Sunday Thoughts

I’m writing this listening to Bing Crosby crooning about a White Christmas. The house is quiet, the wind is howling (when is it not these days!) It’s 8.30am and the sky is as black as night, the only light coming in is from the twinkling Christmas lights. And it’s time for Sunday thoughts. It’s been a busy week, wrapping up outstanding work, and looking forward to two weeks off – which is unheard of for me, and I know I’ll be looking forward to going back too.

I was thrilled (OK, maybe thrilled isn’t the right word), happy to discover that Dunnes opened at 7am on Friday, luckily not many other people had discovered this fact, so I enjoyed a happy time in a near empty supermarket, getting most of the things needed for Christmas. I was watching some of the people, one lady was like a detective, armed with her list and going around the aisle on a mission. Others were lamenting the fact that they had so much left to do, and they’d be glad when it was all over.

I was thinking of Christmases past, when things weren’t always so calm and quiet. Not having very much money (not that I have a lot now, but I’m not adding up as I go along), family members being ill over Christmas. The time we all ended up with food poisoning, yes that was a thing!

I thought back to my childhood, not a happy time. Smiles plastered on faces, and being scared to say the wrong thing, in fact being scared to say anything. I remembered one Christmas Eve having to run out of the house in the snow to escape. Home should be a safe place, but in some cases it’s not. There’s a lot more to this story, and one day I might write about it, but today isn’t that day.

Back to happier things. On my early morning in Sligo town, I had a wander around, I loved the peace of it all and enjoyed looking at the bright shop windows on such a dark morning; the hustle and bustle of the cafes, with people queuing for their caffeine fix. Catch-ups and chatter, hugs and promises to meet up over the festive season.

I still have one last trip to the shops to do before the big day, to get the perishables, at this stage I’m feeling a bit like a perishable myself! I have had a nice week though, I had a couple of Christmas sandwiches, the first in The Jackalope Café in Drumshanbo, the second in Tempo Ballisodare. Christmas sandwiches have taken over my cake obsession! Both were lovely, a special mention for the roast potatoes in Tempo. It’s very difficult to find a decent roast potato locally, most roast dinners don’t come with roast potatoes (just mashed), which is a sin! You can’t have a roast dinner without roast spuds.  When they do come with them, it’s usually just one lonely potato, and it’s either been deep fried, or just shown the heat so it’s not crispy. Who’d have thought this post would turn into the roast potato post? Anyway, Tempo had perfect ones. They also do a Vegan Christmas sandwich too.

Our book sold out online on Buy the Book this week, phew! A bit of breathing space, it’s been full on promotion and it’s something that I’ve found very difficult. Because we didn’t get funding, we had to sell the book to pay for the printing. It has been quite stressful, probably the hardest part of the book journey for me. I had sent a book to Joe Duffy, he does a couple of radio shows about self-published books, I thought our story was a good one, we are probably the other mothers-in-law to have published a book together, anyway we didn’t get a mention. Luckily that was OK because there are just limited copies left, and they are in local shops – Liber, The Boyle Craft Shop, and Strokestown Park to name a few. We are so grateful to everyone who supported us, and we’ve loved hearing that people love the book as much as we do. I just found out that Liber also has the book for sale on their website, great news for those who don’t live locally. Limited stock, so don’t miss out.

I went to the Achonry Farmers Christmas Market yesterday afternoon, it was nice to see some familiar faces again. It was held in the Knocknashee Hub, and the place was wedged, and I wasn’t there early to settle myself. So, I just did a quick run around, took a bit of video of the music, bought a few things and left. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over not liking crowds, I think it’s just part of who I am at this stage. At least this time I didn’t feel panicked, so that was a bonus. I also went to Tubbercurry, to the open library – I have to have plenty of books, I’m finding it quite difficult to get into books lately, if I’m not interested from the beginning I tend to give up, I think I’ve got quite a short attention span. The photo at the top of this blog is the Christmas tree there.  

I’d like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas, don’t beat yourselves up about things you didn’t do, or things you think you should have done. It’s a lot of pressure for one day, and not worth stressing over. Thanks as always for reading.