Look, the launch of the shiny book that’s going to make us all famous by extension:
Updated to add: book is called “The Out of Office Girl” and you can get it here. I hope this link works or I will be fired from my role of publicist.
Family
Why I Love My Parents
Final paragraph of (typed) letter received on my birthday:
This letter is supposed to be from both of us, but you will not be surprised to hear that your mother refused point blank to have any part in composing it. However, I expect she will subject the text to an analysis similar to an exegesis of a sacred text by one of the Church fathers, so I suppose she will have an input into the content one way or another.
You should know that my mother married my father on the condition that he would undertake all her correspondence for her and she has held him to it for more than 44 years.
Bespammed
My twitter account has been issuing weight loss spam. Sorry about that. I suppose it could be worse. In all my lengthy time on the internet, I have never had this kind of difficulty before. I have joined new things with gay abandon. I have given my credit card details without a second thought.
My mother on the other hand is ultra cautious. She has never joined anything on the internet. She has never given her credit card details over the internet (I know). She has never told anyone her PIN. She shreds all her personal details before binning them. Nevertheless, she has been very unlucky and regularly been the object of scams. The bank have been known to ring to check whether she is in the Bahamas spending money like water. She never is.
While I would like her luck to turn, I do hope that mine isn’t. Sigh.
Activities
We went to visit the President’s House. The children threw pebbles in his fountain.
We went to the zoo. We saw some animals but we spent most of our time in the playground. The African grasslands closed at 4.30 so we missed the lions. Alas. At €45 to get in, that’s the most expensive playground I’ve been to in a while.
Oh dear.
Where is my Willpower?
Sometimes I stay up late into the night surfing the internet. My almost famous connection (give it time – also, buy her book) put up a blog post about make-up wherein she said “I’ve just spent about 45 minutes watching make-up videos by Lisa Eldridge”. “Ha,” I thought to myself “well I might as well have a quick look at this before I go to bed as there is no way I would spend 45 minutes looking at a make-up video.” Bear in mind that I last bought something for my make-up bag in the 1990s. It’s not that I don’t wear make-up, it’s just that I take my sister’s free gifts from her amazingly extensive collection. But yet, I found Ms. Eldridge strangely compelling and 45 minutes later (at 3.45 am, alas), I finally tore myself away from her advice and found myself contemplating my first make up purchase since 1995.
It’s going to be a clinique airbrush; I thought you would like to know.
God and Pharmacology Working Together to Make a Better World
I was ill last week. I am almost never properly ill (as opposed to whining and sniffling into work with some Lemsip in my bag). I did not enjoy it. I had taken some time off work to go to Cork with the children for mid-term and I was not pleased with the timing of my illness. Reluctantly I dragged myself to the doctor and paid €55 for a diagnosis and a course of antibiotics. I started straight away.
My father is a pharmacologist. He is against the reckless use of antibiotics. This was therefore my second ever course of antibiotics. They were quite miraculous. I was able to drive to Cork as planned. I picked the children up from school having told them that this would not be possible as I was too sick. They were pleased. Michael was unsurprised: “I told the teacher you were sick and we wouldn’t be able to go to Cork and I was sad. So, we all said a prayer for you to be better and now you are!”
