marramgrass

Ten years ago today I married the best person I’d ever met.

Ten years later, she still is. I don’t expect that to change.

Ten years includes some of the best times in my life, and some of the most difficult. At the highest and at the lowest, I haven’t been alone. The person I have most wanted to have there to share the joys and to help me through the sadnesses has always been there. No exceptions.

Ten years ago, I felt like a child pretending to grow up. I still do. I don’t expect that to change, either.

I have ten years’ more knowledge and experience of the fact that nobody’s perfect. Especially me.

Ten years have proved to me what I believed then: life is hard, but worth it.

After ten years, there are now four of us. And a dog.

Ten years ago I couldn’t have imagined what life would be like now. And I love it.

Ten years ago, I loved her.

Ten years into this, I love her, but I understand better than I did then what that means.

Ten years have been spent realising and marvelling at how lucky I am.

Ten years is a long time. Ten years is no time at all. It’s the beginning.

Mother: “What are you eating?”

Child: “A little bit of snot.”

On a sunny day while I’m waiting on someone to come and open the office, this could definitely be worse.

Do you know any first aid?

Our son is just shy of a year old. He’s not walking yet, and his crawl is more of a leisurely commando scramble. You’d think it would be easy for me to keep ahead of him. Not so.

Yesterday he started choking. He’d found a coin that had fallen out of my pocket and decided it looked tasty. Kid’s going to love the chocolate money when he gets bigger, I guess.

I occasionally do some training and examining for my dad’s business. Yesterday morning I was very glad. Part of the idea of a first aid course is to get the really important stuff locked into your brain so tightly that when you need to do it doesn’t actually need much thinking. When Reuben started choking I had him flipped over and the coin out of there before I’d fully registered what was going on. He was fine.

Of course, I then needed someone else to come along and get my heart going again.

Would you know what to do? Think about it. The more people who know some first aid, the better for everyone. There’s courses all over the place, all the time. Ask your local community centre, or FE college; check out St. John’s or the Red Cross; youth groups and community groups often have courses going. Get together with some friends and colleagues and go in on a course.

Odds are it’ll never matter. But maybe it will.

I’m often amused by the different reactions inspired by the notion of charity. I know more than one person who is, in morals or philosophy, completely opposed to charity. Even for me it can provoke some complex wonderings.

Example: have you noticed how common it is now for Big Issue sellers in Belfast to meet a polite “no, thanks” with a request for any spare change? I get all indignant about that; the whole idea of the Big Issue is that it’s not begging. In my mind the seller has deviated from the expected, accepted behaviour and broken some sort of social contract, so I’m perfectly justified in walking away annoyed and self-righteous.

Crazy, isn’t it?

(I don’t intend to get into the various debates about the usefulness or the consequences of giving money to people begging on the street. I’m not well-enough informed to go there.)

I offer this anecdote as an intro to something a bit different.

Developed in the collaborative culture of meetups, tweetups, unconferences and so many others, Twestivals will be happening tommorrow, all over the world — including in Belfast. Organised by a couple of guys with no resources other than the willingness to ask for sponsors — many of whom have put up a little or a lot to help — all proceeds go to the Twestival chosen charity (charity: water, which I admit to never having heard of).

I can’t make it tomorrow, but I wish everyone involved all the best with it. It’s a neat idea, birthed and enabled by the internet and one of these new-fangled social-network-things that get such mixed press. New models and new approaches are exciting.

Years, that is.

New Year has never been terribly significant for me. In our family, Christmas has always been the big occasion, and my New Year’s Eve has been marked by a quiet evening formerly in the company of Mr Kelly, and then of Mr Holland. Of course, I’ll be heading out the door in a couple of hours to join in slightly more than a night in front of the TV.

I’ll remember some things from 2008, in, as they say, no particular order:

• Our first foreign holiday in a while.
• I, and others around me, have spent rather a lot of time in the City Hospital. I was only visiting, but others in my family were the ones being visited.
• I’ve met many great people for the first time.
• I’ve been aware of my outlook on various things changing dramatically.
• Most memorably, 2008 has been the year when my wife and I discovered our impending parenthood. (See previous point :-)

So. 2009, then. I’m not one for resolutions — they always seem doomed to failure — and I tend to be hostile to too formal goal-setting. Instead, I have a few what you might call hopes-becoming-intentions for the coming year.

• In 2008, I read fewer books than in any year since I was in my early teens. I’m not happy with that, but it’s a matter of time and priority. In 2009, I’d like to read more, but I’ll settle for becoming comfortable with not.
• I hope to write more — for profit (of course) but, more importantly, for fun. I am under definite orders from my wife to enter at least one competition this year.
• On that subject, I’d like to break my habit of constructing sentences with such a confusing number of paranthetical clauses :-D
• I’d like to attain a slightly closer to normal body mass index.
• It’s my intention to photograph more. At some point around our move back to Northern Ireland, I stopped taking pictures just for the fun of it. More on this one next week.
• Then there is everything that will come with the birth of our child. I’ve no idea where to begin, there.

There it is. One year on its way out, one on its way in.

Half-way there.

I’m quite glad the clocks go back tonight.

The plan had been for us to by now be pleasantly settled in central Scotland for a week of visiting friends. The weather, in its interaction with ferry services, decreed otherwise. Now we’re (hopefully) on a boat at half seven in the morning. Getting a spot on that boat entails being at the port as early as possible — hence my eager anticipation of that extra hour.

We called down to the port this afternoon to check out which sailing we’d have the best chance of getting on. The young lady behind the desk was on the receiving end of some astonishing abuse, as if the delays and cancellations were down to her whim rather than that of the wind. She looked quite relieved when I was perfectly happy to go away and come back tomorrow.

I appreciate the frustration of not knowing when you’ll get home, but why take it out on the messenger? To her credit, she remained calm and civil throughout. Me, I’m happy to be sure the weather isn’t too much for the boat I’m riding.

Do me a favour: play nice out there.

Generally the various spam catchers employed by the email services I use don’t let too much through the net. This one, published here for your entertainment, came in yesterday.

hello
I am Joy by name a quiet and sincer girl. your profile committed to my ideals and my love. I love honesty and truth. I trust people very much. I love music especially classical. I love various cultures theri traditions , music and food: especially oriental cultures. I like nature quiet walks in the parks holding hands listening to the whispering breeze and the songs of the birds; admiring the smiling eyes of my lover. I hope to meet my true love: I will give him all myself completely,please conatct me dirrectly to my email.(joy22samba@yahoo.co.uk).
i am looking forward to hear from you then i will send my pictures to you.
Joy
(joy22samba@yahoo.co.uk)

I received instruction from my wife to not reply for pictures :-)

2 lb diced beef + 12 potatoes + 6 carrots + 2 onions + 2 beef stock cubes + worcestershire sauce + salt + pepper + mixed herbs + water + a day bubbling away on the hob = 3 solid, tasty meals.