Seeing as we were lazing about all day and the Spa was just a short stagger from our sunbeds, it seemed rude not to give it a go. So Mum and I plucked up the courage for an ‘Ayurvedic Massage’. We were welcomed at the door by a beautiful Goan lady, wrapped in an amazing shimmering sari. The heat in the spa hit us immediately - a blanket of steamy perfumed air wrapped itself around us when we walked in - a fan on the ceiling moving far too slowly to make any difference. Mum was taken off by her two ladies, and I was welcomed into a tiny room with a huge leather massage couch and just enough room to walk around it. My massage ladies seemed very young and didn’t speak much English. They were both very sweet and pretty and giggled shyly at my shock when they took off my bikini. Yep, ALL my bikini.

I then had to sit, stark naked and rather embarrassed, on a chair while one of the girls stood behind me and dolloped a big handful of oil on my head when I wasn’t expecting it, making me jump and prompting more tinkly giggles. The sensation was similar to having an egg cracked on your head, but I soon forgot my shyness when she started doing all sorts of weird things like pulling little tiny handfuls of hair and massaging my scalp with amazingly relaxing little movements. Next up, the girls, still giggling quietly, tied a piece of cotton around my waist and tucked a hand-width strip of cotton material into the front, under my legs, then up around the back. I felt slightly like a sumo wrestler, especially being butt naked in the company of these two teeny tiny girls whose combined weight was probably the same as one of my thighs, but was relieved finally not to be standing around in my birthday suit. Then it was up onto the big leather couch, and an incredible amount of the same perfumed oil was poured up and down my body and sploshed onto my forehead. They then started the most amazing massage, with each girl doing exactly the same movements on each side of my body. I found the..er..chest bit somewhat embarrassing (I can honestly say that’s the first time I’ve had ONE woman touching my boobs, let alone two) but when they started whooshing their hands right from my feet up to my shoulders, then down my arms to my hands and back up again, it was so relaxing that I felt like I could nod off. They still whispered quietly to each other, and whether it was to coordinate their movements, comment on my cellulite, or to discuss what they were having for dinner later, I’ll never know. They did this thing standing either side of the bed pushing their palms up from my sides to my stomach and back down which was very tickly and prompted a ridiculous fit of giggles. The girls found this incredibly entertaining and did it far longer than necessary while I tried, unsuccessfully, to lie still without squirming. Then I was flipped over and the massage was repeated again on my back, the buttock massage being rather, well, thorough.

Then suddenly it was over and I was wrapped, still covered in oil, in a big towel and lead slipping and sliding to the steam room where Mum was already waiting. We sat on a bench, all greased up like basted turkeys, hair plastered to our heads, and proceeded to steam, getting hotter and hotter until we started to panic that they’d left us there to fry. Luckily we were rescued before we exploded and the girls, still whispering and giggling, towelled us down and helped us back into our bikinis. Before we knew it we were standing blinking in the sunlight again, feeling strangely calm and oddly worried that it had been some kind of candid camera stunt, and someone was going to leap out from behind the palm trees with a microphone.

I guess it’s good to be home, but then we’re not even really home and the thought of seeing in the new year without any of our friends or family is even more depressing. God, I’m all homesick now. I miss so many things.

I miss my Mum, who was such good company on holiday, always up for everything, and just the biggest laugh ever (I nearly passed out with hilarity when she got up in the night at the hotel in Gatwick and fell over her suitcase - #2 went ‘Grandma, are you drunk?!’: Mum, you’re the best - shall we do it again next year?

And all my lovely friends: C, darling, give R a big squeeze for me tonight, tell her Happy New Year and have a drink on me. B, you’re a big looney and I love your mad emails and miss going up the school seeing little I going ‘oy!’ every five minutes and eating bagels stuffed with that fishy stuff..yum! And J, whose new little baby I haven’t even seen yet, I miss going out for a curry and ‘doing lunch’.

