DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOME WORKER: Rowing in behind some of life’s whys and wherefores

It’s Week 57, our 5km travel restrictions have been lifted, but in the absence of anything else happening, here’s some of the stuff whirling around my mind over the past few days ....

• DESPITE the fact that for the most part I found Carrie Bradshaw quite annoying in SATC, I’m going to copy her shamelessly this week and share my list of all the things ‘I couldn’t help but wonder’ about lately. I mightn’t be sitting at a laptop in a Manhattan apartment, but hopefully you’ll get my drift ….

• Here goes, I couldn’t help but wonder this week … why I felt so insanely angry at pictures of people in the UK enjoying a drink in a beer garden, with their friends, and looking like they were having so much fun, despite the freezing cold. Hmmm ... maybe because we’ve no clue when it will be our turn? I don’t even like beer, but still. It didn’t help that shortly after these displays, our government announced that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be limited to people over 60, with cancellations all round (cleverly dubbed ‘DisAstraZeneca’). That was followed a few days later by the J&J delays. Safety first and all, but this is painful.

• Why can’t Line of Duty be on a Saturday night instead of a Sunday? It’s hard enough to sleep on a Sunday night at the best of times without this edge-of-the-seat stuff. Also, who was it exactly that came up with the concept of a two-day weekend? (bad luck to them!)

• Why has former Xposé presenter Aisling O’Loughlin gone off on such a public anti-vaccine rampage? She took to Instagram to describe the vaccination programme as ‘the biggest scandal the world has ever seen.’ She said: ‘You don’t come near my kids with an experimental drug, you don’t come near me with an experimental drug.’ Knock me down with a feather – I did not see that one coming.

• Why do you always feel like a different person after a good old chat with a friend? I had a lovely walk with a friend of over three decades this week who had been outside my 5km these past few months and honestly, I felt like I could take on the world afterwards.

• But on the topic of walking, why can’t I sync my Fitbit when most people have it more or less efficiently running their entire lives? In the same way, why do I struggle to remember my online passwords, and why don’t I just write them down in the notebook I specifically bought for this purpose?

• Also, why are Skibbereen rowers, male and female, so incredibly successful? I’ve absolutely no idea, but I bet our sports editor Kieran McCarthy has some great insights this week … see our sports section for more (after reading me out in full of course).

• Why, on any given day, do I swing wildly between going vegan and living off-grid, to eating a ham sandwich (on sliced pan), and buying something ridiculous online – all within 10 minutes? (hormones? Not getting enough sleep? My personality?)

• Why do I persist with fantasies about getting a fringe when I’ve tried and tested evidence (and the photos) that it doesn’t suit me? Similarly, why am I drawn to midi-skirts when they’ve proven time and time again they’re not my friend? Also ,why have I only just realised how fabulous Trinny Woodall is on Instagram?

• Why am I so stupidly late in coming to the West Cork Podcast (finger right on the pulse me)? I’ve been tempted to do a Forrest Gump and keep on walking it’s that engaging, but sure, I’m preaching to the converted.

• Why does everything feel so much easier this week? Oh yes, the Easter holidays are over! I mean the break was lovely, but you know yourself.

• Over the fortnight, I wondered lots of times why is there absolutely no co-relation to the amount of time spent making the dinner and the amount of time the family spends eating it? Basically, a two-hour toil, and a 10-minute slap dash effort both seem to result in approx eight minutes at the table. That’s how I justify pasta pesto twice a week (if you throw in some sweetcorn, with an optional topping of grated cheese it’s a well-balanced meal).

• And finally, (thank God says you), I wondered why has the idea of returning to the office, at some point in the future (not just yet, though, according to Tanaiste Leo Varadkar), brought out such mixed feelings in people? Everything from exhilaration to panic. More on that in next week’s diary ….