Sunday 25 March 2012

Clerical Abuse


(Not the Actual Sister Rosario!)


Such a strange room. I had never seen ceilings so high. Six lights hung from the lofty heights. Four enormous windows, each with 18 panes of glass, ropes at their edges.

Sister Rosario sat on her huge desk, half smiling, half asleep, from what I could tell. 'Go to sleep children', she would say 'as gaeilge' (in Irish), which meant we had to fold our arms on the desk in front of us and bury our heads and pretend to fall asleep. This actually meant that she was about to have a doze!

We were all terrified to 'be awake' so we kept our heads down, most of the time. But this day I remember sneaking a peak as she rose, slowly, from her plinth, and made her way quietly, well as quietly as a rotund nun on creaky wooden floorboards can, out the door.

One by one more and more of my fellow pupils raised their heads, looking at each other, noticing that the Sister was gone. We all 'woke up'! One boy shouted 'SNOW'! We all looked towards the enormous windows and yes, it was indeed snowing. A magical, wonderful, out of this world sight to a room full of four year old boys in their first week at school!

I don't know what made me do what followed, but something made me shout 'School is over!' ' and I rushed towards the door followed by my classmates.

She was standing just outside the door (having a sneaky fag I like to think) as I opened it, and ran headlong into her bulky blackness, with the power of almost forty four year olds behind me.
She landed face down in the snow covered yard.

The sheer horror of what we (I) had done resulted in a mass scream I have yet to hear again!
We all ran back into the classroom, jumping behind our desks and 'fell asleep' (in gaelic) before she picked herself up and trudged back into the room!

I don't remember much else of that day, maybe she was drunk? (she certainly had the rosy cheeks), but I cannot remember being punished for our dastardly deeds.

Kids - One
Clerics - Nil

Game on!

Saturday 24 March 2012

Auld Firm

I reckon there'll be more than mesel singin' this today, eh Jimmy?

Fields Of Athenry <- CLICKETY

Update; Well that game didn't turn out the way we wanted! :¬(

Monday 19 March 2012

Stories


At night, late, as the world (my little world) around me sleeps peacefully, as I sit here in the quiet at my desk, the only sounds being the gentle whirr of the fan on my old computer tower and the slight tinnitus in my amplifier-damaged ears, I sit and try to write my story. My stories.

But as yet they have struggled, and continue to struggle to make the journey from my head to my fingers. So for now, the ramblings, the noises of the past, the sound-track to my life, are just not making the cut! The twitches are there in my brain, I can hear the sparks at times, but the electric connections so essentially vital to jump-start those tales into life are just not making contact.

Oh believe me, the fabric is there, the patterns have been chalked, drawn and cut, the finished product sketched on stark white in vivid technicolour. We just can't get the thread into that damn needle.
Shaky fingers? Fear? New specs?
Or maybe just more time.


I saw a new baby today, a beautiful new creature, new life. I watched as his father fed him, as his mother dressed him, as his sisters poked him and tried to get my attention away from this addition to their family and back to them!
Life, lives, all starting out in the same way, all helpless, all different. All beautful. I can be in my extreme happy place when I am holding a new baby.


Mother's Day. Gift for Ma? A bottle of Jameson. A happy Ma!


The stories will one day make the journey from addled mind to stubby fingers, in the meantime I'll just keep making more.

Stick around my friends, stick around.

(As for the photie, put your cursor dead centre, the cute kid to the left of the kid with the specs?)

Friday 16 March 2012

It's The 17th Of March, You Know You Love It!

I'm sure I've posted this before, but whaddya gonna do? (",)

SONG FOR IRELAND
(Click to listen, to meself, 'tis!)

Friday 9 March 2012

Cindy Sherman? Pffftt!!

My good friend UB recently did a post about the artist Cindy Sherman's retrospective.
Old hat my chum, old hat! :¬)












Saturday 3 March 2012

THE SALLY GARDENS. (Martin Stewart sings W.B. Yeats)

A song from my schooldays.


Down by the sally gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the sally gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.
In a field down by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she placed her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

THE SALLY GARDENS. (Martin Stewart sings W.B. Yeats)
(CLICK TO LISTEN)