Week 32 - Laura - Fighting

I know the day and its chores will win in the end, but sleep isn't giving up easily today.

Slumber mostly just meanders away on sparkly summer mornings, good-naturedly admitting defeat to the sunshine.

Winter mornings like this are another story.

Fighting to untangle myself from the grips of sleep’s closest allies - what during the night has somehow turned into the perfect pillow and the cosiest duvet ever made in China - my hand finally breaks free.

Feeling its way towards where my memory and my rudely awoken ears suggest my phone, and its particularly alarming alarm, is, it succeeds in shutting off the interminable noise.

Not before the first collateral damage of the morning is recorded though, and once more I question the sense in bringing a glass of water to bed.

Peeling open my eyes is as challenging as separating kissing teens. Stomach crunches are nothing compared to the effort it takes to sit up.

In summer my legs swung noiselessly over the bed’s edge; now I groan in solidarity as I push them to the precipice and leave them with no option but to fall off the cliff and onto the Siberian floor.

With an almighty effort I lift myself into a standing position, and sleep’s hold is broken.

The fight is won.

I am up.

Week 31 - Laura - peas

For my niece Molly, who at four months is already partial to a bit of rhyming, and my sister Avril, whose earliest innocent rhyme, aged two or so, was 'Get into the ditch, bitch'.

I like peas
I like cheese
What are these?
Let's give them a squeeze

I like grapes
They sometimes escape
I like making them into shapes

I like greens
I like beans
I even quite like tangerines

I like bread
So does Ted
Just two slices and we're fed

I like gammon
I like salmon
I'm glad there is no gammon salmon famine

I like shakes
I like cakes
I like everything my Mam bakes

I'm not complete
without a sweet
but that's only for a treat

Week 31 - Andy - Peas

Dear 6 year old me,
It's nice to meet you. A couple of things about me - I'm married to Aoife. You'll meet her, she's the greatest. I'm not a helicopter pilot, I'm afraid - I work for the internet. That's a thing. It's computers, but it's also the most amazing thing in the world. It's like, imagine all the knowledge in the world, but on a little glass tile in your pocket. And you can talk to anyone you ever met, and listen to any song ever recorded, or watch any piece of film ever made, from that glass tile.

Anyway, leaving aside the world changing, true love, future technology stuff, I want to talk to you about something very important.

If I have timed this letter correctly, you'll get it at six forty-five on a Tuesday evening. You're sitting at the kitchen table. In front of you, is a plate decorated with pheasants. On top of the plate is a grilled lamb chop, some boiled potatoes, a pile of peas and some greyish cauliflower.

I want you to know two things. 1) It gets better.

You're going to eat unbelievable things, in wonderful places. Right now, you have a world map on the wall of your bedroom. You'll spend time colouring that in, with places you've visited. You'll eat a piece of fish that will haunt you, grilled fresh in a Chilean market. There is a bistro in Paris that you will try to eat in every year. You'll eat frog in San Francisco, and the best curry of your life in a London suburb called Tooting.

2) You need to pace yourself. There will be more chips - you don't have to eat all of the chips every time you see them. Focus on quality, not quantity. Please. Just because you can eat five burgers at a barbecue doesn't mean you should. Eating until you're stopped is just a foolish way to live. One day there won't be anyone to stop you - and that's not a good thing!

Anyway, there's a bunch of other stuff I'd love to tell you, but I'll have to leave you with this:
Invest in Apple.

Take care,
Older me.

Week 30 - Andy - Sydney

It was Brussels this time. I had arrived on an early Eurostar from London, meetings until 4, then check in, and a couple of hours work with a bottle of Jupiler getting warm on the desk. At eight, I was to go to the hotel bar, where the local office rep (Funny character named Tomas) was going to take me out for an awkward dinner of moules frites and too much pilsner.

Mam called me. The phone rang while I was in the shower, and in the last normal moments of my life, I stumbled out of the cubicle, wrapped a towel around me (even when there’s no-one around, I feel strange talking naked on the phone), and picked up my phone just as it went to voicemail.

