Breakfast this morning consisted of marmalade on brown bread. I don’t think I’ve eaten marmalade for about three years. Not since before my mother died anyway.

She was the marmalade queen. Her preferred variety was Fruitfield Old Time Irish Coarse Cut. That’s got big chunky bits of peel in it. I spent my growing-up years loving marmalade, but always picked out the chunks. My mother wouldn’t hear of buying the fine cut.

I have the fondest memories of her sitting in her sun porch looking out at the magnificent Atlantic with her daily ritual breakfast of tea, toast and marmalade.

A friend gave me a novel the other day with an A++ recommendation.

Published in 2002 it won the 2003 Pulitzer Price for Fiction.

Written by Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (the reference is to hermaphrodism) tells the story of an American of Greek heritage who (to borrow the opening lines) was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Only 30 pages in, but so far enjoying the style and intrigued by the story.

The weather conversations these last few glorious days are nervous in tone. Beautiful, yes, but is it another early and short-lived summer like the last two years?

We came back from holiday this week in 2007 to weather that was not dissimilar to the late and beautiful summer we’d left behind us in Cape Town. It continued until early June and then we had what seemed like a never-ending downpour until September.

2008 was worse: an early summer for three weeks in May.

So, a collective visualization please of summer 2006: beautiful, fine days straight through from April to October.

Grand National at Aintree today. The one race where anyone and everyone right across Britain and Ireland has a bet. Many of those would be workplace draws where everyone puts in a fiver or a tenner and you’re just assigned a horse or horses randomly.

An outsider, Mon Mome, ridden by Liam Treadwell at his first ever Grand National, made their supporters very happy indeed coming in at 100-1. It was a close pack at the front for most of the race, but as soon as they’d jumped the final fence Mon Mome pulled well ahead to a comfortable win.

Abba’s music has been filling the house this afternoon. Lay All Your Love On Me for the most part. My daughter and her friend are rehearsing their dance routines for a tap and variety show they are in.

Whatever else you might say about Abba, they certainly produced a catchy tune, which is why the stage and movie versions of Mamma Mia have been so popular.

I never saw the stage show and the purists tell me the movie is hopeless by comparison. I watched the DVD and thoroughly enjoyed the couple of hours of pretty pictures and catchy tunes.

This time last year I was deeply involved in writing a novel.

I would get up really early a few days each week and tap away; also grabbing any opportunities during evenings or weekends.

Starting with 20,000+ words from a non-fiction project, after six months I had expanded and re-drafted this into a short novel.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight about the writing itself and the exercise of promotion, I know this is not something I will ever be attempting again. Unless or until I have a lot more time on my hands and quite possibly not even then.

The search continues for people buried under the historic buildings that have collapsed in towns and villages across the Abruzzo region of Italy. Rescuers have pulled more than 100 people out of the rubble alive, but it still looks like the death toll will exceed 200.

Italy has two fault lines, one running down through its central mountains. And although fore-shocks can be detected, it’s still incredibly difficult to predict when an actual quake will occur. One Italian expert, who detected higher than normal levels of radon gases, says he was ignored a month ago when he predicted a quake.

So, our emergency budget was unveiled yesterday. Analysis and back-lashing will continue for a while.

I'm not a supporter of our current government by a long way, but I reckon at this stage the reality is we just have to put the heads down, get on with it and hope their 5 year plan gets us back on track economically.

I was thinking about the earthquake in Italy again and noticing how its geographical and cultural proximity to me somehow makes it seem more disastrous than an earthquake in China or South America say. Perspective really is a powerful phenomenon.

As I type I’m looking forward to the four day Easter holiday. An article in the UK’s Guardian expresses concern about an increasingly secular society, the so-called New Atheists and mentions some new angles on religion, such as Karen Armstrong’s Charter of Compassion and Alain de Botton’s School of Life.

While I’m unconcerned about atheists new or old, I do think there may be room for a social charter of some sort. Something like the Core Curriculum taught by Educate Together. Still very much in the minority among Irish schools, they cater for all faiths and none- including my children.

Today is a rant!

I’ve been bag-packing to raise funds for my daughter’s Irish dancing school so they can take up an opportunity to dance in the US. I tried to get out of it because I object to the practice, but ultimately agreed to partake; to be a “team player”.

As a supermarket customer I dislike when charity bag-packers are there. It is the most in-your-face fund-raising I have ever encountered. When you’re spending €200+ on your weekly shop it seems petty not to throw small change into the pot.

Result: lots of shoppers engage when they’d rather not.

This has got to be quick. A taxi is booked for 8 minutes from now. We are going out to dinner in my sister’s house a few miles from here.

