Archive
Here you can find earlier blogs on stuff that fires us up, gets us down, interests, amuses, frustrates or just plain happens to us. Enjoy.
Diary of a middle aged backpacker
By Aine
I bought the book Us2, a snapshot of Ireland from Saturday 2nd October, 2010, in Eason’s last week.
I was flicking through this book of 21,000 photos taken on one day in Ireland, and apart from wanting to support Bernardo’s by buying the book; I was captivated by one particular photograph.
The photograph that brought a lump to my throat is a simple one. A mattress on a bed, devoid of bed sheet, with a rolled up duvet cover, again unadorned by duvet cover and two pillows with no cases. Underneath the picture it says ‘our son’s room taken on Saturday 2nd October 2010.’ He’s gone to Australia and it was sent in by his parents.
I thought of my own daughter who has spent the last two years in Australia and whom I haven’t seen in eleven months. She’s just been granted a four year working visa, so when we heard that news we decided it was time to head off across the world and visit her.
Hubby and myself are flying out (well hoping to – we have to go through Frankfurt and their airport has been hit by snow and closed since last Friday) – on St. Stephen’s day to make the long trek.
She will have one week’s holidays only so we intend to travel around Australia and see some more of that country and also take a trip to New Zealand, hire a car and drive around the Northern island (went to the Southern island last time we were there) and stopping off in Kuala Lumper for a few days R & R on the way home. A trip of over four weeks all in.
The plan is to spend a week in Perth, then fly to Adelaide, where our daughter will be flying in from Queensland to join us. We then intend to travel by car the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne, and spend a few days there with her before she returns to the outback and we fly to New Zealand.
So, dear readers, I thought that I would not abandon you in the bleak January weeks and would instead regale you with my travelling tales. I will endeavour to update you regularly with my experiences of new food, new places, new people, a kind of middle age ‘rough guide’ if you like.
I have travelled before in a camper van in New Zealand and while I enjoyed the experience, I don’t particularly want to repeat it, so intend to hire a car this time round and stay in motels.
Last time we visited Australia, we took in Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns and the Southern Island of New Zealand, so this time it’s the Northern island of New Zealand and the west and southwest coast of Australia.
So log in to my travel updates and wish me well, in going from snow and minus 12 degrees straight into 25 degrees Celsius!
Wishing all you loyal Vivadiva readers a wonderful Christmas and hoping the New Year brings health and happiness.
Some more important than others
by Aine
Ironic isn’t it that the deaths of a couple in a freezing canal in Dublin last weekend disappeared from the news after a couple of days.
The young couple, Wendy Atkinson (30) and her partner Robert Sneedon, who were chronic drug addicts, apparently drowned after falling into the icy waters of the canal, their bodies discovered by a passer-by around lunch-time on Saturday. They were located under the Luas Bridge on Suir road in Inchicore, a location apparently well known as a haunt of drug users. It has been reported that one fell into the water and the other slipped in trying to attempt a rescue.
There was not the same outcry over the death of this young couple as there was when Gerry Ryan died. By comparison, the media was very occupied with the drug habits of Gerry Ryan and the inquest into his death which revealed that cocaine was a contributing factor.
But Wendy Atkinson, just like Gerry Ryan, left children behind, children who no doubt will mourn the loss of their mother just like Gerry Ryan’s kids miss their father. True, she didn’t work for RTE and earn €600k a year, and was not regarded as a ‘celebrity’. But she was someone’s daughter, sister, mother, friend and partner. Likewise her partner, whose life ended without fanfare at the age of 29, both slipping to their deaths in an icy watery grave on a night when the rest of us were grateful to be tucked up warm in our homes. Three drug related deaths, two hardly worthy of a mention it would seem.
May they rest in peace.
The White Stuff
By Aine
With all the white stuff around lately, (and I’m not talking about Gerry Ryan’s coke habit) I have had to reconsider what I was going to write for my Christmas-themed article for this site.
