ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

Golf, eh? Wasn’t it Mark Twain that said it ruins an otherwise pleasant walk? Well, Ryder Cup fever has struck us here. All thoughts of everything else have been completely eradicated, and I’m not altogether surprised when tickets for the final match day are currently selling for 600 euro. A lot of people are no doubt making rather a lot of money. The news is dominated by it, and Hubby’s just taken root at the K Club and isn’t coming home. Every single Irish company seems to be a sponsor, and the merchandise is filling the shelves thick and fast: Ryder Cup hat anyone? Mug? I’m taking orders if you’re interested. I thought it was quite funny that you’re not allowed to enter the course with a mobile phone or camera. This started me wondering what on earth they do if you turn up with one. Take it off you at the gate? Then what, do you have to rummage through a big box of identical-looking Motorolas and go..’oh yes, that’s definitely mine’ when you come out again? I guess it could work to your advantage, like a grown up version of lucky dip. You could go in with your crappy old Nokia, and come out with some top of the range thing..bonus! Golf’s not exactly my thing, but I have to say the fever is rather contagious.

Not to be left out, we played a few holes of pitch and putt on Sunday with our little Monty and Tiger. Pitch and Putt courses are everywhere here. They’re like tiny little golf courses with each hole being a couple of hundred yards long. We started quite well, but it soon deteriorated as son #1 would be just on the green, about 3 yards from the hole, then insist on whacking the ball so hard that it landed 100 yards the other side..the only player ever to hit a divot off the green with a putter. Muttering, he’d then stomp off to the ball only to do exactly the same thing again and we’d look up to see the ball sailing over our heads in the opposite direction. This meant that he was recording scores of about 15 on every single hole and hubby and I strongly doubted that we’d be home by nightfall, if at all. #2 was actually quite good, but a little under-cautious, which mean he had the opposite problem: also recording scores of 15 on every hole because he was nudging it forward about 2 inches on every putt.

Rapidly losing the will to live, I gave up halfway round, forfeited my go and headed off to the bar (only in Ireland!). Golf and alcohol seeming a winning combination (the flags were actually beer towels), and now shored-up with a little light refreshment, we started to enjoy ourselves a bit more, although Hubby and I surreptitiously steered them from hole 11 onto hole 15 without them realising, thus cutting the whole episode down to a manageable two hours. Home, then, in time for a nice roast dinner and a good old family argument about who won.

Oh yes, last night we were mostly drinking Frozen Strawberry Daquiris. I know, I know…STB again, but actually I don’t feel as bad as I did last time, which is always a bonus. I was in a cocktail type of mood because of two things:

Firstly, we took twiglet dog to the beach and had a mighty fine time. We met some very friendly people who had a little girl who loved dogs. B took to her instantly, enjoyed lots of cuddles and gave her a jolly good wash (we were very impressed that she was still laughing at the end of that). She also did lots of barking at seagulls and sniffing of very interesting things in the sand while we skimmed stones and walked and talked, and basically got our fix of sea air. Having never lived by the sea before, this is a revelation. The first of many visits methinks.

Secondly, I’m delighted to report that the aforementioned girly weekend has been booked - wehay! After a flurry of emails, the flights are booked and C&R are coming for a visit from the good old UK! My responsibility is now to find a fab spa for us to spend a day being pampered. I’m also already thinking about doing a bit of a cocktail night when we get home from the spa, so I had to try out my new recipe (that’s my excuse and I’m not budging). I thought maybe we could have a couple of the abovementioned daquiris:

Frozen Strawberry Daquiri

This is slightly different from the peach one because instead of crushed ice and fruit, you just use frozen fruit. There’s a fab farm shop where I used to live in the UK that sold frozen fruit of all different descriptions from open freezers, and you just scooped what you needed and paid by weight, but obviously now I’m reliant on my new fave, Dunnes, which has a fairly decent selection in the freezers. If you used mixed summer berries you might have to sieve the pips out. So (sorry, digressing again):

Put frozen fruit in the fancy blender attachment of your stainless steel beast of a food processor (I know, been there before but please be careful your blender is man enough or you’ll have a frozen strawberry kitchen to clean up), then add:

Juice of one fresh lime
4 measures Bacardi
1 measure Cointreau

Whizz up and pour into chilled glasses. Repeat liberally until giggly.