I miss my naughty Dad and my even madder middle brother, who will always be a teenager even though he’s forty, and my sensible older brother who makes me feel twelve again, and my sisters in law, who have always been like friends really, and my beautiful nieces and nephews (on both sides) and Hubby’s lovely family who are always so nice to me and I miss walking down the high street and bumping into people I know, and..oh, I don’t know, just everything really. Hey ho. You’re all lovely and I miss you every day. Mwah. Now where’s that chocolate.

God it’s cold, and because I’m messing about on the computer I keep letting the kitchen fire go out. And someone’s let a cow or something loose in the garden, there’s big craters all round the house. And B ate J’s trifle on Christmas day. And did I mention how cold it is? And the water here is still a funny rust colour, and two bathrooms still don’t work and we’re not collecting B til tomorrow. Oh, and I’ve just had the loveliest email from C, all about her cute new little nephew, and what a lovely Christmas they had - and they’re going round to see R tonight and I miss them all sooooo much…boohooooooooo….

And just to compound my depression, I’ve now downloaded the pictures from the holiday and have been reminded just how wonderful it was. Here’s a little snippet for you. Just in case you didn’t know, Goa is on the west coast of India and our resort was 26 acres of little bungalows, mingled with a few two storey little houses, palms, lawns and a lovely beach, with sand so soft that it almost crunched like snow when you trod on it. The sea was warm and a luscious greeny-blue, and the shore was littered with beautiful blue starfish and tiny, scuttling hermit crabs in their pointy shells. The Goan people are gentle, kind and funny. Nothing was too much trouble and they smiled and smiled all day long. They made so much effort for us it was incredible - even when they didn’t really need to. As we walked along the dusty red road in the little town, everyone would wave and call out hello. It really is the most amazing place.

Here’s a pic of our little bungalow for you. We had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a tiny little veranda to sit out on in the evening (not that we ever did because we were too busy beering it up in the bar). To get there we had to walk down a little cobbly path and we were surrounded by lawns and the most beautiful bougainvillea (must check the spelling on that) covered in pink flowers.

A few days before Christmas, the hotel strung thousands of little fairy lights all over the palms and trees along the paths, and all over the palms around the pool. It was absolutely magical and I’ll never forget walking through the evening heat to the outdoor restaurant called, in a fabulous Abba-esque way, the ‘Mama Mia’, with the lights all twinkling around us, and chinking our glasses feeling like the luckiest people in the world.

Well, here we are back again. Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. You’ll be pleased to hear that I took notes all the way through our holiday and will be telling you all about it in due course. Spoken to J already and it seems that B was well behaved apart from a small incident with a trifle on Christmas day, uh-oh. We’ll be picking her up shortly so I’ll hear all about it.

Goa was absolutely beautiful and Christmas was wonderful, although spending the big day by the pool was rather other-worldly. Mum was a fantastic laugh as usual and we made full use of the poolside bar, put it that way.

The journey back was tough, there’s no denying. We had about 11 hours in the plane, then horrendous crowds at Gatwick (an hour’s queue for security alone!), then our Ryanair flight back here was delayed so we ended up sitting like zombies in the departure lounge. Add to that an hour’s drive home from Dublin and you can understand why we were all in bed by 7pm. Nobody slept on the plane so we’d all been up 24 hours straight. Oh, and guess who got sat next to the nutter on Ryanair? Moi, of course. I had this respectable-looking older lady ask if the seat was free, and I thought it would be a safe option, rather than a big sweaty man like I got on the way there, but no, she was totally bonkers and spent half the flight with her head on the seat in front whispering ‘f*cking plane, f*cking hell, f*cking get it over with’ and all sorts of other mad mutterings the whole flight. I was relieved when she finally fell asleep. Poor #1 was practically in tears by the time we got to Dublin and waited for a taxi back to pick up our car, although #2 was still going, like the little Duracell bunny he is. It’s all very well when you’re all excited planning a holiday, but you forget what you’re letting yourself in for on the way back!

