Oh they can't take that away from me....

A little joy in the Recession Fairy's life.



An old colleague got in touch and reminded me not to worry too much and to remember I am "intelligent, hard working, young and healthy". The "young" bit's very uplifting altogether.



A neighbour running down to me and giving me half a chocolate pancake. Mmmmm.



Making nice roast potatoes.



Getting dressed two days in a row - so far.



Singing in the shower.



A pink and peach spectacular sunset.



Finding a way to put my own DVDs on my iPod for portable pleasure.



See - it's not all bad if you look hard enough. ;)

Left, right, left, right...

Well, your Recession Fairy had to pull on her fluffy marching boots at the weekend.

Not something I've had to do since I was a tax dodger/sponger/layabout or as it is commonly known, a Student. And I wasn't a particularly militant one of them because I just didn't feel very strongly about anything much. Now, however....

Saturday saw the streets of Dublin covered in ICTU trade union members, their families and supporters. Estimates were at between 100,000 and 120,000 people depending on where you read it. No matter where you read it, that's a lot of angry people, angry enough to give up their Saturday afternoon. Angry enough to travel to Dublin from all over the country. Angry enough to miss Premiership matches even. Trust me, that's angry. Angry and hurt and feeling punished in a climate where a lot of others seem to be getting away daylight robbery.

So "people power" in action. It's a bit disheartening when it gets average coverage in the press, small corners of Sunday's front pages, 3 minute sections on the evening news, even a touch of sarcasm on national radio when a journalist doing a vox popli glibly asks 'Do you think some people just like marching?'

Well I didn't see too many ardent marchophiles, getting their kicks from trudging up O'Connell Street mingling with people who've lost their jobs or suffered pay cuts on wages that hardly let them amass fortunes under the mattress for a rainy day.

This country is hurting, little by little, the recession is sneaking up on unsuspecting families and nibbling away at them, so they're cutting back, and the domino effect is starting. A car purchase put on hold, a holiday cancelled, shopping curtailed, subscriptions cancelled - it all adds up to a tightening choke hold on businesses.

Sure, people can argue that some of the march's members, civil servants, have 'safe' jobs and should pay for the privilege - but where on earth do they think these people spend their money?

In the private sector, that's where. These levies will curtail a portion of the nation's spenders and take enough little losses in a business and it'll come tumbling down like a Jenga tower.

So, "What do we want?"
"Solutions."
"When do we want them?"
"Now."

Before this snowballs into a total disaster. We know there's hard decisions to be made, but how about a few creative ones - put a bit of your spinning creativity into problem solving!

I'll keep my marching boots ready for action, I'm sure this isn't over.

In the beginning....

Well you have to start somewhere, don't you?

However, structure was always my downfall in creative writing. I can write and write and spew forth ideas and sarcasm until the cows come home - unfortunately - it's the whole 'beginning, middle and end' planning thing I could never get my head around.

Beginning and middle okay - end not so good. I do hate the end. The end of books, films, parties, jobs...

Ah jobs, that's the whole point of why I started this blog. I am without one. For the first time in a while (don't let the cute fairy face fool ya, I'm kinda old by today's pop culture standards) I do not have a job. The recession that I made fun of before Christmas, came and gave me a big shadowy hug. Redundant, I am. And it's a word that hangs around you like a fog.

Ah the recession. With it's beautiful euphemisms, 'the current climate' or 'these challenging time'. It hasn't managed to pick up a marketable moniker like 'The Celtic Tiger' just yet. Maybe the word alone has such shiver inducing properties it's catchy enough already. Isn't it all we talk about, think about, read about? We could have George Lee just saying it as a ringtone.

It was just an economic notion to me in 2008. Something that happens to other people. I was fine, I could pay the bills, I could regularly relieve Penney's of enough clothes to warrant a wardrobe re-shuffle.

Then it all changed at the end of January. I knew something was coming, we all did. We knew things had slowed, costs were rising, expectations were falling. I can still recall the emotive speech I got and not appreciating it right up until the 'We have no other choice but to let you go'.
Not only are they the last words you want to hear when some one's holding your hand as you dangle off a cliff, they're terribly final. It takes a split second to register, then you realise that the job you moaned to your friends about - you actually really enjoyed. Then you realise you've always lived to work. Work was your whole day. You mattered because you worked. You did things.

And now I don't. So that's the general outline. That's the short road that got me to sitting at my keyboard in a pink dressing gown at nearly 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

So I've started this blog. I'm going to write, because I always said I didn't have enough time to. Now I have all the time in the world so maybe it's time to connect with some of the people like me who are going through this, or the people who think it just happens to other people...