I am not sure when it started but from the time my son Cathal was about one he used to get a hairbrush and go around brushing his hair and then my hair. At the time I had long, thick hair and it used to kill me as the hairbrush would get stuck in all sorts of tangles and it would end up just hanging there in some part of my mop.
As he got older he used to watch me doing Emma's hair, adding clips to it as I got her ready for school in the morning. When he was about two year's of age he began to add the clips after he brushed my hair. Most of the time the clips would be stuck in my head rather than my hair and there would be a lot of ouch and aagh coming from me.
I think it used to soothe him to sit behind me on the couch, brushing my hair, while we watched telly.
In June 2007 I lost all my hair as a result of chemo I received as part of cancer treatment. My hair had thinned considerably and I had a bald batch, so I decided one Friday it had to go. While the kids were at school I shaved what was left of my hair.
I collected Cathal from his creche and Emma from school, wearing a hat to hide what I had done. I had tried my best to prepare them and I was able to show Emma (aged 9) and sort of have a laugh with her.
I was more concerned about how Cathal would feel. He didn't know I had cancer - cancer would not mean much anyway to a two-year old. I had told him that my hair would fall out because of some special Mammy medicine I was on. He would shrug and just run off again and play.
On the day of the reveal I sat him down at the table and we had a drink each. I told him that my hair was gone and I asked him if he wanted to see. He nodded and I took my hat off. He looked and me and said: 'put your hat back on Mammy'.
That was that. No tears. No look of shock or horror. He went off about his business.
The following night we were all sitting down in the living room, watching TV. Cathal came in with a hairbrush in his hand and said: 'Mammy, can I brush your hair?'. I remember looking over at my hubby in shock. What do we do about this? I panicked and then froze.
Cathal came over and said 'take off your hat Mammy', which I did. He sat up behind me and brushed my bald head. He didn't bat an eyelid, he never said: 'Where's your hair?' He didn't bother with clips, just sat there brushing. It all happened so fast that I barely had time to react - which was just as well.
I was shocked really by how natural the whole thing was. For him, it was no different, he didn't look at me any differently bald than he did when I had hair. He saw the big picture - just me, his Mum, and not a stranger with an egg head. He took comfort from the ritual that he had been doing for months.
It was one of the most emotional and poignant moments of my whole cancer journey and I will treasure the moment forever.
That particular memory all came back to me this evening - three years later, when out of the blue Cathal came up and asked me if he could brush my hair. I have hair now, it grew back thick and strong - not that it would make any difference to Cathal anyway!!!!
xx
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
FAMA
My weakness has to be fashion - clothes, shoes, make-up, handbags and accessories! I love it all. But I am not a slave to fashion, I never just go with the trend – thankfully, well can you imagine me in a puffball skirt at age 41? No, I didn’t think so. I am not a lemming to the slaughter (albeit a well dressed lemming), I make my own styles.
My best friend Sara will tell you that I was doing the ‘wearing a dress with trousers’ style before anyone else was – certainly before any of the designers were. I didn’t do it because I had a vision that it was the next big fashion trend, no, I did it because I hate wearing tights and because on that particular day I was just too darn lazy to shave my legs!!!!!!
I am not saying that I don’t sometimes make mistakes – last weekend an RTE cameraman asked me to take off my coat as it was too loud and was ruining his shot! The coat was rather loud for wearing inside a cathedral now that I think of it – especially when everyone around me [all priests] were well men in black.
Dresses are my particular weakness - I have a kaleidoscope of different colour dresses in my wardrobe – I just can’t walk past them in the shop and I know that having 20 LBD’s (little black dresses) goes against the laws of fashion as there should only need to be one LBD, but they were all so yummy looking in the shops!
Now don’t assume that I am up on all the fashion lingo and names – I am no Sara Jessica Parker and I certainly don’t have the luxury of getting a brand new wardrobe of clothes each time a season changes!
But I often think of how different things would be if I was made Taoiseach! One of the first things I would do (after doubling whatever wardrobe allowance Brian Cowen has) would be to create a Department of Fashion Affairs with a Minister for shoes and handbags, a Minister for trends and accessories, a junior make-up Minister to keep an eye on all that side of things and an Ambassador for Irish Fashion – imagine the junkets to Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks!
Walk-in wardrobes would be compulsory in all new houses and I would introduce a scheme whereby older houses could get a grant for having them retro-fit!
I would have to introduce a new National holiday to give people more time to shop and of course there would have to be a new element to An Garda Siochana – in that I would have to introduce a new division to them – yes a fashion police. We could call them the Gunaí Gardai!!!!!
