Thursday night I had to sew the crest on my son’s jumper. In doing so, I broke five needles and most probably my spirit. I mean how can you break needles? Am I the only person in the planet who has broken a needle? Cheap, lousy needles. Ninety exhausting minutes I spent on that simple task, sewing a crest on the jumper. I shudder. Why hadn’t I listened in Home Economics class? Simply, all I remember from the sewing room in school was the ten minutes at the end of class the teacher made us pick pins up off of the hardest, roughest, carpet two knees have ever knelt on. If only I had remembered that magnet weekly.

Where is this going? Oh yes, the crest. There is a generation of women who would tut at my sewing skills and I assure you they were all present (in my head) when I was sewing on that jumper. They’re Italian mammas, Irish mother-in-laws, Polish aunties (aren’t I cosmopolitan?) Jay, look at the paw on her sticking through the needle. Is that how you thread these days? She’ll be there ’til tomorrow. It’s supposed to be flat on the jumper not crumply. They hang around, this symphony of nags in my head, when I’m about to venture a new domestic task that I know I’m not all so good at, criticizing my every move.

Here’s my answer to my symphony of nags. Who cares? Why didn’t I just give it to someone expert at this so that I could after a long day of looking after children and cleaning a house just sit down and pour myself a glass of wine? Seriously. Beating myself up about a crest? And I know I’m not alone in this because everyday, every time I see a friend trying to wrestle with a cranky toddler or present a child with her lopsided attempt at cookies, I think really, are you judging your domestic abilities again? There you are (for example), all PHD-ed up berating yourself because you can’t remember the second verse of Jack and Jill. Something, something, balsamic vinegar and brown paper.

So sisters, if you’re doing it yourself, try not to judge your performance on impossible standards that were set in a different time, mood, in someone’s elses’ lifetime most likely. Just put the jumper in the bag and pay the lovely person in the shop to do it for you and concentrate on reminding yourself of all your potential, of all you have achieved, that you are not the sum of your domestic abilities. Phew. And for the love of God, don’t ever buy cheap needles.

Allow me this sentimental one. When I was getting married, I insisted on making a speech. Less a speech more the hyperactive rant of a bride to be but I’m sure the audience understood. Bet they’re still shrugging their shoulders. There was little material to go by, google marriage and there seems to be an ocean of Marx brother jokes on the institution, the Oxford dictionary of quotes adding further words of cynicism on marriage. So, there I was, almost nine years ago ranting on about my husband to be and our future life together. But in fairness, what did I know? What could I know?

I’m sitting here typing in my family home today in Cork, dodging out of getting the house ready for a forty year marriage anniversary party. Forty years. On the day I married, I looked down at them from my speech and saw them look at me with pride, despite the ranting, a product of their marriage and thought that’s how to do it. In his speech later on, Dad gave the credit (or the blame) for the daughter he was giving away to a Kerryman to my mom but really we were the outcomes of two people who just kept loving us and each other day after day, in and out, under skies of every colour.

They’ve spent the morning ranting and raving about getting the house ready and the misfortunate marquee blowing down in this Irish miserable excuse for a summer. It is one of the big days marking a marriage as long as theirs. They have six beautiful grandchildren after forty years and three loved daughters. I could say something about ups and downs but it goes without saying that in forty years, the blank canvas of a life together gets a powerful coloring.

We’re here to celebrate that fine match unless of course he doesn’t go up to the attic to get down that mattress. Off I go out of hiding now to join in the mayhem of this household, celebrating the day that Anthony Bennett married Betty Collins, forty years ago today.

There’s a fine line when eating out with children between them being adorable and deranged in the public’s eye. You have to decide either to eat in an establishment where children are welcomed and put up with incessant screams from all corners of the eatery or the location with nice enough food, some tolerance of your offspring and inevitable eventual humiliation. You decide.

Oh to digest a meal. This week we managed to escape the work of the farm for a few days break in our nation’s capital, Dublin. Traveling with young children, you sign up for highlights and lowlights wrapped up in a package. Go at their pace, don’t try to entertain them by too much effort and make an effort to enjoy it yourself. Easier said than done. We were kind enough to ourselves not to put the family through the absolute torture of going through an airport. No matter how organized I find myself on such an event, it inevitably turns to dragging and cajoling children in some obscure spot of anonymous airport. Not for wild horses or Brosnans. But I digress.

So after a week of alternating between shouty-screamy and semi sophisticated restaurants that say that they are child friendly but hey who are they fooling, we found ourselves eating our last holiday supper in a pub off the motorway on the way home. The facts were such, we were tired, hungry and generally in need of some TLC. A tall order for any restaurant you might say.

Three little Kerry boys, aw, how adorable. Look at them colouring. The baby is so sweet, ash blond hair. Do they all have matching blue eyes? Aw. Look at how they’re eating their rice and devouring those sausages. Oh they must be hot. A delay meanwhile in bringing the food for the cranky parents (well actually the mother), coloring pencils, a capital idea. Could the baby get lead poisoning eating that one? Eat up your veg, and yours and yours. Still no meal for the parents.

