven’t posted something twice in a while! that fleurie is good stuff…
ark 9 August 2008
i had a great day sitting at the kitchen table working on the book today. there are a few things that are remarkable about that…mostly the fact that the builders should have taken over there by now – broken in and made it all uninhabitable. BUT although it’s summer in Ireland we weren’t also to know that it’s MONSOON season also. i have never seen the like. the rain BOUNCED off the ground. you’d need an ark to go to the shop for milk. it made me think of summers when we were kids and my parents brought us to kerry or sligo and it lashed rain for a fortnight (there are a few years i remember good weather, i’ll admit) so when people say they only remember sunshine when they think of childhood holidays i think they are either a) liars or b) not irish. today, at that unexpected table, it was The Holidays as far as i was concerned – everything else was a plus…