No, this is not a diary about Republicans. It is not a diary about politics at all; it is another Friday feel-good diary.
During the week I was chatting with OMIR the Storyteller and we were swapping stories and one experience from childhood came back to me. It was one of those moments when a child embarrasses adults. In my case it was a question, but it can also be a statement, that causes the grown-ups to go red in the face, laugh nervously and even perhaps stammer out a `soft' answer.
My tale is below the fold.
I can't remember exactly how old I was, but I could read, so I must have been six or seven years old, about 1959 or 1960. We were on a visit to my mother's family. My parents were staying with my grandparents; my brother and I were next door with my mum's eldest brother Ted and his family.
The adults and teenagers, my brother among them, were downstairs talking and drinking my grand-dad's homemade wine. I had been sent to bed, but told I could read for a while.
I loved staying in other people's houses, because I got to read their books, and my Uncle's house was no exception. In the little room upstairs was a shelf with a dozen books on it. They were all Reader's Digest books, containing real-life stories.
There were stories about other countries, and stories about other peoples. I did not understand them fully, nor did I understand all the words, but they took me into places of the imagination.
The evening in question I was enthralled by a story about a man who visited the Dyak people of Borneo. It told of his journey by boat along rivers where few Europeans head ever ventured. It told of strange animals, thick jungle and of the Dyaks in their long-houses.
One phrase, however, mystified me. I read and re-read it and finally wanting an explanation I got out of bed and went downstairs dressed in my pyjamas.
I walked into the long, narrow living room and stood there looking at the gathering. There were my Mum and Dad, my Granddad and Nan, both my Mum's brothers and their wives, my elder brother, four or five teenage cousins and sitting in her own special chair Big Nan, my Uncle Ted's mother-in-law.
Someone asked, "Jon, what are you doing downstairs?"
All the faces turned to look at me and to the expectant assembly I asked
"What's a g-string?"
So do you have a tale of your own, where you caused red faces, or perhap when you sat in an embarrassing silence when one of your own kids has asked an 'awkward' question?