Ok we’re home now….

August 25, 2011April 12, 2012 | Mairead

(Charlottenburg Palace)

Right, let’s get a few things straight. I will want you to remind me of these if I mention another holiday.

So pay close attention:

1. Irish-type weather suits me, even though I love sunshine…. it’s not my friend.

2. My delicate constitution is allergic to insect bites…… always bring bug spray….. and use it.

3. One museum a day is quite enough.

(Walk along the river Spree)

4. A rest in the afternoon is essential if I wish to go out “clubbing” (my word for going outside after dark).

5. Early morning starts help no one, all alarms should be set for a time after 10am.

6. Stick with the packing policy of just enough clothes, it’s working…… but maybe some more shampoo would be good.

7. Factor in some all alone time…. no comment.

8. Go for longer.

(Pink flamingos in the zoo)

Ok that’s it, my recipe for a happy holiday. I did have a great time, loved Berlin and the museums (I think we did five?) and the jazz clubs and the symphony orchestra and the zoo and the palace at Charlottenburg and the market and Unter den Linden and the cafes and the people and the history and the street theatre and loved, loved, loved the Segway! Possibly did a bit too much in five days though?

And so to sleep, Mairead.

Taxi Tour Guide

August 24, 2011April 12, 2012 | Mairead

(Lunch…. looking like a green moustached little man?)

We had a very interesting conversation with our taxi driver on the way to the airport. He’d lived in Berlin for sixteen years and loved it. As a teenager he’d been taken on a school trip to east Berlin, while it was still under Russian rule. He was fascinated by the place and wanted to come back. So after he left school he visited Berlin many times, but just the west part.

(Anyone for some Sachertorte?)

It was a difficult journey. It took twelve hours from his home, the same journey now takes five. Going back to our history lesson….. the free Berlin, the west part, was surrounded by a wall (well.. two walls with the no-mans land filled with mines and guard dogs in between all watched over by guard towers…. to be precise). The further complication was that Berlin was also situated in the Russian (not so free) part of Germany, to the east. Maybe a picture would help?

(Former West Germany in purple, former East Germany in yellow. City of Berlin in middle of yellow. Barbed-wire lined road corridor ran from purple west Germany across Sachsen-Anhalt to Berlin)

So…. to get to Berlin (while the wall was still up) our taxi driver had to drive along a road corridor through east Germany to west Berlin. Are you keeping up? He was questioned at the border checkpoint and if anything was amiss he would not be allowed through or could be held prisoner. If he did get through his journey was timed and if he arrived at the Berlin checkpoint later than expected then he was in trouble. If he arrived sooner than expected this was also a serious problem. And yet he continued to make the journey…..

(Checkpoint….. Charlie!)

Incidentally….. the first border crossing checkpoint at the start of the corridor was called Alpha (from the phonetic alphabet for A), the second one was called Bravo (B) and the one between the American sector and Russian Berlin was Charlie (C)…. thus Checkpoint Charlie.

Over and out, Mairead.

We’re going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

August 19, 2011April 12, 2012 | Mairead

Berlin Zoo today. Up early was the plan. Plan failed. After a breakfast of orange juice, coffee, custard Danish and currywurst (the boys only) we set off. By midday we had arrived. It’s a very old Zoo in the heart of the city, the trees and plants are as interesting as the animals. We saw the elephants first, followed closely by the giraffes and then the monkeys.

My favourite animal was a female gorilla who was born in 1957. Well I think that’s what it said on the sign…. it was in German. If you’re a regular reader you’ll remember my language ability leaves a lot to be desired. But German is different…. it’s easier to guess…. Anyway, she sat watching all the people watching her, in the manner of an old man sitting on the street corner watching the world go by.

(Two young Orang-Utans didn’t let a cage and a glass partition keep them apart. Right after this picture was taken the Mum of the one on the left swung over, picked up her baby and swung upside-down from the ceiling of the cage all the way to the other side of the huge space.)

Then we came to the nocturnal animals. They were underground, in a long winding corridor with glass fronted rooms on each side containing the animals. The lighting was very dim and the walls were painted black. When I walked in first I couldn’t see anything. I could only take very small steps, holding the wall and feeling uncomfortable. These animals normally only come out at night, but the zoo is closed at night, so…. day is turned into night down here in order that we get to see them. After a few minutes my eyes had stepped up to the challenge and it seemed like the lights had been turned up.

