Last year, at the start of Lockdown, bunches of daffodils were left in my hedge at various times by an unknown benefactor. Skilled detective work on my part ( only one of my neighbours' gardens had daffodils) eventually led me to the kind person who was cheering up my day.
This morning another bunch was left on my doorstep. What a year that's been!
And yes, before you comment to correct me, I do realise that these ones are narcissies, NOT daffodils! But they have the same effect on my day.
Today was the first official day of my Easter holidays. I tried not to think of far flung destinations with sandy beaches and lapping waves. Instead I donned my coat and headed into Mullingar.
I decided to be very bold and head into the town park with my take-away cup of tea.
God be with the days when sneaking into the park to have a secretive drink had very different connotations!!!
In all fairness, COVID is probably the nicest thing they could go home with!!!
I've spent the last fortnight trying to get through to a real live person from Sky to fix the problem. But to no avail. I tried umpteen numbers but all I got was an automated voice which was of f*@k all use to me.
I decided that I was going to ring up to cancel my subscription, in the hope that they would jump to assist me in an effort not to lose my valued custom!
Today, being the first day of my Easter holidays, I set off on my bike for my 5km cycle.
Big change from when I'd spend my Easter in Turkey.
I called into my brother and sister-in-law, on the way round. I was telling Marese my tale of woe about my TV. Now I haven't been sitting starting at the walls for the past few weeks. I can connect my laptop up to my TV and I've been watching Netflix and I'd get News etc on RTE or Virgin Media player so all was not lost.
Marese advised me to unplug everything, leave it a few minutes and then restart it. That seemed a bit too easy but I gave it a shot when I went home.
AND IT WORKED!!!
Why didn't I know that two weeks ago? It would have saved me a lot of frustrated phone calls.
Then I got thinking.........
I wonder would that work for the world at the moment?
If we could just unplug it, wait a few minutes and then restart it, maybe everything would go back to normal?
Well, it's worth a try!
We had a very interesting family Whats-app chat the other morning.
I have never found any mugs, cards, hairbands etc with my name on them. Being a 56 year old woman it doesn't really bother me. But it's a different story for my 6 year old grandniece, Evelyn. She complains bitterly about not being acknowledged. She really takes it to heart. So much so, that when her second-cousin, Luca, was born last year, she voiced her strong opinion to his mother, Emma.
"Why are you calling him that? You should name him Luke or Lucas. At least you'll get those on a mug!"
The morning message was from an excited Emma, to announce the imminent summer release of Disney Pixar's new film....Luca!
Then I realised that this will mean loads of merchandise with his name on it. Caps, school bags, pencil-cases, you name it, Luca will have them.
We were commenting on how exciting it must be for a kid, to share a name with a universally recognised film character.
It was then that a quite sarcastic message came in from another disgruntled family member.
"Oh yeah. It's great to have the same name as a main character in a major film! It was the highlight of my childhood."
That came in from my nephew.......DAMIEN!
And the teasing about The Omen had just about died out when along came "Only Fools and Horses" and opened up the whole "devil child" saga again.
Hopefully Luca has a more positive experience!
We had a very interesting family Whats-app chat the other morning.
I have never found any mugs, cards, hairbands etc with my name on them. Being a 56 year old woman it doesn't really bother me. But it's a different story for my 6 year old grandniece, Evelyn. She complains bitterly about not being acknowledged. She really takes it to heart. So much so, that when her second-cousin, Luca, was born last year, she voiced her strong opinion to his mother, Emma.
"Why are you calling him that? You should name him Luke or Lucas. At least you'll get those on a mug!"
The morning message was from an excited Emma, to announce the imminent summer release of Disney Pixar's new film....Luca!
Then I realised that this will mean loads of merchandise with his name on it. Caps, school bags, pencil-cases, you name it, Luca will have them.
We were commenting on how exciting it must be for a kid, to share a name with a universally recognised film character.
It was then that a quite sarcastic message came in from another disgruntled family member.
"Oh yeah. It's great to have the same name as a main character in a major film! It was the highlight of my childhood."
That came in from my nephew.......DAMIEN!
And the teasing about The Omen had just about died out when along came "Only Fools and Horses" and opened up the whole "devil child" saga again.
Hopefully Luca has a more positive experience!
I can't believe that it was this time last year that all this madness kicked off.
We got word in school that the kids were to be sent home immediately and for the next two weeks. It said that schools would reopen then. Yes, we scoffed. That would have meant bringing them back for a week before the Easter holidays. We figured schools would stay closed until after the hols, by which time this Coronavirus thing would be under control and we would be back to normal.
I remember popping into the local Aldi on the way home to stock up for the week and being shocked at how many empty shelves there were.
Days went by and we began to realise that things were much worse than we thought. There was a report that schools in Britain wouldn't be reopening until September and we scoffed again in disbelief saying there was no way that would happen. Well guess what? Yep, we just about managed to open the following September, remain open until Christmas and now , in March 2021, we have been back for the past four days.
I'm glad I didn't know then what way things were going to turn out. Sometimes ignorance IS bliss. If we knew what was ahead of us I think we would have sunk into immediate despair.
And so , a year later.......
My blissful ignorance and naivety are gone to be replayed by pandemic exhaustion and a feeling of hopelessness. I've just been listening to the latest update and it's not a reassuring prospect. All I can hear are words like "no easing of restrictions", " June" "End of June" "5k to 8k if we're lucky".
So I've made a pact with myself. Instead of visualising myself going further into this dark world of restrictions , I am going to look at it from the viewpoint of coming out of it. I figure that 100 days should (Oh please God) see us in a better place. Now I am not so naive that I think we will be back to normal by this time. I would be perfectly happy to be in the place that we were last year ( when we felt that we were hard done by). In other words I would like to be able to travel at least 20 k ( minimum) or even cross county borders. Oh, to be able to meet up with 3 or 4 friends in the back garden and to have a chat. I'm sick to death of my own company and I'm over it now.
So I'm counting down each day from 100, which is today, the 20th March to July 3rd.
Maybe I should start tomorrow and then I'd end on 4th July, Independence Day? But me being me, I have to start when the mood takes me, which is TODAY!
So what I'm going to do is, take some action daily to claw back from the state I find myself in now and to get myself closer to re-emergence.
My first action is this new blog. My old blog "A girl for all seasons" was taken over by gremlins/foreign bodies and I've been locked out of it since Christmas. I kept meaning to start a new one but I just didn't have the energy or enthusiasm to do so until now.
So this is positive action No. 1. If you would like to join me in my journey forward, please do!!! And hopefully we can celebrate together on July 3rd....a new Independence Day!
How depressed are we going to be on July 3rd, if we look back at this post and realise that nothing has changed! STOP!!! I won't let myself believe that. Onwards and upwards.
