Wry Vita - Marion Ryan's personal blog - blog designer, business coach, lawyer of attraction and good-enough mum

Lovely Cows and Old Cows

Almost involved in a multi-cow pile-up today.

Do you know I have developed a little soft spot for cows?  I know, I know,they don't appear to have that much going for them.  Less cute than a sheep, less graceful than a horse, less quirky than a pot-bellied pig.  But they have an accepting placidity about them that makes me want them to know they are loved all the same.

I live slap bang in the middle of two farms.  The farmer to the left maintains a cow from the other side attacked him earlier this year and tossed him into the air but that hasn't put me off.  One has to wonder what his business was in someone else's field.  No witnesses either, beyond the largely silent ones who are saying nothing.  Just an occasional moo.

Anyway, the school run involves a fifteen minute drive along empty country roads and the school adjoins a large dairy farm with around 200 cows.  I know the number because they take a very long slow walk from the milking sheds to the fields, then back, at least twice a day. 

To do this, their path takes them across the lane that leads up past the lake and the swans to the back of the school.  And often, if my journey coincides with theirs, I have to sit and watch a very very long line of them slowly make their way in one direction or the other.  One is always looking for a gap in the cows, much like looking for the gap in the traffic in any urban rush hour - just without the 'rush' bit.

Friday, however I suffered my first incident of bovine rage - only this bovine had two legs.

Playing Headlight Chicken

You know it's September when  you see once gloomy, slump-shouldered parents looking cheerful once more, whistling a chirpy tune and bouncing along with a spring in their step.

Not that we don't enjoy the end of summer term -- knowing that for several weeks we are freed from the misery of early wake-up calls, locker key search parties and Sunday night uniform washes.  But come September, we are more than ready to kiss their sweet-smelling cheeks goodbye (metaphorical kisses for some of our 13 yr olds) and pack them off for five whole days each week to wrestle with Caesar, the Irish language and their classmates.

There are two types of parents.  Wry Vita now operates an equal opportunities policy and anti-paternal propaganda is no longer tolerated otherwise we would be saying what we mean - There are two types of Mothers:  Those who are out buying the new school uniforms before the old year has even broken up and those who are dashing into town the afternoon before the new term begins to pick up a replacement school tie and to wander hopelessly through bedraggled racks of trousers, vainly hoping to pick up even one pair of trousers that might almost be the right size and colour.

No clues for guessing what type I am.  I'm proud to be a member of the second group.  Just-in-time parenting -- just-in-time living actually -- suits me fine.  Or it would if I could rely on my pack to keep their part of the bargain.

My Life Story. Volume 27, Section B, Chapter 51

I decided this evening I'm going to write my life story and be damned.  My life is far too rich, varied and bedazzling to keep it to myself any longer. 

When my book is written I shall have to give away two or three chapters to whet the world's appetite and the events of today will probably be one of the teaser passages.  Such a lot has happened:

• I had a cheese and onion sandwich for lunch.  No ordinary onion.  This one was plucked from the rich Kildare earth of one of my best pals and I think it must honestly have been the most outstanding onion I've ever eaten in my life.  I'm cursing myself I didn't take a picture of it as I take pictures of everything.  You don't believe me so here's a recent photo to demonstrate that no object is too banal for my lens.  What we have here is a section of my wheelie bin with a rain-bejewelled spider's web decorating the side.

  When I write the book I'll explain what made the onion so extraordinary but for now I have to move straight onto the next event of the day.