With Valentine’s Day looming…no, that is not fair! I will start again.

With Valentine’s Day approaching fast, the radio has been booming out the message of love all week. Love is in the air, love me do, lovelovelove! One particular sound byte that tickled my interest was that scientists have confirmed the hypotheses that opposites attract in a biological arena. Now I know this is not news but how could this be? Surely romantic love is about similarities, sharing,  compatibility and plain sailing off into the sunset!

Well apparently not, the scientific world has it that nature gave us pheromones which Wikipedia says ‘ is any chemical that triggers a natural response in another member of the same species.’

And as the sound byte explained, the law of nature suggests that if one member of the species has one set of pheromones or chemicals in their body then they will instinctively pick a mate that has a different set of hormones, therefore ensuring that their off spring will have the strongest set of pheromones to go forward into the world. Simple really, ying and yang and all that.

For instance if housework was not my strong point, then my pheromones would send me in the direction of a Mr Mack who loved housework or at least house work was his thing and thereafter number one son would have a healthy mix of both and head forth into the world strong. This is pure conjecture on my part of course.

 So where does that leave modern equality, sharing the chores, sharing the child rearing, sharing the financial responsibility, sharing the decisions, sharing the caring? Clearly out the window!

 So this week at the Love Lab, the current exhibition in the Science Gallery in Dublin, the science of desire is being explored. I may attend if only to sniff out the lab rat, no, the love lab rat or even the love rat who is helping the scientists with their enquiries, the attraction of opposites. Huh!

Another New Year resolution is to read over what I write before I post it and think about how it might be interpreted by people reading it. Let’s just say that my previous blog caused mini- consternation with people wondering was I ok. Of course I am. Perhaps I really am far too enmeshed in this football world and am not really thinking clearly about things any more.

Of course the incident to which I referred was to do with the shenanigans within the football club. As usual I have managed somehow to maneuver myself into the position of piggy in the middle and the middle at the moment is a large pig pen of muck. With the very best of intentions, it seems that I (and not only I) can not keep everyone happy nor do right by everyone. But ain’t that life? No one has died, no one is even sick. You can only do your best. And try not to be too sensitive when even your best isn’t good enough. On the subject of pigs, can I resolve to eat healthily forever more or will I have to resort to liposuction?

So the list thus far reads as follows:

1. Care more about people, friends and foes alike

2. Look before you leap or think before you post

3. Eat less

Or perhaps I could resolve to do just one thing  and that might solve all others – think less about myself and more about others.

It never ceases to amaze me how suddenly one can topple from the pinnacle of happiness to the very depths of despair.

I ended one decade in a state of joy and carefree abandon and within a mere two hours of waking up in the next decade stood on a beach populated with striding masses walking off the excesses of Christmas wiping tears from my cheeks before they could freeze on my face and before my children could notice. Only the playful antics of our new dog could lift me momentarily from my despondency.

It’s not important to know the reason for this sudden change in my mood. What is important is that you never, never truly appreciate the people in your life until they are gone or until they drop a bombshell upon you that they may have been juggling in their hands for ages but which you never really expected they would drop and certainly not on you.

And so my New Year resolution is to take much more care of those around me, those people who matter to me, who help me, whom I may take foregranted but without whom I would be a mere shell on a seashore.

Is it idle-wifely going to your Mothers for Christmas dinner? Or is it just lucky? Lucky, yes, I would say….. but real lucky would be going to Australia for Christmas and staying with your best friend in Australia! I can dream…..

 While I have enjoyed a variety of Christmas’ in my time including one in the southern hemisphere and one stateside, for the past three years my tradition is to go to my mothers for Christmas and lull around for a week. Or can I call that a tradition? My motivation is simple, Darling son gets to spend extended time with his cousins, who are the nearest to siblings he will have and I get to spend time with my parents and siblings who are not geographically accessible to me the rest of the year. That is to say during the rest of the year we are hampered by distance, work and other commitments and I visit as often as I can but we don’t have drop in relationships.