There would have to be a new tax relief introduced on the purchase of handbags and shoes – the more expensive - the higher the tax relief. I would make sure that the State would underwrite all credit card splurges on clothes and shoes etc. In fact, in the case where girls were under threat of having their credit cards taken away, we would even write off some of the debt as bad impulse buys! I would call that agency FAMA – Fashion Asset Management Agency!
The country would probably be in just as bad a state as we are now – but gosh we would look and feel great!
Brenda
xx
My best friend Sara will tell you that I was doing the ‘wearing a dress with trousers’ style before anyone else was – certainly before any of the designers were. I didn’t do it because I had a vision that it was the next big fashion trend, no, I did it because I hate wearing tights and because on that particular day I was just too darn lazy to shave my legs!!!!!!
I am not saying that I don’t sometimes make mistakes – last weekend an RTE cameraman asked me to take off my coat as it was too loud and was ruining his shot! The coat was rather loud for wearing inside a cathedral now that I think of it – especially when everyone around me [all priests] were well men in black.
Dresses are my particular weakness - I have a kaleidoscope of different colour dresses in my wardrobe – I just can’t walk past them in the shop and I know that having 20 LBD’s (little black dresses) goes against the laws of fashion as there should only need to be one LBD, but they were all so yummy looking in the shops!
Now don’t assume that I am up on all the fashion lingo and names – I am no Sara Jessica Parker and I certainly don’t have the luxury of getting a brand new wardrobe of clothes each time a season changes!
But I often think of how different things would be if I was made Taoiseach! One of the first things I would do (after doubling whatever wardrobe allowance Brian Cowen has) would be to create a Department of Fashion Affairs with a Minister for shoes and handbags, a Minister for trends and accessories, a junior make-up Minister to keep an eye on all that side of things and an Ambassador for Irish Fashion – imagine the junkets to Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks!
Walk-in wardrobes would be compulsory in all new houses and I would introduce a scheme whereby older houses could get a grant for having them retro-fit!
I would have to introduce a new National holiday to give people more time to shop and of course there would have to be a new element to An Garda Siochana – in that I would have to introduce a new division to them – yes a fashion police. We could call them the Gunaí Gardai!!!!!
There would have to be a new tax relief introduced on the purchase of handbags and shoes – the more expensive - the higher the tax relief. I would make sure that the State would underwrite all credit card splurges on clothes and shoes etc. In fact, in the case where girls were under threat of having their credit cards taken away, we would even write off some of the debt as bad impulse buys! I would call that agency FAMA – Fashion Asset Management Agency!
The country would probably be in just as bad a state as we are now – but gosh we would look and feel great!
Brenda
xx
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Top Gun Saves Brenda Drumm
I have a habit of driving around on fumes – I don’t know why because it doesn’t cost any more money to keep petrol in the car than to drive on fumes.
On my old car I had an alarm that used to go off when I had 100 km worth of petrol left. I always ignored it and would often drive in a panic to the petrol station when I suddenly noticed that the gauge was at 000!
My husband goes mad – he can’t understand why I just don’t keep the car full or at least fill it when the alarm sounds.
I got a new car this year and of course I am getting used to it so I am still not sure when the alarm goes off and tells me I am low on petrol, what it actually means! It sounds when there is 80km worth of petrol left in the car and of course I say to myself 'now does that mean I have 80km worth of fuel left or does it mean I have 80km worth of fuel left and then some fumes?'
The alarm sounded on my way into work last Monday and I ignored it, intending to get fuel on the way home from work – of course I never did!
On Tuesday morning I was driving to Tallaght Hospital for treatment and just as I was at the turn for Baldonnell, my car started to feel strange. I was in the slow lane so I sort of egged the car on as far as I could and then I pulled in to the side of the road. I knew immediately what was wrong. The dial was at empty, there was a big fat 0km staring at me from the petrol gauge. In fact if my car had the ability to show minus in terms of petrol – it would probably be reading minus 10km.
I was stranded and it was totally my own fault. I couldn’t ring my husband – well daren’t really! Well he couldn’t help anyway, being all the way up in Dublin, and he would have said ‘I told you so!’ and he would have been exactly perfectly right!
I do have breakdown cover and I know that one of the most common things that they attend to on the roadside is a person running out of petrol. Not much consolation to me though as I sat at the side of the road with no idea where the nearest petrol station was and with cars whizzing by so fast that the car shook each time.
But then a car drew up alongside me on the hard shoulder and the driver rolled down his window. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. Mortified I sort of laughed and said ‘eh…. well I have run out of petrol’. He said: 'Where are you going?' and I said ‘Tallaght Hospital', adding for good measure 'for treatment’. I totally played the helpless card.
