If anyone is to be put on a pedestal in Kerry, it’s the Rock of Common Sense. You’ll know them, they’re the face of austerity, sincerity and practicality in the community. By God, they don’t put a foot wrong, never eat a biscuit in between meals, burp aloud or say skittish things like ‘What a beautiful day.’ No indeed, a beautiful day is for painting a fence. The Rock holds his or her cards close to their chest.

Every now and again, I resolve to be more Rock like, less skittish and ‘Corkonian’, more stoic, guarded, practical, wise and thinking. To this end, I even developed a tone; one that scares the farmer. ‘Mind you’, I might start a sentence with. For good measure, there are ‘clearly’s’ ‘nonsense’ ‘that’s ridiculous’ and ‘incredibles’ rolling from the tongue. It’s hard to keep going though, there’s a lot of weather watching to make sure the washing comes promptly in from the line, lawns to maintain, funerals to attend. In truth, it’s exhausting.

Besides, ‘Rock watching’ happens to be a favourite pastime of mine. Who doesn’t secretly enjoy seeing the Rock of Common Sense trip over a lace or indeed get your name wrong. We are human after all. Fallible, real. And whatsmore, great fun. I want to love you Rock but you’re going to have to make a mistake to be my friend. Or at the very least, show me that you too, forget what day of the week it is and curse in private at the smartphone you may have just flushed down the toilet.

Sometimes, you have to live in a place for a while before people let their guard down and then you’ll see the glint that says, I too, have made a mess. Got it so wrong. Lived. And they work their way into your favor, become one of the characters in the narrative that is your everyday life in a small village in rural Ireland. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you come to really know that person and come to count them as a friend. Incredible.

Brace yourself, it’s January. After the tinsel and mince-pie haven of Christmas comes decoration-less January. I defy anyone (mostly myself) to make January look good. But try we must. There is a red alert on, a storm howling down my chimney making the living most uneasy. Memories of last year’s worst storm that took 160 slates from the roof and left my little toddler with a memory of scary storm are in mind. Today, there’s no school. The county is closed for business. And I arose early to fix the place up for the day ahead. It takes planning to get through a day as such. Pre-empting krankiness, what to eat, who sleeps when, what to do with little boys who just want out. Indeed, what to do with their mommy who just wants out. Out into the world, ney, even the village. Away from the same day, in and out. For the chance meeting of a neighbour, a friend, a flower.

Package it as you might, January is difficult. But in that howling wind, we have to listen for a while to hear what it is teaching us. For there is a lesson, there’s always a lesson. What is this seasonal teacher pointing out? Shhhh, the ground is sleeping. The farmer needs rest. There’s a busy spring ahead. The bones are tired. The cows are heavy with calf and need shelter and feeding indoors whilst the ground sleeps.

Indoors, line up distractions; activities, movies, soup, good music and phones calls. As it turns out, city or country, we’re all in this January together. So brace yourself and do as the storm says. Rest.

At some point in their future, I will present a copy of this blog to my children, perhaps when they are about to have my grandchildren. Ahem, no pressure. They may at that point believe on reading it that I spent their infancy trying to avoid them. Not true. I spend their infancy trying to hide the fact that I was trying to avoid them. That brings me to a little ditty about a trip to my local book shop last November.

I’m a reader. An avid one. Most of my life I’ve escaped to a book to avoid study, teenage arguments, heartbreak and now children. No better place than in the care of a good writer. With that, I find good purveyors of books like a good waiter instinctively knowing what you’d like to sample from the menu. A good bookseller is one who can recommend exactly what you need in a book at a given time. Pure alchemy. I’ve found a good bookseller locally, a lovely lady in Listowel (Brenda of Woulfes Bookshop if you need a name). I was caught for time, as usual one day, and I must say looking the part, that is dishevelled, and rushed into the same shop. I need a book I say, post haste (I might not have put it in those exact words but it sounds good right?), something upbeat I say, easy, a city landscape, not necessarily romantic. The poor woman who had just opened her doors and used to a more elegant and considered customer I’m sure, leads me as always to just the right book.

Trying my hardest to remember my pin, she tells me the following; ‘You know I knew a farmer’s wife once that had a fine big farmhouse and a pile of children who used to hide in the hotpress.’ Finger on the nose, a nod and a smile. Understood. And whatsmore she added, ‘you’ll have time to read a chapter with a cup of coffee across the road’. See, a good bookseller, solid gold.

