Category: Uncategorized

On Monday, I listened to News by accident. 

I thought I was downloading a meditation from the internet, but News slipped through by mistake. Shocked, I rushed over to my device as quickly as I could, which took me out of Warrior Pose unexpectedly, and I hurt my lower back in the process.  I have an exceptionally low tolerance level for pain, so I have been covering myself in Deep Heat, and ingesting Nurofen, every four to six hours, since.

In the few moments where News did get into the apartment, I learned that Boris is now a Catholic and has married his third wife.  I learned that more restrictions are being eased, and that the virus is still raging and mutating. I learned that everyone in Ireland is cross about the litter.

I may have mentioned this before, but the litter really gets to me.

Some people blame The Youth for leaving their rubbish all over the streets, parks and beaches.  Some people blame councils for not having robust waste management systems in place.  Some people blame the country’s unhelpful relationship with alcohol as being an underlying cause for the litter: while others blame it on the boogie.

Prior to the yoga injury, I had become increasingly interested in the work of two Welsh friends, Karon and Sarah.  The litter problem in Blaenau Gwent was rising, so they decided to stop complaining, and start fixing.  Karon and Sarah are now Litter Champions of the local area and clean up rubbish as volunteers.  Excited about my own Litter Journey, I signed up to An Taisce’s National Spring Clean (Ireland’s nationwide anti-litter campaign), and waited for my starter kit to come in the post.

I couldn’t wait for my starter kit to come in the post, so I set out without the regulation clothing (or safety gloves).  I took an empty bin-bag, walked to the end of the street, began to pick up the rubbish, and stopped when the bag was full.  It was remarkably simple, zen like and enjoyable. It had a beginning, a middle and an end.

The best thing about it, was the praise.

I live on a busy city centre street, with plenty of foot fall and a LUAS stop.  Dubliners are chatty and interactive at the best of times, but even more so when there’s an unusual sighting on the street, of a lone woman with a bin-bag, and a lower back injury.

All the comments were encouraging and filled with magnificent praise.

“Fair play to you Mrs”.

“You should get a gold medal for that!”

“Ah, aren’t you great now, for doing that!”

“I hope no one messes it up for you, it’s only gorgeous”.

I wanted to reply to the strangers “not all heroes wear capes,” but I decided to be silently modest instead. 

The second time I cleaned my street, I developed a benevolent nod in acknowledgment of the strangers’ praise, and by my third clean, I was simply replying “you’re very welcome” to anyone who wanted to thank me.

How things have changed since March 2020.

Back then, I used to scream at my partner, “do not go to the supermarket for single item purchases, that is a HIGH RISK activity”.  Now I pick up other people’s rubbish by hand.  Hands covered by regulation protective glove wear, but hands all the same. 

We mammals are so adaptable.

Day 447:  tended to the Spider Plants, ate Tiramisu, went for a walk in an anti-clockwise direction, cleaned the street with my new HiVis vest and gloves.  Watched The Office (USA), noticed that the clock said 6.30pm and got a shock because I thought I’d forgotten to call Dad at 6.00pm. 

I think we need another word for boredom.

Whatever *this* is, it isn’t boredom. 

It’s far too menacing, hateful and insidious to be called boredom, but I don’t have another suggestion.  It feels like a conclusion, without an ending, or an ending without a full stop.  It’s a dash rather than a full stop or a comma – Emily Dickenson used the M-dash a lot in her writing.  She used it when full stops felt too final, and commas too vague.  Maybe that’s where we are – the dash at the end of a sentence – an outdoors summer with time passing on –

Are we nearly there yet – I don’t know – who’s to say? –

Further observation necessary.

Gather around your light and listen to these stories. 

Come closer to the sounds, and hear what tales there are to tell.  Learn from the stories, all you can about salt.  Memories of pink, Himalayan salt.  Dreams of Vietnamese salt farms; next to visions of naps in hammocks, after watching the sea water evaporate.  Journeys for salt.  Killer salt, helpful salt, indifferent salt, arrogant salt.  Peculiar compound that we love.

