dailyprompt

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

When I was just 16 I left home to come up to Belfast to work in the Civil Service.

Things weren’t going well at home due to my relationship with my now husband.

Obviously at 16 I was naïve and thought things would be different in the big city.

On my first morning presenting myself for work I was full of enthusiasm. I thought being recruited at Clerical officer level would be a guarantee to a career path.

Many of the females in the office were employed as Clerical Assistants and they were not happy to see someone of my age coming in a grade higher.

When I asked questions they were evasive or gave me incorrect information and made my life quite miserable.

I also was told that the Junior Staff officer in my section prided herself on having an all Protestant staff and here was a Catholic interloper.

It was a two pronged attack.

There was a staff member who became my friend and he helped me get me though those rough days, probably without even knowing it and we still are in communication 60 years letter.

Not a nice way to start of a career.

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

I think I could try to be less in control.

I worry about everyone in my family. I’m constantly checking they are ok.

When they go abroad if I don’t hear anything for 24 hours I panic and my imagination runs riot.

I’m always offering advice even though I would have resented it if I was younger. But it comes from a good place and I know when I’m gone they’ll cope quite well without being there.

So I need to let them get on with it and realise I can’t be in control of everything and let them get on with their lives.

I probably sound like a control freak but I’m really not, I do it all in a subtle way, I think 🤔

Now where did Lauren say she’d be today? …

Is Paul flying ….

Stop it 😅

What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

It’s hard to say nice things about yourself but looking at myself objectively ( if that’s possible) I think it has to be kindness.

I find it hard to say no to requests to help out, even when it means inconveniencing myself.

I asked my husband what he considered my best trait and guess what he said ‘kindness.’

We have nothing to lose by being kind, goodness knows, there’s not much of it about these days.

 

Kindness is an act of love care, affection, and empathy, without any reason.

So let’s hope we can all aspire to be more kind. It feels good to see other people being happy as a result of something you’ve done.

List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

I’m presuming that where ‘money doesn’t matter ’ refers to a job with a salary or wage that doesn’t reflect the importance of the job.

I’m way too old to contemplate working again. That’s way behind me but one of the jobs where money is not the incentive must be nursing. Those that follow a nursing or medical career are certainly not doing it for the money, so they are doing it for the love of looking after those needing care.

I have to be truthful and add that I’m not sure I would be prepared to do a job that didn’t pay what my job was worth.

Money matters to us all. We can’t live without some income unless we want to live on the streets so no I can’t come up with three jobs I would want to do where there was no recompense.

Every job has its ups and downs and the only thing keeping people working is the money that drops into their account at the end of the month.

Maybe if I came from a rich family I would think differently. But I don’t!

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

Living in Northern Ireland I am a citizen of both the United Kingdom and Ireland.

I actually like to see myself as Northern Irish having a foot in both camps.

My ancestry also shows up some Scottish and some Sardinian dna 🧬. The Sardinian was quite a surprise.

I must confess to be more influenced by British culture such as TV programmes, way of life etc but I also enjoy a lot of Irish culture, the music, the poetry and the famous writers who hailed from Ireland.

Before partition Gaelic was spoken by a large section of the population and many place names in and around NI reflect the language.

The town-land where I live is called. Ballycloghan, which comes from the Irish, ‘Baile Clocháin’ meaning “townland of the ford/row of stepping stones” I speak a little Irish and it is coming back to the area with many schools teaching Irish as their first language.

This doesn’t go down well with many of the Unionist ( British) population who believe that is a political gesture that is trying to weaken the union with the UK. All very complicated.

Same with the GAA.

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is Ireland’s largest sporting organisation. It is celebrated as one of the great amateur sporting associations in the world.

It is part of the Irish consciousness and plays an influential role in Irish society that extends far beyond the basic aim of promoting Gaelic games. This is Irish culture and is rejected by many of those with a British affinity.

Everyone has heard of St.Patrick and all over the world St.Patrick’s Day is celebrated. Nowadays more for the drinking and parades than the religious aspect.

