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Highlights this month

Oh mes amies, I’ve so much to tell you. First of all, a happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a lovely Christmas and haven’t made too many New Year’s Resolutions because I can tell you from past experience that it only ends in tears. I read that if you make only ONE resolution you have a good chance to stick to it. I don’t usually make resolutions because I think (like most of us) that I’m doing my best most of the time and that the human condition is a painful one and we are flawed and fragile and prone to failure and so long as we’re doing our best within those parameters, there’s nothing to feel bad about. But this year I’ve actually decided to try to spend less money on fripperies. Some fripperies, yes, without a doubt. Just not as many as in past years, because of the impact to the environment everytime something is made (I read that it takes seven years of one person’s drinking water to make one cotton t-shirt and that scared the daylights out of me.) So yes, a slowing down, if possible, on the purchasing shoes, handbags and Issa dresses.

Now listen, a MASSIVE MASSIVE THANK YOU to all of you who wrote to me with your suggestions for my cosy mini-break. I was humbled and so touched by your response, I felt I have so many friends! Anyway, after I put the shout out to all of you, the paper (Guardian) came back with firmer boundaries, so sadly many of the places you suggested were no longer suitable. (Didn’t I say that would bloody well happen?) They said that it had to be a COLD city or a remote cabin in a snowy wilderness place. They suggested Canada for the wilderness and much as I would love to go (Canada is v beautiful) I couldn’t take a long-haul flight (also carbon footprint. Yes, very responsible.) So I suggested Moscow because it is a VERY cold city and they came back and said, Yes, Moscow lovely but we’re doing a piece on Moscow soon, so any cold city EXCEPT Moscow.

So I suggested Florence (just chancing my arm, because I’ve never been to Italy and would love to go) and they said, Florence is NOT a cold city.
They suggested Tallinn (in Estonia) but I’ve been to Tallinn, so I suggested Helsinki, Stockholm, Gothenburg or Oslo.
And they said, Of course, anywhere you like, but what about Tallinn?
And I said, No, I’ve been to Tallinn.
And they said, But you’ve also been to Helsinki, Stockholm, Gothenburg
and Oslo in the past, what about Tallinn? And I said, to be honest, I didn’t really like Tallinn. The people wouldn’t give me a straight answer about anything. If you’re going to make me go to Tallinn, I’d rather stay at home.

Then when it looked like it was all going to fall apart, I found a snowy wilderness in Finland. (They also have them in Sweden and Norway.) It’s in the arctic circle, part of Lapland and frankly you couldn’t get much snowier. I’m not sure how romantic it’s going to be, because you have to wear 45 layers of clothing, but there’s a chance of seeing the Northern Lights, which would be very romantic. Also we’re going on a reindeer sleigh ride. Also there is the opportunity of running naked out of a sauna and jumping into a hole cut in the ice, immersing yourself in freezing water and having your heart stop beating. Yes, I’ve always longed to be defibrillated (or whatever the word is) on a mini-break. We’re staying for one night in a glass igloo – yes, a see-through igloo – just in case the Northern Lights make an appearance, so we can lie in bed in our hats and thermal long-johns, staring up at the Northern Lights and being very romantic. Then for 2 nights in the sweetest looking log cabin, which has its own sauna. Also – and I’m so touched by this – we’re staying for one night in Helsinki, because of flight times, in the five-star Hotel Kamp, which looks top-notch on their website and they are giving me and Himself gratis accomodation even though they’re not part of the travel company, just out of common decency.

Sadly I won’t be in Helsinki during shop opening hours – it’s Marimekko, you see, I love it very much – but perhaps in keeping with my ‘Less Fripperies’ resolution, this is no bad thing. Nevertheless, I can’t think of Marimekko as fripperies, their stuff is more like essentials, especially the floor-length nightdresses which are my working uniform and which last for years and years without losing their shape or becoming ‘bally’. Anyway, it’s closed and that’s that.

The article will (allegedly) run in the Guardian on Jan 19th but you wouldn’t want to believe that as I keep doing pieces for them (not lovely holiday pieces like this but stuff like ‘My Favourite Knickers’) and they keep not running them. So we’ll seeeeee…….
Now listen, I have to tell you about Christmas and how we all got sick. It’s nothing short of hilarious. First I have to give you the list of characters.

My mother, my father, my brother Niall, his wife Ljiljana, their daughter Ema (7), their son Luka (6), my sister Caitríona, her fiancee Seán, my sister Rita-Anne, her husband Jimmy, my brother Tadhg, Himself and me. (Tadhg’s fiancee Susan was in Gorey, Co Wexford with her family.) Okay, so there are 13 of us and it all kicks off on the Thursday before Christmas when my dad suddenly starting puking his guts up. The puking continued round the clock and when Mam suggested ringing a doctor, dad begged her not to, as he said he was obviously SO VERY SERIOUSLY ILL that the doctor would immediately summon an ambulance and send him to A&E, where he would have to lie on a trolley for a month and compete for the nurses’ attention with stab victims and those sporting gunshot wounds and no-one would care whether Dad lived or died as he is an oul lad anyway and is bound to croak sooner rather than later. (And they wonder where I get my dramatic hypochondriacial streak from!) On Friday night the Praguers arrive and on Saturday Dad returns from the brink of death, only for Ljiljana and Ema to fall foul of the lurgy and spend Christmas Eve thrun in the bed, competing for puking space in a brown basin. I should also stress at this stage that every bed in the house was full, as the Praguers and the 2 home from NY were staying with Mam and Dad and as Susan was away Tadhg likes to stay on the couch.