(Nice cobbles in Berlin Zoo)

When you really want something you may have to turn your world upside down and get a bit uncomfortable but soon everything will seem brighter!

Auf Wiedersehen, Mairead

Awful Arabella

July 13, 2011April 10, 2012 | Mairead

(Maybe it’s time to cut the grass)

Ok, assignment well on the way to being finished… so I’ll take a break to tell you a story. When our children were little I used to love reading to them. I think it was mainly because it involved sitting down! But also, the rhythm of a voice reading (even your own!) is hypnotic and I was probably glad of the effect it had on all of us.

(Nice looking hydrangeas)

One of my favourite books was Awful Arabella by Bill Gillham, illustrated by Margaret Chamberlain (looked this up on Amazon and it brought it all back). I read that book hundred’s of times, no exaggeration. It was very short with two lines and a picture per page, and I still love it. So the story goes, Arabella arrived to stay at the narrator’s home and she was awful. She mis-behaved all day and wouldn’t go to bed and then in the middle of the night she was sick – throwing up type sick. The next day she was much better behaved but in her efforts to be a good girl she made just as big a mess. In spite of all that, when she was leaving the whole family were very sad to see her go.

(Love blue)

The last picture in the book sees Arabella on her own waving from the front gate with a big suitcase in her hand and the family at the front door crying into their handkerchiefs.

(Yellow flowers that come back every year without any effort from me – and they’re not weeds)

Now that I think about it maybe I liked it because of it’s message. I must have been reading it for myself, because it’s a great message for any parent.

No matter how badly you’ve behaved you’re still loveable and forgivable and we’ll miss you when you’re gone!

Missing you already, Mairead.

Oranges and Sunshine

July 11, 2011April 10, 2012 | Mairead

(Does that look safe to you?)

We’re going to the movies tonight. To the Mermaid Theatre. Every Monday night it turns into a cinema. The movie is called Oranges and Sunshine. I’ve read the book and couldn’t put it down. It’s about a woman who discovered by accident that little children from Britain were sent to Australian orphanages in the 1940’s, after the second world war. Their parents thought their children had been adopted by families in Britain. The children had been told their parents were dead. She found it difficult to get information but little by little she discovered the details were far worse than anyone realised. It’s a true story.

(More patterns)

Just in case you want to see it, I’ll say no more…. Except, the bit that was by accident is very interesting. She was working as a social worker and she had clients who were adopted and had found or were in the process of finding, or beginning the process of finding, their birth parents. She felt they needed a support group, so she set one up. And it hadn’t been running long when a series of events led to her uncovering the story that’s in the movie.

(Liam brought us a very nice cake box and there was cake in it!)

Anyway, what I find interesting is, this woman didn’t plan to do some great big thing. She was doing her own little thing. Not that setting up a support group is little, it was very helpful to the people in the group. But she ended up being helpful to far greater numbers of people. And if she hadn’t done that first thing……

(No pictures please! How do I convince people they really DO want their picture taken?)

So I was thinking…. there’s probably some small thing calling out to all of us. Some little thing that we’d like to do but we haven’t got the time. Or maybe we think it might be selfish to do it. Or it could be considered a bit silly. But what if doing that little thing could accidentally lead us to uncovering an amazing story…. our story? That’s a nice idea.

Just one small thing, Mairead.

Don’t sweat the meatballs!

July 10, 2011April 11, 2012 | Mairead

(Damien and Nat are organising a Flamenco Festival in Dublin 23rd to 31st July www.dublinflamencofestival.com)

The de-clutter is continuing slowly, and today (Sunday) we went to Ikea. Not entirely sensible, because we might have been tempted to buy more clutter. Fortunately we were not tempted… and we came home with only what we went for… drinking glasses. But we were tempted by the restaurant.

(An Ikea glass?)

Well, Denis was tempted by the fifteen meatballs. Yes, exactly fifteen, there’s a choice, you can have ten, fifteen or twenty. He choose fifteen along with potatoes, gravy and some fruit sauce… Watching the woman speedily scoop the meatballs onto his plate, I couldn’t believe she had time to count them. She didn’t. When we sat down and he went off to get a knife and fork, I counted. Only fourteen…. Oh no, we would have to do something… what? Ask for an extra meatball? Would they need to check the cctv footage to make sure we hadn’t eaten it? As I contemplated our position Denis returned. I told him about the problem. He took out his fork to investigate further.

