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.