I have the DTs

No caffeine in almost 48 hours.
A day and a half of healthy, loads of veg eating.
A baby who STILL WON'T SLEEP

I am a shambling wreck my desk but I will not give in to the lure of caffeine. I shall fight the urge with every part of my body and I will be strong. Even if I fall asleep over my desk - which is not beyond the realms of possibility. In fact, given the droopiness of my eyelids and the easiness in which I start to snore while still awake, I think it is entirely possible.

But I've set myself some goals should I make it through the first 6 weeks of this experience I shall get my heair highlighted and buy new glasses. I shall treat myself to a pampering session the like of which no one has ever known.
As for WeightWatchers - I finished yesterday with enough points left over to save for a glass of wine at the weekend. Now that, my friends, is progress.

'That' section from Rainy Days and Tuesdays

... where Grace goes to a weightloss class as part of a bid to have her life transformed for the glossy mag she works for 'Northern People'.

I’m going to stand on the scales and Liam is going to take a picture (without looking at the result!) and my humiliation will be done and dusted for another day. The thing is, though, that I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. I have barely eaten a bite all day as if hoping my good intentions would be enough to shift an excess couple of stone of my body before stepping on the scales.



I’m wearing light cotton trousers and a T-shirt. I have flip flops on, and I have even declined to wear an underwired bra just in case it adds to my weight. I am more hungry than I have ever been in my life- my treat size Mars Bar going untouched in my lunch box today.


When Daisy phoned to say she would be late I’m sure I grunted something indecipherable down the phone to her in return. Seems one of her charge’s parents was running late and she couldn’t exactly leave little Katie to wait outside Happy Days on her own now could she? In my pre-weigh in rage and panic I thought Daisy was being entirely unreasonable to put the needs of a four year above those of her oldest, dearest, fattest pal!


Now my panic has switched to the silent variety, whereby I am in danger of chewing my nails, complete with fingers and most of my hands off, with nerves and I have broken out in a rather unattractive sweat- which is doing absolutely nothing for the make up I have caked on for my photoshoot. I seriously contemplate getting up and walking out, but then I would be falling at the first hurdle- letting Lollipop Louise, who had never needed to diet in her whole entire life, get one of over on me. Oh no, I must be strong- I’m in this for the long haul.


The door opens and I know Charlotte has arrived. I have heard much about Charlotte in recent years. I have even interviewed her over the phone in my Health and Beauty Editor days but I have never met her. She has a certain celebrity status in Derry. She is the woman who will help you lose weight, who will stick with you through thick and thin (literally) and who knows everything there could ever be to know about dropping dress sizes.


I’ve often wondered what she looked like- imagining some Derry version of mad Lizzie from TVam (Showing my age there!)- but instead I’m intrigued when I see a young, fairly normal woman in front of me. Yes, she is thin, but she isn’t gaunt. She looks, dare I say it, healthy and she doesn’t- much to my shock- look me up and down and give me a look which makes me think I am akin to something she has dragged in on the bottom of her shoe.


“You must be Grace,” she trills, shaking my hand firmly. “Louise has told me all about you. Are you ready to change your life?”


In the words of Lofty, the blue digger thing in ‘Bob in the Builder’, I reply: “Yeah, I think so.”


“C’mon then,” she says, “Let’s get you weighed and this picture thingy done before the rest of the class arrive. We don’t want to alert them to your secret mission do we?”


“I guess not,” I mutter, mentally visualising myself as Undercover Elephant- ready to set out on a new mission to find the leaner, slimmer, happier Mrs. Adams- last seen circa 2001.


Liam follows and starts working out lighting and focus and other such things. Charlotte takes her scales out, writes down my personal details on a little purple form, then asks me to stand on the scales and assess the damage.


I think about this for a moment. I can’t remember the last time I weighed myself. I’ve been in denial about my size for so long, it’s really not worth depressing myself by forcing bad news on me. I guess, given the comfort of my waist bands, the extra room I now like in my tops that I’m going to come in about the 14 stone mark. Taking a deep breath, I step on, my nerves jangling as Liam snaps contentedly from the corner. I can’t look down. I cannot bear to see those numbers glaring up at me, so I step off the scales again and take my seat beside Charlotte.


“Well done for making the first move,” she says, congratulating me on getting (or did she say fitting?) through the door to tonight’s meeting. “Right,” she says, “here is the deal. You weigh 15 stone and 5 lbs.”


“What the fuck?” the words jump out of my mouth as quickly as I can think them and my hand flies up to mouth as if in some desperate attempt to push them back in.


“Don’t get annoyed Grace. That is that last time you see that number again. It’s downwards from here on in. I promise.”


At that stage, my face crimson, I sense Liam is still snapping away and I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole- only I’m willing to bet even the ground would get full up before I was properly consumed.


“Do you want to set a goal?” she asks and I think about what I would like. I remember being 11 stone just before the wedding and feeling fabulous so I tell her to put that down on my card- ignoring the fact that I would need to four stone and five pounds to reach that goal (61lbs if you want to think of it that way- 122 packets of sausages).

So I went ....

And the panic was there. I sat outside in my car, in the pouring rain and felt my heart thunder.
You would have thought I was headed for the green mile, not the weighing scales.
My two sisters joined me - they have been WeightWatching for a while now and doing quite well - and they knew what to do, where to go, who to talk to, what to pay, which I admit made it a little easier.
But it taking away the thundering thumping of my heart - that was there to stay.
The leader, Betty, seemed lovely. Skinny but lovely. She didn't seem like the judgemental type but then again I wasn't telling her I'd overeaten on my points or sunk a dozen bottles of wine or the like.
I stood on the scales and yes, it was bad. Very bad. But not beyond what I expected. It just felt odd seeing it there in black and white.
So I've a small goal to reach - 5% of my bodyweight. And then it is onwards and downwards hopefully.

Hubby, however, who knows me so well was less impressed. When I asked him if he was proud of me when I came home he replied: "No. Anyone can sign up for a class. Ask me again next week, or in a few weeks' time."
He nearly got a slap. (or at least a crack over the back of a head with a bag of salad).

While I see his point that anyone, technically, can sign up for a class it took a lot of courage for me to do so last night.

But anyhow, this morning I clicked into my Notes from the Universe and it told me this much...


Claire, sometimes you have to let go, to stake your claim. Be still, to move forward. Give, to receive. Cry, to feel the joy. Pretend, to make it real. Fake it, before you make it. And sometimes, oddly enough, you must first decide to feel their love, to find it was there all along.

Therefore I dub today, and the rest of this week/ month/ year "fake it til you make it" 2010

Rainy Days and Mondays...

I must dig out the passage in Rainy Days and Tuesdays when Grace first goes to Weightloss Wonders. It’s been a long time since I read it - even longer since I wrote it.
All I can say is that three years, three books, one extra baby and a couple of extra stone later I’m about to face the same thing.
I’m scared. Like proper scared. Like heart thumping non-stop, tightness in my chest feeling like I’m going to be sick scared.
I know what I weigh - given a pound or two for time of day, weight of clothes, whether or not I’ve been to the loo.
I know that is scary.
And I know that last week my son asked me was I pregnant because I was “really, really fat”.
I cried that night - because he is at an age where he notices such things and he knows that fat isn’t good. I never want him to be ashamed of me - but more than that I want to be there to see him and his sister grow up. I want to feel healthy - less ashamed to be me. I want me back - just like Grace did in Rainy Days and Tuesdays.
But the fear won’t go away and I feel as if I could sit down in the middle of the floor and cry.
So, WeightWatchers it is.

Writing, writing, writing

I wrote last nights - 500 words. And then today I took my lunchbreak at my desk and wrote again - about 700 words. And it felt lovely. The characters are starting to really form and take on their own personalities. Some even have nicknames. There is some comedy gold in there too (mostly in the form of references to fancy pants) and the writing was one of those blissful experiences when it just flows, almost effortlessly, onto the page.
Book five, which as yet has no name despite the very best and generous efforts of some of my fellow Poolbeg authors, will be the story of three friends - each in their mid 30s and each facing a unique crisis.
Ava realises that her Mr Perfect is not so perfect after all - oh, and she’s up the stick too. Talk about complicated.