Once upon a time there was a salt farm in Viet Nam.  Seven people are napping in the hammocks after a delicious lunch of sea food with rice wine.  The radio is on, but no one listens to the man who is talking about the weather.  Everyone knows it is hot, and even the sun is tired.

From the kitchen, a small child watches as two slugs and a snail get covered over by a mountain of salt, and as their bodies evaporate, they transition, by osmosis into nothingness.  Except that it’s not nothing, thinks the small child who is watching, because nothing can be nothing.  It’s just something else now, some other matter that we don’t have the name for.  The child sweeps it up from the floor and returns to the tasks in the kitchen.

Just add salt.

Further away, on a snow covered mountain with a lake view, the salt is used to change the snow into water, and this makes the onlookers smile.  Is it magic?  No, just physics, and how easy it is to dilute the snow when you know how. 

Evil salt, helpful salt, kind salt and gentle salt.  Friend of tequila, enemy of thine mind.

Back to the sea, and the first thing the two swimmers notice is the smell of salt.  The blue of memory relaxes the mind, and the colours whisper again “you have been here before”.  The good sea air, and the views of the horizon are what we love so much.  Is it the sound of the never ending waves, or the rhythm that helps us breathe well?  Is it the wind on our faces, or the smiles from the other swimmers that encourage us to say to strangers, “here is the sea for you, it welcomes you”.

Unlike Lot’s wife, we crave more of it. 

We need the crystalline mineral to preserve our food, and our memories; carefully covered in bees wax wraps, and hidden at the bottom of a cupboard.  One day we’ll see a seahorse, and when we do, we’ll lean in closer and ask him “do you love the full moons, the smell of summer, or the taste of salt best?”

We’ll wait in the quiet for him to answer.

Buttercups are the rebels of the canal banks.

They dangle towards the water, like elite mountaineers, without ropes or fear.  They tantalise the ladybirds, and flaunt their yellow heads, under the noses of the caterpillars.

Sometimes the buttercups smile at the less brave flowers, who don’t wish to swing too near to the water, and they say, “it’s better over here where the action is”.

Buttercups are rock stars.

They swagger and they roll, and they rock and laugh, and live on the water’s edge. Buttercups don’t have pension plans, they don’t worry about tomorrow and they never grow old.  Buttercups lure and they sway again, and they dance all night long.  They are always on the road.

Do you play the piano, little daisy, what’s your favourite tune?  Are you interested in politics?  Are you religious or are you more comfortable describing yourself as spiritual?  How long have you been vegan and do have any allergies we should know about?

Do you like dancing, in the shade of the tree, little daisy?  How much do you remember and what do you see?  Do you think things are harder now, in this year that didn’t happen, or does it feel just the same to you?  Is it like previous plagues and poor harvests?  Do you care?

Do you, and your battalion of friends prefer moving under the guidance of the sun or the moon, little daisy?  Are you happy in the soil, or would you prefer to be part of a magnificent chain, in the hair of a young woman, enjoying the afternoon?  Would you like to spend time in a vase?

Modest little daisy, so grateful and kind, all eyes and all seeing, beneath us as we pass.

There is a dandelion near the canal, in a rainstorm in May.

It stretches its stem and arcs into the wind, like an ancient, wise yogi.

It protects its head with saffron coloured petals, and lets the water droplets fall into the roots.

It seems too gentle, lost and alone.

All still the dandelion.

After the wind, when the clouds run away, and the blue skies whisper “it’s now calm again,” the dandelion breathes out and sequesters the rain.  Each miraculous molecule of water, used up by parched needs.

An ounce of love, for every moment the same.

Unguarded, untamed, uncared for.

Gentle little dandelion, so lost and alone.

This brightly coloured dancer has seen it all before.  An ensemble of bees, bugs and butterflies visit, stop near the venerable healer with soft medicine. Some stay for tea before they travel on.  The living and the soil admire their atoms, entrust their kindness and compliments. 

Dimensional otherness, elsewhere and sublime.