He unlocked his car and said hop in. I rummaged around in my car, making sure I had my bag. Before I sat into his car I also made sure I had my phone – well he could be an axe murderer and I had always been warned not to take lifts from strangers.
Just before we pulled out into the stream of traffic I said: 'Hang on I need to make sure that my car is locked!' He looked at me and said: 'Well it’s not going anywhere is it!!!!!' 'I suppose not I said', burning with embarrassment.
I had a look at him and he was very good looking – he also had a sort of a sensible/safe look about him so I relaxed a bit – I still kept hold of my phone though, just in case.
I apologised to him for making him late for work. He said: ‘It’s fine’. I asked him had he far to go and he said: ‘I am on my way to Baldonnell Airforce Base’. 'Oh I said',wWhat do you do?' He sort of smirked and said ‘I am a pilot’. Well, all I could think was wait until I tell the girls in work. I run out of petrol on the N7 and I am rescued by an airline pilot! It could only happen to me!
As it turned out I could have walked to the petrol station as where I broke down was just around the corner from a huge petrol station. I told him I could make my way back to the car – he was reluctant to leave me to my own devices. 'It’s okay', I said, 'I am well able for this, I am a scout leader you know'. He looked at me and said: 'er isn’t the motto of the scouts to be prepared?'
When I got over the shame of his parting words to me, I did text a couple of the girls to tell them what had happened. It was a lesson well learned though.
So the moral of the story is: ‘Do what your hubby says and keep your car filled with adequate petrol to guarantee to get you from A to B or A to Hospital! But I prefer this one: The moral of the story is - if you run out of petrol, make sure you are on the N7, just at the turn for Baldonnell Air Base, so as your knight in shining armour might turn out to be an airforce pilot.
I still haven't told my hubby what happened!
Ends
Ends
On my old car I had an alarm that used to go off when I had 100 km worth of petrol left. I always ignored it and would often drive in a panic to the petrol station when I suddenly noticed that the gauge was at 000!
My husband goes mad – he can’t understand why I just don’t keep the car full or at least fill it when the alarm sounds.
I got a new car this year and of course I am getting used to it so I am still not sure when the alarm goes off and tells me I am low on petrol, what it actually means! It sounds when there is 80km worth of petrol left in the car and of course I say to myself 'now does that mean I have 80km worth of fuel left or does it mean I have 80km worth of fuel left and then some fumes?'
The alarm sounded on my way into work last Monday and I ignored it, intending to get fuel on the way home from work – of course I never did!
On Tuesday morning I was driving to Tallaght Hospital for treatment and just as I was at the turn for Baldonnell, my car started to feel strange. I was in the slow lane so I sort of egged the car on as far as I could and then I pulled in to the side of the road. I knew immediately what was wrong. The dial was at empty, there was a big fat 0km staring at me from the petrol gauge. In fact if my car had the ability to show minus in terms of petrol – it would probably be reading minus 10km.
I was stranded and it was totally my own fault. I couldn’t ring my husband – well daren’t really! Well he couldn’t help anyway, being all the way up in Dublin, and he would have said ‘I told you so!’ and he would have been exactly perfectly right!
I do have breakdown cover and I know that one of the most common things that they attend to on the roadside is a person running out of petrol. Not much consolation to me though as I sat at the side of the road with no idea where the nearest petrol station was and with cars whizzing by so fast that the car shook each time.
But then a car drew up alongside me on the hard shoulder and the driver rolled down his window. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. Mortified I sort of laughed and said ‘eh…. well I have run out of petrol’. He said: 'Where are you going?' and I said ‘Tallaght Hospital', adding for good measure 'for treatment’. I totally played the helpless card.
He unlocked his car and said hop in. I rummaged around in my car, making sure I had my bag. Before I sat into his car I also made sure I had my phone – well he could be an axe murderer and I had always been warned not to take lifts from strangers.
Just before we pulled out into the stream of traffic I said: 'Hang on I need to make sure that my car is locked!' He looked at me and said: 'Well it’s not going anywhere is it!!!!!' 'I suppose not I said', burning with embarrassment.
I had a look at him and he was very good looking – he also had a sort of a sensible/safe look about him so I relaxed a bit – I still kept hold of my phone though, just in case.
I apologised to him for making him late for work. He said: ‘It’s fine’. I asked him had he far to go and he said: ‘I am on my way to Baldonnell Airforce Base’. 'Oh I said',wWhat do you do?' He sort of smirked and said ‘I am a pilot’. Well, all I could think was wait until I tell the girls in work. I run out of petrol on the N7 and I am rescued by an airline pilot! It could only happen to me!
