ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

Well, we’ve got our new baby! We spent the whole of yesterday in eager anticipation, shopping (#1 sulked because I bought a pink lead - well, she is a girl!), and baking (I bake in a crisis). Soon, J&C arrived with B, our new greyhound. She skulked in behind them looking completely terrified, her big brown eyes wider than ever, and proceeded to do the biggest, runniest poo you’ve ever seen in your life right there in the hall. Happily, we’ve got hard floors so no biggy (well it was actually).

We’d forgotten quite how thin she is (racing weight - 60lbs), but not how fast she can run. We took her on the lead round the garden and she explored every inch, sniffing all the rabbit holes (poor bunnies, they don’t know what they’re in for), touching noses with the cows through the fence (’blimey, that’s a big dog’) and generally trying to stick her little arrow body through any tiny little hole. We did let her off the lead and she didn’t seem to be able to find any exit, but time will tell.

Once back inside, we sat down to chat about feeding etc while B explored her new territory. She walked around the house behind son #2, just barely an inch behind his legs, so that every time he stopped (’..and this is the bathroom..’), she bumped into his legs and had to stop, blinking, to recover her composure. She quite liked the mirror at the end of the hall, and kept popping over to have a chat with the rather nice looking dog behind the glass. I was also pleased to see that she was still rather struck with hubby, leaning against his legs while he whispered in her ear.

We settled down for a cup of tea and a chat (well, everyone else did - B decided to drink mine and I couldn’t face it after that) and talked about discipline (I think this might be an issue - I actually thought I might cry when J demonstrated how to send her out of the room while we’re eating). B decided to take a wander around solo and shortly there was enormous crash, swiftly following by a wild-eyed, terrified B who came skittering out of the kitchen sideways at a terrific pace (actually it was very graceful - reminded me of that Holiday on Ice that we saw as kids). After we’d caught her and calmed her down, it seemed that I’d left the new pack of doggy treats open on the side of the kitchen (duh) and she’d tried to get her paws up on the work surface to have a closer look. Unfortunately she’d slipped and cleared all the wine glasses onto the floor. Only one broken, so again, not a major disaster, but I reckon she was beginning to wonder if our house was booby-trapped. The boys then trooped out a long line of toys for her to try and she was rather taken, being Irish, by a teddy with a St George’s flag on his foot. She gave him a good shake before settling down to chew his leg off.

Eventually, we tearfully waved goodbye to J&C (’come back…we need you!’), sent the children to bed, ignoring their pleas for the dog to sleep in their beds and sat down with a well-earned glass of wine (us, not the dog). She finally flopped awkwardly to the floor and listened carefully, head tilted to one side, while we told her softly about how wonderful her life is going to be from now on. She drifted off as we scratched her soft ears and described the lazy days, long walks, yummy dinners and copious cuddles to come. Every time one of us stopped stroking, her wet nose would appear to prompt us to carry on.

When we finally coaxed her into her bed and tried to leave, she tried to lever herself through the door to come with us, so we had to repeat the procedure a couple of times before we discovered that she was faster and, therefore, always got to the door before us. We then tried backing out of the door while pushing gently on her head, which worked a treat. She cried a little (I know, I had my ear pinned to the door the other side), but was pretty exhausted what with all that pooing and smashing things, and soon nodded off in her lovely new bed (camouflage), with her new toys (teddy, weird bulgy tennis ball thing, squishy pink toy bone) in her new house with her new family. I wonder what she dreamt of.

My Mum’s over for the week and in a bid to discover more about this little island which is now our home, we decided to head off west on a little road trip.

Hubby called in a favour with a friend who has a somewhat spectacular castle on the west coast, and we packed up the car and the kids, and a somewhat too happy Hubby waved us off (he had to work) on our journey.

The following five hours went something like this (repeat as necessary):

#2: ‘are we there yet?’
#1: ‘Don’t be stupid, we only just left’

Ten minutes later…

#1: ‘Are we there yet…?’

All this was sprinkled liberally with ‘ow, get off, he’s on my foot’ and ‘I want to lie on the headrest, it’s my turn’ and ‘SHUT UP or I’ll stop this car and MAKE YOU WALK!!’, plus several stops for a wee, a drink, fresh air, another wee, etc, etc.

