Englishour's Blog 
A very cold winter indeed.
I think that years into the future, when all who are reading this now have no teeth nor hair, we will remember the winter of 2010 in Ireland. We’ll be sitting in our futuristic houses whilst our grandchildren are arguing in the kitchen and we’ll see a flake of snow gently blow against the triple glazed bomb-proof window. ‘Oh my God!’ the grandchildren will scream, ‘it’s freezing outside!’. ‘Freezing?’ we will say, a bit of drool forming on our old lips, ‘sure that’s nothing! You obviously weren’t around for the big winter of 2010!’ This said, the grandchildren will all come in from the kitchen and sit around our big armchair and will us with their big eyes to tell them the story. We will lift our mug of chocolate, take a few pills, and begin:
‘The winter of 2010 was so cold’, we would start, ‘that several seagulls froze midair above O’Connell Street and fell into the crowd of Christmas shoppers below, decapitating several. One shopper was rushed to St James’ hospital with no less than three frozen birds embedded in his head. Luckily he lived to tell the tale. Unfortunately, many did not. The bodies began piling up but could not be buried as the ground was so hard they could not dig the graves.’
At this stage, the grandchildren would all be wide-eyed listening to this tale of harshness and frost. Taking another slurp of the thick chocolate, we would continue:
‘It was so cold that year that the mercury froze in all the thermometers into little balls of silver which wouldn’t move. People all across the country were reporting that they were shorter as the liquid in their ligaments had dried out. People couldn’t open their front doors not being able to reach the keyholes and froze to death as a result. They would be found, arm still up in the air, the next day by horrified postmen who often injured themselves on the crossbars of their bicycles as they too were getting smaller. Hospital A&E wards were packed with postmen holding themselves and grimacing in pain.’
At this point, one of the grandchildren would look up and ask:
‘So where were you during the big freeze of 2010?’
‘Ah’, you will reply, ‘I was warm and safe in a place called Englishour. There, the rooms were warm and cosy and we were all toasty and comfortable together.’
‘Is that where you learnt English?’ one of the grandchildren would ask.
‘It is child. During that winter, Englishour were able to bring my level up from A2 to a B2+. I was able to understand really well and speak fluently.’
‘That’s great’ the grandchild will reply ‘and why do you have a sparrow embedded in your head? Was that from the winter of 2010?’
‘The sparrow embedded in my head? No my child, that’s another story.’
©John Ryan, 2010
Max
Max:
My memory is foggy
Of the day I got my doggy
Though I know that
I wanted a pet.
I thought of a guppy
And then of a puppy
But not sure I
Went on the net.
And there he was
Staring out at me
From gorgeouspuppies.ie
I drove down to his owner
And saw himself on the floor,
Three minutes later
We walked out the door.
Max is a weimaraner
A silver hunting dog
His ancestors are German
Like Steffi Graff and Phileas Fogg
He has big floppy ears
And two cherry eyes
But the cherry will disappear
Leaving eyes blue like skies.
Max lives in my house
He destroys everything he sees
If it fits he’ll chew it till the end
My wallet, remote, my keys.
He jumps around like a madman
But then he’s only a child
In the future he’ll be quiet and placid
But now, my god, he’s wild.
I think I’m good for Max
And he is good for me
Although he chews on my best slacks
And covers my floor in pee.
But I don’t mind
It’s okay
We’ll carry on and see
What will happen
To this thing
This thing called Max and me.
ⓒ John Ryan, 2010.
One Down: A short story
‘Where’s my nightie?’ Elaine was getting frantic now. The contractions were getting closer and Dan, God bless him, was just not helping at all. He ran into the bedroom.
‘Which one Elaine? The blue one?’
‘No! The white one! I showed it to you yesterday! The white one!’
‘Okay. I think I know where it is. Just breathe love.’
And he was back out the door again. Elaine could hear his thud thud thud on the stairs, and as she lay back on the bed, breathing heavily through her nostrils, she realised that the time had finally come. The months of preparation and worrying, of research and endless discussions with friends all offering contradictory advice, had now come to this moment in time. The birth. Soon two would become three. Another contraction came.