Ah well, home now and apart from the smell of the dead mouse that had been festering in a trap all the holiday (exacerbated by the fact that instead of switching the heating on we’d switched it to 24 hours, so it was rather Goa-like in the house too), nothing major had happened while we were away.

I’m off to get on with the washing, then. Happy days.

Well, folks, sadly this is farewell. Actually, I’m not sad, I’m bloody chuffed, because we’re off to sunnier climes for Christmas and I’ll be thinking of you all while I’m roasting my fat bits on the beach. Our suitcases are packed: kaftan (to hide aforementioned fat bits: check, flip flops: check, bikinis: check, vast pile of anti-malarial tablets: check), B is off tonight to spend her Christmas with Auntie J, the lucky girl, complete with the cake, which I have to say turned out rather well (oh, but don’t eat the chocolate covered coffee beans on the top - they taste disgusting) and I’m sure she’ll have a lovely Christmas with J & C and all their doggies. I can’t wait to see my Mum and spend two weeks getting completely bladdered on cocktails (not in front of the children, obviously), swimming, having fun with the boys and Hubby, talking a load of total rubbish and reading the big mountain of books I’ve packed.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, with lots of fun, food, family, festivity and..er..other things beginning with f.

See you in 2007! Mwah xxxx

PS: Note to burglars: we have house-sitters, and enormous, ravenous mice, with fangs, and anyway I’m taking the only pair of earrings I possess with me. xx

#2’s Big Night

Oh, and I forgot to tell you about the poetry competition. #2 managed to mug one of the other kids and nab his blazer and although it was a teeny bit big for him, he scrubbed up quite well: hair combed (oh yes, once a year whether it needs it or not), nice white shirt, lovingly ironed, and tie a bit wonky but never mind. He did very well actually, he spoke loudly and confidently and remembered all his poem.

We, on the other hand, were rather fatigued after listening to the first round of the senior cup, where they all read a set piece (oh yes, all fifteen of them), and then to the tiddlers doing their stuff in the junior cup, then the second round of the seniors where they had to read an unseen piece. This proved rather difficult for some of them and there were some unintentionally amusing moments where, struggling to read a word they just tailed off, like children do, and carried on as though nothing had happened. Having heard the same piece several times, we became used to them all having a valiant go at pronouncing ‘arthritic’ and settling for ‘ar…art…arthrmmphh’ before moving on to the next word, hoping nobody had noticed.

It was good though, #2 came a very respectable third, which was pretty good out of about fifteen children, many a good bit older than him. Hubby and I clapped and cheered when his name was read out, and the little chap beamed with pride. Both the senior and junior winners were worthy of their huge, shiny cups, carried with pride into the big hall afterwards where we all had mulled wine or orange juice and toasted our bottoms by the huge fire. Very successful. #2, for his part, grinned like a Cheshire cat all the way home, and so he should do.

Now, being Nigella’s biggest fan and having, if you remember, a signed photograph on my fridge as evidence, I was delighted when J told me that she was going to be doing a special Christmas series on BBC2 (Nigella, that is, not J - mind you, I’m sure she could be just as pouty and flirty as the girl herself). If you saw this programme (Wednesdays 8pm I think) you too will have drooled at the rather spectacular Chocolate Fruitcake that Nigella made. J and I were texting each other feverishly throughout: ‘look at that bloody cake!’, etc, and in a rather pathetic attempt in currying favour with the ever-lovely J who is about to dog-sit for me this Christmas (and would have done it anyway, cake or no cake), and seeing as we’re not here for Chrimbo so this is my only chance at a bit of festive baking, I offered to make the cake for her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chocolatefruitcake_84675.shtml

