Tag Archives: cousins

81. All talk

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So much talking. Our living room filled with family. Oh how we can talk. One conversation, multiple conversations simultaneously. Sometimes quiet intent listening. Sometimes uproarious laughter.

There’s football talk and golf talk. Talk of births and deaths and marriages. There’s politics and the economy and talk of the rising cost of everything from groceries to airport food.

We ask each other about half remembered family stories, piecing them together, sure to forget and likely to have to ask about them again the next time we meet, or the time after that.

The tea flows, and the wine. The plates of ham sandwiches, rhubarb tart, biscuits, cake disappear, and still the talk goes on.

All too soon it’s midnight. The cousins leave, not to be seen for another few weeks or months, having dropped in and lit up our evening.

And still the talk goes on. As we wash up. As we prepare for bed. As we decide to have one more drink. It feels like we won’t ever run out of talk.

53. Blame Colette

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I woke up nineteen hours ago, knowing exactly what I was going to write in today’s blog. It just came to me, fully formed. But then I got up, and worked for the day, and went for a walk along the canal with Mammy and Lily and Mammy’s dogs. And then it was time for rosary in the graveyard – the annual gathering of families at the grave’s of our loved ones. Six of my cousins, Mammy, Lily and me stood around our family grave. Our second and third cousins stood at the neighbouring graves, other neighbours at more distant graves. Fr. Maher led us through a decade of the rosary and blessed the graves with holy water. I got a bit giggly with my cousins. The rosary always brings out the giggles in me, taking me back to nights at home here, kneeling on the sitting room floor, my Nana leading the rosary and my sister and me shaking with stifled laughter over some silliness.

When the priest had finished, I went to say hello to the second and third cousins. Seamus is 92 now, Niamh has just had a baby, Michael is about to become a grandfather for the first time. And then it was back to my own gang and down to our house for tea, sandwiches, cake and biscuits.

I don’t really blame Colette for me not writing the blog I was planning to write today. But she is the ring leader of the chat and the stories and the gossip, and if you thought we’d done all the chatting that needed to be done two nights ago, then you’d be very wrong. We’re a noisy bunch when we get together – talking and laughing, sharing stories, reminiscing, enjoying each other’s company. And then it was close to midnight and time for the cousins to leave. Colette couldn’t find the key to her house, so we thought she was going to end up staying the night, likely sharing the bed with me. She found the key in the end – so we missed that opportunity to relive Christmas nights and holidays of old.

In four weeks’ time we’ll all be back here in the living room again, for more tea and sandwiches and cake and chat and laughter. I can’t wait. I’m going to write today’s blog early tomorrow.