‘Dan! What are you doing down there? Are we ready?’
As if by magic, Dan appeared in the doorway smiling and holding a bag.
‘Done. Let’s go have a baby!’
Sitting in the passenger seat of their car, Elaine clutched her overnight bag with one hand and tried to make the seatbelt more comfortable with the other. Dan looked over at her and nodded at the bag.
‘Open it. I got you a present.’
Elaine smiled and unzipped the bag on her lap. Sitting on top of her bits and pieces was a book. Jumbo easy crosswords. It was thick. Her smile lost its elasticity.
‘What’s this Dan?’
‘I thought you might like it. You never know how long you could be waiting around in that hospital.’
‘But I’ve never done a crossword in my life!’
‘You’ve never had a baby in your life. It’s a day for new beginnings!’
Elaine opened the book to the first page. It was big. There must be a hundred clues there, she thought. She looked at the first clue. One down. Sounds like this monkey was ejected from the exam, 7 letters. This monkey was ejected from the exam. A monkey. Ejected from an exam. An intelligent monkey? Elaine’s mind was blank. And then Ow! Another contraction.
Inside the hospital everything was very white and bright. Elaine’s contractions were getting more frequent now and as she lay on her bed she could hear a little whistling noise coming out of her nose. Her heart rate was definitely up, and little beads of perspiration were forming on her brow. Amongst the havoc being played on her body, the crossword floated back into her mind. Sounds like this monkey was ejected from the exam. Did the monkey cheat? But why would a monkey be doing an exam anyway? Maybe it was a driving test? But that’s ridiculous! Monkeys don’t drive. And they don’t do exams either. Stupid clue. Stupid crossword!
The midwife Sandy was standing beside her bed now. She was holding Elaine’s wrist and looking at her watch. Elaine noticed something sad in Sandy’s eyes. And she could sense Dan’s presence behind her. He was combing his fingers gently through her hair. Elaine was in pain, but Dan made it easier. He always did.
OOWW! Another contraction. This one even more painful than the last.
‘This is it Elaine, we’re in business now. I want you to start pushing darling.’
It was Sandy speaking. Elaine pushed and looked up and saw the lights on the ceiling flash over her and then another contraction, sharp this time, forcing her eyes shut, and the intense breathing kicked in again in an effort to ease the pain. With each quick breath she tried to focus on something nice. Like a field full of buttercups in May, and children running through it, blowing dandelion seeds and laughing ha-ha! And the children, now all at desks doing their exams and the monkey suddenly being thrown out! One down. Sounds like this monkey was ejected from the exam. This monkey. Keep breathing. A play on words perhaps? An anagram? Elaine wasn’t sure. Monkey. Keymon? Omkeny? Ekmony?
Nothing was coming. Elaine breathlessly looked up and saw Dan’s upside down, but kind face looking at her. Their first child, and they had been trying for three years. She knew how happy he was right now and also how concerned he was for her. They were about to open a new chapter in their lives together. But why would a monkey be doing an exam! And why would he be ejected? Was he misbehaving? Did he walk into the wrong exam hall? Did he start a fight with someone? Maybe it’s a gorilla!
OH MY GOD! Another contraction. An enormous one. A huge pain shot up from her pelvis spreading in all directions into her legs and then through her torso into her breasts and then into the part of her brain, which deals with language and processes crosswords. The clue was gone. She was one hundred percent back in the room.
‘Push! Push Elaine!’
She was pushing. Or at least she was trying to but her body was dictating an occasional out-breath, and on the stupid out-breath she couldn’t push! The pain was now truly unbearable. She felt like her heart would explode, the way it was drumming against her ribcage. And below, it was terrible. She felt really afraid. The type of fear people experience when they swallow a bowling ball and know now is the time to pass it.
‘Push!’ Sandy, whose head was bobbing up and down now like the toy doggy in the back window of a car, was really getting into the spirit of things now.
Elaine pushed. She pushed hard. Something was happening now. The wall, which had been so painfully closed before, was beginning to give way a little but with even more pain. Something was coming out. She felt herself stretched to the limit. Any more and she would rip open. Glancing to her right to get her neck in a better position, she saw fuzzily that Dan now had left her hair to it’s own devices and his attention was firmly focused on the far end of her body.
