And – coincidentally, just like me – he too has had his hair recently de-gingered, because he was looking very blond and Nordic (but small) (but there’s nothing wrong with small, nothing at all). As he led the boys out, his eyes connected with my awestruck ones and he gave me a slow, deliberate wink! (I am afraid this is a complete lie. But I’ve told it so often that I’ve started to believe it myself.)
Then we went for something to eat. And my God, the frozen, unsmiling hostility of it all. You’d swear it was illegal to smile in Slovakia. Indeed, maybe it is! Certainly, enough police were around to enforce it. Frankly, we were astonished by the unpleasantness of the staff. I mean, I admit that Irish people can sometimes be a bit wearing, with their constant chat and bonhomie and desperate desire for the craic, but come on!
Then we went to the grounds, where the warm Slovak welcome continued. There were only two gates for the Irish fans and 279 for the (thirteen) Slovak fans. Tumbleweed was blowing through the Slovak turnstiles but they still wouldn’t let us come in. They directed us (curtly, nay brutally) to the Irish gates, which looked like Red Cross feeding stations in a famine zone. It was really – genuinely – scary.
Although everyone (by which I mean the Irish people, not the granite-faced Slovaks) was really good-humoured, we were so crushed that my feet were lifting off the ground. By the time we got in the national anthems were playing, and there were still loads of Irish people stuck outside in the throng, so they would have missed the start of the game.
However, the less said about the game the better. All that you need to know is that it looked like we were going to win, then we let in a Slovak goal in injury time. Déjà fecken vu! It was Tel Aviv all over again! We were gutted, gutted, gutted! And to enhance our happiness, the Slovaks sent in a load of riot police, who were so obviously itching for a fight.
I’ve never been so insulted in my life! I’ve been to Irish games in lots of countries and never, ever, ever have we been treated like this. Irish fans are nice! Everyone knows that! (Like I say, yes, we can at times be wearing with the anecdotes and the good humour, but coshing people over the head with batons just to shut them up surely isn’t the way to go.)
Then – the final salt in the wound – the Irish fans were locked in – yes, locked in – for fifteen minutes at the end of the match, to let the six Slovak fans home safely (yes, I had originally thought there were thirteen Slovak fans, but seven of them were Irish who had had to buy Slovak tickets because all the Irish ones were sold).
It was a bad business. Doubtless there are many nice Slovakians who spend their days from dawn till dusk laughing their heads off. I am not judging the entire Slovakian nation, only the 417 Slovaks I met. Maybe they were having a bad day. All of them.
In fairness, no wonder it was such a peaceful business when they decided to break away from the Czechs and make their own country. The Czechs must have been delighted! ‘Work away, lads, good luck with it all. No, no – no need to feel guilty, we’ll be grand. We’ll miss you, of course, your little smiling Slovak faces, but we respect that you must do what you must do.’
And of course, out of suffering, great art sometimes comes. So much so that I’ve been inspired to write a pome about my time there. It goes as follows:
Slovakia. Oh Slovakia!
I won’t be going back to ya.
Final little piece on the match and then I’ll shut up about it. Susan and I were both woken in the middle of the night by a very over-refreshed and heartbroken Irish fan shrieking in the street outside our hotel, ‘Staunton. Stauuuuuuuuuuuuntonnnnn!’ (Staunton is the Irish manager.) ‘We know you’re in there! Get down here, you …’ (pause for breath) ‘useless …’ (another pause for breath) ‘GOBSHITE.’ After a short pregnant pause, sounds of ragged sobbing reached me and Susan.
(Himself and Tadhg did not have their slumber disturbed as they were sleeping the sleep of the very drunk. And Niall, of course, did not have his slumber disturbed either, as he was halfway to Budapest on account of the SAS Radisson Bratislava having given his room away to someone else. I’m not bitter. No. I’m only saying.)
Note: I subsequently heard that the reason there were no Slovakian supporters at the match was because they were boycotting it because the ticket prices were so high. Also, that the SAS Radisson Bratislava is not owned by Slovakians, the implication being that if it had been, they wouldn’t have given Niall’s room away.
mariankeyes.com, September 2007.
Donegal
It has been the wettest bloody July I can ever remember, and in the middle of it Himself and myself decided to go to Donegal for a few days, in a strange ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ mentality. Apparently it always rains in Donegal, so if it was going to be wet anywhere, we might as well be there.
Now, I’d never been to Donegal before (neither had Himself, but you’d expect that, what with him being English) and I’d always thought of it as this mad, wild, mystical place, sort of lawless and like a separate country.
When I told people I was going I got two very different reactions. 1) People warned us that it was the worst county in Ireland for ‘bungalow-itis’ and that as soon as you cross the border into Donegal there are loudspeakers placed every four yards, blaring out Daniel O’Donnell songs, twenty-four hours a day, like the way they do with the teachings of your man Kim Il Kim in North Korea. Or 2) people said it was really, really beautiful.
Well, I can report that although there is a good bit of bungalow-itis in some areas, in other areas (the national park) it is utterly stunning and wild and uninhabited and amazing, but sadly not once, no, not once, did I hear the bould Daniel.