There’s a window here people, it’s a ticking time bomb, timing, it’s all about timing. You want your icecream, not until you finish your dinner, and yours and yours. Parental dinner arrives. What about icecream? I’ll order some. The toilet, ok? You eat, I’ll bring this one. Don’t spill that glass. I’ll get the waitress. Why didn’t you say you wanted to go to the toilet when I was bringing him? No, no, you eat. Mind the baby. Not so adorable now. Another spill. The gentleman in the next table who has been cooing at the baby, decides to help up the cleaning with a bundle of napkins, don’t stand on the man’s fingers, say sorry. I feel like we’re in a glass tank with the owner over feeding us. Just leave us alone to feed these people so that we can get on the motorway and try to put them asleep and drive through the rain, awake whilst driving people. Just bring the billllllllllllllll.

Thank you so much, we really enjoyed our meal.

I suppose they re not bad. Actually, today, they are awful. The eldest is at summer camp, a well researched, thoughtful (on my part) summer camp and just gone in. I still worry will he be ok, will he manage, will he make friends? I sign him in quickly and run back to the car to the screaming baby and toddler. It’s lashing a la July monsoon rain in Co. Kerry. Don’t judge me, it was three minutes and they have colds. I promise.

Toddler; I want to go to the park mommy (the park is next to the community centre).

Me: Not today darling, we need to get the baby home, he’s tired.

Baby: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, wa, wa, wa, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Me: It’s ok baby, we’ll be home soon and you’ll go to bed.

Toddler; But I want to go to the park, I really really love that park.

(If you’re looking for originality today, move on, this is just me ranting.)

Toddler: I want to go to the parrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk.

Inner Me: Wow, you really are a terrible mother, he is spoilt rotten. What do you do? Do you give in and bring him to the park like yesterday or do you hold tough? You’re like a pressure cooker now. No, best go home, but wait, you have to order that part in the garage. Just pretend you’re going home and play soothing music and they won’t even notice that you’re not going home. Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths. If I were more organized, this wouldn’t happen. Were I stricter? If I was French now, I certainly wouldn’t have two cranky children in the back of the car. Au contraire. They’d be sitting reading Baudelaire apparently. Oh no, I’m not going to get away with this diversion. If I lived in a city, I wouldn’t have to drive 30 minutes to get to the (insert profanity of choice) garage. I just want coffee and five minutes peace from these people. Suck it in. Distract them, they’ll be fine.

Me: Not today, love. How many red cars can you count?

Chorus (repeat)

All: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

So I’ll assume if you’re still reading along that you’re ok with nauseating twee therefore allowing me to indulge in the telling of our excursion last evening. My mother had visited from Cork and as good grandmothers do, she said, ‘away with ye out for the evening’. She didn’t have to ask twice.

So we found ourselves in a pub in a seaside village some ten minutes away trying not to look so comfortable in each others company that it was ok to just stare at the goings on around us and not actually converse. We could, after all, chat anytime. Over three meals a day in fact, everyday as it goes. Exposure to the everyday rituals of young people, or indeed people in pubs we were short on. Did you know, for example, that in each others company, people now spend a lot of time staring at their mobile phones? Honestly.

One person who didn’t seem to notice was the man singing on the guitar in the corner. He was, or at least it seems, very used to being the much ignored troubadour in the country village of a week night. He didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he sang as if he were playing a large stadium to an audience of thousands. Lost in song, eyes closed and wrinkled, guitar high on tummy, he sang (and here comes the twee – you’ve been warned) his heart out. The usual repertoire for his audience, rock songs, old ballads, that Pink Floyd number for Tommy who danced along (I suspect since lunchtime), the hits and the supermarket ditties that make us cringe normally. Not last evening.

No. Last evening, we swayed. We were held in the half asleep reverie that haunts parents of all young children, under the spell of a man who had spent years singing in pubs with bad amplification and audience participation. With little feedback other than the promise of a quiet and not assured round of applause at the end of each song but for the view of the odd sleepy couple in the corner swaying to his tunes.

It made me think, how even when you don’t think you’re making any bit of difference, that someone sways to your tune. Your passion and enthusiasm go not unrewarded whether you’re selling newspapers, baking bread, teaching, nursing or working in an office for when you go to the point that you invest yourself so fully in an enterprise where you give your all, you make an impression. And you never know who needs your smile, your excellent service today, your ability to impress your love for what you do on another, your voice.

A reminder to myself foremost to remember to leave ’em swaying.

I know, I really should get out more often.

To make my life more comfortable, he wanted to take the discarded banana skin from my sideplate. I had just fed the baby in the restaurant and it sat where my bread roll should be.

You know, farming is so busy. These days, we joke, we only meet in the back kitchen, over hurried conversations. ‘Did you pay that bill?’ ‘What time will you be cutting Ardoughtar?’, ‘You’re late again.’ ‘Will you ever be home to put the kids to bed.’ ‘So tired of this.’ ‘Will you change his nappy?’ Romantic it is not. Ordinary everyday life it is.

The Spring gets longer every year we sigh, tired.

It gets stale, you start to feel as if you have the same conversation, passing each other, always rushing in June, no time for the sit down and chat. The cows need milking, silage needs drawing in.

Then there’s a funeral. You sit down after the burial and you just stop rushing and chat with each other amongst others and you giggle. At the same things, nudge at the odd funny relative and he takes the banana skin from your sideplate and there we meet again. In the out of the ordinary ordinariness of it all. My gentleman always.