Been a busy day and I totally forgot about my 100 words until now and of course I won’t be home until after midnight so to qualify as today I have to do them now.

Easter weekend busy with a few DIY purchases and the too infrequent cutting back of our cotone astor hedge that borders the back garden. I have the scratches all over my forearms to prove it.

Pleasant Easter Sunday weather. Sunny, and warm once you stay out of the cool breeze. Showers threatening this afternoon, but nothing materialising as yet.

I finished Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex this morning. Excellent novel that really engages you with the story and characters. It came highly recommended and lived up to expectations.

The story of a modern day hermaphrodite, it is also the story of European immigrants in 20th century America – a Greek family living in Detroit in this case. The story about the protagonist’s gender issues is central, but doesn’t dominate a tale of family, relationships, growing up and death.

I am idly browsing while an enjoyable 4-day weekend comes to a grey, damp end.

Himself is watching re-runs of yesterday’s US Masters finish in Augusta and I am intrigued by the soundtrack that I’m only half paying attention to.

I hear golf voiceovers – mostly American, though an Australian too, birds tweeting, golf clubs swinging, the thwack of the ball being hit. Rather than an actual golf tournament, these sound effects remind me of my son playing a Microsoft PC game several years ago. He was a young Tiger Woods fan and Tiger Woods was the bright, new golfing phenomenon.

Just started reading James Lovelock’s The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning. Gaia refers to the Earth as a living organism, in that it has systems that react to changing conditions.

Lovelock, at 90 years old, is a renowned and independent climate scientist who believes the planet will take care of itself; our future on it is a different matter given the irreparable damage already inflicted.

He makes an analogy between climate and economics: neither follows a straight line pattern. Rather there are stops and starts. Simplistically: a few wet summers do not mean global warming has been arrested.

Irish rain.

Was I really talking about early summer so recently? Today we are wrapped in a steady, slow, damp rain that seeps into every crack and corner. I dropped the car off for a recall check and it was a wet walk home.

Warm and dry again now though and writing offline as a technician has cut the power in order to fit a Smart electricity meter. I’ve signed up to take part in a national usage trial. Interestingly the technician is female. That's unusual.

The combination of damp rain and no electricity reminds me of childhood caravan holidays.

I’ve been engrossed in James Lovelock’s book.

He differs from general scientific and governmental consensus with respect to the timeframe and manage-ability of global warming. He reckons its progress is unstoppable and that we should be concentrating our efforts on surviving the inevitable. Most of the earth’s 7 billion people won’t survive.

And a frustrating coincidence: when Googling him this morning, I found two articles in today’s Irish Times, the newspaper I read most days. James Lovelock took part in a public debate on climate change in UCD (yards from where I am sitting). Last Night.

I missed it :-(

It’s a fun topic of conversation. What I would do if I won the Lotto…

And it’s doing the rounds here because tomorrow night’s Lotto is heading for €14m, which may not seem huge to American or British readers, but it is big here.

I don’t buy a ticket regularly, but when I do and the jackpot rolls over I stick with it until it is won. I forgot to buy a ticket for the last two draws of this rollover (oops!), but now that I’ve been reminded by one of those conversations, I’m off to buy the winning ticket.

The Lotto draw hasn’t happened yet, but I have got my ticket (that’s the winning ticket!), and either way I can dream for another hour.

After the rain during the week, today has been in complete contrast. Glorious unbroken sunshine that is still making our west facing back garden comfortably warm.

I spent a productive couple of hours starting a spring clean on our garage. Stage one was to send 10 years worth of unused and broken electrical goods to the recycling centre. We plan to get a new easy-to-use door, so we’ll actually use it for more than junk.

It’s another beautiful, sunny day in Dublin. The weather forecast says I won’t need an umbrella until Thursday, which is good, because I forgot to buy one over the weekend.

We have a shared green area out the back of our house and lately we’ve been using it to play fetch with our dog. It works a treat to take her out there a couple of times a day. The only downside is that I haven’t been for a decent walk for weeks. Good thing I’m meeting my friend C for a beach walk with both our dogs on Wednesday.

Weather still fine in Dublin….ssshh say nothing!

I’m not much of a television watcher, but I happened upon an excellent, refreshing interview programme last night on RTE called The Meaning of Life.

Presented by veteran Irish broadcaster, Gay Byrne, it’s a series of interviews with six well known personalities. The format includes very direct, but seldom asked questions like “Do you believe in God?” and “What do you think happens when we die?”

The first guest was Hollywood superstar Colin Farrell, about whom I knew very, very little until last night. He came across as a genuine, very likeable guy.