It’s a gorgeous day today: blue sky and just a hint of warm breeze. B and I enjoyed our walk this morning down the lane (slightly haunted by forty pairs of large, brown eyes watching our every move). I have to say, though, that the cows must be reasonably intelligent - they’ve realised that I carry no food and am therefore absolutely surplus to their requirements, so they’ve ceased following me down the lane and back again, and settled for just watching my every move. This started me off wondering how much they really understand (well, I was wondering, B was pretending to listen whilst really looking for rabbits). I mean, do they think ‘oh, here comes the lady with the dog that looks like a twiglet…no point giving her any hassle, she’s useless’, but then I counter-thought well, if they have that much thinking capacity, then surely they’d get awfully bored standing around in a field all day, and amuse themselves by ..ooh, I don’t know … a bit of country dancing, or a nice game of tag.

So, this being a ramble in more ways than one, my thoughts led neatly on to wondering how much B can understand, and if she’s as intelligent as she seems, then maybe she gets bored, too. In which case, should I maybe think about getting her a little companion to while away the time and have a little dog-conversation with. Again, though, I wondered how she could be so clever in her little escapology attempts, then so massively stupid in other ways. Today, for instance, while I was washing up, she was lying in front of the sink in her normal position, flat out on the floor. I opened the cupboard under the sink, then forgot to close it for some reason and next thing I knew, there was the most unholy row coming from the kitchen. The total arse had tried to get up, got herself totally wedged underneath the cupboard door, and was struggling and yelping like a total baby. I came in, pushed her flat again, shut the cupboard door and then helped her up. By this time she was shaking and whining in that absolutely pathetic pansy way that seems exclusively greyhound, and it took her ten minutes of cuddles (with her nose stuck into my armpit) to recover. I think her brain (if I could draw a pie chart, which I can’t) would be 30 percent rabbits and the pursuit of same; 30 percent food and the pursuit of it; 30 percent sleep and 9 percent having her ears tickled. This leaves just 1 percent for any form of intelligent thought. I rest my case.

Anyhoo, my Mum sent me this email about Irish lonely hearts ads - you know the sort of thing: ‘lonely Dubliner seeks 21 year old double-jointed blonde with open-minded identical twin’ and I thought I might post one for B: ’single fawn female (geddit?), slim, 28 (in dog years), VGL, GSOH, N/S but with limited mental capacity and large appetite WLTM companion to share a slower pace of life. Must be well-bred. Own blankie and teddy essential. Toy breeds need not apply’. I’ll run it by her when she wakes up for her dinner.

I’ve had a ‘jolly good go round’ today as my Mum would say. And I must be very godly, whatever that means, as she also says that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’, mind you, we’re a bit slack on the religious side in this house (as #1 showed when he announced recently that Islam is something to do with someone called Mohammed Ali - apologies to all my Islamic readers - well, you never know).

B made another of her famous ‘escape to victory’ attempts today. I was washing the hall floor (very handy with a mop, me) and as the door was open she went out for a little constitutional, which she’s been doing for ages with no problems. This time, though, she disappeared through a bush into the field, and I had to run round the front of the house, limbo under the barbed wire fence (standing up too early and completely trashing my hip, which hurt immensely) and run through to the field. By which time, she’d gone round the front of the house and was wandering down the drive. Aarrgh! Luckily though, she’s a bit thick, so when I ran back to the house she ran after me (sucker!) and back into the house so no harm done (again!) apart from needing a plaster for my flesh wound (it certainly is fleshy just there, too).

Dog once again safely in the house, I resumed my cleaning efforts. I actually quite like it, apart from the fact that we’ve got one of those ridiculous ‘here, doggy!’ pull-along hoovers. They don’t seem to like upright hoovers in Ireland - it’s impossible to buy one. I end up huffing and puffing trying to pull the stupid thing round corners and getting it caught on chair legs, whacking it into skirting boards and generally being very aggressive with it. After that, I mopped all the hard floors (very amusing watching the dog do a bit of ‘holiday on ice’ afterwards), took all the cushions off the sofas, beat the hell out of them (very therapeutic), vacuumed the sofas then put the cushions all back on and finally sprayed a bit of Febreze about. Top stuff that. I had a email discussion with my friend B about dusting which made me laugh and her take on it is thus: ‘occasionally I’ll be persuaded to wipe my sock over the TV screen, but only when the dust and finger marks are so thick that you can’t tell what it is that you’re actually watching’. Similarly, she likes to give the impression that she might have dusted by squirting Mr Sheen round like air freshener, which I think is a cracking idea. I mean, who ever thought up dusting anyway? All it does is waft all the dust up into the air and if you use polish, you just push a load of dusty sludge up and down the surface you’re dusting. Pointless. By the way, I think polish should be spelled ‘pollish’ in order to distinguish it from Polish, as in someone from Poland, or is that just me?