So far so peachy. Apart from inadvertently buying soft prunes with pips in, therefore having to de-pip 350 g of prunes (tip: try to keep one hand clean, otherwise all the sticky, claggy pruney stuff goes all over your face when you scratch your nose), the purchasing was very easy, and most of it I actually had in the cupboard. Seeing as I was pushing the boat out, I made a special effort and bought Green & Black’s dark cocoa powder as well. The only thing I didn’t have was coffee liqueur, and I thought buying a bottle for 25 quid was a bit excessive, seeing as I don’t like coffee anyway, so I made a nice, strong pot of espresso, measured out 100ml, then added a big 25 ml slug of Morgan’s Spiced Rum. I had a quick taste and it was bloody nice, so in it went.

Anyhoo, as you’ll see from the recipe, all the dried fruit, butter, dark muscovado sugar, honey, liqueur, etc, go into a saucepan and get boiled up together for ten minutes. The resulting smell was better than any Christmas candle you’ve ever had. The whole house was permeated with a wonderful Christmassy, spicy smell that got me in the mood to sing ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ by Maria Carey in a loud voice til Hubby pointedly banged the kitchen door shut (Men. No Christmas spirit). After this lovely, gooey mixture has cooled for 30 minutes, it’s in with the final ingredients: flour, baking soda, eggs….EGGS! There was a split second when I thought I might cry, knowing that we’d had scrambled eggs for breakfast yesterday, and that I’d made lemon-cake-but-with-lime for pudding too. A quick check confirmed my worst fears, so it was out into the truck, Starskey and Hutch style, pausing to apologise to B for shutting her head in the door (much to Hubby’s amusement), and off down the lanes to the next village where, thank the lord, there is a teeny, tiny village shop. Quick pleasantries were exchanged: ‘hi, how are ye?’, ‘not a bother, you?’ and it was off back into the truck, full pelt to the spicy smelling kitchen (complete with cross dog). Phew. Very nice eggs they were too actually, so instead of run of the mill Tesco eggs, this cake was made with fresh, free-range eggs from a farm in Tara. Swanky.

Well, it’s in the oven, so I’ll keep you posted.

Recall training and Irish Stew

Did I mention how much I love Sundays? Oh yes, I think I did. This Sunday we have mostly been slobbing around and having a go at a bit of recall-training with B. This has proved very funny. J has given me a few tips to prevent so many occasions when B has realised that she’s free and buggered off for the next few hours. Central to this training is the need for B to WANT to come to us when we call her. This is achieved by the stashing of treats in pockets and then calling her, even when she’s on the lead, and giving her a treat when she comes. Trouble is, B has consumed several hundredweight of treats today and is now permanently glued to our sides, with a bad case of the burps. This, as you can imagine, makes recall training difficult: ‘B, come here! Oh, you’re here already…’ I think it’s called recall training for that very reason - she recalls the fact that you have a treat and spends the rest of the time standing on your shoes whilst simultaneously trying to climb into your pocket.

Ah well. In the end we stalled training for a big slap up Sunday lunch of the usual epic proportions. I think I told you how lovely Irish beef is and today I used it again (a huge pack of stewing steak already trimmed cost me E2.99!) to make a lovely stew complete with huge, fluffy dumplings (no jokes, please). For pudding, seeing as everyone wanted lemon cake but I’m getting a bit bored of it, I did lime cake instead, which was still rather nice. Mind you, the sugar syrup that you pour over the top was a tad..er…evil made with lime, and we all made some pretty silly faces whilst eating it. Nice though.

This evening we’re heading to the school as #2 (surprisingly, if you knew #2 - he’s more Motorhead than Mozart generally) is in the final of a poetry reading competition. Unfortunately, he’s got to have his school blazer and tie on (oops, I knew there was something I’ve been meaning to buy) and yesterday evening when he told us (as well prepared as ever) it was sadly too late to go out and buy one. So we’ve hatched a plan: we’re going to get to the school a bit early, hide in the bushes by the front entrance, and leap out on the first child that looks the right size, knocking him on the head, dragging him into the bushes and stealing his blazer and tie. Or we could just borrow one. We’ll decide when we get there.

