Orna Mulcahy on people we all know.
Numb with fatigue and perished with the cold, Niall often wonders what they did on Sunday mornings before the children came along. Ancient history now, but very vaguely he remembers staying out late and sleeping until noon, before nipping out for the papers and croissants, bit of bacon and eggs, pots of tea, peace and quiet. Certainly, one thing he never did was hang around the park at nine o'clock on a miserable damp morning that you wouldn't send a dog out into, although, obviously, it's good enough for the dads of the neighbourhood, who are here in force, all decent guys pushed out of the bed and told: It's Your Turn.
Oh yes, all life passes through the park on a Sunday morning - all male life, that is, because you wouldn't catch the mothers out pushing the swings, although they send the nannies all right. God, why don't they have a nanny who works Sunday mornings? Or even a nanny full stop? Can't afford a decent house, can't afford a nanny. Where does it end?
And why can't you carry a paper and coffee without spilling one all over the other? Pathetic. Not as pathetic as that guy over there with his own flask - probably got green tea in there, weedy little git - or the one who's scrambling all over the climbing frame, trying to show how athletic he is in front of the rest of the slobs. There's always one, isn't there? Is it really only 10 minutes since they got here? That can't be right. It seems like 100 years, and he's barred from going back to the house for at least another hour. Briefly, Niall closes his eyes and imagines that he's been sent on doctor's orders to a sleep clinic where they tuck you up in fluffy blankets and drug you into a deep sleep that lasts all weekend. Why did he have that Spanish brandy last night, and why is it always His Turn?
Cliona has it worked out that she gets the lie-in almost every Saturday and Sunday, using some kind of a domestic air-miles system that he can't grasp because there's no logic to it at all. This weekend, for instance, because his folks are coming over for lunch, Cliona is claiming that she needs all the rest she can get in advance. Now trying to focus on his three-year-old, who's dangerously out of reach at the top of the big slide, Niall has bitter thoughts about this system, in which Cliona holds all the cards and he has to vacate the premises so that she can relax "for once". Does she realise how few places there are to go on a Sunday morning? Although if you ask her for suggestions about where they should go, she's liable to have a hissy fit and say that she can't think of everything all of the time. Time to feed the ducks, girls. Off we go. Whoops, there's a greedy swan - dangerous bugger of a thing's given Emer a nasty nip. Sure, they have to go home now.