As it turned out I could have walked to the petrol station as where I broke down was just around the corner from a huge petrol station. I told him I could make my way back to the car – he was reluctant to leave me to my own devices. 'It’s okay', I said, 'I am well able for this, I am a scout leader you know'. He looked at me and said: 'er isn’t the motto of the scouts to be prepared?'
When I got over the shame of his parting words to me, I did text a couple of the girls to tell them what had happened. It was a lesson well learned though.
So the moral of the story is: ‘Do what your hubby says and keep your car filled with adequate petrol to guarantee to get you from A to B or A to Hospital! But I prefer this one: The moral of the story is - if you run out of petrol, make sure you are on the N7, just at the turn for Baldonnell Air Base, so as your knight in shining armour might turn out to be an airforce pilot.
I still haven't told my hubby what happened!
Ends
Ends
Monday, March 1, 2010
Time to Talk
My 12 year old daughter asked if she could bake a cake the other evening, so I said 'yes', on condition that she also tidied up after herself i.e. wash up and put all the ingredients away. She was making marzipan cake (it tastes nicer than it sounds).
I hovered in the kitchen, lending a hand here and there and when the cake went into the oven she set about tidying and washing up. We have a dishwasher which is usually filled and emptied by one person. It was already on a wash cycle so we decided to clean up the old fashioned way.
'I will wash and you dry', I said. As I said that I had the most vivid flashback to when I was in our small kitchen at home in Cavan, either washing-up or drying the dishes with my Mum. There was only room for two of us in the kitchen so it was a half of hour of my Mum's ear, during which we would chat - well I would talk and she would listen.
It struck me, as I was filling the basin with hot water and putting in some washing-up liquid, how much time-saving, modern appliances have almost destroyed a lot of the natural, everyday opportunities that parents, mothers especially, have with their kids!
It took us about 45 minutes to wash, dry and put everything away and during that time my daughter and I had a good old chat about all sorts - well she talked and I listened. It is often during these impromptu chats that concerns and worries get aired and shared, and these moments are so very valuable.
Don't get me wrong, we do talk, but sometimes it's a contrived almost un-natural way, because we live our lives in such haste! It really made me think that I will have to start building in more natural opportunities like that to chat with her and her brother as they grow up.
It's really good to talk, but it's so much richer to listen, really listen to your kids.
B
I hovered in the kitchen, lending a hand here and there and when the cake went into the oven she set about tidying and washing up. We have a dishwasher which is usually filled and emptied by one person. It was already on a wash cycle so we decided to clean up the old fashioned way.
'I will wash and you dry', I said. As I said that I had the most vivid flashback to when I was in our small kitchen at home in Cavan, either washing-up or drying the dishes with my Mum. There was only room for two of us in the kitchen so it was a half of hour of my Mum's ear, during which we would chat - well I would talk and she would listen.
It struck me, as I was filling the basin with hot water and putting in some washing-up liquid, how much time-saving, modern appliances have almost destroyed a lot of the natural, everyday opportunities that parents, mothers especially, have with their kids!
It took us about 45 minutes to wash, dry and put everything away and during that time my daughter and I had a good old chat about all sorts - well she talked and I listened. It is often during these impromptu chats that concerns and worries get aired and shared, and these moments are so very valuable.
Don't get me wrong, we do talk, but sometimes it's a contrived almost un-natural way, because we live our lives in such haste! It really made me think that I will have to start building in more natural opportunities like that to chat with her and her brother as they grow up.
It's really good to talk, but it's so much richer to listen, really listen to your kids.
B
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tag Line
I suppose I should have explained the tag line that I have underneath the title of my blog. The line - Just a girl writing about her life and not asking you to love it or even like it.
It is a play on one of my favourite lines from a movie. The movie is Notting Hill and the original line is in a scene quite close to the end of the movie when Julia Roberts is trying to persuade Hugh Grant to maybe consider spending some time with her, after all that has happened. He declines and she talks about the fame side of her life in the movie and then she says: 'Also I am just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her'.
Such a lovely line. Aawww!!!!!!
Just thought I should explain that the line is borrowed.
B
It is a play on one of my favourite lines from a movie. The movie is Notting Hill and the original line is in a scene quite close to the end of the movie when Julia Roberts is trying to persuade Hugh Grant to maybe consider spending some time with her, after all that has happened. He declines and she talks about the fame side of her life in the movie and then she says: 'Also I am just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her'.
Such a lovely line. Aawww!!!!!!
