The Sound of the Night

My Slightly Nippy Dip in the Nip

2011-07-01T12:26:00.002-04:00

June 25th, 2011 Dunmoran Strand, Sligo, Ireland

Reflections on being part of The Dip in the Nip; baring our bums to save lives.

At 6am I was up, after far too little sleep, in the bathroom of our hotel room, painting flowers on my sister's bum cheeks! She'd already started on her front and covered herself in pink and white paint, making it decorative as she went along. Bleary-eyed, we carried on and later I added stick-on sparklies, donated by our friend, Marie, to my body. Marie looked gorgeous with her tan and sparkles.

We ate a light breakfast at 7am in the lobby of the hotel and then drove the 25 mins to Dunmoran Strand to join all the other Dippers (that's how we've become known since the first Dip in the Nip). Luckily, Marie has a 4-wheel drive so we were able to park on the beach.

The Men Get into Tribal Mode Before the Dip

People were already milling about in their bathrobes, many with pink wigs, ribbons and paint. We met a man, in full blue body paint, called Sebo, who had thrown himself into the cause. A live Irish music band played to us from the car park and then there was the beautiful Sile Seoige wanting to interview the three of us for her radio program later on. She was so sincere and asked great questions. She interviewed us again afterwards to ask us how we felt.

My sister and blue man, Sebo, who won Best Pink and Best Blue

Along the beach, there were three army tents, one for the food and registration, one for the men and one for the women. We were about 100 meters apart so our dignities would be protected at all times.

As we moved down to the women's tent, after a short Zumba class and lots of hiliarity, there was a real buzz as we milled about, our bodies covered, knowing we would soon be shedding everything and running into the sea.

The part I haven't mentioned is that is was by no means a warm day, not at all what you would expect in June and we were bundled up pretty well to protect from the chilly wind. The day before, it had poured rain non stop so now we were counting our blessings that it was only overcast and cold.

The mad dash in

Suddenly, the moment arrived and, as though in a dream, I dropped my robe,stepped out of my flip-flops and took off down the beach with about 350 women, all yelling and whooping. It all happened so fast that I could barely grasp it. I remember, in the middle of the pack, almost at the water, it struck me how beautiful everyone was. How glorious we were, as creatures, as women, as people who had suffered the slings and arrows of life, some of us with scars from cancer operations, some of us conscious of our size or shape yet all of us exhilarated, excited, high on the moment of liberation that would make a difference to so many people's lives. There was a steady hum as we plunged into the cold Atlantic and shrieks as we dipped ourselves in.

Maire Garvey and Sile Seoige after the Dip

Sile Seoige said afterwards, on her radio show, that she was struck by how we all ran hell for leather to get to the water, as though it would cover us and protect us, yet, when we came out of the ocean, we sauntered along the beach, not a care in the world, as though our fears and worries had been left behind in the chilly waves.

The camaraderie was infectious. Everyone was on equal terms, our insecurities wiped away the moment we committed to it, to dropping our covers and baring ourselves to each other.

Cute angels

The fact that we were doing it to raise money for cancer charities and, in particular, head cooling machines for patients undergoing chemotherapy, made it more powerful, more meaningful and mixed the emotions of loss, celebration, joy, exhilaration and courage.

I will, from that moment on, always associate healing from cancer with what we did that morning. Collectively, we sent out a huge message that we can do something to help people suffering from cancer and perhaps prevent it too.

I am still raising money, until July 28th, so please, please help me reach my goal. It will help so many people.

Here's where you can donate: Maya's Dip in the Nip

The men rush in

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS DONATED SO FAR. YOUR HELP IS HUGELY APPRECIATED AND WILL GO TO HELPING PEOPLE WITH CANCER AND TO BUYING A SCALP COOLER (OR TWO IF WE RAISE ENOUGH MONEY!) TO HELP PREVENT HAIR LOSS DURING CHEMOTHERAPY. OUR AIM IS TO HAVE A SCALP COOLER IN EVERY HOSPITAL.

All photos by Frances Muldoon and James Connolly except Blue Man and my sister, which is by me.

The Dip in the Nip

2011-06-10T07:39:00.001-04:00

On Saturday June 25th, my sister Luarena and I will be joining up to 500 other women at a beach in north west Ireland (location disclosed on the day for reasons you'll see below!). It's called The Dip in the Nip.

We're running into the sea in our altogethers. As in:

NAKED

NUDE

IN THE NIP

IN THE BUFF

It was all dreamed up by Máire Garvey after she went to see a psychic who told her she saw her in the sea, naked, with loads of other women! An idea was born and now, three years later, she's expecting about 500 women to partake. The money goes to cancer charities in Ireland and this year we are also raising money for head cooling machines which help to prevent hair loss during chemotherapy.

AMAZING

Even more amazing is that it's actually ILLEGAL to be naked publicly in Ireland but, just to show how stupid that is, the Army and the Gardai (Police) will out be out to protect our dignity and keep prying eyes away.

Here's an wonderful video, presented by Terry Wogan, on the BBC.

Síle Seoige, one of our top TV and radio personalities will be broadcasting her show, Shenanigans with Síle on Newstalk FM, from the location that day.

I have asked all my friends, followers on Twitter, family members and my entire mailing list to please donate €1 each to help me raise money for this cause.

Here's my fundraising page: Maya's Dip in the Nip

Ah, go on, give €1, it's less than the price of a cup of coffee.

A thousand thanks.

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2011-06-07T12:35:00.001-04:00

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2011-06-07T12:32:00.001-04:00

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Emmylou Harris - More Than Just Great Music

2011-05-30T06:19:00.000-04:00

On Saturday last, my birthday, I was lucky enough to go to see Emmylou Harris in concert at the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin. It was a wonderful experience for many reasons.

Number one is that I WON the tickets!! The theatre had a competition on their Facebook page (just goes to show how good social media can be!)

I usually never win things so thought this was amazing!

Number two is that I got to go with my lovely friend, Anne McCallion. Anne is a dog lover and has three gorgeous Bichon Frises. It turns out Emmylou is also a dog lover and takes her dogs on tour with her in the US and she runs a dog rescue at her home in Nashville called Bonaparte's Retreat. We both thought this was so inspiring.

Madison

Number three is that the Grand Canal theatre is gorgeous and a wonderful addition to the Dublin landscape. It's in a great location, right beside Grand Canal Dock and is part of a big square with restaurants and apartments.

Number four is that we had dinner in Ely Wine Bar across the square (my birthday present from Anne!) and had a wonderful meal, the best steak I've had in ages. It was great to eat and then walk across the square to the show as well as being able to park underneath the theatre. Finally, convenience for the customers was taken into consideration in a venue in Dublin!

Number five, the show was amazing. Emmylou has been a favourite of mine since I was 17 and that's going back into the mists of time! She has an extraordinary voice and gets me in the heartstrings every time I hear her. Her band was wonderful and created an enormous sound in the theatre. She played some of my all time favourite songs too, like Together Again, which always makes me cry.

There was only one downside: the audience seemed dead, for the most part. There were pockets of enthusiasm dotted about the auditorium but, for the most part, it seemed like nothing was going to get them going. When I saw Emmylou at the National Stadium 2 years ago, the place was alive with noise and excitement. People shouted comments and requests up to Emmylou on the stage and there was a good bit of banter back and forth. There was riotous response to almost every song and she got three encores a continuous standing ovation at the end.

Not so in The Grand Canal Theatre. I can't understand why only that perhaps the theatre was a more sedate place to be and people felt constrained. I don't know if that was the reason but I was very disappointed in the response. She only got a smattering of people on their feet at the end (Anne and I included) and only one encore. What's up,Dublin? Was the the venue or the act? I can't imagine it was the act and the venue is lovely. I just don't get it.

Another thing that came out of the evening for me was that Emmylou is looking for help to support the dog rescue centre, Bonaparte's Retreat and has joined forces with another group in Nashville who help get homeless people off the street. The idea is to get the people who've been rescued to take care of the rescue dogs! What a great idea. If you want to help out, contact them on their Facebook page here: Bonaparte's Retreat

2011-04-15T07:50:00.000-04:00

Transported by Food: A Brief Culinary Journey in Andalucía

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Tripping

This is another delicious guest post from Maya Hanley. She has recently returned from a tumultuous Spanish journey. See how she made it through with the help the local cuisine.

Our Christmas was off to an icy start with unexpected arctic weather and closed airports. Needless to say we were delayed in our arrival at Albuñuelas, only to find that the house we had rented was cold, damp and unliveable. Despite the late start (and later, my sister’s broken foot which ended the trip prematurely) we are very grateful for the new friendship we forged with the wonderful couple who rescued us, put us up and fed us.

David Crockett and his lovely wife Lorna own a B&B, a beautifully converted house in the middle of the village of Albuñuelas (phone: +34 6 3604 3596). David is an avid cook and thrilled us with his culinary delights, like paella with pork and spinach and Moroccan fish tajine. Oh, and lots of local wines!

The next day, we headed into Granada and searched out a place that looked appetising. Eventually, on the main street off Plaza Nueva, we found SECO, a restaurant featuring mainly seafood. It was lunch time so the place was crowded. One thing I have noticed in Spain is that most people eat lunch out, usually very quickly and efficiently. A lot of them will stand at a counter, have a beer and some tapas and head back to work.

We ordered grilled asparagus with garlic and olive oil, grilled oyster mushrooms with a similar sauce, hearts of lettuce salad with a roasted garlic dressing that was red with paprika and utterly divine, baby red mullets deep fried whole in light batter and large, shelled tiger prawns, also deep fried in a light batter. Our table was groaning under all the plates and I think the waiter thought our eyes were definitely bigger than our bellies. But he didn’t know us and our capacity to swoon over perfectly crisp asparagus dripping in local olive oil or our penchant for trying to figure out exactly what was in a dish. It wasn’t cheap (€52 for two of us with wine) but we ate the lot and would highly recommend it.
The following day, up in the high Alpujarras at a temperature of about 5C, we came across a roadside inn, Bodega Guillermo, just outside of Pampaneira, again right at lunch time. This time, it was filled with Spanish hikers and they all looked hungry. We ordered from the menu, not really knowing what we were getting and we were not disappointed. One of the best things I have eaten in ages was a soup, more like a stew, called Potaje a la Gitanilla. It was made with pork bones cooked to the point where the soup turned to jelly as soon as it cooled. The main soup base was then added to with chickpeas, pork offal and chorizo. The offal part might not be to everyone’s taste but the flavour was so robust you could feel it sticking to your ribs as you ate. With it we had a tomato and garlic salad, heavy on the garlic, crusty bread and delicious coffee – well worth the €25 for the two of us, including a glass of wine and a liqueur to warm us.

For those hours we spent exploring the cafes and restaurants of Andalucía, we forgot all about our trials and tribulations. That’s the beauty of food – it transports you to another place; in our case, a place we will never forget.
Craving more? Be sure to read about Maya’s “Swedish delights”, check out her blog, and stay tuned for more tasty thoughts from this epicurean Tripper.

A Visit to Cobh

2011-04-07T07:35:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday, my darling sister, Luarena, gave me a belated Christmas present of a stay at Fota Island Spa Hotel near Cobh, Co. Cork. As some of you will know, Cobh is our hometown and a place we all still miss in some ways. I know I do and feel great nostalgia for the place.

Fota Island Spa had a great deal on: €109 for two people sharing including the use of the Hydrotherapy Suite and Hammam. Other services were extra. We took a look at the Hydrotherapy pool and loved what we saw and decided to skip extras as we were on a budget. As it turned out, we made a good choice and spent hours in the pool, which was lovely and warm, enjoying the water that gushed onto our necks, working out those kinks and a 'river' that went in a circle around a big pillar and forced you around very quickly. I spent hours in that, loving every minute of it. There were jets that pummeled your feet and legs, your back and, best of all, a giant geyser that forced water onto whatever part of the body you wished. I tried standing on it and it made my feet tingle really nicely as well as massaging my knees and back and stomach. We went from one spot to another for a good two hours until we were so prune-like it was definitely time to get out.

After that we hit the Hammam and breathed in the eucalyptus fraganced steam, warming our bodies on the tiles for about 15 minutes. We had left our bathrobes and magazines in another resting room that has beds that are heated. When we went back in, we found someone had taken my sister's seat, thrown her robe on the floor and was reading her magazine. When my sister asked her for her magazine back, the woman sneered at her and reluctantly handed it over! Some manners..

We had dinner in our room, served by a wonderful waitress who couldn't have been more helpful and charming and watched the Dancing on Ice final. Luarena, who is a night bird normally, fell asleep at 10.30pm after a bath in the wonderfully deep tub in our bathroom. I, for some reason, couldn't sleep at all and ended up awake until about 4.30am going through one of those dark nights of the soul that are so awful.

The next day, we headed to our hometown and went straight up to our old house, Roseville, a late Georgian house that even today to our grown-up selves looks big. It was lovely to see the place being cared for, except for the horrible plastic windows they'd put in. I know, I know, they're cheaper and they work. But they look awful and I wish they would make plastic windows that look less plastic!

After that we went down the the beach we used to swim at, Cuskinny and had a bit more nostalgia - not all of it good. When I was a little over three, we went swimming there and my oldest sister put me in a rubber ring, an inner tyre I think, and my bum was stuck down in the hole and suddenly a wave came and tossed me over and I was upside down breathing in water. It scared the living daylights out of me and, to this day, the thought of water getting up my nose panics me and I have never been able to jump into water out of my depth because of it. It made me think, again, about doing something to get over this fear because I love water, the sea, the ocean, lakes, boats, fishing and all that. I envy people who can jump into water and swim like fish.

