Playlist of My Life

So, Nicola from Simply Homemade has come up with an absolute gem of a linky.  It’s called Playlist of my Life and it does exactly as it says on the tin: you list the songs that take you back to pivotal and significant times in your life.   I thoroughly enjoyed reading the playlists of everyone who has taken part – you can see them here – and was reminded of some great tunes.  Songs are a little bit like smells in that they can evoke such strong memories and take us right back to another time, world and place.

It’s taken me ages to put this together because as we have all discovered, there is no end to the memories and the songs just keep coming out of nowhere.

So, here’s the playlist of my life in no order whatsoever.

Radiohead -  Fake Plastic Trees (In fact the album The Bends) 

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Once upon a time a congregation of twentysomethings would congregate in a small, darkly lit somewhat dingy pub situated on Leinster Street, Athy and knock back pints and some of us even smoked in the pub.  All of this was done as we listened to what came out of a jukebox hung on the wall.   The Bends was one of the most popular albums and Fake Plastic Trees is guaranteed to stop me in my tracks every time and transport me back to the days where worries were no greater than did I pay my rent and have I enough money to go out at the weekend?

Ocean Colour Scene - The Riverboat Song

This one takes me back to The Mean Fiddler on Camden Street, Dublin where it was a popular floor filler.  Or maybe there was just so many of us there for Buy One Get One Free Cocktail Tuesday (or was it Wednesday? Thursday?) it seemed like the place was full. 

Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

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So many words.  So much whistling.  Impossible to sing and whistle at the same time so I just stuck to the lyrics.  I still love it. My favourite lyric is “he sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, he says Amen! And Hallelujah!   Interesting backstory, it was written after Paul Simon and his wife (I believe it was Carrie Fisher) hosted a dinner party and one of the guests insisted on calling them Al and Betty.    

Sheryl Crowe -  No-one Said It Would Be Easy

My sister got Sheryl Crowe’s first album Tuesday Night Music Club for her twenty first and we all loved listening to it.  All I Wanna Do was of course the hit single that sparked her long career but I fell in love with this song.   It had even more meaning for me when I became a parent for the first time.   no one said it would be easy, but no one said it’d be this hard.

New Kids on The Block -  Tonight

I had to include a guilty pleasure.   Remember these lads?  The American boys who burst onto the scene and had young wans screaming and fainting in their wake.    What were we like?  Ahem.   Their dance routines, their videos, the rough edges, the brothers and the baby, Joe.   Rumour has it they’re making a comeback.  

The Cure - Friday I’m in Love

My oldest boy is currently listening to their back catalogue and I have to say I never roar at him to turn that down when I hear this track.   Because once upon a time, we were all in love on Friday.

Fairground Attraction -  Find my Love

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I say Perfect is my karaoke song but this one is bursting with summer sounds and feelings.  I love it.   I love Eddi Reader’s voice on this one. 

Lulu – Shout

Such a robust and energetic song.   They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

The Four of Us -  Mary

I remember being in my bedroom at 16 or 17 and the DJ introducing us all to the latest Irish band to appear on the scene.   Of course, I knew who U2 were but admit to being unimpressed by them (at the time!) and then The Four of Us released Mary.  It helped that Brendan Murphy was miles better looking than Bono and spoke in that lovely, lilting Co. Down accent.  

Alanis Morissette -  Ironic

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There was nothing Ironic about Alanis.   Jagged Little Pill screamed of anger and pissed off-ed ness and I lapped every single bit of it up.   A few months ago, when I was mourning the loss of another radio schedule shake-up, I was on the search for an alternative station.  I thought I had found it when the DJ started to laud this album and laid claim to them having no less than three Jagged Little Pill albums scattered about – the car, the bedroom and the living room.  How then, I wondered, if you were such a massive fan, did you play the radio version of the song with all the eff words?  I changed radio channels.  Again!

Crowded House -  Weather with You & Better Be Home Soon.

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Oh look, just put on their greatest hits and I’m on earthly heaven.  Crowded House has the power to transport me to a particular Sunday morning in spring and also to a shared house in Dublin where we had the absolute craic!

