THERE are these two couples who have been exchanging houses for Easter for five years. One couple lives in the country, not exactly a farm but they do have a sheepdog and a donkey. The other couple lives in Dublin, well not exactly the city but a bus ride from the centre.
They started when the children were babies and they had no money for hotels or guest houses. Even if they had the money, nobody in either place would want to listen to their children crying, so someone else's place was the solution.
And now it still works like a dream. For a start, it means they each spring clean their house within an inch of its life. Could you bear to have a friend discover awful things down the side of your sofa, or a rake of horrible yellowing vests in the back of the hot press, or realise just how many hills, receipts, reminders of Easter dues and special offers from the supermarket nestle on your mantlepiece? Of course not. So they both leave their houses gleaming on Holy Thursday and meet for lunch at a half way spot to exchange keys and last minute updates. And one lot goes to walk through country lanes and the other lot to a place where there could be 10 films on at the same time. They each leave a chicken, a pound of rashers, bread, butter and milk for the other. The holiday costs them nothing but their petrol.
The last day is spent restoring the house they are in to the unaccustomed splendour it was in when they found it.
They notice little thin about each other's lives. One lot seems heavily into herbs and spices this year . . fairly raunchy list of videos ticked off by the other lot on the list from the video shop . . . I didn't know they were such vitamin takers, hardly anything else in the bathroom cupboard how do they exist without the RTE Guide or pumice stone or a corkscrew that works?
Or, we never thought of washing J-Cloths, or hanging a map of Europe in the loo so that someone might study it sometime, or going to the bottle bank.
They have learned a lot from each other and have been able to give their children splendid holidays for hardly any cost. They can't understand why more people don't do it.
THIS woman I know in London, who runs a business, is very big on "charging the batteries". It's a phrase that makes me quail a bit because charging batteries seems to involve an awful lot of getting up at six and thundering around Regents Park, or going on a fast.
But she regards the Easter break as super battery charging time, and since I've known her, she always does something absolutely exhausting in, the four or so days away from the office. Last year she went on an advanced driving course and learned to skid and do all kinds of desperate things that you would hope would never form any, part of your life. She said it cleared the brain wonderfully and she came back to work ready for anything.
She has been through all the pot holing and mountaineering and canoeing bit so I was wondering what particular challenge Easter 96 would offer to her batteries. So I rang her and asked her.
There was a bit of humming and hawing which has not been her style but, since it was Ireland and since no one knew her, she would tell me. She was going to find a husband.
She had joined three exclusive matrimonial and dating agencies. The signing on fee is quite expensive and she had already lined up six meetings with gentlemen. Business had taught her that it was better to have as many options open to you as possible, so it was to be a lunch here and a dinner there and, obviously, both sides taking lots of notes and, really and truly, unless something went very wrong, she should have something lined up when it was time to go back to work.
She would be absolutely up front. She was 42, very successful and, yes, rich; one, long ago, unwise marriage behind her smart dresser; pleasant face; in pretty good physical shape; impatient and intolerant but basically good natured. There must be chaps out there. Best to see them all over Easter and assess it swiftly rather than letting it drag on over a long time. The kind of man she would like and the kind of man who would put up with her would be on that wavelength.
Would she let me know?
Probably not. He and she would invent a cover story to explain how they met. Very practical, all these dating services but, honestly, not something you want the world to know.
THIS boy that I call Barry will spend Easter as he spent Christmas and two weeks last summer and last Easter, watching his mother.
His mother has not reconciled herself to the fact that Barry's father has gone and is living with someone else who is called his partner. She hates the word partner but people won't let her say tart or whore or even fancy woman so she has to go along with all this partner business. In fact, because of the referendum, it may even be wife one day.
Barry's mother says that this bloody woman will never be called a wife, never.
Barry is 14. He is an only child. His mother is fine when she's at work - well, kind of fine. People at work are nice and kind and they take her out of herself: it's at holiday times she gets very, very depressed and Barry has to watch her like a hawk. She could just sit there and cry and maybe not even get dressed or go shopping or anything. She finds holidays very hard. And, sometimes Barry's dad would like him to go to see him at holidays but he can't really, what with his mother being so upset.
Barry says friends of his mother say he must not stay at home and mind her, he should try to live his own life - but that's all very well to say if you don't have to see your mother with tears down her face, sitting in a dressing gown with a cold cup of tea.
What would he like to do this Easter?
Well, he'd like to go off to Kerry with three of his school friends; someone's family has two mobile homes there. It would be a great holiday but he can't. I mean, you couldn't go and leave her at home all on her own.
So what will he do? He'll suggest the pictures, something she'd like. Not something about people who are too happy or anything. Had I seen Nixon he wanted to know? I hadn't but I said I heard it was a bit long. That would be good, it would pass the time and, anyway, Nixon's life was a bit of a downer wasn't it? His mother would like that.
AND what am I doing for Easter? Five of us are going to Crete. It won't be the Greek Faster but it will be ours. It won't be the scorching sun of other Cretan visits but it will, hopefully, be full of flowers and blossoms and a nice mild climate.
But I am afraid that next week, you will be told.