Going back to Cobh always brings up memories of our childhood and how much we loved it there. From the moment we left Cobh, nothing was ever the same again.

World Wide Wed - A Moroccan Marriage

2011-03-30T08:12:00.000-04:00

Originally posted on Tripping.com on March 29, 2011

Most non-Moroccans don't ever get to experience a Moroccan wedding so it was a real privilege to attend one and see what it's like. To be fair, this particular Moroccan wedding was not exactly typical because the bride was European so a lot of her friends and family attended, making the events slightly different than they might have been otherwise.

For the bride, one of the most fun parts is being able to wear multiple wedding gowns, or takshitas, and what gowns they are! They are made of silk and lace and come in layers of two or three parts. The dresses are made to order and each one is created using the traditional Moroccan sfifa, the braiding that is used on the edges and complements the colours in the fabrics. The more money you have to spend, the more dresses you get to wear. Aside from being very glamorous, it can be exhausting changing every hour or so.

About 250 guests attended, of which 65 were non-Moroccans. The Moroccans went all out to make sure that the foreign guests were made very welcome and even combined the sexes for the Henna party the day before. This being Rabat, the wedding party was probably a bit more sophisticated than most as normally the men and women are separate until the actual wedding ceremony when everyone comes together. The Henna party is when the bride has her hands and feet painted with Henna patterns and would usually be told the secrets of marriage. In this case, it was a big party, with huge amounts of food, all special recipes just for weddings, and a troupe of musicians who all looked decidedly high on something. The bride and groom were walked into the room with attendants carrying candles and incense, all the women ululating in unison. It was cacophonous and spine tingling.

The following day, when all the guests were assembled and the band playing, the bride, wearing her white dress, emblazoned with sequins and beads and silver braided sfifa, was carried overhead in a highly decorated palanquin, by four strong men. As she entered the hall, the crowd rose in one ululating swarm, throwing rose petals all over her. After her came her groom on a white horse, its saddle and bridle bright red and highly decorated. The horse wore blinders so as not to be disturbed by the swaying, chanting crowd. Flash bulbs were going off nonstop - it was a bit like being at a rock concert.

The bride and groom were placed on a specially decorated dais, hung with flowers and lights and were left to sit there for the entire evening, only moving to change their clothes five more times!

To cement the marriage, the bride and groom are brought dates and milk on a tray and their wedding rings on a cushion. They feed each other the dates and milk as a symbol of their love for each other and then place the rings on each other's fingers. There is no officiating religious entity, just the families and friends to witness it as they had been legally married by a judge some months earlier.

People took it in turns to be photographed with the bride and groom and eventually they were given some tea to ease their parched throats. Enormous amounts of food were served and eventually the dancing started. I noticed that some of the Europeans kept disappearing for longer and longer periods and eventually discovered that there was a stash of alcohol in someone's room. Some of the relations of the groom had said they would not come if there was alcohol served so the solution has been to keep it somewhere else. Very effective as no one seemed to notice that a few people were getting a bit merrier than the rest.

For a country where women are encouraged to be demure, I always find it fascinating how sexy they are when they dance and how much the men love to watch them. All the women were dressed in their finest takshitas, only the married or older ladies with their hair covered with matching scarves. They are so graceful and beautiful when they dance and even the small girls seem to be born being able to move their hips the right way. Some of the younger women with long hair would toss it around and around as they danced.

Weddings start really late in Morocco - 9pm would be early! By the time the bride had changed five times, all the photos had been taken and the constant supply of food exhausted, it was about 4am. Once the oldest people had left, the younger crowd got together in someone's room, with the bride and groom, and more wine was imbibed and photographs taken.

It was an experience not likely to be repeated; a memory to be treasured forever.

Photo credit to Maya Hanley, Muslim Proposals, WeddingRed.net, and Marios Savva.

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Little French Girl with a Vivid Imagination

2011-01-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

I came across this via a friend on Twitter and had to share it with you. This little girl has a wonderful imagination and very fluent use of language, regardless of whether she were speaking English, French or any other language. It's adorable:

Enjoy!

The Temptation of a Swedish Christmas

2011-01-08T12:14:00.000-05:00

First published on Tripping.com, a US website dedicated to all things travel related.

THE TEMPTATION OF A SWEDISH CHRISTMAS

I lived in Sweden for 5 years and still miss it now that I am no longer there. It's a country that everyone should visit. The summers are glorious, filled with light and greenery and the coastal areas are wonderful to explore. Bohuslän, which is the coast area around Göteborg, on the west coast, is stunningly beautiful with an archipelago of large and small islands. You might take your boat out to a small island; just big enough to have a small cabin with steps down to the boat and picnic there, swimming off the rock and relaxing. People spend most of the time outdoors in the summer as the winters are so long and dark but, even so; winter is also a gorgeous time. With bright blue skies and deep snow, the outdoors in winter can be exciting and, if you like skiing and skating, it is a wonderful place to be.

One of the things I loved about Sweden was the ritualistic nature of life there. There are countless traditions that pass from generation to generation. For example, there are certain foods you only eat at certain times of the year or on certain days of the week. Things like hot cross buns in the UK, which used to be eaten only on Good Friday, are now eaten for weeks or months around Easter. In Sweden, at Easter, they make wonderful cardamom flavoured buns called Semlor (that's plural; one is a Semla). The top is cut off; the center scooped out and filled with a marzipan mixture, covered in whipped cream and the topped with the rest of the bun. Some people like to eat it in a bowl of hot milk. I liked it just as it was. I knew that it was only going to be around for a short while so, I, like everyone else, indulged when I got the chance.

One of the other great traditions in Sweden is having coffee and cakes. They even have a whole verb for it. It's called to 'fika'. If you visit someone, they will invariably serve you coffee that's extra strong, with small cakes and biscuits. It's said that, in the past, when a woman was to be married she had to know at least 40 different types of biscuit recipes.

Each day of the week has its own food. Husmanskost is the name for traditional Swedish food. If you go into any Swedish restaurant, they will always have the daily meal on the menu. On Thursdays, it's pea soup with ham, served with warm punsch, a sweet alcoholic liqueur. On Fridays it's Pyttipanna, a sort of hash with potatoes, left over meats, topped with a fried egg and with a side order of beetroot.

Another favourite is Jansson’s Frestelse (Jansson’s Temptation). A traditional part of the Christmas meal, it’s very easy to make. Here’s a good recipe:

NOTE: The spice-cured sprats mentioned can be substituted with herring pickled with spices and onions. If you live near an IKEA store, you can easily get the right of herring or sprats. Sometimes people mistranslate the Swedish ‘ansjovis’ as anchovies but they’re actually sprats. If you like, you can use anchovies but don’t add any salt and be sparing with them, to your taste.

Ingredients

6–8 servings

1.2 kg (2½ lb) potatoes
400 g (14 oz) onions
375 g (13 oz) spice-cured sprat filets (or pickled herring)
600 ml (3 cups) heavy whipping cream
salt, white pepper
breadcrumbs
butter

Preparation

· Peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices. Peel and cut the onions also into thin slices.

· Sauté the onions in a little butter, without browning.

· Grease an ovenproof baking dish and cover the bottom with a layer of potatoes, then add half the onions and half the sprat (or herring) filets.

· Then add another layer of potatoes, then the rest of the onion and sprats.

· Finish with a layer of potatoes.

· Add some ground black pepper and a little salt (Be careful with salt as the sprats (or herrings) are usually quite salty.

· Pour the cream over until it is almost visible through the potatoes.

· Place a few pats of butter on top and sprinkle with a good handful of breadcrumbs.

· Bake in the oven (250oC/475oF) for about an hour.

Quellie's Almond Cake

2011-01-07T18:42:00.001-05:00

While I was in the UK at Christmas with my most favourite aunt on the entire planet, she made one of the most delicious desserts I have ever had. She gave me the recipe and,today, for the first time in at least 20 years, I made a cake! The even better part is that it contains no flour or gluten of any kind and it's dead easy to make.

Here's the recipe:

Almond Cake with Raspberries and Amaretto Cream

2 medium oranges

1 lemon

250g ground almonds

250g caster sugar

6 medium eggs

1 large tsp baking powder

slivered almonds

Fresh berries (raspberries are perfect)

Whipped cream

Amaretto (if desired)

Boil the oranges and lemon, whole, in enough water to cover for 1 1/2 hours. Strain and remove any seeds from the fruit but keep the skin, pith and flesh. (The left over water can make a nice syrup for other recipes, if you add sugar and simmer to reduce it.)

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Add the entire fruits to a bowl and blend till smooth (or use a food processor of course). Add the ground almonds, the caster sugar, the 6 eggs and the baking powder and blend well.

Pour into a greased cake tin (about 9 in diameter) or a springform cake tin so it's easy to remove (that's the best option if you have it)

Sprinkle the slivered almonds on top and bake in a pre-heated oven at 170C for one hour. The first 40 minutes cover the cake with tinfoil to avoid it getting too dark and the slivered almonds getting burned. After one hour, check the centre with a knife or similar and, if it's still wet, leave for a further 10 mins or turn the oven off and take it out when the oven has cooled. Allow it to cool in the cake tin and then remove to a plate and serve with berries and whipped cream either mixed with Amaretto or plain, as desired.

You will love this recipe. It's slightly bitter from the oranges and lemon, sweet from the sugar and smooth from the almonds. Nothing could be nicer.

Here's my aunt, Quellie, who gave me the recipe. Isn't she gorgeous?

Feel free to share it with your friends and family.

What's your favourite dessert?

Mindful Knitting

2010-12-11T07:31:00.001-05:00

I learned to knit when I was about four and a half. I didn't get good at it till later, of course, but I remember being in school and, tongue sticking out, trying to get the wool around the needles and pull it through the loop to make a stitch. It felt like a huge achievement every time I managed it. I remember the classroom, with it's small children's chairs and tables, the pale wood of the floor, polished to a high shine, the smell of the lino in the hallway and the rustle of the nun's habit as she glided, seemingly on wheels, between the tables, to see how we were doing. I was inordinately proud of myself that day and raced home to my mother to tell her what I had accomplished. For some reason, it came easily to me and I turned into the knitter in the family.

From Craftism.wordpress.com

I knitted jumpers for everyone I knew. I crocheted 'cloche' hats with flowers on the side which I wore over my long curly hair. I made them for my sisters and friends. I knitted egg cozys and mittens, on four needles; socks; baby clothes; anything and everything. I have knitted countless sweaters for husbands, boyfriends and lovers.

For many years I didn't knit because I had a job that meant I was traveling all the time. I was usually too tired to do anything at the end of the day but read a bit and sleep so all my crafts went by the wayside. I missed it.

From Rowan Yarns

When I came back to Ireland, my sister called me in a panic one day because her daughter was knitting something for the first time and my sister couldn't remember how to cast off. She said 'I'll be the worst mother in the world if I don't do this for her!' I was about to open my mouth to tell her what to do when I realised I couldn't remember myself!

It made me realise, though, how much I missed knitting and so I took it up again. I became a wool acquisitor. Everywhere I went I bought skeins or balls of wall, whether or not I had a pattern for it. I found gorgeous red cashmere skeins in Venice. I bought patterns, books and wool in Amsterdam in a little shop I found called De Afstap. I haunted that place. I had a growing pile of wool but was traveling so much I rarely had time to actually knit anything and, when I did, it usually took months of picking it up and putting it down. I ended up with boxes of non-started or half-started projects.

Flash forward a few more years and my collection of yarns has traveled with me from country to country and at last I am in a place, both physically and figuratively, where I can knit. I share a house with my wonderful friend, Hazel, and her two amazing daughters, Ishthara and Kashmira, Hazel is a knitter too and we oohed and aahed over each other's collections of wool and patterns.

I had had a pattern and yarn for a small handbag in cable knitting, that I had got as part of a free gift from Rowan International and had stared at it many times wondering how to do it. I had never tried cable as it always seemed an insurmountable learning curve. One day, I just decided to get cable needles and give it a go. I found it was easier than I thought but that I really had to focus on the pattern to get it right. The bag was knitted, I was very proud of it, despite the, to me, obvious mistakes in it. So I decided to knit it again in a different colour. (Remember, I have mountains of yarns to use!).

At the same time, I had discovered the joys of audio books and was listening to Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I realised that listening to the book and knitting would be a great combination so, every evening, I retired to my room, set up my PC on my bed with headphones and got my knitting out.

To my surprise, I realised that my knitting improved dramatically! I had always had loose tension when knitting and usually had to go down a size in needles to accommodate this as otherwise whatever I was knitting came out too big or loose. I also often made mistakes and had a few stitches that were bigger or smaller than the others, or I dropped a stitch without noticing.

Knitting listening to my book, I concentrated on every stitch I made and was able to watch everything I did. I had always knitted in front of the television and, of course, you are then either not watching the knitting or not watching the TV. Now, I was watching everything and listening at the same time.

See the difference in the size?

The first cable bag was made watching television. The second listening to my book. The difference between the two bags is the difference between doing something mindlessly or mindfully. After more than 40 years of knitting (with a hiatus for travel), I had found the secret to making my knitting sing.

Not only did the second bag come out smaller, tighter and better knitted, I had a sense of accomplishment that I had missed for a long time. I felt elated at this discovery. I noticed that by knitting mindfully I was also able to knit it in two sittings. I noticed that when I was knitting I felt like I thought my mother felt when she knitted for us. I felt she was with me, inside me, moving my hands and saying 'See, darling, how good you can be when you put your mind to it'.

See how much looser this is to the one below?

Now, I am going through my box of yarns and patterns, wading my way through the Outlander series on audio books (all 300+ hours of it) and finishing all the half started or never started projects I've dragged all over the world with me.