Well, there’s much excitement in my house and I haven’t seen my three men (well, the front of them anyway) since yesterday evening when the new Nintendo Wii! arrived. I know they’re Japanese or whatever, but what possessed Nintendo to name their new invention after a bodily function (oh yes, it’s pronounced ‘wee’) is beyond me. I’ve got a vague recollection of this happening before in foreign climes - you know, a Danish pack of biscuits whose name translated into English is ‘turds’ or something…but I digress…

Actually, even though I’m a self confessed games-hater, (my worst nightmare is being coerced into a large family Christmas game of Monopoly, although there was that game of Twister with my Dad’s partner but that’s another story. My oldest is turned into an aggressive two-headed avaricious monster by Monopoly - he would sell his Grandmother for a hotel on Mayfair) I did end up having a little go and jolly good it is too. My men were all playing some sort of sports package and I was persuaded to have a go at ten pin bowling. The controller thing is like a little TV remote control and basically you just pretend that you’re bowling a ball down the alley whilst holding the little remote thing in your hand. It interprets your actions and bowls the ball down the alley. Not just clever but rather addictive and soon we were locked in a fierce battle. Hubby’s first strike nearly caused a riot and poor B nearly fell off her sofa in shock. The other very entertaining one was boxing, where you hold one of these wireless controllers in each hand and ‘jab’ at your opponent. The Wii interprets your movements as punches to your oppo and you have to keep your guard up otherwise you get smacked in the chops too. #2 was worryingly good at this and knocked his opposite number out cold in the first round

I do think they could have given it a better name though - maybe the Nintendo Wehay! Or the Nintendo Woohoo, rather than the Wii! I think I’ll email Mr Nintendo and suggest a change of name. Apparently we were lucky and they’re quite difficult to get hold of. I might get up in the night tonight and stick in on Ebay…mwah ha ha.

Okay, so I was feeling a bit smug. I’d braved the crowds (a lot of the schools are off already) been to the chemist and got mosquito repellent, anti-malarial tablets (another story) and sun cream, finished my Christmas shopping (I’m feeling a bit schizophrenic about this whole Christmas/holiday scenario) and opened the door to find…a grey gritty moonscape, littered with all sorts of rubbish, and one very sheepish-looking dog, trying to make herself look as invisible as possible, curled up on her bed surrounded by more crap.

A quick assessment showed that my first thought: that the dog had spontaneously combusted, exploding in a huge puff of smoke, then raining her charred remains down over the entire kitchen, turned out to be a tad over-dramatic. What she had actually done was to empty out the bin, very delicately and without toppling it over, therefore scattering the ashes of last night’s fire over the entire kitchen along with egg shells, yoghurt pots, tissues, potato peelings, and anything else that was in the bin whilst she took the tastiest morsels back to her bed for later investigation. She had also, I would surmise in a rather ‘CSI: Miami’ type fashion, sneezed several times during this process, which would explain the fine layer of ash that now covers all the work surfaces and cupboard doors in the kitchen, as well as most of her face and her entire nose.

She knew she was in deep sh*t because she didn’t move, just averted her head in that strange way she does when she thinks that if she can’t see you, then obviously you can’t see her either and aren’t going to give her the biggest bollocking ever for trashing your kitchen. Wrong. From the first ‘WHAT have you DONE?!’ she knew damned well she was in for it, and took her roasting like a man, whilst surreptitiously trying to shift her position to cover up the two crisp packets, the yoghurt pot and the cheese wrapping that were still in her bed.

When I’d finished clearing up (her one saving grace was that the floor did need washing) she came and leant against my leg and looked up at me with those big brown eyes. Now you’re probably thinking that this was in a shameful, penitent fashion, but oh no, she could see I’d bought a packet of treats from Tesco. Grrrr.