 Another bonus is that my home of origin is unusual in the sense that there is loads of room, oodles of company and heaps happening in and around the place i.e. you don’t have to go far for company or entertainment. It is a very comfortable house with ensuite bathrooms; sky tv, broadband and a sort of room service that if you leave your dirty laundry by the washing machine, it will reappear two days later neatly folded on your bed. Not ironed, as the housekeeping fairy that for paying quests!

And her kitchen…..by comparison to my kitchen at home, my mother’s kitchen is the cordon bleu in a simple unsophisticated way. Ample worktop space, every pot, pan or vessel in any number of varying sizes; double oven, endless store of vegetables someplace else, supermarket across the road just in case and to beat the band this visit, we could see the eclipse of the moon on New Years Eve from her kitchen skylight. Wow! On the downside to the more the merrier rule, the potatoes peeling was endless….

Actually, for the week the only thing you really need to do is put your head outside the door for fresh air every so often or even just to see if anything is stirring. Not that this need for air is essential by any means as the air inside is constantly turned over by all the hot air that is generated when we all get together! Exercise does not come into it!

So as it happens, Christmas 2009 was a marathon lulling around session. I read an article in a national paper last week where the author spoke about the likelihood that he was so lulled out that he could take a nap on the way to the kitchen to get some leftover stuffing to go with his bowl of trifle. Yes, my kind of lulling also, food coma here we come.

Or, maybe it was the lull after the storm. Mr Mack & I always have a hard time negotiating the festivities et al, if the truth be known. While I go for the bigger picture, he just wants a few half hours at home with his family to do the things he wants to do on the days that he just wants to do them! He is the sentimental one. So the process every year is stormy. Need I elaborate?

But this year to beat all others, on top of the natural rhythm of Christmas lulling, this year we had snow! A full week of snow, snow on the rooftops, snow on the roads and even snow driving home for Christmas. Then when we got here, there was a fabulous blanket of peace and quiet on the environs as well as added caution when contemplating leaving the house, icy roads, slippy footpaths, no water, hats, gloves and all that! Nonetheless, we still ventured out occasionally with a new respect for the world, respect in the sense of thinking twice before putting new footprints in the freshly fallen snow and changing the landscape forever.

And that is certainly a new skill to practice in the New Year, strengthened by a week old lulling. Bring in the new and respect the old. Happy New Year to everyone.

I’ve had one of those weeks. I know everyone has bad weeks but this one was a killer. My beloved football club obsession is becoming millstone-like. I’m not sleeping. I’m not eating properly, as in I haven’t time for proper meals so I’m snacking on whatever is easy and generally unhealthy. I’m seriously neglecting my family and friends. I’m arguing with my football friends, probably because we’re all too enmeshed in the madness that is our club and when people are tired and stressed, they fight with those closest to them. Money is non-existent, we’ve got debts, we’ve got to make tough decisions, cut budgets, risk pissing off lots of people and that feelgood factor that surrounded the club when we survived relegation this season has long since been replaced by despondency and frustration.

It feels a lot like we’re clinging to a shipwreck and hoping to God the tide will turn and carry us back to dry land. The problem is that the only dry land is a very bleak desert island. There might be a coconut tree or two on it but there’s not much else; not much shelter from tropical storms, not much in the way of food and I’m wondering how you could fashion a raft out of the few bits of debris lying about.

But faced with the alternative which is being swept back out into unchartered waters with no certainty as to what might lie ahead, whether an ocean liner might appear on the horizon and save us or whether we might drown, that desert island is utopic by comparison and I’ll take it.

I attended a gospel choir Christmas concert tonight, a welcome respite from my week. I very much enjoy the occasion of Christmas – the music, the carols, the collective friendliness of people. The concert was particularly joyous, the singing and the musicians spectacular. I was moved more than once, especially when a lone pianist played and sang “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”.

Afterwards, I drove through the main street of our capital city, hoping to glean some sense of festive cheer. I was sorely disappointed. Despite a very creative Christmas tree on the central promenade made completely from various sized lighted balls that changed colour, the atmosphere was muted and bleak.