Have I used the hot press? Oh yes I have. Why just today when the crazy gang were simply crazy, I took myself off to finish a chapter with a coffee. It’s cosy in there, not the tidiest but warm and dry. The trick though is to make sure you’re not found out. In and about the third roar of ‘Mom’, they’ll start looking for you, you can time the little footsteps, exiting your oasis in time to cover the batcave up again. Finger on the nose, a nod and a smile. You heard it hear first. Shhhhhhh.

P.S Je suis absolument Charlie…

*Warm, dry storage cupboard you’ll find in an Irish home, quite cosy.

No better night to think on life as the solitary female in our household as tonight on this Oiche Nollaig na mban or Women’s Little Christmas. All over the country, ladies, after a Christmas of catering, running around, wrapping, breaking up fights and pouring drinks are getting a well deserved break. Here, I’m just not that organised. Instead I’m typing alongside the youngest man in my life, my seven month old as he settles himself to sleep in a new cot.

Here’s a new concept for you though, especially poignant for ladies of the farming community. Mi Nollaig na mban. Month of Women’s Christmas, also known as January. Apparently, our calves are late calvers by some standards but by my standards, February 1st is enough time to be welcoming the first of our new calves to the farm. And so, farming wise, things are quiet enough. Time for some much needed loveliness for the woman of the house. Sigh, these boys are busy. Noisy. Hungry. Dirty more often than not. I grew up amongst women and didn’t really understand what a little boy was until, well, to be honest, I’m still learning. Every now and again I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and think, you’re turning into one of them, go brush your hair! More often than not, I’m shouting to be heard and I find myself constantly cooking or baking. And they’re babies really. What’s to come?

So, onto loveliness. January has become the month when Daddy steps in to put the boys to bed and I get a chance to at least wash my face. January comes, as you know, before our Spring, a time when I become a lone parent, whilst the farmer is practically living on the farm. So, during this, my ‘month off’ I make plans, I visit a dentist (a luxury these days), a hairdresser, have a facial, go to the sales. Moreover, I get the chance to remind myself that I am deep down, a bit girly, one who likes the feminine, clothes, red lipstick and shoes that are far too expensive and coincidentally, not wellies. Time to myself.

So they’re asleep now, on this Oiche Nollaig na mban, three sets of blue eyes closed for the night and so, rest ensues.  Back to planning my month of some loveliness. But, blink, one pair of blue eyes open again. Say it ain’t so. Hold that lovely thought.

2015. As is turns out, looking at a calendar is not such an intimidating thing. The problem is where to put it all. Projects, wishlists, milestones, events, all scurrying for their place in the days and months ahead. Not such a bad thing.

There should be more laughing I think, less worrying. More counting of blessings of which there are many. There are five people to plan for now, co-ordinating our lives around a common goal; to thrive. Sounds like a plan to me. And if one day, we fail to thrive, we start from scratch the next day, on the next page of the calendar as it were. That’s how it works in the grand scheme of things. One day at a time. That’s all we’ve got. Today. And then it seems, all the todays come together in that grand plan and it just goes. Plan to thrive.

Happy 365 todays.

And you’re welcome everyone to this year’s much anticipated Christmas meeting of the Windhim Gold Cup. The going today has been declared as good to firm and all nags are lined up in their traps waiting for the off. At the starting line, we have at 5-1 and firm favourite What’s a facial. In traps two and three we have outsiders The Hungry Caterpillar and He loves Jigsaws.  In flying form today is the enthusiastic newcomer Child’s a Genius at 75-1. Full Nights Sleep has been deemed unfit to race with a nervous and tense looking Where’s the Calpol in her place as a latecomer at 300-1.  Finally, in the outside trap is our old veteran and the much loved and enigmatic Basket of Laundry. 

And they’re off. As expected the favourite, What’s a facial is taking her place at the front with grim determination and steely reserve. She’s followed by Child’s a Genius who’s proving to be in sprightly form on this her first outing. And that’s a false start and all nags are back in their traps. Turns out Child’s a Genius broke the line and the tutting veterans are back in their boxes. To a genuine start this time and Where’s the Calpol has decided she’s not going to run afterall and has fallen asleep at the first hurdle. The Hungry Caterpillar is looking unsure as on previous outings this year she started to look for some food, ate healthily but is starting to look on the hungry side again. In the lead this time we have Child’s a Genius, followed closely by What’s a facial. On the inside is enthusiastic to begin with He loves Jigsaws whose owner has had great success with last year’s winner and the now retired Eat the Playdough. 