‘That’s it Elaine darling. We have the head. Now push girl! Push! Nearly done now!’
Tears were flowing down Elaine’s cheeks and she wished they weren’t because she knew they were using energy, energy that she simply didn’t have. She was exhausted but there were more steps to take on this journey. She took another suck of air and then pushed.
‘AAAAHHHHHHHH!’
Something slid out of her. It just slid out. And then came the most magnificent relief. Like after a huge belch, or after trapped wind finally leaves the body and decompression can finally take place. She lay with her eyes closed and listened. There was silence outside her. Her breathing was still loud in her ears, but outside there was silence. No noise at all, which didn’t sound good. She took a sharp intake of worried breath and then to her relief, she heard a scream. A baby’s scream. The child must have done the same as she had. The child must have taken it’s first breath and then on the release screamed. What a way to spend their first moment together. Mother screaming, and then a moment and then child screaming. And to Elaine, that scream was the nicest sound she had ever heard.
She opened her eyes and saw Dan’s lovely face beside hers. There were tears on his cheeks and sweat on his brow, and he looked serenely happy.
‘It’s a boy. He’s beautiful Elaine.’
Elaine cried again. She held Dan’s face in her hands and kissed him leaving her snot and tears on his cheek. He laughed, a kind of giggle even, and Elaine did too. They giggled together in snot and tears. And then Sandy’s face came into view. She was holding out something white and then planted the little cotton whatever it was into Elaine’s hands. Elaine looked down and saw a tiny wrinkled face staring out into the middle distance. Her child. Her son.
‘He’s gorgeous Elaine.’
This was Sandy’s voice. Elaine looked up at her and wanted to say something, but her gaze was immediately drawn back down to the little creature, which had so forcefully entered their lives. She stared at the tiny face swaddled in her arms and saw that Sandy was absolutely right. He was gorgeous. He had jet-black hair, and a good head of it too. It stuck to his tiny forehead in a little point. Like a little baby monkey. A little baby monkey in her hands. And then Elaine stopped. It came like a bolt from the blue. A moment of pure, perfect, enlightened clarity. She had it!
Sandy leaned in to her and looked at the child.
‘So do you have a name for him yet?’
Elaine looked up at Sandy and suddenly burst out laughing in a cacophony of tears and mucous.
‘We’re not sure Sandy. It’s either David, after his grandfather, or Cheetah.’
Dan and Sandy looked at each other and Elaine looked again at the baby.
‘Cheetah. Definitely Cheetah.’
ⓒJohn Ryan, 2010.
The present perfect
The present perfect can be a hard tense to understand and a beautiful tense to explain. The problem for students is that it looks like and feels like the past. But it isn’t. The clue is in the title: The present perfect. It’s all about the present!
The present perfect isn’t about what you did yesterday, or what you did when you were a child or that time you forgot your key or any of that. It’s all about now. More precisely, it relates past actions to the present.
Some readers may not be sure what I mean by the ‘present perfect’. I have done my homework is an example. The simple past tense is I did my homework. So what’s the difference? This is the sixty-five thousand dollar question.
First, let’s think about the past. When I think back through my past life I think about all the things I did, the things I enjoyed and tasted and felt and saw and experienced and messed up. And as I think about my past there is not one appearance of the word ‘have’. When I think about yesterday or last year, for example, I don’t think I have done, I think I did.
‘Have’ is all about now, in every sense of the word.
So back to the point. I saw the film and I’ve seen the film. What’s the difference?
When we say I saw the film, we have a particular past time in our minds, even if we don’t say it. We are thinking about the action AND the time in which it occurred. For example, if I say I met the president, not only do I think about myself and the president shaking hands but I also think about the particular time in which it happened. I’m thinking last week or three years ago or that summer I broke my arm. The past tense connects a past action with the past time in which it happened.