However, when we finally reached the west, it was all worth it. If you do one thing when you visit Ireland, head out to the magical county of Connemara. It is windswept, remote and beautiful, with shimmering lakes, mist-topped mountains, swathes of purple heather and startled-looking black sheep in the middle of the road around every bend. The castle, needless to say, was spectacular and totally out of our class. For example, we were given sorbet between every course (’ooh, ice cream!’), which totally confused the children who kept thinking it was pudding. #1 and I opted for fresh local pan-fried Halibut, which was nothing short of spectacular, and the desserts, well, let’s just say it wasn’t a trolley, more a trailer. I listened to #1 grilling the very attentive waitress:

Waitress: ‘Can I help you, Sir?’
#1: ‘Er..what can I have?’
Waitress: ‘You can have anything you like, Sir. This is a pear and almond crumble, this is a summer berry crumble, this is lemon meringue pie, this is chocolate mousse, these are profiteroles, these are coffee meringues and this is chocolate cake. We also have a fine selection of local speciality cheeses, a selection of home made ice cream…’
#1 (interrupting): ‘Can I have two?’
Waitress: You can have whatever you like, Sir’
#1: ‘What’s this?’
Waitress (helpful smile now drooping slightly): ‘that would be fresh pouring cream, Sir. We also have fresh whipped cream or fresh custard’.
#1: ‘Can I have two desserts, pouring cream AND whipped cream?’
Waitress (teeth now slightly gritted behind the smile): ‘Yes, Sir, you may have whatever you like’
Exit #1, plate piled worryingly high: ‘wicked!’

Needless to say, several hours later we staggered out of the restaurant doing our best ‘Mr Creosote’ impression - just one more wafer thin mint in serious danger of causing us to spontaneously explode. A refreshing waddle around the lush grounds more than perked us up and we tumbled into our ridiculously elaborate four-poster, feeling like ‘Enery the Eighth I am I am..’

The next morning, after a wallow in our own personal jacuzzi (oh yes) and having tucked away an indecently large ‘Full Irish’ (with #1 then attacking the fresh fruit, yoghurt, croissants and preserves), we reluctantly headed home, stopping on the way for a fleeting glimpse of Galway Bay looking azure and beautiful in the mist. Enchanting.

Watch out - here’s yet another post with absolutely nothing to do with moving to Ireland. Nope, nada. Well, I did buy the ingredients here, does that count?

Hope #2 doesn’t read this, but after my recent success of hiding a handful of sultanas (soaked in hot orange juice then chopped finely) in my latest batch of chocolate muffins, I set about expanding my stealth-health (ooh I like that) repertoir by turning my hand to cookies.

My first attempt was to use my usual old cookie mixture (I like this one because you can make loads of dough, bung it in the fridge, then even hubby can spoon boulders onto a baking tray and hey presto - instant silence), whilst surreptitiously adding a small amount of chopped dates. This mixture was from one of my home economics books from school (complete with spelling mistakes (’caster suger’ being the most unforgivable) and has been with me ever since, so no copyright issues there then.

When mixed with small pieces of chopped chocolate I thought the dates were well hidden, but funnily enough it was #1 that noticed them and his comment only just escaped #2’s ears (which would have been a disaster - once he knows I’m tinkering, the usually gaping mouth is clamped firmly shut) by a quickly applied, and somewhat floury, hand across his startled mouth: ‘yes they’re lovely aren’t they, don’t talk with your mouth full darling, there’s a good boy’.

All went well until - disaster! Turning the cookies out I burned one of my fingers and - shock horror! - my new, beautiful white nail. Actually, the damage was not too drastic and there’s just a little sunken hole in the middle of my nail, so undeterred (must happen all the time to Nigella) I pressed on. Not a bad result, but they were a bit hard - okay when first out of the oven but by the time they were cold you needed better teeth than I’ve got to break through. Back to the chopping board then (see what I did there?).

Couple of batches later and I’m onto a winner. I hereby proudly present my recipe. Give it a go. Oh and by the way I know it’s very verbose (one of my Mum’s words there I think), but I hate it when people put stuff in recipes and don’t explain why. It’s very annoying:

4oz butter
4oz granulated sugar (for crunch)
4oz muscovado sugar (nice toffee flavour)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract (don’t know why, always seems to be in cookie recipes)
7oz self raising flour (started with 8 but makes the mix a bit dry)
100g white chocolate, chopped into big lumps
2oz almonds and 2oz dates (or raisins), whizzed in food mixer so they’re undetectable
2oz porridge oats (healthy eh?)