What have you always wished you had accomplished?

BBC's 100 Best Books List

2010-11-30T18:42:00.000-05:00

The idea is to copy this list, post it in your blog or on Facebook or wherever. BOLD the ones you've read and italicise the ones you've started or dipped into.

I find the list quite odd in some ways. Dan Brown makes it but not Hemingway or Vonnegut? Fun nevertheless. See how many you've read.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6. The King James Bible

7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four (1984) – George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34. Emma -Jane Austen

35. Persuasion – Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell

42. The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50. Atonement – Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52. Dune – Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses – James Joyce

76. The Inferno – Dante

77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal – Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession – AS Byatt

81. Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94. Watership Down – Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Browsing in a Second Hand Bookstore Can Change Your Life

2010-09-06T13:25:00.002-04:00

When I was a young woman, about 17-18, I was living in Dublin and, of course, never had much money. I have always and still do adore reading and so used to spend a lot of my time in second hand bookstores.

There used to be one on the street where the Stephen's Green shopping centre is now, across from Stock Design (where, incidentally, I worked until I left Ireland for Sweden at 19 years of age). I used to haunt that bookshop and often found real gems, like my favourite Herman Hesse novel, Narcissus and Goldmund. I used to also look for my father's books, of which there were many at the time. I don't think they are as available now as they used to be. I loved finding The Year of the Lion, The Consul at Sunset or See You in Yasukuni. I loved finding his books as it made me feel proud to have him as a father. At that time, most of his books were still in print and he went on to write a couple more before completely drying up.

The only one of his 8 books published at the time that I had not yet found in this shop, or anywhere else, was The Journey Homeward, which was set in India. It was the only book, at that point, that was about India as most of the others were set in Africa. I wanted it to complete my collection. I had multiple copies of most of the others and used to give them as gifts to close friends sometimes.

On my 18th birthday, my oldest sister and her husband took my twin and I out for dinner. Before we went out to Howth to the King Sitric, we went for a drink in what was then the Berni Inn off Grafton Street. There, Jacquie told us about the real reason why there was an almost 11 year age gap between herself and our next sister, three years older than my twin and me.

It turned out that my father and mother had moved to England after WWII, from Kenya where they had met and fallen in love. My father as going to work for the BBC and other organisations, as a writer and journalist. He got a job working on a movie about the Partition of India and headed off to Delhi, leaving my mother and a, by now, 3 year old Jacquie. While in India, he met a fascinating Indian woman who had been brought up by a proper English spinster and educated in England. She was also working on the same project. He fell in love with her and divorced my mother, by proxy, in England, leaving her stranded there with no money and a small child in post-war Britain. Eventually, my mother and sisters (she had a child from another, very short-lived, relationship sometime after my father had left her) were repatriated to Kenya by the government there.

My father lived in England and India with his new wife and had two sons with her. In 1954, he went back to Kenya looking for my mother as he had had, what has been referred to in letters I have read, as a crisis of conscience about his Catholic faith and the fact that, according to the Catholic church, his first wife was his only 'true' wife (despite the fact that they had had a civil marriage in Nairobi in the midst of WWII). He persuaded my mother to return to him, leaving his Indian wife and two young boys to fend for themselves in India. She, tenacious woman that she was, moved them all the Kashmir and had a farm up there and a menagerie of animals. My half brother, Peter, has written some wonderful stuff about this time which he hopes to have published soon.

Back to Dublin and being told this extraordinary story (there is, in fact, much more to it but you have to wait for my memoir to hear the entire thing).

My jaw was on the floor hearing that I had two half brothers and a half sister somewhere in the world. It had never, ever dawned on me that this could be the reason for the enormous gap of 11 years and then the flurry of babies after that (two pairs of twins and three more singles). I was in some sort of shock about it and, as was typical of me at that time, I suppressed how I really felt and it took many, many years to process all of it. So many secrets and so many lies. So much stored up guilt and blame. Now a lot of what had happened was starting to make sense to me but I was not prepared for everything that came afterwards.

Two days later, I was again in the second hand bookshop. There, on a low shelf, almost hidden away, I came across a copy of The Journey Homeward. I bought it. I opened up the paper bag in the street outside and took the book out to have a look through. I could never wait to read the opening paragraph of any book I bought.

On dedication page it said: To my wife, Asha, with love.

My mother's name is Diana.

Catching Up

2010-07-28T11:49:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't posted anything for ages now but it's because I have made the decision to move from Toronto earlier than originally planned and have had a mad time dealing with the most horrific heatwave and living with no air conditioning during it. That turned into a massive cold and a perforated ear drum on the flight back to London. From there I spent a week in Wales and Cornwall with Mark and had an amazing time although it stirred up LOTS of stuff for both of us and now we are working on the outcome of that. All good stuff but lots of learning in the process. I have then had to catch up with client work and so haven't had time to really process what I want to say here. I promise to come back to is at soon as I can, with updates, news, thoughts and plans for the future. As a teaser - I am looking into studying to be a Master Herbal Medicine practitioner. Very excited about this.

Back soon.........

Glendalough

2010-06-21T15:00:00.001-04:00

As some of you may know, I grew up near Glendalough, just outside a village called Roundwood in Co.Wicklow. Glendalough was, in a sense, our back yard. We used to go there with our mother and set up a camp beside the river, build a fire in which we would put tinfoil wrapped potatoes so they cooked in the embers and Mum would set up a kettle over it to make lovely smoky tea. We would splash about in the river, explore the woods, sing songs and gambol about. Of course, nowadays you can't light a fire and you even have to pay exorbitant fees just to park near the lake. It makes me furious in a way. I went there recently and was so incensed that I had to pay some ridiculous amount of money to only stay one hour (you can't pay by the hour!!) and felt it was like having to pay to get into my own garden. I left in a huff.

Despite that, Glendalough has to be one of the most wonderful places on this planet. Everyone who goes there feels it. If you spend any real time there, it seeps into you bones and gives you magical dreams. When my mother dies, which might be soon, we have promised to spread her ashes in Glendalough, one of the places she loved the most. I know she will be at peace there and it will make each journey back even more special, knowing that a part of our mother rests in the breezes and ancient mystical nooks there.

The river by which we picnicked as children. Take by Maya Oct 2009

Here is a wonderful poem written by Orna Ross called At Glendalough:

At Glendalough

After walking through the ruins of seven churches

head tilting back to look

to the top

of the tower that took the round of Kevin’s steeple,

and jutted it up three times as high,

from earth to sky

to mark the ground you walk upon

as holy;

after circling green lake-paths

that urged you up to top the waterfall,

or higher, and being stopped

and stopped again,

by sightings of bare mountain

dropping sheer, sliced

by a mesh of rivers and falls emptying

all

into the two, long lakes

that somehow take

their gush and hold it

still;

then you will know

the allure of here,

as of all the places we call sacred,

is the silence,

and you will hear the voice

of your own blood

dropping

into the deep.

Drowning in Fear

2010-06-11T16:13:00.001-04:00

As part of my participation in Bindu Wiles' 21 days of Yoga and writing, we are tasked today with writing about fear. I could write about all kinds of fears and have been ruminating about that all day today. I decided to write about something I am really afraid of that is more external.

Falling into water.

There are two separate, or combined, theories about why I am afraid of falling into water. The first one is pre-verbal. I wrote about this in a much earlier post about the death of my brother, called The Drowning of Diarmuid. I have no doubt that this affected my twin sister and me on a very deep level as she also has fears around water. We were only about 6 months old when it happened but the trauma of that would have been embedded in our mother's body. sShe was still breast feeding us at the time. How that transfers I don't really understand but there is no doubt in my mind that it did.

The second theory is about something that happened to me when I was about 3 and a half. We were living in Cobh, Co. Cork at the time and one day my older sister and her friend took us to Cuskinny, the beach nearby. There were small waves splashing about and I remember we were near a slip. My sister put me sitting in an inner tube from a car, a great flotation device. A wave came and knocked me over so I was upside down in the water with my bum stuck down in the hole of the inner tube. I breathed in a lot of water and when she finally grabbed me and put me upright, I was filled with water and terror. I hated the sensation of water going up my nose and burning and the horrible choking feeling of it. She comforted me as best she could and I don't remember much of what happened after that. The actual event is etched in my memory and gets re-kindled every time I try to get comfortable in water.

The Slip at Cuskinny where I fell in

The funny part is that I love the sea, lakes, rivers, being on boats and anything to do with water. I just can't bear the thought of falling in. When I was younger and we would go to the beach I would have to tell everyone to please not mess with me in the water as I might drown them in a panic if the pushed me under or played around like that. I found that the more time I spent in water, the less afraid I would get but then another year would go by till it was warm enough to swim again and I would have to start all over again.

Being out of my depth terrifies me. I did get to a point, when I lived in Sweden, of being able to swim from the metal ladder pinned on a cliff, out into the open sea for a few yards and back, without panicking. But I would often find that I would be going along fine and then panicky thoughts would start and my breathing would tighten and then I would have to rush to grab something as I was sure I was going to sink immediately.

This is how I want to feel

The one time when I finally felt I was getting somewhere with this fear was with a friend who had an indoor pool. She got me to get goggles that covered my nose too and she showed me how to swim with my head in the water. With my nose covered, my fear of the water going up it and choking me went away. I found I was very comfortable under the water, more so than on top of it! In fact, I was so comfortable that I had an almost irresistible urge to breathe under there. I could see the deep end, all 8 feet of it, further down the pool and it looked perfectly benign. Yet, when I had my head above the water, that 8 foot depth seemed terrifying and dangerous. I even learned to duck dive a bit and loved it. If only I had had more than one day there at her house.

I can actually swim, very badly. I would love to find someone with the patience to help me over this fear. I wish so much I could just jump off a boat or a diving board into the water and not be afraid. It would be one of the most liberating things I could imagine.

It's on my list of things to do before I die. Hopefully, I won't leave it too much longer.

Tibetan Breakfast and Ethiopian Dinner

2010-06-09T10:50:00.000-04:00

TIBET

Last Friday, June 4th, my sister, Jacquie and I were invited to have a traditional Tibetan breakfast with old friends of my sister. Their names are Genyen and Tashi Jamyaling (I hope I spelled them correctly). We arrived at their house in the Markham area of Toronto and were ushered into the immaculate living room. All the available wall space had 'thankas', a Tibetan silk painting with embroidery, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, famous scene, or mandala of some sort. The room had a really peaceful atmosphere and I had a yen to just sit there but we were ushered into the kitchen where breakfast was being served.

A Thanka

Out in the garden, they had hundreds of prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. They criss-crossed the whole area from the fence on the left to the fence on the right. They were also bright and new so very colourful and eye-catching. Later on we spoke about them.

I had heard from Jacquie about Tibetan breakfast but was not sure what to expect. What I really appreciated was that Tashi, the husband, took the time to explain each step to me and showed me how to do things. I have been in many situations with foreign customs where the locals don't know or maybe don't care if you understand what's going on and you flounder around trying not to make a complete ass of yourself. This was the opposite and it made it a lot more fun than I was expecting. I have often felt tense in these situations in case I do something unintentionally rude or stupid.

First they served us 'tsampa', a roasted and ground barley flour. It looks just like wheat flour in the bag but the taste is something totally unexpected. The bowl is half filled with tsampa, some dried cheese added and then weak tea is poured on top. You can either mix it all up together to make a thick paste or you can scoop up the tea with a bit of tsampa in each spoonful. I chose to mix it all up and try it that way. I took my first mouthful and was very pleasantly surprised to discover that, rather than being glutinous like wheat, it was dry and nutty. The texture was soft but crunchy from the dried cheese, the flavour somehow benign and relaxing. It reminded me of the feeling of eating porridge, which is always feels gentle and healing. Other than that, the flavour and texture were not like anything I had eaten before.

The Makings of Tsampa

Tashi was surprised I liked it so much and then he went to the fridge and brought out a dish of some salsa he had made with tomatoes, onions, coriander and very, very spicy dried yellow chillies that he told us were from only one valley somewhere in India. Not being chicken when it comes to hot and spicy food ( we called it pili-pili growing up, to distinguish from hot heat; our parents both spoke Swahili so that's where that came from!), I took a big spoonful and Tashi showed me how to make balls out of the tsampa and eat it with the salsa. We used our hands for all of this, of course. The salsa was seriously pili-pili I can tell you but, wow, what a flavour. I have noticed that hot chillies tend to do a variety of things in your mouth depending on the type of chilli. This one even made my gum tingle! Despite the tingling and my lips almost going numb, I couldn't stop eating it. It was one of the most delicious things I've eaten in a long time.

On top of that, they served us some of the tofu stew they had had the night before. They were observing a month long vegetarian 'fast' in honour of the Buddha's birthday which, this year, happened to be the day before mine! The stew was also delicious, not spicy at all but very flavourful.

With the whole meal, we drank Tibetan tea, which my sister tells me one gets used to with time. I think she may be right but I still don't really like it. It's buttery and salty. An acquired taste. I must say, though, that it completely suited the rest of the meal.

Sitatapatra - The White Umbrella

While we were eating, I asked about the prayer flags in the garden and they told us the story behind these particular ones. I was wondering what the prayer on the flags actually said. It turned out that the prayer covered ten flags before repeating itself. It's called 'Dukgar' in Tibetan or Sitatapatra in Hindi, which means White Umbrella and represents the goddess with the thousand arms and thousand heads with small white umbrella at the top. The prayer was used by a Lama in Tibet to help create world peace. According to him, it is the only way we will ever have world peace and we need to spread the word by everyone having the prayer flags in their gardens and back yards. Tashi and Genyen had been at his monastery in Tibet and found him and some other monks laboriously printing the prayer by hand with giant stamps on very low quality material that disintegrated quickly. Tashi approached the organisation he was working for at the time, A German organisation called The Tara Foundation, about funding the mass printing of the flags. He laughed when he told us that the Chinese printers in the nearby town was delighted to take on the job and they did an outstanding job of printing literally millions of flags. On top of that, it turns out that Chinese business people will print anything that they're given very efficiently even if it's totally against Chinese government policy. One man ended up in jail, finally, after printing thousands upon thousands of copies of Tibetan material that the government deemed seditious. Tashi's comment was that the Chinese are so industrious that they are happy to create anything and do it very efficiently, if it will make them money. They don't ask questions. Perhaps they should!

