I Will

Dear Conor,


You don't know this because you're only a day old, but sometimes I do special birthday posts on my blog.


For your birthday, I thought I would impart to you the secret of my mad babysitting skillz.  Ssshh - don't tell anyone.  My secret weapon is this song, works like a charm when used at just the right moment (+ instills love of The Beatles, very important):





Aren't you feeling sleepy now?  Are you sure?


With love always from Auntie E

Overheard: Brunswick St, Melbourne

Where: Mario's, Brunswick St, Fitzroy.
When: This (gloriously sunny) morning, on my way back from yoga class.
What: Edith Piaf, l'accordéoniste.
Effect: Confirmed that my life is about all things French just now.
Slight note of irony: Mario's is an Italian café.  But they do an excellent breakfast, endorsed by The Breakfast Blog (I love this blog and if you are a fan of breakfast you will too.)

Picture Dictionary: Clic-Clac (Oh My Aching Back!)

(Image via http://media.comprendrechoisir.com)

Clic-clac [klik-klak]
Noun (French)

Sofa-bed.

Thanks to the lovely Mrs W, I recently rewatched To Catch a Thief and determined that, like Grace Kelly, (though without her wardrobe), I should like to summer in France this year.

Luckily this fits in nicely with the plans of several of my nearest and dearest (to include one new French bébé in July) and is the reason my sister just sent me an email about the house she has rented for us.  The email was in French and I understood everything except the word 'clic-clac'.  So I looked it up.  How French.  How onomatopoeic.  How hilarious.  Hilarious?  Pourquoi?

LTLS and I share a love of the Andrews Sisters and Lílí's favourite song is 'South America, Take It Away' ...  in which Bing Crosby and the girls bemoan the fact that 'there's a strange click clack in the back of my sacroiliac.'  

How funny if the clic-clacs should give us pains in our sacroiliacs.  Well, not funny, exactly, in the sense of being fun; but droll, nonetheless.

Tales of the South Pacific

I made an exciting discovery this week.  I have always wanted to visit the South Pacific - inspired by the movie of the musical in all its glorious technicolour (no sniggering back there: aside from having the BEST tunes, South Pacific is a Pulitzer Prize-winning survey of racial and social conflict among people thrown together by war).


Anyway, whaddya know, it turns out New Zealand is in the South Pacific.  It is part of Polynesia, the south-west corner of the Polynesian triangle (the other corners are Hawaii and Easter Island).

With this discovery came a lesson in pronunciation.  It's not Ton-gah, it's Tong-ah (the 'g' is barely there); Sam-oah is actually Saam-OOa.  Niue is said New-ee.  (Okay, no, I'd never heard of it before now either.)

And I loved learning that the Maori have a complicated system of genealogy that relates, in part, to your ancestral waka (canoe) - or, as I understand it, the ship you came in on.  A bit like people in the US priding themselves on having ancestors who were on the Mayflower.

So picture me, in the South Pacific, skipping around singing Bali Ha'i and you pretty much have my week.

ps when I googled 'South Pacific' for pictures, this turned up.  I thought it would be mean to deprive my audience of this picture of that guy from Glee as Lieutellan Cable, sans shirt:


(image via broadway.tv)

Homesickness

I haven’t gone in much for homesickness. Or more accurately, I haven’t been feeling what the French call mal du pays. I miss family and friends, but I haven’t been missing Ireland. I’ve been too busy sampling the delights Australia has to offer while I’m here.

But I confess to a pang when I saw that the Rose of Tralee had been crowned on Tuesday night. It’s very hard to explain the Rose of Tralee to anyone who hasn’t grown up with it. A beauty pageant that’s about inner beauty and cailíní deasa? Where grown women deliver party pieces and there’s a singalong at the end? The fact that, with no intention of ever entering the competition, I was still devastated when I discovered that I was officially too old to be eligible? Nice as the people are here, that stuff can’t be translated.

So I’m just going to sit here and sing along with the Count. You can sing too: The pale moon was rising above the green mountain… Sniffle.

Four Seasons in One Day

I’m writing this listening to Crowded House singing ‘Four Seasons in One Day’.

I’ve had the song going round and round in my head all day, so decided the only way to defeat the earworm was to embrace it.