It should be possible to celebrate the diversity of both cultures as long as there is harmony but unfortunately we haven’t quite reached that stage in NI and I don’t expect it will happen in my lifetime, although things are changing slowly.

What brands do you associate with?

For communication it has to be Apple. I’ve had an iPhone for many, many years, back in the day when there were no or very few apps. You couldn’t FaceTime and I think getting on to the internet was hit and miss.

Still have an Apple desktop computer and have had many iPads, on my third Apple Watch, and have bought over the years many Apple appliances as presents for family. I dread to think how much I’ve spent. Apple should really be giving me discount now.

I don’t care about fashion, I never buy brands. But I do like Marks and Spencer’s for the occasional item ( which usually hangs in my wardrobe with the other outdated outfits which I hope will come back into fashion.)

However I do make several visits a week to the food hall. Usually I buy too much and end up putting it in the food bin.

I find most brands are over priced and when shopping with the grandchildren I am horrified at the price of a tee shirt with a brand name. But the little darlings won’t wear anything else. OK they are 17, 20, 23, and 24. Hopefully they will realise soon that they can survive without brand names, unlike their granny 👵 lol

What could you do more of?

Probably sleeping. I’m a very poor sleeper. I’m a night person and don’t go to bed until well after midnight.

I read for a while but can’t resist scrolling through Twitter just one last time before sleep. Of course once I start I get diverted and a quick scroll could be anything up to an hour.

By that time the brain activity is in overdrive and I find it impossible to sleep. 💤

Memories from the past come flooding in, things that I’ve read on Twitter and absolute rubbish keeps me from getting into a deep sleep.

Result the sun is rising as I am dozing off.

Definitely could do with more sleep.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I’ve tried to think of any advice I got, never mind the best piece of advice, and I’m finding it hard to come up with anything.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never listened to advice, preferring to make my own decisions whether right or wrong.

I didn’t have grandparents growing up, unlike my 4 grandchildren, whom I am constantly giving advice. A bit ironic.

I left home at 16. One reason being that my father advised me that going out with a Protestant was a bad decision. Definitely glad I didn’t take that advice as I married that Protestant 54 years ago.

I was quite feisty in my youth and being independent at an early age meant that I could fend for myself.

As I’m writing I’m still trying to think of a piece of the best piece of advice I’ve received.

The only thing I can come up with is that a lecturer on one of the many courses I have attended said ‘ Prioritise your tasks, work through them and you’ll get there feeling calm and relaxed.’

What would your life be like without music?

If I’m being honest and I try to be, I’m not sure I would miss music.

I know that makes me sound like a philistine. Don’t get me wrong when I actually listen to music, which isn’t that often, I thoroughly enjoy it but I can’t say if there was no music in my life I would miss it.

I’m going to end it there or else I would end up discussing actual genres of music and that’s not the question.

The answer is yes I could survive without music.

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

Well there were actually two that stick out and I still feel some guilt and some embarrassment.

Guilt you may ask?

Well you see my husband is a golfer and every couple of months four of his friends would get together to play golf and afterwards the wives would take turns to cook them a meal.

I had two weans. ( an Ulster Scots word for little children) and trying to cook dinner and watch them was trying to say the least.

The main course was fine but the apple crumble for dessert didn’t work out as well. As I lifted the crumble mixture to put on top of the apples, one of the kids started crying….

In my haste to see what the problem was I dropped the crumble mix on the floor. Sorted the kids out and came back and with little time to make another mix, I gathered the crumble from the floor ( which was clean) put it on top of the apples, baked it, served it to my guests and said nothing.

The other incident that caused acute embarrassment was on New Years Day when as a newly wed I decided to cook duck for my in-laws and my brother and his wife.

Now I’d never cooked a duck before and I don’t remember a duck ever being cooked when I lived at home

So I didn’t realise that there is very little meat on a duck and it certainly doesn’t serve 6, no matter how big it looked..

As a result there was only a tiny sliver of duck and quite big servings of roast potatoes and vegetables. No one said anything and I sat at the table mortified. I still think of it after all these years but now I can laugh about it and I did tell the husband about the crumble but only after he had eaten it.