Once they had printed the millions of prayer flags, they were flown to the US and other countries and distributed. I love this idea. The thought that this wonderful prayer could help change the world by the wind carrying it up to heaven, is simply beautiful. Tashi and Genyen gave me a set of ten flags to hang in my garden when I get back to Europe. If anyone wants some, let me know. You could make a donation to the cause and get as many as you want.

We left Tashi and Genyen's house feeling replete but very comfortable. I was dying to write this to tell you all about the flags and world peace.

ETHIOPIA

That night, my sister and my niece, her boyfriend and my nephew were taking me out for my birthday. We had intended to go to one place on Queen St but ended up at Addis Ababa, an Ethiopian restaurant. I had wanted to eat Ethiopian food since I got here as I have missed it. The restaurant was expecting a huge group of 40 people so we were put on the stage area at the front and told that a band was arriving at 9pm so we might have to move.

For anyone who hasn't eaten Ethiopian food let me explain a bit about it. They make a bread called Injera which is made from barley and teff, a grain grown only in certain areas of Ethiopia. The dough is fermented and then the bread is cooked something like a pancake. The bread is spread out on a big dish and the various recipes you order are laid out on the bread. You use the bread as the utensil to pick up the food. A lot of Ethiopian food is spicy but not all of it. The whole meal was delicious.

At 9pm, we moved to another table and the place was packed to the gills. They then brought us the traditional coffee. First they arrive with coffee beans roasting on a small tray and they waft it around the table. They disappear off with that and come back later with a pot of coffee made from those beans, some small glasses and sugar and an incense burner with frankincense smoking. The smell of frankincense is, of course, familiar to people who go to Mass or other churches so it gives the whole experience the sense of ritual. Some people across from us were intensely curious about what was going on and one of them came over to ask what the smell was. It's very enticing.

A great day with so many culinary experiences. One I won't forget in a long time.

Dinner with a Narcissist

2010-05-25T15:59:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday, my sister had organised for two pairs of her friends to meet up with the potential to create a new friendship. The other idea was that one of the couples owns a boat and the other couple miss sailing so, all being well, they could sail together.

My sister went all out, buying beautiful fish to grill and making fabulous salads. I helped her by taking loads of broad beans out of their pods, making a roasted yellow and red pepper salad with anchovies and generally being the sous-chef. We prepared most of it at home and then transported it to her friends' house in downtown Toronto.

This couple are in their late 60s and quite wealthy. They had spent 15 years living on a yacht sailing in the Mediterranean and were missing sailing now they were back in Toronto. I had met them briefly at the opera a few weeks earlier and noted that the husband was the sort of man who makes bad jokes when he's uncomfortable.

We arrived at about 6pm and started to organise the food. I then went out and joined the husband who had made us each a martini (a very good one it was too). It turned out he was a fount of information about the history of Toronto and I really enjoyed learning all of this. I thought it would turn into a lovely evening of good conversation and new friendship.

About 7pm, the other couple arrived. I'll call them T&M. Immediately, the wife, M, noticed we had had martinis and I thought it was pretty clear that she wanted one too but our host chose not to hear that and served us all a glass of champagne. Our host had that week had eyelid surgery to correct a problem where his upper lids were starting to droop so much they were obscuring his vision. He looked a bit like he'd been through a few rounds in a boxing ring. As it happened, the husband, T, is a doctor who works ringside at boxing matches on occasion. He make a quick joke to our host about his eyes. All seemed well.

We sat down to dinner after crackers and cheese, champagne and get-to-know-you-chat. All very nice. Jacquie and our hostess dished up the food while I stayed at the table joining in the conversation.

After a while, it became more and more apparent that our host loved the sound of his own voice and was starting to usurp the conversation and making it all about him and his exploits, experience and knowledge. Indeed, he is knowledgeable and was interesting before the dinner when the drinks had not yet started to flow. As the dinner wore on, it was getting harder and harder for anyone else to get a word in edgewise.

I was sitting beside T, an older man, clearly warm and thoughtful who exuded a curious sex appeal, despite his bulk. Our host somehow brought up the subject of a well known impresario in Toronto who, after years of enormous success, had been found to be a swindler and who had extorted large sums of money from various sources. Our host had had dealings with him and his business in earlier times when he, our host, had been in investment banking. He took some pleasure in describing to us how he and his company had taken this extortioner for a financial ride. At one point in the conversation he referred to this swindler as 'tall'. Immediately, T&M broke into the conversation to refute that. Being a neophyte in the world of Toronto social life, I had heard a bit about the swindler from my sister before this dinner. I noticed right away that the way T&M were refuting our hosts statement that the man was 'tall' had an air of insider knowledge.

Eventually, T managed to get a chance to say something and told our host that this swindler had been intimately involved in business with T's father! At that point, it was clear that our host had trampled on T's sensibilities. Well, it was clear to me, to T, to my sister and to T's wife. It was not clear to our host and hostess, however, as our host launched into another long story about the swindler and his character while also mentioning a certain cabinet minister by referring to her as 'fat Eleanor'. At this point, I could feel T bristling beside me. He sighed, huffed quietly to himself and was clearly about to walk out the door. What stopped him, I don't know. Politeness, I would imagine.

Eventually, after having to sit through another half an hour of our host's monologue and dismissal of anything T or his wife said, T got up, ostensibly to go to the lavatory and, when he came back out, signaled to his wife that it was time to go. I could feel their relief.

After their goodbyes, all seemingly amicable to the hosts, our hostess said, while smiling at her husband, that he should have realised when T said that the swindler had been a close friend of his father's, that it was time to shut up. Our host replied that he felt he could say what he wanted about anything he liked and didn't much care if anyone was bothered by it. As my sister and I were trying to leave, he started to tell us horrendous Irish jokes, in a Hollywood brogue...

The next day, we called M to see how T had taken the whole thing. She laughed about it but said that her husband as appalled at out host's lack of sensitivity and his boorishness and it would be a cold day in hell before he would invite the man onto his boat. Then, it got even funnier. It turned out that 'fat Eleanor' was a relation of Ted's too! We laughed about it but both my sister and I were disturbed by what had happened.

Later that day, the hostess came over to pick up some medicine for her husband and we discussed the previous evening as she was leaving. We had both thought that she was coming over to have a debrief about it. When we told her that 'fat Eleanor' was a relation of T's she laughed about it. She seemed to have very little understanding of the impact her husband had had on poor T and M, let alone me and my sister.

It was only later, while deconstructing the evening, that it became clear that she had to do that in order to survive living with a consummate narcissist and alcoholic. I had wondered, at the time, why she had done nothing to stop her husband's headlong assault of his guests. How she coped living on a yacht with him for 15 years is anyone's guess.

It is clear to me that this man is deeply insecure, despite his intellect and experience. He makes bad jokes to cover his discomfort and then rules the conversation and doesn't give a damn about anyone else's feelings or opinions. The classic narcissist. Very sad really as he has a lot to offer.

Needless to say, T&M won't be seeing them again any time soon.

Growing Old Disgracefully - The Only Way to Live

2010-05-16T15:34:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, I am currently in Toronto with my oldest sister, Jacquie. She lives in a nice apartment not far from the centre of the city in an area with lots of restaurants and shops so there's plenty to do. I have slowly adjusted to life here and the different rhythms, all of which have been immensely good for my general mental and physical well being.

Jacquie and I seem to fit well together - despite having only lived together briefly when I was a child as she left home when I was 9 and had spent much of the previous years at University and working. We knew we had a lot of common interests and have spent many short stays with each other over the years; when I was living in California I used to come to Toronto fairly often and stay a few days; Jacquie has met up with me in California, New Orleans, Spain and Morocco on occasion and we've always had a great time.

Jacquie, my wonderful sister

We imagined we would work well together in close quarters and, indeed, that's how it's turned out to be. We both have a similar sense of order and similar rhythms with food. We both wanted to lose weight and get more healthy and fit so we eat very carefully and well and we go for long walks in the nearby ravines. We've been to operas and concerts, dinners and explorations, museums and shopping. We have enjoyed it all together.

We laugh a lot, play Sudoku (although I have to make sure not to leave my Sudoku book in the bathroom as she's quite likely to steal it and finish the one I was working on!), watch First Talk, a TV program made for the aboriginal community in Canada or The National, Canada's main news program. Jacquie is a news junkie so the radio is on every morning and we can barely speak to each other at breakfast as she is riveted by whatever they're talking about. So I read the Globe and Mail. I now know more about Canadian politics than I do about Irish politics, something I have to remedy when I get back to Ireland.

On the whole, you can tell, we're very well behaved and responsible people. Last night I went out to dinner with my niece, Sinead, who treated me to a wonderful all-you-can-eat sushi meal nearby. We solved all the world's problems and then I walked home to close out my email and head to bed. Jacquie had gone over to her friend Marie's for dinner. At midnight, I switched off my light and drifted off to sleep. I woke up a 1am and saw that the light was still on in the hall, which meant Jacquie wasn't home yet. Oh well, they must be having a nice time but it is quite late, I thought. I drifted off again and woke up at 2.30 and she was still not home! Now, I was getting worried. She and Marie are in their 60s so I was having a hard time imagining them staying up till all hours. I tried her phone but, as usual, she either did not hear it or the sound was switched off. I didn't know what to do. I stayed awake for a while worrying and then decided that I would give a bit more time.

I woke up again at 4.30am and went to the loo and saw she was home at last so went back to bed and slept in as I had not had a restful night. In the morning, I could see the funny side. She was very apologetic but also giggling about a) that I was worrying about her and how nice that was and b) how it was like worrying about a pair of teenagers who had gone out and not said when they'd be home.

Once I got over my worry, I thought how marvelous it was that two women of a certain age, intelligent and full of beans, were staying up till 4am, talking about life, the universe and how to solve the problems of the world, all the time taking small nips of brandy. It's nice to know you're never too old to stay up late, drinking and talking and generally behaving disgracefully (by some people's measurements anyway!).

We had a great laugh over the whole thing and now I know, if she's not home by 4am, not to worry. She said she's hoping she's still doing it in her 80s. Right on,sister!

Maya, Maya and Warriors

2010-05-14T17:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was trawling around the web, doing some research on my father for my memoir, Silence and the Black Wolf. I thought I might find something interesting someone had said about him. Mostly, I found what I always find, site after site with listings of his mostly out of print books. I decided to go a little further on Google and go past the 2nd or 3rd page of the search. It was worth the effort.

I found Maya Alexandri. I saw my father's name mentioned in the search blurb and wondered who she might be. What I discovered, on her blog, was that she has written not one, but two pieces about my father's book, Warriors.

Maya Alexandri

Warriors was originally part of a bigger book called Warriors and Strangers. One part was about his time in Somalia in WWII and the other part about going back to Kenya after many years away. After his death, it was re-published but only with the section about Somalia.

Gerald Hanley drawn by John Huston, dedicated to my twin, Una

I read the blog post with great interest. It was well thought through and well written. The gist of it was that whenever she reads books that describe fascinating but awful places, she immediately wants to go there. Indeed, Warriors describes Somalia after the British had taken over from the Italians. It was not a place anyone would want to be. His descriptions of the privations they suffered; not getting their rations, cigarettes, alcohol and food for weeks on end and how that affected the 'askaris'. He describes an almost mutiny when they don't get their monthly ghee ration. During the time he was there, 7 of his fellow officers committed suicide. That said, his description of the place, the people, the suffering, the grandeur is riveting.

Warriors is also a book about colonialism and the paternalistic attitude of the coloniser towards the colonised. It is a damning indictment of what colonialism has done in Africa. If anyone wants to know why Somalia is in the state it's in now, read Warriors. In fact, it should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking of invading another country.( You know who you are!)

I wrote to Maya. First of all, her name is Maya. That caught my attention. Then, her surname is Alexandri. All you have to do is add and 'a' to the end and you have the city of my grandmother's birth. She's a writer, someone who gave up a law career to pursue her dreams. When I wrote to her, I thought she was in Beijing. This morning I got an email response from her. You'll never guess where she is now, writing another book. Kenya. The coincidences are piling up here.

My mother was born and raised in Nairobi. She lived there till she was 36. My father spent from 1934 to the outbreak of WWII there and was then posted to Somalia and later to Burma. My two sisters lived there till they were 10 and 12. My father has written several books about Kenya, novels mostly.

I love synchronicity like this. I sat here this morning wondering what it might mean. I am pretty sure it does mean something but I don't know what. Why has my path crossed hers? Why has she written two pieces on Warriors? Two very thoughtful pieces. Here they are:

Ready for the Shovel and Of Wisdom and Imperial Ambivalence

I have not gone any further into her site yet but it looks like she's written about a lot of authors. Her own novels have not been published yet, despite DM Thomas personally helping her with her first one.

More and more, events and research are leading me back to Kenya. It's highly likely that Maya and I might meet there next year. Wouldn't that be interesting?

Living in Toronto

2010-05-13T13:47:00.000-04:00

I've been here now since March 15th. I've done more socializing here in two months that in two years in Dublin. My sister has an active social life revolving around museums, theatre, opera and various esoteric things. I have had to finally say that I need to focus on my writing but the call of the social life is strong!

