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My head was all a spin last week with numbers, NAMA numbers, all 50 billion of them. Don’t get me started. I don’t have the energy for a rant. There is no leadership. There is no accountability. There is no empathy. How could there be, from politicians living in a bubble? Hell will freeze over before any of them will raise their hand and say ‘sorry, we got it all wrong’. Told ya not to get me started. I’m in a tizzy this week with more numbers. My head feels like a snow globe, when I lie down all the digits float into the space surrounding my would be brain. It’s numeracy here, not maths, not even sums as it was in my day. It was easy then, plus, minus, equals, divide by, carry one over and off ya go. Here, in primary school, they do things differently and all I’m hearing between sobs and frustrated pulling of hair is ‘that’s not the way Miss used to do it in Ireland’. Now The Middle has decided she doesn’t like sums anymore even though she’s a dinger at them. She sets herself high standards. I know it will click. I will have to dig deep for the patience and tenacity required. The mathematical language is dissimilar. There’s talk of chunking and arrays and woe betide ya if you mention ‘carry over’. We are not to teach our children maths the way we were taught, teacher told us at a ‘Multiplication for Mums and Dads’ evening. Sure what else would you be doing of a Tuesday night. The response in our day, at the kitchen table doing homework, (while the dreaded stew with the sneaky parsnips boiled on the range) to a cry for assistance with maths was ‘I don’t know anything about equations, ask your brother’. And the rows continue over the lack of decent pencils and no toppers.

As the weeks roll into each other there are tears and laughter, joy and sorrow, trasna an uisce. This weekend was tinged with sadness. We had a loss, a removal. No flowers please. A sad day for me, laced with nostalgia. Yes... the time had come to remove the ‘G’ reg from my jammer.

The queen had her annus horribilis, Himself had a weekus horribilis. We all did. His kidney stones were giving him jip. When you receive a call from your beloved’s colleague to say he has taken poorly and been rushed into hospital by bluelight taxi, (but don’t panic)... it’s not good. The mind goes into overdrive and we all know the mind’s a powerful thing. Flat to the mat down the M40 to find the hospital. Phone goes on the blink leaving me incommunicado. Then the SatNav gives me the two fingers and decides to pack it in, just to add to the mix. I cannot find the hospital and feel like the Connemara man...which way in here is owit! I don’t know who is collecting the kids. It’s very hard to cry and drive at the same time. The words of my hero Samuel Beckett spring to mind, ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ So, no matter, A&E was found.

People over here, are amongst other things, house proud and price conscious. Honourable attributes, some would say. I witnessed a lady hoovering her garage; life is too short for such futile endeavours. In my humble opinion the bare minimum is all that’s needed and if the clothes don’t get taken in off the line for two weeks, I’ll get to them...eventually. There are far too many other things to do like jogging your muscle memory.

Week II

The second Lough Mask swim takes place this Sunday September 5 and again will prove a tough challenge and a great goal for swimmers from throughout the country. The swim will start on the shores of Lough Mask outside Paddy’s bar in Gortmor, Tourmakeady, at 1pm sharp, the swimmers will swim diagonally across the lake passing Devenish Island on the way to Cushlough bay some 8k away. Last year strong winds and big swells made the going tough for the swimmers and kayakers, with just 14 of the 25 swimmers braving the conditions to make it across. This year the change in direction should suit the prevailing winds from the southwest which are normally prominent at that time of year.

Burglaries in County Galway in the first six months of 2010 are up 21 per cent on the same period in 2009 according to new figures discussed at the County Galway Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meeting held in the Council Chambers on Monday.

Lisbon one week and ‘Comer the next.” Life is a rollercoaster”, as Ronan Keating sang once, and he should know, but let’s not go there.

Two new consultants have joined the team at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe. Dr Niall Gough is a consultant radiologist while Mr Brendan Harding is a general surgeon with a special interest in gastrointestinal surgery.

Early on Friday August 18 1882, John Collins, a tenant farmer, having heard disturbances during the night coming from his neighbours’ house, the Joyces, went to check if all was well. He must have feared the worst because he brought with him two neighbours, Mary and Margaret O’Brien. They discovered an appalling sight. Even today, when our senses have been hardened by so many atrocities, it was a scene of savage murder that cried to heaven. No mercy was shown to this unfortunate family.