I love my Mum, bless her. She’s just the nicest person and it was lovely to spend some time with her. We spend the entire time in hysterics - she’s bloody hilarious - and very generous with the vino - a deadly combination. She won’t mind me telling you that she’s totally deaf in one ear due to a childhood illness, but she just won’t get a hearing aid. It’s a standing joke in our family that my Mum completely ignores you unless you’re on the correct side when you’re talking to her! I can tell now when she hasn’t heard someone because she just nods vaguely and goes ‘mmm’ and thinks she’s getting away with it.

When she was over here we visited the beautiful spa again and had another of those wonderful facials that the girls and I had before. Knowing that my Mum wouldn’t mention that she can’t hear a bloody thing (they tend to talk quietly anyway during a treatment and it doesn’t help that they’re behind you), I tactfully mentioned it to her therapist beforehand who completely blew my cover by walking up to my Mum and bellowing ‘HELLO!!!! I’M YOUR THERAPIST’ in the loudest voice you’ve ever heard. Oops. Luckily she saw the funny side again. By the way, the spa is now finished and looking absolutely beautiful - all big chunky brown leather sofas and beautiful marble bathrooms. I was very impressed.

Then when we were in the UK we went shopping together and had a total riot. We steamed round the shops, drooling over jewellery, trying on fluffy slippers and generally spending far too much money. I was actually in danger of wetting myself when we drove out of the shopping centre car park and Mum proceeded to stop so far away from the ticket machine that she had to undo her seat belt and get out to put the ticket in. I was already sniggering when as soon as she put the ticket in the barrier instantly went up and she let out a blood curdling scream, legging it back to the car and diving in before revving the pants out of the engine and screeching off down the ramp at full speed like Nigel Mansell. Laugh? I nearly laid an egg.

The boys and Hubby enjoyed being at Mums as well - they were totally spoilt (Grandma is fast taking over the role once dominated by Grandma Maudie ‘can of coke, dear? No? Packet of crisps then? No? Mars bar dear? No? Make you a sandwich then? No trouble…’ ) and mad E, my Mum’s dog was ridiculously pleased to see us all as well. She’s rather podgy and a bit hairy but still insisted on trying to sit on everyone’s lap all the time. We came back covered in a fine coating of Labrador hair. It’s good to go home. Mind you, it’s also nice to come back and have a cup of tea without a hair in it.

I can’t eat a thing. I know, it’s so unlike me, but I’ve just had to throw my Cheerios away. Every time I look at B it makes me shudder and my stomach churns when I think about that poor mouse. Hubby and the boys on the other hand are absolutely delighted and think it’s hilarious. Last night she burped and they immediately set about killing themselves laughing - talking about mouse indigestion and how maybe she’ll do lots of little tiny poos instead of one big one now she’s got a bit of mouse in her, etc, etc. Frankly I find it all just too gross.

I forgot to tell you about the toaster incident. This was just before we went away before we decided to get the useless sonic yoke. Hubby beckoned me over and said ‘listen to the toaster!’. Sure enough, there were little scratchy sounds emanating from inside. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Me: ‘Oh my god, there’s a mouse in the toaster. What shall we do?’
Hubby: ‘Quick, put something over the top so it doesn’t escape’
Me: ‘Okay now what?’
Hubby: ‘Er…dare we push the button?’
Me: ‘Nooooo, that’s disgusting!….I can’t do it’
Hubby: ‘Neither can I, and I’m not picking it up either so it’ll just have to sit in the toaster forever’
Me: ‘Yes but if we push the button it’ll be toasted alive and also I’ll never be able to eat toast again - well, certainly not from that toaster anyway’
Hubby: ‘Agreed. I’ll unplug it and open the front door and you make a run for it’
Me: ‘Deal’.

So, with Rachel’s Favourite Food (blimey, she comes in handy) trapping the mouse in the toaster, Hubby unplugged it, wrapped the cord round my arm and I legged it to the front door where I lifted up Rachel and upended the toaster. The mouse leapt out and ran off round the side of the house.

