Budget 2018 has begun but I’ll worry about financial health in ‘18 Lord Peregrine Bletheringsop and the most sorrowful of mysteries
I’VE been partying like there’s no tomorrow lately. After years in the social doldrums my social calendar - which has up until recently been occupied only by children’s party afternoon dates - is now full to capacity.
The opera festival in Wexford town filled three weekends, fulfilling my cultural needs for a year. The highlight for me was the Spiegeltent where I got to enjoy several shows including the shock and awe comic Reginald D Hunter, the at times brilliant set piece comedic trio of Foil, Arms & Hog, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott of The Beautoful South and last, but not least, Bosco.
Performed in a tent straight out of the 1920s Weimar Republic, complete with mirrors and a disco ball, many a great night was had with friends partying away through the night. The Speigeltent has added considerably to what is a fantastic time of year in wonderful Wexford. Between the Singing Pubs competition, the musical recitals, the operas and all the art exhibitions around every nook and cranny in the old Norman town, you can’t help but feel the better having stooped off in Wexford for a day or two.
At a black tie event on Saturday night where I had the privilege of presenting a Person of the Year award to a colleague, discussions turned to Christmas and all the expense that will be incurred. The penny dropped on Sunday morning as I peered into the ATM screen, that financial tight-beltening and pulling up of socks is required as the cold winter air numbed my bones. For the winter is an expensive time of the year. Money just seems to fly out of my pockets as soon as it is stuffed in. Add to this the expense of getting several rooms in the house painted, the usual bills and then the endless fuel costs, it will be a fiscal tightrope act like never before these coming months.
I’d love to say cash reserves were there to keep things moving along swimmingly but a few minor extravagances including holidays and attending birthday parties abroad put paid to that so I find myself in a financial tundra.
The options are stark: sink or swim or splash about and have fun and put off any stressing as long as humanly possible!
The finanical meltdown came to a head when I nearly melted the house down last week by leaving the heating on all night after a particularly hectic day on the news hound beat.
In an attempt at stoicism and self-castigation the heating has been off since so the thought has occurred to me that I can save money by turning off the fridge freezer and just let everything chill out in my frozen house. The Government Budget won’t save me so here’s hoping the tax returns do!
IT must be the most over-used word in the English language as it is spoken in Ireland. Sorry. I bumped into darling Hermione the other day as she came out the door of the dining room of Medders Manor just as I was shambling in.
‘Sorry.’ ‘Sorry.’ We both said it, more or less simultaneously. No one had been hurt. No one dropped a precious heirloom as a result of this most gentle of collisions. No time was lost, no plans derailed, no buttons popped.
Looking back at the encounter, I actually found the accidental, glancing, gentle physical contact with a loved one was, if anything, more pleasurable than unpleasant. Dearest Hermione gave no indication that she was left in any sense distressed or traumatised or intimidated by the experience.
So what the hell were we sorry about?
She continued on her cheerful way, intent on shining the light of her infinite charm into some other part of the house while I pottered on from the point of impact in search a mislaid magazine. An article had appeared in one of the weekend supplements which I particularly wished to read concerning the diet of the lesser horseshoe bat.
But I found my mind wandering from the magazine and the bat and the threat to its existence posed by the decline in the number of insects. I was distracted by what had occurred in the doorway. Though we both said it, had we been sorry at all? What did we have to be sorry for?
There have been times – far too many of them - when I have had good reason to be sorry for my abject behaviour towards my esteemed and adored spouse. For I am the miserable sinner who forgot our anniversary, who scraped the paintwork on her car door, who served merlot red to our guests when sauvignon white was the obvious accompaniment to her immaculately baked salmon.
When I tendered apologies on each of these occasions, my ‘I am sorry’ carried the ring of contrition and came with a commitment to try to do better the next time.
Being sorry when someone dies is natural. Being sorry when found to be in the wrong may, if all else fails, persuade the judge passing sentence to knock a few months off. Being sorry for loss endured or for misdeeds committed marks us as potentially decent, fallible human beings.
On the other hand, being sorry for grasping a packet of broccoli at the same time as another customer in the supermarket deep freeze section is not necessary. Nor is being sorry for sneezing (farting is a different matter), or for wearing black shoes while everyone else has brown sandals. Yet we all do it.
It seems to be deeply ingrained instinct to say sorry - truly a sorrowful mystery, perhaps a habit born of colonial days when apologising promptly and frequently seemed like a good idea in the face of oppressive authority.
‘I am so sorry, Lord Bletheringsop, for being on the public road when you knocked me down with your coach and four. I am so sorry you had to see my broken leg. I am so sorry you will now have the bother of evicting me and my family as I am clearly no longer able to do a day’s work on your estate. I am so, so sorry for my miserable, pitiful, unwanted existence.’
I have taken to counting sorries: ‘Thank you for the lovely lunch. Do you know that you said sorry 15 times in the past hour and a half ? There really was no need to apologise for forgetting have sugar tongs in the sugar bowl. Or for the green towel in the toilet which clashed so luridly with the blue paintwork.’ I wonder why we have not been invited back.
The time has come to work on some alternatives to the sorry – because perfectly serviceable alternatives exist. Next time I cause some oncoming pedestrian to waver six inches off course to allow me pass on the footpath, I shall suppress the urge to say sorry. Instead, I must react by saying ‘I beg your pardon’ or ‘excuse me’ as I veer six inches the other way. Save sorry for situations where there is genuine cause for sorrow.