(Blue benches along the pier in Dun Laoghaire)

And he found the missing meatball… along with its friend. He had been given sixteen meatballs! Noooo, now we had a different problem. How would we return the extra meatball? And which one was it anyway? I seemed to be handling this problem on my own and expected some help from Denis. But he hadn’t let me down, he had formulated an inspired plan and had even executed it, while I was panicking.

He ate the extra meatball!

(Orange worms spotted near the pier….)

And it made me wonder…. is it possible that we sometimes make a mountain out of a meatball? Maybe it’s just a meatball? What if all our problems were just meatballs?

It’s just a meatball, Mairead.

Start at the end…

July 7, 2011April 11, 2012 | Mairead

(Like a bird on the wire……)

I was reading the book Do the Work by Steven Pressfield while we were on holidays and I’ve been thinking about it again today. The part I’m remembering is the bit about Start with the End. We do something similar in Success Teams.

(Big stones turn into little ones….)

The idea is, you ask yourself what you want to be true at the end of a project. So let’s say the project was… the printing I was doing yesterday. What do I want to be true at the end? At the end I want a hand printed piece of material that could be hung on the wall. That’s the external reason. But there’s also an internal reason.

(The stream flows to the sea…..)

So I ask the question – what’s it all about? What is it about this finished project that grabs me? What is it that makes me glow, or sparkle or shine or sing! That’s when the internal reason appears. For my printing project…… I wanted to create repeating patterns. I wanted to use paint because I love the way it starts like a blob and then flows. I love the way you can roll it onto a piece of wood and the wood becomes wet with the paint. I love that pressing the painted block onto the cotton material leaves an impression……. And then repeating it makes a pattern and I sigh…. that’s it.

(And the waves roll in and out… )

Going into this much detail with the ending makes a lasting impression on your unconscious, so that it’s almost as if the project was already done….. and it was… in the future! And that draws you towards it… compels you towards it. Imagine if the thing you wanted was drawing you towards it? It would become possible. The thing you want is possible….. how cool is that? Then, you can take the first step…..

The end, Mairead.

Making an Impression

July 6, 2011April 11, 2012 | Mairead

(Melting blue ice cream paint)

The rain is bucket-ing down outside but I’m a happy bunny. I’ve been spending time making material. Well… not exactly making material, printing onto material is a more accurate description. It involves plain white cotton and fabric paint and a little paint roller and wooden blocks. The blocks have a pattern etched onto them. First I pour the paint onto a plastic receptacle, (a Chinese takeaway lid!) then roll the roller in the paint. Next I apply the roller to the wooden block and then press the block onto the cotton material.

(Rolling the roller in the paint)

So… sounds harmless enough doesn’t it? Not really that engrossing? But to me it is completely engrossing. Let me explain it…. more slowly this time.

(Rolling the paint onto the wooden block)

I have a lot of crafting books. Books about patchwork, card-making, knitting, crochet, book-binding (yes, really!), sewing projects and hand printing…. are all sitting on my book shelves. So, from time to time I pick one up and start to turn the pages. Very soon something shifts in me and a kind of glow begins to flow. I become inspired. It could be anything, a colour, a shape, a pattern… sigh, patterns. A few months ago when I was looking through a book called Hand Printing by Lena Corwin, the glow began to flow and I wanted to print on fabric. In this case it was the patterns, repeating across the page that got me.

(Making an impression)

This week I began the doing part. The cotton material was washed and ironed. I’m ready. I pour the blue paint onto the plastic lid. I love this bit, it looks like melted ice cream. I lift an edge so that the paint flows slowly down the plastic. Then I slowly roll the roller in the paint, until it is completely blue. Then I pick up the wooden block and slowly (important bit) slowly roll the paint covered roller over the block. I see the paint sticking to the wood and when I’ve rolled over and back and sideways, slowly, I put the roller down. Then slowly, I move over to the fabric and holding the wooden block, now blue, I use both hands and press it firmly onto the material. Then slowly, I lift the block away from the material, this feels a bit like lifting your wellington booted foot out of the mud, squelch! And then I look at what I’ve done, and I sigh. I am engrossed.

(Finished)

My friend Ashleigh sent me a quote today, “A wise woman is someone who can find time for herself every day.” I think this probably applies to men too…

Become engrossed, slowly, today, Mairead.

Travel stories

photography

Taxi Tour Guide

We’re going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo