Comment received from elderly gentleman (therefore patronising tone must be accepted with saintly resignation) on report drafted by me:
“Well done on the writing to-date. Its [sic] very good.”
Comment received from elderly gentleman (therefore patronising tone must be accepted with saintly resignation) on report drafted by me:
“Well done on the writing to-date. Its [sic] very good.”
I was in Edinburgh for work last week. I was unenthused by the prospect. I had been before and I retained only a vague memory of a dull castle.
When I was 17, I went to Scotland to visit a friend I had made on a camping holiday in France the previous year. We had both taken part in the Miss Campsite competition and come first and second (modesty forbids me telling you who won, ahem) and this formed a bond. There was no internet in those days and we had to keep our friendship alive through letters and the very odd phone call and, most thrillingly, a visit to Glasgow. Her parents nobly drove us to Edinburgh for the day so that I could experience the excitement of Scotland’s capital. I retain much firmer memories of driving around the suburbs of Glasgow with Alison’s schoolmates (boys, cars!). We stayed in touch for many years but finally lost contact around the time she got permanent employment as an engineer with the local council (she used to make mini-roundabouts and we didn’t have any mini-roundabouts in Ireland at the time and my incomprehending indifference was the beginning of the end).
I arrived into Edinburgh late and flicked on the telly in the rather nasty hotel. I found myself watching a programme in Gallic on breeding sheep on remote Scottish islands. I was rivetted. Not by the sheep rearing but by the language. Gallic is very similar to Irish. It was sub-titled which was a big help to my comprehension but I would imagine that a fluent Irish speaker would have very little difficulty in understanding the spoken language and even I could tell that almost all the words were the same. The pronounciation was weird though, it was like hearing a Norwegian speaking Irish, that same Nordic intonation.
My conference the following day finished at 4 on the dot (in my experience entirely unprecedented in the world of conferences) and I sailed out to take the air. My sailing was considerably impeded by the road works associated with the creation of a tram line. The local, who was my informant on these matters muttered darkly about it. “It was just as bad in Dublin when we got our tram lines,” I said sympathetically. “Aye, but you got twice as many as we’re going to get.” “You’re only getting one tram line?” “Aye,” he said dourly (I was, obviously, delighted to meet a stereotypically dour Scot).
I made my way to Charlotte Square passing several school boys wearing short pants (really, short pants? and I bet it gets chilly in Edinburgh in Winter) and bright red knee socks picking up the red piping on their blazers. Very odd.
Charlotte Square is a beautiful Georgian Square designed by Robert Adam (who was from Edinburgh, who knew? alright, alright all of you) and one of the houses is open to the public. Normally the children accompany me on this kind of expedition and the relief of not having to constantly stop them running, touching or shouting was enormous: as you know, it is part of every child’s upbringing to be tortured by parents in this way. I was able to consider the printed leaflet in each room, chat to the nice elderly lady volunteers guarding each room and, generally entertain myself. I was able to make a comparison with more or less contemporaneous houses in Ireland as, the previous weekend, I had visited a number of houses in Merrion Square which was enjoying an open day. The latter had been rendered hideous by the children. It’s hard to know which was worse, the screaming and running about at the Irish Architectural Archive, having to carry Daniel from the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland howling, red-faced and rigid with anger because he had not been allowed to sign the visitor book, or Michael gaining access to the water cooler on the second floor of the NUI building and promptly flooding the stairs and soaking himself and then trailing squelchily out of the building asking loudly to be allowed to take off his trousers. No such unpleasantness marred my visit to Charlotte Square and that of the genteel English people who seemed to constitute the bulk of the other visitors.
After that I walked over to the Old Town (challenging with the tram works) in a mood of increasing astonishment. Edinburgh is amazingly, jaw-droppingly beautiful. Almost every building in the centre is made with the same yellow stone and nothing much appears to have been built since 1900. The effect is extraordinary. I walked round entranced. The Royal Mile was described by the frank guidebook in my hotel as awash with tartan tat and, I suppose, that is true, but it is also full of beautiful buildings, fascinating sights and the whole thing is wonderfully harmonious. However, one cannot live on pre-20th century urban architecture and I was getting peckish.