The people are extremely friendly and kind, and that beautiful soft, melodic accent! Aye! We got a puncture outside Letterkenny and loads of people came to help and we met some very kindly people in Ulster Tyres who toned down their accent so we could have half a clue what they were saying.
It was so funny, we were on our way to Sliabh Liag (the highest marine cliffs in Europe) and (as always with me) nature called, so we stopped at a tea-house/craft shop called Ti Linn in the middle of nowhere, where it transpired they had beautiful crafts and yokes and I got the itch that I always get on holidays to buy things I’d never buy at home, like cushions and tablecloths.
And while I was browsing, I noticed the place was VERY FULL for a place in the middle of nowhere. Also, at the far end of the room was a table buckling under the weight of finger-food. Because there were many men in suits eating the cocktail sausages, Himself concluded it was the ‘afters’ of a funeral, whereas I thought it was a corporate bonding yoke – that they were about to have their sangers, before climbing Sliabh Liag.
Well, it transpired to be neither! Instead we had gatecrashed the official opening of Ti Linn (even though it has in fact been open for four years – I mean that, I’m not exaggerating) and we fell into a chat with a beautiful woman called Laoise Kelly – who only happens to be one of the best harpists in Ireland – and Steve Cooney, also a well-known musician. Himself was all star-struck because he is a big fan of traditional music. I explained to them that I hadn’t a rasher’s who they were because I only ever listen to George Michael, and they weren’t remotely offended by this and introduced us to Siobhán, the owner of Ti Linn, and before we knew it we were right in the thick of things, eating cocktail sausages for all we were worth and generally having a top-notch time.
mariankeyes.com, July 2008.
Finland/Lapland
One of the jammiest things that ever happened to me was the Guardian sending myself and Himself on a romantic mi
ni-break to Finland/Lapland. Well, it was DELIGHTFUL. The fabulous thing was that we arrived in Helsinki at 6 p.m. on the Friday evening and I assumed all the shops would be closed. However! I was entirely wrong. There were about forty-eight – OPEN! – Marimekko shops, all within touching distance of the hotel, and they were ENORMOUS. The biggest collection of Marimekko merchandise I’ve ever seen. The greatest density of Marimekko merchandise in the smallest radius – it could be in the Guinness Book of Records.
I was suitably restrained, as per my New Year’s resolution, and eventually purchased only two nightdresses and not an entire crate of towels, bedlinen and clothing. Just the two nighties, one a teal and dark-blue stripy item and the other a charcoal-grey with a fruit-bowl pattern. These are what I wear when I work, they are in essence my uniform, so I didn’t feel guilty about buying them.
Then on to Ivalo, the most northern airport in Finland, and there was so much that was beautiful and unusual that I probably won’t be able to do it justice. Basically, it felt like we’d come to colonize a new planet. Because the sun never actually rises during January, the sky was strange and beautiful; it was light, but it was a funny colour, sort of lilac, and there was snow everywhere, which reflected the lilac light, and the clouds looked like huge purple satellites, just hanging above us, and everywhere were endless forests of fir trees.
We stayed in a place called Kakslauttanen and there were log cabins and glass igloos and ice bedrooms scattered throughout a snowy landscape, and while we were there they were building an ice church and an ice restaurant.
Now, I must stress one thing: it was very, very, very cold. It was minus 15 every day, and we had to wear several layers of technical long johns before we could leave our little log cabin. Which was the cutest thing ever. I’d expected it to be – yes, loggy – but also quite grim and functional, but it was soft and comfortable and full of delicious little touches, like a carved heart-shaped table, which was nothing like as kitsch as it sounds, but sort of reminded me of Minnie Mouse’s house in Disneyland (a very, very good thing).
Also, there was a four-poster bed and other furniture which was carved in a way that reminded me of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Yes, delightful!
We did loads of great stuff. We went on a sleigh ride, pulled by reindeers, through a stunningly beautiful snowy forest. (And could have done a similar thing with huskies if I wasn’t so afeerd of dogs.)
We did this mad ice-driving and rally-driving. (Himself LOVED that. In fact he said that although we were having ‘a lovely romantic time’ that this would be a great place for a stag weekend. Yes …) And the best bit of all: a night-time snowmobile trip to see the Northern Lights.
Everyone was at pains to warn us that we probably wouldn’t see them, because they’re not like trained seals, who entertain on demand. But would you credit it, we saw them! It began by looking like pale-green dust swirling above us. But soon it began to form into shapes – one that looked like a flying saucer and another that looked like a bridge and another that looked like a HUGE cathedral hanging in the sky and many more that looked like massive mountain ranges. The more time that passed, the more they appeared – I’ve never in my life seen such awe-inspiring, magical sights.
