Meant to post on Valentine's Day before but was too busy trying to force feed myself chocolate before the onset of Lent.  I feel like one of those French geese with the swollen livers.

Where was I?  On Sunday morning the boys "treated" us to breakfast in bed at half eight for Valentines day.  Sugar Puffs for me and mini shredded wheat for my wife.  Could have seen them far enough really but had to pretend, even though I'd had a bowl of sugar puffs at about 2am already - the sugar puffs were a ...
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Last week I had a tooth extracted - a joy and delight in itself.  I asked the dentist before hand - "is this a case of brute force?"  "Oh no" says he, "just firm, consistent pressure".  Actually it wasn't too bad and I was able to look down my nose (without feeling my nose, eyes, or lips) at the wimps who need sedation.

But the week after I developed a pleasurable little thing called a "dry socket" - when your blood doesn't clot and and you have direct access to jaw bone.  The cure, today, is ...
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Hopefully you have all been wondering where I've been for the last while.  Perhaps you had images of me helping out the flood victims of Cork, or Clonmel or Galway.  Well in a sense I have been dealing with floods.  Basically I've been snowed under with events and work and activities and blogging is one of those things that when you get out of the habit for a few days it can be hard to get back into.  Like dieting or praying or painting the damn stairs.

Today was Michael's tenth birthday.  Mic...

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First day of school for my lot.  Took that with my cell phone - quality's not too bad.  From left to right - Teresa Benedicta Maria, Mary Teresa, Patrick Joseph (homage to Bishop Walsh) and Michael Joseph.
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Back to school tomorrow for the boys.  And first day in Junior Infants at Scoil Mhuire Fatima for Mary Teresa.  Sigh:

WEE HUGHIE
Elizabeth Shane

He's gone to school, wee Hughie,
An' him not four,
Sure I saw the fright was in him
When he left the door.
But he took a hand o' Denny,
An' a hand o' Dan,
Wi' Joe's owld coat upon him—
Och, the poor wee man!

He cut the quarest figure,
More stout nor thin;
An' trottin' right an' steady
Wi' his toes turned in.
I watched him to the corner
O' the big turf stack,
An...

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Most annoyingly my last post disappeared at the point of saving.

I was sharing a little story which I thought some hapless priest might be able to use in a sermon or a Thought for the Day. 

We're just back from our holidays in West Cork.  The house we stayed in had a fridge with magnets of those little VW buses from the sixties.  Well the first day there was an almight row.  Teresa (2) insisted they were buses.  Mary (4) was determined they were magnets.  I can hear it now on Radio 4 or Radio ...
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You know those "senior moments" we all have from time to time?  When you reach the top of the stairs and can't remember why you went there.  Or you're half why through a sentence and can't remember what the hell you were going to say (like a film reviewer on Sunday Sequence who, trying to compare Harry Potter with something, anything, came up with "an ITV drama" and needing some term to describe Cardinal Pell came up with "one of the Pope's backers" as if Benedict was Gladys Knight and Pell o...
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Well I love to camp as you know so on Friday morning headed off for the foot of the Mournes.  It was mostly good in that I think the boys really enjoyed it, particularly hanging around the camp, cooking outside and staying up late.  Michael went round with a large torch shining it in people's tents like a parish priest of old.

Friday night was a horror for me.  I decided the self inflating mattress was not inflated enough so blew into it.  Unfortunately I overdid it and when I lay down it expl...
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Taking the boys camping up the Mournes tomorrow so obviously won't be blogging for a couple of days.  I'm sure you'll manage.

Just back from my hour at the adoration chapel where I grew deeply in humility.  I couldn't get the door open so I texted the organiser.  Next thing the parish priest is on the phone saying he's on his way - this after eleven at night and him off on pilgrimage in the morning to Rome.  He turns up and I explain someone has locked the door on inside.  He enters the door c...
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Can't do pictures for some reason at the moment.

It really was too hot to be sitting in front of a computer the last few days.  Saturday was glorious with football with Patrick in the morning and hurling with Michael in the afternoon.  Sunday was spent in the garden.  The one cloud was when I lay back in the lounger and, because of metal fatigue, I went flying backwards and thought for a few moments I was paralysed from the neck down.  A source of great amusement for everyone else.  I regrette...

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Okay so yesterday I did a long post on books I'm reading.  I like to do this from time to time.  I carry a rucksack to work everyday which often has about ten books that I'm sort of reading in it.  Anyway, having completed the long post, including a nice quote from one of the books, I went to a different window to find a few links.  Only the window wasn't opened at full screen and I accidently googled from my blog.  The result being that I lost the posting.  Boo hoo, as Patrick would say.

Spea...
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"Dad, do you know there was this man called Elvis?"

"Yes, where did you hear him?"

