The Anti Room

Type emigration into google and hit images… guess whose pictures come up en masse? Oh hell yeah, the Irish, a fantastic group of prematourists. We’re very good at it, and I for one am delighted to say Yes I can! This year’s Christmas card will feature  my good self  stood in front of a threadbare [...]

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I’ve just started reading a book. Normally, I would wait until I’d finished reading a book before offering it – and my thoughts on it – up for you to consider. But I feel this book deals with such an important subject that I can’t wait until I’ve finished to talk/write about it. This book – “Unnatural [...]

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Earlier this afternoon, I was browsing mugs, washbags, scented candles and mismatched tea cups and saucers looking for end of year presents for teachers (I know, a whole other post in that) when I noticed a new-look SodaStream, the fizzy drink maker that’s been making a comeback in the States lately. I only got rid [...]

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We’re in the middle of house renovations at the moment. Dust and chaos assault every corner; we’re camping in the few unaffected rooms and trying not to count the time remaining, for fear we’ll weep. On a daily basis, I remind myself it’ll be worth it. One of the things that will exist in the [...]

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A week ago it was my grandmother’s birthday. Nanna lives all by herself in a little council flat in central London, a flat with a tiny paved square in front which is filled with carefully tended pot plants, like a leafy bubble in a grey, concrete world. I phoned her, as you do, and my timing [...]

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All the talk of Obama’s visit to Ireland today, brings me back to the evening of his inauguration, January 20th 2009, when Himself came home to find me on the kitchen floor. On my knees. Surrounded by the usual mish-mash of baby changing paraphernalia – sudocreme, wipes, tiny nappies and – ahem – masking tape. SKY [...]

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Here’s a bizarre dichotomy to consider: corrective rape. Yes, raping a person to make them see the error of their ways. I wish I could tell you I’d made it up, but it seems it’s all the rage at home, in South Africa. Now take a moment to consider and remember the following women, all [...]

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Yes, we’re all being told to make do and mend and embrace craftiness. But actually, making stuff yourself often isn’t cheap. So let’s hear it for Regina de Búrca, who offers a guide to being crafty on a budget. I come from a long line of women who knit, sew and crochet. My forebears’ sole [...]

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As I sit here writing this I should be putting the towels in the washing machine.  I should be sorting through the rest of the washing, putting colours on one side, whites on another and delicates somewhere else. I should be hand washing the delicates. I should be reading the children five books six times [...]

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Sometimes I get incensed as I stare at the tattered remains of my brilliant career, clutching weakly at the frayed fringes of what I like to think I once had or might have been, before I moved far away from home to be with a man simply because I loved him. Would he have done [...]

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