Vision

Toddlerhood        Photo: Frank Tubridy

This photograph was taken about 17 years ago. It’s one of my favourites of our son, Harry, because of the way he seems to be looking towards the future.

We were in that future together this evening when we went to a hurling match  to cheer on the Waterford Senior Team.

I still find it incredible that this ‘little boy’ is now towering over me ~ as he stands at 6ft 3in.

Sometimes, I see a familiar looking person coming towards me and suddenly realise that it’s him.

I wonder where was I when he was growing up?

 

 

Unexpected Consequences of Motherhood ~Gatherings from Ireland # 343

Running Repairs by the Life Guards’ Hut in Tramore, Co.Waterford

There I was down the beach the other evening taking a few photographs of  kite-surfers at sunset when another sort of glowing orange dug its way into my peripheral vision.

That JCB catapulted me back to years when the whole landscape, real and imaginary, was about Moving Machines, everything from diggers, dumpers, tractors, JCB’s, fire engines, trains, articulated and not-so-articulated trucks, and most of all bin lorries.

Yes, there was a time when Mondays meant waiting, no matter what,  for the bin lorry to arrive in all its glory and watch it heave, slant, empty and return our bin and then jump into the car and follow it around Tramore to gain even more insight into its inner workings.

I’d spent over thirty years  running away from bin lorries as they squeezed and crunched the town’s rubbish but a little son who needs to know EXACTLY how the bin lorry works somehow (and I still don’t quite understand it) transforms bin lorries into magical machines with a delicious aroma.

Santa even got wind of this magic and brought the best present ever … a bin lorry with two  silvery bins, just like ours,  that could be emptied all through the Christmas holidays and every single day for years after.

Flash forward 15/16 years and we’ve arrived at Driving Theory Tests and L-Plates. How has this happened?