Anyhoo, cream the butter and the two sorts of sugars in your fabulously large and shiny stainless steel food processor (oh, not got one? Obviously not as fantastic a cook as me then, ha). Then add the egg and the vanilla. No, I don’t know why. It smells nice though. Stir in the flour and the chopped up chocolate. I started off using plain, but white goes really nice and gooey, although doesn’t mask the dates quite as well. I whizzed the dates and almonds until they were quite fine then added them and the oats into the mixture. It does get a bit hard to mix, so beef up those pecs at the same time. Cookery tips and fitness too - what a blinder! Blob spoonfuls onto a baking tray (I got 3 lines of 3 cookies on my tray - they do spread a bit but not too drastically). This mix is quite dry and tough, so don’t shape them or anything, they just melt into nice big fat yummy cookies. Oh, at 180 degrees/gas mark..em..don’t know, for about 10 - 12 mins. Don’t overcook them, they need to be chewy in the middle. Then feed to offspring, whilst silently congratulating yourself on your deviousness.

Oh dear, oh dear. We’re suffering from a healthy dose of STB this morning. It must be his profession, because hubby loves his little initialised phrases. I thought they were called mnemonics, but my spell check scratched its head at that one. Anyway, I think mnemonics are more like aide-memoir things such as Never Eat Shredded Wheat. Sorry, rambling there a bit. Anyhoo, whatever they’re called he loves them and STB in our house stands for Self To Blame. Oh. Hubby’s just come in and said they’re called acronyms. I invited the smartarse to BO. I’ll leave that one to your imagination.

I’ll elaborate: last night, feeling somewhat elated after our success with the house check, we decided to celebrate by whipping out the blender attachment for the shiny, stainless steel beast of a food processor, and knocking up a few cocktails with the help of our well-thumbed Cocktail Bible. #1 was still up for the first one, so we opted for a non-alcoholic passion fruit cocktail without the passion fruit (not exactly a store cupboard essential). And jolly nice it was too.

After his bedtime, things got a little more grown up with the raiding of the cocktail cabinet (okay, the shelf above the bin in the cupboard, but it sounds nicer saying cocktail cabinet). We polished our best UrbanBar cocktail glasses and cocktail shaker (www.urbanbar.co.uk - go there and drool) and soon, the kitchen was back in its customary state of disarray. We started with frozen pineapple Daiquiris, except we didn’t have any pineapple so we used tinned peaches so I guess that made them frozen peach Daiquiris. Highly recommended. After a couple of these we got a bit more adventurous and went for a White Lady. After those, we got even more adventurous and a bit random but I’m not sure anything actually had a proper name.

Hubby and I can talk for England. We don’t actually pay much attention to what the other person’s saying, and we interrupt each other a lot, but it’s all fairly good natured. We were soon rambling away (very much like C and I but with much less coherence), mulling over the impending responsibility of dog ownership, arguing about who would pick up the poo, planning our future and generally putting the world to rights.

So, fast forward to this morning and my throbbing head is a raging testimony to the jolly good night we had last night. I can’t remember much but the state of the kitchen this morning (think half empty tins of peaches, chunks of lime in the sink, half empty bottle of cointreau and bits of food processor everywhere) seems to confirm my suspicions.

So here, if you want to recreate my spectacular headache, are the culprits. Needless to say, the only cocktail I’ll be consuming today will be one of headache tablets and vitamin C. STB indeed.

White Lady

1 measure gin
1 measure Cointreau
1 measure freshly squeezed lemon (or lime) juice

Shake with a few ice cubes until the cocktail shaker has misted up and pour into chilled glasses (or just neck it out of a tumbler, I don’t care)

Frozen Peach Daiquiri

Put crushed ice into the blender (learn from my painful experience and don’t blend whole ice cubes, it blows the lid off - entertaining at the time, but very messy to clear up in the morning), then add:
Sliced peaches
Juice of one fresh lime
1 measure Bacardi
Slug of Cointreau

Whizz up and pour into chilled glasses.