Hubby: ‘You berk…he’ll come straight round the back and back in the house again’
Me: ‘Shit’.

I was rather taken by this gorgeous pic of Customs House in Dublin by Phil Pankov. He’s just so talented and such an absolute sweetie that he actually sent it to me so that I can use it as a header on my blog. Sadly I’m such an internet dunce that I don’t know how to put the photo onto the blog, so if anyone out there is a computer whizz please let me know. Everso ta.

Oh. My. God. B just ate a mouse. Yes, a whole one. She was sniffing around behind her bowl when all of a sudden the little sucker came legging it across the kitchen with B in hot pursuit (encouraged, I have to say, by Hubby). Then she lunged for it and the next minute she was looking extremely pleased with herself and had a tail hanging out of the side of her mouth. What happened next was shockingly unpleasant and I won’t disgust you with the details. That’s it. I hate living in the country. I want a flat in Dublin..up very high. I think I need a lie down…

Now, although not exactly townies, Hubby and I have never had much experience in the mouse department and it’s proving, to be honest, to be a bit of an issue. We’ve been hearing nocturnal noises (and the dog squeaking like a big girl) for a few nights now and, having discovered several packets of cereal had been broken into, with lots of little poos left all around them (ugh), the diagnosis was confirmed. We’ve got meeces. Now don’t get me wrong - we live in the middle of a bloody great splodge of farmland and living in the country these things are only to be expected, but bloody hell they’re just SO fast. One night, Hubby went out to the kitchen for a beer only to discover one of them on the work surface. He called to me and we tried to trap it with ‘Rachel’s Favourite Food’ and ‘Feast’ by Nigella Lawson - both worthy tomes with which to catch mice, but when we had it cornered, it hurled itself off the work surface onto the floor, sending both of us shrieking with laughter (and, yes, okay, a bit of fear) back into the lounge where we shut the door firmly. The next day #1 politely enquired what all the screaming was about and was, in that typical, withering way that eleven year olds have, disgusted that we could possibly have been scared by a small furry animal. Even after Hubby had explained that they have HUGE claws and GIANT teeth, his smirk didn’t fade, leaving us somewhat embarrassed and even more determined to catch the monster.

The next day, having made a trip to the hardware store and been relieved of a disgusting amount of Euro, we plugged in our new ’sonic pest repeller’. Apparently this little plug-in miracle creates some kind of sonic waves that mess with their ears and make your house unbearable to live in for the little critters. Well, we were impressed. Yep, right until we walked in to the kitchen to find a small furry intruder happily sitting in the fruit bowl nibbling a grape within..ooh..about ten inches of the sonic repeller. And no, he seemed pretty happy with his grape and not at all repelled by our sonic waves. In fact, he seemed altogether chirpy. Back to the drawing board then. This morning we arrived back from the UK to find our biscuit cupboard decimated (each packet had been nibbled neatly in the middle and about four biscuits gnawed in little semi circles. Later I heard a noise and went to investigate and opened the door of one of the cupboards only to find TWO mickeys entertaining themselves with a packet of crackers. Now this was war. I mean, what is it with us? First we’re terrorised by hundreds of rabbits called Paddy and now these miniature furry terrorists. I ask you.

Another trip to the hardware store later and I was equipped with a refund for my sonic pest yoke and four new mousetraps. I’ll be honest, I have mixed emotions about mousetraps, but the lady in the store talked me out of poison (they crawl off and die in your cavity walls apparently), and I’m a keen cook and mouse poo all over the work surfaces just doesn’t sit well with me so if you’re squeamish, look away now. Hubby arrived home from work and I was just telling him how much trouble (and how many fingernails) it had taken to set the bloody things when there was an ominous noise in the cupboard. Hubby ran away like a big girl leaving me to don my rubber gloves and investigate. Sure enough poor Mickey was in the trap, but rather than the bloodbath I was expecting, he was caught by the tail and seemed to be dead. I picked up the trap and held it up for Hubby to see when suddenly Mickey came to life again and plopped onto the floor and…wait for it…in one lightening fast movement was promptly slurped up into B’s mouth. Completely astonished about the amount of fuss we made, B reluctantly spat the poor thing out and it was caught in a tumbler for Hubby to take out and throw over the hedge. I actually think it might have been kinder to be killed by the trap rather being caught by the tail by a giant metal snapping thing, scooped into the jaws of a huge monster, regurgitated and then unceremoniously luzzed a fair distance from a glass tumbler over a hedge. Poor Mickey. What a story he’ll have for his grandchildren though.