Four Seasons in One Day is the trademark of Melbourne’s weather. I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said it to me (proudly, resignedly or gloomily) in reference to lightning-fast shifts from sunshine to rain and back.

Yesterday, for example, was gloriously sunny and warm – too warm for a coat. After the sun set, it was cold and frosty. This morning the rain came down in sheets and this afternoon it’s cloudy but dry.

Which came first – the song or people using the phrase to describe the weather? One of the mysteries of the universe.

Please PLEASE Don’t Eat the Daisies

Oh, it’s more singalong with Eithne’s life, the soundtrack to which is strange and varied. I love the film of the same name Doris Day made with David Niven about life in the suburbs (David Niven is the husband who only comes back to the suburbs in the evenings for his martini.) I honestly can’t remember whether one of their children attempts to eat the daisies, but there is a scene where Day, playing a teeny-weeny guitar, leads a gang of kids skipping through the yard and singing the song.

Now, with the song planted in your brain, I’d like to share some photographs with you.

Gregory discovered the daisies on Sunday. (He was so excited he lost his pyjama bottoms.)

Róisin rediscovered the art of making daisy chains.

Do you love me? Love me a lot? You’ll prove it by lettin’ the daisies grow.

Someone must love us a lot.

Nóiníní Bána

These daisies are so small but so much a part of their surroundings. When I saw them, all I could think of was this song that I learned when I was very small:

Nóininí bána ar imeall na habhainn,

Rachaidh mé síos agus piocfaidh mé ceann.

Ceann beag do mo mhamaí, is ceann beag dom féin.

Ceann beag do mo chairde ar oileán i gcéin.

Little white daisies on the bank of the river,

I’ll go down and pick one.

A little one for my mammy, and a little one for myself.

A little one for my friends on an island far away.

So to all my friends far away: these daisies from Co. Offaly are for you.

Perfect Day

I was feeling a bit uninspired this morning when it came to writing my blog. But then it occurred to me that yesterday really was a perfect day – a gem in miniature as my English teacher used to say (although she was talking about Silas Marner and – just between you and me – I think she was mad because when I went to university almost the first thing I realised is that it is a dreadful book). But back to yesterday. This is what I did (and forgive me if you fall asleep into your keyboard reading this):

I did some work in the morning.

I entertained (is that the right word?) the plumber. Well, I made interested noises when he explained to me about cisterns.

I spoke to a friend in Australia.

I went to the library.

I bought flowers and a very handsome free-range chicken.

I made two trips to the post office.

Luíseach made us delicious gin, elderflower and soda cocktails. Oh, and then she followed up with lentils and Toulouse sausages.

I read my book and then the three of us watched Judge John Deed and commented on all the stupid things he did.

And the sun was shining for most of it.

So here’s to the perfectly ordinary, ordinarily perfect days. And because now that song is in my head:

Oberaberüberoberammergau

When I was a child, we were frequently taken on very long car journeys across Europe. We amused ourselves by singing (yes, we were practically the Von Trapp family), sometimes along with tapes our parents provided (for example, courtesy of something they picked up at an Italian motorway stop, we all know the lyrics to Miiiiiicrosuperman!, and Carletto, the classic Italian song about the boy who wets the bed - seriously) and sometimes with songs my mother dug up from her wide repertoire.

It’s because of this that I have what I call the singalong reflex: I like to sing songs that match themselves to my circumstances. Or, in today’s post, blog songs that match themselves to my circumstances.

Sing along with me if you know the tune!

Last week, on our way from skiing in Austria to Munich airport, we stopped in Oberammergau for a few hours.

Heut’ kommt der Hans nach Haus, freut sich die Lies’.

Oberammergau is a very pretty, typical Bavarian village, famous for the passion play it puts on every ten years.

Ob er aber über Oberammergau

We strolled through the streets and looked in the windows of the shops selling wood-carvings and dirndls (they get many, many tourists here).

Oder aber über Unterammergau

And we had a lunch that consisted of about twelve kinds of meat at the Hotel Post. Oh, and apfel strudel afterwards because, really, it had to be done.

Oder aber überhaupt nicht kommt

There was still snow on the mountains and it was a chilly day, but there were some signs of spring.

Ist nicht gewiss.

You sing the song as a round, so it goes on more or less endlessly.

Heut’ kommt der Hans nach Haus, freut sich die Lies’…