I’m not talking to Paddy, Paddy, Paddy or any of the other rabbits called Paddy. Scarily, the lovely J who rehomes the greyhounds came this evening with her partner, C, to check us out to make sure we’re suitable ‘parents’ for the pretty fawn girl. And I don’t mean J is scary, it’s just that we’ve somewhat fallen in love with B, our little doe-eyed doggy-missile and have taken to referring to her as though she’s ours already. I’ve even been checking out the doggy-snoods online for when she gets a bit nippy. Naturally, being a tad dysfunctional, we were worried we wouldn’t pass.

So we rushed around tidying up (not easy when you’ve not totally unpacked and hubby had sucked a sock up into the hoover so it wasn’t working) and then spent ten minutes charging around the garden having excessively loud and pointless conversations with each other in order to scare the rabbits away.

Finally, their car pulled up and we braced ourselves for our inspection (#1 had even had a shower and offered poor J a sniff of his armpits as proof - poor girl). We spent at least the first fifteen minutes bombarding the startled pair with every question that we’d been mulling over for the last couple of days: will she skid on the hard floors, does she really have Marmite for breakfast (#1 noticed her breath smelt of Marmite when he knelt down to cuddle her), what if she runs away, what if she doesn’t like us, what if she can’t understand our English accents (she’s Irish, duh), …

We weren’t too worried about safety, having access to more security measures than most high security prisons (we think the previous owner may have been nervous - there’s motion sensors in every room, a big flash alarm system, huge metal pointy gates down the drive, oh and the electric fence of course), more that J and C would somehow detect the air of insanity about us and write us off as unstable. The worst bit was when we wandered out to the garden and suddenly, having not reared their fluffy heads all day, there were rabbits everywhere, patently sabotaging our otherwise perfectly dog-friendly set-up. I’m sure it was just to taunt us. I mean, how would J&C let us have a greyhound when there are hundreds of little furry temptations dotting the garden? I started my diversion technique ‘er look, we’ve got a trampoline!’ but obviously the devious little devils were expecting that and countered by bounding conspicuously across the drive just where we were standing.

Happily, I needn’t have worried. C informed me that yes, B may well chase the rabbits but the only bad thing that would come of that would be a dead rabbit. So no harm done then. Apparently it’s not terrible temptation to home a greyhound near wild rabbits, you just have to act totally unimpressed if she brings one back to you, tail wagging, as a sort of ready-wrapped pressie and she’ll soon get the message.

So we passed! Ha. Take that, fluffy sods.

Well, now I’m the proud owner of some rather ghetto-fabulous nails, I thought it time to put the second part of my Footballers’ Wives grooming plan into action. I booked into a swanky salon in the posh marina town that is also home to the posh restaurant whose name cannot be mentioned for fear of anyone finding out about it (keep up, I’ve told you all this before). My thought process (somewhat erratic at the best of times) was that if this is the home to lots of posh, groomed women, then the local swanky salon must be the place to go.

Hubby got to stay at home and goblin-sit while I ventured into posh-town and was introduced to my colourist. Unfortunately this did nothing for my fragile ego as not only was she stunningly blonde and gorgeous, she was also considerably taller and thinner than I. Oh well, she was very sweet, although sadly she was from Northern Ireland so I couldn’t understand a single word she said. Not to be deterred, I adopted the smiley nod that worked so well at the nail bar and sat feeling like a bit fat dishevelled dollop while we discussed how awful my hair was, and we got on famously. She parked me at the mirror and combed me through wearing that ‘oh dear’ expression that seems to be solely for the artistically natured when viewing the somewhat shabby. The verdict, of which I understood very little, seemed to be that my hair was very damaged, and that bleached blonde highlights wasn’t the way to go at all. (Noooo! I thought - it’s got to be frosted and fabulous!) We opted therefore ( I say ‘we’ as though I had some choice in it) for a rich chocolate with subtle honey and caramel highlights running through it. And yes, I know that’s what they were because she let me touch the little loops of false hair in that cardboard folder thingy they show you, and I read the labels.