Just thought I should explain that the line is borrowed.
B
Monday, February 1, 2010
i i
My letter eye on my laptop has been playng up all evenng. I have to ht t really hard but t stll doesn't appear and eye use t so many tmes n a sentence that eye am really lost wthout t.
But, then eye read somewhere recently that people are able to understand a sentence and a word even when a lot of the letters are mssng. Our brans are just able to compute the word and make sense of what we are seeng.
Hmmmm...not sure that eye beleve that really.
Eye mean does the above text even make sense wthout the letter eye?
B
But, then eye read somewhere recently that people are able to understand a sentence and a word even when a lot of the letters are mssng. Our brans are just able to compute the word and make sense of what we are seeng.
Hmmmm...not sure that eye beleve that really.
Eye mean does the above text even make sense wthout the letter eye?
B
Monday, January 25, 2010
Protect me from Passwords
From the moment I turn on my computer in work each day, I start the password remembrance battle. What's my password? Type it in - hoping it's the right one..........Error message - incorrect password. You see our system in work automatically looks for the password to be changed every so often for security reasons, so depending on what day and month it is, the password is different. The worst thing is that you don't get a reminder that the system has changed the password to one of your two chosen passwords!!!!! Aaagh!
Then lunchtime comes and I decide to check my gmail account for mail and once again - what's the username and password. Now this is a lot more straightforward as it's just the one username and password - Bobs your uncle - email checked, no problems there!!!
Then I get a call to say I emailed you last week about the night at the cinema and realise that people are still sending mail for me to my old Eircom Account which I had to stop using because of the amount of spam I was getting. So then I think, maybe I should check that account just in case something has come in that I need to see. For the life of me I can't remember the password - is it the cat's name? Which of the three cats? Is it something to do with the kids or is it a name of a book? Did I use something from Harry Potter as the password? Then I see the 'forgotten password' option so I click on that, only I can't remember the user name I used to use! I give up on that one - if the mail is really important, it will find it's way to me.
Then I get thinking that I should check my old hotmail account that I had for the Children's book Club I used to run - oddly enough I remember the username and password for that one straight off, but it has been so long since I used that account, hotmail have deactivated it and it's a huge deal to re-activate it. I give up on that one!
Home time and I decide to leave the computer on so as I don't have to fight with it over the password the next day. Not a good idea I know as it wastes energy, but what about my energy each morning?
Home at last and all the chores done so I decide to have a go on facebook. I have several accounts on facebook for things that I am involved in and it's just so easy to get passwords mixed up with the wrong user name. I should do a list but then what if it falls into the wrong hands? What if some facebook hacker gets into my laptop and steals my identities? No lists!
I think to myself passwords are everywhere - the house alarm, my credit card pin, my laser card pin, facebook, twitter, websites, email, pc's.......AAGH!!!!!
Even this blog - another password to remember - I picked an easy one different to all the others - now if I can just remember what it is..............
Then lunchtime comes and I decide to check my gmail account for mail and once again - what's the username and password. Now this is a lot more straightforward as it's just the one username and password - Bobs your uncle - email checked, no problems there!!!
Then I get a call to say I emailed you last week about the night at the cinema and realise that people are still sending mail for me to my old Eircom Account which I had to stop using because of the amount of spam I was getting. So then I think, maybe I should check that account just in case something has come in that I need to see. For the life of me I can't remember the password - is it the cat's name? Which of the three cats? Is it something to do with the kids or is it a name of a book? Did I use something from Harry Potter as the password? Then I see the 'forgotten password' option so I click on that, only I can't remember the user name I used to use! I give up on that one - if the mail is really important, it will find it's way to me.
Then I get thinking that I should check my old hotmail account that I had for the Children's book Club I used to run - oddly enough I remember the username and password for that one straight off, but it has been so long since I used that account, hotmail have deactivated it and it's a huge deal to re-activate it. I give up on that one!
Home time and I decide to leave the computer on so as I don't have to fight with it over the password the next day. Not a good idea I know as it wastes energy, but what about my energy each morning?
Home at last and all the chores done so I decide to have a go on facebook. I have several accounts on facebook for things that I am involved in and it's just so easy to get passwords mixed up with the wrong user name. I should do a list but then what if it falls into the wrong hands? What if some facebook hacker gets into my laptop and steals my identities? No lists!
I think to myself passwords are everywhere - the house alarm, my credit card pin, my laser card pin, facebook, twitter, websites, email, pc's.......AAGH!!!!!
Even this blog - another password to remember - I picked an easy one different to all the others - now if I can just remember what it is..............
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