The first day of spring

St.Brigid's crosses

Anois teacht an Earraigh,
beidh an la dul chun sineadh.
Is tar eis na Feile Bride ardos mo sheol

Now the Spring has come,
the day will lengthen
and after St.Brigid's Day I'll raise my sail.

Old Irish song

ALSO for my Chinese friends

"Happy New Year"
新年好
The year of the rabbit.
So when you are writing a cheque don't put down Tiger any more, its rabbit!.

Now the Spring is upon us, there really is a stretch in the day.
Look into the gardens to see snowdrops and Daffodils popping up their heads.
Soon by the grace of God the mood of the people will rise also.

I had 2 girls in the car today whose lives could not have been more different.
One girl had a baby and told me her life's story in 20 minutes, the other girl I had to sketch in the blanks.

Exhibit A She left school at 16 and had a baby at 20, "Me boyfriend would have nothing to do with me when he heard I was pregnant, so I had to go through it all alone. Her mother suffers from depression and can't go out. Her father is out of work too.
The girls grandmother suffers from altzimers and she, her grand daughter is her carer.
I talked about what she does all day long and suggested that she could do some study at night or do some part time course.
She has no ambition to do anything or to move on.
So I can see in a year or 2 she will have another kid to keep the other one company and God alone knows where it will go.
I would say that her intelligence level would have bee at the level of a 10 year old child, very sad really.

Exhibit B had a qualification in childcare but wanted to do video editing, but she was having problems in getting things to work. So I told her that my son is doing media studies and he does DJ, he mixes and record tracks with his band and perhaps he could point out where she was going wrong.
She told me she had done a course but had not passed the exam.
"Look if you want him to call just give me your card"
she said she had no card and she declined her number as well.

So you have one that cannot be helped to a large extent and another who will not accept the offer of help.
One has great support, the other has no family support at all.


"There's something in your voice" I said.

"No, you are not foreign, but there is something there, like a hint of Nutmeg in spaghetti bollignase, something different"
The conversation veered off in a tangent then came back.
" OK I will tell you, though you have a very good ear.
I was born in Santry and when I was 18 I went to live in Paris, later on I met and married a darling Cypriot man, we lived in Cyprus and in Turkey. After our divorce I returned to England where I met my present partner, a wonderful German man. We live in England and now we are moving house to Germany."
She was a wonderful conversationalist and we were both sad at journeys end.
She wanted to take my number, but with so many taxis around I could be anywhere when she would need me to go to the airport.
One thing she said about when she arrived at the airport, she got into a people carrier and the car was absolutely filthy, it stank to high heaven.
Like most people she had not got the strength of will to make him stop and get out.

Perhaps the taxi regulator should pop out to the Kesh and do a quick check of the sniffy taxis.
If you are reading this and you have his receipt give a buzz to the taxi regulator the Link is on the right hand side. She might do something.

Often when something like this happens you are more angry with yourself for not having the backbone to stick up for yourself.

She said that being driven by me was a truly wonderful experience.

So I told the gill who is into video to watch this.

Also look up "Sundance" on youtube