The Wheel of Life

It ended almost the same way it started, very cold, and very white. Almost right up to the last few days of December, snow paralysed our little isle, just as it did at the start of the previous January. Never had we seen the likes of it before. Down to minus 17.5 Celsius! Unheard of in our usually very tempered Atlantic climate.

Also unheard of were the events that brought us where the country now is: in such an economic and financial Arctic winter that my great-great-grand-children might have to pay the final cost it!

I got very angry during the year. The revelations kept coming, some criminal in my view, but who am I to judge, when I am only a taxpayer? An invisible fog kept lifting on the increasing ineptitude of a government which was found to have as much back-bone as an over-cooked spaghetti. Being the person I am, I tried to rationalise the situation, to understand how it all came to pass: I read the articles, I listened to the experts, I watched the documentaries, I followed the debates. And then I sat back and to paraphrase the great Miley Byrne, all I could say was: “Well Holy God!”

I don’t know what 2011 will bring us. But there is one thing I am certain of: I am not going to be bored. The mess has been made, we just have to accept it, and then find new ways not only to clean it up, but to improve, to progress. It is always in times of crises that ideas germinate best. History has taught us this, it’s in our nature, as human beings, to go around in cycles. The Wheel of Life is such a good analogy: it turns and turns, everything is repeated, going up, and down, and up... and yet humanity moves forward, with each turn. On a personnel point, if what is afoot comes to fruition in the next few weeks, I will really look forward to the challenge of doing my little part in the mess-clearing and improvement-setting. Fingers crossed...

And yes, the wheel is turning, on every level. Our own family is moving at its own pace. My own boy has “grown up” a little more in 2010 – though he will probably hate me for saying this. But he has chosen well, she is so nice! My own girl is “growing”, literally, and I can’t wait for this second grandchild to arrive in about 7 weeks’ time. Cathal is an absolute charmer: I was on the phone to him only yesterday, and, as always, he did not say much, but kept chuckling every time I spoke, and then sending me kisses... Major melt on this side, as always.

All in all, 2010 finished on a few good notes, all brought about by very simple pleasures.

Pleasures like Santa Claus bringing Cathal the third character in a series that is now complete for him. He was so thrilled.

Pleasures like ripping open lots of presents on Christmas morning:

NB: Cathal’s Mammy – who has never been much of a morning person – was the one most anxious to get up to see what had been delivered, and had the whole household downstairs around the tree by 7.30 am!

Pleasures like having Daddy pulling you up the hill in an ingeniously-thought-of-by-Mammy sleigh to make sure we could all have a scrumptious family Christmas dinner:

I'm ready, let's go!

Here we come...

Ho ho ho!

Pleasures like teaching Daddy how to use your very first laptop:

NB: You may need to turn the sound up on your pc

And finally the very simple pleasure of walking-walking-walking, especially when Mammy is there for stability and Nana is there to record it all:

Wishing you all the best you can have in 2011.