I am not Spanish, nor do I speak Spanish. Don’t be fooled for an instant. I’m a Brit (of mixed English, Welsh and a teensy bit of Scottish ancestry) who moved to Ireland with her family at the age of seven, and I have been here pretty much ever since.

I’m about 5’3, I have brown eyes and hair (unless I’m going through a ‘trying to dye it red’ phase) and, currently, nine tattoos.  I have had eczema since birth so I scratch a lot, unconsciously most of the time. I speak a bit of Irish, a bit of French and almost no German, although I understand quite a lot. I live about twelve miles  south of Dublin with my two children, a three-legged cat and a slightly mad Labrador/Rottweiler cross dog who appears to hate all men…apart from my semi-ex-husband. Naturally. After renting the same house for many years, I finally put down roots for us in January 2011 by buying a house called ‘Thalia’ - who was one of the three Graces and the muse of comedy but probably only if you were an ancient Greek – where we will all live happily ever after. We’re doing well so far.

I love quiet, and peace, and books, and colour, plants, and textures, llamas, wombats, tea, grass under my feet, Doc Marten’s, little bells on brightly coloured strings, higgledy-piggledy houses with nooks & crannies, long hot baths and cool Autumn days, my children, my cat and tarot cards, overflowing bookcases and blue toenail polish, the scent of Verbena, and clear quartz crystals, earrings, pear cider, prawns and Chinese duck with pancakes, tattoos, Land Rover Defenders and Audi R8s, Fat Face clothes and hemp shopping bags, the colour turquoise and gorgeous fresh lime green, brown cordouroy and red cotton, snow, and the sound of rain on the window when I’m reading in bed, naps on Summer Sundays when the curtains billow in a fresh breeze and the sound of lawnmowers buzz in the distance, box sets of DVDs that absorb your focus and capture your imagination, silver, and sapphires, driving, and my Blackberry Curve, dreadlocks with beads, Soul music, my rainbow striped handbag, and Pacifica’s Mediterranean Fig solid perfume.

I am 34. My birthday’s in November.

I married an Irish-but-more-English-in-character-and-upbringing man in 2002. We had been together, on and off, since our final year of secondary school in 1995. We split up in 2005, about six weeks before our third wedding anniversary. We are still not divorced. Largely, it must be said, because we haven’t been sufficiently motivated to get off our behinds and do anything about it. We have made some progress towards it in 2011, but it’s still a ways off yet. We get on very well, generally, and see each other most days. (Edited 10/01/12: It turns out that the Not Being Divorced bit might actually be ok with us after all. It’s a rum world, eh?)

In 2010, I fell in love with another Irish man. Our relationship lasted for over a year but , eventually, it closed through lack of interest. He’s a good man, though, and you will find the initial stages of our togetherness chronicled here. He is TRM.  I have, rather distressingly, got a bit of a Thing for Engineers. It invariably leads to trouble. Did I mention I have a degree in Theology?

I am incredibly, terribly, awfully lazy and I gave up feeling overly guilty about it many years ago despite the best attempts of my mother.  Hence, you may not see this blog updated for long periods of time. It doesn’t mean I’ve given up, it just means I’ve found something else to do for a while – I’ll be back when I’m ready.