How to give advice on the internet without being an utter menace

So well written, true and funny. Thanks Zoe

Another angry woman

If you don’t think you need to read this post because you’re always giving Good, Helpful Advice as a Good, Helpful Citizen, this one is for you. I’m sure you probably mean well, but it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that you’ve likely annoyed the hell out of someone at some point or another. Probably more than once. Maybe it’s a regular pattern of behaviour. This post is for you.

And if you’ve ever been in that situation where all you wanted was to make a funny post on the internet about your cat drinking water from the toilet, to be deluged with links to cat fountains and lists of various germs that may or may not live in a toilet, this post is for you, too. Just leave the link there.

Here is a guide to reply menace behaviour, and how to just not…

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Grateful Day 4

1. My family
2. My friends
3. My pets
4. People who make me laugh
5. Finding out friends are praying for me is lovely
6. Christine and The Queens
7. John Lydon’s Eurovision entry for Ireland
8. Birthdays

It’s late and I’m on the radio in a couple of hours so I’ll hope to write more later dear reader. Thanks for taking the time as always. It’s is very much appreciated

Day 3

Okay what am I grateful for today 

1. I’m alive and feeling a lot healthier today than I have in quite some time. No vertigo today so that’s a good outcome. 

2. Thankful for a good night’s sleep which is something I used to have always but sadly escapes me most nights now. 

3. Grateful for friends I bumped into at last night’s show. Aisling, Mark and Richard were also at the show. We said hello to Terry too at the break.  

4. Grateful for our friend who looked after Jennifer. 

5. Grateful I don’t have to beg to get out when I go out and that I’m not quizzed or huffed with when I get home.  

6. Grateful that I’m doing this a good friend has said if I continue to write it will heal. It just pours out of me, and I probably do need to get a point but it’s meandering just like me.  

7. My dogs are a joy mostly, but boy does it take some getting used to when my little one (Toy Poodle) yaps continually. He’s so funny so that can make you forgive him anything.  

8. Heat, food, lighting you forget that these things are not readily available to many and the ‘heat or eat’ is a real problem for so many with right wing Tories on both sides of the border in power and no interest on taxing their mates.  

9. I’m grateful to a family that live down the street from us and on Halloween 2021 the skies had opened, and they saw us standing on the pavement outside their house and invited us to stand under their awning to watch the fireworks. Big up William Street residents. 
10. My little one is going through puberty now so even though I’m grateful that she is here every single day I am sad that she has to go through the shitshow that is growing up. 

Sometimes I’m grateful when I can feel my Mum’s guiding hand. It’s still weird not to have her to talk to or to ask this that or the other to.  

Mum had been told very little about procreation or how it happens that a woman has a baby. As a young teenager when she went to help babysit her sister’s children in Scotland, she got the wonderful sex education of ‘Keep your skirt down!’ from my Granny. She made sure when I was old enough that I knew all the facts of life, so it wasn’t a horrific surprise when things happened or changed within me or my appearance 

She was an endlessly curious child and woman and read voraciously as she had taught herself to read by reading comics. A trick she passed onto me when I was teaching my daughter to read when she was little.  

Her school life was so miserable that it was just dodge the teacher every day and don’t bring his attention anywhere near you or you were getting punched or belittled. Mostly the parents kept voting for him as he was a TD and they could get him away from the school for periods of time unless he lost an election, and the school children were going to suffer his wrath.  

Mum was a lively and friendly child but painfully shy. She never wanted the spotlight to be on her and couldn’t stand it if she were the topic of conversation at home or elsewhere. It’s a crying shame because she was so funny. Her deadpan reaction to situations cracked most people up including me. She wondered how I ended up in the profession that I did. I was particularly shy as a kid too. 

Her closest relation was seven or eight years older than her, and she was the youngest of six. When she was born, she was an embarrassment as her mother was forty one and much too old to be having a child. Her adult brother came to my Great Granny’s house to see when my Granny was coming back home to cook dinner/tea and clean up and my Granny said look at your little sister. They had made up a bed for her in a big drawer of the chest of drawers. He refused to even look at her. So later when he married his wife and he never had children. My granny said, ‘The Lord Moves in mysterious Ways!’ As soon as Granny got home, she moved into her own room and My Granda and her never shared a room again. I can’t get over the fact that my mother’s birth was a source of SHAME. I’m sorry she had to live through that and sadly kept that memory her whole life through. Funnily enough I was a geriatric mother too so there!  

It’s late dear reader and I know you need your rest.  

Yes, and one more thing I’m GRATEFUL for is you. Thanks for your time and imagination and wonderful support. Go raibh maith agaibh.  

Day 2

Hello there again,

I’m frankly bowled over by the love and kindness I have been shown from my first gratitude post yesterday. Taken aback a bit too as I didn’t even thing anyone would want to read it let alone comment on it.

Today I start again with things in the past and present I am grateful for. Still grateful for Mum and I do carry her with me wherever I go.