And here - especially for my Italian reader (you know who you are!) is a pic of the lovely B modelling (somewhat reluctantly) her fancy new coat. Yes, I know she hates it, but it’s warm and I’m the boss, okay? Mind you, I am slightly concerned that I’m turning into one of those mad women who dress their little dogs up in stupid outfits like tutus and stuff, then take photos of them. This is a proper trap coat though, honest (note the hateful stare she’s giving me too!).

Time once again, then, for a little culinary interlude. This one was prompted by #2 announcing yesterday that he was ‘too tired’ to eat scrambled egg and toast in the morning (obviously, the use of knife and fork being too much to ask at such an ungodly hour), and there was me thinking I was very ‘yummy mummy’ serving cooked food in the morning (actually, that’s a lie because it was Hubby that made it).

So, I rolled up my sleeves and donned my naked Homer Simpson apron (’woo hoo!’) and here’s the result. Apart from falling over the dog a couple of times (nope, the brain damage caused by the dishwasher door has not deterred her from lying in front of the sink) it all went well and I’m quite pleased with this one:

Flapjack

6 oz butter (I know, but it makes loads - never knowingly undercatered remember?)
4 oz brown sugar
4 tablespoons golden syrup (messy but you get to lick the spoon)
8 oz rolled oats
4 oz rice krispies (or something else crunchy)
Handful of dates, chopped (oh, the subterfuge)
Handful of almonds, roughly chopped (I like big pieces in mine)
2 oz chocolate, roughly chopped (I used white and it went nice and gooey)

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan. If you used quite granulated sugar you’ll need to stir well and melt it into the mix.

Mix all the other ingredients in a large bowl, then just pour over the butter mixture and stir well. Don’t do it the other way round, there’s not enough room in the saucepan. Press it into a buttered cake tin and bake at 180 degrees, whatever gas mark (you know the drill) for about 15 - 20 mins. I did mine in an oblong cake tin and it was slightly too overdone at the edges after 20 mins so check after 15.

Following criticism received from anonymous quarters, not mentioning any names obviously (DAD!) about the amount of dog-related subject matter in my blog, I’m going to write an entire dog-free entry today. Ready?

Well, got home yesterday from the horrendously long school run only to find that I had just missed the man from An Post, and that he’d taken my parcels back to some godforsaken delivery office in the back of beyond, oh and could I come and get them before 5.30pm otherwise they’re going back. So I set out on my perilous journey. My first mistake was to ignore a big sign that said ‘Cul-de-sac’, thinking ‘hmm, what a funny sign to put on a main road’, only to discover that said main road turns into - guess what! - a cul-de-sac over ten miles later. I then made full use of my new Irish swearing skills: ‘FECK!’, but eventually found the village in the back of beyond that I was looking for. Nicking a parking space in a local supermarket (SuperQuinn - what a great name) I then asked a man in a shop for directions and wondered how I could have possibly offended him as he stalked off down the road, then realised that he was actually walking and pointing and talking all at the same time, trying to show me where to go (all completely fruitless it turns out because I couldn’t understand a word he was saying). Long story short I found the delivery office, had a very long and equally unintelligible chat with the man behind the counter about the weather, England, and a couple of other dozen subjects that totally passed me by, and picked up my parcels.

Back at my SuperParkingSpace at SuperQuinn, I opened up my goodies to find the following:

* 8 grey shirts, ordered at considerable expense and in a right huff from the UK when I couldn’t find any here, only to find a shop here the next day that had MILLIONS of the bloody things
* 6 pairs of thick black socks off Ebay (what? You try living in a big drafty house with hard floors and no heating because hubby’s turned the oil boiler off because it uses fifty million euro worth of oil per hour)
* And finally a wicked black and white stripy trap coat with a big red 6 on it for when it’s cold and rainy and B doesn’t want to go for a walk - it’s even got a little doggy hood bit on it to keep the rain out of her eyes (oops sorry - dog talk, ignore that bit).

So, there you go. 99 percent dog-free. Ooh and my feet are toasty.

Blimey, I’ve been googled! Sadly, it was absolutely nothing to do with being an English mum in Ireland, but some poor, hapless sod was trying to find YuGiOh cards for sale in Dublin, and for some reason that lead him to my post about the car boot sale and #1 son cleaning up with his cards. There you go then, page 1 on a google search finally. My life is complete.

