Bridget's Day to Burns Night: February in NYC

St Bridget's Day (1 February) heralded the first day of spring. Though Ireland seems to be the only country of the opinion that 1 February is the first day of spring and it certainly is still winter in NYC.

I celebrated Imbolc not once but twice this year. First, at a family event in the Irish Arts Center, where we made St. Bridget's crosses and butter (because Bridget is, amongst many other things, the patron saint of dairy farmers). Later in the week, I had the pleasure of attending an informative and entertaining evening of story and song, on the theme of St. Bridget, hosted by Hearth, at the American Irish Historical Society. Every year I learn something new about Bridget. That she was a midwife, a brewer, a beekeeper. That she hung her cloak on a sunbeam. That she taught a fox to dance. That she was the daughter of a chieftain who had an affair with a servant. You never hear anything new about St. Patrick - always just the sheep, the dream, the shamrock and the snakes. Bridget is fascinating by comparison. Patrick’s PR team needs to lean into presenting vague possibilities as though they are hard facts, like Bridget’s team is doing. Check out this sign on a church in my hometown:

Leave out the “possibly”. Come on! Live a little! Say he founded it, right before he tied up his hair with a rainbow and performed Ireland’s first C-section on a donkey, using nothing but his bare hands and a daffodil.

Burns Supper

A week after celebrating Irish pagan goddess Bridget, we celebrated Scottish poet, Robert Burns, at a black-tie Burns supper in the Harvard Club. Black tie for me, meant a floor-length gown and for my husband, meant a knee-length kilt. It's very cold in New York in February to be wearing a kilt in the traditional style, but wear it he did.

I say it was in the Harvard Club, and I told each and every person I met that I was going to an event in the Harvard Club, so imagine my disappointment when, one hour before the event, I re-read the invitation only to realise that the Robbie Burns night was being held in the lesser known, Harmonie Club. God, I’m insufferable. Imagine if I’d actually gone to the college.

The Harmonie Club was as stately and grand as I expected the Harvard Club would be and there was everything you’d expect from a Scottish night out. There were kilts, there were bagpipes, there was whisky, there was haggis. There were neeps and there were of course, tatties. I'd never been to a Scottish ceilidh before but my husband and I were confident it would be similar enough to an Irish céili that we were first up on the dancefloor. And it was very similar. There was a Shoe the Donkey, but with a different name. There was a Walls of Limerick, but with slightly less luascadh. Gaelic dance - it’s a very frigid affair. And not just because there was a snowstorm swirling outside.

Valentine’s Day

I called my parents in the middle of the month and asked if they had any plans for Valentine’s and they did! Wait till you hear. Is this not the most perfect Valentine’s Day? “We’re going to see the new Bridget Jones and going for a meal in the China Garden because we have a €25 voucher for it”. Bridget Jones and an Irish Chinese - a perfect night out.

I received the following review by text the next day: “Very enjoyable. The film did not break down which was a first for Navan”.

Figuring out ice skating

Last month, I said that it seemed to be the longest and coldest winter yet. Well, one month on and it has only gotten longer and much, much colder. I also said that we embraced the cold in January on one solitary occasion and in February we did that too. In Central Park again but this time we sent the 5 year old out to represent the whole family. Her school organised a skating event at Wollman Rink (the ice skating rink in Central Park). I had the option to join in but I can't skate and decided I’d have been more of a hindrance than a help to a 5 year old who also can’t skate. Instead, I laced up her skates and pushed her out onto the ice with only one instruction: “Figure it out!”

Photo by Yomex Owo on Unsplash

She didn't figure it out and a few minutes later, was clinging to the wall and crying. I quickly rented a skate aid i.e. a great big plastic Zimmer frame and pushed her back out again. But this time, we were laughin’.

“She’s trying to run along behind the frame”, someone more in-the-know than I am, said to me.

“She should be sliding”, they added.

I could see that they were right so shouted out to her, in the middle of the rink: “DON'T RUN! TRY AND SLIDE!”

“I'M TRYING!!!”, she shouted back “BUT IT’S SLIPPEEE!”