Toronto is a wonderful city. It has a huge series of ravines going right through the middle of it which gives the city an area for hiking and exploring second to none. When you're down in one of the ravines, you forget you're in a city for a while. One day, we were walking the Moore Park ravine close to where we live. The trees were in full leaf although still almost fluorescent green and very juicy and alive looking. Suddenly, a deep rumbling started from somewhere and got louder and louder. I could not imagine with it was as I looked through the trees to see what it might be. It sounded like an tornado arriving or perhaps a VERY large animal. It turned out to be a train! High above us was a bridge. We had to strain our necks to look up, it was that high. The train rumbled over, a reminder that we were indeed in a city. I had noticed the bases of the bridge when we had walked past earlier but had not looked up and registered how amazingly high above us it was. The colour of the pillars blended in with the browns and greens in the woods so it was easy to even miss the whole thing.

Toronto is the most culturally diverse city in the world. I can really see that. I meet people off all hues, religions, walks of life here. It is so different to the US. For starters, I don't get asked every day where I'm from and then have the rapturous response to my saying I'm Irish. No one events comments on my accent. I must say, it's nice to blend in and not be the topic of a ten minute conversation every time I meet someone new! Having an accent here is not seen as strange since most people have some sort of 'foreign' accent.

The Canadians are also very friendly and helpful. I walked to the supermarket the other day to get some groceries. I had a small backpack on to carry the purchases and, when I arrived at the apartment again, I discovered that I had lost my key wallet with my ATM card and my cash, as well as the organic broccoli I had just got for dinner. I raced back to the market, praying all the way that some kind person might have picked up my wallet and keys, especially. The guy giving out samples of something at the door said he hadn't seen it. I was on my way in to the cashier and mentioned that I had also dropped my broccoli and he said 'Oh, was that you? We put that back on the shelf'. The cashier recognised me right away and said she had my wallet and keys. She had tried to get my attention as I was leaving but had a big queue of people to contend with and couldn't leave her station. She very kindly took me to get my broccoli back too!

Small gestures like that gladden the heart. They were all as friendly as the Irish are supposedly famous for.

I took the subway for the first time last week. It was easy, fast, clean and not very crowded. Imagine that!

I love that you can find just about anything here. Any kind of food, clothing, art, books, information. The huge mix of nationalities means that the whole world is at your feet here. I am only scratching the surface of course and hope to have more interesting things to write about as the months go by.

This evening we're out for Japanese food with my niece and nephew and other friends. Another lovely evening to look forward to.

A Day in the Life

2010-04-30T14:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I saw that the original handwritten lyrics of A Day in the Life, by John Lennon, were to go on sale.

It was a bit spooky seeing John Lennon's handwriting, talking about Tara Browne. 'He blew his mind out in a car'. Tara was the younger brother of The Honourable Garech Browne, one of the Guinness heirs and the owner of Luggala,a magical hideaway in the Wicklow Mountains. Garech was one of my father's closest friends and has, in recent years, become a close friend of mine too. I go to Luggala as often as I can when I'm in Ireland, for lunches and dinners. I finally got to spend the night there a few times last year, which meant I got to sign the famous guest book. It's filled with signatures, poems, photos and mementos of all the people, a lot of them very well known, who have stayed at Luggala over the last maybe 30 years.

Garech in front of Luggala (courtesy of The Telegraph)

When I drive down the steep hill to the house, I always pass the monument to Tara Browne. It makes me sad every time because I know how much it still affects Garech to this day. The loss of his brother was probably the worst thing that has happened to him. A sensitive, highly intelligent man, he opens his heart to those he loves and I feel treasured when I am there. I also know how much he loved my father.

When my father died in 1992, Garech invited all of us to Luggala on the Sunday after the funeral. At Luggala, we all signed a whole 2 pages of the famous guest book, writing poems and messages about our father for Garech.

After that,we all had lunch together in The Roundwood Inn, with Ronan Browne (no relation)playing the Uilleann pipes for us and lots of laughter, tears and reminiscing. We didn't know we were supposed to be at John Boorman's house that afternoon too and ended up arriving very late. John wasn't too happy with Garech, whose sense of time can disappear as the drinks start to flow! I remember well coming into the kitchen and meeting Marianne Faithful who told me that she had fancied my father in a big way, even when he was old and sick with cancer. I know he had that effect on people. His charisma was extraordinary. He had a deep voice and told wonderful stories, keeping people gripped to the wee hours of the morning.

Now, a portrait of my father hangs in the master bedroom at Luggala, painted by Anthony Palliser. In it, he looks rather ravaged. What none of us knew at that point was that he had lung cancer, brought on by 60 years of smoking.

I met Anthony recently at Luggala and he told me that my father had been one of his favourite people. It was nice to hear that, after almost 20 years, he is still so well remembered.

Gerald Hanley by Anthony Palliser

Another weekend, I discovered that this master bedroom had been the room that Michael Jackson slept in while he hid away in Ireland with his children. It made me laugh, thinking about my father looking down on Michael Jackson as he slept! A ghostly degree of separation.

Tara Browne's children were very small when he died. I met his son, Julian, recently. He lives in Hawaii now. A long way away from inevitable complications of a distinguished and complex family.

I hope that the sale of this original piece of writing by John Lennon doesn't make Garech too sad. I hate to see him sad. He's a luminous and sensitive man. I don't think he knows how much he is loved by his friends.

Pachamama and The Coyotes - A Celebration of the Earth

2010-04-23T12:05:00.000-04:00

We stood in the light of a very bright half moon, around a blazing fire, invoking the Great Spirit to protect the earth. Just after we had invited the Jaguar spirit to protect the earth, a cacophony of coyotes howled in the distance. There were at least 6 of them, howling, baying, almost screaming out. The dogs, two Labradors and a German shepherd, started to bark, restless and anxious. Heidi, the Shaman conducting the ceremony, laughed and said 'We sent the Jaguar after them'.

Earlier, we had sat in Louise's house, in a large circle and participated in the Despacho ceremony. We were there to celebrate Earth Day and to let go of any of our fears, worries, negative ideas. Out of the group of 10 people,only 2 had participated in a Despacho before. I had seen part of one on a TV programme here in Canada, called Medicine Woman. What I had seen intrigued me.

Heidi is a Shaman with a lot of experience. She is over 6 feet tall, blonde, in her late 40s perhaps. She drives a bright red Ford Mustang. I liked the contrasts in her. The obvious gravitas she had, her connection to each person in the room, her deep knowledge of shamanistic ceremony combined with humour, warmth and a touch of flamboyance.

The idea of the Despacho is to create a bundle of objects that represent the things you want to share with Pachamama. It can contain anything that speaks to you including objects created from leaves and flowers into which you blow your worries and fears or hopes and dreams. In our case, we were honoring the earth and giving back to her in thanks for the bounty she provides us.

Surrounding Heidi were a variety of bags, boxes, plastic containers, flowers, bottles of wine, all containing representations of things that belong on the earth or in the Universe. It is a highly ritualised ceremony with great attention paid to each item that will be sprinkled in a circle on the paper enclosing all the offerings. As she went along, she explained what each piece meant and some of them were shared out amongst all of us to imbue them with our own spirit.

Incan Shaman creating the Despacho

As each layer appeared, the circle of offerings on the paper grew and grew. Some of the objects that were there included flower petals, sugar, sparkles, representations of animals and humans, a Southern Cross, beans, corn, juniper berries, raisins, peanuts and much more. I was thrilled to be asked to make a representation of the female, using Playdoh. At first, I tried to make a female figure and realised it was not going to work because the Playdoh was too soft so I created a complete circle representing the wholeness of the female experience. Another woman created the male representation as the head of an eagle.

Once all the layers were placed on the paper and blessed, we were invited to place our layers of leaves and flowers, one for the earth and one for our own dreams, into the hands of Heidi or Louise. She placed the earth offering in the circle and then used the personal offering to bless each person and wish that their dreams would come true. For each person, she had a special message.

How a completed Despacho might look

Once this was done, the paper was folded and tied up with a ribbon and then covered in a woven cloth and again tied up with a ribbon.

Before going outside to start the fire ceremony, Heidi cleared the aura of each of us using the bundle we had created. She then whispered something in each person's ear. I watched as each person before me was cleansed and wondered what she might say to me.

When it came to my turn, as she used the bundle to cleanse my energy, a shower of sugar cascaded over my head and shoulders. I later found out that I was the only person this happened to. It was like a shower of sweetness. Heidi whispered to me "Don't hide your inner beauty. You are truly beautiful. You must look to the plants and trees and hear what they say to you and allow them to honour your beauty. This is very important. You must not hide any longer."

I smiled as she said it because it was a reflection of thoughts I have been having in the last few months. I have had this feeling that if I relaxed my whole being that I might be able to see what the plants have to say to me. I know it sounds strange but I have had a strong feeling about it for a while now and was not sure how it might manifest. Coupled with this, I have been having dreams and also having the Universe present new information about this to me on TV programs like Medicine Woman. One dream I had was very vivid. A female Indian Shaman entreated me to pay close attention because she would reveal my animal totem. She kept repeating 'Pay attention, pay attention'. She told me my totem is the black wolf.

A Shaman prepares the Despacho

It was time to go outside and give the offering to Pachamama.

The fire was lit with great ceremony, all of us singing a blessing song in the ancient language of the Incas. Only some of the participants knew the song (I certainly didn't) but it was easy to catch on after a while. We sang it many, many times as the ceremony unfolded. It became almost a hypnotic chant that filled the night as it gradually grew darker and darker. Right as the light faded, the half moon came out brightly, lighting the proceedings. The sky was brushed with vague wafts of cloud that almost looked like the shape of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis.

Each of us was directed to take some sticks, as many as we wanted, which would represent arrows to throw into the fire to let go of any thoughts, worries or issues. As the fire grew, we chanted on into the chilly moonlight, each of us taking our turn to kneel in front of the fire and ask for our issues to be taken care of by mother earth. Once we cast the stick(s) into the fire, we took the fire's warmth with our hands and brought it around us.

During the ceremony, the dogs stayed close. Some of them lay in the fire circle while the ceremony continued. As soon as it was finished, they disappeared.

I was asked to put a special stick, representing an offering to Pachamama from the male and female, into the fire with the only man present.

I had thought that I would feel detached from this whole experience as it was new and strange to me but, on the contrary, once it got going, I became immersed in the ritual. I remembered what I had heard on Medicine Woman, a programme about a Native Canadian woman called Danielle Behn who is a medical doctor. She traveled around the world learning about native medicine in many different native cultures and one of the things that struck her most, other than the actual facts of the medicines, was that ritual plays a huge part in healing. She determined to start to use ritual of some kind in her Western medical practice and also to learn more about the plants she encountered along the way. The whole programme inspired me. Particularly her determination to let go of her Western training and try to open her mind to these new and strange experiences.

Last night, I took a leaf from Danielle's book and tried the same and, by the time we got to the part where Heidi cleansed each of us, I had let go of my skepticism and embraced the huge possibility of sharing my energy with the earth and feeling that we are all part of the enormous Universe.

None of us wanted to leave. We dawdled around the fire, chatting and laughing. When it came time to go, we all hugged each other and said we wanted to experience more of this. I hugged Heidi goodbye and told her she was beautiful and she laughed and said " I am only reflecting the beauty in you. It's all you"

Searching for Friends in Yushu After the Earthquake

2010-04-15T12:52:00.002-04:00

My sister, Jacquie, spent 5 months in China/Tibet mostly on retreat and getting to know the place. This was about 5 years ago. She has told me some stories about being in Yushu, the area that has just been devastated by a huge earthquake.

She and some of her friends there went one day to rescue goats that were due to be killed for food. Once you pay for the goat, a red tag is attached to its ear to show that it cannot now be killed by anyone. She rescued as many goats as possible that day. Later on, she was at the Thrangu Monastery, where the lama explained to her why it was goats and not sheep that were rescued like this. Apparently, goats are more sensitive and thus aware that they are doomed and so it is a greater karmic act to rescue a goat than a sheep. I was interested in this because, when I had lived in Morocco, I was taken one day to pick out a sheep for Eid El Kebir (the big festival of the sheep commemorating the sacrifice by Abraham of a sheep instead of his son, Isaac). There were hundreds of sheep milling around untethered. I saw a group of goats tethered by their hind and front legs, lying on the ground and asked my companion why this was. He explained to me that goats were way smarter than sheep and knew they were to be killed and would have run off into the sunset if they were free. I felt so sorry for them, tied up and knowing what was coming (goats are eaten at Eid by people with cholesterol and diabetes problems).

So, my sister's story about the goats in Tibet made perfect sense to me.

Today, Thrangu Monastery is demolished due to the earthquake. No one know if the monks and lamas are alive. No one can get messages in or out of this part of Tibet because the Chinese have cut off access to Twitter and all other social media. Google has pulled out.

My sister was in tears this morning and slept hardly a wink last night worrying about all her friends and acquaintances there who might be dead,injured or buried alive. She spoke to her Tibetan friends here in Toronto today and they are equally distraught (they were with her those 5 months in Yushu and the surrounding areas). One of them worked for the Tara Foundation, based in Germany, until recently. He worked to get money and supplies to the area but recently the Chinese have blocked all monies coming in, ostensibly because they are worried about it being used by insurgents. This means that neither my sister, her Tibetan friends nor any of the Tibetan community outside of China, can get money into the area to help their people. No one can find out anything about the missing people.

We had an idea to do a fundraiser to send money but there's no point as we can't send the money to the people who need it. My sister feels powerless and, with that, comes anger and frustration.

