IT'S IN THE GENES

I have been doing my usual rounds of the political blogs using their brains to clarify what I am thinking. They obviously have more access to the hidden ways of government and can make sense of the ramblings of policyspeak. Maybe it's logic, something I haven't been blessed with. Show me a rock and I can tell you what it's composed of, show me a policy statement and get a blank stare. Give me science over politics and philosophy anytime, throw in physics as well, I'm rotten at that.

When I started writing, I intended to be serious about politics and life etc. etc. but humour always seems to be just under the surface, ready to jump out, ringing bells and waving flags. I can't help it, blame genetics.

Our family is hopeless at drama. It's not that we don't try, we've had enough life and death situations to fill a blog. It only takes one snigger and we're all off. Our family motto is "And if we laugh, tis that we may not weep". (Don't comment, I know I changed it)

Scene 1. Mother, stressed to the max by wedding preparations, struggles out of the front door,
down the steps, more struggles with the gate. She struggles on, up the hill, making mental shopping lists until halfway to the shop she realizes she is dragging the vacuum cleaner not carrying a basket. She gracefully turns around and heads home as though hoovering the footpath is something she does regularly. This is the stuff of family legend. The word 'hoover' is enough to rattle her cage for years.

Scene 2. Father in ICU, in a coma. Mother walks in, gasps, clutches my arm saying, "he looks so terrible. I can't believe he's aged so much". I'm puzzled, thinking he looks 100% on the day before until I see she's looking at the WRONG man in the WRONG bed and he is old, somewhere in the region of the late hundreds. That was the finish of the sensitive daughter act.

When cancer finally took him two years later, the Irish wake started in the car on the way to the service. We told so many funny stories about a very funny man and laughed so much we could barely make a dignified entrance.

There have been times when I have been unable to breathe with the uncontrolled laughter my family has generated. Yes, I do plan to post about serious issues on this blog but they'll have to sneak in without me looking or I'll break up, it's in the genes.