While Grainne is a work-a-holic with a exercise equipment graveyard in her bedroom and a broken heart to nurse better.

Hope’s heart is a little battered too - and she wonders what the future holds for her and the very hunky Dylan McKenzie.

The three former school friends have drifted apart over the years - keeping in touch via occasional emails and comments on Facebook - but when they realise they each need someone to turn to they find themselves sharing an adventure of a life time which will make all three realise what they really want and need.
It’s sounds like just the kind of book I’d love to read.

Thank you all for your kind words

I had a bit of an off day - headache never lifted and felt as if I had been run over by a truck so I left work a little early and went home to bed.
Head still ached like billy-o when I got up but I had a promised a friend I would call round - had a text message typed out to cancel when I decided no-one was going to make me feel better but myself so I had a shower, took yet mroe paracetamol and stopped off at the offy for a bottle of wine.
I went to said friend's house and had a lovely time - laughed and, yes, cried, Talked over a lot of feelings I've been having on and off since last year and got a hug.
And I came home feeling brighter.
Now hubby is cooking me a lovely dinner and I'm going to put my feet up and be good to myself for a bit.
And oh yes, will be a bit more strict about remembering to take my prozac.

Worth remembering

A while back my lovely writerly friend Keris put me on the 'Notes from the Universe' thing - where basically you receive a life affirming message each morning.
I look forward to my notes. I always read them and feel a little bad deleting them when they are done. Inevitably they lift my spirits.
So this morning I clicked onto the email which read


Think that it's fun, Claire, that you're guided, and that all is well; that there's time, that life is easy, and that the best has yet to come.
Think that the reasons that elude you will one day catch up, that the lessons that have stumped you will one day bring joy, and that the sorrows that have crippled you will soon give you wings.
Think that you're important, that you cannot fail, and that happiness always returns.
And think that you're beautiful, Claire.
I do.

I've highlighted certain phrases because this week I have been crippled - the Mad Mammy is trying to make a return and I have felt more than a bit overwhelmed. I've felt overwhelmed by work, by the responsibilities of parenthood, by exhaustion and by cripplingly low self esteem. There is is a voice in my head on a constant loop of "fat, stupid, ugly" at the moment and that is NOT fun.
At times like this - when I can feel myself slipping again mood wise I wonder what the point is. I have been down the depression road so many times - and each time I have a major slip I slip a bit further and it takes a bit longer to climb back out.
This time may not be a major slippage but the fear that it could is heart-stopping so that sometimes a bad day feels like the start of the end of the world. When I have several bad days in a row I really start to get scared.

So the message I got this morning was very apt and I'll be reading a few more times over the coming days and hoping that in a while I will be able to breathe easier again and that I won't be so close to tears morning, noon and night.

And it's done..

This blog is also now my dotcom and vice versa.
I have a headache.
And the baby still isn't sleeping. In fact now she is teething and she is waking more than ever. I have taken on the appearance of a zombie. I scare young children - even my own. The boy has become clingy. I have developed the emotions of a hormonal teenager - vying between elation and devastation, considering everything a major drama.
And I am eating everything in sight. My spare tyres have developed spare tyres and the worst of it is - she is sleeping EVEN LESS in the day than before. In fact she naps for just 30 minutes on average.

If anyone wants to look at the psychological impact of sleep deprivation - look no further!

Sleep baby sleep

The baby who never sleeps is taking the whole never sleeps things to a whole new level.
We had a week of "lulling us into a false sense of security" and then last night she started it again.
I love my daughter. I adore her with all my heart but that same heart sinks a bit when I hear a clap of her hands, or a "ta ta" or a "Cuckoo" at 3 in the morning.
That means she is awake - properly awake and not just requiring a wee plug of her dummy. It means she will be awake for at least an hour and more likely two.
At three in the morning.
I'm pretty sure surveys have been done which state that between 3 and 4 in the morning is a very important time to get some sleep. I'm sure that without such sleep the human brain implodes or something.
Because today I am trying very, very hard to concentrate on my work and my brain just wants to implode.
A lot.

So please, pray tonight that my lovely precious little lady sleeps well.

AAAAARRGGHH Me Hearties....

The boy's birthday passed, as birthdays do, in a haze of cake, presents, tantrums (me), parties (one small tea party, one big party for his friends) and cake decorating.
I have never decorated a cake before. There is a reason Tesco make cakes and I am that reason. I do not do culinary stuff well. There is even a photo album on my facebook to show the ONE time I made a spinach lasagne. I needed half a bottle of wine and approximately £36 worth of ingredients.
It was nice, but seriously... toast is easier. All hail toast.

I wish I was one of those women who could just toss a few things in a pan and make a special wonderful treat. My sister is like that. She is always regaling me with stories of steak and ale casseroles, stuff with tofu, and Thai food and the like. Me? I don't even do mashed spuds well... they need to be lumpy and quite often runny. I'm pretty sure mashed potatoes should not be runny. Ever.

So why, in my wisdom, I decided to actually decorate a cake for Joseph's birthday rather than just buy one in Tesco is beyond me. I think it was a fit of madness. However I wasn't mad enough to actually bake the thing. I enlisted my lovely aunty for that and she produced a chocolate cake so moist and yummy than I felt sorry for it.

I was going to destroy it.
With the best will in the world, it was going to die - at my hands. But at least I could say I tried.

So I googled 'Pirate cakes' and came up with a few ideas. Then I went to Sainsbury's and bought approximately £36 worth of cake decorating ingredients (including a very large, very cold bottle of Pinot Grigio). I bought coloured ready to roll icing (2 packets). I bought two packets of chocolate fingers. I bought two bars of chocolate for melting. I bought food colouring. I bought a cake board. I bought buttercream icing stuff. Oh, and pirate candles, chocolate coins and a playmobil pirate.

And yes, I bought Apricot baking glaze - which apparantly you absolutely cannot live without if you want to decorate a cake. Realising that I could not find my rolling pin (if indeed I ever owned one) I went out and bought one of those as well. Oh and some writing icing-y stuff.

And then I set about doing what I did. I shaped the icing into a shore line. I battered the buttercream and added enough blue buttercream to sink a small ship. I boiled the baking glaze and applied it thinly to the part of the cake which would have the yellow icing moulded to it. I whacked on the buttercream. I drank some wine. I made the buttercream look like a choppy sea. I drank some wine. I stuck a few candles hither and thither and embedded a plastic pirate in the top of the cake.

I pondered whether or not it looked crap as I cleaned up the 23 bowls, 4 spatulas, three knifes, 2 wooden spoons and one wine glass.
And then I called the boy out to look at it. He smiled and told me it was "totally awesome".
So I didn't care one wee ounce- but I'll let you judge for yourself.

Look at all the fancy new bits....

Look up... see there, at the top - there's a load of new stuff. Like a biography. And a diary of events. And book extracts. And contact details and STUFF.
In a few days the banner will probably change to and it will just say "Claire Allan" or something very exciting but all those registered with diaryofamadmammy will still get directed to this page.
And all those going to claireallan.com will be delivered here also.
Cos it's lovely.

The only thing it's missing is a guest book - but hey if you want to say hello, I'm always about.

All Hail the Mammy-versary

This week my first born turned six and plans have been put in place to celebrate in style.


Tomorrow, for my sins, I will be hosting a party with approximately 16 five and six year olds hopped up on sugar and running wild through a playframe until their cheeks glow bright red and their hair becomes matted to their face with sweat.

There will be cake (which my lovely Auntie is baking as me and cake baking do not go together) and there will be party bags. No doubt the boy will be showered with presents and will be like the cat who got the cream - and all this will be on top of the birthday tea he had with his family on the actual big day.