Natalie Imbruglia  - Torn

A real pop song.   Many moons ago my cousin and my now sister in law feked off to America for a year.  Because they would not be around for Christmas, this prompted the rest of us to host a Christmas night for them in October.   We did chicken and ham, put up the Christmas tree and even managed to find some crackers.   We played Christmas carols and danced the night away in a tiny flat.  The tree stayed up until the following March if I remember correctly. 

Boney M - Brown Girl in the Ring

I was five and listened to this on vinyl.  I kid you not.  OK, so now I know why my kids ask “was that when things were in black and white?” whenever I talk about the olden days.

Suzanne Vega - Luca 

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I sang this song at the top of my lungs with happy vines before I realised it was about domestic abuse. 

Nizlopi - JCB Song

This was such an unusual, random song and I was pregnant for the first time.   I am drawn to stories told and songs sang through the eyes of children.  

The Only Way Is Up – Yazz

It was this woman’s appearance that hooked me before the song.  I thought she was incredible looking.   She was so tall.  So energetic.   Her hair intrigued me.  She had fabulous teeth and skin, these huge, expressive eyes and then her voice on top of all of that, belting out such an encouraging message. 

That’s it and I only scratched the surface.   Makes me wish I hung onto all of those mix tapes!

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.         

Eleven Years Ago

I can see clearly now

Time waits for no man or mother but I can still remember with perfect clarity, the struggles of babyhood as they applied to me.  

There are no babies in this house anymore yet when the sun shines a particular way, or a rain drop hits my cheek on a random Tuesday, I can be transported back to that time.   A smell, even a sound can open that Pandora’s box of not so nice memories.  

See, the really young baby years didn’t agree with me at all.   I like to think I have a certain perspective eleven years later because I have comparisons now.  Back then when the babies arrived back to back, I was still caught up in one vortex when the next storm landed.   Trying to make sense of a toddler and his moods and cognitive developments whilst grappling with a new-born and those dreaded, god awful sleepless nights.

This is the eve of Oldest Boy’s eleventh birthday.  As I write this I think about another Saturday evening eleven years ago in Kilkenny hospital when contractions forced me out of my bed at exactly 6pm having been induced earlier on that day.

He was born twelve hours later.  A short albeit extremely painful and scary twelve hours later.

I’ve always maintained that giving birth is the easy bit; it’s what follows that tests us and gives us pause to think.

Or drive us mad.  Or make us stronger.  Or wear us down.

There are those who say great things are born from pain.  I’m not sure I would agree.  Great things are also born from joy.     

I have a great deal of joy in my life.  I guess I always did but at times there was a cloud over it, blocking my perspective.

That cloud has moved on now. 

And like a random Tuesday recovering from a summer shower, my path is clear and the air bright.  There are also a few kids playing on it.

Four of them.  I know them by their movements, their laughter and the way they shout to each other.

Eleven years ago I was in labour for the first time.  The baby years are gone now and another era stretches out in front of us.  One of laughter and tears.  A time of learning and discovery. 

But if there are four kids walking that path with me, I know we will be more than ok.

  

How Do You Eat an Elephant

Happy New Year!  How has your day been so far?  I hope it didn’t begin with a hangover and if it did, I will admit to feeling a bit envious.  I realise I’ve contradicted myself there. 

Something has been rattling around in my head of late.   Something besides my brain, that is.   A little thought.   As I am prone at this time of year, I like to make plans for the next 12 months.  Not big ones.   I’m all for a challenge but I also like to win sometimes.  New Year’s resolutions are a recipe for disaster and a sure-fire way to fail if you ask me.

But then I reckon it also depends on what you set your mind to and more importantly, the steps you take to making that goal happen.

Last year I decided on two things:  one was to train for and complete a 10k.   The other was to get published in some shape or form once a month.

I received a medal for being the first lady across the finish line for the 10k race and I can claim to a 70% success rate for the writing part.

As far as I am concerned, those are achievements.

This year I plan to look at something that was successful for me in 2016, examine how I did it and work at doing it again.  I also want to take an area that wasn’t so rewarding and improve on it for this year.

It helps that the areas I have mentioned above bring me immense and satisfaction so I don’t foresee many problems for 2017.

I say that now.

But I learned that little steps can earn huge rewards.    

And to answer the elephant question.   The answer is, one bite at a time.

Happy New Year.  I wish you all the best in your dreams and endeavours for 2017.