It’s a bit of a cranky week as the time change has everyone in the household out-of-sorts, but joy is to be found in music, the Leap Scarecrow Festival, and a daily walk with the dogs

AS suspected the change in the time, or ‘The Hour’ as we call it, has us all goosed. Who knew the body’s circadian rhythm was so sensitive? We are pities. We’re an absolute mess, cranky, like a bag of cats. In fact like many bags of many cats, so much so that I’m thinking of starting a campaign to have this malarky abolished once and for all, once I muster the energy. Is it bedtime yet? 

Hardly surprising so that tonnes of things are making me cranky this week…for a change. For starters Oíche Shamhna (and yes I had to Google the spelling) hadn’t even taken place and it had already been ‘cancelled’ by retailers in favour of Christmas. God help you if you went looking for a last-minute pumpkin or a monkey nut. Forget about it: inflatable snowmen yes, gingerbread men, any kind of red ribbon and Santa you wished for, but no to the pumpkins. The snap apple didn’t even have a chance to turn brown, when it’s moment was over. 

In a brief moment of madness I was half tempted myself to pull down the tree from the attic when I was putting back up the skeletons who never really had their moment in the spotlight at all. All I need now is for someone in my family to ask ‘where are we all going for Christmas?’ to really push me over the edge. Unless the answer is ‘to a luxurious, fully-catered chalet in Aspen with its own concierge’ I don’t want to know about it yet. 

Next mini rant incoming: our household isn’t especially stringent when it comes to sweets and sweet things. I don’t see them as good or bad, or something to be feared, but just food that’s low in nutrition and not stuff you should eat every day unless you’re having a really bad day, obviously. However, at this time of the year I get so frustrated by the amount of sweets, specifically jellies, that come at kids from every angle. They’re nasty, so why are they so readily volunteered as the ‘go-to’ treat? And in such large volumes too, which is what gets to me. There’s a time and a place, and it’s all coming from a good place I know, and jeepers I’m far from innocent, but not all the time, and not every place. Even a bar of chocolate is better in my book than jellies, if you could afford one! In the meantime, turn to page 19 (when you’ve finished here of course) for some fantastic alternative non-jelly ideas to celebrate Halloween on Friday night.

Next up is a cautionary tale about car keys: my husband and I both have the same keyring on our car keys which until last Sunday wasn’t a problem, when I drove off, happy out, with both his set and my set on board. I had only gone around 20 minutes into my journey from Timoleague to Skibbereen when he phoned, understandably a little irate to let me know by boo-boo so I turned around. Then a few minutes later he phoned to say he had found his spare key, so I turned around again and drove on, only for him to ring again to say the spare key wouldn’t work, so I turned around, and then he phoned back to say it was. Are you still with me? There were some choice words exchanged, all mine even though it was entirely my fault. Later in the week I spotted a headline from a problem page section in a newspaper which read: ‘My wife has turned into a menopausal nightmare and I think she hates me, what can I do?’ He swears it wasn’t him but I have my suspicions. My pal told me a worse story though: her husband was standing by her car when she was driving off. He had her keys in his pocket so her car picked up the signal, so she was none the wiser. That’s until she stopped on her route to get petrol, and when she went to start the ignition: nothing. Let that be a lesson to us all, menopausal nightmare or not! 

Now to the joyful stuff! Bringing me great happiness this week was the Leap Scarecrow Festival. It’s always fantastic but this year seemed better than ever, although I might be biased as my local national school in Timoleague created a hornet-style entry that captured the judge’s attention and won a prize. Woohoo! When we visited, the village was thronged and it always impresses me to see how such a simple idea, with a tonne of hard work thrown in, has captured people’s imagination. 

Other glimmers of joy this week came courtesy of the local choir at mass last Sunday. I’m an irregular mass-goer and the choir don’t sing at every mass, but I got really lucky that our schedules aligned and we were both there at the same time and it was pure magic. My all-time favourite, He is Lord, was sung and I had to check myself from hopping up and dancing in the aisle. I honestly could have moved mountains afterward. The added joy was there were no jellies being circulated either. Amen to that.

Other glimmers of joy this week came courtesy of Billy who is nearly one already. Imagine! He’s a country dog and spends lots of his time galloping around fields but I noticed he’s getting ever so slightly stocky (as am I) so I’ve committed to walking us both, every day. He loves it (me not so much) and he jumps five feet off the ground when he sees me coming with the lead. So getting him harnessed up is the first challenge. Challenge two is trying to sneak off without his brother-from-another-mother, Timmy ,which is impossible. Besides, I wouldn’t have the heart to take one dog and not the other, but walking two strong and two headstrong dogs is quite the task. If anyone needs a laugh I’ll send you my location. I’m like a stage coach driver with two long tangled leads being dragged along at a fierce pace. It’s only a matter of time before I’ll need the number of an osteopath, but in the meantime I’m hitting my 10,000 steps, and many more.

After dumping out all those moans and groans, I must share a little nugget I came across during the week from award-winning US podcaster Mel Robbins. The best-selling US author is known for sharing soundbites of motivational advice online, and here she was talking about ‘dropping down the sword,’ advising us to stop getting angry about every little thing and instead to get on with living your life. 

It honestly felt like she was talking about me so I’m determined to change my ways, and drop the sword, and hopefully not the dog leads. But for the love of god drop those toxic jellies. You’re better than that. And mind the car keys.