A previous little dandelion, mixing in harmony for all of eternity, surrounding itself, in a rainstorm in May.

There is a group of people in Dublin city, who think it’s reasonable that their dogs defecate all over the pavements and parks, and they think it’s just fine to leave the mess there.  Most dog owners pick up the poo and dispose of it responsibly, but a smaller sub-section do not adhere to these rules.  Some people pick up the poo, but then leave the little plastic bags of excrement on the tops of walls, on the branches of trees, or down on the ground where they think no one can see. 

I don’t know why these people think this behaviour is OK, but I do wish they would stop.

Another group of people I have grown to despise, is those who enjoy their urban picnics and leave their rubbish behind.  They like to leave their empty drinks and food containers behind in the parks or on the banks of canals, and they believe it’s reasonable for someone else (a person who is not them), to come along and clean up the mess.  For some reason, they find it impossible to take the rubbish home with them, if the litter bins are full, and so leave it behind until, when? 

I don’t know why these people think this behaviour is OK, but I do hope soon, they will stop.

A third group of people I begrudge, dislike and am hateful of, is the people who play music loudly in public.  There is a direct correlation between how loudly someone plays their music, and how God awful it is.  For some magical reason, they believe that I would like to enjoy them playing the same song seven times in a row, and they consider my afternoon enhanced by my chance to listen to their tunes.

Last, but not least are the Guideline Breakers, and they believe the lockdown rules don’t apply to them.  They drop into the shop without a mask, or they go the wrong way round a one way supermarket.  They have a few friends over on a Friday night, or an impromptu barbecue in the garden.

These are the four most hated groups of people in Ireland, according to a survey that I just devised and answered myself.  These are the most heinous crimes, against other citizens in the city, and the final list above is as it is.

I finally understand how so many of the witches, accused of magic in the medieval period, were originally accused by people they knew.  The women were tried and sentenced by the Inquisitors and the Church, but they came to the authorities’ attention after being identified by people from their own villages and communities. 

Now I know why.

Those villagers were just really, really cross.

I’m so tired and weary and fed up and really, really cross, aren’t you? 

If I were a medieval villager, I would probably accuse almost everyone I knew of heresy, just for the fucking hell of it, and yes my little reader, that includes YOU!  You’ve probably broken some guideline, or played music too loudly, so I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.  You’re accused too!  If it makes you feel any better, you can accuse me too. 

I don’t care.

We’re speeding out of another lockdown, while the mutating virus continues to rage, and the death toll skips into its third million.  While this surreal, grotesque, nightmare-fairy tale continues we dance, and play music and we laugh.  The glaciers are melting, the sea water levels are rising, the forests are on fire and we’re outside enjoying the unseasonably good April weather.

Our selfish species continues to lie to itself and sleep, while ignoring the very mess we leave behind.  We defecate, abandon rubbish, play music too loudly and ignore the guidelines we wrote, while we shrug and ask, “what can we do?”

It’s all so effortlessly non-permanent, ever changing and mystical, but the real mystery is just out of reach.  The answers are just beyond the blue light at dawn or the remains at the bottom of a tea cup. 

We were once all under the sea, and the dinosaurs once called this home.

What can I say; things change. 

One day, we weren’t here, and one day we won’t be here again; the light and the darkness are the same.

Last night I dreamed I was a zookeeper again.

I’m often highly competent in my dreams.  I am frequently found operating complicated industrial machinery like aeroplanes, submarines and nuclear power stations, and the responsibility never makes me nervous.  The fact that I was a zookeeper, in my dream, didn’t worry me at all, and I felt completely at ease in the role.  The only thing I found odd was that so many people, outside of the zoo, were queuing.

The people in my dreams have been wearing masks for some time.  I’ve attended some zooms in the sleeping hours, but last night was the first time I dreamed of the queues.

I don’t mind the queues.

I like the spontaneous conversations, and opportunities for oversharing with strangers, that can happen in a good, Dublin city, supermarket queue.  You can have a quick-fire chat, express your opinion, and move on with your life without recourse. Another great thing is, that the interaction doesn’t end with somebody saying, “sorry Ruth, I can’t hear you, you’re on mute!”