I redialled, and we did that thing where both people try to call each other for about four minutes until one of them gives up - then the other gets through.

It was the same phone call - Mam sobbing, Cait was missing.

Cait was in Sydney. She took a year on her J1. As far as we knew she was living in an apartment in Bondi with five other girls. All of them worked doing traffic control on roadworks. Facebook (never something Cait would have chosen to introduce into her peer group) showed a steady stream of pictures of nights out, sunburns and hilarious faces in high-viz vests.

Mam said Cait had missed their weekly call yesterday. It should be noted that Mam had gone silent for a week when Cait announced the J1 plan. She had gone with her friend Linda. This, more than the trip, was a surprise.

I’d always imagined that Cait should have a slim bunch of european friends - all of them studying the international baccalaureate, planning ski trips, and arguing about the books they’d read. Linda Costello had never willingly read a book. She grew up in Athy, and only moved to Dublin for college. She was all county jerseys and crucifix, phone calls to mammy and big dramas about boys she’d kissed.

I told Mam I’d see what I could do, and looked up Linda’s number (transported from Sim card to Sim card since I was a teenager).

“Hello?”

“Linda - hi, Tom here”

“AAHH!”

(Linda frequently screamed - as an exclamation of surprise, when seeing one of her friends, to announce a laugh)

“Oh my god” she said “C’mere, can I give you a call back on my aussie number! the roaming is runining my credit!”

She hung up abruptly.

I stood in the hotel room. I could only tell i was in Brussels because one of the magazines on the table was in Flemish. (cover: a man wearing a sash holding some cheese in front of a mountain)

My phone rang -

“Linda.”

“AHHHHHH - Tom, It’s so great to hear from you!”

Linda had had a crush on me. I know this because Cait told me. In front of Linda. This was apparently in revenge for Linda demonstrating some minor independence.

“yeah, yeah - how are you getting on?”

I regretted this instantly. over the next five minutes, I learned more about the girls in the house, the guys on the crew, the craic in the tea gardens, and how Bondi is like Dublin, there’s so many Irish. The one subject that she didn’t mention? Cait.

“Linda, I’m sorry - we’re a bit worried about Cait. have you seen her lately?”

“Ah, she’s always, y’know, around.”

“Is she there now?”

“I think she’s out - hang on, I’ll check her room. She might be with a fella- God, I’m sorry Tom, I don’t want to rat her out!”

“You’re grand Linda, I don’t care - I just want to tell Mam she’s ok”

“Ah right, how is your Memmeh?”

“She’s grand - Is she there?”

“Jesus Tom, She’s not - should I be worried? God, I can’t remember - we saw her the day before yesterday. She had her tea here! but we’re always in and out of this place - sure you know what it’s like!”

“Linda - can you check something for me?”

“What?”

“Cait has a furry rabbit - it’s a mangy thing, a bit burnt”

“God, yeah, I know the thing”

“Can you see if you can see it - she always has it near her bed”

“Oh sure I know it well - One of the girls was only slagging her about it - it’s always on her night stand, actually - no, looking at it now, it doesn’t seem to be there, It’s gone -”

I shouldn’t have hung up. Genevieve was gone. Cait took her with her. I had assumed that this was because she was moving away for a year. She was making a break for it.

In my head, I started doing sums, time and money. It would be harder to get to Sydney than to Brittas.

Week 30 - Laura - Sydney

“I can’t do it Ads,” I blurted out.

We were on our way to King’s Cross, to kick start the “Glorious Life of Crime” we’d been planning for weeks now.

Except I’d just had a Road to Damascus moment.

A moment that somewhere in the back of my brain I knew was the saving of everything I might be, as wussy as that sounds. So I was certain backing out, even now, was the right decision. And I was proud as.

Except now Ads, my best mate ever since I can remember, was staring at me like I’d just crawled out from under a rock. He looked calm, but I knew by the tic under his left eye that he was mad as a cut snake and there was a big blue coming.

