forgetfoot

I've been doing salsa classes with my wife Moira for the last 18 months or so. She started going to lessons and when I told people I was thinking of joining her, they laughed so hard that it sealed the deal. I trundle around the Claddagh hall for an hour every thursday evening for an hour as graceful and attractive as the latest SUV in the hands of Jeremy Clarkson. I've been in the intermediate class for a year now and have discovered that I have the dancing equivalent of a goldfish memory. Steps go in one gill and out the other. It's great. Every week is a voyage of discovery as I don the slidey shoes and venture out to the strains of very strange Spanishy versions of Beatles songs. This amnesia seems to be foot specific. I coach rugby to teenagers, and can name all 40+ players on the squad(after only two years). I play guitar and can remember the names of all the songs that I used to know how to play. I remember most of the digits of my pin numbers most of the time and only call my daughters by each other's names about half the time. What is it with dance?

manners

On the bus across town to work, Monday morning, four young lads get on complete with schoolbags, uniforms and really tight haircuts, ages vary from 10 or 11 down to about 8, I'm guessing. They all cram into two seats conspiritorially and after a brief converstaion one of the older lads starts to describe his weekend which involved:
Running away from two guys in cars because his brother told their sister she had got fat Sneaking out of the house and heading down salthill with a couple of teenage girls after midnight.
Hitting some fellah that he fell over a wall and landed on his dog.
The audience (myself included) listen in complete silence, hanging on every word
Then he turns to the guy sitting next to him and asks" and how was your weekend?".

Sun Spaniards and Sacraments

Busy weekend. Youngest lady did the first communion thang with great style and not too much fuss. Heard from eldest sun(oops freudian slip), who has arrived in Australia much to the relief of his mammy. He spent two days in Bangock and got badly sunburnt, which isn't too bad compared with what he could have ended up with. He's been a biteen obsessed with the fact that it would be winter by the time he got down under and has therefore been sunbathing at every opportunity. He nearly froze his nipples off, stripping every time the sun came out in Galway since Paddy's day. Went to Paco Pena Concert in the Town hall Thatre last night. Magic show. Nine Spaniards onstage creating magical music and dance and making as much noise as a medium sized town after winning the hurling All Ireland. Pity they weren't around last week. I would have voted for them!

voting

Went to the polling station at 7.45am, figuring I'd get there and do my thing before any canvass type people were awake. Voted and went to the bus stop to wait for a bus to work. In the rain. No bus for 45 minutes even though they were scheduled every 15 minutes. Went back to the polling station because I wanted to change my vote to the Greens to get them to sort the busses out, but they wouldn't let me. Bastards

blogging virginity

Having spent months and months reading blogs, I realise now I know absolutely nothing about computers. I think i saved a photo yesterday, meaning to put it on my profile, but its obviously floating out in the blogosphere as we speak. I hope to God it doesn't end up being photoshopped (whatever that is) and winding up on the front page of the Sun as "gay parish priest's secret shame", or worse, shaking Bertie's hand on a poster. Anyway we all survived yesterday's departure, although the house is very quiet. this is added to by the fact that son number two is in Dublin, working with Joe Higgin's election team. I think it must have been all the woody guthrie songs he heard as a child. Still it could have been worse. He heard a lot of John martyn growing up too!

aaargh i'm supposed to be grown up.

Evan,my eldest at 20, is heading off for the seemingly mandatory year in Australia today. It seems to have crept up on me. I mean, when did my baby boy get to this level of independence? It seems like yesterday i was off touring around Europe trying to find myself, only to wake up one morning to find I have a son the same age I was, embarking on a trip i wouldn't have dreamt of back then. Should I start to behave more conservatively and leave the devil-may-care attitude to those young and fit enough to carry it off? Have I been behaving more conservatively for years unbeknownst to myself? Is this where the mid-life crisis kicks in? If so, please shoot me if you see me wedged into a small convertable car in the next decade or so.