So, to cut a long story short, four magazines (won’t bother with Vanity Fair again - too many serious articles and not enough about how skinny/rude/unlucky in love Paris Hilton is for my liking), three cups of tea (there’s always hair floating in it isn’t there), several hundred bits of tin foil, two really nice massages (I might actually have nodded off) on this wicked chair which had a little pad of buttons to push if you wanted to lean back more, or have your feet up and TWO HOURS (I kid you not) later, I was once again parked in front of the mirror and introduced to my stylist. This time, she was from Birmingham which was slightly more understandable, and we went for a blunt cut just on the shoulders with some long layers to add a bit of ‘movement’, whilst all the time politely ignoring my phone, which was beeping constantly with ‘whr the hll r u?’ type messages from Hubby. Another hour later and with a slightly red face (their hairdryers are really blinking hot), I was looking damn fine even though I say so myself. It certainly was still brown, but it was straight, swingy and gorgeously chocolaty, with nice goldy bits which glittered in the overhead lights.

I felt a little like my friend C, who is always groomed and fabulous - hair immaculate, clothes classic and fashionable and nails perfect. This, I told her on the phone later in an epic conversation that must have cost her half her mortgage (grovelling apologies to C’s hubby, the lovely R!), is actually quite a nice way to feel. I must explain that we’ve known each other for donkey’s years and can have long, rambling enjoyable conversations without actually talking about anything specifically. We’re planning a disreputable child-free weekend away shortly with our other friend, R. This, as any woman knows, takes vast amounts of planning, mostly via very long email chats and huge telephone conversations. Hubby cannot understand how we’ll possibly have anything to talk about when we get together because we surely must have exhausted all possible topics of conversation. Not so, I assure him. C, R and I are queens of the long, rambling conversation and lack of topic is no barrier, as massive lurches in subject matter are the crux of keeping the conversation flowing. We know. We’re experts.

Anyway, back to C. I have long admired her groomed-ness whilst assuming that it was her natural state. I now have double the amount of admiration for her having discovered that its actually quite hard work to keep all this stuff up. I now, though, understand why she does it (no, and not because Hubby can barely stop his tongue from hanging out whenever C is in the building), because it feels good, makes you feel confident even, in a swingy, shiny kind of way.

All good then, until I got to the till where my red face turned considerably redder. I entered my PIN number with trembling hands and slunk home to try to explain to Hubby why I’d just spend two weeks’ grocery money in three hours. ‘But they do Ronan Keating’s wife’s hair there…’ I whined feebly at his furious, departing back ‘..and look how swingy and chocolaty it is..’ Men. I hope my roots don’t show quickly because I’m not allowed out for another six months…

Dad - look away now, this is girly stuff. Well, I’m glad to report that my first step towards smartening up went as planned, if somewhat painfully. Hubby promised to come home early and I booked myself into a nail bar at the unfeasibly large shopping centre to have something done to my rather shameful nails. I told her that I wanted to be smart but didn’t want to go too Footballers’ Wives (how do they pick their noses with those great big talons?). I was advised to go for ‘gel overlays’ whatever the hell they are, and arrived for my appointment to be introduced to a very sweet, shy Chinese lady. I was parked on one of those odd wheelie stools that shoot from under you if you so much as shift position (she actually fell off hers while leaning across to get something - and that’s not something I made up to funny-up my blog - she really did.) Well, I now know that gel overlays involve said sweet Chinese lady viciously rasping away at the top layer of one’s nails in order to rough it up a bit, obviously so the new gel bits can stick to it. This was all very well, except a couple of times she missed and rasped away the top layer of my fingers. Also, no-one tells you that this rasping business gets very hot, and after trying to be brave for a couple of minutes actually had to shout ‘ow!’ and yank my finger away. Sweet Chinese lady went ’sowwy’ and looked suitably chastised.

So taking this as a bit of encouragement and being a friendly sort of type I attempted some conversation but this proved a bit of a problem as she was evidently quite newly over here from China and didn’t speak much English. I would qualify this (unless you think I’m being unkind, which I’m certainly not) by saying that her English is considerably more advanced than my Chinese (or Cantonese or whatever) so one point to her then. I’m absolutely appalling at understanding what anyone is saying unless they speak like Anna Ford on the BBC and I am struggling somewhat in my current location (more of that later) so I knew this might be a problem.

