DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOME WORKER: In need of a bit of a boost(er)

It’s week 88 and I’m feeling a little under attack by Black Friday messages, when all I really want is head space

• I KEEP getting messages this week telling me that my phone is running low on storage. I’ve been given two options: buy more space, or create more space by deleting ‘stuff.’ Both seem pretty unattractive to be honest. I don’t want to buy more anything – I mean it’s one pay cheque away from Christmas and I already have enough things to buy thanks all the same. As for option two, how can I possibly be expected to decide which of my 376,000 WhatsApp messages (not including memes) are no longer meaningful to me? I have friendships, whole relationships, based entirely on WhatsApp messages, I just couldn’t do it. No way. And don’t even go there with my 432,000 screen grabs (once I finally figured out how to do it, I just couldn’t stop). Granted, sometimes I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m meant to be looking at in said screen grabs (the table, or the outfit of the person standing beside the table? Wait, maybe I’m supposed to actually know the person standing beside the table?), but to suggest I delete some of them? That’s completely reckless. Surely there has to be a third option? Would it just be easier to bite the bullet and get a  new phone maybe? Although after getting a divorce and moving house, that’s surely up there with life’s most stressful events. All things considered, it’s been a tough few days for me.

• This is all actually a good metaphor for how my brain is feeling at the moment – a bit low on storage, and unable to register too much. I often wonder is there a stage in your life where your brain will no longer accept new information until you make extra room by deleting something else? It’s not just me either (honestly... no really), lots of people I know are saying they’re feeling more jaded than usual, right to their bones, and I guess it’s obvious that consciously or sub-consciously, on some level we’re all feeling the aftermath of the past 20 months. Throw into the mix the current shaky Covid figures, and for plenty of people there’s a real sense of triggered trauma going on right now. Those boosters cannot come fast enough. My sleeve is rolled up, just give me the time and the date and I am there. 

•I’m going to have a little moan this week about Christmas TV ads, so indulge me please. Surely, it’s just too soon. I want to feel all warm and fuzzy when I see a cute carrot (or is it a banana this year?) getting their moment in the limelight in a festive ad. Instead it’s making me all angry and cynical. Could we not just have left it even for another fortnight? I mean it’s not like we’re going to forget that Christmas is coming on down the tracks or anything. I also feel very much under attack by a barrage of pre-Black Friday messages coming at me (I really need to get more discerning about what boxes I tick when I shop online. I must have selected the one that said: yes, it’s ok to send my email address to everyone trying to sell just about anything). I was going to finally succumb to an Air Fryer this month but now I’ve decided to give the two fingers to the whole lot. If you’re still unsure of the consequences of buying too much stuff, go on line and check out the mountain of discarded clothing including Christmas jumpers in Chile’s Atacama, the driest desert in the world. Absolutely horrifying.

• In totally unrelated news someone randomly came up to my husband in the supermarket the other day and told him he looked like Aidan Gillen in Kin. He was only delighted with himself. I haven’t actually watched it,  but all I know is that he was so distracted he came home without the milk. Criminal!

• What I am watching and vey much loving is Ireland’s Fittest Family. It’s totally taking the edge off a Sunday night even if Davy Fitz needs to be told to pipe right down. It’s absolutely superb TV, and its great to see Cork families involved. That and Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week have been big hits for RTÉ, even if I’m already dreading the come back of Operation Transformation, season 999 in the new year. That show is surely way past its sell by date.

• Now for something a little random –  if anyone has ever been remotely curious if cows like to eat pumpkins, it turns out that they do not. They will manage a tenuous lick but will venture no further, and no amount of coaxing will sway them. I know this as I tipped four chopped up pumpkins in reasonably good shape into the field for their mid-afternoon snack during the week, which I later had to retrieve, untouched. Although now that I think about

it the poor girls were most likely suffering from a touch of climate anxiety and were off their food after a week of

being made feel like public enemy number one.

•  Sorry the moo-d is a bit all over the shop this week. I nearly lost my mind when I heard Leo Varadkar telling us that if we can work from home we should do so again. Anything but that Leo, anything but that, I beg of you.