We’re coming up to the dreaded ‘Mother-in-law’ hurdle now and Child’s a Genius isn’t looking the better for her jump over the passive-aggressive obstacle and has lost her lead. In front now we have What’s a Facial, followed by He loves Jigsaws, The Hungry Caterpillar, Child’s a Genius with Basket of Laundry trailing behind in a shady gray coat by a good distance. We’re at the fifth fence now and have lost our deluded He loves Jigsaws (he’s just not into it). In front we have the sur’-a-rub-of-the-facecloth-will-do, determined What’s a Facial with the Hungry Caterpilliar fighting for front position. It’s the final furlong and The Hungry Caterpillar has taken a good lead but she gorged herself at the last hurdle and isn’t a little Caterpillar anymore, in fact, she looks five months pregnant now and has just given up.

So it’s up to What’s a Facial, Child’s a Genius and Basket of Laundry running neck to neck on the final stretch. Child’s a Genius is starting to look like the horse whose just been told that her foal is just not that exceptional and has slowed to a more realistic canter. Despite the odds in her favour, we can’t let the story end with What’s a Facial winning because let’s face it, nobody likes a martyr. So that leaves our heroine and all out winner Basket of Laundry to claim a charitable victory knowing that poor auld nag is never going win a race any time soon. 

Dinner is stew so it can be served up any time. In Winter, chances are, he’ll be in early from the yard. I can see the farm from the house in Summertime, but in Winter, from the kitchen I go by sound alone. I listen for the Winter timetable of sweeping, scrapers, tractor engine and shovelling. Cows who may have earlier bellowed for the unwrapping of a silage bale have slowed to an intermittant satified mooing and I guess I’ll hear the back door close soon.

Still no sign and I’ve placated the children with the promise of Daddy’s arrival for too long. From the upstairs skylight, I try to see how long he’ll take before his trip in for dinner. Daylight is replaced with fluorescent tubing and tractor headlights. Every now and then, you hear the shuffle of an animal to her feet as she moves to a cubicle for the evening ahead. From the farmhouse, it seems at least, that farming in Winter is a theatrical affair.

At last, there is a rattle of a stainless steel gate followed by the heavy trudge of tired wellies and I know he is almost here. There is just enough time to boil the kettle and draw the tea. In the farmhouse, there is a hurried rattling of plates and calls to the dinner table. From the Winter darkness, he arrives in to warmth, light, chatting, wrestling and dinner, closing the door for the evening on the farmyard.

From the farmyard, on the shortest and darkest day of the year, he walks into the light. There is always light.

I’m compliant. I believe in the fairytale of democracy. The fairyland of happy little citizens skipping off to the polling booth to vote for the knights who will change our world. Enough.

As a busy mother of future happy citizens who will continue to proffer this democracy, I go online to pay a tax. Click to pay. Done. Thank you for your payment. And again. Huh? Pay again. But there are arrears. Huh? There had been a waiver to be paid locally but now it needs paying by you. So I haven’t actually paid for what I came online to pay. Speed dial the real person who gives me a list of options. Dial three to speak to someone who has a) the training b) the bad sense and c) the condescension to call me Madam. But I’ve paid. Not the arrears. What arrears? The arrears. But I’ve paid. You’ve paid what seems half the arrears of the charges but not the actual tax Madam. The name’s Anne. And your name again? Would you like to pay? Which one? The half arrears, the waive-red arrears, the tax for one half or the tax for the other half before I go off and pay for every other bill in my inbox? Are you the authorized card holder Madam? It’s not your fault. I’ve been at your end of the phone and I know you got up and fed your children, put on your lipstick and went to work. Payment type? None preferably. It’s not her fault. She’ll put down the headset and walk to her nearest comfort of choice at breaktime. Chocolate, cigarette, phone call home, coffee and she’ll forget about the Madam who rang from a farmhouse in Kerry who was just not getting the exhorbitant taxes she was democratically obliged to pay.

Compliant I would have thought myself. Until now. I put down the phone and contemplate rebellion. The good girl turned rogue on the streets of the capital, refusing to pay. I will most likely pay, out of frustration, fear, compliance, destined to become the wise old hippy owl who will smile knowingly at adult sons frustrated with the system of taxes. Sons who are reared on utopian ideals by idealists who refuse to believe that Machiavelli didn’t have had a heart. Brought up to believe that they must be ‘the change they wish to see in the world.’

Meanwhile, one of the sons needs a nappy change and their high minded mommy needs a cup of tea. Sigh.