Snapshot

d'ya like my new cup?

Maud from Awfully Chipper has come up with a lovely idea for a linky.   It’s a quick snapshot of what people are reading, watching, enjoying and generally getting up to.   Here is my contribution.   Click on this link to read more. 

Listening to:  The radio.  Does that count?  I have lots of albums, CD’s and the like but the radio is my constant companion.   Although Oldest Boy has discovered music and is a big fan of The Cure, Nirvana and The Killers to name a few so I am listening to these too.  Whether I like it or not it seems.

Watching: This Is Us and really looking forward to starting Season 2 of Grace and Frankie on Netflix.  If you haven’t already been introduced to either, I can highly recommend them.   This is Us is clever, heart-warming, sad in places and just brilliant.    The first episode and the sheer cleverness of it almost knocked me down.   Grace and Frankie for the laughs.  Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda join forces as two very different women who thought their husbands had called a lunch meeting to inform their wives they were finally retiring as law partners.   Turns out they were just retiring from their marriages but getting married again………………….to each other.   Watch how they all cope with the fall out.     

Reading:  I finished John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies last week and went straight out to purchase the next one I could find which is The History of Loneliness.  From the man who brought you The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, these are two very different books but still deal with atrocities committed against Irish people during less tolerant times.      

Drinking:  Coffee and white wine.  But never in the same glass.  And not right now.   I love a coffee transfusion each morning.  I like to keep the wine till after 4pm. Doing my best to stretch it to 8pm on Friday and not every night.   The struggle is real.       

Eating:  Asparagus is my vegetable of choice recently.   I can’t get enough of it.  I am also more than a bit partial to chopped sweet roast potato sprinkled with smoked paprika.  All the nom noms.  And for the healthy treat, that would have to be healthy Twix bars.  My stash from last week is diminishing faster than I’d like.  Turns out the smallest two boys love them too. 

Wearing:  Scuzzy jeans.   Scuzzy hoodie.   Battered boot shoes.  Birds nest hair shoved up in a lump on top of my head.   This is my daily uniform. 

these very items in fact

Working On:  Finishing a short story and doing my living best to get my teeth into a work of fiction that has been rattling around in my head since last August.  

Permanently Frustrated by:  The sheer and utter lack of hours in the day.  once upon a time the day was too long.   Now I cannot believe how quickly 2pm rolls around and I have to jump in the car for school collections. 

Enjoying:   Running.   Three or four mornings a week I go for a run with the dog.   I’ve been lazy with it for the last year, however, and just completing the bare 5k each time.    A couple of weeks ago, I began pushing myself towards the 10k mark again and I am really enjoying it.    

Not enjoying:  The mad, starving hunger that inevitably happens when you increase your training.    I want All. The. Food.   Sugar is not my friend.  hence the asparagus and sweet potato above.

Looking forward to.    Saturday night.  Each Christmas my brother gives me and my six sisters a voucher for our local Asian restaurant.   And this weekend we will use it.   There will be wine with the meal and more than one or two glasses of Guinness afterwards.  To make it sweeter, I have made an appointment for a much-needed hair cut too.

Not looking forward to:  Sunday morning. 

My own add on’s:

Daydreaming about:  Sitting on the couch with buckets of tea and Season 2 of Grace and Frankie.

Wishing For:  Summer to hurry its ass up and get here.  

Regretting:  There was a large glass of wine left in the bottle from the weekend and I indulged last night as I watched Dermot Bannon help a couple renovate the farmhouse that had been in their family for three generations.  I should have opened another bottle if I was going to feel like this.  Maybe it was the 6.30am start and not the lovely wine.  Yes, I’ll blame that.   Wine is my friend!

Wanting:  A cup of coffee with a healthy Twix bar.  In a minute.  In a minute.  

Grateful For:  Having the time and energy (such as it is) to do all the above.  Currently Irish woman Vera Twomey is walking – that is a trek of 260km - from Cork to Dublin to get the medication her young daughter, Ava, needs to control her rare medical condition.  Because it is a cannabis based medicine, it is unavailable here in Ireland.  Vera Twomey is appealing to Simon Harris the current Minister of Health who has the power to provide a licence for access to medicinal cannabis in individual cases.