Soccer Mum is Approaching

Today, the Bean played his first game of soccer. All a bit nervous in his fine new boots and socks and shinguard, and much standing on the field, but he went. I stood on the sidelines with other mums, the Pumpkin talked the ear off one of the other fathers, who ended up walking away to make good his escape.

So this is how it happens: they get taller, you go to the field one day, there are a hoard of other boys, some much bigger, and it's a Saturday soccer match. And I found myself wishing that he'd run more on the field - strange to watch my high-energy boy standing on the field, looking a bit lost.. He had fun. Though later he said he did not want to do things he didn't know how to do - he'd said yes to soccer practice, not a game. " And I want to do gymnastics, because I know a lot more about that." Oh mama. I heard him.

Funny, at my 40th birthday party, I said I did not know what the next decade would bring, but I was fairly sure that Soccer Mum would feature in there somewhere.

And I spoke about wanting some more intrepid life - my 30s were full of safe, small times with babies - short day trips, playground visits, sitting on the beach, digging holes and building mermaids, rather than swimming out to sea. Just one overnight walk in Tasmania, with the medical crowd keeping our boys in Hobart (thank you!) so we could take off to a cabin in the wilderness together. With what turned into a pack of other backpackers and hikers - we laughed a lot, romantic it was not, and very true to us.

Oh and 4 major relocations right across Australia, extreme financial squeeze, houses bought and sold, a husband who then became a medical student in the same year as I became a mother. Different kinds of adventure. No wonder I arrived in Newcastle feeling out of breath. OK, life-adventure, not travel-adventure.

And 2 and half years later, we had the oomphah to embark on this big trip. Ah yes, there's energy there.

Spring mornings along the Lee

One of my favourite parts of Cork.

Three days a week, the Pumpkin goes to preschool, and the walk from school to the preschool takes us through the grounds of UCC, along the Lee. He starts up a new story every time we walk (do you want a story about fairies or bicycles, daytime or nighttime? and so on), and we weave our way through morning traffic, students, parents, workers, until we get to the UCC gate. These hours, I will not forget.

Turning right after the footbridge, there's a gorgeous 300m along the river, under the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, a most unusual building, (the bottom picture catches it), past fairy gardens, old trees, green lawns, burbling river, through another stone gate, over the river and along to the preschool. There's hardly ever anyone here as I pass through.

And all around, traffic crawls in Cork's dreadful streets, unchangedly awful after all these months. Constant mire of roadworks, closed lanes, tractors down the main streets in peak hour...

Today, it's getting green, bright, denser. Pink blossom, white blossom. All the trees have their tiniest, babiest green leaves out - birch and beech, woodthorn, even tiny baby green oak leaves. I get the same feeling as when I look at a new baby - new life, exciting new possibilities. And as I walk it on the way back, I too am filled with the possibilities of 3 hours childfree, podcasts from Sydney or New York in my ears, my step getting longer, my thoughts clearing.

I'm so proud of you...

...for cleaning up the whole floor like that.

So said my Pumpkin after he'd pointed out how dirty the bathroom floor in the boys' bathroom was. And then stood there, hands on hips, watching as I wiped and mopped. Made me go the extra mile on the toilets and all other housework in the big Tuesday clean yesterday, yep. (Still trying to keep the big stuff to once a week, like I started in Darwin with Helen all those years ago.)

Just now, at the English Market, an actual statement from him: "The whole market could make a smiley face: the person who wants to keep me could give us a banana for the smile, this olive person could give us two round olives for the eyes, what could be the nose?" His imagination is unbounded, the language development way out there, just like his brother, and (might I add, just like his talkative parents.)

Power to him. He has said in the past: "it's my job to make everyone laugh and keep them all excited all the time."

Two lives, three lives

What a dual life I lead here.

I travel with my family, Leathermanman, The Bean and the Pumpkin. We do incredible trips, the kind of thing which I've saved up for, looked forward too, longed for. It's been about one a month. And little excursions here in between, as visitors come and go. I'm sociable, travelling light, talking with precious friends and family, or meeting new people.

August - England by car.
August - Germany by plane.
September - Spain and France by hire car.
October - Irelend by car, with visitors.
December - Germany, England by plane.
January - Amsterdam weekend, by plane. SOLO
February - Austria, by plane and hire car.
March - Turkey, by plane and bus.

Then I'm home, being a housewife (dang!), cleaning (yes it's small, but high rotation), shopping (usually at Lidl, also the English Market or Dunnes, Tesco), washing (drying it all on one small rack, inside all year) reading online (papers, blogs, emails), knitting (sometimes, not enough), dropping and collecting children to their (minimal, really) activities. And being a lot silent, in a weird kind of solitary confinement. And speaking to other mothers from school, my tribe, a lovely group, what will I do without them? But it's one perspective on a place only, not the work-one I'm more used to.

Then there's our third life: our house in Elizabeth Street, the garden, the studies, the friends and family we have there. The steady, child-rearing, steady-being road ahead, the road behind. The road I'm in no hurry to resume, but know I must.

Medical Career in Ireland

It's completely outrageous, how this country touts itself as an economic miracle, modern now, and some terrible contradictions remain.

There are LOTS of doctors with brown skin who have worked here for ages, are good doctors, but will never get any career progressions, ie never make consultant. LMM was asked not long ago, had he seen any consultants who were not Irish? - there are none. Downright racist, isolationist, yet no-one tells them, no-one confronts it - and the foreign docs prop up the system for years, unable to question it, as their contracts might not be renewed. This is no open, modern system.

And I thought Australia makes it tough, making them work in the outback, or in other terrible places for years, before recognising their qualifications! At least they do, eventually.

What kind of country makes doctors reapply for their jobs EVERY 6 MONTHS? Not consultants of course, but the big numbers who get the worst shifts, bear the brunt of patient loads in every specialty, across the country. These are professional folks, with years of study and experience behind them, being made to act like temps. Oh and could you please do a spelling test for us. That last part was a joke.

Across the hall from us is an Indian woman who's just been here for 2 years, working, waiting until she could bring her girls, 11 and 13, and her husband over. That's how much a better life means to them.

And in the hospital is a senior doc who'd be arriving at parties in India in the limo, earning 6 times as much as he does here, but he's got an Irish wife, so stays bogged in the system, without a proper career progression for his expertise.

Poor buggers.

Ireland in Spring = Daffodils

Spring is def springing all over Ireland now! Here's a pic taken by Leathermanman, on a bicycle ride to Blarney today. No mean feat, it's about 12km from here in Cork. Ah well, there's some post-Turkey energy there.

The Crazy Hip Blog Mamas are having a Spring has Sprung photo week, so I'll try to let them know this fine sunshine and daffodils are here.

Beware though, anyone under 6 years old can't go into the fine historic house in the background - Blarney House has liability issues. Our hands are tied, she said, nothing we can do. What? It's a house for chrissakes, not the Crown Jewels...What do they think a child will do, grope all the old furnishings! Hello, it's got a responsible parent with it. Ah well, another source of revenue lost. The Irish obsession with litigation, regulations, partnered with the 'what can you do?' attitude, drives us NUTS every week.

We had a great game of hide-and-seek behind all the bushes though, anyway, when I was there with the Pumpkin.