Well, we had a rather nice weekend. There was a good bit of sunshine, we did a bit of bowling (slightly spoiled by some rather unseemly sulking by the losers, sorry, I mean LOOOOOOSERS!!!! - some people are so sensitive), ate an enormous roast dinner, followed by a strawberry and peach crumble (recipe to follow when I remember), failed to finish the crossword and generally slobbed about a lot. The dog, I had to report to J in a feverish text, has discovered the sofa.

I know, I know…I already feel guilty that my otherwise non-dog-blog has been hijacked by the pointy of nose and now, understandably, most people will be tutting and shaking their heads in horror at the thought of my allowing a dog on the sofa, but honestly, it’s a real milestone. Firstly, this is because B is rather reserved, and always has that ‘oh blimey, have I done something wrong?’ look on her face apparently common to rehomed greyhounds for the first few weeks. J assures us this will pass as she gets to know that we’re her new family. The visit to the sofa, therefore, shows that she’s becoming slightly braver and more accustomed to her surroundings. Secondly, greyhounds don’t really shed, and don’t really smell (well, unless they have wind which is another matter altogether, in which case they can clear a room in two seconds flat), so a quick blanket thrown over the sofa is quite sufficient. But crikey, what a performance. I think it goes with the territory when your legs are as long as Jerry Hall’s, but the sofa brings its own dangers as it’s not possible to do the old ‘fifteen laps and I’m still ahead’ routine normally employed by B of spinning round and round in ever decreasing circles before finally collapsing in a big heap. It all looks such an effort, and I can totally understand that once she’s got herself down there, she’s rather reluctant to get back up again (or that could be just bone idleness actually). Er… where was I? Oh yes, the sofa. So, firstly we have to lift our front legs up, then, after several near misses, one of the back ones comes up too, and finally, with a huge heave and sometimes a rather unladylike grunt, the final leg is lifted and the body simultaneously plopped onto the sofa. If there happen to be some stray legs still underneath the body in any kind of weird position, they’re just left there and crushed. It’s painful to watch. What’s slightly less painful to watch is the gradual shifting of position under we master the pinnacle of greyhound positions, the ‘dead spider’: flat on one’s back with all those legs and the tail bent in towards the body at ridiculous angles.

So it’s true, then, what I read about the one downside to owning a dog as fast as a greyhound: they may well beat you to the sofa.

To quote Jim Carrey, it was a ‘b-e-a-utiful day’ in Ireland yesterday. And I have to say, having managed to survive my first six weeks here, there’s nowhere I’d rather be on a glorious day than here.

The boys have started their new school, and although #1 has found it tougher than #2, initial forecasts are fair to bright, tentative new friendships have been made and they’ve both got a broad smile on their faces when I pick them up, so that’s okay then. Several Mums have smiled at me, and I’ve even attempted a short chat with one, who turned out to have a girl in #1’s class. Happy kids and the added bonus of adult conversation!

Since my initial posts, I’ve learned various things that I thought I should share with you:

Firstly, that everyone should own a greyhound. Nope, not getting all evangelical, its just a fact. There’s nothing like coming home from the school run (which is bloody long in my case) and being welcomed by a smiley, waggy and somewhat pointy bundle of adoration, who is very pleased to see you. We have a nice walk (quite short, or she starts lagging behind - gentle exercise too, you see?) and then she flops onto the floor and proceeds to blow flies off the ceiling until something interesting happens, or she smells food. And if I have to go out, she goes back to sleep until I come back. None of this undignified chewing of furniture or pooing on the shag pile (well, there was the hall incident on her first day, but that doesn’t count) stuff. And we get to laugh at her trying to get comfy in the beanbag. The perfect pet.

Secondly, that I’m really not the high-maintenance person I thought I wanted to be. I’m quite pleased with the hair, but I’m afraid it gets tied up more often than not because all that blowdrying makes me very hot and bothered. Also, I think it was the discovery that these posh white nails have to be refilled every two weeks at a cost of thirty Euro, plus you have to sit still for two hours while they do it. Also, being a bit of a fiddler, I’ve picked two off (I know, pathetic, but I can’t help it). Furthermore, living here surrounded by fields full of cows kind of negates the need to wear anything smart. Hubby and I are the same height so there’s no point in wearing heels, unless I want to look like Bernie Ecclestone’s wife - have you seen pictures of them? She’s about three feet taller than he is, I mean how do they have conversations? He must whip out a stepladder or something. So, I’ve decided to leave being gorgeous to people like my friend C, who is naturally good at it, and revert to being..well, me.

So. I spent the thirty Euro on some new trainers and decided to embrace my inner slob. And in the style of Yoda, ‘happy in my skin, I am’.