A friend whose husband is from Edinburgh advised me to eat at the Witchery but, alas, they were too full to take me at 6.30 (where oh where is this recession of which they speak). Fortunately, I got the last seat in its sister restaurant, The Tower, which is at the top of one of the only 20th century buildings in Edinburgh: a museum which was closed but looked a bit dull based on what one is allowed to see on the way to the restaurant. The restaurant was full of locals which is always very gratifying for the tourist. I had lovely views out over the city as the sun set and I ate my sardines.
I took myself off to the airport absolutely delighted and quite astonished. How is it that I had remembered none of this loveliness from my last visit? It appears that at 17, I was as self-absorbed as my children are at 3 and 6. You would think that the genetic code might have better things to do.
My school was a breeding ground for excellent hockey players (including, in a very envy inducing way, my little cousin who went on to play for Munster and maybe even had an Irish trial, I can’t remember now) and the team always did well in the Munster schools’ tournament. Part of the reason for this was that all of the effort was focussed on the first team who were drawn from across the cohort of 500 girls. The school didn’t field a seconds team and those of us who didn’t make the first team hung around to provide training practice for the firsts. Not many did but, I suppose, those of us with a fondness for ritual humiliation stuck with it. It was particularly irritating to my mother as she and her fellow parents were paying – over many years – for the all-weather hockey pitch on which the ritual humiliation took place. We were trained by an elderly gentleman (I think that he must have been in his early 60s) who was adored by the firsts and whom I pretended to adore too, ever hopeful of making the first team. Let me remove the suspense now, I never did make the first team. Let me also remove some of the pathos, when I was in fifth year, someone’s mother, appalled by the way hockey was run in the school decided to start seconds and thirds teams and my last two years were spent happily travelling to matches in lower leagues (I was wing and the heart surgeon was inner – a lifetime’s friendship founded on her constant irritated observation that ‘grass is for cows’).
But let us go back to third year when I was still hanging around the fringes hoping against hope to make the first team. I went to every practice and I really had improved quite a bit. The gentleman trainer certainly knew my face, if not my name, and he had even, very occasionally, commented favourably on my play. At the end of the season, in April or May when, really, it was too hot to play hockey and we were all leaning exhausted, red and sweaty against the wall of the bicycle shed with jellied legs, our gentleman trainer announced that he was giving out prizes for achievements during the year. I didn’t have high hopes, clearly, and, indeed, the prizes went to the most likely candidates. The last prize, however, was for most improved player. I allowed myself to indulge in a moment of hope. It couldn’t possibly go to one of the first team becasuse they were all really, really good already. But it did, of course it did. Not one prize went to anyone who wasn’t on the first team. The unfairness of it stung me at the time but it had its own logic. Excellence was rewarded; anything else, however deserving, was not. It was that kind of school.
I’m still bitter. I could tell you what brought that little vignette to mind, but then I’d have to kill you.
Title of email sent to everyone in the office: “Intranet unavailable 1-2pm today!!!!”
Can we discuss this? Is there any item of news which conceivably requires four exclamation marks? If there were, would it be that the intranet is unavailable at lunch time? Weighty matters.
In other work related matters, I had a long phone conversation with a colleague today. In the course of this, I was continually distracted by small errors he made.
“This was muted [mooted] for later in the year”. “The board will take their clue [cue] from the chair”. After a while, I began to wonder whether he was doing it on purpose to leaven the boredom of our conversation. Do you think that’s possible or am I just indulging in paranoia?
Colleague: Nah, I didn’t like Paris.
Me: Eh?
Her: No, it was just boring.
Me: But..
Her: Maybe we just stayed there too long.
Me: How long did you stay?
Her: Five days.
Me: Speechless.
Michael had diarrhoea last night. Every hour or so he poked me awake saying, “I want to go to the toilet.” “Can Daddy go with you?” “No.” I know it was worse for him but he got to stay home in bed but I had to come into work where, frankly, my employer did not get full value for its expenditure on my salary.