The weather is mixed today, but I can still see office workers sitting in the courtyard to catch any bit of available sunshine on their lunch hour.

I rarely, if ever, sit in the sun these days. I developed a skin condition called vitiligo many years ago. I have patches with no pigment on many parts of my body. Being fair-skinned and freckled it’s not so bad, because if I stay very, very pale I can get away with it, even if lots of my childhood freckles have simply disappeared. Dark skinned and sallow skinned people are not so lucky.

If you read nothing else this year read this book:

The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock.

Gaia casts the Earth as a self-regulating organism whose goal is optimal conditions for survival and the survival of life – though not necessarily human life.

James Lovelock is convinced the damage done since industrialisation has passed its tipping point. Global warming is accelerating ever more quickly.

He has got my full attention. I can only hope that our “climate bankers” pay more attention to this final warning than our monetary bankers paid to the warning signs about the economy.

Happy Earth Day!

Grey, low hanging clouds today and rain that’s not quite rain, but will be soon.

A busy weekend ahead. My daughter is in a variety show that’s produced by one of my sisters; another is the costumier, so each year I get roped in to help backstage. A feeling of dread at this point, but once I’m in I’ll get totally wrapped up in the whole thing.

Last night was the dress rehearsal; then 3 performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s a lot of costume changes and noise from 160 singing and dancing girls aged from 4 to 16.

New Scientist magazine describes a Green divide over the scale of renewable energy projects.

One the one hand they’ve campaigned for investment in renewable energy, but now that some large-scale projects are going ahead not all Greens are happy.

The UK government has approved a tidal energy project in the Severn Estuary between England and Wales for a massive barrage. But a side-effect will be the flooding of 190 square kilometres that is home to some 70,000 birds in winter.

Question is: can we have renewable energy on the scale required by modern society and still protect all wildlife habitats?

I got an email this evening from my friend C whom I’ve known since we were 13 and 14. It was a link to a YouTube video made by her brother, my first real boyfriend - a montage of photos of his eldest daughter’s visit to see him and his second family.

She is one of three children from his first marriage. He has three children in his second marriage. None of the children has met before now.

The video made me cry for lost youth and wasted years, but still I want to finish this with a smile :-).

TV is on and I’m listening to a report about swine flu. Already classified as an outbreak in Mexico, there are also suspected cases in the US, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Scotland. More than 80 people have died in Mexico and some 1,300 have been infected.

The World Health Organisation has warned the virus has the potential to become a pandemic, and has urged all governments to step up surveillance.

The concern seems to be that the symptoms are now appearing in people who have not had contact with pigs – the fear that it is spreading directly among people.

Pure exhaustion around here today after three performances of the variety show I mentioned. Everything went really well, but there’s still a huge sense of relief that it is over for another year.

At midnight last night as I was crawling into bed I was never so glad to get off my feet, but truth is I’d forgotten about the pain by this morning.

My daughter’s highlight was singing Be Our Guest from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. She's still looking a bit zombie-like this afternoon. Partly coming down from the performance high and partly physical tiredness.

Exactly 100 words each and every day that I post at 100words.com and re-post on my blog.

Cheryl, at frizzfrock.blogspot.com, has tagged me with Meme of the Moment. The challenge is to answer it in 100 words. Here goes:

Current obsession? Climate change.

Favourite clothing? Black trousers.

Dinner today? Thai chicken.

Listening? Whatever R and R are playing.

Message to tagger? Brilliant pictures of USA!

Favourite vacation? Kerry.

Reading? Still reeling from James Lovelock’s Gaia.

Me in 4 words? Serious, Smart, Generous, Wine-lover.

Guilty pleasure? Wine in the bath.

Spring? New life.

Looking forward? To a third and final career?

It must be close to 1,000 days now since a friend of mine who lives in the States sent a group email telling her friends in Ireland about a newcomer who was starting his campaign for the Democratic nomination. That email was the very first time I came across the name Barack Obama.

When my daughter first heard his name she was confused and asked was he the man the American soldiers were looking for who was hiding in the mountains?

The impact of Mr Obama’s first 100 days has been far-reaching, stretching across oceans and many, many mountain ranges.

I’ve been reading a novel these past few days: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

Short and very readable it is, to quote a Sunday Herald blurb, “The most astute and subtle insight yet published in fictional form about September 11 and its repercussions.”

Written in the first person, it recounts a one-sided conversation that takes place in Lahore between a young Pakistani man who has been educated at Princeton and lived and worked in New York and a visiting American. I’m half expecting a twist at the end, but regardless it has been an enjoyable, insightful read so far.