Little Shrew…

shrew, mouse, animal

I hadn’t noticed it hiding underneath the car, its tiny form camouflaged perfectly among the gravel as my daughter moved off down the driveway. Our collie Meg on the other hand, was rather more astute and in one pounce she had it in her mouth – a little shrew. I couldn’t bring myself to blame the dog. No malice was involved in this playful display of normal canine behaviour, but as I extricated the tiny insectivore from its confinement, I …

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Oman: A visitor’s eye…

The moment we met I knew that God and Allah shared a single light First impressions count and a moment of beauty can remain in the memory, to be shared and enjoyed forever. This moment for me came during my first visit to Oman a few years ago when I arrived into the country at nightfall and en route to my hotel encountered the breathtaking Mohammed Al Ameen Mosque, majestically overseeing the capital city of Muscat. It was not long …

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Improving the bus experience from Dublin Airport…

luggage, travel, sunlight

I try not to gripe about things too often, preferring to concentrate on human interest stories that might at least offer in a glimpse of light amongst the grimness of the world we live in today. But I’m not a saint and although I tend to steer well clear of much political comment (I’ll leave that in the capable hands of all you other Sluggerites), I do eventually reach a point where I’ve had enough and yes, need to get …

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Thanks for giving us Whitey. She made us happy and she made me smile…

cat, pet, eyes

She was already stiff when I found her lying dumped beside a ditch not twenty yards from my home, her beautiful white fur marred only by a spot of red at the temples, those unforgettable green eyes forever shut to the living world. I got a sheet from the house to wrap her in and pleated it round her carefully so that she was safe and wouldn’t fall out. Her corpse was surprisingly heavy for a cat but I did …

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Holocaust Memorial Day…

auschwitz i, enlightenment, poland

There are events in your life they say you are never likely to forget. The death of a parent. The birth of a child. An unexpected act of kindness from a stranger. A visit to Auschwitz/Birkenau. This last was an experience which now hides within a small pocket of my memory, like an unwanted but necessary souvenir. Every now and then I begrudgingly take it out, examine it and place it back. Every now and then I wish I didn’t …

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The Birthday Lunch…

restaurant, street cafe, loaf

She was waiting for me, sitting at a picnic table in the dappled shade of a silver birch, its leaves delicately coloured the new green of spring that we’d both come to value and love. Gravel crackled and scrunched beneath the soles of my shoes as I walked the final few yards along the path to meet her and I could feel the first real warmth of a May sun seeping through my jacket and deep into my back. It …

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Two minute timer…

hourglass, time, hours

I was meticulously marked out with a pen seven days before, every black line and dot carefully applied to my left breast with precision accuracy. Be sure that you don’t get it wet, they warned, It will have to stay there for the next six weeks. My children would have something to say about that, I thought. And they did. ‘Mummy got her booby written on,’ remarked my daughter, without taking much of an interest. ‘Mummy got big tattoo!’ exclaimed …

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One day in January…

winter, bench, outlook

This is no ordinary day, I think. The morning sun blinks out from a January sky and there are things to do that I have always done, but still I know that this day will probably change my life. I get the children ready. They chuckle at a cartoon on the television and wriggle themselves reluctantly into their coats. I’m trying to keep everything normal. I take my son to nursery and my daughter to school. They are very young. …

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Who cares for the carers?

hands, old, old age

I have written on Slugger in the past, about the challenges I faced during my treatment for breast cancer some thirty years ago. Written from the perspective of someone at the receiving end, it was relatively straightforward for me to put into words what my reactions were and how I dealt with the various ongoing issues any serious illness can impose upon an individual. A great many articles about ill health are from that personal point of view, but what …

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The childhood Christmases that still hover in my own subconscious at this time of year…