I chat to the random people in the queues, and I talk to the supermarket staff inside.   I lurk in the frozen food aisles until a member of staff comes my way, and it’s there that I launch into my line of questioning.

“How’s your brother?” I ask a member of staff I’m most familiar with. 

“Did they get to the bottom of that credit card scam, or are the fraud section still investigating?”

If the staff won’t engage with me, I try to converse with other shoppers instead.

“I don’t even like mushy peas,” I say to someone I’ve never met before.      

“I like real peas from a pod” I continue.  “All the same, it’s handy to have a few tins in the dried food cupboard.  My word, do you remember how everyone bought loads of tinned food in the beginning of Lockdown One?  Such a long time ago now, hard to comprehend”.

This kind of behaviour produces one of two results. 

Either the other shopper will nod kindly at me, and then move away quietly.  Or they will respond to my comment with gusto and enthusiasm.

“I think mushy peas are the devil’s food!” they say, eyes flashing wildly, hair unkempt.

“I will not permit them in my kitchen!  Mushy peas soften your brain tissue and make you go vegan.  Bill Gates is behind the Big Pea industry, and I know there are peas in the vaccines!”

You never know who you might run into while shopping in the supermarket, and that’s the exciting thing about it.  The supermarkets and the queues are the only places left for spontaneous chats; they are the beer gardens and the cigarette areas of yonder year.

There are queues on Everest now. 

Remember the photo, by Nirma Purja, that showed all the people queuing to summit Everest, like you might queue for a ride in Disney Land?  I was looking at that photo again, and I honestly couldn’t believe it.  I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries and films about Everest this week.  In fact, I now only refer to the mountain by the name of Chomolungma, and I would appreciate it if you would do likewise.

My partner asks me “how’s the training going for your bid for the summit?” when he sees that I’m resting in between the mountaineering documentaries on Youtube.

“Everything’s fine” I tell him.  “The conditions are excellent, and I hope to be through the Khumbu Icefall by sunset!”

“Good to hear!” he says encouragingly, “radio through if you need any supplies”.

He’s always been very supportive of my projects.

The only two things preventing me from attempting to summit this season are finances and ability.  Apart from that, I’m ready to put together a small team for 2022.  From my extensive training programme, it’s clear that as long as we’re on the top by 2.00pm on 10 May, everything else should be fine.  We’ll need to pack a lot of snacks, oxygen and good quality crampons.  We’ll need to employ at least a dozen Sherpa.

It’s a long way to go for a view, but it’s one I’d like to see.

One of the most macabre details, about the tallest mountain on the earth, is the fact that it’s littered with the corpses of climbers.  Every season, a few people go up the mountain and never return, and sometimes it’s too difficult to bring their bodies back down.

So they remain there, encased in the ice, and frozen forever.

Which is why choosing good teammates is essential.  To this end, I’ve made a list of my best friends alongside the talents they are blessed with, and I think we’re all set.  What we lack in map reading skills, and high altitude mountaineering experience, we make up for with enthusiasm, interest and good humoured optimism.  Even if we got caught in the queues or lost our way for a while in a blizzard, I think we’d be OK.

See you at Base Camp!

Did you have a Happy Easter? 

Have you eaten all your eggs?

Did you get the fine chocolate you wished for? 

I hope you got some rest.

I was reading an article yesterday which suggests that 95% of office workers do not want to go back to their offices full time.  Some would like to go back to the office a couple of times of week, while others would be happy to work from home permanently.  I thought 95% was a high number.  That basically means that pre-2020, only 5% of the people who worked in offices, were happy with their working lives!

No wonder some meetings were frosty, and emails were hard to reply to if more than 9 out of 10 of us were dissatisfied.  Apparently, we were all exhausted from commuting, found colleagues distracting, and found the lighting, heating or open plan set-ups irritating.

Now we’re happier working from our homes.

I prefer working from home, why wouldn’t I? 