I had planned on writing an article on what to buy to wear for Christmas but the girly grapevine tells me that 90% of Christmas parties are snowed off and somehow the little sexy black number is being substituted with quirky little knitted hats, woolly dresses with warm leggings and sensible boots, so no point in doing a ‘Christmas fashion’ item then. Anyway for the past month every magazine and newspaper is jam-packed with the seasonal ‘must haves’ so I think the latest fashion buys for Christmas has been done to the death and therefore you don’t need my advice. (Ok, if you really want it – get some thermal underwear!)
I then considered doing some research and writing an article on ‘20 great Christmas gifts for under £20’ but I have to admit my heart is not in the Christmas shopping spree this year, what with the ten inch snowfalls, the ice, and freezing fog, the bloody recession, IMF calling the shots, NAMA bleeding us dry, and the Budget finally sweeping away any vestige of Christmas spirit, I thought to myself “Why bother?” So my advice to anybody shelling out for expensive Christmas presents is: think ahead to January 2011 and how bleak it’s going to be and that’s before you max out the credit card and go overboard on the gift buying. So cut backs all round then.
Bah humbug!
Priorities, priorities
by Grainne
On Tuesday of this week while people all over this grand country of ours battled fresh snow, icy roads and artic temperatures to get to work, get Christmas shopping in and generally go about their business what was the Government doing? What was the priority for them at this time? What was the subject of a press conference convened in Dublin? The announcement of some new job creation measures perchance? Some words to sustain us in these dark, economically difficult days? Nah. They wanted to tell us they want to treble the number of people who speak Irish.
So, boosting the Irish language is their priority. Speaks volumes, does it not? All the better, perhaps, for us to mutter “bunch of bloody wasters” and “gobshites” as Gaelige?
Pat Carey, the Minister who looks after Gaeltacht Affairs, was pictured on the nine o’ clock news talking about this important initiative. So was Brian Cowen though the latter didn’t look like a happy camper. There was a sense that he just knew it wasn’t a good idea to be banging on about this stuff when the country is on its uppers. Maybe though he was just being his usual miserable self.
Anyways, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear, if you didn’t see or read about the initiative, that €1.5M is being set aside from ‘existing resources’ next year for the strategy. One of its key targets is, and I quote, “to boost the number of daily speakers of Irish in Gaeltacht areas by 25%.” And there was me foolishly thinking that all people in Gaeltacht areas spoke Irish most of the time anyway and that was the reason they chose to live in such places. Instead the Taoiseach said the language “remains in a vulnerable position as the primary community language of the Gaeltacht.” Well, if they can’t be bothered…….
The Taoiseach said the strategy was “a source of hope and encouragement for the language.” Indeed. If only he and his hapless Ministers could come up with a strategy for hope and encouragement for the rest of what ails us in this country at this time, we’d be right.
At least there’s a General Election in the offing at which time the country can issue a collective ‘Pog mo Thoin’ to the present crowd.
All about Mary
by Grainne
With RTE having to look at more ways to cut expenditure in the face of another difficult financial year ahead an option for them would be to let all of their staff go and just have Mary Kennedy present everything. Sure she’s practically doing that already.
Mary takes turns with the mellifluous Michael Ryan in presenting ‘Nationwide’ segments. She was, until recently co-presenter of ‘Up For The Match’ being replaced on it only recently by Grainne Seoige (another ubiquitous RTE figure. ) Every awards ceremony televised seems to be presented by Mary and no carol service, Christmas special or other seasonal fare appears complete without her. So they could save themselves a fortune by just dispensing with everyone else.
She’s a former continuity announcer and a newscaster, so she could do those jobs again, that’s half a dozen or more salaries saved. She’s ‘done’ Eurovision and had a Saturday night show, co-presented a lifestyle type show with Marty Whelan and various one off ‘specials’. In short, she’s an all rounder. And she’s obviously very well got with the powers that be in Montrose to command such an amount and array of gigs. Her unchallenging style isn’t likely to rock any boats or ruffle any feathers and she won’t frighten the horses, the elderly or small children. She always looks well, with the hair freshly coiffed and a nice ‘guna’ or outfit, as the occasion demands, and she comes across as extremely pleasant, in a bland sort of a way. And I suppose us viewers would get used to seeing her every time we tune in to RTE as opposed to every second time, as it seems now.
The jock could shock
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.