The Chinese might be being more open about the fact that there has been an earthquake but cutting the rest of the world off from being able to help or even get information, is a travesty.

As you can see from this article in the Xinhuanet news, countries are sending their condolences and not much more.

Some Things I Want To Do Before I Die

2010-04-08T14:26:00.000-04:00

I just read an article in the Globe and Mail about some young guys from BC, Canada who are going around in a beat up old van ticking off things on their "things they want to do before they die" list. One of the things was to appear on Oprah and, guess what, they are appearing tomorrow afternoon!

That set me to thinking.

I have done a lot of things in my life, about which many people have exclaimed 'my, what an interesting life you've had' and 'you should write a book about all the things you've done'. Etc.

I am writing a memoir but not about the things I have done that would go on a list like this. Maybe I should also make a list of all the things I HAVE done and see if there's also a book in that?

Anyway, here's a list of things I haven't already done and want to do before I die:

Finish climbing Kilimanjaro

There's a story there

Learn to speak fluent Spanish

reasonable but needs lots of work

Learn to speak fluent French

it's pretty good but needs work

Live in Spain

Something I've wanted to do for ages and now actually see the possibility. Working on that now. Watch this space

Go to Japan

I read a book called Daughter of The Samurai when I was about 10 and became obsessed with going to Japan. I want to mainly go to the mountains and countryside but also want to experience Tokyo and Osaka. I feel like I lived there before.

Climb Mt. Fuji

I drew countless pictures of Mt. Fuji as a child and my father used to pin them up on the wall above his desk. I must have done hundreds. Weird, I know.

Publish a book

Working on that now.

Go to Buenos Aires

No particular reason other than it's a place of interest and, if I learn Spanish fluently, I will be able to have an even more interesting time there.

Dance the Tango

I learned to Samba in the 80s in California but never to Tango other than the occasional time my father got me to dance with him.

Own a pair of pointe shoes

I wanted to be a ballerina when I was a child and had ballet shoes. My father gave me a gift of a book about Anna Pavlova when I helped him to plant a plum and a damson tree in our garden (They're still there. The house is now a home for abandoned and troubled traveler children). I never got to learn ballet as my father did not approve of it and also we lived so far in the mountains that getting me to ballet classes was not an option; not to mention the perceived favouritism when you come from a large family.

Be really fit again

I used to be the fitness queen and it seems I have been suffering from adrenal burnout for many years and need to heal from that in order to get really fit again. It will be slow but I know I can do it.

Learn herbalism

An interest that keeps growing by the day. I have had many good results from herbal treatments and feel a need to go back to basics and learn as much as I can about how plants can heal.

Finish all the knitting and stitching projects I have on the go

They're everywhere. Here in Canada. In storage in Ireland. In storage in England.

Cool down so I can tolerate humidity and visit South East Asia

I learned today that the reason my body temperature is so low and my blood pressure also so low is because of adrenal burnout. It makes tolerating humid heat very difficult. If I can get healed up it means I can go to hot countries I have avoided for years.

Go back to Botswana (is that cheating since I've been there already?)

I loved Botswana. I worked there, off and on, for about 2 years and have good friends there that I often miss. I never got to go on the full safari experience there so would like to go back and do that.

Own a Bichon Frise again (I still miss my Minnehaha)

I had to give up my beloved pooch when it turned out my building did not allow animals. I was completely devastated and still am. I miss her every day. I console myself with the fact that she is with a lovely family. I can barely stand to look at photos of her. (Nevertheless, I had to share a photo of her with you)

(I notice I'm going back to wanting to do things I've done already but am not complete with. I also notice that a lot of it is about traveling so...)

Make enough money to be able to travel comfortably and often

Working on that one too. It might take a while....

Own a house in at least two places

See above....

Have a huge party that ALL my friends from around the world can attend

Last time I had a HUGE party was for my 40th. Maybe for my 60th?

See the opera Norma on stage

This is not an exhaustive list so I am sure I will come back to this at some point.

Looking for Louise in Lyon

2010-03-22T17:04:00.002-04:00

My aunt, Quellie, the custodian of the family history on my mother's side, asked me a long time ago to go to Lyon with her to research her grandmother, my great-grandmother, Louise Antoinette Debussiere. Quellie has done a lot of research already but there were missing pieces as Louise rarely spoke about her life growing up in Lyon. All we knew was that she had become a nun with an Italian Franciscan order when she was 26 and that she had had quite a few siblings, many of whom seem to have died as babies. We knew she was born in Lyon and we had the marriage certificate of her parents, Francoise Vallin who was from Vienne, a town about 30km from Lyon and Antoine Duchier dit Debussiere ( it varied on census reports whether he and his offspring were called Duchier, Duchet or Debussiere). All we know for sure about him was that he was the 'natural' son of a woman called Marie Duchier and someone we take to be the Debussiere father, as she added his name to her son's last name.

View of Lyon from Basilique de la Fourviere

Debussiere is a noble name but, because we don't have the father's first name, it has been hard to trace. We did find a list of Seigneurs Debussiere from the 17th and 18th Century in that area and can only assume that the family story is true about Antoine's father being a baby during the French Revolution ( the dates would work as Antoine was born in 1814) and he and his mother being sneaked out of the chateau in a laundry basket while his father was either killed by the mob or guillotined. It might be possible to prove this story but it will take another, longer trip to Lyon to search the archives.

The courtyard of 92,rue de la Guillotiere, Lyon

Louise joined the convent and went to Egypt as a missionary. She spent a lot of time in Syria and the surrounding areas and it was on one of these expeditions that she fell off her horse and broke her leg. Being far away from any town, all they could do was set it with sticks until they could get her to a hospital. By the time she got to the hospital, the leg had set straight so she walked with a limp for the rest of her life. At some point she left the convent and was excommunicated. She ran away, basically. What we know is that she was horrified at the 'goings on' in the convent and there was even a story about a baby being thrown down a well. The baby being the result of a liaison between a nun and either a priest or a layman. In any case, Louise completely rejected her Catholicism and this may be an explanation for why she never returned to Lyon and had little or no contact with her family afterwards. Being excommunicated in those days would have brought great shame to the family, especially in a place like Lyon where they had a cult of the Virgin Mary and their religion was a major priority.

Interior of La Fourviere

It was this excommunication which eventually led to Louise leaving Alexandria in Egypt for Nairobi. Someone ratted on her. She had a school in Alexandria, teaching young ladies and when it was learned that she was an excommunicated Catholic, her clients disappeared and she was forced to make this enormous change right before the outbreak of the First World War.

However, I am jumping ahead here. When she left the nunnery, she became the governess to an Italian/Greek family in Alexandria. We know that she was well educated and played the piano so this led us to the knowledge that her family, while not high born, were at a reasonable level of society. Antoine was a stonemason, which was a skill much sought after until the advent of electrical machinery. We thought he might have worked on the extraordinary Basilique de Fourviere, which sits atop the hill over Lyon ( the site of the original Roman city Lugdunum). It was built between 1870 and 1876 so we thought he might have been too old by then. But thinking again, he would have been about 56 which means it is very likely he did work on it. Check out the photos of Fourviere, it's covered in carvings and must have taken hundreds of stonemasons to create in such a short space of time.

Louise worked for the Cortessi family in Alexandria. The wife was Greek and her brother was Pelopeda Coroneos. Pelopeda and Louise married and she converted to the Greek Orthodox church. They had two daughters, Georgina (always known as Zina), my grandmother, and Cecile. Pelopedas died suddenly when the girls were still small and this was when Louise set up her first school. She was later honored by the French government for services to education in Egypt.

Mosaic on the interior of La Fourviere

When Louise arrived in Nairobi with her two young daughters, having been told it was a great place to set up a school, she discovered that the money she had sent ahead with her friend no longer existed (it had been spent or stolen) which put her in a dreadful situation. As it happened, a young British soldier had taken a shine to Zina and Louise encouraged the relationship. At 13, my grandmother was married off to Robert Fittall and she had her first child at 14. During this time, 1914-1919, Louise and Cecile lived with Robert and Zina and he supported all of them. As soon as it was safe to travel again, Louise left Nairobi with Cecile and went back to Alexandria to set up a new school, this time for Protestant English girls, as she has learned English in Nairobi. In that environment no one would have thought to worry about her being an excommunicated Catholic. Zina never really forgave her mother for marrying her off and then leaving.

Interior staircase of 92, rue de la Guillotiere

Knowing all of this made it fascinating to be in Lyon, walking the streets of our ancestors. We went searching on the second day we were there. We knew that Louise and her family had lived on La Grande rue de la Guillotiere ( nothing to do with Guillotines!). It turns out that La Guillotiere was originally a separate town, started in the middle ages and was incorporated into Lyon in the 18th century. We started at the top of the street and noticed that a lot of modern apartment buildings had replaced the old houses. We did not hold out much hope for finding anything but were then thrilled to discover that 92, rue de la Guillotiere was still intact.

This was the first home that Antoine and Francoise, my great, great grandparents,who lived in it from the time of their marriage in 1845 until they moved to number 18 ( this was no longer in existence). We got in the front door but were not able to get any further. We knew that our ancestors had lived in the courtyard of this building and were disappointed not to be able to get any further. Outside again, we noticed a bakery and Quellie suggested we go in and ask if we could get into the building. I am so glad she did as I tend to be a bit shy about those kinds of things. The lady in the bakery was intrigued that we had come all this way to research our family and was delighted to let us in.

The front door to 92, rue de la Guillotiere

Once we got into the courtyard, we saw that there were still two buildings on either side of it that were original. We don't know which building exactly that they lived in but it didn't matter. Just being there and seeing how close to it's original state it was, was marvelous. The entire building complex was taken up with apartments, clearly occupied with young families as there were lots of baby buggies under the stairs. Someone was renovating an apartment and I wish now we had gone up to take a look. The lady in the bakery offered to send Quellie a photo of the courtyard when the roses are in bloom. I hope she does. She wanted us to come again and have coffee with her.

The whole facade of 92, rue de la Guillotiere

After we left the house, we made our way to the local church (Notre Dame de St. Louis) which was where Antoine and Francoise were married. This church would have been the hub of the community in those days and we know that Louise would have spent a lot of time there. Nowadays, it seems somewhat forlorn and empty, although a couple of people came in when we were there. The whole area is now predominantly Moroccan and African with some French people still living there as well. Not much call for a Catholic church in a mostly Muslim area.

Exterior of Notre Dame de St. Louis where my great-great grandparents were married in 1845

We were both struck with how friendly, polite and helpful the people in Lyon were. We had a few small problems while there and each time someone helped us in the nicest possible way. Here's what happened:

My name was written as Maya on my airline ticket. My legal name is still Maire so this caused a problem at the airport. I was expecting a lot of problems. They could not have been nicer. The lady smiled at me and said, don't worry, we'll change it for you, no problem. This, despite the fact that Easyjet normally charge £116 to change a name!
Our Metro tickets didn't work. They lady in the station checked them and immediately gave us new ones, no problem
We missed our tour bus on the freezing cold hill of Fourviere where we had got off to look around and so we missed the rest of the tour. The next day the bus driver let us on again, no problem.

We loved Lyon. We want to go back. The food was beyond divine and we enjoyed everything we had. We stayed in an average hotel that had the advantage of having a small kitchen in the room so we bought supplies the evening we arrived and had lovely breakfasts every morning. It's a fascinating city, the culinary capital of France. Next time, we want to tackle the archives and see what else we can dig up about our family and perhaps even find a distant cousin still in the area.

My lovely aunt, Quellie, braving the biting wind on the hill beside Fourviere

Sharing the experience with my beloved Aunt Quellie was a real joy as we both find everything endlessly fascinating and we both love delicious food!

Everything Out of Order Makes It More Interesting

2010-02-28T09:42:00.001-05:00

One would think that the Scandinavians can manage a snow storm or two. One would also think that they could manage an airport with stranded passengers. Well, one would be wrong.

It was February. I was in Trondheim, halfway up the coast of Norway, at a meeting with Statoil, a customer of mine at the time. When the plane landed the day before, I could tell that it did not bode well for the coming weather. We had to make three attempts to land because it was so windy. I am not the scared type but even I was getting nervous when we swung off to the left suddenly and swerved around to start again. None of this would have been possible in a larger plane. We landed. I had my meetings, stayed the night and headed off back to the airport to get to Oslo.

We made it to Oslo, the last flight that was allowed to leave Trondheim that day. Chaos in Oslo as it seemed all the flights out were cancelled. No one had the slightest idea of where to go or who to talk to. I finally decided to join a queue that looked promising. In front of me was a very tall man. Bored, I decided to think about where he might be from by checking out what he was wearing and carrying. ( I people-watch a lot at airports) He had very curly hair, slightly mad professor looking, dark and springy looking. He was at least 6' 4", maybe more. He wore a waxed, brown coat that was clearly not of the English persuasion. He carried a battered leather briefcase ( major points from me) with two magazines, in English, about sailing. I thought he was either Scandinavian or German.

After standing in the queue for about half an hour, he said something to the person in front of him and then turned round to me and commented about the nuttiness of the system at the airport. I smiled at him and he smiled back and, with that, we were talking. He could really talk. Turns out he was Dutch. Don't know why I didn't think of that, knowing how tall they are. He had a craggy sort of face, sensuous lips, grey eyes and skin you could tell would tan well. He wasn't exactly drop dead handsome but he had charisma in bucketloads.Not conventional charisma either. He wasn't 'charming' in a 'chat-up' sort of way. He was genuinely lovely, interested in what I was doing there and where I was headed. He listened intently to everything I had to say and was very forthcoming when I asked him the same questions. I reckoned he was in his early-mid 40s.

