Irishisms, Part 1
Here are some phrases of note.

to give out—to scold; (Aus. coll.) to tell someone off.
"you're codding me"—"you're not serious"; "you must be joking".
"lookit"—"see here". Usually used at the start of an explanatory sentence.
"ehm"—"umm"; "er"; "uhh".

I went out for a drink after work with some of my workmates, and I learnt that, apparently, Guinness tastes differently, depending on the pub in which you partake of the ale.

Also, that there is no need to apply for a busking licence in Ireland (unlike in Hobart and, quite likely, in the whole of Australia), because there is a long tradition of busking here. Why did I want to know about a busking licence in Dublin? Because I was toying with the idea of performing my poems. But how serious am I?

I start an (unpaid) internship at The Dubliner (a locally-produced glossy mag with aspirations) this week, during my days off from the bookshop. It should prove edifying, but I am distinctly unimpressed by the lack of money to fund me. Hmm.

As one might expect from working in a bookshop, I am suddenly adrift with choice. Here are some books I've read recently:
• Cold Comfort Farm by Stella somebody-can't-remember-her-last-name—very amusing. Shades of Austen.
• Fingersmith by Sarah Waters—also quite good. Dickens atmosphere with a feminine twist.
• The Photograph by Penelope Lively—a skilled rendition of an character whom we never get to actually meet.
• Conditions of Faith by Alex Miller—something not quite satisfying about this novel, although it is evocative. Here's a passage from it. A supporting character, Antoine speaks on adultery:

'We don't recover... We get over the loss we've suffered. We learn to live with it. But we never recover our innocence. Our betrayal remains a sweet wound with us for the rest of our days. We did not know what we were doing. But the betrayal makes hypocrites of us all the same. we never believe again...not with that pure clarity of belief. After our first passion has failed us, there remains a shadow at the edge of all our desires.'

• Electricity by Victoria Glendinning—almost finished this book. Quite good, too, if quasi-feminist in tone.
• The Gift by David Flusfeder—just started this one. Looks good so far.

Another day off tomorrow. No plans apart from planning our meals and food-shopping for the week, as well as taking our second bite of the movie, Chicago (the first outing on Saturday being aborted by one of the patrons pitching an epileptic fit, thirty minutes in. The lights were turned on, an ambulance called and we all filed out. Mark and I had been enjoying it up until then).

Daylight saving today. An extra hour of sunshine is a just reward, methinks.

Ivy's Day Off
I don't have as much time, now that I'm a little money-earner and all, to blog about the sands that run through the hourglass. Although I am looking forward to tomorrow, as it's my day off.

Much missed at the moment is reading my poems out. That antsy feeling of actually needing to stand in front of an audience and speak out my poems is building and building. An outlet is needed and soon.

Baby-makers
At the bookshop I work in, I am assigned sections that I look after, which entails ordering or re-ordering stock. My sections are Health, Self-Help, Baby and Childcare, Humanities, Business and Biography. Needless to say, I know virtually nothing about these matters. In particular, Baby and Childcare.

Okay, I may have salvaged some knowledge during my bookshop time in Hobart, Tasmania, but not really, not enough to make me an expert. I guess now's as good a time to learn.

Anyway, Baby and Childcare. All I have to say is, what is it with these Irish folk? All my other sections are veritable turtles compared to the runaway rabbit that is Baby and Childcare. The books that talk about pregnancy, antenatal care, toddler-dom (imagine a kingdom of toddlers!) and what to name your baby—these fly out the door, seemingly as soon as they're put on the shelves.

I am astonished.

There must be a lot of baby-makers out there. Is it because there are not a few Catholics in the national mix, I wonder? Hmm. Well, one of the sub-sections is a Sex section, which deals with all manner of amatory delights. Maybe I should think about beefing it up. Though I don't think anybody around here needs any encouragement.

I had a really nice day off on Sunday. And the sun was out, too. So nice of it to oblige me. Mark and I chilled out in our backyard with a mini-picnic, eating cold chicken, cheeses, crackers, a sliced tomato, lettuce and strawberries, washed down with some cans of cider and glasses of sweet orange juice. We listened to the radio and absentmindedly waited for the washing to dry on the line. It felt like we were back in the backyard we had in West Hobart, in which we lived in a bijoux of a flat.

The sunsets have been something to see of late. Giant blurred-edge tangerines melting into the horizon.

A well-lit dusk
Because I work, sometimes it's difficult for me to see beyond the walls of the shop. Today, I managed some sunshine, cool breezes and grass underfoot.

Mark and I met for lunch, and wandered over to St Stephen's Green, a park-like area near the center of the city. A lot of people had the same thought. Everything was pleasant. The pigeons were fed, so that when I threw one a piece of my bread, it wasn't too greedy for it. Likewise, the ducks in the pond. A faint hyacinth scent wafted by occasionally.

It was a good lunch.

We caught the bus home early enough that I could actually see out the windows, towards rambling views through the treetops from my vantage-point at the top of the double-decker. Most mornings and evenings of late, fog has obscured and shrouded everything, giving one's outlook a certain otherworldly eerieness.

I had steak for the first time in a long while tonight. It was absolutely delish. The gravy and mashed potatoes made perfect plate-side companions. Sometimes, comfort food is all right.

Green
Okay, a word of warning. St Patrick's Day is huge over here. Absolutely chock-full of tourists. Wall-to-wall madness in the form of loony costumes and ubiquitous Irish paraphernalia (is it just me, or is everyone over the 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' stickers?).

It's the day after, thank goodness. So much milder. The morning fog has blanketed everybody's thoughts.