"Well he died on the toilet, that's all I know about him"
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I know I shouldn't laugh, but tonight Michael had a moth in his room he was trying to get rid off.  To do this he had opened both windows.

And had all the lights on.

Guess you had to be there.
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You know why God made daughters?

Today I was dancing with Mary in the kitchen - she's three (nearly four - June, Feast of Bl Anne of St Bartholomew) so I have to carry her round.  We normally dance to "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" but today we branched out into "Moon River". 
As I was singing and doing a passable waltz around the laundry basket Mary looked at me and said,

"You know Daddy what you should be when you grow up?" 

"What?" says I. 

"A pop star!"
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Disappointments take different forms - by the way, I notice I've developed a bad habit of sticking in apostrophes in the wrong place - this is just a quick typing habit, not actual ignorance so please ignore them when they appear.  Where was I?  Disappointments.  Three this week.  Little Mary who will be starting primary school in September got up on Monday morning, found her green socks and thought she was going to school, the Easter holidays being over.  She was most upset.  She'll get over...
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Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meeeeeeeeeep Meep-Meep ...

It's Sunday night, and there's no school tomorrow so I don't have to smooth (that's "iron" for those not in the know) uniforms or make lunches.

It was a very busy weekend, which was why I wasn't posting yesterday, though Mary was.  Mary put her dummy in a large pink envelope with a letter to the Easter Bunny and posted it off - she actually said "it was hard to push out the envelope".  I told her we could do ...
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What did you do during the Global Fraud Hour on Saturday night?  We put the lights on in the porch and hall in case anyone might think we were actually doing anything, and turned the tumble dryer up full.  Then we had some polar bear steaks, fried in lard from a siberian tiger with an egg flip made from the tusk of a white rhino.  I really felt at one with nature.  Then we watched Mr Smith Goes to Washington, one of my bestest most favourite films ever.  It was almost a Fraternity of St Genes...
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My daughter Mary likes to talk - she likes to talk a lot - as do we all of course.  My wife and I were much amused the other evening when Mary began to describe death - "it's when you can't talk anymore".  Or as I prefer to see it, when you don't have to listen.

Well as luck would have it I was reading Pope Benedict's marvellous book on eschatology, handily entitled "Eschatology", and what to I find on page 89 but the following:

"communication is life and its absence, death".

And no footnote to ...
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I slight case of blogmentia this morning.  I was chatting with my friend Pinnie and I told her something amusing - she let me continue and then said, "yeah, I already read that on your blog".  She did go on to say she enjoyed the blog and that it was just like listening to me talking over coffee.  She also expressed disappointment at not featuring on the blog.  So Pinnie, here you are.  Perhaps I might tell the world some amusing old stories about you, like the time you thought your father ha...
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I had an idea for Dragons Den on Friday as I wondered around the card shops looking for Mothers Day cards.  It has always annoyed me that in Ireland it is impossible to find cards that say "Mammy" - it's always "Mummy" or "Mum" so I think there could be a market.  I'd sell a 5% share for €45,000.

But then my wife tells me no one uses the term "mammy" anymore - kids have all taken up English and American usages.  Sad.

I slipped the boys some money this morning and told them to go to the shop w...
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Well clearly my taunting of Liverpool has had unexpected results, prompting them to raise their game against Manchester United.  Good news for the neutrals, I suppose, keeping things going for another few weeks.

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I had Patrick at his football training this morning;  he plays for East Meath United - the EMUs.  I was helping train the under fives today and it showed how difficult a child protection policy can be.  Four and five year olds find it very difficult to put football bibs on ...

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Well, actually little demonic genius would be more apt.  Teresa Benedicta Maria has a particular talent for hiding stuff.  I spent two days looking for my car keys - she'd hidden them in the space in the door between the outer inner flaps of the letter box. 

This evening it was the romote for the television.  I hunted high and low, under sofas and chairs, in laundry baskets, toilets, the oven, the fish-tank.  Eventually I gave up, sat down for a cuppa - the first in six hours! - and suddenly ...
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I left the computer on this evening with the blog opened.  I was off starting some painting for a while.  When I came back the computer had a new background - the Pope pointing a lá the photo from top of blog. 

I thought, "ah, my wife must have liked that photo and decided to use it".  So I mentioned it.  No, not she. 

"Michael (9), did you touch the computer?"  "No, I was watching Oggy and the Cockroaches [one of the best modern cartoons - like Tom and Jerry at their best]". 

"Patrick (6), ...
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Sunday was out buying paint – a job that takes a long time, particularly when you are trying to find a particular colour.  I had  little plastic toy bath (pink with blue/green legs) with me – the colour I wanted was the bluey/green as it’s the colour of our box room, one of which walls was moved last week to allow a staircase to be installed for our attic conversion.  I was wandering up and down Homebase lost in Crown and Dulux and heritage paints and own brands and nothing looked remot...

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