Although my head may well ache from the screaming of the excited primary 2s - giving it lilty as they hurtle down the slide at some scary speed - I will also be filled with a great sense of joy to see the happiness on the wee man’s face as he celebrates his special day.

But - and it must be said - there is a part of me which wonders why he is getting all the attention? Was it not me, six years ago, who did all the hard work? Should I not be showered with presents and cake and told “Well done missus. He’s a cracker and you’ve done well to keep your sanity for the last six years.”?

You see I’m all for instilling a tradition of a mammy-versary. There is an old saying that whenever a child is born, so is a mother. It seems, therefore, perfectly logical to me that we mammies get a wee shout on the birthdate of our first born.

Yes, I know we have Mother’s Day, but Mother’s Day is a pain in the proverbial. We don’t get to relax - we are too busy sorting our own mammies, and our grannies, and our mother-in-laws and the wains’ godmammies. I spend the average mother’s day morning writing cards or trying to get the boy to write cards and then trying to get us all out in time for a celebration. Then we cram into an overcrowded restaurant for some mass produced dinner and are booted out three seconds after putting the last spoonful of apple pie in our mouth to make way for some other harassed mother and her brood.

A good deal of mammies will have spent her allegedly calm and lovely celebratory dinner spooning mashed mush into the mouth of a hungry toddler while trying to stop any older children from showing her up. She will probably have accompanied at least one child to the toilet and wiped their rear end or changed a nappy- which would put anyone off their banoffee.

The glass of wine she so wanted to sip casually will have been downed in a fit of overheated stress as the baby throws her spoon on the floor for the 25th time while her older child (who we shall put at around six for argument’s sake) declares his boredom and decides it’s time to go home.

As Mother’s Day inevitably falls on a Sunday, mammies the world over traipse home to start sorting out the packed lunches and school uniforms for the following day and generally fall into a heap with the sheer effort of it all.

Now, a mammy-versary would be different. Sure we would have our celebrations for our children, and sure we would still get them presents. But we would get presents too - just tokens to show our efforts are appreciated. We wouldn’t have to go for an overpriced dinner - but we would get the housework taken off our hands and actually have time to spend with our lovely children in a relatively stress free environment while reminiscing about our birth experiences and when our children were newborns. It would be a chance for a woman to celebrate her journey into motherhood and I can think of little nicer.

I do - perhaps rather sickeningly - sometimes thank my son for making me a mammy. He seems a little shocked when I tell him I wasn’t a mother before he was born - but he reacts with great pride when I tell him how he came into my life to make me a mother.

My journey into motherhood was certainly more memorable than my actual birth (and come to think of it now that I’m heading very quickly towards the mid-30s era I no longer have the same desire as before to mark the turning of the years).

So - marketing gurus take note - I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to celebrate a mammy-versary.

This is perhaps the most disturbing thing I have ever seen...

Okay, apparantly this is a Halloween costume but seroiusly? You would let your daughter wear this? Look at the boots?
I'm really most disturbed by the still very childlike round tummy jutting out above the all too adult bare legs - and don't even get me started on the full make up.
This is Miley Cyrus' younger sister, Noah who is 9.
She is launching her own lingerie line soon.
Yes, you read that right. Lingerie. For nine year olds. Or younger.

What the hell is wrong with the world? At 9 years old little girls should at best be wearing nice vests and sensible cotton underwear and not thinking about their underthings as anything other than functional clothes.
Why would they have to worry if their pants are fancy? Why? Why? WHY????

I'm not the kind of Daily Mail reader-alike who screams "Paedophilia" at every opportunity but sweet Jesus, what do parents who let their children dress like this think they are achieving?
No young girl needs to dress like this. No young girl needs full make up. No young girl needs four inch heels.

Some parents, however, clearly need a slap.

Sorry if things go a little crazy here for a bit

I'm in the process of reassigning my domain name to this blog.
You might notice a few changes but stick with me!

As perfect as it gets

I had such a delightfully wonderful mammy experience yesterday. Now I should start this by saying the baby who never sleeps could also be described as the baby who never cuddles.
She is the polar opposite to her brother who always has been the snuggliest child in the world. She, from a very, very age took to pushing her arms away when I tried to cuddle her and wriggling out of my grasp. She certainly did not like to be rocked to sleep - preferring (a bit like her mammy) to have her own space to fall asleep. I could lie beside her, sure - but cuddle her? Not a chance.
She typically goes to sleep by rolling onto her side and drifting off in a very Miss Independent stylee.
Yesterday however we were in my mums and were playing on the floor (very exciting games of ‘Where did granny go?’ and bang the blocks together and laugh uproariously).
Then she started to get whingy in a way that only babies can so I lifted her, expecting her to wriggle away. Instead she cuddled in and closed her eyes so slowly while stroking my face. I stroked hers in return and she fell asleep. So I sat there, for half an hour, this sleeping baby in my arms - her cheeks rosy red from my body heat and also from teething and I kissed her head more times than should be allowed and relished just being a mammy.

Sometimes, it’s just perfect. Without any effort at all.

No woman, no cry...

I consider myself to be a fairly open minded and liberal person. I pretty much believe in a philosophy of live and let live as long as no one is getting hurt or no one is acting a malicious manner.


Whatever your colour, your creed, your persuasion or what you choose to get up to the weekend is pretty much your own business and fair play to you if it makes you happy.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I read something or hear something and alarm bells start ringing and my “old biddy” radar switches to full alert. I instantly transform into a net curtain twitching Blanche from Corrie-a-like willing to have a good oul bitch about things.

Such a thing happened this week. You see another ‘man’ is pregnant and is selling ‘his’ story to the papers. Scott Moore from California is having a baby with his ‘husband’. Pictures of Scott, top off, man boobs on display rubbing his big old pregnant belly have appeared in newspapers and on websites around the world causing a great deal of debate.

Now I will say this clearly - I have no problem with gay couples having children. Absolutely none at all - should they adopt, or use a surrogate or use artificial insemination with a turkey baster. As I have said before - live and let live.

But, and this is a big but, I do have a very serious issue with women who have decided to have gender reassignment making a big song and dance about the fact they are now pregnant men.

In particular Scott Moore has not had full gender reassignment - he (or she, I’m confusing myself) - has taken hormones from the age of 16 and has had a double mastectomy. All his female reproductive organs remain intact which is what brought him to the decision to carry a child - one which he hopes to give birth to naturally through his very female body parts.

He made the decision to parent this child with his husband - also a woman who has gone through gender reassignment - except that Thomas (who was born Laura) has gone the whole hog and had the necessary alternations to his nether regions.

Essentially, we have two women who felt they were always men now living as men but publicly promoting the fact they are giving life - an inherently female thing - to a child.

I’ve never felt like I have been trapped in the wrong body. (Well, occasionally I wonder why I got the genetics I did when it would have been much more preferable to have an Angelie Jolie type figure..) It is not something I can speak on with any great authority but surely if the feelings that Scott Moore (who started life as Jessica) had were so strong - if his inherent belief that he was a man trapped in a female body was so fervent - he would not have the very strong female urge to carry and give birth to a child?

Being a man means being a man. It means no womb. No ovaries. No producing eggs and having them fertlised. It means no peeing on a stick and waiting for two pink lines. It means no morning sickness (lucky feckers) no baby kicks, no giving birth and no being a mother.

You cannot, I hate to say, have your cake and eat it.

If you want to be a man, be a man. Work away. More power to you. If you want to be a woman - go for it. You’ll hear no complaint from me. But don’t blur the lines - don’t going running to the press like what you have done is miraculous. It isn’t. It is basic biology.

You cannot and should not parade around the world shouting about the great big achievement you as a ‘man’ have had in getting pregnant. Excess facial hair does not a man make. Trust me, I know. I have a dodgy upper lip issue (okay, a small moustache type effort) which requires the attention of the hot wax from time to time. I am, however, still very much a woman and intend to always be so.

