Tuesday 19 August 2014

Reasons to be cheerful

We’re half way into the school holidays and the kids are climbing the walls. I’m not far behind them. I’ve the uniforms to buy, a pile of ironing the height of Kilimanjaro, a broken fridge and a tooth that is nagging at me.  If only I could sleep til noon like my teenagers I’d halve the worry. Then something came along that lightened my spirit. At the start of the week a friend in Australia nominated me to take part in a simple experiment.

All I had to do was spend a few minutes every evening for five nights reflecting on three good things that happened that day. When I had thought of them, I was asked to post them on my Facebook page each night and nominate three friends to do the same.  By the end of the week the project would have encouraged fifteen random people to reflect on the positive. It couldn’t have come at a better time. so in the name of ‘Mindfulness’ I gave it ago. Here are my fifteen:

1. Friendship. “Do you think I’m weird?” I asked my friend of forty years this week. “Yeah. But so am I so who cares?” was how our conversation started this week. We share and laugh, we share and cry and I’m not sure where we’d be without each other.

2. Home Sweet Home.
After a week in a barge on the Llangollen Canal, I was very happy to be home. Dad fell in, my brother fell in, and two of the dogs fell in. Uncle Richard accidently threw my sister’s IPad into the murky canal and I ended up in hospital with a peculiar swelling.  My sister in law dropped her house keys into the canal, my husband did the same with our car keys and we lost three pairs of sunglasses. I am so thankful that we are in the AA and to the mechanic who fixed our car when we started the journey home after what was supposed to be a relaxing break.

3. Ready, steady, cook. The teenagers have been cooking for me all week. It started after I did a simple sum. I calculated how many meals I had cooked for the family over the year.  It came to almost forty five thousand. So far dinners have been pasta based three nights in a row but I am not complaining. I didn’t cook it and it tastes lovely.

4. Beard appreciation. Every man under the age of thirty has grown a beard. They’ve not been in fashion since the seventies and I was too young to remember all that facial hair. They’ll be gone soon so I am enjoying the beard styles while I can.

5. Secret Agent. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone but I wrote a children’s book. This is the week that I got an agent who is taking my little manuscript to the very big Frankfurt Book Fair in October.  It feels a bit like making it through to the judges’ house on X Factor. Now it is a waiting game. If you see me and I look a little strange, it is because my fingers and toes are crossed. 

6. Smoothie Operator. Thanks to an impulse buy in Lidl, any fruit soft enough to be squeezed has been blitzed and jazzed up with juice, honey and yoghurt. A simple smoothie machine has brought a bit of excitement to the five a day. I’ve even started to freeze my smoothies. I clean it every night until it shines. That’s how much I love it. 

7. The lovely man at the Dry Cleaners. He dragged my smelly, much loved old duvet out of the car and promised that he could make it look and smell fresh again. “There is a risk,” he warned. “If it goes wrong it will explode in the machine. It will go up like a nuclear explosion. Feathers everywhere”. I took the risk. Watch out. I apologize in advance if a cloud of feathers hangs over the county for the next few days.

8. Feet. My youngest daughter, aged eleven, has the same sized shoes as me. “I can wear your shoes now” she told me. This caused me to have a much needed clear out of my shoe cupboard and hide the stilettoes.

9. Ireland. I packed the kids into the car and drove up to Glendalough. We were there in under an hour. The drive took us over the mountains and through some of the most breathtaking scenery in Ireland. We walked for two hours in the blazing sunshine past the big lake and back. Buses loaded with tourists were there too. “You can see why they come here” my son commented as we tucked into a huge ice cream on the way home. He’s dead right. Ireland has it all.

10. The old roof box. It came to life once more after a good spray of WD40 and got our clothes to Wales and back without falling off or cracking under the pressure.  Maybe I’ll keep it on the roof permanently and putting the kids in it for a more peaceful school run in September.

11. Whopper. The shop up the road sells the biggest ‘99’ ice creams in the world. I’ve eaten two this week.

12. Puppy love. We’ve fostered another two puppies from the KWWSPCA. They are running around the house with such energy and joy that it is impossible not to smile.

13. Art.  Whilst on the hunt for school shoes I came across the great art installation at Kildare Village this week. Susan Cuffe’s work ‘Out Dancing With My Love’ left me feeling good about the world.




 14. Factor 50. I remembered to put suncream on my nose this week.

15. The horrific images from Gaza reminded me of the most important reason to be positive.  Ireland is not at war. We live in peace.

Reasons to be cheerful? I have my fifteen. Now it’s your turn.