… and thanks to everyone who has commented on this blog during the year. In particular I must mention Cymbeline and PapaGuinea, who have been great online friends to me. I hope we will all have a great 2012.
Category Archives: Christmas
Some diary entries … December 1998 to February 1999
1/12/98 – I had a walk up the fields in the afternoon; they seemed magical in the fog, which was very thick.
2/12/98 – Bought a Yamaha keyboard for Sean’s Christmas present.
3/12/98 – Before we went to bed I was locking up the garage when I heard a loud and strange noise from the field. I went to call Pauline, who had heard a strange (dissimilar) screaming the other night, then the noise had moved and got more distant. Perhaps the cry of a wild goose or some other bird, but very eerie.
4/12/98 – When the kids got home we all went to Maire’s to feed the hen and chicks … We let the kids stay up for the Late Late Toy Show, having tried unsuccessfully to video it. So they were up till midnight. Continue reading
Christmas 2010
A wren still hunts in the dry-stone wall
Where Fluffy caught and killed the nesting coal-tit.
I watched three hares in the field this morning,
Loping through the snow, and pitied them.
The Christmas tree is up, and looks well;
Some presents are beneath it, your stocking on a chair. Continue reading
21 December 2003 (diary extract)
At Virginia Rugby Club
Sunday … I got up around 9.30, had a look at the papers on the Internet and made pancakes. Pauline and I got ready and headed for Dublin after 11, leaving the kids on their own – their first time to be left alone for so long.
We went first to the Liffey Valley Centre and then to Blanchardstown, and got all our remaining Christmas shopping done. We got a karaoke machine, a Bratz doll, some clothes and a Girls Aloud CD for Susanna; a rugby PC game, the Guinness Book of Records and a Nirvana CD for Sean; a Lord of the Rings Monopoly set for both of them; George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass for ourselves; and a Darkness CD for Andy. Continue reading
Christmas 1993
Glancing through my old diaries, I see a lot of stuff about Sean, of course. Christmas 1993, for example … Susanna was six weeks old; she and Pauline were in the hospital – Pauline had gall-bladder problems. Sean was two; he and I were in the house in Dublin with my father, who was visiting.
Saturday 25 December – Christmas Day
Sean woke me at 4.20 talking about spiders downstairs, and insisted that he come downstairs with me for his milk. He then insisted that I turn the kitchen light on (I’d been hoping he wouldn’t see his present). When he saw it he said ‘My slide!’ and was delighted with it. I let him play on it for a few minutes and then took him back to bed. Continue reading
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 