Ireland

A new priest turned up to say mass this morning. “Good morning,” he boomed cheerfully into the microphone, “I am Fr. Pat from America.” We all sat up and had a good look at Fr. Pat. He’s the new head of All Hallows and he was reaching out to us. I think it’s fair to say that we were all a bit tense about the reaching out. The majority of the congregation is well over 60 and the remainder of us are timid, nervous creatures (apparently only 14% of Dubliners are weekly mass goers so my whipping out the children on a Sunday morning must add significantly to the total).

During the sermon he made us all repeat several times “dignity, passion, believe”. We didn’t evince enough enthusiasm for him and I was irresistibly reminded of the pantomime which we graced with our presence last weekend as he tried to whip up his lacklustre congregation.

In his sermon, he talked about how he had been at a conference and the organisers had asked how would they introduce him. “Now,” he said, “I have lots of formal official titles, but that was a moment for me, I said, ‘Just introduce me as child of God.'” I know he meant to be humble and I shouldn’t mock but I found myself thinking, “Wasn’t that really just being a bit awkward for everyone concerned?” I mean, we’re all children of God and it would be handy to know what particular attributes this child of God might have before he addressed the audience.

We had to do the “passion, dignity believe” thing again at the end of mass and we were urged to communicate these words to those around us during the week. I’m not getting any pictures here.

The older I get, the more conservative I get; doubtless I’ll be looking for the Latin mass back soon. As for Fr. Pat, I’d say he has his work cut out for him. I represent the liberal face of the Church in Ireland.

Slightly unlikely but, nevertheless, today I cycled along a road lined with winter flowering cherry trees and it was lovely.

I do my online shopping with Superquinn on a Wednesday night. The website never ceases to amaze me. For some reason they have scorned Google’s customised search options to give you their own more quirky approach.

A couple of sample items from tonight’s list:

Kitchen Paper
A search under kitchen paper reveals nothing but yet, somehow, I feel that there must be some kitchen paper in the Superquinn empire. Aha, I am not fooled, I try “kitchen towels” nothing. Using quite amazing cunning, I try “kitchen towel’s”. Bingo. But you know, maybe it would be worth putting them under “kitchen towels” as well, just for those people who don’t know about the obligation to put an apostrophe in all plurals.

Toilet Paper
There is no toilet paper. Ah no, a novice’s mistake, I should have searched under “toilet tissue” which is obvious really.

Washing-up liquid
Searching washing-up liquid gives a paltry few results. Try “Fairy” though and you hit the jackpot.

Cocoa
Cocoa was under cocoa as, mysteriously, were air fresheners.

Double Cream
This returned two items: double cream and “Oil Of Olay Double action Night Cream Sensitive (50 Millilitre)” If you were looking for night cream would you look under double cream? Nope, didn’t think so.

Corn Flakes
Sole item returned: “Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes Portion Pack (35 Gram)” Well that’s not going to feed a family of five for a week is it?

Aren’t we all glad NaBloPoMo is over?

We had potatoes from the school garden for dinner. It’s not often you get to eat a potato reared in the centre of a big city. They were very nice thank you. Organic but with a significant exposure to exhaust fumes.