So when did we all turn into mini Dalai Lamas? A cursory condescending sweep of the social media landscape (sorry for that phrase,I have just been doing a few hours of work so am still trying to shake off the corporate speak snake tongue), reveals that at some point over the last few years, it would appear the Catholic Church has been replaced by thousands of individual philosophers. Any of your dull daily non events that you usually wouldn’t dream of boring anyone except your nearest and dearest, i.e. someone who cant easily dump you like a husband or parent, with are now shared freely with the world: The only caveat is that you attribute some deep and meaningful philosophical learning to them.

Bad haircut? No probs, here’s your get out clause. Post this alongside your head

topped up with a dash of 💆💇🙎🙍☺️

and hey presto, mortification stage left and your new bad barnet is now gas craic. All is forgiven.

Except well actually no. lets face it most late teens / twenty somethings made the hair mistake below in the mid-nineties and we ALL should have known better and had a serious word with each other. There is no tweet or emoticon that could excuse the gruaig train wreck now remembered as the great Irish Sliding Doors hair massacre.

Damn you shorn Gwen. We asked for and even partly believed maybe on some small level that this could somehow happen

When let’s face it, we all know in our hearts that 50% of our female friends at our 21sts were channeling this “Tragedy.”

No more please. lets keep it real folks. With that in mind, Im going to get straight to the point and say this:

Me and Daragh lost the run of ourselves.

There is simply no other explanation for myself and Daragh’s carry on for the last few months. We have been literally going round and round in circles, sorry not even plural, just the same groundhog circle, of trying to decide whether to build one or two houses on the site.

Daragh was enjoying limbering up for his and Claire’s ever productive daily decision making chats

It went a little something like: “So what are we going to do with the site”. “You know we could build two houses there?” “Are we mad not to build two houses”. “But we cant afford to build two houses”. “Surely the banks would let us do two, if the numbers add up.” “OK, Hmm, still don’t think the banks are lending.” “Maybe we can do it in 5 years?” “Ok, good plan.”  “Hmm, actually I don’t want to live  beside a building site for five years.” “Hmm, I don’t even actually want to build two houses.” “Oh my god, thank god, me too. It makes me feel itchy and panic attacky even thinking about it.”. “Whats wrong with us?” “Jesus, Lets just build one.” “So that’s it final answer: we are going to build one house”. “But we could fit two in. Maybe we’ll regret it”.

And so it circled. Spiralled. Stalled. Stopped.

No more! We have woken up, smelt the insanity, and realised albeit five months later than we would have liked, that in fact we were less Donald Trump, more Forrest Gump and what was the point of two houses if you were dead/divorced/corporate life slaves because of it.
So here we are. Just the one house please. We are back to where we started but this time we are not for turning.

Daragh’s colleagues didn’t know whether to simply ignore Daragh’s daily phone calls to the bank or offer a listening ear but they sensed the build was not going well.

On one level, obviously this is just mortifying as on the face of it, we have done absolutely diddly squat, zippity doo dah nada since you last heard from us. I however weirdly feel like we have come a long way. Yes it took us months of circling the wagons to figure out what we were going to do but the upshot is that both of us are now 100% happy with our plan and being all “back in the game” and “eyes on the prize” like.

What’s that prize you ask? Well yes that is still the original one where we build as big a house as we can afford to with more storage than breathing space please. Wish lists still feature the wine boat, i.e. Kitchen island, a downstairs loo and maybe if Im really lucky, some time of semi-knackery walk in wardrobe yoke that I will immediately fill with crap from Penneys and many pairs of similar yet different jeans in a bewildering array of sizes considering they are all mine but that will make me smile every day the wardrobe, clearly not the jeans. Never the jeans). And that’s the bit we were forgetting.

Nope these were staying in the keep pile. At least Claire would always know what time it was when she wore them and the hammer would come in useful for the build

This project was not born out of a balance sheet. Its always been about creating some space for our little clan to live, breathe, laugh and love with room for friends and family to come visit without it feeling like we are all playing sardines.

It was always so relaxing to stretch out and chill at dinner in Daragh and Claire’s

Somewhere between rising property prices and bad days at the office, we got lost and forgot that its not so much a house but rather a life that we’re trying to build for the four of us. And that has never been about money.
So yep back to the start but this time it is different: for one, I have an income, we have spoken to the bank (although have yet to officially apply puke puke puke) and most importantly, we have plans. As in actual architect drawing type plans. Yep my friends, I kid you not. We have a little etching of our dream. We have parted with some readies and with the help of our fancy pants architect, a form is beginning to emerge. We’re a long way from home, there will be blood, sweat and many tears needed to pull this off and let’s face quite a bit of supplementary booze but even already I can see in these early drawings, the shape of things to come.

Sorry. Couldn’t resist 🙈🙉🙊