The message from the concert tonight was “Discover the beauty within”. Someone said to me recently that maybe we need to stop looking further afield and look back to what is in our own community. Instead of spending vast sums of money that we don’t have on trying to create a master race of a football team, try to cultivate local talent and make a community proud of its own rather than supporting people who turn up for the weekly match and then disappear back to where they came from. Maybe it’s time to start discovering the beauty within!

I think there’s a balance to be struck somewhere. We’ve got to learn from mistakes and live within our means and focus on what’s good and vital and cultivate those things. It’s a message that transcends football clubs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x55fCkqutjU

Another old friend that is not on my radar these days is alcohol, would you believe? I gave up drink for a while last year while I was on dietary reform and guess what? I have just not really gone back to it.

At the time it was conscious decision but in hindsight it may be more like a conscious choice. If I did not drink, I felt that I could have a dessert so I am not sure if that approach was in the spirit of the program or not!

Anyway, my personal relationship with alcohol was never very committed. I certainly enjoyed drinking and definitely experienced all those rites of passage associated with same, but that does seem like a long time ago. I can even remember getting drunk on a fiver,  and I was not an underage drinker! Then, when I was working, there was nothing more exciting than a free bar but I can remember always drinking steadily and not being interested in the cocktail list or the last minute banking of bumper drinks just before closing. Saying that, I do remember Mr. Mack working through a full cocktail list with pride on one occasion enjoying the perks of my job obviously!

Thankfully, we both matured and have moved onto finer things and maybe our drinking has become more of a science than an art form. ‘Well darling, this has a good appearance, full bodied, with long legs, its complexity, character and potential is second to none!’ Now there’s a mouthful.

Either way regardless of the quality, unless there was some lively company to go with the long legs, I usually find myself nodding off on the sofa. I believe that it must be an age thing, because I was not always like that but it has ruled out drinking at home with Mr Mack in recent years. Or maybe I am being kind suggesting it was the wine? Mr Mack would say that Friday night tv viewing had something to do with it also!

But where am I with it allnow? Strangely I find myself driving to some parties and not too bothered whether I drink or not. That is not to say there aren’t exceptions to that, there are but none of it feels too critical anymore.

Maybe it’s a case of a night out is not all about drinking particularily when I can have a dessert!!

What’s so entertaining about this American tv show is how the whole Walker family function in unison, albeit, together pulling the same direction and together pulling in opposite directions. They are fixers and keep busy meddling in each others affairs. No sooner has one family member imparted some personal news to another, then the receiver of the juicy gossip has another family member on the phone and tells them, another overhears the conversation and goes directly to the source to sort out the dilemma and why hadn’t they told them in the first place. Are you keeping up?

Then to top that, each family dinner ends in familial chaos when everyone speaks their mind usually resenting the intrusion; going on to vent their emotions and then the next day they pick up the pieces with lots of heart felt drama…. It’s very entertaining.

But what about our own families? What about real life? Is it a cultural thing? Do you get involved when someone is in trouble or do you feel the compulsion to be involved, intimately and constantly? Or would you prefer to keep your distance and let them sort it out themselves?

Life teaches us to be independent, self sufficient and adult, yet all the time having to fit into some group or the other. Our place and approach to our family of origin usually determines how we negotiate every group thereafter, family, friends and work. How do you fit into yours?

I got an invitation today that I did not want and I came away wondering what was going on for me? In reply, I felt as if I was ducking and diving and on reflection, I was decidedly uncomfortable with how I had responded. Reflection is great but not good in the moment, if you know what I mean!

Lest you get the wrong impression of me, heaven forbide, the invitation was to do something that we used to do when we were closer friends and it was exciting. Nothing sinister at all!

Things have changed for me and  this event is not on my radar at the moment. Maybe I am too busy or maybe it’s the event? Who knows, but what I do know is that it is not grabbing my attention at the moment. Maybe I need a change?

Anyway, my way of dealing with the situation was to give an honest answer in the moment but deep down I know that I was hedging my bets, hoping that the request would not come to a head and I would not have to stand up and be counted. Why could I not just say no? Even proffer an excuse? But thinking on my feet is not my strong point especially where this person is concerned.

