I’ve never seen anything like the snow today in Portstewart. Thick snowfall really quickly. Roads blocked, cars can’t move, schools closed. Hens stranded under the trampoline.Portstewart Beach 6 December 2010

Some presents I would buy for some imaginary people.

An espresso machine. When I started working at home I used to make rocket powered espressos with a good dose of sugar. Then the machine bust. I’m sure someone else would like the experience.

An ipod. Somewhere just to keep all your music in one place. That or some way of pumping round the house through Airport Express. Now there’s a thought.

Northface gloves with the fancy fingertip control. Use your iPhone even when it’s ball freezing. Suitable for girls too.

An acoustic guitar. Some people just need to play the guitar.

For my little daughter a rocket. ‘Five Rockets dad’ she says. Who am I to argue? She has one. A Little Einsteins. For a girl that can say yes and no in English and Polish the world is her oyster.

Pile of new clothes so no longer will I be asked ‘What’s this like’.

Mad Men boxed set. If you don’t get this, you’re. . . strange.

Book of Old English poetry in the original. Some people need a challenge.

A bif f*** off iMac. Looks great, performs well, dogz bollix.

Some socks. Everyone needs socks.

Three hens. Fresh eggs. You’ll never go back.

An Irish speaking peasant to practice Irish upon le do thoil.

Sin é!

Children playing, having fun.

Someone was asking me the other day what the

Frozen in time, the familiar - unfamiliar.

beach and the sea were like in the winter when it was freezing. Usually the salt air prevents too much ice forming but last Christmas with the massive drop in temperature there was ice everywhere.

The beach at Portstewart was like something from CS Lewis.

The water run off from the hills made the stalactites, meanwhile the water lying in rockpools and little rivulets had frozen solid. Whilst I’m no fan of the bitter cold but I hope we see this again.

Last week I travelled down south, it was four degrees colder inland than it was at the sea. This would be common enough. Last winter also, my mother for the first time saw the two rivers in Omagh frozen over.

Our ones are looking forward to more snow because last year we had hours of fun sliding down the fairways at Portstewart golf club.

As children we used old fertilizer bags or whatever sort of plastic sheeting we could get to fly down the hills at the Camowen Hill home. Nowadays we used plastic sleighs and sliders that you can also use in the  dunes at the beach even when the weather is fine.

Whatever, the snow brings out the child in each of us. Hard to resist taking a furtive slide to yourself, even if it means falling on your arse. Better to have tried to slide, than stood like a square. Eh?

from The Sea in Winter by Derek Mahon.

But morning scatters down the strand

Relics of last night's gale-force wind.

Far out, the Atlantic faintly breaks,

Seaweed exhales among the rocks,

And fretfully the spent winds fan

the Cenotaph and the lifeboat mine.

From door to door the Ormo van

Delivers, while the stars decline.

This is where Jimmy Kennedy wrote

'Red Sails in the the Sunset'. Blue

And Intimate, Elysian

And neighbourly, the Inishowen

Of Joyce Carey and Red Hugh

Gleams in the distance. On a clear day

You can see Jura and Islay

Severe against the Northern Sky

Portstewart, Portrush and Portballintrae

Une beau pays mal habité. . .

I despair.

My daughter was doing her English homework this morning. Why not last night?

Well we have visitors and things are too much craic in the evening to bother about homework. Anyhow, I digress, it’s a habit I learned from my mother.

The topic of the homework was prefixes. She had to place particular prefixes in front of a series of words and also explain the meaning of the prefix. In other words she had to show she understood what a prefix does to the word it goes in front of. She made the usual mistakes whilst getting the hang of it, but seemed to be cottoning on rightly.

So then, the prefix she had to use was ‘pro’, the example given was ‘proactive’ and she came up with ‘protein’.

No, I said, ‘tein’ isn’t a word in its own right therefore in that instance ‘pro’ isn’t a prefix. Likewise with ‘professional’, ‘production’ and so on.

Eventually she settled on pro-Europe and pro-choice (we didn’t get into the specific meanings of that – it will keep for another day).

As I made school lunches, sandwiches for the others – tuna, and banana for Sorcha if you’re interested – she says ‘Daddy, what about ‘sus’.’ The example given was ‘suspect’.

In the name of God, and this is in a textbook. I explained that there is no such word as ‘pect’ therefore ‘sus’ is not a prefix, ergo the book was wrong. And Cáit, in fact ‘sus’ does not act as a prefix in any context. I love it when the book is wrong.  I pointed it out to my own teacher in primary school once and he hated me for it.

Little did I suspect when I got up this morning that this conversation would prefix my day. I am awaiting with profoundly bated breath the markings of the teacher.