Sharon Black, Writer.

Irish writer of witty women's fiction. Fuelled by coffee

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Irish writer Sharon Black's personal, monthly columns at This Funny Irish Life.

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Gadgets: the way to this girl's heart

Photo by Charlotte May on Pexels.com I am a gadgets girl. I always have been. Kitchen gadgets, bathroom gadgets, knacky gadgets that magically create extra space in a wardrobe.While other people shop for clothes or shoes or bags or sports gear, I find myself gravitating to kitchen accessories shops and hardware stores. Not always to buy, obviously. Because that would be a problem. I’d end up…

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A LIFETIME OF GETTING LOST

“Woman driving a car“/ CC0 1.0 I have spent my life being lost. This isn’t a figure of speech, or some deep, strange metaphor to explain my state of mind. I am geographically-challenged. To be blunt, I have the worst sense of direction of anyone I know, and I have literally wasted hours and days of my life in the wrong place.   I was just seven when I learned that this would be a problem: it was…

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Happy perfectly imperfect New Year

Happy perfectly imperfect New Year

Photo by Nicole Michalou on Pexels.com HAPPY new year, everyone. Is anyone hoping for a perfectly wonderful new year? Will you lose those Christmas kilos? Will you become madly fit and eat clean for the whole year, treating yourself only occasionally to a glass of wine and a single square of dark chocolate? Will you have glowing, healthy looking hair and skin, the latter flushed from all that…

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Wild Swimming and Bad Backs

Wild Swimming and Bad Backs

HELLO: I’m back. Did you miss me? Or are you one of my email subscribers who has just come across this in your inbox, and are now sitting there scratching your head and wondering who the hell I am? It’s okay, I get it. I was on a break. Quite a decent one, as it turns out. Having written my last column in June, I’d planned to return in October, but it didn’t quite happen. Too much other stuff got…

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Will you have a hang sandwich with that?

Will you have a hang sandwich with that?

Photo by Askar Abayev on Pexels.com THERE’S nothing that gets Irish people talking like the subject of food. Unless it’s the weather, of course. Or the hurling. Or the rugby. Or the Champions League. Or how long people have to queue these days in Dublin Airport to get off the island. But back to food. More specifically, feeding people. Anyone, really. Our families, our friends, our kids’…

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When I discover that I'm a terrible patient

When I discover that I’m a terrible patient

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com SHOULD I ever commit a crime and it’s not too terrible – I can’t think of one right now but let’s just go with that – and there’s no room in the country’s jails for me, I can tell you now that I’d never survive house arrest. I used to think that of all the various ways of incarceration, being detained in my own home, sleeping in my own bed and being surrounded by…

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La Dolce Vite

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I KNOW the moment I am going to die: I’m on a speedboat circling the island of Capri off the Amalfi Coast. I’m not alone: the rest of my family are on board, along with other brave tourists. Most of them seem to be enjoying it, some are even taking photos. I’m not sure how. I’m finding it difficult to appreciate the undoubted beauty of the island because the boat…

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It's okay to be...authentic

It’s okay to be…authentic

Photo by Julia Larson on Pexels.com I meet a friend for coffee one Thursday morning. We are both part of a weekly group that meet in our local Italian café and call ourselves, a bit unimaginatively, The Thursday Group. Look, it works. We’re not really into imaginative names for groups or clubs around here, with the exception of the SLAGS, which is a golfing group and which I’d nearly be tempted…

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The lure of the Past.

The lure of the Past.

View from a window: the beautiful gardens at Kilkea Castle, Co Kildare. There’s a replica of a famous painting on the wall of my house. It hangs half way up the stairs, and is fittingly entitled The Meeting on the Turret Stairs, by the 19th century Irish painter Frederic Burton. In the painting, a medieval young woman and her beloved knight meet on the spiral turret stairs of their keep or…

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New Year's resolution? Let Go.

New Year’s resolution? Let Go.

Photo by Fabian Wiktor on Pexels.com Happy New Year everyone. Best to start off on an optimistic note. And to be honest, I’ve never been so relieved to let the new year slip quietly in. Christmas in our house was different, given that the two youngest joined us via Zoom from their bedrooms on Christmas day. Turkey with a side helping of Covid? Anyone? No? Just sprouts then. And after the year…

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Grow Older, don’t Grow Up

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com I’ve reached an age where my infrequent trips to the doctor feel a lot more serious and grown up. Obviously, I have been an adult for quite some time. I have …

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Grow Older, don't Grow Up

Grow Older, don’t Grow Up

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com I’ve reached an age where my infrequent trips to the doctor feel a lot more serious and grown up. Obviously, I have been an adult for quite some time. I have three grown up children of my own. I’ve just always believed that if there’s not much wrong with you, it’s okay to forget that you are in fact, getting a bit older. But I’m a fierce believer in prevention…

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It takes a Village

Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com There’s two important things I’ve learned as I get older. The first is never waste a good hair day. The second is to ask for help. To be honest, I&#…

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It takes a Village

It takes a Village

Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com There’s two important things I’ve learned as I get older. The first is never waste a good hair day. The second is to ask for help. To be honest, I’ve always been pretty good at the second one. I’ve never been one of those super women with full time jobs and wonderful nannies for their children. I used to watch them from the sidelines as I dropped off children…

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(via Living with Notions) Find my October blog on This Funny Irish Life here: https://thisfunnyirishlife.wordpress.com/2021/10/04/living-with-notions/