I work much better when I’m well rested, well fed, and focused on one thing at a time. I find it easier to work to my own flow at home, and I’d be happy to stay like this forever.

The only thing I don’t like about it, is perversely, the very technology that allows me to do it.

I feel like my IT proficiency peaked in 2008 and that my abilities have been decreasing ever since.  Up until 2008, I could find my way around a computer and I rarely felt lost.  Now the proliferation of browsers and apps make me sea-sick, and I’m often confused by the myriad of ways there are for adult humans to communicate with one another. 

“Is this desktop app compliant with this android device?”

I don’t know.

How should I know?

I don’t even understand the question.

The other thing I’m finding annoying is the increase in the two-step verification process for all the apps and websites.  This seems to be a very fashionable addition to modern life, and one I find hopelessly irritating.  It’s not always possible to find the text to open the app, to see the message they sent you. Or sometimes, when I’m looking I get lost in other spaces.

Why, why, why do they do this to us?

Oh, I know they are solving all the problems I didn’t know I had, but can’t we go back to a time before 2008, when sites were static and non-participatory.  I still only need to send written messages from me to other adult humans, so I don’t need seven hundred ways of doing it. 

“Hi, I’ve just emailed you the document because I couldn’t upload it on Slack, so if you can just text me back when you’ve read it and we can discuss it on Zoom tomorrow”.

Sweet mother of God!  I’d love to go back to faxing. 

If we can’t go back to the days of the fax machine, I suggest that we all agree to only send messages to one another between the hours of 11.00am and 1.00pm Monday – Thursday?

Apart from that I’m happy; I’m happy working from home.

Happy doesn’t mean what it used to. 

Before 2020, you could spend the weekend in New York, go to the NBA final in Madison Square Garden, head off to the after party with Bradley Cooper and Gaga, then watch the sun rise over Central Park, and still only describe it as “OK”.

Now, you celebrate if the queue to the supermarket moves quickly or if your pizza arrives on time.  Although I think we’re getting harder to please again.  For a few minutes back in 2020, we were so #blessed and #grateful to be alive, but it seems we’re less happy in Year Two.  We want our holidays back, and the restaurants to open.  We want it back to normal, so we’re coming out of lockdown again and we’re easing the restrictions.

This, as always, makes me feel nervous.

When I’m very nervous, I try and remember Derren Brown’s advice in his book “Happy”.  He reminds us that we only have responsibility for the things we say, and the things we do.  Everything else is beyond our sphere of influence apart from the things we say, and the things we do.  I find that very helpful, when I start to worry about the changes and I repeat to myself, that I am only responsible for the things that I say, and the things that I do.

So, I wake up in the morning and if it’s a blue sky, I smile.

I enjoy the beautiful spring days of Dublin and the wondrous displays of colour from the flowers and the trees.  This part of the year is filled with new life and hope and the movement towards brighter things. The days are longer, and everything is alive again.  The moments of these days are not what we planned, but let’s try and enjoy them and be happy when we can.  Only worry about the things we say, and the things we do, and try and enjoy our days.

We should try and enjoy our days.

• 

I’m surprised that Generation X isn’t better at lockdown.

We were the first generation to have portable TVs in our bedrooms, we spent hours in isolation listening to our mixed tapes on Walkman’s, and we lost days watching music videos on MTV.  The most symbolic film of our generation was “The Breakfast Club” which was about five high school students who had their privileges removed one Saturday and had to live with the consequences of restrictions.  The five people were:  a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.

Despite the training, we remain surprised that a pandemic comes with negative effects.

It’s like we are standing at the foot of an erupting volcano trying to decide where to go for dinner.  We are surprised that our favourite tapas restaurant is closed, and we can’t understand why the bar isn’t open.  There’s ash, lava and magma flying around our faces and we can barely breathe through the toxic atmosphere, yet our only concern is the lack of taxis. 

“It’s really very tiresome” we say to one another in-between coughing, “all this fuss about a volcano!  Many of the villagers were going to die anyway, I don’t know why they’ve evacuated.  It’s very boring isn’t it?  Not at all what I’d imagined it would be like”.