We also met a delightful Japanese girl called Tamoko Ono, who was there with her husband, who seemed like a Japanese Himself (quiet, supportive). You know when you meet someone and you feel like you’ve met a soulmate, well, that was Tamoko Ono. (We share a love for Marimekko and Hello Kitty, and we are both burdened by being born under the Virgo star sign.) She – being Japanese – had these fantastic disposable heat pads that you put in your gloves or boots or stick to your body and they heat up and keep you from dying of cold. When she and her Japanese Himself left, she bequeathed me her remaining ones. The kindness of strangers …
On our last night we stayed in a glass igloo, the purpose of which is to lie in bed and gaze through your see-through roof at the Northern Lights, but sadly there were no NLs on that night. But it was still fun, sort of like glass camping.
First published in the Guardian, January 2009.
New York
As luck would have it, Himself and I were turfed out of our house in Dublin due to it being riddled with damp and overrun with builders and this coincided with Caitríona’s ‘special birthday’, so we went to New York and rented an apartment for a month because we are lucky, lucky yokes.
The cast of characters was as follows: Mam, Dad, Tadhg, me, Himself, Suzanne from London, Eileen (Eilers) and Siobhán … actually, now that I look at the list it seems very short. It certainly felt like there were lots more of us when we were all together. (I should state that not everyone was staying for the full month – that was only Himself and myself. Everyone else stayed for five days.)
Rita-Anne couldn’t come because of being up the duff, and Tadhg’s fiancée Susan couldn’t come either, and both of these losses came as terrible blows because they are the only sensible ones in the family.
Now, about Siobhán. Siobhán and I have been friends since we were fourteen (her brother was my first boyfriend, and although he dumped me for a posh girl with big knockers, Siobhán and I remained friends). It’s one of those lovely friendships where we have absolutely NOTHING IN COMMON but we still love each other.
She has three really lovely girls and a perfect home and perfect blonde hair and wears pastels without mysterious brown stains appearing on them four seconds after she’s put them on. Nothing at all like me. And yet we are great pals, and Himself and I are godparents to daughter number 3, Emily.
So we all had great fun for five days, then the others went home and Himself and I stayed, and our rented apartment is lovely, especially because unlike most Manhattan apartments it has –yes! – a window, although we had to pay extra for that, and the only fly in the entire ointment is that on our first night here I was woken from my jet-lagged slumber by very, very loud music coming from the apartment next to the one next door.
Then on the second night I was woken from my jet-lagged slumber by very, very loud music coming from the apartment next to the one next door.
Then on the third night I was woken from my sleep-deprived, half-mad slumber by very, very loud music coming from the apartment next to the one next door. The walls were practically pulsing, it was so loud and bassy, but wait till I tell you the most bizarre thing – it was a Cher song! A Cher song remixed so it had a dancey bassline but it still had that stupid, singing-into-a-plastic-pipe wobbly singing bit. Talk about adding insult to injury! If I have to be woken in the middle of the night, I’d at least like it to be by someone good, like George Michael.
There were so many things that were wrong about this Cher song that I hardly knew where to start. I decided that the fact that it was 2.30 in the morning was as good a place as any, so I lurched from my bed, Himself trying to restrain me, out into the corridor – where the music was so loud the ceiling was crumbling – then banged and banged and banged like a maniac on the door of the apartment where Cher was coming from. (Himself, still mostly asleep, was staggering around the bedroom, trying to find a pair of jocks to put on to accompany me.)
Afterwards, when I was telling the story, many people expressed shock and said, ‘But this is New York, people have guns, you could have been killed!’ But the way I was feeling I’d have been delighted to have been shot! I need my sleep. I need an awful lot of it. I can’t function without it.
Eventually a young man with curly, neatly cut hair opened the door, and I nearly went blind from the force of the music, but he didn’t shoot me and instead he found the whole thing wildly funny, which is probably fair
enough, seeing as I was standing there in my nightdress, my hair askew, and sobbing with frustration.
After much negotiation, and pauses for him to writhe with mirth, he agreed to turn the music down. Every night since then, going to bed I’ve been clenched with fear, afraid to go to sleep because I’m terrified of being woken by Cher or worse.
Although I know next to nothing about the Cher-lover, every time I pass his door I stare hard and ‘feel’ him, and my imagination has conjured up all kinds of things, mostly based on the fact that he doesn’t seem to have a job, because his telly is always on in the daytime and he can dance his little hooves off in the middle of the night without any apparent worries about having to get up for work in the morning.
Also, his apartment has a window, so he’s clearly no stranger to the finer things in life, like natural Manhattan daylight. So where is he getting the money from? From his rich daddy, is my (admittedly baseless) conclusion.
Now and again he gets late-night visitors (other nicely turned-out young men) who bang on his door and say, ‘Yo! Open up, man!’ and I lie in my bed and curl my lip and repeat, ‘Yo!’ with great scorn, because the young man is very young (about fifteen) and his haircut is most definitely not the haircut of a ‘Yo!’ kind of person.
Strangest of all, New York is a really noisy city, but I’ve no problem being woken by police sirens or cars beeping or disembodied voices shrieking, ‘You didn’t do that, motherfucker, you DID NOT DO THAT!!!!’ But still, a teenage youth who likes nothing more harmless than dancing around his apartment to Cher in the middle of the night can reduce me to lunacy.