“YEAH IT IS….it is…slippy...alright”. I sort of trailed off at the end. Suddenly embarrassed to be in a shouty conversation about how ice is slippy.

Winter Sun

We took our snow avoidance up a notch and went to Cancun for a week, the week of the school’s Midwinter Recess. Well, roughly the week of the recess because going on the actual dates of the break would require a lottery win. We thought we'd be diligent with our daughter’s school attendance but that was until we saw the price of flights, when we promptly downgraded our diligence to: “Do you know what? Kindergarten’s not that important. Two days off will be fine”. On the plane there, a little boy in front of me asked his English mother why there were so many kids on the plane. “Because it's half-term”, she replied. “Then why did we go on Thursday and not on Sunday?” the little boy fairly asked. I didn't catch what the mum said but it definitely wasn't “Because it is cheaper, son. Because it is much, much cheaper”.

We booked a hotel that had a kids’ club for ages 4 and up. We knew it was 4 and up in advance but thought our (very tall) 3 year old, (who we trained to say she was 4), would get in no problem. We were wrong. There are establishments subject to strict licensing laws that would be easier to get her into than it was to get her into this kids’ club. After asking me her age, they asked to see her passport, then, looking me in the eye said: “She's 3”.

“Yeah”, I said, as though I hadn't , a mere 10 seconds previously, told them that she was 4. “She’s going to be 4”, they added. Again, yes I know. I lied, OK? You caught me, I lied. My kids lied. We all lied.

Afterwards, the 5 year old said to me that we should have written on her passport that she was 4. Forgery of a state id - a thought that had already just crossed my mind, I must admit .

We got over it eventually and settled into the holiday routine of waking up with no alarm, breakfast, pool, pizza, siesta followed by kids’ club for the 5 year old/free time for one parent/one parent entertains the 3 year old (who we so convincingly told was 4, now won't accept that she is 3 . It’s understandably confusing for her). Then a 4pm ice-cream and family reunion on the beach where the kids would dance in the broken waves of the Gulf of America, running back only to wipe their sandy hands/salty eyes/kid’s lipstick-covered mouths/snotty noses on my t-shirt. My husband was standing right beside me but his pristine white t-shirt went completely unscathed while my black one was, at one point, practically clawed off my back by four tiny sandy paws.

Mention-worthy bites

Shot out to two pastries I had in February.

I stumbled on Supermoon Bakehouse by accident after failing (for a second time) to get a cinnamon roll from Sunday Morning before they sold out. But this kalamansi shiso curd and yuzu (what?) white chocolate croissant was a worthy consolation prize.

The second was this Pink Pineapple & Almond Cream Danish from the Dominque Ansel Workshop at the Flatiron. My friend Jayne messaged me from Dublin to say “If I was in New York, I’d go get this today”. And I left straight away because the last time Jayne sent me such a text, it was to tell me about an immersive Marvelous Mrs Maisel event taking place on Fifth Avenue and it was one of my happiest afternoons in the city. A pink carpet ran down both sides of 5th Avenue, there were pink cabs, pink cocktails, pink black and white cookies. There were Mrs Maisel lookalikes and 1950s dance shows. Even St. Patrick’s Cathedral got in on the action with enormous pink floral displays at the front door.

At the weekend I split a Croque Madame crepe from Vive la crepe on Columbus Avenue with David and I cannot stop thinking about it. It was so good. I didn’t take a picture of it but I did take a picture of their ‘Campfire Hot Chocolate’ with burnt marshmallows and Nutella:

Last night

Last night, we ordered Chinese and watched Bridget Jones on Peacock. I cried from start to finish. I love Bridget. I love how she laughs with her friends, is fun with her kids and can be herself at work. I love how the little boy looks like Mark Darcy. How does he look so like Mark Darcy? It can’t just be tilting his head to the side and wearing his dad’s jumper. I love that it is a movie with older people in it. I loved Emma Thompson. I loved that going back to work and accepting help from a nanny made Bridget’s life easier and everyone happier. I loved that their house looked properly lived in: full of stuff and full of love. I love that she says “Off to Bedfordshire” to her kids the way her dad had said to her and I loved that he told her that it wasn’t enough to survive but that she also had to LIVE!