Whatever you say about Ireland (and I’ll have to be careful here because G might be watching and send me a stern email), everyone, however bloody useless they may be at sorting out what you want, is never less than friendly. Frankly, part of Ireland’s charm is the fact that you can’t get anything sorted out within less than ten working days. It’s a laid back attitude that we’re kind of used to by now and somehow it’s an even nicer surprise to find a workman at your doorstep than it would be if you hadn’t actually completely lost the will to live while waiting for them. We’ve also learnt that there’s absolutely no point in ranting or losing your temper, because the person on the other end of the phone, whilst remaining perfectly calm and helpful, will not be budged and will promise nothing more that a visit within ten working days. Five if you’re really lucky.

Having frozen our bums off for the first day in the new house because there was no heating oil, we were very grateful to see a large oil truck pull up. The delivery man was really friendly and helpful, and between him and the unintelligible engineer (who was fixing the gas hob, see below), we soon had hot water and warm radiatiors and could finally shed several layers of our clothing. You see, quite apart from the fact that you have to wait a long time, eventually you are rewarded with a warmth (sometimes literal) and helpfulness which is, I think, indigenous to Ireland. Bravo!

Even more perplexing was that when the big, burly Sky man finally came to fit our dish, and we’d spent several Euro of our call credit trying to guide him to us, he then refused point blank to enter the house because he was scared of the dog. Well, I’m ashamed to say that not only Hubby and I, #1 and #2, but Hubby’s Mum and Nephew all dissolved into hysterics. Quite apart from the fact that the guy was the size of a small building, the aforementioned ’scary’ dog was curled up into a painful-looking boney ball on her bed, and doing that weird greyhound snoring thing of blowing her lips out in a big raspberry with every breath. Once we’d established that the only damage she could possibly do him was maybe to fall asleep on him if he stood still for too long, we persuaded him to come in. Eyeing the furry phantom raspberry blower warily, the Sky man set to work, and before long yet another hurdle had been leapt. Yey! An unseemly brawl followed for the buttons, which I won, and once again was immersed in my little UKTV Food world of Rachel’s Favourite Food and Gino D’Acampo (phwoar).

The man that came to make the gas hob work wasn’t scared of the dog (although he was astonished that we kept her inside the house), but was, unfortunately, completely unintelligible to all of us. As you well know from reading my ramblings, I’m not the most spectacular understander of accents, but boy, this one took the biscuit. Anyhoo, we got through with hand gestures, gesticulation and guesswork, and soon enough came to realise that having gas isn’t a matter of just turning on the hob, oh no. You need a gas bottle outside, then you need it connected by a little pipe through the wall and then you need a very sweet but incomprehensible man to come and plumb it all in for you. Hubby was despatched to the village shop to get a gas bottle and soon we were cooking on gas. Literally. Another job jobbed as my Mum would say.

So - as you may well have noticed, we’re up and running again. Not with broadband, admittedly, but hell, I’ve waited so long what’s another 5 minutes to wait for a page to load?

Well, blimey, I can hardly remember all the things that have happened over the excruciatingly long period that I have been computer-less. One thing that was evident was an influx of Grandmas, well, two actually. Both our lovely Mums visited within the space of two weeks which was fantastic, but meant that we bored ourselves silly having each conversation twice over. B thought it was wonderful and lolloped after the Grandmas with an expression of undying love on her little face. I think they both found it a bit bizarre. Hubby’s Mum more so as she’s never met B before and found it a bit disconcerting being followed into the bathroom. They soon fell head over heels though and Nanny even sneakily purchased a big rawhide bone when looking at the Christmas decorations in the garden centre.

