Midland's, Mummies and Mary Jane

Actual picture from Body and Soul the morning before I hit the Gold Party

​​Tis a new year and all that lies ahead is filled with wonderment, hope, imagination and let’s be honest a tiny bit of dread over the current political situation, but you know Global politics and all that jazz is a sure fine way of messing with the mind so I will veer away and tell ye a funny story. Really the only way to describe it would be a Bridget Jones moment; albeit I find her irksome, babyish, old fashioned and really quite the fuckin bore. Can someone out there please modernise that female 30something woman who is ill fitted to the social norms, PLEASE!! And for god sakes stop with the self hate and bitching.
Anyway for a lack of a better person to associate my story to I will use Bridget Jones (suggestions of another really appreciated)

It all started last ‘summer’ year when slopping and trudging through the muck at Body and Soul on the Sunday of the poxy rain with my mate Heff, we asked ourselves if we should just pack in and head home. This is something which is absolutely against my rules of festivals. Now I am someone who has worked festivals for years, know the ins and outs and enjoy them immensely. I love the atmosphere and the fact that it’s like a yearly get together of all the coolest cats that I know in Dublin and beyond. So I decided to keep her lit and get into my festival zone. Much laughter, wise cracking, bauldness and a couple of mojitos later we end up at a gold party. I’m wearing shimmering silver as I have absolutely no idea about the gold party. But it was all the craic and then some... Amo on the decks with her beautiful smile, amazing energy and fuckin whip craicin tunage! We dance like little fuckin 18 year olds, rain, smiles and the entire world at our feet. Magical, pure gold magic in the Irish summer rain! Wellies, muck, cans, tunage and gold! I get chatting to two women about abortion as you do and together we rid the world of all dickheaddery and laugh like witches. We talk about feminism, body positivity, kids, life and all the little things in-between. So far so good. Havin’ a whopper time!

Then I sit myself down to roll a joint (legalise it!! I really don’t want to debate weed – it should be legal full stop.) – I know the tobacco is bad for me as are the mojitos I just drank but it’s a festival and a place to be free of all other worries and hassles and dance like no one is watching!

I finish up my rolling and pop the bag (about €9.50 worth) into my bag. When like the flash of a flasher a guard arrives right up beside me and asks me what I have there. I was aware that plain clothes guards were supposed to be floating around and one look into this fella’s face I knew exactly his reason for attending this festival. ‘Well guard’ I said, ‘its weed’.

He took me around the corner into a maze of bushes and luckily my mate is there with the other guard walking behind or I’d have been wondering where this guy was taking me. So I say ‘here you go guard’ and hands him the bag and the joint I had just rolled. The other guard (sound guard) says ‘ah we are not Nazis you can keep that joint’ (ahem legalise it!). So the guard I am talking to (bad guard) asks me why I have the weed. I tell him I like it, it should be legalised and that to be fair I’m standing here talking to him clear as day and obviously no harm to him or anyone. He informs me that it is not legal yet (antiquated laws) and takes my name and address. I had no ID and downright refused to walk back through that muck and mud with a guard in tow to find ID I wasn’t even sure I had for a $9.50 bag of weed. So I called out my name and address twice and super fast so he’d know I weren’t lying and he jots it in his little book in the gickest handwriting ever. I though well that’s that thrown out, little did I guess bad guard has a penchant for reading his own handwriting...

Fast forward about five months to a week before Christmas and another rainy day I get a knock on the door in the morning. I jump up to answer as another bang comes on the door. I am a little irate as everyone who knows me knows I am not a morning person. The guard who I open the door to apologises and hands me a summons to court. I look at her bewildered but somewhere in the back of my mind I do the math. I ask her what it’s for as if I have a thousand convictions and she informs me politely (and dare I say embarrassedly) about Body and Soul and Mary Jane. Well I laughed and told her how ridiculous this was for €9.50 worth of weed (estimated street value). She looked apologetic as I wished her a happy Christmas and bade her get back to her vehicle (see what I did there?) and out of the horrid rain!