I was very excited when MTV came to onto our screens.

Prior to this, we gained our music knowledge from a weekly 30-minute programme called “Top of the Pops”.  We would wait all week to find out who was number one, and if they would play live in the studio or present the music video instead.  The music videos were so terrific that we would record them onto our Betamax or VHS tapes to watch over and over again.

Households didn’t have an infinite supply of blank video tapes, so people shared them between family members.  One time, my dad taped over Madonna’s “Crazy for You” video and I was so upset I cried.  I hadn’t written DO NOT TAPE OVER on the side of the blank tape, so he recorded a film right over it.  I honestly believed that I might never get another chance to see this music video again, and I was spiteful and mean about it.

At least, I think that’s what happened. 

It’s possible that this happened to a friend of mine, and I’ve imported it into my memory bank by mistake. Someone said recently that blueberries were good for memories, but I can’t remember who, and I don’t know if it’s the shadows of peri-menopause, or the pandemic causing the memory hiccups, or a little bit of both.

I wonder what our pandemic memories will be like.

I wonder when it’s going to be a memory, when it’s going to be all over, and when it’s going to go away.  Make it go away, we plead, make it all better soon.

I’m tired of hanging out in my home like a three-toed sloth, and I’m not sure how much more sugar and Netflix I can consume.  I’ve been wearing the same three pairs of leggings for 12 months, and my memory is fucked, and I’m tired.  I know every inch of my 50 square metre work-life unit, and every step of my 5 km radius.  I know every smell from my building, and every sound my neighbours make.

I want it to be over, and yet not too quickly.

No matter where your personal opinions fall, you have to agree that one of the reasons we’re in Lockdown 3, is because we exited Lockdowns 2 and 1 too quickly.  Other reasons include the commodification of health, education, and housing alongside neo-liberal capitalism, and the paternalization of leadership, but hey, it’s Friday, so let’s not get into that.  I just worry that if we come out of the haze too quickly once more, we might find ourselves back here in September.

The one thing we were asked to do, in order to save countless lives, was stay at home. 

That was it. 

Sit on our backsides and wait.

No marathons, cake sales, walks across the Sahara or jumps off the Eiffel Tower, just sit on our sofas and wait. 

Perhaps it would help our little child brains if we changed the wording.  The term “lockdown” stinks of negative punishment, so can I suggest we re-brand it with a more positive sounding reward for our two-year old mentalities?

How about “show some cuddly camaraderie with your cousins in company!” instead?

No? 

OK, leave it with me and I’ll come up with something better next week.

Can you imagine how we’ll cope in a few years’ time with the restrictions promised by the climate crisis?  We’ll be up to our necks in sea water complaining because our Pilates class was cancelled.

“It’s so very tiresome” we’ll say to one another while treading water “I don’t know why the class can’t go ahead as planned?  I have my snorkel here and my flippers so I’m all set!  I don’t understand what all the fuss is about!”  There’ll be seals and whales passing us by on the outside, but we’ll be shaking our heads and saying “fuss about nonsense” under our salty, sea-water breath.

Previous generations called X the Me Generation because we were selfish, uncaring and wrapped up with our quest for individual fulfilment and reward.  The boomers claimed we were incapable of showing empathy towards others, and said we’d never put the safety of the many, over the comfort of the few.  Seriously though, what on earth did they expect from us:  a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal? 

What did they expect?

The other night, I had a lovely time on zoom. 

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not.  I had a pleasant experience while using the technology.  I spent an hour talking with an old friend from university called Will, and I did not loathe every second.

Will and I studied history together at Warwick in the early 90s.  We sat next to one another in a particularly frightening seminar with a professor who did not care for undergraduates.  Professor Smyth wasn’t nurturing or helpful and would often sigh when we tried to answer his questions.  He seemed shocked that some of us had little to say, and he had no sympathy with those of us who hadn’t found our campus legs yet.  Professor Smyth terrified me, and Will and I would support one another before, during and after the seminars.