Nanny was first to arrive with her twenty-something Grandson, the lovely, ever patient and PlayStation-genius (’wicked!’) G, in tow to help navigate the airport terminal (Nanny is a bit of a nervous traveller). Having (obviously) been married to Hubby’s Dad, she was keen to revisit haunts from her Irish past and did a bit of sightseeing. Much of Ireland, as you can imagine, is very different now and she was disappointed not to recognise much in the area now, but she had a grand time dragging her ever-willing Grandson around County Meath. Keen to do something a bit different, we scoured the local paper and came up with a trip to the races. Sadly the big race was scheduled for the Sunday when they were due to be returning to the UK, so I enlisted the help of the wonderful and ever-lovely J, to see if there was any dog racing on.

Well, was there ever, and what a night it was. It happened to coincide with Hubby’s birthday and naughty J had her mischief making head on and no mistake. So, gladrags and best shoes on, we headed for the stadium. Once there, a rather emotional reunion with J ensued and we were given a fantastic table overlooking the track and proceeded to stuff ourselves silly whilst losing lots of money betting (it was too easy - the lady actually came to the table to take bets!). Nanny worked on the theory that if she picked trap 3 in every race eventually she would win: ‘trap three again madam?’, ‘yes please dear’. Sadly this turned out not to be the case. Hubby did loads of complicated forecasts and lost loads of money, G and I tried to pick dogs whose names I recognised from the greyhound websites and had a small amount of success, but the boys both picked theirs by what name they fancied or whether they looked a bit like B and raked in the cash. Typical.

The food was absolutely magnificent - not that I’m food obsessed or anything (ahem), but I’ll just tell you that I had the most delicate champagne sorbet with fresh fruit, followed by a beautiful salmon en croute topped with crab and served with a gorgeous sauce and some of the best champ I have EVER tasted. This was rounded off with a masterpiece of Baileys and coffee cheesecake and some fantastic Christmas pudding ice cream chocolates (yes, you read that right). Now with our waistbands popping and doing a fair impression of Mr Creosote, we regarded the TV monitors with amazement as two very familiar small boys jumped up and down and waved madly from the screen. Yep you guessed it, J’s guided tour included them being able to leap about on the track between races. They were red faced and breathless with excitement when they finally got back to their seats. As birthday boy, Hubby also got his picture up on the monitors, and presented with a beautiful personalised birthday cake, complete with candles (everyone looked!). He also got to present the prize to one of the winners. This was a fantastic, never to be repeated experience which he’ll probably dine out on for several years to come. We all got to traipse down to the track, talk to the owner (me: ‘you must be so proud!’), ooh, and we got to stroke the winner too, still panting and knackered on his winner’s podium. He was absolutely huge, very fluffy and rather gorgeous too - but seemed a million miles away from our lazy little couch potato snuggled up in her warm kitchen at home.

I was completely gobsmacked. It’s a really fun and rather glamorous night out. I highly recommend it - get down your local dog track this weekend. Oh, and go and adopt a greyhound right now as well. Go on, off you go.

Well, Hubby and I are somewhat past bitter and twisted on the telephone front. When we first moved here (more info to follow) we were perplexed to notice that every house in the village (about ten in total) had the same address - well, no address really - no house name, no road name, no number, just the name of the village. Not unbelievable when we’re all dotted around over several acres, down windy tracks and, in our case, smack bang in the middle of a bloody great field. We should have realised that this would bode evil when it came to explaining to Eircom (and anyone else that needs to find us) where the bloody hell we are. The postman, a rather chirpy and terribly friendly chap called Kieron, who appears in his green van every morning with the music blaring at ear-splitting levels, explained when he introduced himself that he knew everyone in the village anyway, so there was no need for anyone to have a different postal address. How quaint, we thought, how terribly sweet and villagey. How wrong we were.

