Some months ago I visited a friend’s house and her young daughter brought me to her playroom to show me her ‘Sylvanian families’ house. She did not have any of the furniture or Sylvanians for it and hoped to be able to save for them. The fervent tone of her voice reminded me of myself…
DetailsI’ve been thinking about the new thing Facebook has of putting together a summary of your year in pictures and posts. Something has stopped me sharing mine- list of successes for the year mostly. I’m not sure why – maybe I had a sense that it was overkill, like boasting again about the great things…
DetailsThe words A&E bring up a feeling of dread in even the most stalwart souls. Year after year we hear the horror stories about sick elderly people left for hours and hours on hard chairs or days and days if not weeks on trolleys in corridors with half the world and it’s problems passing…
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I’ve been thinking about those wonderful people, often creative souls themselves- who allow random strangers to sleep on their couch/ spare bed and in so doing allow them the space to nurture their creativity or just to help them along when life is tough. It was one of the things that struck me when I…
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I was honoured to be among the shortlist of ten for this award and headed off to Roscommon for the award ceremony in the rain yesterday morning. It was held in the library in Roscommon and that building has certainly changed a lot since the days when myself and my sister used to cycle…
DetailsThe shortlist is published for a competition you entered. You scroll through the names, feeling a rush of pleasure when you find your own name, or more likely a feeling of disappointment that you did not make the list. Or depression or envy. Anger even. They wouldn’t know a good short story if it…
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I got to meet Jennifer Johnson at last at the Readers festival in Newbridge on the 19th October. I have long been a fan of hers since finding her work in the early eighties, but became an even greater fan when she was the judge in the James Plunkett short story award last year…
DetailsThe joys of Autumn. It’s Tuesday morning after the bank holiday and the rain is pouring down. I write upstairs and we have dormer windows so it’s hard to miss the sound of dejected raindrops dying on the windows…and making sad patterns..oh dear. Time for another coffee. While the kettle is boiling I…
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Click and Collect- Cashing in on the twenty euro promise. You know how you scroll through the emails on your phone, half reading them. You read some, delete some and others go in the file marked ‘Later’ on some dusty shelf at the back of your mind.. Maybe on that lovely old bookcase that…
DetailsI’ve been thinking a lot about an article I read online recently via the Observer. Its called: ‘Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken’ It was written by an American called Linda Tirado and was originally penned as a heartfelt response to a question on an online forum asking why…
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A few weeks ago I went away for the weekend to Argentré-du-Plessis in Brittany on a trip that I wouldn’t even have considered a few years ago. Fly off with a bunch of strangers and stay with a French family I’d never met for the weekend?? Not me. I’m way too cool for that sort…
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When I was young I spent a lot of time at the river (The Suck), which was just down the road from where I lived in the lovely village of Athleague, Co. Roscommon. There was no tradition of swimming in the river then but my Aunt Rita was a forward thinking woman and thought we…
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