Jam and Leprechauns

It was St Patrick's Day last week: our third in Ireland. We’ve been here long enough now to know what’s required for the occasion (affectionately referred to as “Paddy’s Day” by our friends and neighbours), and so we headed into town on Wednesday to watch The Parade. On display were the usual bizarre array of “L”-plated tanks, deafening vintage cars and apparently sane adults dressed as Leprechauns.

Touched by the way people seemed so enthusiastic to embrace the opportunity to celebrate what some might consider to be something of a characature of themselves, I realised that despite having lived here for a respectable amount of time, I still haven’t quite managed to figure the Irish out. Post “Celtic Tiger”, almost everyone lives in new-builds on identical estates and houses are uniformly furnished with laminate flooring and leather upholstery; everything shiny and new and gleaming. And it seems slightly incongruous to me that people who insist on living this way are so willing to don silly beards and wigs and paint their faces green to celebrate their heritage.

The following day, we set off for a short break on the south coast, DH having taken some time off work. Heading to a self-catering apartment, we stopped to buy some groceries on the way.

“Let’s pick up some jam” said DH, throwing a loaf of delicious Irish soda bread into the trolley.
“Good idea” I agreed, and having located my favourite raspberry jam, I placed it in the trolley next to the bread.
“What flavour did you get?” asked DH.
“Strawberry” I lied, and pushed the pot out of sight underneath the broccoli. DH only likes strawberry jam, a preference I really should have respected, but for some reason my small act of rebellion gave me a childish sense of glee. And besides, I thought, for once it would be nice to put myself first.

We had a lovely few days, the Small Girl loving the hotel pool and I loving the vulnerability of the Very Small Boy, all wide brown eyes and chubbiness, as he had his very first swimming experience.

“What would you like for breakfast today, Sausage?” I asked the Small Girl on our last morning. “You can have cereal, porridge or bread and jam”.

She insisted on cereal, so she and I (the Very Small boy having eaten his porridge at the crack of dawn and DH having managed to avoid breakfast for three days) sat down to eat.

“Mummy, can I have some of that?” asked the Small Girl seconds later, pointing to my delicious buttery bread smeared with lovely sweet raspberry jam.
“Of course”, I said reluctantly, as I sliced it in two and gave her half.

As she tucked enthusiastically into my breakfast, the Very Small Boy, who was sitting on my knee, reached out a chubby little fist, grabbed the remaining half of bread and jam and crammed the entire thing into his mouth. And all that was left for me to do was take a soothing sip of coffee as I looked down at the forlorn crumbs on my empty plate and marvelled at how a pot of jam had come to signify so much.