However, miraculously, everyone is well for Christmas day…. but on the following day Caitríona is struck down. The next day – the 27th – Himself and myself go to John and Shirley, his parents in Saffron Walden, England and it is the mercy of God that we did, because we would surely not be alive to tell the tale otherwise. Parallel to all of this is that Himself had been badly injured tending to his reindeers. For the past god knows how many years he’s had Rudy on the porch roof, a beautiful electric reindeer to light people’s way. But this year, Rudy got retired and 2 beautiful new reindeers arrived (as yet nameless) and took their place on the porch roof. But they kept falling over and Himself kept having to lean out the window and pick them up again and in one of those leaning-out sessions he badly, yes very badly, bruised his rib and is still not able to cough or laugh without intense pain.

In John and Shirley’s all was well and civilised and peaceful and when I rang home on 28th for a little chat, I discovered that all hell had broken loose in Ireland. They were being felled like 9 pins, 9 pins, mes amies. Caitríona was still sick, Dad had relapsed, Seán had succumbed, Rita-Anne had it so bad that Jimmy had to cancel his flight to Cheltenham to see his family, then when it seemed that R-A was well enough for Jimmy to leave, Jimmy was struck down and had to catch the plane, dry-retching and carrying a bag to throw up in. Then Niall got it and had to cancel their New Year family trip to Dunmore East. But worse, far worse than the puking was the cabin fever. There were 10 of them in a house designed for far fewer people and competition for bedspace and puking opportunities was intense. I have it on good authority that they all ‘turned’ on each other. In the midst of it all, my mother and Rita-Anne deserted the place and moved in down the road to my house, where they savoured the peace and quiet and germ-free air with much relish.

Also, oh I totally forgot about this – I LOVE this, this is my very favourite. On Christmas night Luka accidentally drank a bottle of cough mixture (he thought it was Lucozade, which doesn’t make any sense to me) but he had to be forced to drink gallons of water, which made him puke. Also, hasn’t my poor mammy got bad eczema on her hands and she was having to wash millions of ‘soiled’ towels with her poor red cracked hands, (which made me cry.) In one of my phonecalls home I asked how Tadhg was doing, as no-one had mentioned him for a couple of days and there was this startled little pause and they said, “…Tadhg, God, you know, now that you mention him, we haven’t seen Tadhg in a while.” But no-one was particularly worried as it was assumed that his disappearance was drink-related and sure enough, didn’t he turn up in Siam Thai on the evening of the 29th, tucking into a beef curry and acting as if nothing was untoward.

So there we are – is that not impressive? Surely we are deserving of our title Sickest Family in Leinster, Possibly the Whole of Ireland.

So what else? Oh yes! The sales figures for book sales of the year in Britain are in and I’m the 4th best-selling author in the country. JK Rowling is top, then Jed Rubenfeld (a Richard and Judy book) then Kim Edwards (another Richard and Judy book) then ME, (not a Richard and Judy book) with Anybody Out There selling 583,000 copies in paperback. I cannot thank all of you enough, you have been so so lovely to me and I feel like I’ve so many friends and I’m more grateful than I’m able to say. The paperback sales from Penguin alone (they publish me in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada as well as UK) of Anybody Out There top the million mark. I don’t yet have the US figures or translation sales but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of you who bought the book and recommended it and especially those of you who got in touch with me to tell me what you thought. I have always felt so disconnected and alone, but clearly that is no longer the case! Seriously, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. I will endeavour to make sure that you continue to receive the same high standard of reading material with future books!

Listen, do you know Too Faced? It’s a cosmetic/skin-care brand which has just arrived in Ireland and I am SMITTEN. Now you know all about my stance on the pressure put on women to spend tons of money on beauty stuff, but you also know how conflicted I am because sometimes I just fall in love! They have all these… well…sort of beauty gadgets. Like their Lash Injection mascara which they call false-eyelash-in-a-tube and it’s so effective. And a thing called Lip Injection which you put on over your lipstick and it makes you lips all pouty and fat. And they have this DELICIOUS foundation called Magic Wand which looks fresh and light and glowy.

Now for all my friends in the Wicklow area (also South Dublin, I suppose) my friend Teresa Murphy-Moore will shortly be opening a yoga studio in Wicklow town. Details to follow!

So there we are, mes amies, that was December. Now it is January and I’ll be quite honest – and I hope that this doesn’t distress too many of you – I’m not as depressed as I usually am in January and I will tell you what has been working for me for the past few days – I’ve been trying to just get through the day. When I wake up in the morning and I feel the full weight of my life and my existential pain (I’m not sure if I’m mocking myself there or not but I probably am) I think, It’s all very big and heavy and frightening, so I’ll break it down into small small jobs and just do them one after the other. So I think, well first I better get out of bed. And when that monumental task has been achieved, I think, well now I’d better drink my coffee. Then, I’d better brush my teeth (challenging.) And so on. I’m trying to make my life as tiny as possible and to take a tunnel-visiony approach to all that needs to be done. I will get to it, but until it’s time for it to be done, I won’t think about it. Does that make any sense? Also, lists. I love lists (I am after all, a Virgo.) When my head starts racing with all the things I have to do, I write them down and as I very slowly do them, I tick them off. Sometimes, of course, I write down things I’ve already achieved (like, as I said, getting out of bed) just for the pleasure of ticking them off.

I hope I don’t sound patronising. I just know how hard it all is, January is in many ways the toughest month of the year (apart from all the other tough ones.) So keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other and before we know it, it will be Spring and time for the new sandals to be in the shops!

Thank you for reading this.
With lots of January compassion
Marian