by Aine

Hello people,

Aine here, greeting you from Perth, Australia.

Arrived here via Frankfurt airport, via Kuala Lumper.  Spent all day St. Stephen’s day travelling but was relieved to have left the snow behind for the scorching 37 degree heat of Perth.

Finding Perth a beautiful but expensive city. A small city and easy to get around, which even has a free city bus for doing just that.

So on my first full day in Perth I visited the Botanic gardens in Queens Park, high over the Swan river with stunning views back over the river and Perth city.  Took advantage of the free bus to get us there and back.

We were advised by many people to visit Freemantle, which we did yesterday.  It’s a 20 minute train ride from Perth, and is a quaint little seaside town with colonial style buildings that put me in mind of New Orleans.  The train ride from Perth cost a mere $9 for two people – excellent value for money I think you’ll agree!

Today we wanted to get the ferry to Rottnest Island but were unlucky – had just missed one ferry and the next one was booked out completely and the next available ferry was leaving on New Years day, so Plan B meant we went back to the train station and got the train to Cottesloe Beach instead.

Boy was I glad we did.  Fabulous white sandy beach framing the aquamarine waters of the Indian Ocean.

We, (hubby and I ) walked the length of the beach with our feet in the warm water – the perfect antidote to the icy and snowy weather at home of late!

We rounded off this most pleasant experience with an al fresco lunch, Caeser salad with gigantic prawns for me, steak sambo for other half – only wish I could spend every Thursday like this!

Back then to the beach for my favourite pastime – people watching!

When I was leaving I noticed an inscription on the bench I’d been sitting on – “Notice the change of energy when a positive person enters a room.  Be that person” It was dedicated to the memory of a young girl who was born in 1985 and died in 2003 and was erected on a spot on the hill looking out over the sea.

Off to Adelaide soon then on to Melbourne for the second leg of my travels.

Meeting with daughter number two in Adelaide whom I haven’t seen for over a year (thanks Mr. Cowen) but hey, I AM beginning to see the attraction of living here.

So then, I will bid ye all G’day for now and catch with ya all soon.

By Aine

The national print media gave extensive coverage over the weekend to the inquest of the late Gerry Ryan. I have to say at the outset I was never a fan, but a lot of people tuned in regularly to his morning radio programme. I’m also not going to add my opinions to the cocaine debate which his death has thrown up…suffice to say he was an adult and made the choices he made, anyway I believe in the old adage “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”

Reading the reports in the papers over the weekend reminded me of an incident that happened last year in the run up to Christmas. I was in Smyth’s toy store in Naas, at around 9.50 one mid-week morning. The store had the Gerry Ryan show on in the background. The store was fairly busy with it being the festive season and lots of Mums and Dads shopping for Santa presents. Some parents were accompanied by their small children.

    Gerry Ryan was having a discussion with an Irish lady, living in London, who picked up men for sex, then when finished with their services told them to order a taxi and go home. Gerry, in his own imitable fashion, was trying to tease out the finer details of what this lady got up to with these men in the confines of her bedroom. The details were quite graphic.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as I stood looking at Thomas the Tank Engine trains in a middle aisle of Smyth’s toy superstore of Naas.

I looked around me to see had anybody else taken note of the disturbing conversation over the speakers. A man with a little boy by the hand looked back at me with raised eyebrows.

Gerry probed deeper.  “So you just pick up these men, take them home and shag them and then tell them to get out”? he enquired of his caller. “Indeed” the caller replied, and added that she felt no guilt about it. She said she found it all very liberating! At this stage I went to the customer service counter and asked for the manager to be paged. The manager duly arrived and I asked her did she realise what radio station was on in her store, she said yes, the Gerry Ryan show, I asked her had she been listening to it, and she said ‘no’ she had been in the office and hadn’t taken notice of it. I told her I thought she ought to listen to what was being broadcast in a store that had numerous children there at 9.50 in the morning and enlightened her as to the content of the discussion. She was as horrified as I was and agreed with me that it was indeed unsuitable listening for customers and children alike and said she would have the channel changed immediately.