Anyway back to the sweet Chinese torture lady. After I smiled in an (hopefully) encouraging way, she returned the smile (she was very pretty which somewhat went against how viciously she was attacking my thumb) and enquired ‘you wan wipe?’ in a helpful way. I did my usual ‘er…..’ in order to give myself some time to work out if I did indeed want a wipe, but couldn’t work out what she meant, so settled on ‘er..I don’t know, do I?’ This brought on more shy giggling and a repeat of ‘you won wipe?’ so it was obviously the wrong answer. Now looking slightly less shy and a bit exasperated, she waved a bottle of stuff in front of me, which was gooey and said ‘Bright White’ on the label. Aah. Finally I dropped in and said yes please, I did want white bits on the end. This, apparently is the very crux of the Footballers’ Wives grooming thing - you need white bits on the end. I know this because I read ‘Closer’ in the dentists and Posh has got them. Enough said - if it’s good enough for Posh then bring it on.

The rest of it was slightly less tortuous, if very long winded, and I was quite enjoying having the stuff put on my nails, then having my hands posted into a little blue UV light thingy that was kind of like an other-worldly glowing blue letterbox, when she started the rasping thing again. Apparently after two layers you need to rub it down and put on a top coat (kind of like glossing woodwork I guess) and there, finally, were my new shiny nails. Chinese torture lady smiled triumphantly and said ‘mice huh?’. I did wonder whether this was the opener of a conversation about rodents (I was just about to tell her about my rabbits), but realised just in time what she was getting at. ‘Yes, very nice’ I smiled back. We had connected.

All the way home I fiddled with my hair, checked my watch and generally waved my new shiny nails about while not concentrating on the road at all. How I managed to get back home without adding to Ireland’s buoyant roadkill population I’ll never know, but I did and wow, I’m groomed. And when the plasters come off the bits of skin that were accidentally rasped off my fingers, I’m going to look well Posh!

Hmm, unable to muster anything funny this morning. I’m feeling strangely detached from everything and I think it’s probably the dreaded homesickness setting in. For the past three-ish weeks, I’ve been settling in, discovering the area, unpacking those last few boxes, but now this really is it. We live in Ireland. How weird is that?

This feeling has been somewhat exacerbated by the fact that I have received emails from both my parents this morning. This is more of a surprise on the Dad front, as he’s only just got the hang of the internet, previously favouring the stone tablet and chisel, and has typed his email laboriously with one finger. The comment that really made me draw breath was this: ‘I’ve just realised that apart from the times that I’ve been p***ed off with my favourite daughter three weeks is the longest time I’ve gone … without talking to you’. (Have you noticed I edited out the ‘for xxx years’ - well, this is an anonymous blog and no, I’m not touchy about my age!) Now firstly I’d like to point out that I am in fact his only daughter, just in case you thought he had another, less fantastic, one than me. And secondly, he’s probably right although I did actually reply stating that even when he was p***ed off with me he would still be in constant contact, giving me the ‘benefit of his experience’ and generally teaching me the error of my ways.

The children miss their Grandparents too. I’m lucky that I have the kind of family that, although we have our ups and downs, is quite normal (in a dysfunctional kind of way). We all like each other and although we don’t live in each other’s pockets, we’re all quite chummy when we do catch up. My Dad is the worst Grandparent in the world if you’re the parent of those children, but the best Grandparent in the world if you’re the kid. He’s the kind of Grandparent who has them in stitches all the time doing things they really shouldn’t do. One classic example was the cherry-pip-flobbing competition off a bridge over the canal in Copenhagen. This elicited several tut-tuts and shaking of heads from passers by, while my disreputable Dad and cheerfully compliant sons merrily chomped through several bags of cherries and then spat their stones as far as they could towards the other side of the water. Civilised trips out for dinner end up in arm-wrestling competitions; the fierce spinning round of the central serving plate in a posh Chinese restaurant, and, most recently the pouring of soy sauce into Grandad’s coffee. All this naughtiness causes so much disruption in these otherwise sedate places that I’m amazed we never get kicked out, as I sit - steam coming out of my ears - watching the chaos unfolding around me. Yep, we miss Grandad.

