A room of one’s own

Get these posts by email. Sign up here

  • Oh to be able to know for certain.

    Life is so full of difficult choices – to go for that job, or to stay put, to try that new treatment, or to stick with the old one, to move to the country, or pick a town house.  I don’t have that advantage some people talk about – ‘God told me to’ are words…

  • Forgotten names

    These days I’m finding it hard to remember the names of places.  I can remember the names of famous people just like that, I can remember what places looked like, but don’t ask me what they were called.  I don’t know how many times I’ve asked my husband to remind me what somewhere was called;…

  • Keep walking

    Those were the exasperating yellow on black words I read as I neared the end of the incessant marathon walk at Dublin airport this week.  The Ryan Air gates were miles back from the airport main doors.  Literally miles.  I walked, I made progress along the moving walkways, and then I walked some more.  There…

  • Journeying back.

    Some things have happened over the past couple of days that have taken me back to my childhood.  On Saturday, we went on a trip to Slieve Gullion.  I’d never been before, so didn’t know about the fairy houses – little colourful wooden doors placed on the tree trunks, a small rope bridge and tiny…

  • Ch-ch-ch-changing.

    I hate change, mostly.  And at the minute, there’s some a-brewing in the Adams household.  Not wanting to pass on my problems with adaptability, I’ve kept schtum.  It’s amazing how concern over handing down an unwanted legacy can motivate me to behave better in front of my children. So, what are these changes?  Well, the…

  • The need to be heard

    I joined twitter yesterday, after eight years of giving off to Ryan about it – things like. ‘why do you have to tell other people what you’re doing, when I know already?’, or calling it his mistress, the thing that gets more attention than me.  Funniest of all is that he first signed up when…

  • Sometimes I thank God

    but never enough.  At the moment, I find myself walking a shaky tight-rope of optimism – it would only take a second of introspection for me to fall into self-pity.  That is a terrible place to be, and very hard to get out of.  The constant discipline of thinking about others and collecting positive thoughts…

  • What’s for ye…

    won’t go by ye.  I used to hear that all the time when I was in Glasgow – especially when I was applying for a job, or looking for a house.  At the time I think I found it reassuring – the whole idea of your life being controlled by something greater and therefore, nothing…

  • The best are gone.

    Yesterday was a very sad day, as I went to the funeral of an old family friend.  He was such a wonderful, inspirational, loving person, and at one point I thought, you don’t even have to preach a sermon here, his whole life was one.  Just last week, when my mum went to see him,…

  • Little signs of hope

    I should be editing my book, or cooking the dinner, but I’ve been looking at something for the past half-hour, and listening to something since yesterday evening, which deserve to be written about.  You possibly remember my blog last year about the tree that was cut down.  Well, shortly after that, my mum came round…