Where did the time go?

So Son number two is twenty one next week and is home from London for a few days, thereby ensuring a watertight alibi for the time of the death of the King of Pop. He's being exactly what every young person should be, a political activist. He was a very long baby, according to all the expert mammies twenty one years ago, and remains long today, about 6'3" (don't know what that is in euros)in his fundamentalist sandals. He has long hair and a sporadic beard giving him a look of one of the morte commercially successful apostles,(due to lack of obvious ribs). He still knows everything, which is good, because i started to lose that particular skill when i was about 18. It's nice to have him around have him around the place again, pottering about and playing a few bits and pieces on the piano or guitar, interacting with the other kids, who haven't seen him for six months or so. he's off into town shortly to man some stand complaining about Shell or Iran or the government or riverdance. Fair play to him!

The Weshtern Wampire and the Walwo Race

So the Volvo Ocean race, or the Walwo race as it's called by my Spiddal friends has proved a remarkabe happening. The city looks great the beaches spotless, the buzz is definately pre-recession decadence, the craic and music first rate. the place is wedged all day and night even by Galway standards, even by race week when the fianna Fail Tint was the place to be standards. Massive Sailing craft in the bay flanked by dozens of hookers and gleoteogs, ribs, dinghies and everything else that floats (apart from human turds, God be with the days) but Oh Lord what weather! Unimaginably wonderful sunshine for the past week! yes! A Whole fucking week of it!!! In Galway!!!! the whole experience has been surreal. The vast majority of Galwegians would have probably assumed it was going to be a flop that would be a further slap in the face to a country deflating quicker than a really quickly deflating baloon. But it's been glorious. The experience is as if someone told you that the real Santa only starts coming to you when you're forty. Everything in the previous thirty nine year's life experience tells you that it's just more bullshit designed to break you're spirit, until you wake up that morning to tjhe most wonderful (insert fantasy here). Fair play to ye walwo People of Galway, each and every one.
Unfortunately the bit of decent weather has me shuffling indoors to my dark smelly crypt for large periods of time due to the emergence of a shitload of pollen which is almost as irritating as canvassing politicians, or the people who canvass for the politicians who are too scared shitless to canvass themselves. Every year sees me snuffling and feeling my way along walls to my doctor's surgery for the annual steroid injection, fearlessly running the risk of arse puckering in the quest for relief. Hot yet this year however. I've been following advice I got from a nun and eating mostly radishes. I know, I know, it sounds like yet another chapter in the clerical abuse report, but so far the jury is out. This week has been the first week I've suffered with symptoms, which is about a month later than usual. now it's also been the wettest May in 14 million years which may be the cause. We'll see (or not as the case may be)

Deceit

My earliest memory is of looking out of a playpen at my father. He was in the living room carrying on a conversation with my mother who was in the kitchen. She would occasionally miss what he said and would ask him to repeat it. He would rephrase what he had originally said, which i found puzzling, so I assume I had a very limited vocabulary. I knew my mother was asking him to repeat something. I knew he was saying something different the second time around. Whereas I may have been mistaken in then jumping to the conclusion that he was deceiveing her the second time around, it may have been that i could sense something unspoken in his actions. There was a large amount of deceit going on, as we found out later when he left home and married his mistress of many years. however, before this happened, my parents came to an agreement that he would continue to live with us until my sister and i were finished school, so they then cooperated in keeping the deceit going. Growing up, I never had a great level of certainty about what was really going on and who or what to rely on. I remember as a young teenager I spent a lot of time in a friends house, where the several sibling and parents were constantly having standing up rows with each other and storming out and slamming doors, only to resolve their differences minutes later in waves of laughter and hugs. It took me a year or two to figure out that my family was the disfunctional one! but the worst deceit of all took place when I was three and my granfather bought me a red drum with pictures of soldiers on it for my birthday. My parents hid the drumsticks and told me it was a stool. I sat on that drum for a year. Probably explains my distrust of drummers ever since!

pin ups

Local election fever has kicked in on the streets and the villages of Galway, even if the only feverish people are the candidates i was driving through Oranmore yesterday on a family drive (remember those?) when among the thousands of posters we passed, I noticed a one picturing a young blonde with rather scary lipstick. Underneath her name, slogan, and sundry other information in a font so small that i practically had to park the car and stand onm the roof in order to make it out was the party name, Fianna Fail(The senior party in the current government). It was the first Fianna Fail poster I had seen so far. On another poster in the city centre I spotted a nicely suited, earnest looking gentleman whose face rang a bell. Then I remebered that I had had previous dealings with him many moons ago , in the early eighties when he did a passable line in Moroccan black. Only in Ireland!!

Where does the time go?

Just about recovered from last weekend spent with 41 12 year old rugby players on a trip to London. We had a great trip, played in Ealing and at London irish. Drank much cider, met my socialist son for a few very nice hours. It was a strange experience visiting the UK the weekend after a visit to France. London and it's environs felt more different, more foreign to me than did La Rochelle. Not sure why. There seems to be a different attitude about the place, as if everybody is within their own bubble and interaction with strangers isn't part of the plan. Eye contact seems to be seen as strange or threatening. Then again...maybe eye contact from a sunburnt hungover rugby coach may not be the most welcome sight in the world. Anyhoo, off to the land of the people who come from Cork for the weekend with the Fabulous Galway Gospel Choir. Other choirs go to the Cork Choral Festival to win. We just go to spread the love and make the world a better place for mankind, while spear tackling everything that looks like another choir.

The joys of good living

Spent most of last week in France with the Fabulous Galway Gospel Choir. We did two gigs and had a ball with a choir of lunatics from a French choir called Contre Ut et Maree, which means something very clever in French. The frivolity was compounded by the fact that I , being a good little catlick, had given up the dhrink for Lent, (with the exception of St. Patrick's day. Not drinking on the feast of the Patron Saint of Ireland is still a mortal sin, seemingly). I got happily soused on fumes. Roll on November. Heading off with a million under twelve rugby players to London this weekend for a blitz at London Irish. the kids will be fine, it's the half a million parents going with them that worry me!

Up and down the Wesht Coast

had two journeys over the weekend. Sunday I drove to a funeral in Doonbeg, Kilrush co. Clare, via Gort and Ennistymon, and came back on the coast road through Lahinch, Milltown Malbay, etc. The Burren was spectacularly beautiful in the evening sunshine and the bejewelled sea was a treasure. Monday Morning early left Galway with a car full of sleepy gospel singers in the pissing rain. Mike McGoldrick belted out of the speakers as we headed north through Ballinrobe and as we went on through Mayo towards Castlebar the clouds dispersed. After a quick coffee and pee break we drove on for Belmullet to sing at a wedding. Ry Cooder took over as we took the undulating route northwest through long expanses of bogland with mountains cutting the horizon. The sun beamed down on the countryside. The wedding was lovely, apart from the singing which was, well, lobvely too!:). We were very well looked after by Isobelle and Brian and their friends and family. Came back down the long and winding road with the Beatles singing in sympathy. What had seemed like a couple of chores over the bank holiday weekend ended up being thoroughly enjoyable. Sure It's a greeeeeeat little country really!