Chocolate and Banana Loaf
Chocolate and Banana Loaf
#1 was off to a choir competition yesterday evening (they came 4th – not bad for their first competition), so I thought I’d make something yummy for them to come home to. I had a couple of leftover bananas that were a bit past their best, so I shoved them into the usual 4/4/4/2 cake mix and I have to say it worked quite well. Here we go then:
4oz butter
4oz caster sugar
4 oz self-raising flour
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
2 mashed bananas
Bar of Green and Black’s dark chocolate
Cream the butter and the sugar until pale, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour and the cocoa (sieved). I added a teaspoon of baking powder to compensate for the heaviness of the bananas, but not sure what it would be like without it (it was quite dense and moist). Fold in your mashed bananas and your smashed up chocolate and pour into a lined loaf tin (I turn the loaf tin over and cut two strips, one the same width as the bottom, one the same length, then cross them into the bottom of the tin) and bake. It needs about an hour at 180 degrees, gas mark 4, but stick a knife in a bit before and see if it comes out clean.
I proudly presented a slice to #2 when he came home from school and his response was suspicious: ‘hmm, what’s in this?’ Seeing as he’d actually got the first mouthful in, I took a gamble and told him it was banana. ‘Yuck’, came the reply as he pushed it away, ‘gross’. I despair.
Louis
So, this morning we were back to normal Irish weather and as Hubby was at home we decided to take Louis the lodger for a walk at the peat bog. If you remember, Louis was staying at J’s while his new owner was away, but then his owner decided he didn’t want him back, so J was somewhat lumbered. Anyway, he’s been here a while now and is very happy, if a little bonkers in that quintessentially greyhound way, so he slots in quite nicely round here.
Louis, otherwise known as ‘Loooooeeeeee!’, Lewis Winthorpe III (you remember, Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places?), Luigi Tagliatelle Bolognesi (with Italian accent), Lou Macari (when footballing) and Lucifer (when smiling in an evil fashion) amongst other things, was (unlike B) a bit of a star in his racing days, but is very similar to B in a lot of other ways which is one of the reasons why we’ve all taken to him so much. He has several ‘issues’, including a pathological fear of the bathroom (he stands outside whining when anyone is in there, fearful that they may not return), and a very unhealthy addiction to cheese. He’s a bit of a scaredy dog and after the first few days when he refused to budge from his bed and wouldn’t eat when anyone was looking, but wagged his tail noisily against the radiator when anyone appeared, he’s now moved onto the next stage, which is following everyone around all the time. In fact, he gets himself in quite a lather when the boys are in their bedrooms (another scary place) and Hubby and I are in the lounge, and spends his time pacing between the two in case he misses anything. Any loud noise, especially anything human (sneezes are terrifying) will send him scarpering back to his bed, but he’s getting braver.
He’s especially enamoured with #2, not only because he’s usually first up in the morning and does morning walkies, but also because he’s quite generous with the cheese. He also does a fantastic impression of Will Ferrell in ‘Bewitched’: ‘Where art thou dog? Thy canine lover? Where is thy hot breath on the nape of my neck? We shall form a bond, man and beast. You will lick my face and I shall lick your snout’ (all over-acted in a dodgy Shakespearean stage voice) which Louis listens to with his head tilted to one side as if he understands every word.
Again, like B, he has that greyhound tidiness thing going on, and this morning while he was pacing and worrying that I was being swallowed by the bath monster, he snuck into our bedroom (very brave) and stole my trousers (which I’d left on the floor) to add to his collection which currently includes: one of #1′s stinky slippers, Hubby’s old jeans (put out by the fire to burn, but rescued), spotty dog (poor thing, every greyhound we’ve had thinks he’s tasty), Dizzy’s squeaky cat, the throw off the sofa (that’s not yours!!) and the green hippo out of the bath, as well as his beloved squeaky snake and his new football. He cheats at football too – when he’s losing, he takes the ball and hides it under his blanket. I think he’ll fit in well.
A beautiful morning
Well what an absolutely beautiful morning. I went for a really long walk this morning; all round the bottom field saying hello to the cows, then hopping over the stream and all round the even bigger field the other side. The farmer who owns the sheep on the far side and looks like a big pile of hay with legs when he walks down to feed them gave me a wave; the sun was shining, dog was wuffling and snuffling, green fields, grass and trees as far as the eye can see, and I just felt so, so lucky.
So I walked around the field with a silly smile on my face, my teeth aching (they’re a bit sensitive and it was windy, okay?) and I realised that something strange has happened: I feel at home. Alright, it’s taken two false starts, angry outbursts, arguments, mountains of paperwork and endless telephone calls, moving vans, broken crystal, more angry outbursts, more moving vans (well, you get the picture), but silently and sneakily, this place has become our home. I no longer think in sterling (recently when reading a magazine and spying a rather gorgeous handbag, I spent ten minutes giving myself a headache trying to work out how much the price was in Euro), I’m looking forward to St Patrick’s Day (there’s going to be a raft race on the river) and watching the news on RTE1 has become a bit of a ritual for me.
Furthermore, I drop the boys off at school and they rush off, smiling and shouting with their mates and don’t give me a backward glance. They know where Leinster and Munster are and #2 is getting very good marks in his Irish class (#1 was too old to start learning). Dare I say it, but there’s a teeny tiny bit of roundness creeping in to their accents which I find quite appealing (say ‘car’ with an American accent and you’ll know what I mean). In fact, watching the video taken of us back in August, I was stunned to hear the difference in their voices; they both sounded like a bad extra in Eastenders.
Don’t get me wrong, I miss my family and friends, but I pop into the village shop now and the lady knows my name, and occasionally in the lane people I know wave to me. And although I guess we’ll never be locals, we’re no longer strangers, and that’s a start.