Scott Moore does not strike as a man who is overly confident about who he is. He does not strike me as a man who made a fully informed decision based on the 100% certainty that he was never meant to be a woman in the first place. He, in fact, strikes me as someone rather mixed up who wanted to hedge his bets and have the best of both worlds.

Oh, if he could make a quick buck selling his story to the world’s media, why not do that too?

Scott and Thomas already have two sons - which I believe was Thomas’s from his first relationship with another woman (again, I’m confusing myself here) and I suppose there is a greater debate about the impact of such mixed messages to young children growing up and craving that feeling of belonging and fitting in.

All that said, I do wish Scott and Thomas and their baby all the best. I hope they raise their child with love and give him a stable and happy home. I’m sure they have it in their ability to be good parents - they just need to be honest about who they really are.

The deep clean

Last weekend I decluttered my house. It was not a pleasant experience and I have to say I’m somewhat ashamed of the amount of utter crap I seem to have accumulated over seven years in our current home.
I remember so vividly when we first moved in and how we had barely a stick of furniture to fill it. Two of the bedrooms stayed empty. Our back room (a place I sometimes refer to as the family room in a poncy voice) had just a book case in it and the rest was filled mostly with second hand bits and pieces.
I remember back then that even though our house was largely empty, I still felt we had a little bit too much in the way of worldly belongings and I vowed that our home would remain a minimalist mecca with a strick “one in, one out” policy on any new purchases.
That didn’t last.
The rooms (not so quickly) filled - first with some actual new furniture and then with children and all that they entail. The family room, once bereft of everything bar a few Marian Keyes books, became the holding ground for 101 pieces of brightly coloured plastic in the shape of the boy’s toys.
And then it became an office - with shelves and a desk and a notice board and everything else relating to a work space.
When we added the baby who never sleeps into the equation - with her own collection of brightly coloured (mostly pink) toys it no longer resembled a calm oasis in a busy world, more an explosion in Toys R Us combined with a tornado in a branch of Eason.
I also had my secret shame. Have you ever seen the episode of Friends where it is finally revealed what Monica - the neat freak - keeps in her storage cupboard? Let me assure you her collection of clutter and rubbish was nothing - nothing at all - in comparison to what lurked beneath my stairs.
Cushions, paint tins, baby clothes, books, DVDs, approximately 27 handbags, tools, paint brushes, a rug, a couple of blankets, the boy’s long lost armbands, an old potty (cleaned, thank you very much), yet more brightly coloured plastic tat and the maternity clothes I wore when I was pregnant with the boy and couldn’t find last year when I needed them.
Lloyd Grossman would have had a fecking field day sorting through my self titled cupboard of doom.
But, after much hoking and poking and the occasional expletive and four runs to the dump/ recycling centre/ charity shop it was clean and organised and I wore the smug face of a woman who has spent the day up to her elbows in rubbish and bleach.
I never thought I was a hoarder before. Unlike my sister I don’t neatly pack away all birthday cards to keep as mementoes. I think somewhere I have our wedding cards, and the cards sent when we had our children but I haven’t consciously held on to things. Yet somehow I have still managed accumulated a lot of tat and put a lot of stuff away “just in case”.
I even had a small moment when I was bundling up the baby’s clothes when I wondered if I should keep them “just in case” - even though there is a greater chance of hell freezing over than me ever deciding to procreate again.
I wonder what it is in us that prompts to behave in such a way. Surely everyone has a cupboard of doom, a drawer of despair or a hidey-hole of horrors? Is it some latent throwback to the days when nobody had anything? Are we just all hoarders at heart? Is it a case that without persuasion we’d all happily fester in a mess of our own making?
Now I don’t want to overplay this. My house was bad - but it wasn’t Kim and Aggie bad. The visible areas were generally quite tidy (apart from the toy shop/ book shop explosion of the back room). but I can’t deny that instead of taking the bull by the horns and clearing out regularly I had definitely adopted the “what the eyes don’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over” method of house keeping.
Nonetheless I do feel suitably ashamed at how much we have added to landfill in the course of the last week and at my general slatternly ways. I’ll certainly not be giving Kirstie Allsop a run for her money in the home-making stakes.
Then again, I do feel cleansed by the whole process. I no longer fear the cupboard under the stairs. It is no longer my guilty secret. I don’t have to fear an avalanche of broken toys and handbags every time I try and retrieve the hoover. (In fact for the first time in about two years, the hoover can actually fit in it).
I may have been physically exhausted and mentally somewhat shamed by the experience but it has been a wee joy to fall in love with my house again - let’s just hope I’ve learned my lesson and in another seven years time I won’t be pulling this column out of the archives.

Ten of my favourite things...

1: My son’s hands. I love them. I actually physically feel a surge of love when I see them or hold them. They are always warm. They are still squishy like a five year old’s hands should be. They are perhaps the cutest things on the entire planet and I love, love, LOVE the feeling of holding his hands (when he lets me. These days he runs on far too much).

2: The second contender for cutest thing on the planet is the baby who never sleeps. In particular the little curve of her chin to her neck - with the softest skin. It tickles when I stroke it and she laughs. I should say Cara has a unique laugh - kind of a really cute baby giggle mashed with a Beavis and Butthead dirty cackle. It is deeply infectious.

3: The way my nephew Ethan says “ta taaaaa” - like a wee old granny, or the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I kind of expect him to say “Ta Taaaa, Lollipops....” but is cute and I love when we says it over and over again while loading my knee with Tombliboos and Pontypines.

4: Mammy hugs. I may well be 33 (almost 34) and woman big and a mother of my own but nothing in this world beats a hug from my mammy.

5: Dinner with the mister - when we get kiddy free time and go and get a wee bit tipsy and talk about the very, very long time we have been together and how it’s a blessed miracle we haven’t killed each other yet. Plus, he takes me to a place which does scrumptious breaded Brie... nom nom nom.

6: Bad words. I know this is neither big nor clever, but nothing beats a good f*ck (and by that I mean saying the word.... you dirty feckers).  There is no word in this world which comes close - not even feck which I love and use much more often. But there are times (and maybe this is a sign of my very limited vocabulary) when nothing but a good, loud and hearty f*ck will do.

7: Nice shoes. Yes, I am a cliche. But I like nice shoes. They don't have to be designer *laughs stupidly at the notion I would be able to afford designer shoes* but as long as I can look at them and smile, I'm happy.

8: Reading. Nuff said. Losing myself in a good book has always been one of my great joys from I was a bit of a wain reading Roald Dahl and the Secret Seven and going to the Creggan Library with my brother and sisters.

9: My daddy and my brother and their manic sense of humour. There is no way to adequately describe this in just a few words - needless to say they can both make me absolutely howl with laughter like nothing else.

10: Driving in my car. Not in heavy traffic mind - just tootling along over the Glenshane Pass on a nice sunny day. Good times.

I was sent this by the lovely Mammydiaries and now want to tag some friends to write their favourite things...

Fionnuala K
Keris
Sharon Owens

You may notice

If you scroll down the sidebar of this blog that I'm writing another book.
Yep, book 5.
Flying free and easy with no book deal, hoping someone publishes it!

I was sent this quote today...

It was in one of those "send this on" emails but I decided instead to share it here.
You don't have to send it on.
Just read it, and think about the words.

May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

Dear Iris

Oh Iris - what have you done? You’ve gone and, as my granny would say, made a holy show of yourself.

There is a part of me that feels sorry for you. I’ve had mental health difficulties myself in the past - I know they are hard to cope with. I know what it is like to feel utter despair. And if what the papers say is true and you are now receiving acute treatment for the same is true then I hope you come through it - and quickly.

But there is a part of me - the cynical journalist part of me -and perhaps the human part of me who has been so offended by things that you have said in the past, who has a lot of questions to ask.

The timing of your breakdown seems, well, a little convenient. I’m not saying I doubt it, as such. I know such things can happen without warning or after a long, slow build. I’m pretty sure that if I knew a major news broadcaster was about to tell the world I had been having my end away with a man young enough to be my grandson while doing some questionable financial deals along the way I’d feel a bit, well, wobbly myself.