I’m not a big fan of Christmas kicking off in October, or November for that matter. Time enough, for me anyway, the beginning of December. Maybe it’s just an ageing thing as I have, in recent months, rising to the greater heights of becoming a pensioner; but I genuinely don’t think that that’s the case. In truth, I believe it’s more of a memory thing and most likely a rose-tinted memory thing. So, I’ll try not to pontificate too much …

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What happens to people when they get into politics?…

deceive, deception, lies

Given that Slugger is mainly a platform for political debate and I am as far away from a political animal as you could possibly get, I am always rather surprised when my tuppence worth passes muster and grateful to have my writings accepted for publication. Thus far, none of my articles have had a particularly political bent and that is probably what has kept me on the right side of some of the more brutal responses. In other words, it …

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Thank you for the music…

guitar, guitarist, music

‘Where words fail, music speaks.’ Hans Christian Anderson You don’t have to be good at it. You don’t have to learn how to perform it. You don’t even need to understand the complexities involved in its creation and ultimate delivery. But boy do you need it in your life when times are challenging, wonderful, hopeless, confusing or any other emotion you’d care to throw at it. Music. Defined as ‘the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in …

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My rules for sport…

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved sport. The reluctance for learning I showed in the classroom rarely reared its head on the hockey pitch or athletics field and although I was never going to be an elite sportswoman, I had the determination and resolve to be a reasonable one. It, therefore, follows that in 1973, after taking my A levels and doing particularly badly, I chose a pathway most suited to my abilities and attended …

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A lot can happen in a year…

A lot can happen in a year as we all know and we’re certainly not out of the woods yet, but spring is waiting and with it the hope of better days ahead. It’s this ability to find optimism and positivity in even the direst of circumstances that helps to keep us human beings marching forward. However, there is much to be said for taking a scrutinising glance into the past and I’ve been thinking about that recently, and when …

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Writing can be immensely healing…

On Writing I’ve been digging out my old school reports in the vain hope that they might not have been as condemning as I remembered. Sad to say, it was wishful thinking and the proof could not be ignored: ‘Lynda finds it hard to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time’, or ‘she is rather ebullient (I had to look that up) in class at times’, and the very worst one in the eyes of my poor …

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The garden is where I think and where I try to put negative thoughts to bed…

I have a tree growing in my garden christened the ‘tree of love’. It was planted as two small saplings and when the bark was young and still flexible, I twisted their skinny limbs around each other and left them to it. Over the past couple of years, with the amount of hugging that’s gone on, the saplings have merged into one and in so doing have become a talking point for passing walkers on our country road. People ask …

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Dealing with the menopause…

At the age of thirty-seven I had not anticipated being thrown into the menopause practically overnight. The ‘change’ was something that I had always associated with much older women but I felt that when the time came, I would take this natural part of the ageing process in my stride. Perhaps I would not have been quite so smug if I’d known what was just around the corner. My menopausal journey really began when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. …

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No one is safe until we’re all safe…

When a friend asked me to write a piece about Covid-19, I was reluctant. Apart from a short poem I’d written very early on in the pandemic, I found it difficult to pen additional thoughts in prose, for how could I add to what had already been said? But all of us have a Covid-19 story and perhaps it’s edifying to take time to look back and appraise our experiences thus far. So here is part of my story – …

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Technology and me…

I know that what I’m about to confess may shock a lot of you. I know because I’ve seen the look of horror on people’s faces for quite some time now, so here goes – I don’t use a mobile phone. The retorts of disbelief when I utter those magic words range from, you’re joking and I don’t believe you, to the more often accusatory, what’s wrong with you? as if I’m some sort of aberration. That’s okay – each …

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As the pace of modern life gets quicker all the time, poetry provides a much needed pause…

“My favourite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.” (Groucho Marx 1895 -1977) I know I’m treading on precarious territory here with that one word – poetry. There. Many of you will have zoned out already but I hope you’ll stay with me for a little longer as I try to untangle my thoughts on a subject that seems to divide so many folks, in so many different ways. But before …

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