He finally made it to the counter and was told he could get on the next flight to Amsterdam that was going in about 1.5 hours. I had no such luck. I was told there were no flights to Dublin that night and they had no idea when the next one would be. I asked if my luggage was retrievable and they assured me it was and gave me a voucher for the hotel close to the airport. So far so good.

My new friend had hung around with me while I was getting this news as we seemed to have struck up a camaraderie and wanted to continue to talk to each other and, I realized later, he was that kind of person. He would never have walked off and left me to my manage alone.

Since his flight was leaving in the next hour and a half and I was going nowhere, I decided the luggage could wait. We went to the bar which happened to be right across from his gate and he ordered two beers. He sat across from me. I was very aware of his scrutiny. He seemed to be completely absorbed in me and everything I had to say. It was so unexpected and disconcerting but not unpleasant. I had not had a man in my life for quite a while, on purpose. My last relationship had left me exhausted and I needed a break.

I can be really dense sometimes. Because I was not flirting with him it never occurred to me that he was, with me. I had no inkling that he fancied me. I didn't think he would. I was feeling very fat and unattractive at this point in my life and had not had a man look at me in a while so was sort of out of the loop with the whole flirtation thing.

It suddenly became clear when his flight was called and he got up off his stool to say goodbye. I was expecting a handshake or, at most, a peck on the cheek, since we had been quite friendly with each other. No. He came around the table, bent over his rather enormous height, took me in his arms and kissed me passionately. Everything inside me started to quiver. Everything.

He stroked my cheek and told me I was the most beautiful, intelligent woman he had ever met. And then he left to catch his plane.

I sat there, speechless, not really knowing what to do with myself now. I knew I had to go off in search of my luggage and should have just left but felt somehow immobilized. Besides, I hadn't finished my lager. I sat there for about 15 mins gathering my wits and trying to make sense of what had just happened when, all of a sudden, there he was in front of me again!

As I said above, the Scandinavians weren't doing a great job with snow chaos. The flight he thought was going, wasn't.

Taking charge of everything, he decided that we should find my luggage. Yeah, right! After searching for where it might be, and then searching for someone who knew anything about anything, we realised ( after almost 2 hours) that there was no way I was going to find my suitcase. Oh well, no clean underwear, no toothbrush, no cleanser, moisturiser, makeup - NOTHING.

We left and went to the hotel across from the airport, for which I had a voucher. He was going to make sure I was well ensconced before he went off to take care of himself. Told you, he was a gentleman through and through.

The receptionist at the hotel laughed in my face, literally. 'A room?". she gasped. "not at all. No rooms here. Who told you there were?" I proffered my voucher and she huffed and puffed and said the airline ( SAS) were ridiculous and more annoyed stuff and handed it back to me. I asked her if she could suggest any solution and she told me to head into the center of Oslo and look around. Very helpful.

My new friend suggested we have a drink in the lounge by the fire before heading into Oslo to search for a place. It was now early evening and dark. Snow was piled up all over the place outside the windows so the roaring fire in the lounge seemed a very sensible idea. He loves Scottish whiskey. I asked if he had tried Irish whiskey. No, he hadn't but he heard it was sweeter than Scottish. So he got me an Irish and himself a nice smokey Scottish whiskey and we tried each others. Clearly, he would remain a Scottish whiskey fan. We sat there, talking and talking, discovering each other, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the warmth spreading around our burgeoning flirtation. An hour later, we knew we would have to make a move.

We got the train. Sat in a compartment with no other people. Recently, I saw a tweet from a celeb on Twitter about how disgusting it was to see two middle-aged people snogging on a train. It made me laugh because it reminded my of my friend and me, two middle-aged people snogging on a train. I wanted to tell this celeb that he would see one day that age has nothing to do with attraction. In fact, I think I did tell him that. He never responded.

S ( I shall call him S) wrapped me in his long arms and stroked my hair, kissed me, told me I was a delight, that he had never before experienced anything like this ( I didn't believe that of course, at the time) and that he was overcome with how he felt. He said he had been struck the instant he had set eyes on me in the queue earlier. He left me in no doubt whatsoever about his feelings. In fact, in a very refreshing and un-Anglo-Saxon way, he told me he wanted to make love to me but it was entirely up to me if that was what I wanted. He never, ever made me feel that I had to, or pressured me in any way. He just told me that he was so overwhelmed that he could not think of anything that he would rather happen but he would be completely OK with if that did not feel right to me.

I have been in situations like this many, many times in my life and on almost every other occasion, I had felt some sort of pressure. Now, because he was so natural and warm and loving, I felt I could make a choice that was good for me. I had some hesitations because I felt self-conscious about not being slim like I used to be when I was a man-magnet ( more stories about that coming later). Something inside me told me I would be making the biggest mistake of my life if I turned him down. Besides, I was totally attracted to him in the same way as he seemed to be to me. I said yes.

We got to town and finally found a hotel with a room. It being Oslo, there seemed to be nowhere to eat after 10pm so the only option was an all night convenience store with sandwiches. He got me settled in the room. I asked him to see if he could find me some moisturizer. He came back later with the only thing he could find, a tube of lip moisturizer. I was really touched that he had tried to find something that he thought might work.

It was one of the most passionate, fun and exciting nights I have ever had with a man. Probably the most, if I'm honest because he seemed to be without guile and was attentive to the point of bliss. We drank whiskey (Scottish whiskey in bed would remain a feature of our relationship), talked, laughed our heads off, made love, drank more whiskey, snoozed in each other's arms, talked more, laughed more, made love again and finally fell asleep. I have never been able to sleep the first time I am with a man. I slept like a baby, feeling safer than I had ever felt with anyone in my life.

I was a wreck in the morning. My skin felt like it had been sandpapered by his beard stubble. We didn't care what we looked like. We were in heaven. He took care of everything. Another first for me. A man who took charge but was loving and thoughtful of my needs. We returned to the airport and, this time, we really did say goodbye. It was wonderful and awful at the same time. Awful to part but wonderful because, unbeknownst to him until that moment, I had already planned, the previous December, to move to Amsterdam the next month. I told him then, when he seemed worried about how we might see each other again. His face was a picture. His whole being lit up with pleasure and he caught me in his arms and lifted me up and kissed me with joy. He went off to catch his flight, happy, bouncing and not aware of how tired he really was.

I went off to sort out getting to Dublin. I made it as far as Copenhagen. Stayed the night there courtesy of SAS again, no luggage. I managed to find a toothbrush and some skincare products. Slept the sleep of someone completely satisfied in every way.

I finally arrived back in Dublin on Sunday evening and there was my suitcase, the first thing I saw in the luggage hall. Turned out it had been sitting there since Friday. So a flight did get out after all, the lying toads. I didn't care. I was happier than I had been in a very long time.

The next month I moved to Amsterdam.

The Blue Max Badge

2009-05-27T06:26:00.009-04:00

I mentioned before that I have happy memories of Cobh and also much more vivid memories than I do of my life in Roundwood in Co. Wicklow. I think this is because I have blocked out some of that time as it was when I was first aware of things not being right.

We moved to Roundwood so my father could be closer to Dublin and the literary scene there and also so he could get to London more easily by plane instead of taking the ferry from Cork to Swansea. At this point in his career, he was very successful financially and so they bought a huge house. It is still there, situated about a mile or so from the village of Roundwood, on the road to Glendalough. It stuck out in those days and people in the village referred to it as 'the big yella house'. It was actually a sort of creamy white colour with three large gables and a balcony on the front, set in several acres of bushy grassland that my mother battled against for all the time she was there. For us it was an enormous change; living now in the countryside in a huge house with the whole countryside to play in. Again, my recollection is that my father was not there much.

He was very much there though in about 1965 I think it must have been, when he was the scriptwriter for The Blue Max, a film set in the 1st World War about the first German pilots. It starred James Mason, Ursula Andress and George Peppard and was about the class difficulties experienced by the George Peppard character. You can still see it on TV from time to time. It was all filmed on Calary bog not far from our house, where they built what we called 'The Wooden Village' for many years afterwards. In fact, every time we drove by, we would point it out and say 'There's the wooden village' as though it were the first time. I don't know why we did that but perhaps because it recalled the excitement of the time. I still look for where it was when I drive past now! It was a replica of a French town that was bombed in the war.

One day, a helicopter landed in our garden and it was John Guillermin, the film's director,coming to pay a visit. Another time, my sister, Patricia, got to meet George Peppard and came home with a brown bag full of peaches that he gave her. I have no idea why he gave her a bag of peaches but it was really exciting at the time!

On that film, each of the main people on it, the producer, director, scriptwriter, lead actors, cinematographer and some others, were given a small replica of the Blue Max badge, in silver, as a memento of their time on the film. When I was about 9 or 10 years old, because I was doing so well in school, my father gave me his Blue Max badge as a reward. It said 'Pour le Merite' on it ( curious for a badge that was for the first German air aces). I treasured it for many years until it disappeared from my room when I was about 15 years of age. At that time, we had a carpenter in the house who was splitting our larger bedrooms into smaller ones so we could each have our own room. My father always wrote at night time so he slept till about 1pm each day and so this workman could lounge around and do what he wanted while my father was asleep and we were at school. We came home one day and found him asleep on one of our beds. We tried to tell Daddy about it but he just dismissed our concerns. On top of the crooked wardrobes that never got their top coat of paint and the glue that seeped for years from the joins in the linoleum tiles on the kitchen floor, I believe he stole things. I am almost sure he stole my Blue Max Badge. The reason I am sure about this is that several years later, when I was about 19 or so, I was at a party somewhere in Wicklow and I ended up dancing and chatting with some guy who told me that he had a Blue Max Badge. I was very suspicious as I knew only about 7 were made for the key people on the film so I questioned him obliquely about it and it turned out that he also happened to know the sleepy carpenter! I did not feel I could say to him that it was my badge, at the time. Now, I wish I had confronted the situation as that was such a precious thing to me.

When I turned 40, I was having a beautiful ring made for myself in Bath, Somerset. I got to know the people who ran the jewelery shop quite well and one day I told one of them about my Blue Max Badge. It turned out that they specialised in finding unusual antique jewelery for people and so they found me a replica of the actual badge. It is almost impossible to get the real thing as there were so few made so a replica, of which there are also not many, was also quite precious. When it arrived at the jewelers and I opened the box, I was surprised to see how big it was compared to my original piece in silver. It was also in gold. I was delighted to have it again and kept it safe at home and took it out now and again. About 5 years later, when my gorgeous niece, Telche, was doing really well in school, I gave it to her for the same reasons my father give me his originally. I think it was only years later that she understood the significance of it. I hope she has it safe and passes it on to her child or someone she loves as much as I love her. Thus we can keep it as a family tradition as I never had children of my own.

A little bit of information on the badge itself:

Recipients of the Blue Max were required to wear the badge, which was a blue Maltese Cross with eagles between the arms, and the royal cipher and the words ‘Pour le Mérite’ on the cross, whenever in uniform.

Notable recipients included Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the ‘Red Baron’and Erwin Rommel, the famed “Desert Fox” of WWII. The last living holder of the Pour le Mérite was novelist Ernst Jünger who died in 1998 and who, at the age of 23, was the youngest ever recipient as well.

I Remember My Brother's Death

2009-05-26T10:47:00.004-04:00

I am skipping forward many years at this point. When I was about 28 or so, I was in therapy in California, dealing with the fallout of my family dramas ( of which I will write in other posts). My therapist was a great woman called Anne Gildersleeve who had a huge impact on me and helped me make some sense of the traumas I had experienced. She suggested, at one point, that I try what was then a new form of therapy called EMDR ( Eye Movement Desensitization and Re-Processing). It had been developed for Vietnam Vets originally as it was discovered that it had a great effect on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was one of the very first non-veteran patients to experience it. My older sister, Javine, has since used it with enormous success in her psychotherapy practice, particularly with people who have been abused in some way.

The first time we used EMDR in my therapy, without going into all the details of how it works, I was able to remember things from before I was verbal; so from the time I was born to about 2 years of age. The remarkable thing with it was that I had visual memories that I could then put words to. On the second session, I remembered my brother's death. I later verified some of the details with my oldest sister as I was worried I had remembered things that had not actually happened.

My memory was of standing in my cot screaming crying, in a wet nappy. It was dark outside and there was a cold breeze from somewhere. My mother was holding a child in her arms whose skin was sort of grey and who was covered in dead leaves and with water dripping onto the ground. My mother was screaming and screaming, hysterical. I only remember that fragment but I remember also, very clearly, the terror I felt. I was obviously too small to understand what I was seeing but I know I was terrified at my mother's screams and knew something terrible was happening. With the therapy, I was able to put that experience into a place where I could handle it like a file that is replaced in it's proper place. It did help me to understand some of the anxiety I often felt but could never explain and, to this day, it colours my sense of abandonment. In that moment, as a very small child of only about 8 months, I 'knew' on some level that my mother had left me somehow. It has nothing to do with real abandonment ( which came later) but with the sense of security a child should feel with it's mother. It shook the core of my small being, making me aware of being alone in the world. I was not using verbal language at that point so I had no words to describe that later on and, in fact, was not aware of the experience until I had this therapy session. It put a picture and words to the feeling I had long held but had never understood.

I often think of children who are traumatized in wars or disasters or, indeed, abuse and how much damage can be done just by being witness to the terror of others but most particularly the terror of a mother or father. I think it does permanent damage to one's sense of security and trust. For me, being able to voice it and see it in this type of therapy helped enormously as I was able to make some sort of sense of it and can now write about it without having any ill effects.