I don’t claim to know what goes on in your personal life. To be honest I don’t care much about your political life either - you only really came to my attention when you called all homosexual people ‘an abomination’ and spouted on about how only child abusers committed greater sins.

That annoyed me Iris, I’ll be honest. I don’t hold much court with bigoted views but I would have at least respected you if you had been lived by your own strong Christian morals.

Having extra-marital affairs is still against the law of God, Iris. Or at least it was the last time I checked.

Now, woman to woman I’ll admit something. I can sort of see the appeal of Kirk McCambley. He is, as my friend from up the country would say “a fine thing”. If was put in a room with him and Peter Robinson and asked to choose, I think I’d go for him.

But Iris, I think there would be something in my head which would scream to me that a 59 year old woman having a fling with a 19 year old man was never really going to have the potential to be the biggest love affair in history. It was never going to end well, now was it? The wee lad is young enough to be your grandson. I do however admire your bravery at baring your stretchmarks, saggy areas and all and throwing caution to the wind - Go on ya girl ye!

Now, if only you hadn’t been married. And been a politician. And been married to a politician. Oh, and yes, if only you hadn’t been so openly bigoted and judgmental of other people.

Iris, i’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of the concept of the Karma Fairy? (Do born again Christians believe in Karma? I’m not sure.). Well anyway, I’m a firm believer in the Karma Fairy. (Between us, I imagine she looks a bit like Mavis Cruet from Willo the Wisp). She keeps an eye on what people put out there and then, when perhaps they least expect it (but most deserve it) she comes along and gives them a wee kick up the bum.

Iris, you have been kicked up the bum.

You see if you are going to be a bigot then at least be a clean living bigot. Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that.

You have let your constituents down. You have let your party down. You have let politics down but most of all Iris, (and I’m adopting my sternest mammy voice for this) you have let yourself down.

And I fear it is not over yet. Much as I would not wish mental illness on anyone, I really do hope that what you have told us is true and that you are not just egging it on for a sake for a bit of sympathy.

If that was the case you wouldn’t be doing anyone with genuine mental health issues any favours. In fact I would go as far as to say your actions would be despicable. Much more despicable than sleeping with a fine looking 19 year old or doing some dodgy sums and keeping a wee five grand or so back for yourself.

Perhaps we could meet up some day to have a wee chat about it all? I’m needing inspiration for a new book, although between us again I don’t think I would be able to sell a story such as yours to my publishers. I know there is a trend for the increasingly bizarre and fanciful in chick-lit these days but some things are just too bizarre and too fanciful.

But if you fancy a wee chat all the same, I’ve heard there’s a lovely wee cafe on the banks of the Lagan. I hear they do cracker sausage rolls,

Much love,

Claire

Desk life....

Here it is, a wee snap shot of my desk at the Derry Journal - testament to my personalised work space.
I would have loved to show you a snap shot of a lovely writer's desk but I don't have one. It's just me and my trusty laptop - on adventure after adventure.
So to give you a guided tour - this is the view to my left. You will see my phone - a vital tool for a journalist. It is not usually so clean and shiny. Usually it is more than a bit grimy.
Behind that is my document holder which holds a list of all internal extension numbers in the Journal along with a card Joseph made me wishing me a good day.
On my computer sits my Kimmidoll- Choya who is said to promote self belief and attached to my monitor is a clay butterfly my niece made for me when she was about three.
To the front of the picture (insert appropriate weather forecaster type hand gesture here) is a can of Diet Coke. I'm all about the Diet Coke. It's an obsession and probably not a really healthy one, but I don't smoke and for the moment I don't drink so give me a break.
Next to the coke is a tube of Sanctuary hand cream. It smells delicious and beside it is a postcard portraying the new £13.8million Peace Bridge being built in Derry - which is one of the main stories I have been working on today. I went to the launch and got a free pen - evidence of which can be seen on top of the notebook to the forefront of the picture. (Again, insert appropriate hand gesture here).
The word scrawled on the notepad, just so as you know, is Imelda and that is the name of a PR rep who just called me about something. I'm ashamed to say I wasn't really listening. It was to do with music though.

Are you bored enough yet?
Good. My job here is done.

I'll (not) drink to that

January is really quite a crappy month, isn’t it? (Sorry for use of the world crappy but it was, believe me, the least offensive word I could think of to describe how rubbish January makes me feel.)
The current cold snap (a term I find just about as annoying as the Credit Crunch) is adding to my feeling of woe - as is the permanent not-quite-a-full-on-cold lurgy which has been plaguing me one and off over the last few weeks.
My two children - gorgeous to their mother of course - have a permanent trail of snot dripping from their noses and no matter how often we switch on the ridiculously expensive home heating the temperature in our house remains on a par with the inside of our fridge (which has started to make an ominous ‘I’m going to break down’ type noise).
The aftermath of the Christmas overspend is hitting home - or more realistically hitting the doormat with the arrival of the January Credit Card Statement of Doom - and I have my self assessment Tax Return to complete by the end of the month. Which also requires paying a big bill. All I can think is how that lovely money could be so much better spent booking a wee break
To top all this off, I have decided that for the most part January will be a dry month.
Yes. Seriously.
Drinking is a no-no. Sitting down with a wee glass of white to watch the new series of Desperate Housewives - the one chink of sunlight in a dreary month - is a joy which must wait til February. Relaxing after hitting deadline with a drink and a natter with hubby is no more. The ‘mammy’s little helper’ of a wee snifter after the wains have gone to bed is gone.
This does not make me happy.
By now, I’m almost a week in and it has been, perhaps the longest week of my life. It’s not that I’m a heavy drinker - obviously I did abstain for nine whole months recently while I was gestating the baby who never sleeps. Usually I have a glass or two over the weekend, and maybe the odd glass during the week. The festive period has, however, ramped up the stakes a touch. With a local off-licence selling my favourite wine at a much reduced price and the memories last Christmas’s alcohol drought still fresh in my head I may have overdone it on one or two occasions.
Thankfully there was nothing as horrendous as the famous sliding down the stairs incident of Christmas 2008 (which ended in a trip to Casualty on a rather hungover Boxing Day) but by the toll of the bells on New Year’s Eve my body was calling out for a break.
So I stopped (on Sunday, after I’d polished off the bottle I opened on New Year’s Eve) and I’ve been dry as a freshly changed nappy ever since.
Sunday night was fine. I was strong. In fact the only real wobble I had was on Tuesday night when the aforementioned Desperate Housewives was on and I had had a tough day at the office.
I’m hoping that it will make me feel fresher, less ratty and improve my sleep. I’m also hoping it will help me not to pig out on monster packs of Doritoes while under the misguided influence thinking that any calories consumed while drunk don’t count.
Because in a double whammy borne out of a fit of what can only be described as madness at the weekend i decided to also start dieting (again).
Let me state this now, me without wine AND chocolate is very, very unpleasant indeed. My body has gone into a state of shock and I’m under no illusion that the stinking achiness I’ve developed has been a direct result of my sudden detox. (Please note: I know that it is probably just the not-quite-a-full-on-cold lurgy kicking up a gear but I I like to be over dramatic from time to time - just in case you hadn’t noticed.)
The danger with this full on achiness is that there is now a wee voice whispering in my ear that i’m sick and should treat myself and sure a wee curry washed down with an ice cold glass of vino would do the drink.
I am, thankfully, still without enough to realise that wee voice is the devil incarnate - but by the end of the month, who knows?
Usually I don’t make News Year’s Resolutions - because they are almost inevitably doomed to failure but I figure if I take it one month at a time we shall see where it goes.
If nothing else, it will save me a bit of money to go towards my credit card bills.

The clincher is at the end...

Perhaps the best meme ever...

Or at least Keris' version of it was... mine might be a bit shit

1. Hum a jingle of which you know all the words. LOUDER. Now write it down so we can remember it too:
All the tiles you'll ever want, it's tile market
All the styles you'll ever want, it's tile market
Lots of something (presumably tiles) you can choose, it's style market
So much value, you can't lose.... it's tile market...