1. My activism let to a lovely get together last night to celebrate ‘Nollaig na mBan’ (Women’s Christmas) and in turn to get to meet some of the legends who were there at Alliance For Choice Derry’s party in The function room a city centre bar. Such craic was had by all and the food was delicious. Great to see Goretti, Anita, Nina, Sha, Sophia, Bethany and so many more. Much done and much still to do.
2. Mairtin gave me a lift home and I’m eternally grateful as it’s tough to get a cab in this city after 11pm.
3. I’m grateful of taking the time to put on my make up so I look better than normal when I’m out and about. Mum was endlessly glamourous when she went out and couldn’t understand how I would run on after dragging a comb across my head. I did find a brilliant beautician in the city centre a few months before Christmas so I’m grateful for Tara and Rosaire who has done wonders with my hair getting me the highest bouffaint going.
4. I’m delighted to have quiet in the house for a wee while as baby gal and daddy are visiting my MIL since yesterday.
5. Really looking forward to seeing Jake O’Kane and Terry McHugh in the Theatre tonight. They are always so funny.
6. I’m delighted to be coming close to doing my radio show again on Tuesday morning as even when I mess up the sliders etc I have a ball and the lovely listeners are endlessly supportive. I suppose my show isn’t political other than that I do try to put on music I like and support bands/singers/shows that are not connected to big business as well as peppering it with some of the charts from the 1970s onwards.
7. I’m grateful to where the music takes me. The first song I remember is a song called Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road. Mum told me as a baby I rolled everywhere. I gave her many heart attacks as I rolled at a great speed and corners were no barrier to me. We had large sideboard cabinet that I was always underneath???? Everytime I went under it I did something to make it tip forward but when it fell I was always safe as I was trapped in the triangle of space I fitted into and never hurt.
8. I’m grateful for falling asleep on the couch/floor/whereever and mum carrying me to my bed.
9. I’m grateful for all the books Mum read to me and the love of literature that it encouraged in me. Mum never banned any books that I read. Scratched her head at some but was well you could be doing worse.
10. I’m grateful I got the book ‘The Cucumber King’ by Christine Nostlinger from the internet as I remember it as an hilarious book and look forward to J’s review when she does read it.
11. Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman’s autobiographies were amazing and I read them right after my mum did. Lauren Bacall’s book ‘By Myself’ stayed with me.
12. I must be an old romantic as I read The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller in one night. Absolutely loved it and was heartbroken at the conclusion. Less fond of the movie even though I love Meryl Streep.
13. The Ice Storm by Rick Moody was wonderful but I had to read it doubly fast as it was released as a movie right after I bought it. I loved the movie too.
14. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough was amazing and heartbreaking and epic. When I got into the book I couldn’t leave it down until I finished it.
15. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks was another I couldn’t leave down until I have read it cover to cover. I reckon the movie was better cast.
16. I, an actor by Nicholas Craig (actually written by Nigel Planer) fecking hilarious and so inspired to anyone who is an actor or has acting on their horizon.
17. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold was another page turner and so gripping. Beautiful idea and also so damned sad. Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci were amazing in the movie but I still prefer the book.
18. Knight Errant by Robert Stephens. Wonderful biography and written by the fine actor and poignant and funny and he was such a likeable cad.

I’m so grateful to have my family, friends and dogs.

Kiss/Hug and tell the ones you love that you do as you never know when the day will come they are no longer there for you to talk to.

Again I’m not sure if this was the proper kind of a gratitude writing but hey I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Here Goes….

Well hello there, 

How are you doing? I’m not sure what I’m doing writing this but I shall try. I’m trying to give myself a break and see the good that is in my life at the moment. As a person who is a survivor of (or living with) cancer I feel It’s time I wrote stuff down. 

Things I am grateful for

1 My family especially my daughter and my partner, also my sister and my little nephew and our two wonderful dogs.

2. My friends of whom there are so many dotted across the world and in Stroke City as I write.  What a bleak outlook without you guys n gals. Especially to the ones who reach out to help when they can. You are so appreciated even if you think you are not. 

3. The ability to laugh and to make others laugh. I know going down a dark route that when laughter dries up I’m in a bad place. 

4. My darling Mum Isabella. 3rd Christmas without her and it’s still so darn tough but when in happier moments I’m grateful for her being my Mum and doing all she could to keep us on the right track and our heads above water. Mainly without too much help from her family and the auld boy alienated most of her friends too so they stayed away.

5. My activism has helped me out in so many ways. As the mother of a girl I know that our rights still stink in certain areas and mostly I am hopeful as to the effect it has on our country even though governments are trying to ban peaceful protest. 

6. My music. It lifts me and it makes life bearable. I do have to stop doing a ‘Homer Simpson’ though, when I use it to distract me from what’s in front of me. 

7. Hand in hand with that is my presenting a radio show on http://www.drive105.co.uk on Tuesday mornings from 10am to 1pm GMT I’m so grateful to all the great teachers I’ve had in there especially @Victor, Kevin and in the early days Dessie for helping me out.  A wonderful gang indeed and I was proud to train with Rosie too She’s amazing. 

8. My ability to see beauty most of the time when I’m not in the dark murky corridors of depression. 

9. Comedy and comedians – personal friends and well know comedians. Bridget Christie, Cynthia Levin, Fern Brady, Leannne Toland, Julie McColgan, Sorcha Shanaghan, Wendy Blemings, Gemma Walker Farren, Constance Jordan,  Frank Rafferty, Darren McCay. Special thanks to Rory McSwiggan for keeping comedy alive in Stroke City with The Chicken Box Comedy Club. 

10. My skewed way of looking at things are sometimes the main way I get through. I make folks laugh and myself with my weird reasoning at times. I have my own ideas about where that comes to and that’s not in need of going into now. 

11. Derry Well Woman, The Women’s Centre and of course the staff at the Altnagelvin and my own surgery in the City Centre. Everyone who has helped me along my journey. 

12. Advice North West are amazing and Marie has been our champion for the last several years. To all the community hubs that are there to help good on you all. 

I don’t know if this is the right thing to write as this is just starting but thank you dear reader and if you’d like to subscribe please do.