Every cloud has a silver lining...

I have a reputation for breaking cars. I have broken around five at the last count, not including the one that burst into flames as that was beyond broken, it was annihilated.
All these cars had ‘problem clutches’. When the first clutch went it was put down to faulty mechanics, when the second and third cars developed clutch problems the husband suspected something was amiss. The fourth and fifth time he took completely different cars to the garage he refused to listen to the mechanic who said the problem was not car-related, more woman-driver related. But the husband finally took notice was when the fireman - who was putting out the blaze in our sixth car - commented that the smoke smelled much like a burning clutch and that he was also married to a bad driver.
The husband told me that from that moment on, I was forbidden to operate any type of machinery more complicated than a vacuum cleaner.
Only problem is we have had several ‘problem vacuum cleaners’ in the years since and I fear I might be demoted to 'not touching anything more complicated than a remote control'. At last count I have broken nine of vacuum cleaners. I blame the enormous amount of dust and dirt four children and a dog accumulate. The poor vacuums just couldn’t cope. The husband thinks that I am killing them.
He had bought an industrial stand-up cleaner from a well-known DIY store not three months ago. It was a superb piece of machinery with so many pipes, buttons, settings and fittings it would have put a Nasa Space Shuttle to shame. In fact the only thing it didn’t do was space missions – at least I don’t think it did, I really must read the instruction booklet again.
So at the weekend I did the usual sweep of the house with the vacuum, dragging it around the rooms and bumping it up the stairs, shoving it under chairs, stretching the lead to breaking point to fit around corners. And then I heard the familiar bang and saw the standard puff of smoke rising from the thing.
I informed the husband that another vacuum had bitten the proverbial dust and blamed the sheer volume of work it, and therefore I, had to do for the malfunction.
There was much shaking of heads, much tutting and loud and theatrical exhalations from the husband as he tried to fix the thing. Then there was a knock at the door. It was an electricity man informing us that due to a persistent fault somewhere in the vicinity the electric supply would have to be switched off for a few hours in our street. I could tell by the husband’s face he wanted to confess to the electric man that it was probably my serial murdering of vacuum cleaners that was causing said persistent problems, but he bit his lip.
So at 2.30pm the X-box fell silent, the Internet could not longer be accessed, the TV was blank. We sat there in silence for a time, my family and I, staring at the blank TV screen, unsure of what exactly to do in this rarest of rare situations.
Our family, having been stripped of the things which crave our attention day in day out, were forced to talk to one another.
So we talked, and we laughed and we took bits off the condemned vacuum cleaner and made things from them. I made a space-age hat with a hose pipe and a curtain cleaner attachment; the husband made a very impressive rocket propelled grenade launcher from the main body of the machine; my boys made science-fiction-style guns with poles and filters.
And I remembered why all the people in that room were my most favourite people on this earth.
Thank you NIE.

Calm house of chaos 2012

There’s a book somewhere in my house containing instructions on how to stay calm. It contains nice quotes and ways to instil harmony to your home and life.
One quote stands out for me. It’s that one’s personal space is a reflection of one’s mind. It should be orderly, beautiful, and presentable. If I could find that book amongst the mess in my home I could dazzle you with inspiration.
I thought about this ‘tidy house, tidy mind’ ethos when I surveyed my living room last night at 9.30pm, just after by children retired for the evening. Readers, I would have taken a picture of the scene if I thought your delicate eyes could handle the terror. My offspring had left what looked like the horrific aftermath of a fabric and spaghetti-based tornado.
Bits of debris, in the shape of hooded tops and t-shirts were strewn all over the floor. The Christmas tree had been bombarded with worn socks and there was a selection of underwear hanging from frames and ornaments on the fireplace.
The baby’s highchair had a two-meter zone of discarded spaghetti bolognaise around it and two of my lovely sofa throws lay on the rug disguising a milk/cereal puddle. The floor was a minefield of plastic toys and guns that kill not with bullets but by causing you to slip and fracture your skull on tiled floors.
And for comedy effect there was a pair of boy’s trousers dangling from the light fitting.
Every evening when my offspring go to bed I have a ritual.
1. I stand at the door of my living room and I survey the damage. I sigh dramatically. On alternate days I place my hand on my head in a theatrical fashion.
2. I ask the husband what could have possibly happened to create such an awful mess. He shrugs his shoulders and extends bottom lip, flops on sofa and takes ownership of the remote.
3. I begin a clean up operation, which lasts 20 minutes (approx), stand back and admire my work. I sigh contentedly.
4. I walk to the kitchen and repeat instructions from number 1.
I do the same ritual three or four times a day.
I spend far too many hours cleaning and tidying my house and it never seems to make any sort of impact.
I’m not a total clean freak but when I tidy one room another messes itself in my absence. My children are incapable of moving anything from A to B without spilling some manner of liquid or substance all over the floor – the aftermath of fashioning a bowl of cereal requires industrial cleaning.
I now work from home all day. I’ve started a 24/7 news website for Derry www.newswireni.com, if you’re interested. That means I work for up to 16 hours a day. In between working I clean and answer the many whims of my many children. There seems to be very little time for trivialities such as sleeping or eating. In reality it’s not the mess that is driving me crazy, it’s the constant cleaning.
I visited a woman’s house recently I didn’t know very well. She has five boys. As we went into her living room I saw the familiar writing on the wall, smudges on the window, TV bolted to the unit for safety, door handles broken, light switches coloured in with multi-coloured markers. I wanted to hug her, tell her I was a fellow mother of unruly, although quite impressively artistic, children. Over the sound of her youngest son clanging the remote control on a heater I wanted to swap stories of children breaking windows with projected shoes or plugging sinks and turning on the tap to see what happened. But she seemed oblivious to the noise, content in the chaos. I wanted to know her secret but I couldn’t hear her over the sound of one of her sons roaring into the karaoke microphone he had received as a gift from Santa.
I left that house vowing to be more like her in 2012 – content, accepting of the mess my children create, calm in the chaos.