Find out about the author by clicking on "Who's Willie?" I don't know how long our family has been living with senility. It isn't something which comes on you overnight, like a head cold. In 1989-90, my mother suffered a stroke. Since then, she's deteriorated mentally bit by bit until today, in early 2001, we live an extraordinary life.
About the author, his family, links to places of interest on the Web, many of them Irish. 'I closed the door and locking it behind me, stepped down onto the concrete path and turned away. Silent cars and vans were parked along the road like boats pulled up on little sleepy islands above the tide, resting, nose to nose. ' [Click to see whole page]
Published works... Willie writes poetic, descriptive prose pieces. A longer piece, which is added to from time to time. It recalls boozing days in Dublin City in the 1980s. Lots of photos from the days and nights there. To begin, click on the "Page 1" button, below.
'If someone was to ask me what constituted happiness for me as a child I would have to answer: The river!' (Click to see entire page) 'Once, a lifestyle acquired me. When I began drinking (in a hostelry not too close to home), two pints of ale was my limit, and each was hard-won enough, I thought, when, under-aged and pimpled, I swayed to the counter and made a mumbling order to a sarcastic, culchie barman...' (Click to see entire page)
'Whenever I see used pine furniture on sale, I'm always reminded of the pine table in our old, farm kitchen; its odd, squeaky castors, and drawers of cutlery and papers..' (Click to see entire page) View more Bruxelles photos here
'Wild ivy brushed the arched bridge by the village school, creeping blindly, silently, on woody limbs towards the field and thorny hedgerow..' (Click to see entire page)
'It played in blue. Jetting free on wide wings it turned, spun, was active, was full. It soared: dancing; spinning in the skyscape. It slipped, skimming, rolled joyously...' (Click to see entire page) How to get in contact with Willie
'The hush was broken only by the lowing of the cattle as mist rolled by the hedge-row gap and rushed the cobwebbed grasses in the lower pasture...' (Click to see entire page) The Clubhouse Bulletin Board. Leave permanent messages here.
'Exquisite freedom. At ten or eleven of the final school-room day, doors would open, releasing a flood of five- to twelve-year olds, running home on eager feet to holiday for weeks and weeks...' (Click to see entire page) Read the entries in this Web site's Guestbook.
'It was the same. There at the roadway a pair of granite gate-posts; the crumbling sides of the arched bridge; the stream beneath...' (Click to see entire page) Contribute a message of your own to the Guestbook.
'Grey-brown clouds darkened the horizon, bringing with them a threatening wave of chill air. Highland sheep huddled behind walls; in deep, damp hollows; by lone thorns, ancestral genes warning them of imminent snow...' (Click to see entire page) Get a Guestbook for your Web site for free.
'My first encounters in the great outdoors, a tiny figure moving about in waist high, lucious grass, the smell of the nearby farmyard, the huge, silent sky, deep blue, grazed by slow, white herds of faceless sheep, shepherded by a perfect sun...' (Click to see entire page) Use this link to send an e-mail message to Willie.
These works are published for the first time on the Internet. The chat room attached to this site is called The Clubhouse.
'We sat recently watching people on skis; little children growing up on prairies, in towns with straight streets and wooden houses; men and boys in baseball caps; proud hunters with guns and grisly trophies; skimming across lagoons in hovercraft..' (Click to see entire page) Click on this button to visit the Clubhouse Chat Room.
'Quietness spoke to me. The stillness of the farmhouse of an autumn evening; the loudest thing the tranquil ticking of the kitchen clock. Pots simmering, filled the room with heady scents of rich, warm foods. My mother, writing letters to relations. The dog asleep; the table set, the family not yet home, but coming soon...' (Click to see entire page)
'White peaks glaring under blue skies, sugar frosted by the Summer sun, a pert breeze plucked the topmost sand-dunes, whipping and whirling about tufts of squat salt grass...' (Click to see entire page)
'On my first trip to Dublin, Christmas lights glowered over the streets of the city, strung from building to building above the hurrying crowds of shop-girls in tight-waisted tweed coats and white platform boots, their hair piled high in beehives, or ironed straight...' (Click to see entire page)
This year was tough. My mother's senility has turned angry, agitated, and days are long here. Maureen fidgets her life away in endless loops of needless questions. "What day is it?" "Have I been paid?" "Are you going to the shops tomorrow?" "Did I give you money?"
If I thought drink was expensive in Dublin in the middle 80s, then being in a new century hadn't reduced the price any. I handed a barman a £20 note in the Temple Bar Music Centre and got £9.80p change for two pints of lager and something orangy in a bottle with vodka in it. My cheaper suburban sensibilities were mildly shocked.  
   
   
 

Depending on Willie's online status, you can either email him, or call him into one-to-one chat, by using the button, above.