Next came the call to Eircom. Hubby was asked our address. ‘No house name?’ came the inevitable question from the nice lady. ‘Er no’, replied Hubby patiently, further digging himself a big hole by explaining helpfully that: ‘Kieron says we don’t need one because he knows everyone so there’s no point’. Well, from that moment it because patently obvious that Kieron was no bloody help when it came to getting a telephone line. After tracking down the name of the previous occupant to see if this would help, we were told that there were two families by that name already in the village, but were given a number that could possibly be ours (or possibly not, but if someone else complained that their phone had gone dead at least that would narrow it down) and told it would be connected within two hours. Dream on. Two weeks came and went, along with several hundred Euro of talk time and some very frustrating conversations. No, they had no record of our previous call, and no, the number we were given by the invisible Eircom operator doesn’t exist. You’d better have an engineer…ten working days then? Cue blood curdling frustrated yelling from Hubby and severe blog withdrawal symptoms from me. Eventually though, the lovely Philip came from Eircom. He was very sweet and knowledgeable, and lo and behold a phone line was connected. How we cheered! How we sang! Quick, fire up the internet! Cue sound of needle being scratched against record. The modem was strangely silent. Ah well, at least we could use our phone to ring Eircom now. ‘Ah’, explained another nice Eircom operator, you’ll be after needing to be connected to the internet now. Can you have Broadband? Er, I don’t know. Tell you what, I’ll look into it and give you a ring next week. Connection? Ooh, shouldn’t be more than ten working days…’

Well, in the words of the immortal song: ‘Oh What a Night!’. Hubby’s brother’s birthday party was a fantastic evening and this morning my throat is completely knackered, my ears are singing and my feet are killing me - a sign of a good night in anyone’s book.

It was lovely to catch up with old friends and all Hubby’s lovely family. Hubby’s younger sister, D, is a total love with enough energy for several Tasmanian devils and kept me up on the dance floor the entire evening. We indulged in a pitcher of some cocktail or other which was rather nice: cranberry juice, Archers, vodka and er..something else but it was nice and fruity and not too alcoholic - essential when you’re partying around little ones and not wanting to get sloshed and stagger around in front of your offspring (there are some things a child shouldn’t have to see, and a slurring parent staggering around telling everyone ‘I love you’ is definitely one of them). #1 and #2 even did a bit of air guitaring to The Darkness in between hanging around in the corridor with all the other kids, playing various mad games and doing handstands (why do kids always do handstands when they get together?). Sadly I didn’t manage to regulate #2’s Coca Cola intake so he was bouncing off the walls by the time we got him home.

Despite my best wheedling I didn’t manage to persuade Hubby to dance with me (he was far too occupied standing around in the ‘boys’ section near the bar, but Hubby’s brother’s partner, J and the ever-bonkers D did a good job as my dancing partners and kept me entertained. One of Hubby’s nephews, D, also turned out to cut a fine dash on the dance floor and had a bloody fair crack at the Macarena for a young’un. I was well impressed. Good job I remembered to bring my trainers as we had to walk home, but it wasn’t far and it was very entertaining being out at midnight - especially for the boys.

Well, it’s a lazy morning in jimjams for us now, followed by a nice big fry up. Ah…it’s good to be home.

Helloooooo! Well, after the worst flight I’ve ever experienced in my life, we’re back visiting in the UK for the weekend and I’ve taken the opportunity to nick a seat at the computer and update you all. Bad news is that both C and R are away this weekend, so no drunken cocktail reunions for us, but plenty of other socialising to be done, and a visit to the wonderful B is very high on my list, so I’ll keep you informed.

My God, the flight was turbulent. The lovely Ryanair pilot was terribly apologetic, but there were several very green faces as we were shaken not just up and down but side to side too. The stewardess, in spectacularly tactless fashion in my view, confided to hubby that it was the worst flight she’d ever encountered. Honestly, dear reader, I nearly barfed. And there were no drinks or food because it was too dangerous for them to bring their trolleys down the aisle.

Anyoo, I’m off for a medicinal glass of wine after my turbulent trauma, and hopefully I’ll be able to nab a spare computer this weekend to update you a bit more. The good news is that we now have a phone line at home, so not long (hopefully) til the internet connection follows. Big hugs!