Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

Home again! And how very lovely it is too. It's funny how different things stand out every time I come home. Sometimes it's huge progress on all the building work going on in my village (I live in a 'village' called Castleconnell eight miles from Limerick city: the population is currently about 1500, but is set to expand to about 3000 over the next few years), sometimes it's the lovely smell of apples in the house.

This time it's all the flowers. There's flowers absolutely everywhere. Rows and rows of daffodils all along the motorways, on roundabouts, in gardens. Daffodils are perennial favourites of County Councils the length and breadth of Ireland, so I suppose I've come home at the right time to appreciate them. But it's not just daffodils: there's hyacinths, tulips, all sorts of things in an array of colours. I can't decide whether they don't have flowers in Wales or if perhaps I just haven't noticed any because I don't spend much time hanging around motorways while I'm there.

I had my interview this morning for a place on the Lyric FM Production Co-ordinator Panel. It was better than I'd expected. Because musical knowledge is so important when working for Lyric, they include quite a lot of general knowledge type questions. It's not all about what experience you have, but also the information you've picked up. I was worried they'd ask me who my top five Irish sopranos were (as they asked Ian yesterday): I'd struggle to think of three good ones! But instead they asked me to say which Great White Hopes in the Irish music scene I'd put money on. It's still a tricky question, and I'm slightly worried that my answers were too obvious (and perhaps not up-and-coming enough), but I did throw in Julie Feeney which seemed to impress them. They all nodded and said 'mm, yes'.

They also asked me quite a lot about what I do for student radio. That was a nice question: I got to talk about the increase in presenter numbers this year, and the importance of paperwork (they had pointed out earlier in the interview that the job involves a lot of administration). They asked me to suggest changes to the Lyric FM timetable (which, thankfully, I'd talked about with Stephen the night before) and what improvements I'd suggest on the breakfast show. I had to waffle for a minute or two before any ideas came to me, but then I suggested there should be more current affairs content so that it wasn't a choice between keeping informed on Radio 1 or listening to music on Lyric FM. Not sure if I really think that's a good idea, but it's certainly a valid suggestion.

The ferry journey was nice yesterday. I slept all the way (as usual). It's such a comfortable place to sleep, gently rocking all the way across the sea. But when I woke up I got the most awful cramp in my leg. It was so sore! I was sitting beside the viewing area, and I woke up just as we were entering Dublin Bay, so loads of people were standing around looking out the window. I must have looked very odd sleepily emerging from under my coat, then grimacing in pain and rubbing my leg.

I had a look at the most gorgeous house yesterday before leaving Bangor. It's just across the road from the Students' Union, right beside the pedestrian crossing. It was renovated last September, and it's absolutely wonderful. I'd love to live there; now all I have to do is persuade the current occupants that they'd like me to live there too. It was a very short visit: I was about to catch a train so I only spent about ten minutes there. It would have been nice to get chatting to them a bit more, convince them that I'm not a psycho (which is how they described most of the other people who'd viewed the house).

The Banglesey (as Sam likes to call it) has been stirring up trouble again. It has decided that the Students' Union is in crisis because four executive members resigned 'in the aftermath' of the closure of the nursery. For goodness sake! There's no crisis. Yes, it's difficult working without a secretary and chairperson, but they didn't resign because of the nursery, and the Executive seems to be working very well together at the moment. It's really sloppy and nasty journalism. Nowhere in the article do they say that the resignations and the nursery closure are directly linked (although Stuart does claim it's why he resigned in a statement, something I don't believe for a minute [although since his resignation letter simply said 'I resign', there's no official explanation for his resignation]. In fact, he admits he voted in favour of the closure, something the Banglesey conveniently glosses over). But mentions of resignations are consistently followed by statements along the lines of 'after the drastic decision to close the nursery' (not an actual quote). They also give much space to the parents who (rudely) continue to claim that the Executive is not capable of making decisions about the nursery's future. They do include a quote from Dizzy pointing out that none of the resignation letters even mention the nursery, but it's at the very end of the article on page three (the 'crisis' part is page one news). It's irritating because there are no actual lies in the article, just very strong inaccurate suggestions.

But yes, I think the most annoying part is the patronising claim by several parents that the Executive is not capable of making decisions. They are particularly hanging on to Llion's claim that the group is not working as a team (something Llion knows all about), as if the problem is specifically with this year's Executive. Well I don't know about the other people on next year's Exec, but I certainly support the closure of the nursery. It's a tough thing to have to do, but there's simply no way the nursery can or should remain open. This childcare fund is a much fairer way to dish out dosh. I spoke to an Irish girl on Normal Site during the campaign who really needed access to childcare money, and for whom a nursery all the way up on St Mary's Site (several miles from Normal Site) was pretty useless.

Anyway, this is getting long, I must stop waffling. Council was fun as usual on Monday (don't listen to Spencer). Seren's editor felt the wrath of Council for making childish (and inaccurate) comments about Council in his editorial. As someone commented, it's all very well going on about editorial freedom and whatnot, but at the end of the day, Seren is a standing committee and as such is accountable to Council. I tried to use Sam's clever idea about procedural motion 42i but it didn't work. We've come up with another couple of ideas to try next time. I really think this notion that we can't amend things during Council is pointless and timewasting. The Schedule should be amended so that amendments can be allowed during Council if the proposer accepts them and if they are approved by a two-thirds majority. That's more than enough safeguards I think. It would speed up the whole process no end.

Oh and we debated a policy motion on abortion. I don't really support the policy motion; I'm not quite sure what it achieves. It states that the Union's stance is pro-choice, but the proposer argued that it meant the Union wasn't taking a stance at all. Pro-choice is very definitely a stance, and one that I fear will alienate people within the Union. I don't think we needed to take a stance at all. The welfare office already provides information on abortion for people who ask, and I don't think this motion has anything to do with 'students as students', the mantra we have to repeat every time we discuss whether the Union should do something. It all started because Spencer mentioned South Dakota illegalising (is that a word?) abortion. Apparently the fear is that this will become standard throughout the USA and spread to the UK. I don't understand that argument at all: is illegalising abortion contagious? If so, why didn't it spread from Ireland long ago? Ireland's much closer, and surely all these pregnant women 'getting the boat' would have carried the strain over here years ago? No, I don't think it's something the Union needs to have a stance on. It's just not necessary.

After Council quite a few of us went t'pub. It was most pleasant, and something which needs to become a regular event. It's nice having a range of people from different societies: rugby, Rostra, Labour, LGBT, UMCB, Welfare and Storm were all represented.

I think I've written enough now. I might go walk the lovely hounds now. They've been so nice to me since I got home, sitting there watching me when I'm in the kitchen and following me around the house. I'll have to take photos of them and post them here.