Sunday, March 18, 2007

Irish Mother's Day



...was today. I got: coffee and a banana in bed and a very large brunch made by my husband consisting of: huge spinach omelette, toast, doughnuts, orange juice and champagne. I was pretty full, I can tell ya. In the afternoon I took my little girl on a rare outing without the baby to meet her granny for tea and cake in Harvey Nichols' cafe and a poke around the shopping mall. There were a lot of moms with screaming youngsters in the mall, but there wasn't much evidence of moms being taken out to lunch as far as I could see. Weirdly, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, which is a pretty big deal around here (this being Ireland.) We even have a 3 day weekend for it. I suspect the integrity of Mother's Day may be eroded by the mad Paddy's Day festivities occurring just before it. Lunch with your mom isn't really what you want to do the day after you've been drunk and reeling in the streets...

Well. In fairness I have never bothered to go to the parade, or anything else connected with the day. For one thing, like magic, spring always turns back into Arctic winter during St. Patrick's Day (it snowed today). For another, when are parades really worth it? You can watch em on TV if you're that interested. For the party crowd though, I'd say there's a lot of craic in the pubs and nightclubs on the night. All week long on Dublin talk radio, people were going on about it being "an excuse for drinking" and bemoaning Ireland's place at the top of the leader boards for binge drinking. Especially female binge drinking. Apparently it's just my generation that started drinking pints of Guinness (we used to only be allowed a little glass) and some people are still shocked by that.

I don't drink Guinness too often myself. Every time someone gets pregnant though, a friend will certainly buy her a glass of it - apparently doctors admonished the generation before us to be sure and drink a bottle of Guinness a day. I think this could have been a marketing ploy by Guinness to ensure a whole generation of people would be born with a taste for the black stuff..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i had no clue that there was an Irish Mothers Day! Happy Belated Irish Mothers Day!
i did know, however, that pregnant Irish ladies drink Guiness, though i only have my obsession with Hollywood and celebrity culture to thank for that.... Remember when Gwenyth Paltrow was photographed by the paparrazzi drinking Guiness when she was like 13 months pregnant and everyone over here on the left coast was all GASP! SHOCK! DISMAY!!!
i thought that was hilarious!

VirtualT said...

yep, I threw my eyes up to heaven over that Gwyneth Paltrow gaffe. Don't even get me started on the way pregnant women get persecuted sometimes!