It’s been a week of achievement for your columnist, shunning the September Santa panic and then later learning to shun WhatsApp and other social media. To her surprise, she (eventually) found herself more productive ….
• ON a visit to a hair salon one morning last week (attending to the greys obviously, what else) I noticed an unusual energy in the air ... a frisson among the frizz if you will.
There was lots of anxious phone-checking going on among the clients and stylists and talk of waiting rooms and queues. Had Oasis announced another gig I wondered? Did the Taoiseach swing it in the end? No such luck: bookings were due to open shortly for one of Cork’s most popular Santas and everyone was in the starting blocks ready to pounce on the most sought-after weekend time slots.
I broke out in a bit of a sweat as I remembered what happened to me last year on this very date. I somehow managed to get locked out of my bank account (don’t ask), losing what had been a prime Santa slot and was only left with a random Tuesday at the end of November which of course I declined. I vowed never again would I put myself through such an ordeal and while I had slight FOMO the other morning looking at everyone else feverishly refreshing the booking page, my PTSD was stronger. I held firm.
I reckon we’ll be just grand without the bells and whistles Santa ‘experience’ this year and will go old school and visit one of his lesser-rated representatives. Who needs to make cookies with his elves anyway right? There was also a bit of chat in the salon about Halloween ‘experiences’ – from what I could make out it involves going someplace out of town to pick out your own pumpkin (there’s probably cookies involved too). I’m a child of the 80s (we just made masks from the back of cereal boxes and wore bin bags while all taking bites out of the same snap apple), so you’ll forgive me if I don’t have much tolerance for this sort of carry on. Each to their own, and all the rest.
• Anyway, can someone please tell me what is going on with the birds right now? They’ve gone ga-ga around our place, literally flying kamikaze style into windows and glass doors. I nearly dropped dead with fright the other morning after a pigeon went head first into the patio door. He (or she) stunned themselves (and me) in the process and then just sat there looking in at me as I made breakfast. He/she was positioned in the exact same spot as our old dog (RIP); it was uncanny, which got me wondering if the pigeon was actually our beloved pooch, reincarnated (I should point out that I was only a few sips into my first coffee. The mind goes to crazy places without caffeine).
I briefly contemplated bringing her/him in for a slice of toast but I don’t like touching birds and besides, I didn’t want to draw too much attention to the feathered creature in case our other (very much alive) dog bounded onto the scene, which wouldn’t have ended well for the pigeon. Also, I didn’t want to alert my smallie’s attention to the beaked-furball as we’d never have gotten out the door on time for school. Fortunately he/she was gone when I got back from the school run as I’m not sure what I’d have done. Pull the blind probably.
Columnist Emma had to go back to basics when her home internet connection failed. (Photo: Shutterstock)
• It was a trying week at times as our internet service was out for almost an entire day, and I’m embarrassed to say I hardly knew what to do with myself without it. I was fuming, and couldn’t have been more angry if the power was gone entirely. I had plenty of offline tasks to do, but I found that I couldn’t apply myself to any of them, and was just constantly clicking and checking to see if we had been reconnected. Addicted to the internet? Who me? Anyway, the following morning it happened again, and again I was raging but this time a little less so, and I set about doing some admin tasks that had been on the ‘to-do list’ for the entire summer that somehow I had never got around to. And guess what? I got them all done – and a bit more. It’s amazing what you can do without the distraction of WhatsApp and Instagram. Just saying.
• Part of my smallie’s homework this week was to complete a family tree. Now, I love a good family tree so I got really into it, and after a few phone calls to aunties, grannies and cousins, and thanks to some genealogy research my brother recently had done we were able to put together something fairly comprehensive. What struck me looking at our slightly wonky looking tree (she’s only eight!) was how the same names keep recurring over the generations and how lovely the older names are. We had a few Hannahs, Julias, Marys, Michaels, and Daniels. There was a Jeremiah or two, and a Cornelius, and some lovely old names that you don’t really hear any more like Lena and Nan.
Out of curiosity I looked up the most popular baby names last year, which according to the CSO, were Jack, Noah, James, Oisin, Fionn, Tadhg, Liam, Cillian, and Daniel. The girls were Grace, Fiadh, Emily, Sophie, Lily, Ellie, Mia, Amelia, Éabha and Ella. Compared to 50 years ago in 1973 when John and Mary were the most popular names, only James remains from the top 10 for either boys or girls. There were 152 babies called John in 2023, while 36 babies were called Mary. There you go now!
• Despite my lack of internet, I watched far more TV than I should have this week mainly because sleep is escaping me. I can fall asleep in seconds, but I’m wide awake within 20 minutes (you could set your clock) so rather than lie there being consumed by hatred for my soundly snoozing (and snoring) husband I’ve been abandoning the bed for the couch. I don’t recommend it if you want to feel even half human the next day but if you want to get any honest reviews of any new shows before you dive in, I’m your woman. In no particular order I’ve started The Perfect Couple on Netflix. Eve Hewson (Bono’s daughter) is great, the much-hyped Nicole Kidman is pretty awful but so far I’m really enjoying it, On RTÉ player I’ve seen a few episodes of Apples Never Fall (Annette Bening), which I’m loving and I’ve also caught up with The Boy that Never Was (new Sunday night drama on RTÉ 1), which I’m pretty indifferent to. In between I’ve also been watching some ‘eye-catching’ footage of George Clooney and Brad Pitt at the Venice Film Festival where they were promoting their new film Wolfs (due on Apple TV later this month).
Anyway, I’m hoping regular sleep patterns resume soon and I’m trying everything from blue-light bans, to chamomile tea, to magnesium, to warm milk with pepper to help induce some shut-eye. Actually, I haven’t tried the warm milk with pepper yet as it sounds so disgusting but it’s next on my list if all else fails. In the meantime, I’m here for any sleep remedies ... or more small screen recommendations.
*****
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