Will and I were both shy and quiet.  We were 18 and from Wales.  It was a shock to be away from home.

For the first decade after university, Will and I sent letters and postcards to one another from wherever we were.  We nearly met up in Prague and Australia and missed one another several times in London; but we stayed in touch.  We kept each other up-to-date with the news and gossip.  Eventually, we moved over to emails, but as Will is one of those rarest of creatures: one who does not use social media, I hadn’t seen him for the bulk of 30 years until the other night.

So the other night, when we first saw our faces and hair on Zoom, all we could do was laugh.  And straight away, there was the ease and familiarity of someone you know well.  As I sat there on my bedroom floor, with the lights turned down and no sound from the building, I wondered about how young we once were and enjoyed all those nostalgic bitter-sweet regrets, you indulge from time to time.

I’ve been such a reluctant Luddite of late, so it was good for me to have an enjoyable experience of using Zoom.  I just feel like there’s too much technology now, and it’s all doing exactly the same thing.  At my latest count, you can leave messages for me on Slack, Basecamp, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp, Viber, Salesforce Chatter, WordPress and through four email addresses.    

Sweet Mother of Holy God!   

Each app requires a different browser to support it, and yet it looks so like the next one.  My mobile phone can’t manage all this traffic and I need to buy a new one, even though it makes and receives perfectly good phone calls. There was a time, about five years ago, when I was the only person in Dublin without a smartphone.  Finally, I relented and bought one, but the fact that I now need to buy a new one, just to keep up with software, makes me very cross.  I finally understand my father, who never truly recovered from the fact that we all moved on from Betamax videos, and I wish things would stay the same or at least, slow down from changing. 

What messages are we sending to one another all day in 18 different places?

Hi, this is Ruth and I’m out of the office until the 13^th.  Please send your enquiry to my colleague Sonia, who will ignore it, because she’s completely overwhelmed with too many messages, as it is.  In these times, more than everer, thank you for your patience (s).

I think we should all go back to corresponding with paper, ink and stamps.  This would be better for the environment, better for our mental health and better for me as an individual.  Then I could spend less time online and more in the old fashioned, physical world. 

Not that the physical world comes without its challenges.

I had a very surprising moment yesterday, in St Stephen’s Green that I would like to share.

I was walking around the park anticlockwise, when I noticed a little girl was getting a lot of unwanted attention from a seagull, who was interested in her ice cream.  The gull hovered around the little girl, but then flew away onto other things.

As I overtook the girl on the outside, the seagull swooped down, to steal the ice cream from the little girl’s hand.  The seagull’s left wing was stopped in mid-air by my head, which was unfortunately straight in the flight path.  I could feel the weight and strength of the gull on me, and I needed to put my arms out to keep my balance.  For a moment, I looked straight into the gull’s little yellow eyes, and I was frightened, and I heard myself say “help”.

For three seconds, I could feel the entire warmth of the gull’s underwing on my forehead, and it felt like satin and silk.  The oddness of losing my balance and not being sure of what was happening, was outweighed by the silence under the plumage.  The smoothness of the bird was natural and comforting, and I turned my head into him further.

I think I could feel his heart beating.

Eventually, the seagull regained power over its own movement, and he detached himself from my head, and flew away.  The little girl looked surprised and at least two people near the bench were taking photos.  I felt shocked and embarrassed, but also strangely comforted from the connection, and the whole thing made me smile.

Did the seagull want the snack, or just to make contact?

Perhaps the seagull wanted to know what a human head felt like?

Who’s to know?

Sometimes when I think of Warwick it feels like a few summers ago.  When I then remember it was nearly 30 years ago, I feel disorientated.  It feels like a different person went there, one I recognise, but hardly know.  I can remember so many details of campus life, and the people and the long days.  Especially, I remember sitting on the grass under the trees, discussing life, love and everything.  Just like the other night, but this time on my bedroom floor, with the lights turned down low, drinking warm tea after a long day, and so happy to discuss once again, life, love and everything.