My Mum, just to paint you a picture, starts her emails with ‘Yoo hoo!!‘, likes a sherry (well, anything really), sends the boys mad postcards with pink sparkly elephants on, and has a sign on her fridge which says ‘welcome to Grandma’s house, children spoiled while you wait’. I think she has adopted this as her mantra, and nothing - ever- is too much trouble. The boys drive me bonkers when I go there - regressing into lazy toddlers while poor Grandma runs around after them whipping up hot chocolate and producing teeth-aching amounts of confectionary. She laughs at their jokes, runs around like a loony with them on the beach instead of falling asleep like most adults do, and has endless patience for YuGiOh cards or whatever the current fad happens to be. A shopping trip with Grandma always ends with them rushing back in, pink faced with excitement and armed with several carrier bags of booty. ‘Don’t ask for anything…’ I whine desperately as they disappear with her, knowing that they’ll have everything they can have ever wanted by the time they get back!

My Mum is also the biggest hoarder in the world. It’s a family joke that she can’t throw anything away, but if you need something - anything! - my Mum will have one somewhere: paperclip? Yep; duct tape? Second drawer down on the left; fake fur for a costume in the school play? ‘ooh yes, dear - bound to’. We did a boot sale a while back, and all the useless crap that she’s hoarded over the years netted her the largest amount of money I’ve ever seen anyone make from a boot sale - and we still came back with a full car! Still, this also makes her an excellent shopping companion (’ooh, I think we’d better have one of those, don’t you?’). She’s coming over next week on the plane, and true to form has already had a rummage for the occasion: ‘I’ve got my see-through bag ready - I know you all laugh at me for hoarding things, but this time sunshine, I’ve got a lovely sturdy bag that had #2’s new jamas in I think - just the job, so eat your words’. I will, Mum, I will!

My Mum’s cooking is the stuff of legend, each meal having been carefully planned to make sure that it will contain at least one thing that everybody likes. Therefore an average Sunday dinner could quite likely include: roast chicken, sausages, stuffing balls, roast potato, mashed potato, peas, carrots, broccoli, onion rings, baked beans and Yorkshire puddings, and will quite likely be followed by treacle pudding/ice cream/yoghurt/custard/cream (delete as appropriate). ‘Don’t fancy that love? What can I get you then?’ I definitely inherited the ‘make a huge mess and use every pan and piece of crockery in the entire kitchen’ style of cooking from her. I think it’s a nurturing thing. Or maybe we’re just untidy.

She’s also an Olympic medallist babysitter, having had all five of her youngest Grandchildren overnight on many an occasion when her badly organised offspring have all gone out on the same night without consulting each other. I have to say I’m probably the worst culprit on the babysitting front, so she has considerably more free weekends than she ever used to. Mind you, she does have the mental, Baileys-drinking dog to look after still, who will presumably have to go cold turkey into an alcohol-free kennel for the length of her visit. We’ll certainly be doing some alcohol consumption while Mum’s visiting - she’s an excellent drinking buddy (we share a Pinot Grigio gene) so roll on next week I say. This has cheered me up no end.

Maybe it’s this house. It’s giving me delusions of grandeur that I shouldn’t otherwise possess, but for once - just once (I’m not a greedy person) I would love to be glamorous. You know, really ‘footballers’ wives’ kind of groomed. Okay, bear with me and I’ll explain where this is going. Last night - taking advantage somewhat of our visitors - we went out. I know! Outside - at night! I was so shocked when hubby asked that I nearly fell over. We were invited out to the posh marina town where my own personal posh restaurant resides to have drinks with Hubby’s work mates.

Panic set in and I had to rush and unpack the final couple of boxes that I had omitted to label when we moved just in case there were any remotely ‘going out’ clothes in it. The first box contained about four duvets that I never knew we had anyway, and the second box contained the cups and saucers that used to belong to my Grandma. Hmm..back to the drawing board then.

When I’d finally flung every item of clothing that I owned out onto the bed and completely covered the carpet, bed and bedside tables in clothing, plus run through a very unattractive line of increasingly unpleasant swear words, it hit me that I’m just never going to be groomed. I found a pair of loose white linen trousers that I’d bought a while back, picked off all the orange fluff that they’d attracted from the carpet and even ironed them, all the while ignoring frantic texts from Hubby who was waiting at work for me (R U bldy cmng or wot?!). I then had to dig under all the clothes to get to the drawers so that I could find a pair of white knickers, as pink and purple spotted shorts show through white linen (noooo). I teamed them with a plain camisole and a fine knit cardigan and thought yes, this is good - classic, simple and unfussy. Then I looked in the mirror and realised I looked like I was just off to bed in my jimjams. I just can’t do smart. Then I decided it was because my hair was messy, burned my ear with the straightening irons (you’re allowed to say ‘feck’, I explained to #1, it’s not a swear-word here - they even print it in the paper) and decided I would have to do.

