It amazes me that for most of the holidays I was up early(ish) and raring to get the day started. But getting back to work? Like a eight month baby being woken up from a nice nap. But I will slowly ease myself back into things today. Should have took the rest of this week off though…
 
Anyway! It was a good break. Christmas spent in the country. Roaring fires and too much food and wine. Great craic all round. New Year was still up in the air a little. Trying to decide what we would do. Potentially head to Galway maybe? But then I managed to get tickets to see the Dubliners the day before and some of our friends were going so that was the pre-NYE plan.  Brilliant time was had by all but far too much drink was taken so MBH and myself died a slow death for most of NYE. Very rock and roll – not.
 
So 2012 is upon us. I don’t do resolutions. If I wanted to change something why wait until now? It is a nice natural break though. It’s the start of the Calendar year, Financial year (near enough) and almost everybody disappears for a week or so.
 
2012 should be a very interesting year though. We plan to buy a house for sure. I think the market in Ireland has sufficiently crashed enough to start looking seriously at it. I’ve spent the past 3 or 4 years saying to friends “Nope I will not be buying a house. Nope I’m not mad, just see” now some of them are in a pretty horrible state. I don’t envy them and part of me does feel a lot of sympathy, but dear me nobody forced the money (mortgage) down their throats and they didn’t have to pay so bloody much for apartments. The analogy I got bored of using was it was very much like ‘The Emperors New Clothes‘, everybody seemed to just lose their sanity and go with the flow. But to give you some sense of the madness, estimates are that house prices have fallen on average 50%. So those that bought apartments (which will be last to recover) for €400-500k (was possible honest) have lost at least €200,000 on it’s value and that’s not going to recover for a while yet. I have friends in that position trying for their first baby – and the one bedroom ‘luxury’ apartment they mortgaged themselves up to the eyes for doesn’t seem so cool now that they want to start a family.  Especially when they see three and four bedroom houses close to them going for €300k.
 
Feckin politicians and bankers. Everybody lost their heads but damn I’d love to see someone going to jail for this mess.
 
But thankfully we aren’t in that situation. So I’m looking forward to that little bit of stress come Spring/Summer time.
 
On the subject of families, a GIANT ticking clock has suddenly moved into our house over the past few months. Good Lord but it’s loud and incessant. I also have a suspicion it’s packed with high explosive so if I don’t defuse it I’ll be maimed! MBH has decided that two must become three soon. She also has a look in her eyes that says ‘This is not to be messed with’. We’ve had this kind of conversation a couple of times over the years … but that look … in her eyes … that’s some prehistoric reptilian brain shite there – not to be messed with.
 
I’ve never been adverse to kids. Just a lot of travelling when I was a younger fella meant they didn’t come along. I took a quiet moment the other morning with a cup of coffee while MBH was still snoozing and looked around our place with new eyes. Jayzuz but this house and my lifestyle are entirely NOT child friendly. everything is sharp, breakable or just entirely inappropriate. Also, long day at work? Only Whisky, butter and a bit of cheese left in the house and can’t be arsed to fight through Tesco for groceries? That’s cool we’ll go out to eat and have a nice bottle of wine. NOT gonna happen with Children about. Difficult few weeks at work? Fuck it we’ll take a long weekend next week and shoot off to Kerry, or Paris or Rome for a bit of a break. That’ll come to a grinding stop. Sheesh I’ll have to look for child friendly hotels rather than ones with good bars. I have no idea what a child friendly hotel is … never been in one.
 
But. It’s seriously all good. MBH and myself have been together for a long time now and still laugh together nearly every day. We’ve both done all we want to do from a career point of view mostly. It’ll be a new adventure, and I think MBH would be absolutely awesome as a Mother.
 
Good grief it’s going to be an interesting year.