What hangovers there must be in the city of Dublin today.

Birth
A beautiful, if chill, spring day. It's my day off today. Working tomorrow for St Paddy's Day.

It's my birthday! Got daffodils (stolen!), tulips (bought) with a travel journal from the people at work, and a bottle of Bailey's from Mark. Also assorted messages from my mother and sister.

Just a slow, cruisy day. One by one, a wasabi pea crunches in my mouth.

So good to be alive.

Daffodils
Yellow nodding rings around the trees, a trail of butter-coloured drops meandering in the grass, tossed into a dancing frenzy by the passing traffic—the daffodils are out with their best finery.

I long to stop the bus when I see them, go out with a pair of scissors and cut, cut, cut. Take them home, put water in vase and feel them emanate their yellowness into the room.

The wind is sharp tonight as I walk home.

Accountable
I finally got a bank account! It's unbelievable the bureaucratic hoops through which one must jump (how grammatically correct I am). But this means I can finally get paid, as well as not get taxed at the Emergency Rate (40%!). Madness.

One of the best things about working at a bookshop is that I can be current again, and not feel as if I've dropped into an uncultured hole without recourse to good reading material. Plus the perks of the job are pretty cool (free books from the staff library shelf) and a staff discount (not as good as the one in Hobart, but still decent). Hurray for free books and discounts!

You can tell I'm feeling chirpy again.

One bit of news I've had recently is that my brother's had a baby boy. So I'm an auntie. Hmm, Auntie Ivy seems strange to me. Sounds so old-fashioned.

There are a lot of worms on the footpath to my bus stop—crinkled, fleshy-pink wrigglers, they come out in the evening and are stranded by morning. 'The earth must be so rich', I said to Mark on the bus, on the way home from work today.
'Why?'
'There's a lot of worms.'
'I hadn't noticed.'
'I have. It must be because I'm closer to the ground.'

Wellness
I felt really clumsy today. This tends to happen when I am sick. It's probably to do with being off-balance and my inner ear being affected by the flu, but that's just a private theory. Anyway, I cut myself twice at work. First on a papercut (yowtch!), then on goodness-knows-what. And I had another near-miss with a Stanley knife.

Today was a day for not getting out of bed for fear of chopping one's own head off. Inadvertently.

It takes half-an-hour by bus to get into Dublin city centre from Lucan, County Dublin, which is where I live. And Saturday morning isn't usually what I'd term peak-hour. Okay, must remember to allow forty minutes.

In sports news, Ireland won against France in the rugby. Go Ireland!

Mark and I found a place!

It's about half an hour's drive (goodness knows how far it is by bus) from the middle of town.

Our friend from Hobart is also staying with us. A million and one huzzahs I have a place to lay my head, and that I can concentrate on saving some money, and finally feel purposeful. Now it's time to take this place by storm.

Where do I start?

On the foreheads of people I pass, sooty-gray marks, some thumbed on, others in the shape of crosses. Today is Ash Wednesday. People ask, 'What are you giving up for Lent?'

I see Mark today. Unfortunately, I am not feeling 100%. Hopefully, I'll feel better soon. The room I've stayed in for the last two nights was previously occupied by a smoker. From the smell of it, the person would have been a chain-smoker, too. For some reason, I've had a morning (smoker's?) cough. Maybe I'm suffering from delayed passive smoking.

St Patrick's Day is coming up soon. I expect to see a few people dressed up as leprechauns.

I'm a little shocked at the moment. I've just come away from some Irish sunshine (rare, I know), strolled along the Grafton Street pedestrian area, and witnessed a horse-and-carriage operator punch his horse in the neck. So I wrote a letter to the Dublin City Council and the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. My hope is that, in bringing this to their attention, licences would only be allocated to responsible animal-owners.

Is this a pipe-dream? Am I being naive? I feel the answers are 'yes' and 'yes'. But I really wanted to do something about it. My next course would be to bring it to the attention of the press, I guess. I know something about pushing the media's buttons, anyway, so it might do some good.

This state of shock reminds me of something I hadn't yet set down here. I lost my wallet early on this week.

You know how when something bad happens, everything telescopes to an intense feeling of immense wrongness? That was how it was. In the midst of my bureaucratic errand-doing, walking down the street to the place next on my list, I reached down to my pocket and found what I needed just. wasn't. there.

Frantic, I ran. I ran back to all the places I had been. I was out of breath, sweaty and panicked. I ran to the police, then I ran to another police station. Distraught is the only word I could babble out to describe what I was feeling.

Mark rang, after I wished a million times for him to ring me. I cried in the middle of the street, as passers-by passed me by.

Then, when I went back to the hostel, at the counter, held aloft casually, like it was not a good chunk of my life, was my wallet, cards intact, €50 and some stamps missing. Relief thundered around me. I had to sit down, disbelieving.

My boomerang wallet, returned to me by a postman in the three hours I ran around Dublin's streets like a maddened chicken.

It's interesting to spot the differences between working at this bookshop and the ones with which I've had experience in Hobart. Here, it is more relaxed, less strict and there's a camaraderie about it all.

I quite like it, though it feels strange to not be on my toes all the time.

Mark gets here on Wednesday and I can't wait.

Been feeling a bit abbreviated these entries. Mostly attributable to ... not sure. I don't really feel expansive when I don't have my own space to write in. What thoughts can I put down except feeling irked by the dirty keyboard I'm typing on, the feeling that I might get smoked out by anyone who cares to light a cigarette, keeping my eye on the clock so that I can save a precious Euro?

I'm also hungry, which usually increases my irritation.