Green, white and gold - sort of

Today is St Patrick's day. I was born in the Republic of Ireland, and went school there up to the age of nine. My mother, who had been born in India and transplanted to the UK when she was nine, regarded herself as a Scot in exile during the fifteen or so years that she lived in Ireland. So, while I learned Irish folk tales and won medals for Irish language at school, my mother refused to take us to The St Patrick's day parade in Dublin or even wear a shamrock on St Patrick's day. "You can wear a thistle on St Andrew's night" she'd say, as if anyone else ever did that.

Great was my delight in 1973 when, at the age of nine, I was finally taken to the St Patrick's day parade in Dublin, the greatest party on earth as far as I was concerned. Our mother was away, searching for Our Father who wert in Mexico or Belize (another story), and our Basque au pair girls took us. Afterwards, we returned home to the sunny garden and, being largely unsupervised, located the paddling pool, filled it with the garden hose, stripped down to our underwear and dived in. Just as we started splashing in earnest, an adult appeared and told us that it was far too early in the season for outdoor bathing and that we'd have to wait another two months for that sort of activity. Ooh, the rage I felt!

Today, I picked the twins up at twelve and took them to the park, as it was a perfect sunny day. Yesterday had been one long rainstorm, and they soon found a large puddle. Shoes and socks came off. As it was a slippery sort of lake-sized puddle, eventually their trousers came off too. Hours of play followed, followed by a walk through co-housing land where they fished with a shrimping net for pondweed, clad only in their nursery uniform tops.muddy faces and bare legs.

Back home at their house, where Dad was not phased by their appearance, we had lunch, followed by more water- and-mud play. They had a delightful game involving blankets where they went from being hungry caterpillars to chrysalids in the blankets, to emerging as muddy butterflies and 'flying' around the garden. I wished I could have video-ed them, but they're not my children. Having had our family cine films converted to digital a few years ago, I know how precious these memories will become in the years ahead. The boys can be monkeys, but they are their best when playing imaginatively out of doors. (Who isn't? I ask myself). I was glad that I'd given them permission to strip off and have outdoor 'messy play' in a way that I hadn't been allowed to on St Patrick's day, a mere 49 years ago.

By the time I left to go home, I was covered in mud. After a Mirthy talk on one woman's journey to Tibet, I threw my clothes into the washing machine and myself into the bath. Indie sat on top of a cupboard and regarded me from a great height.

Steve made pizza and the friend S, who was supposed to be hosting a lunch club tomorrow, phoned to say that she's having an emergency 'procedure' on her leg tomorrow in Gloucester Royal Hospital. Lunch club has been postponed. I've managed to arrange a stopgap lunch in town for the crowd, but it won't be anything like S's cooking. Still, it's a reason to meet and socialize, before CoVid strikes once more. We're all living on borrowed time.

The image is of some the colourful coffee packets I received in the post today. Having only ordered them yesterday, I was impressed by the service. The coffee is good too. Green, white and gold are the colours of the flag of Eire, the Republic of Ireland.