(Yes, that might be slightly wrong but Google has not helped me to find this online)


And you know I can’t just leave it at one:
Cuuuuurrrrrrlliiieeeeees, the Friendly Store.

(oh and Keris, I always thought it was Poochie-Woo).


2. As a kid, you played a board game over and over. And you cheated. What was it?
I'm not sure I cheated (much) but the Game of Life it was. How I loved driving in my wee car with my wee pins to indicate my children and all that lovely money. The Game of Life, however, is feck all like real life.



3. What was the name of a song you have been singing the incorrect words to all these years. What were you singing, and what should you be singing?
Erm, I'm sure there are some but I can't think - apart from Poochie Woo, obviously. (Honest, this is not a cop out).
But memorable ones from people close to me are - to Oasis' Wonder Wall - instead of "And after all...." my friend used to sing "And I fell off...."
And I can't remember which obviously non-one-hit-wonder sang "How Bizarre" in the early 90s, but friend (same as above) thought the words were "Cal Dezan" - which would make sense, if Cal Dezan were actual words and not just a product of her warped imagination.

Finally my niece once asked me to play the Prawn Cracker song in my car...
Eventually we figured it out... "I wish I was a prawn cracker with flowers in my hair...."


4. What embarrassing childhood story do your parents bring out just to mess with you for their own amusement?
There are two which spring to mind. The first is a spectular vomiting incident when we driving to the beach when I was little. I kept warning my daddy that I would be sick, he kept saying I would be find. Well I showed him! (and the floor, and the seats, and my mum, and my siblings....)
The second is the time they were ragging my happiness after I had said something stupid and I shouted back "anyone can make a mish-take" - and yes I pronounced it wrongly and in my adolescent rage and they have never let me live it down.

Depression - vile, vile thing...

Regular readers of this blog will know about my ongoing battle with depression. They may well even know that just over a year ago I had a complete hissy fit meltdown which resulted in weeks (yes weeks) of squealing, crying, not eating. not sleeping, just staring while waves of utter desolation washed over me.
It was the worst it has ever been and I was lucky - that particularly low phase, while it felt never ending at the time, lasted only a month or two and then tailed off until it was less bad and less scary and now it's only a couple of days of month and not so much about the screaming and the staring.

I read Marian Keyes' newsletter this month and it echoed how I felt back then and it saddened me because this is how Marian is feeling right now. She has laid her soul bare so many times and I applaud it for doing it again now and I hope, REALLY hope that is passes soon.

Her words, which I have pasted below, made me cry, because I know what she means. And I know that no one can help her but herself and that is what is such a bastard about this illness called depression.

This is much much worse. I know I’m leaving myself open to stinky journalists saying ‘What has she got to be depressed about, the self-indulgent whiner, when there are people out there with real troubles?’ so I won’t go on about it.
All I will say is that I’m aware that these are terrible times and that there are people out there who have been so ruined by the current economic climate that they’ve lost the roof over their heads and every day is a battle for basic survival and I wish I could make their pain go away.
But although I’m blessed enough to have a roof over my head, I still feel like I’m living in hell. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t write, I can’t read, I can’t talk to people. The worst thing is that I feel it will never end. I know lots of people don’t believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike say, a broken leg, you don’t know when it’ll get better.

It's trite of me to say 'It will get better' but believe me, from painful horrendous experience - experience when I would hit myself around the head to try and stop the inner pain - it does pass.
For now I'll leave you with a quote she has posted... which truly is inspirational...

Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.
Bill Wilson, in a letter 1950 in How Bill Sees It

2009 in review

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

Oooh, gave birth to a baby girl. That was pretty amazing.


2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
I didn't really make any but my goal was contentment and I'm not quite there - that's one to keep working on for 2010l.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Oh yes. In January Keris had Joe and Nora had baby Nora. Then Louise had Kieran (which I think was late February)  In March I had Cara. In November my sister gave me another beautiful niece Darcy and my lovely school friend Claire had her first baby Nihal. And my lovely cousin and his fiance had a baby boy Emmerson. Babies were us.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, but I was really very affected by the death of my niece's granny Lynne who was a lovely and brave woman who quite simply left us all too soon.

5. What countries did you visit?
A big fat nowhere but home.


6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A foreign rights deal.
A new deal with Poolbeg.
A top ten bestseller - in fact a number one would be tickety boo.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

March 4 - the day my life was fulfilled with the birth of my baby girl.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Cara. And writing a whole book while being a new mammy.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Weight issues, weight issues, weight issues.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Hyperemesis at the start of the year, occasional madness throughout

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My new Clarins foundation. I no longer look as though I have been tangoed.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Pink clothes in Next

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Barack Obama becoming president.

Writing book 4.
Squishing my children - a lot.

The new Marian Keyes book.

The arrival of my niece Darcy.
Erm... the last series of Desperate Housewives.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?

Although it is not a 2009 song, Rule the World will always be special. And I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?

Happier.

b) thinner or fatter?

Same answer as Keris for this one... mildly thinner due to the none baby making issues

c) richer or poorer?

Neither.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading, snuggling, exercising

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Stressing

18. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Yes, entirely with my baby girl and all over again with my hubby.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

I don't think I watched TV all year - not consciously anyway but I quite enjoyed spooks.

20. What was the best book you read?

The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes

21. What was your favorite film of this year?

Movies? I don't have time for movies

22. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 33 and like Keris I'm a saddo because I really don't know what I did

23. What kept you sane?

Wine, Twitter (many good nights over the XFactor), family and friends.

24. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I don't have the energy to fancy any one!

25. Who did you miss?

My bestest friend even though she visited three times this year. My granda as always.

26. Who was the best new person you met?

Boo Face.

What Santa brought...

The most gorgeous charm bracelet in the entire world - complete with three charms (one from my sister, and one from each of my babies).
I have a charm which says 'Mama', and an initial for each of my children all on a gorgeous silver bracelet.

I am a very lucky lady indeed - and the lovely husband (who does exist)has ordered me several other charms which should arrive shortly.

I plan to add to the bracelet on momentous occasions - such as book publications, birthdays and some time just because (for example as soon as I get my advance cheque for book 4 I'll be buying a lovely set of angel wings).

But yes, Santa done good and I'm very happy indeed.

Christmas blessings to all

Thank you to everyone who has read this blog, has bought or read (or bought and read) my books, who has commented, who has supported, who has laughed and who has cried.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas indeed.

Red Trucks and Chipmunks

The baby is still sick. The boy is kinda sick. The boy wanted to go to school. The baby wanted to be awake all night.
Thus starts my day. Putting sick soaked bedclothes into the washing machine at 6.30am and trying to calm a fractious baby who seemed to only want her daddy.
So we get up - the baby surprisingly awake despite only having slept for 15 seconds over the course of the last 48 hours. The boy was insisting he went in for the last day of term despite his barking cough and the logistics of getting him picked up at 12.15 with a really sick little lady and no childminder on hand being a nightmare.
We eventually agreed (which sounds awful because honestly we are the kind of parents who never allow him off school unless he is genuinely very, very ill) and he got  dressed while I flapped about trying to tidy up the destruction of yet another sleepless night - 14 medicine bottles, countless tissues, a basin of boke etc etc etc

The boy and I eventually make it to the car and this (through my own sleep deprived insanity) is where it got really interesting. Of course today - when I'm through myself with exhaustion and with my very own scratchy throat to boot - decide that it would be a cracking idea to let him listen to his new Alvin and the Chipmunks CD.

"Girl You've Really Got Me Going" sung at squeak level is not fun.
Nor for the record is 'Hot and Cold' by Katy Perry. Although I did quite enjoy the squeaky version of 'Single Ladies'.