A bit of me felt, presumptuously of course, that if I said no, I would hurt the other person’s feelings. No doubt there is a bit of that in all of us. Let’s just say that that is my good girl complex coming through. A bit of me did not want to miss out, it could be good fun, but another bit of me was reticitient getting involved.

This has happened to me before when the shoe is on the other foot i.e. I have fallen off other friend’s radar over the years. And I do mean I have fallen off their radar! Shock, horror! For me it’s important to believe that it is not my fault, of course, and that I have done everything in my power to maintain the relationship. (When Mr. Mack reads this admission, he will smile.)

But in today’s situation, it is me that wants to change the ground rules and maybe, I am faced with another girl with a good girl complex who does not want to hurt my feelings. Now, there’s a thought! 

Distracted Mum may have an opinion on this but I would sum up by saying that sometimes it is easy to over-analyse things! Keep it simple, and beware of your good girl complex!

I hate it when someone accepts your invitation to an event and then something better comes along and then they go for that one !  Without even bothering to pretend otherwise.  It’s just pure bad manners and yet I accept it and get over it but it REALLY bugs me.

We own an awful lot of books in our house. We thought when we re-designed the house last year that we had provided ample shelving to accommodate those that we already owned and those that we would buy in the future. I have to say that I like nothing better (slight exaggeration) than browsing in a bookshop. You can lose yourself in the biography section or even the gardening section for hours. I generally flit between all sections, pulling random books from the shelves and occasionally marvelling that I have found something I never knew existed but suddenly feel I cannot live without. And aren’t those the best? Those treasures that have sat on that shelf for ages until someone plucks them out, deigns to peruse the blurb on the back of the dust jacket, has one’s curiosity sufficiently piqued to open the cover and read a few pages. It’s like finding a new friend, someone who comes out of the blue in the most unexpected of encounters and you just know that you won’t be disappointed. Sometimes of course, first impressions can be deceiving and you might get half-way through the book only to discover that the story that looked so promising is let down by the author’s lack of imagination or heavy-handedness or inability to bring the reader along or continually draw the reader in. But when you come across that treasure that makes you long to get home to continue it and everything else becomes unimportant and suddenly you have forgotten to eat and are waking early and going to sleep late in order to find out what happens next, well isn’t it the best feeling in the world?

No computer, no facebook page, no blog, no film, no TV show will ever replace it. A good book is a friend forever, one you can read once, put away, find in a year’s time, dip into it again, and in which you see a little more each time.

I’m a hoarder and especially a hoarder of books. I can’t bear to throw any out, even ones I know I will never read again. Invariably, there’s the one that was given to me by someone important to me, another I bought at a specific time in my life that I want to remember, another that was found on the floor of a friend’s flat in college and brings back memories of that friend letting a fillet of mackeral fall on the kitchen floor in that flat of dubious cleanliness and promptly scooping it up and serving it for dinner. But today I decided that I will never again need “The Law of Tort” or JCA Gaskin’s “Quest for Eternity”. Granted they looked very impressive in my living room and defined me as someone of great intellect and intellectual endeavour, but I’m beyond impressing people with books that I neither read when I was actually in college nor intend to read in the future, and thus I decided to cull my rapidly expanding book collection earlier on today so that it would fit on the shelves that were designed for it. And that was when a slim little paperback ended up on my bed amid all the beautiful, leather-bound, hand stitched volumes that have been passed down through generations and the Richard and Judy recommended holiday reads and the German dictionaries and the scores of lifestyle books (I admit to an obsession with reflexology – three separate books on the subject) and at least fifty foreign language books (one day I did read them, well some of them, and some day again I intend to try and finish most of them). But there it was in the middle of that mass of literature, a book that I dip into again and again but haven’t had time to for some months, “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. If you haven’t read it, treat yourself. Don’t do it on a day when you are rushed, don’t expect to find within its pages the answers to all your questions but prepare to be inspired and prepare to be jolted a bit and prepare to shed a tear. This is one of the most innocent books you will ever read, it’s one of the most gentle too, but behind that innocence and gentleness are some astonishing revelations about human nature and you will find yourself in it along with your family, your enemies, your lovers and most of all your friends. It might even change your outlook on life. Today it changed mine, again.