When I say I’ve seen the film I am not thinking about when I saw it. It’s just not important. It could be yesterday or a hundred years ago, it doesn’t matter. What is important is the action, and it is important for NOW. Where the simple past, I saw the film connects the action and the time in which I did it, the present perfect (the clue is in the title!) connects the past action with now.
So why do we want to connect past actions with now? The answer is, for many reasons. For example, I want to explain to my friend that I don’t want any food now. I say No thanks, I’ve eaten. My eating in the past explains why I am not hungry now. I want to tell someone that I know about a place so I say I’ve been there. If I want to show how important I am now, I can say I’ve met presidents and kings. The I have done something is using my arsenal of past actions to have an effect on the present. I want to explain that I can’t pay for my drink so I say I’ve forgotten my wallet. I’ve finished my work tells my boss that’s it’s okay for me to leave now. I’ve cut myself says that I need a plaster and I’ve never done that could mean I’m interested in doing it now.
Using the present perfect is like reaching back into the past and pulling a past action back into now and then using it to comment on the present in some way:
I’ve seen the film…I don’t want to see it, I know all about it, I can talk about it - are all possibilities.
You can say that we are the sum of all our past actions. Everything we do builds us and develops us for better or for worse. Sometimes, to show how we feel now, or what we know now, or what we want now, we use one of these past actions to demonstrate. We use the present perfect.
©John Ryan, Englishour. 2010
Give up or stop?
It was O’Eff who pushed a cigarette into my twelve-year old hand and the whole dirty business began.
O’Eff was a visiting neighbour. I say visiting because he only came to the area to stay with his granny for a week or two in the summertime. Memories of him are sketchy. Except of course the summer he arrived with the Rothmans.
Now you have to understand that at this time I was a firm non-smoker. Asthma had touched me as a child with its wheezy breath and like most twelve-year olds you would find me roaming the streets self-righteously looking for other twelve-year olds to sermonise to if we spotted them skulking somewhere with the dirty forbidden tobacco-sticks in their hands.
‘But WHY do you smoke?’ we would then ask pleadingly with a look of hurt on our innocent faces as we surrounded the spotty smoker scum.
But O’Eff changed all that. He arrived with his Rothmans like James Bond arrived with a Martini and for some reason I was just ready to accept one. I can’t think why I took that first cigarette, why I wanted it, but I just did. I remember smoking it behind the bushes in the local park and O’Eff didn’t even come in with me. He just gave me the cigarette and matches and pointed out where I should smoke it.
I remember meeting him years later and offering him a cigarette and he refusing, telling me that he didn’t smoke.
From Rothmans I went to Sweet Afton, a strong non-tipped cigarette that the old men smoked. From those to Major. Another thick strong smoke with an incredibly short filter. From them I made my way through various brands until I finally stuck with Marlboro Lights for the next twenty years or so.
It was only really in my late-thirties that giving up smoking was something I began to desire. I made attempts, but none of them lasted very long. I felt that my withdrawal symptoms must have been stronger than other people’s because by day two off the nicotine, my entire body would feel like it had the flu and every muscle would crave relief in the form of the old sweet grey smoke. I also lied to myself a lot. Like my own little devil sitting on my shoulder I would tell myself that it was inevitable that I would smoke again anyway, so why not start now? I was easy to convince and after a quick trip to the shop I’d have lit up again, and felt the nicotine and guilt swirl around my system. I don’t know how many times that happened.
Getting older, the need to stop became stronger. I read the Allen Carr books and believed in what they were saying, but even though they gave me the impetous to get off the smokes, I never stayed off. One time it was for three months, but the other fifty times it was a day, an hour or a moment. And all the while smoking, I was unhappy.
It’s now about a week since I’ve smoked a cigarette. It was hypnosis that did it for me in the end, but I’m not even sure if that’s what it was. Perhaps it was my desire to stop that really made me stop. The hypnosis was just a little (but very expensive) kick-start. I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that for someone who has given up cigarettes so many times, this time does feel different. I genuinely don’t desire tobacco. Sure, I have withdrawal symptoms, but I know that that’s all they are. They will fade away to nothing over time.
I do have a full box though that I always keep with me. In case I ever meet O’Eff’s children.
© John Ryan 2010