“Don’t get your grundies in a twist,” he said. “We’ve been planning this for ages. It’ll be a piece of piss.”

It wasn’t just shitting bricks about getting caught that changed my mind though. I was a bit spooked about that, but we’d planned this so well the chances were we’d get away scot-free.

I knew Ads was feeling pretty rooted right now, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what my Ma had told me about my Da yesterday.

“I’m really sorry Ads,” I said, really meaning it. I knew I wasn’t just quitting our “Glorious Life of Crime” now, but kind of our friendship too.

“Oh rack off,” he spat back. “I didn’t think you were going to cark it on me. Thanks heaps.”

And with that my best bud walked off up William Street. And I felt lost as.

Week 29 - Andrew - Finally

The virus was traced back to three aid workers, who were brought back to Ireland for care. Although all precautions were taken, medical staff in the hospital were unknowingly infected. Once this happened, it was very difficult to contain the spread. Ireland is a small country, and there is a high rate of movement around the country.

The mobility of the population, coupled with the small military and the closeness of many rural communities ensured that within weeks, the infection zone had spread nationwide. The decision to close the island was made at a european level. Irish leaders, some already ill, teleconferenced into the summit where this decision was made.

A blockade of Nato ships surrounded the island, and RAF patrols sanitized the airspace. Fourteen light aircraft and seven helicopters were downed at sea during this time. Full alert procedures were followed.

Food and humanitarian supplies were airdropped, but these were not enough to sustain the population at large, and the objective here was largely cosmetic. Rioting and street violence was lower than expected, although high levels of illness may have contributed to this.

There were some strange celebrations as the island of Ireland was fully reunited - in death, some would say.

National radio and television continued to broadcast for forty-three days after the quarantine. The final broadcast was catholic mass, from the chapel in the RTE studios. This broadcast is particularly difficult to listen to, as the priest suffers violent convulsions during the service.

Fifty days after the quarantine was enforced, surveillance flights stopped showing significant signs of organised life. Individuals were observed in most urban areas, and some caravans of 15-20 heads formed in rural areas.

It is not envisaged that the quarantine will be lifted within the next 12 month period. Targeted supply drops will continue, and contact has been made with most groups of survivors. Urban areas will be difficult to access, and are overrun with vermin feeding on the dead (seemingly immune to the virus).

Finally, it is worth remembering the last words from the Irish taoiseach, teleconferenced into a United Nations general assembly twelve days after the quarantine was imposed.

‘What you have decided to do here  (severe coughing) is not to help a nation, but to amputate a...a cancerous limb. We cannot survive this... and yet we cannot, in good conscience fight. (Long pause) We cannot say...we cannot say we would argue differently were we in another position. With limited resource, and without support we will survive as a people. (cough) Ireland will remain forever one of the nations of the world.”

Week 29 - Laura - Finally

Finally, my favourite part of today has arrived.

This day has not been a productive one. The first day back in work after a week off, it's been a day of alien alarm calls, a day of cranking the part of my brain that deals with work back into action, a day of winding up what last week had wound down.

Now, however, it's half nine. The commute has been done, twice. Dinner has been made and eaten, dishes washed and put away. Tomorrow's lunch is settling down for the night on the second shelf of the fridge. Flowers have been watered, dry laundry taken in.

Though not enough has been done, my to-do list and I have agreed an overnight ceasefire.

Now I am sitting in my wooden rocking chair on my balcony. The chair needs a proper cushion, but that's a job for another day.

I am eating an ice-cream, a treat even as the evening temperatures drop.

I am looking at my summer flowers, which are clinging on to life and brightening up my 'garden' even at this late stage.

Sean has swapped watching football for playing it tonight, so my soundtrack is Lyric FM rather than Sky Sports. I don't know the piece of music that's playing, but it's the perfect accompaniment to closed eyes, passing cars and alarms distant enough not to be annoying.

I am breathing deeply, revelling in the fact that even unsatisfactory days can include perfect little interludes like this.