Well, anyway his workmates were very nice. I’ve never seen so many people in one pub that were completely inebriated. Not just happy, but full-on Irish plastered and very friendly in a kind of hiccupy way. So I suppose even if I had wafted in hand in hand with Hubby, sporting perfect nails, immaculate clothes, straight shiny hair and understated make-up, they probably wouldn’t have noticed as they were too busy staggering around talking over the top of each other and saying ‘feck’ a lot themselves. I did get a compliment though - one of Hubby’s workmates said I was ‘gorgeous’. This otherwise uplifting moment was somewhat ruined by the loudly stifled snort of laughter which came from Hubby’s direction.

Don’t worry, I have plans to get my own back. When we were driving home I told him that I’m going to ‘glam up’ and not only is it going to be expensive for him (manicures, highlights, the works..) he’d better beware because I might be out of his league when I was finished. Either that or I could burn him with my straighteners.

So, a very exciting trip ensued - along with our enthusiastic visitors (probably got sick of looking at rabbits, after all when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all) - to the lovely lady, J, that rehomes the retired greyhounds. Having given her our details (two mental offspring, numerous rabbits, but on the plus side secure fences all round and large gardens) she had chosen a dog that she thought suitable. She was, she explained, recently retired with a good few wins under her belt, but now surplus to the trainer’s requirements and he wanted her gone. Now. So J had taken her in and with kindness and patience, started to introduce her to people when all she had known was racing and a straw bed in a very small kennel.

Well, our first introduction was heartbreaking. J introduced us to the most beautiful fawn greyhound girl. She was wide eyed and a bit nervous, but took the treats we offered very graciously. She was still at racing fitness - they really are a sight to behold: enourmous muscly haunches (worn bare and pink from sitting on hard ground and straw), big shoulders and so streamlined you could play a tune on her ribs. When hubby knelt down to talk gently to her while rubbing her ears, she delicately rested her long muzzle against his cheek, huge brown eyes gazing adoringly at him through surprisingly long lashes. We were smitten.

J explained that once in a home environment, her hair would grow back, she would start to fill out, but obviously would be unlikely to ever get fat, would become more confident - playful even - around us, and would need surprisingly little care. Apparently they’re known as the ‘forty mph couch potato’ as although they can produce enormous bursts of high speed, generally they can sleep up to 8 hours in the day and all night as well, needing only a couple of ‘comfort breaks’ in the form of a short walk.

We were allowed to take her for a run in the field adjoining the kennels and - wow - you should have seen her go! #1 and #2 were sent to run to the top of the grassy hill, and the dog was let off the lead. She set off after them like a thundering rocket and was sitting gracefully at the top of the hill sporting a bored expression by the time they arrived, puffing and panting, to join her. They then all careered back down, the greyhound thundering past us again at astonishing speed. I tentatively noted that maybe an extending lead wouldn’t be a good idea. ‘Er..no’, said J, ‘not unless you want to lose your entire arm from the shoulder down, or in the case of the children, become a human kite!’.

We then had a very entertaining look around the kennels where there were also some racing dogs kept by the owner. They’re incredible up close, so streamlined and powerful, with shining short coats that are surprisingly soft to the touch. Some were aloof, but one in particular took hubby’s fancy. The owner informed us that she was his prize racer, and wouldn’t let her go for less that 10,000 Euro. Hubby sneakily took note of her name. Just in case, you understand.

There were also several other ex-racers awaiting rehoming. One large male caught my eye with his incredible black and white colouring. He was so friendly, he was able to get his whole nose through the small gap used as a handle in the wire door. He squeaked and yipped with excitement as we stroked his soft nose. Ahh..I could have packed them all up and taken the lot there and then.

Home once more, another family conference ensued. This time, though, there were no flying cushions or raised voices. We’re in total agreement.