So we are driving in heavy hail, with squeaky tunes blasting out when this feckwit in a red truck decides to swerve lanes, without indication, just as we are crossing lanes. I slam on my brakes but resist road ragey slamming on of the horn and we drive on as I watch stupid red truck man swerve in front of another car. We change lanes again and he swerves out at speed once again narrowly missing out car just to swerve back in seconds later once again narrowly missing our car.
The horn was hit. Twice.
And I have the proper rage. There was I, driving with my wee son on his way to school and there is some asshole driving like a dick (apologies for use of profanities but seriously what an arse) almost putting us off the road three times, for what? The roads were clear. We weren't holding anyone up. I was driving at the speed limit and the traffic was light.
How he didn't kill himself or anyone else I don't know but if you see a red pick up style truck, 4x4 style, beginning with the licence plate SUI then steer very clear. Someone obviously doesn't have a fecking notion how to drive.

There is a house in Derry City....

....It's called the House of the Plague...

You know it's Christmas when you spend a fair portion of your time mopping up sick and dosing the wains with Calpol.
Yes, the festive season has arrived with gusto Chez Allan. The boy was the first to fall - developing a really rather loud and annoying cough which persists through the night. Yes, I do feel sorry for him and am doing my very best to dose him with cough bottles and calpol and cuddle him as much as possible but that cough ... well, it is loud and annoying especially when a fit occurs just as I'm trying to enjoy a precious five minutes of sleep.
Because, you see, the baby is sick also. No cough - but she has the raging bokes. The more wee critter is so much pain with her tummy that it is distressing me because there is little I can do to soothe her bar rub her tummy, clean up her sick and once again get the magic calpol out to control her temperature.
My house has a vague aroma of puke about it - no matter how much I have burned the yankee candles or opened the window to the elements -  and my children are as white as two wee snowmen as they sit there in their jammies begging me with big blue eyes to make it all better.

I'm hoping that they will be right as rain by Friday so that we can enjoy ourselves properly.
And I'm hoping for some sleep!

The slush pile

So I'm sitting here reading all the entries to the 'Journal' short story competition in advance of Tuesday's judging.
They (being my colleague Erin) asked me to sit on the judging panel as a "local writer done good" and because she scares me I felt too terrified to say no I agreed with enthusiasm. After all surely it is my duty to share the writerly love with all the lovely people of the Derry Journal circulation area?

This has introduced me to the slush pile.
We received hundreds of entries - from the sublime to the ridiculous. (I so wish I could quote you some of the more ridiculous ones... but I'm told that would be unprofessional).
But as I'm sifting through them and reading the contributions it is dawning on me that I could never, ever be a literary agent. This is not only because I don't have the balls to say no to anyone (see my comment about Scary Erin) but also because my eyes actually start to bleed when faced with certain things.

64 word sentences would be one of those things.
As would entries written with CAPS LOCK ON. IT REALLY REALLY REALLY HURTS MY EYES TO READ THAT FOR 2000 WORDS.
If you want to pass off someone else's story as your own, try to write something a little more original than the nativity. It has been done before.
Try not to creep round either us or our sponsors. That is a little bit obvious.
A fiver stapled to your entry WILL help.
Be back later...

The annual "My wee Christmas Star" picture

From his cracking performance in the Nativity today.

Books wot I did not write...

'Poppy Shakespeare' by Clare Allan.
I'm sure she is lovely and I'm sure the book is great.
But I didn't write it.
And it has come my attention some people think I did.
And the thing is, chances are if you are the kind of person who enjoys 'Poppy Shakespeare', you won't be the kind of person who enjoys what I write and vice versa.
I have heard tales of some people being bitterly disappointed when picking up that book and expecting some Irish chick lit charm. I imagine some people picking up my book expecting a searing insight into the mental health system would also be disappointed.
So, for the record, I didn't write it.
Thank you.

ooooh, and the verdict is in

She (being the lovely publisher lady at Poolbeg) likes it!
So yay, she says yes and 'It's Got to be Perfect' will officially be my fourth novel, due for publication at an as unyet decided date in 2010.

Phew!

Pink Stinks? Oh no, it doesn't.

I’m troubled, dear reader, deeply troubled. There is a new movement on t’interweb decrying all things pink.
It seems, according to those behind the PinkStinks campaign that if we choose to let our little ladies dress in pink clothes and play with pink toys we are condemning them to a life of unrealistic expectations and low level goals.
The plethora of pink toys now on sale in the Early Learning Centre (which has borne the brunt of the PinkStinks ladies’ anger) are sexist, demeaning and are breeding a generation of proper little princesses who wouldn’t know how to use their brains if their life depended on it.
Now there are several things about this which trouble me greatly. The first is that by hitting out at shops which sell toys aimed at say “imaginative home making play” the people behind PinkStinks are actually demeaning every woman who has made a legitimate life choice to be a home-maker.
It seems, if you read the campaigners’ website - listing as it does teams of appropriate role models for our daughters- that raising a family, keeping a house and doing other more traditional female roles is somehow letting down the entire gender.
The second, and related, thing which troubles me is the assumption that playing traditionally female orientated games as a child melts your brains and renders you incapable of ever making anything of any significance out of your life
I shall put it on the record that as a child I was a girly girl. I had Barbies and Sindys coming out of my ears. My favourite ever, ever Christmas present was a dolls’ house. My proudest childhood moment was adopting a Cabbage Patch Doll by the name of Lana who I would cart everywhere in a baby carrier and who I would beg my mammy to knit clothes for.
I dressed, whenever possible in pink - but my brain (for the most part) remained unmelted. I did well in school. I got a good job. I would consider myself to be a decent enough role model for my daughter or my nieces. I never felt pushed in a fluffy direction. I never felt I was being discouraged from achieving anything I may have wanted - be it being a home-maker or a brain surgeon. The sky was the limit.
Which leads me to my third point. The availability of pink toys, and tutus and princess slogan t-shirts does not a generation of wannabe bimbos make.
Young girls don’t form their attitiudes by the colour of the toys they play with, or the pink curtains in their bedrooms or the T-shirts which declare they are little princesses.
They form their attitudes from the people around them and the examples they are given. There is nothing wrong with buying your four year old a pink kitchen, as long as you don’t bat an eyelid when they ask Santa for a Fireman Sam fire engine. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with decking your wee one in all the pink finery of the day as long you don’t loss the head should they climb a tree and tear a hole in it.
The PinkStinks campaign to me smacks of yet another example in today’s world where things that women and girls enjoy are belittled and used against us to make us feel as if we are somehow intellectually inferior.
It’s the same old toot that is peddled out time and time again about the films we watch, the books we read, the shoes we wear and now the very toys we let our children play with.
Pink is simply a colour - and if we are going to get all girly - a pretty colour at that. It is not a definition of an attitude or an IQ level. It is not a colour used to keep women in their place. And if we women choose to wear pink or buy pink toys for our daughters we are not demeaning them in any way.
For the record, yes, since the arrival of my daughter in March my house has developed somewhat of an “explosion in a marshmallow” factory feel about it. But she isn’t being discouraged from anything. I’ll be the proud mammy cheering the loudest when she decides on her path in life - be it as mother herself, a journalist, an author or - if she wants - a plumber.
Restrictions on our children are not formed by colours. They are formed by narrow minded people who want to see problems where none exist. And that, dear reader, is what stinks.

Good things come to those who wait... I hope

"The Book" (somehow I can't get myself into the frame of mind of referring to it with its actual name yet) has been in the hands of "The Publisher" (lovely lady at Poolbeg) for a week now.
Seven Days.
168 hours
10080 minutes
604800 seconds.
Not that I'm counting. At all.