This experience came into my head as I read about the inquest into Gerry Ryan’s death this week.

 By Aine

Last week, when I was snow-bound and bored to distraction I decided to put up the Christmas decorations. I normally reserve this particular seasonal activity until after the 8^th December, but, because of the inclement weather, I found my options for self-amusement in short supply,  so out came the trusty box of decorations.

I love opening up the box of Christmas decorations and marvelling at all the baubles, angels, tinsel and glittery things, that I have accumulated over many years, each piece carrying a particular memory and re-discovering some I had forgotten about.

A few years ago I invested in a magnificent crib.

Since then it has taken pride of place in the sitting room every year. It’s big – the figures are almost a foot tall, and it had the full compliment – Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, two shepherds, Three Wise Men, an ox, a cow and a sheep!

Last year unfortunately there was an incident.  A drunk person (who shall remain nameless – they know who they are!) tumbled against the crib and knocked poor Joseph to the ground. Shattered him in a million little fragments. No amount of super-glue was going to fix him. So last week when I unwrapped the bubble wrap from around each figure, I remembered Joseph and his untimely demise.

And I looked to see who could fill his boots, so to speak. Well I couldn’t use any of the three wise men; they look much too affluent in their ermine cloaks and extravagant headgear, bearing gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

I thought I would pop in a shepherd as a replacement for Joseph, except that one had a baby lamb around his neck (leaving us in no doubt as to his role in the crib) and the other shepherd bore a crook, again portraying, lest there was any doubt, that he too herds sheep, and doesn’t vaguely resemble a carpenter. So there my dilemma remains, no Joseph in the crib and no hope of getting a replacement as the shop I bought my crib in has closed down. So for the foreseeable future it looks like Mary is a lone-parent, at least in my house.

By Aine

Please believe me when I say that I am not coming over all sentimental because it is the run-up to Christmas but I’ve been giving some thought to Christmas shopping this year (as opposed to just sallying forth, credit hard in hand with nary a clue as to what to get for anyone as I usually do) and I do think that we should have a collective rethink about gift-giving.

 We are in the middle of a biting recession (and I write this on the day of the worst, harshest, bitterest budget to be announced for a long time, never mind that we are in hock to the IMF to the tune of billions.)

Lots of people have lost their jobs; those of us lucky enough to still be employed have seen our take home pay drastically reduced.

Others are still coming to terms with the disclosures about clerical sex abuse, not to mention the poor people who had first-hand experience of such abuse and are still suffering as a result.

The weather hasn’t helped either with most of us being snow-bound and going stir crazy for the last ten days, unable to get to work, get to the shops, or just get out for a walk.

So then, can I suggest to each and every one of you this Christmas that instead of driving yourself crazy trying to buy the perfect gift for so-and-so to maybe give the gift of time instead?I know it’s a cliché, but life has become so busy and time is at a premium.  We all have people that we owe phone calls to, people we mean to catch up with for coffee but just never seem to find the time, elderly relatives that we mean to visit but make do with a weekly phone call instead to assuage the guilt.

What about someone you know with small children; instead of buying them a present this Christmas maybe take them out for an afternoon instead? To the cinema, the local park, to the local panto, anything at all as long as it’s time spent with them.  Or what about babysitting for a couple who would love a night out but maybe can’t afford a babysitter? What about offering a neighbour who has no car a lift to do their Christmas shopping?  Or visiting an elderly neighbour and sitting with them for an hour just to re-connect or maybe invite them to the house for dinner some day over Christmas. What about helping out the St. Vincent de Paul this Christmas?  Carol-singing for charity maybe?

The Celtic tiger meant that for a good few years now most people I know have pretty much all they need. If you don’t believe me just ask five people you do intend buying gifts for what they’d like and watch their reaction.  The uuuming and aaahhhh and ‘let-me-see’ing as they scan their brain for something they might possibly want or like.   If it goes beyond a few minutes they want for nothing. (Mind you, an exception to this was my son, whom, when I asked the same question, replied “a job”)

So let’s this year take a stand and discard the notion of buying for all and sundry and instead give the most precious commodity of all.  Time.

It might make all the difference to someone.