I will never know really how my mother and father felt about that terrible death. I can only imagine it. It doesn't bear imagining. I know for sure that a lot of blame was thrown around and it put yet another nail into the coffin that was their marriage. My mother had a tendency to shut off her feelings (which I learned well from her) and so, to our small eyes and ears, it seemed like she had got over it. As an adult, I understood that she never had. How could she? The pain may have lessened but I am sure that whenever thoughts of her beloved son came up that she must have suffered greatly.

After his death, we stayed in Greystones, Co. Wicklow for six months as they did not want to be far away from his small grave. Eventually, we all went back to Cobh and my parents went on to have another daughter a little over a year later and then twin boys less than 2 years after that. One of those boys was also christened Dermot, which seems to me to be a legacy too heavy for a small child.

My father was buried with our first Dermot in 1992. It makes me so sad to see both their names on that gravestone.

The Drowning of Dermot

2009-04-02T09:58:00.003-04:00

I have mentioned a few times that my brother drowned. It has taken me years to really understand some of the impact this had on our family. And also to know more about how our family ticked. I wish I really could explain it all, as some of the way things happened may seem strange but will help shed light on how things worked.

My parents' first son, Dermot, was born in Cobh in 1956. As I write that I have, for the first time, imagined what he might have been like as an adult and somehow this has given me a flash of understanding of him as a person. What a strange feeling that is.

As the first son in our family, he was much treasured. In those days, sons were definitely what parents wanted most, no matter how much they adored their daughters. Dermot was the golden boy and photos of him that I have seen show him as a round cheeked, chubby, happy little boy. My older sister Javine would have been 12 when he was born, so a natural babysitter. Patricia was almost 1 in Feb 1956 when he was born ( god, imagine having another baby less than a year after the last one!). Agnes and I came in 1958 so we were 6 months old when Dermot died. I would imagine our birth somehow contributed to the whole nightmare as my mother was distracted and busy.

We had gone to visit distant cousins of my father in Bray, Co. Wicklow in late 1958, around November time. They had a hotel there. Later on, years later, we used to go there sometimes and I have very strong memories of the smell of the bar in the daytime when it was mostly empty and smelled of old, spilled beer and spirits. I am imagining some of what happened that night but I think it went something like this.

My father was in the bar with friends. He was a very sociable and charismatic person and people were always attracted to him. He was also a heavy drinker and I can imagine he was in there talking up a storm and having a great time. He would have been catching up with people he had not seen in a while as we were so far away in Cork and most of the people he knew, in the literary world, would have been in and around Dublin.

My mother put Dermot in bed in a room where J was also sleeping. Patricia was somewhere else I think but may also have been in the same room. She was 3 1/2 by then. Mum had taken Agnes and I off to feed us. The rooms were all on the ground floor and some of them had French doors. ( I could be making up that part as I have always pictured him opening the French doors into the garden).

One part of the story that may or may not be true is that my mother asked my father to keep an eye on Dermot as there was no cot to put him in and he could wander off and that my father was so busy socialising in the bar that he did not do as asked and paid no attention. In some ways, this would not surprise me as it would have been one more notch in the growing reasons why their relationship was doomed.

At some point in the evening ( it was a dark November night), Dermot got up and wandered out of the room and into the garden. Javine slept through that. I often wonder how she has felt all these years, as children of that age can really feel intense responsibility for things that were not their fault. Sometime later my mother came into their bedroom to check on them and found Dermot missing. A search was started and I can only imagine what that must have been like.

Years and years later, when I was in my mid 30s and in Dublin on a visit, I was staying with my twin and called a cab to take me to the airport. When I got in the taxi, the man was looking at me in the rear view mirror and it started to make me uncomfortable so I asked him why he was looking at me like that and he said " I noticed your name was Hanley. Are you by any chance related to Gerald Hanley, the writer?". I was surprised but not shocked by this question as Ireland is a small place and people seem to know each other in the weirdest situations. I told him I was his daughter and he let out a huge sigh. Somehow that sigh told me there was something big going to come out of his mouth next. "I was there the night your brother drowned", he said next. He proceeded to tell me how he had been 17 at the time and was there with his uncle or father and had been called to help search for Dermot. He heard my mother screaming in the garden and ran to her and helped her to get my brother's body out of the swimming pool.

It was a real shock and a weird sort of thrill to meet someone who had actually been there because my parents would never really speak about it except in a matter of fact terms that he had drowned and that was it. This man, whose name I have forgotten, told me the whole story on the way to the airport. When we got to the airport, he asked me if he could park up and buy me a drink. In those days, only 15 years ago now, you could park easily at Dublin Airport and there was a bar right inside the main door. He parked there and we had a Guinness together and he told me about how that experience had affected him forever after and he started to cry. I felt so bad for him. His whole life had been traumatised by his action of taking my poor dead brother out of the swimming pool that night. He did say though that meeting me and being able to talk about it to someone who was directly affected somehow helped him.

When I walked away to get the plane I felt a terrible wrench leaving him there with his sorrow. For, despite it being my brother, I did not have really first hand experience of it. That said, I had had a very strange experience in therapy a few years before this, about Dermot and the night he drowned.

Memories of Cobh

2009-02-04T17:12:00.004-05:00

Although the time I spent in Cobh was short ( we moved when I was 6 1/2) my memories of it are very clear. I remember it as the time before I experienced pain or sadness ( that I remember ). I did have a memory from that time of the night my brother drowned but that came much later when I was in therapy. Prior to that experience, I only remember being happy in Cobh.

I was an adventurous child. There are photos of my twin and I in the pram with me strapped in because I was always trying to get out, while Agnes sits there, docile, not in the least bit interested in what was happening outside the confines of the pram. I remember the feeling of wanting to know what was going on and wanting to see it all. I also started to walk at 9 months, which is a nightmare for a mother with only one child to deal with, but with 5 so young and two older children, it must have been really hard to know what to do with me. I do know that my mother used to tether me on a string to the leg of the kitchen table, to stop me from wandering off and getting into trouble. I would imagine that having lost a son not long before to drowning made her even more cautious. I remember feeling constrained by this rope that held me there and it may have been what set me up for a lifetime of hating constraint of any kind. I can't bear to be pinned down or captured where I cannot move. It is my worst nightmare to be tied up or to feel like I cannot move. This also translates into mental freedom. I don't like to feel caged in a relationship and have ended many a new one due to feeling this constraint.

I loved living by the sea and I believe that if you are born by the sea you always long for it. I loved going down to the harbour with my older sister to buy fish on Fridays and going to Cuskinny, the local beach. It was there, when I was about three that I was tossed over by a wave when I was stuck in a rubber ring and inhaled a lot of sea water. To this day I have an aversion to getting water up my nose and a mortal terror of falling into water. It was not helped by my brother's drowning and the probably anxiety that I picked up from the other family members when we were close to water. In any case, despite the fact that I adore to be by water, love boats etc, I am terrified of falling in and have never dived into water. I am a terrible swimmer because of this fear and one of my dreams is to learn how to swim properly and to get over my phobia. I have to always tell people who don't know me well not to mess around with me near water as I might drown them in my panic.

I went back to Cobh recently and was amazed by how colourful it now is compared to when we were kids. See the video above for the brightly painted houses close to the harbour. When I was a child, the houses were unpainted and everything was greyish. The Celtic Tiger at least brought colour to the nation!

Early Memories

2009-02-04T04:42:00.006-05:00

I was born in Cobh, in Co.Cork Ireland. It's main claim to fame is that it was the last port of call for the Titanic before it headed out into the Atlantic. Cobh is a small town built on a steep hill and is dominated by St. Colman's Cathedral with its towering spire and beautiful bell-ringing. It is one of the few churches or cathedrals where they make fantastic music with the bells. When I was a child there, the head organist and bellringer was a man called Staff Gebreuwers, a Dutch man. It was such a part of our days there that I have missed it whenever I hear church bells that ring normally. St. Colman's was donated by the US as a tribute to all the Irish Immigrants who left from Cobh for America during the famine years in the mid 1800s. I was baptised there along with my twin sister. Being in that great cathedral has left me with a real appreciation of cathedrals and I tend to go into the main cathedral of any new city I am in, time permitting, to light a candle for my family. I love the smell of candle wax and polish and the quiet calm of being in a catherdral. I am not a practising Catholic and have not been since I was 13 years old but I do love some of the ritual of the church.

My mother, at the point when I start remembering things at about 3 years of age, had 5 children under the age of 4. Two sets of twins and one in the middle. Agnes, my twin and I, were born in 1958, our sister Louisa in 1960 and our twin brothers in late 1961. I was 3 1/2 when they were born. She used to put the boys it the baby carriage, the old fashioned kind that was pretty huge; place a board on the front where she put my twin and I and then put our sister in between somehow and she used to push us all down the hill to the main town and the back up the steep hill again. My mother is one of the physically strongest women I have ever met. Needless to say, she attracted a lot of attention with all these twins in the pram and also because she was a foreigner.

In those days in Ireland, there were not many foreigners living in the country. Most people were leaving Ireland to find work in the UK or the US so it was rare to meet people from other countries. This gave her an exotic edge and, thanks to her warmth and friendliness, she was accepted and admired in many ways. I remember her telling us that Una and I had won a beautiful baby contest and how proud she was. I think there was some hero worship of my mother from the local woman as she seemed so different and interesting. I remember this more when I was older and we were living in Roundwood. The women in the Irish Countrywomen's Association to which she belonged, used to hang on her every word. At that point, I was old enough to understand it for what it was and I did not like the sort of preening she used to do in their presence. I suppose it is human nature in some people to feel superior when people treat like that.

I don't remember my father being around a lot when we were in Cobh but I do remember standing on the top of the hill and waving to him on the bridge of the ferry to England, where he stood with a white hankie so we could see him. He would be away for weeks and weeks and then arrive home laden down with gifts from whichever exotic place he had just been. One of the most memorable returns was when he arrived with records ( as in for a record player) of the Beatrix Potter stories with lots of songs interspersed with the stories. The excitement of that was enormous and, to this day, most of us remember all the words to those songs. Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin and Mrs. Tiggywinkle became a huge part of our childhoods.

I have a theory that the books and movies you see when you are under 10 years of age, have a huge affect on your preferences later on in life, in many areas of life not just what you might like to read or see. For example, I learned a lot about not being naughty from Squirrel Nutkin and remember being fascinated that he dared to be so cheeky to his elders. In my house, you did not answer your parents back and it seemed surprising to me that you could. It did not make me suddenly try to be naughty but it always stuck with me, the idea that some people could be and get away with it. Poor Nutkin lost his tail from his naughtiness but this somehow seemed a badge of honour not disgrace. Another example of this is that I saw a lot of American Western movies as a child and was always terrified and fascinated when the Indians would capture white people and tie them to posts and threaten them with torture. There was something very sexual about it, especially in one movie I remember where they tied a woman to a stake and her blouse was very decollete. Although I did not realise it at that time, those images stuck in my memory and created a template for how men treat women.

On a lighter note, I did always relate to the Indians and not the cowboys and was also in love with Hiawatha when I was 3 and my father gave me an illustrated book about him when he was a teenager. I became obsessed with him and wanted to be Minnehaha and even had an Indian Squaw outfit that I wore to the point where it was filthy and could not be prised out of my possession to be washed. One of the most abiding memories I have that traumatised me in ways that were to haunt me later, was when we were finally leaving Cobh to move to Co. Wicklow and the big black car was standing there waiting for us to pile into it and my mother, no doubt harassed and exhausted, ripped my dirty panda bear and my Indian Squaw dress out of my arms and announced that 'We are not taking those filthy things with us' and dumped them in the bin. I cried all the way to Wicklow. I never had a stuffed animal again as I created a 'story' that they were stupid. Years later, a close friend gave me a stuffed bear for my 30th birthday as she was so upset by this story.

For me it was the first time I got the idea that my mother did not love me unconditionally and it was the start of the abandonment issues that were to get so much worse later on.

Where do I start?

2009-02-02T05:29:00.004-05:00

I have been hearing for years that I should write a book about my family so here goes. I have no idea where to start really. Maybe in the order that I discovered it? ( I have changed everyone's names so they won't get upset with me!)

When I was 18 years old, my oldest sister, who is nearly 14 years older than me, took my twin sister, Agnes, and myself our for dinner with her husband, Dennis. This was Dublin, 1976. May to be precise. They took us to The King Sitric, a fantastic fish restaurant in Howth, Co. Dublin which is still going strong. It was our first time being taken to a really fancy place and I chose Lobster Thermidor and we had some red wine. I was not used to drinking at all in those days and had a violent reaction to all the alcohol and ended up throwing up so violently that I had broken blood vessels around my eyes that looked like hickies. That evening, we also went to see some friends of my sister's husband and the wife told Dennis that night that she was dying of cancer and I remember Dennis crying his eyes out in the car afterwards and my surprise to see a man in complete turmoil with tears streaming down his face. My sister comforted him and we all went home in a state of deep depression. It turned out that the woman had lied about the whole thing and I remember the surprise at the lie and how anyone could do something so despicable. Now, of course, I understand that she must have had a personality disorder. At the time, the overriding feeling I had was that men actually had feelings like women and what a shock that was to me.

Sometime either before of after that ( it must have been after on reflection as now we were 18 and allowed to hear this news) my sister and her husband took us to a meal in a restaurant near Grafton Street and told us the news that we had two half brothers and a half sister. I still remember the moment of hearing this and the sudden understanding of why there was a 10 and a half year age gap between my oldest sister and the next in line, Patricia.

Out came the story. My father had left my mother when my oldest sister was about 3 and had married someone else and had two children with that woman and then come back to my mother. That's it in a nutshell but the actual details of it and the fallout of this episode had long and deep affects on all our lives. In essence, this is the story of that.

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