Category: Personal

Recently my mother insisted that my sister and I come over for a clear out. So much of our old junk from when we were growing up is still being stored at our parent’s house in the attic and in our old bedrooms and every now and then we make a half-hearted effort to go through it all. It’s a task worthy of a Greek legend though since we only ever seem to scratch the surface of it all and the pile of old toys, books and keepsakes never gets any smaller. It doesn’t help that it’s very difficult not to get distracted by memories and once the photograph chest gets opened it’s a lost cause.

This last time was no different and so just as I was thinking about getting to the pile of college life drawings under my bed my sister emerged from her own pile of stuff with a small red case in her hand. I recognised it straight away as the case I kept my earliest diaries in. From the age of sixteen I kept a pretty detailed journal. For these early ones I used the old school copy books. A glance at any of the pages would put you in mind of what you might find in a serial killer’s private collection: small writing crammed tightly along every line. In my memory these pages were filled with deep insights into the mind of my younger self; heavy thoughts well-articulated and intelligent beyond my years. As I stood there reading my entries the reality didn’t quite measure up with the memory. Instead I found page after page of such gems as:

Translation of swirly teenage girl writing:
“Keith keeps threatening to tell everyone about my supposedly belching while we were getting off (for any American readers this is Irish teenage-speak for snogging). I was sick and he isn’t exactly brilliant to get off with so it’s no wonder my stomach made a very unsatisfactory but quite quiet noise. Still it’s embarressing.”

Hmmm, charming.

I kept this diary until very recently although for some reason I took a break for the three years I was in college. I guess I was too busy sitting in Bewleys sharing one cup of hot chocolate amongst five of us and talking rubbish to write it down. I’m very glad I was such an obsessive about it though since so much of what I’m reading I had completely forgotten about. Whole chapters of my life and so many people who had disappeared from my memory. I’ve always said that I still feel exactly as I did when I was seventeen but I realise that that’s not true. Sure, there are similarities, but the person that wrote those diaries and the person reading them today are very different people. I’m quite embarrassed by a lot of what I thought and said, particularly when I would go off on the typical teenage rants about my parents, or when I read about some of the things I thought I wanted:

I believe these eighties nightmares were dress designs I wanted for my debs! Anne Frank eat your heart out.

I kept a diary up until I started this blog. It had become very sporadic as Eve was young and by the day’s end I was too exhausted to think let alone write anything coherent. I may have to start again or so many things will be forgotten but this time I won’t have anything to remind me twenty years from now. Or perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

He was smiling… That’s right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then that they weren’t a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural-born world-shaker.

A year and a half ago I met Paul Newman. OK, well he walked by me, but he was really close and I’m pretty sure he looked at me (I would have been hard to miss at the time). He was wearing a pair of sunglasses that hung down from his ears and around his chin in a way that only Paul Newman could make look cool. I imagined going up to him and shaking his hand and telling him how much I loved Cool Hand Luke and how Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid was one of the all-time great films and I imagined saying it in such a way that I would stand out from all the millions of people who have repeated similar sentiments to him over the past forty odd years and he’d stop and look at me with those still vivid blue eyes and immediately we’d become fast friends. But I was eight months pregnant and the size of a mini cooper, my feet were swollen so large that even my flip flops were too tight and I was convinced if I managed to waddle up to him my nerves would cause me to go into labour before his very eyes, so I sat and sweated and watched him breeze by.

It was the hottest day of summer in 2004 and Paul (yes we’re on a first name basis now) was over visiting Barretstown Castle for their annual open day. Barretstown is one of his Hole In The Wall Gang Camps and every time you buy a jar of his Caesar Salad or Beer Marinade the proceeds go towards this wonderful organisation. It’s a place where children with serious and terminal illnesses can go and just be kids and have some “Serious Fun”. They get the chance to play and laugh and take part in activities that healthy children take for granted and all in the most beautiful setting. There are rooms and buildings for theatre and art and sports alongside medical facilities where they can continue to receive treatment for their illnesses. There are also Bereavement Camps where families who have lost children to cancer or other diseases can come and spend time together and with other families in similar circumstances.

The children and their families attend Barretstown camps from all over Europe free of charge. The wonderful people who work as camp counsellors do so on a voluntary basis as do many who contribute their time in other ways. Even so, it costs about 3350 Euro for one child to come and enjoy ten days in the castle so the fund-raising aspect is a huge job. My aunt Helen is one of the full-time fundraisers working there and she has been a part of organising some amazing events (including the open days) to keep bringing in the funds. This year one of the big events is the Brazil Challenge which is ten days sponsored trekking in the jungles of South America and I’m hoping to be going with them. Did I say hoping…I meant I will be going (got to think positively). The big challenge happens first: the raising of 5000 Euro in order to secure my place. Enough money to send one child to Barretstown.

I’m not the most outgoing of people, my shyness has stopped me doing a lot of things in life, including going up to Paul Newman that day and introducing myself. So fundraising isn’t going to be easy for me. I have some ideas: a table quiz in my parent’s tennis club, bag-packing in a supermarket, car boot sales…I’ve also put a donation cup on this site, it’s in the sidebar at the right hand side of the page. I hope that if you can, some of you who read this site might be moved to help Barretstown out, either through sponsoring my walk or in some other way (they’re always looking for volunteers). If you’d like to donate but prefer not to use PayPal please get in touch with me and we’ll work something out: My email is gingerpixelATyahooDOTcoDOTuk. Either way I’ll keep you posted as I prepare to get myself in shape (ha!) for the long walks and muddle my way through the fundraising.