Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you...
Peter and Ghin asleep on the bed - how i found them after i got back from the office.
It went well today. I got the career break i had been dreaming about. One more year with the boys - looking after the family, getting things sorted on this end. It feels very right and good. It was also weird being back at work. Somethings don't change and smoethings get worse. For instance, there were three rats eating out of the squirrel feeders on the second floor. That's certainly one down from the grey squirrels, which were already one down from the red ones. Then in one of the rooms a mouse had died and because they couldn't recover the body they gave the person some very strong smelling synthetic roses potpourri. She said, she had gotten used to the smell. Being someone who would think that a job in Lush would be like the most impossible thing - not on the same levels as impossible as developing nuclear weapons though - it was unbelieveable that you would stay in a room with the scent of dead mouse and synthetic roses wafting about on the air. But somethings don't change.
So i went back to the office and it was as messy, if not messier than i had ever remembered it. But the day was sunshiny pretty and i felt great. Back to a size ten i had started out with and armed with my tan, it was hard for anyone to imagine that i had missed the place - which i hadn't. At the place i am right now, it really is the boys...although this morning i did wonder if perhaps i'm not cut out for the life of the maternal woman. I hugged Oisin as i was in tears today, feeling ths train of messy house, Ghin keeping up all night crying because of his eye teeth, ...thank fully this passed. I love you mom, said Oisin and i did feel loads better.
If i did put in a blog entry yesterday, it would have been called full frontal, only because it is very strange being back here and smiling at complete strangers again. Ireland has never lost the feel of a large village and here when you pass people, they do expect to see you smile. It's an acknowledgement. Over the last three months in Singapore smiling at a stranger would have resulted in being sectioned, so i got used to not smiling. And now, smiling at people feels a naked activity. It's like offering someone a flower. At least i try to do that - and it makes me feel very vulnerable. But they smile right back and people are so very very nice.
We have at least five Halloween activities lined up over the next week. Tomorrow the school's put on a fundraiser, Friday Peter's taking Oisin on the Belfast Ghost Bus. I'd imagine that Belfast would be a place where you'd see lots of ghosts. On Saturday, there's a party at Shirelle's, on Sunday a Ghost Stream Train, on Wednesday there's a party at Lara's and there's something else i'm forgetting. It's a far, far cry from our first Halloween here which in addition to being rainy and dark, was accompanied by the constant sound of fireworks being set off all of October. We sat in the house on Castleview, listening, thinking of the bombs which used to go off, not so long ago, feeling very sorry for ourselves that we weren't in Derry, getting legless on William Street. I joke about the legless bit, but i think that was when i frist missed Derry. Halloween.
So, expect loads of pictures. I should take shot of other bits of life here really, but with the teething and what not, it's quite busy...and the other piece of good news is that i cleaned the desk and it's now all organised and fabulous. Don't believe me? Well...