You may or may not have realised over the course of our relationship that I am somewhat of a nervous Nelly. I don't do waiting well. I get myself all paranoid and crazy with big bug eyes and a constant tremor from the increased ingestion of caffeine.
Now I know, that reasonably speaking, the lovely lady at Poolbeg won't have read the book yet. She may not even have started it. It is five minutes before Christmas and she has three tiny children and a job, and a house and one those life things I read about so often. She also has other authors pawing for her attention and sending her books and begging her to read them and I'm just a girly in a queue.
But the paranoid bug eyed version of me has this internal dialogue stuck on a loop at the moment

I wonder has she read it. Oh my God, what if she started reading it and was so bored with it she couldn't finish it? What if she finished three days ago and is trying to find the right words to tell me it is shite. Oh God, surely if she loved it in an 'unputdownable' way she would have read by now and got back to me. Maybe she thinks it is 'Meh'. To be honest I'd rather she hated it that thought it was 'Meh'. Who am I kidding? I want her to love it. A lot. And if she doesn't love it, Meh will do in comparison to hate? Why hasn't she got back to me? Why? Why? Why?

(This the part of my brain that doesn't compute that even while I loved the new Marian Keyes it took me three weeks to read as I was busy)

Now the literary world does not work that fast. And it took me 14 months to write the fecker, how can I really expect someone to appreciate it in just a week? Especially when they have other things to be getting on with.

I fear, before this is all over, I'll be a nervous wreck. Glass of wine anyone?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Yesterday was tree decorating day Chez Allan. I had been very much looking forward to it - being Baby's first Christmas and all that.
For various reasons the last few years have not made for the most joyous of festive seasons. In 2007 my father-in-law died six weeks before Christmas and hubby's then firm was hit by the impact of the credit crunch leaving us as a one income family by the time the big day rolled around.
Last year I was still in the throws of the vomiting bokes of hyperemis and the newspaper industry was being hit by the credit crunch with the prospect of seven job losses at the Journal.
These were not happy times.
So this year I want it to be different - and I am probably putting a lot of pressure on myself to make it so.
I even wanted the putting up of the Christmas tree to be just so. so the boy and I went to the wonder that is Matalan (or Mataland as Joseph calls it - as if it is some wondrous magical place) and bought some silver decorations.
We then called past the local garden centre - and I saw the trees.
I have never had a real tree. I think I was permanently traumatised by the John Denver classic 'Alfie the Christmas Tree' and didn't want any other trees ever to be cut down in the name of Christmas.
But then, I've also seen Friends where Phoebe says all trees have the right to fulfil their Christmas destiny.
And I saw the tree - and I wanted it. And I went home to hubby (who does exist) and we discussed it and we went with great jollity to buy a real tree. (I HATE our fake tree, for the record... it is a pain in the arse to put up and take down and one of these days I'm just going to burn it).
Coming home like happy lumberjacks we sat the tree in its stand and fetched the children to help with the decorating.
Cara wanted to eat the lights.
Joseph just wanted to choose which decorations would go on his 2ft tree that he has in his bedroom.
Cara started to scream, presumably because I wouldn't let her eat the lights.
The boy started to throw a blue fit because he hadn't remembered his 2ft tree was golden and "real trees aren't golden" (Yes, they are, I told him. They grow special gold trees in the gold fields of Christmas land...yes, I am ashamed of my lies).
I swore as the baubles fell off the tree while hubby urged me to give the tree time to rest (Why? Had it been running a marathon?)
Then the baby decided she wanted something more than lights to eat so while I was trying to sing Christmas carols with a still vaguely huffy Joseph, hubby brought in her dinner and PUT THE TELEVISION ON to (wait for it) watch a documentary about SEA LIFE!!!
Those of you who know me at all, know that I am an absolute and total phobia about sea life.
This was not going well.
Eventually, baby fed, boy ensconced in his room over decorating his magical tree from the Gold Fields of Christmas Land and husband taking refuge in his office I placed our star on top of our very first real tree. It wobbles at a precarious angle.
But it is still lovely.
And the baby, now fed with non-electrical goods looked entranced.
All in all - family rows, over fractious children and disturbing documentaries - yes, it is indeed beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The rest is still unwritten

This week I printed off 360 fresh white pages of a new manuscript, bundled it into a very large envelope, wrote in my very neatest writing on the front and then popped down to the Post Office to post it on its merry way to Dublin.

My fourth novel - marking 14 months of blood, sweat and tears (there were a LOT of tears) - is done and it is off on its way to my publishers - the lovely people at Poolbeg.
As you read this I will be sat, fingernails in tatters, nerves wrecked like never before awaiting their response. I can only hope and pray (there has been a LOT of praying) that they like it and just like the man from Del Monte, they say yes.
Because that is how it happens - you research and you write and you send it off and then you hope. They can still say no. There can still be a shake of a head and a strongly worded email and you have to run off and lick your wounds and start again. There is no fear like it.
Starting over again is scary - staring at the blank screen in front of you willing your fingers to start moving over the keyboard and battering something together which makes some ounce of sense. Actually it has to make more than an ounce of sense - it has to be those magical words - a potentional bestseller. Those, believe me, are strong enough words to strike enough fear into the heart of your average writer so as to induce a gut-wrenching dose of writer’s block.
It has been three years since I signed my four book deal with Poolbeg. I remember, quite vividly, laughing at the deal. Four books? Seriously? Me? Write four of the buggers? Sure the one I had just finished had almost killed me.
Still, if they had faith in me enough to think I could do it, who was I to argue? So I signed and set about on what seemed like an impossible task. Four books. Sweet Lord. That’s almost half a million words - at least 400,000 of them were not to be “feck”.
But they are done - and three of them are out there (in the shops, for the record, and delightful Christmas presents they would make, and all).
Each marks a different time in my life and a different set of experiences while writing them. Writing Rainy Days and Tuesdays was a leap into the unknown. Feels Like Maybe was the difficult second book - but a blast to write. Jumping in Puddles was my most challenging book to date while the new one was fun from beginning to end - just interspersed with morning sickness, hospital stays and nappy changes.
During the course of writing each one I’ve wanted to pack it all in. I’ve wanted to go back to a life of reading books without analysing them or worrying that the reading is taking away from precious writing time. (Or worse still worrying about the fact that your latest hard written book has some of the best lines from the book you have just read slap bang in the middle of it).
At other times I’ve been on a high living in my wee imaginary world, having random conversations with my imaginary friends and playing out different plot twists in my head. It is fair to say that it will do you no good whatsoever to try and talk to me during such times. I may look as though I am listening. I may even answer but you are not really talking to me. I’m off wondering how my characters would respond to your line of questioning or planning what they are going to wear in the next scene. (I have lost sleep over what they wear - it’s like having your very own dressing doll. You want to get it just right).
I never ever forget that I am in a very privileged position where someone took a chance on me. I don’t think I’m better than any of my writing colleagues (except perhaps those celeb wannabe authors. They really grate my carrot). I’ve just been lucky enough to achieve a certain level of success.
But now, well the jig is up. My four books are done. I’m hoping and praying (there is a LOT of praying) that this won’t mean the end of my writing career. Even though I never thought I would get this far in the first place I’ve grown to quite like it - and there are a few more books in me. Maybe not four, but we’ll see how it goes.

Are they serious?

At the minute I'm a bit ragey.
I think it might be down to the time of year - dark mornings and dark nights and running round in circles trying to catch up with myself but never quite getting there.
So I have latent rage issues which are probably meant to be aimed at myself and my own inability to get on with things (like cleaning the house before we put the Chirstmas tree up at the weekend. I would actually love NOT to put a tree up at all this year but is that a little Scroogey? Perhaps).
It's always nice, therefore, to find a focus for my rage and today it came from this story on the BBC website.

So a dirty old man, who abused a child for EIGHT years can get out of a prison sentence because he stuffed his fat face for the following 20 years and is too fat for jail?
Must remember that defence m'lud. Anything is excusable as long as you eat enough Big Macs afterward so as to make a stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure impossible for you.

This makes an absolute and complete mockery of the judicial system - and it belittles the pain of survivors of child sex abuse.

He should have been sent to prison, and if his fat ulcerated legs troubled him so then he should just take his damn oil and get on with it.

I have no sympathy for sex abusers, none at all, and it is disgusting that this man is a free man due to his own gluttony.

Shame on the Northern Ireland judicial system.