So I basically have thee best friends in the world. All of whom agreed that weed should be legalised (who doesn’t at this stage?) and most of who partake in smokage as they would, say in a bottle of vino. These friends, being the legends that they are, all offered to all pitch in the fine if there was one.

No we are edging nearer the Bridget Jones moment.
One of my best friends and fellow gob job nut case is two weeks away from pushing a sprog out her vagina and will not hear of me going to Midlands Ireland GAA Club/Court House alone. Legend. So after a mummy chat over Fumbally eggs with her colleague who is also on maternity leave she pops around to mine to pick me up and head for the lands of middle Ireland and my life of crime.

Tis a lovely fresh January day, the sky is blue, the trees bare and the motorway empty of cars. We own the road and the hour and a half drive is a pleasant one – fixing the world problems, discussing ridiculous baby names, chatting about work and the weather and cows and all the things that pop into our brains.  We arrive in Mullingar with an hour to spare and decide to drive into the town and find a spot for tea (and for my friends bladder to empty. We enter the pub and my friend legs it to the loo. I order her a soda and myself an auld Americano. We sit and chat. She asks if I am nervous. I am not (legalise it) and we laugh and chat. I go to the loo just before we are leaving and this is when my Ciarna Bridget Jones moment happens. I am in the loo cubicle and after finishing up open the door and go straight to the sink to wash my hands when next I hear ‘Hey Ciarna!’ I turn my head and see a friend from our old art college days. Who is looking fab and also up the BallyJamesDuff. She asks me why I am in Mullingar and I inform her somewhat embarrassedly that I am up in court for Mary Jane charges. She smiles knowingly (I have shaved pink hair and am still chipping away at the auld art block). I tell her that I am there with a fellow college mate and she should come out and say hi. We exit the bathroom and then comes my Bridget Jones moment.

I stand there pink haired, thirty five years of age and up in the local GAA Club/ Court House for marijuana between my two art college friends who are in full pregnancy bloom and sharing their pregnancy stories and happiness. I stand there squeezed between two bumps and lots of successful happy stories about good jobs and babies and find myself inwardly screaming – but mostly laughing.... yep this is life. I have to elaborate. I have been having major moments of questioning everything baby related recently (since my two best friends got pregnant at the same time – but mostly because of my age and the fact that we don’t want kids at the moment and if we do decide to do it we should now because we are that couple who just can’t conceive without help) Anyway that’s all very long and I’ll discuss it more over time but for now I just had to see the comedy of the moment. 
​Honestly I laughed. Then as we said goodbye, myself and my friend drove off we laughed some more smiling at life.  
So at the court we watched as the judge – or as we had taken to privately calling her – ‘Your Judginess’ admonished, gave out to and generally looked like a disappointed school principal at all who were up before. All beside one- me (legalise it). After a charge of possession of a €50 worth of marijuana (RTE like coverage of the event – how can we trust a system when they lie on such a small and fundamental levels to suit some agenda beyond me?)  The judge not looking at me asked me what I had to say. Like a 12 year old I told her I was sorry and that this wouldn’t be happening again. It won’t. She threw it out and on I went with my day.
I learned three lessons from this event

1. I have the best friends imaginable
2. If you are ever stopped by a guard – gather your own evidence – take pictures of what you are caught for because lies will ensue and people of the law lie. 
3. Bridget Jones was overrated, life is complicated and funny (if you are lucky) and honestly don’t worry about social clichés. I don’t mind being the pink haired girl up for marijuana as I am way more complicated and interesting that that, as are my pregnant friends in my story. 

Oh and in case u didn’t get my subliminal messages – LEGALISE IT!
 
*if you are affected by any of the issues in this story please collect some firelighters, sticks and logs, build a big pile. Throw your issues on top, take out your lighter and burn them fuckers. Now take off your clothes and dance around that mother fucking fire and howl at that beautiful sky!