Sep 18

Our bedroom: chocolate heaven or a little slice of Amsterdam?

So this blank canvas thing. It’s all very well and people (rich people, mainly) keep telling me that I’m very lucky moving into a house where no one has put their stamp on it yada yada, but I’m just not creative in that respect. I mean, I’m creative in lots of other ways, like explaining away some new kitchen gadget I’ve bought and not told Hubby about (’oh that? Had it ages - in fact, I think me Mam gave it to us when we moved house last time’) but I’m not creative in that I don’t know the difference between teal and jade, or what colour will go with the horrible yellowy magnolia colour that the builder painted all our walls. This all lead to the big, expensive mistake that was the bedrooms.

Someone we met up here suggested this nice lady in Kells who makes curtains. Then in a spectacularly matter-of-fact aside happened to mention that you could probably get your whole house done for ‘ooh … six grand?’ Six grand? Six bloody shitting flamin’ grand?! Do I look like Aristotle Bloody Onassis? I was thinking more along the lines of six hundred, and that was going to be a struggle.

You see, for the smalls, who already had several different types of blue bedlinen, it made sense to stick with blue, so quickly writing off the nice Kells lady as a bad and expensive idea, we headed for Dundalk where there was one of those trading estates with lots of shops with names like ‘Homestore and More’. We sent the boys off to have a look and in the meantime wandered aimlessly amongst the ready-made curtains (I know, how common) and settled on these sort of quilted, vaguely satiny looking chocolatey brown ones with a thin golden stripe meandering through them. I thought they looked quite substantial and would look luxurious and hotel-like and warm up our pine floors a treat whilst hinting nicely at this season’s trend for metallics. The boys found white ones with different coloured blue dots going through them which we all agreed would say ’sunny, country bedroom’. Oh dear. How wrong we were.

The boys’ curtains, rather then saying ’sunny country bedroom’ say ‘oh dear, I’m rather transparent and let the sun wake everyone up at 5am’ and our bedroom says ‘holy crap, did I take a wrong turn and walk into a brothel?’. Don’t and I repeat, don’t, buy metallicy brown curtains. They may look classy in the pack and feel gorgeous to the touch, but every time I walk into my bedroom I feel like I should start stripping down to my black lace lingerie and pressing my breasts against the window with a ‘come hither’ look on my heavily made-up face. Now that would frighten the cows…

#1's room: translucent curtains and a spectacular view of the garage roof

PS: Sorry for the poor photo quality but I was trying to tell the dog off for putting his snotty wet nose on my blanket at the same time as taking the photo. Multi-tasker, me.

Sep 17

Boysie and buddies

Once upon a time, when we first moved to Ireland, we decided we’d quite like to adopt a retired greyhound and, as many of you will know, this is also how we first met J, when we adopted the adorable and much-missed B from her.

On the day we went up to J’s Dundalk kennels to meet B, we also came across poor Boysie. He’d suffered the most appalling ill-treatment and had been starved nearly to death. I remember at the time feeling so angry that people could starve an animal to the point where he was so damaged and confused that when he was finally fed he would hide his food rather than eat it. J certainly had her work cut out. The lovely man that ran J’s kennels at the time (and quite a few people besides) told J that Boysie was beyond help and that the kindest thing to do would be to put him to sleep. Kind-hearted J would hear none of it and set about helping Boysie on the long and difficult path back to health.

And here, two years later, in a picture that I can hardly believe is real, is that poor, emaciated, ill treated lad today, in his new home with his new mates (plus three cats!). Happy, healthy and looking remarkably like B, stuffing his face in his new home in Italy. What a testament to time, patience and a little TLC eh? Enjoy, Boysie.

Sep 17

Huzzah! Friday morning, like a Masai warrior emerging from the haze of the desert (okay, well it was more like a white van emerging out of the mist off the Loch but we’ll get to that) came…the elusive but still definitely welcome Eircom man. I was incredibly pleased to see him, having had three weeks in our new house twiddling my thumbs (well, apart from cleaning, unpacking and making bad curtain choices but more of that later). Bertie was also exceedingly pleased to see him (he doesn’t discriminate, he’s just exceedingly pleased to see everyone) and gave him a jolly good wash as a present for fixing up our phone line. Lubly.

Here, then, to get us all back into the swing of it, is a random Getting Back Online Top Ten which is a mixture of things I’ve missed, mixed with things I’ve got to talk about (been making lots of mental notes for you) and a few other things I thought you might like to know. Here goes then:

1. I now live in a little house in County Cavan - the lake district of Ireland - where there are, according to #1 who is an incurable smarty pants, 365 lakes: one for each day of the year (no, I don’t know what happens on a leap year, presumably they call it ‘Ireland’s county with normally one lake for each day of the year but not this year ‘cos it’s a leap year’). Cavan is kind of up a bit from Meath, left a bit from Louth and not quite as high as Northern Ireland although it’s tantalisingly close. We have a rather nice lake very near to the house (pics to follow) and lots of midges to boot.

2. The surrounding fields were full of cows but are now empty as they all got squished into a trailer on Saturday never to return (don’t ask). There’s another house here (I know! People!) which contains D&C, who are very nice (we’re the little interloper section of the village as they’re Scottish/Irish and we’re English/Irish), along with their two children: L, a little girl the same age as #1 and C, a little boy the same age as #2. This has to be chalked up as a right result. Along with the lake, we have a pub which is also an undertaker (go figure), a shop with two petrol pumps, a GAA pitch and a primary school - practically inner city, us.

3. Internet things I’ve missed, part 1: reading Isitjustme for fun, gossip, and lots of things that make me nod and go ‘that’s SO true!’ a lot.

4. Internet things I’ve missed, part 2: reading 73 Man and sometimes feeling incredibly proud and intellectual when I actually understand what he’s on about.

5. Internet things I’ve missed part 3: reading Flirty’s blog and having a jolly good laugh whilst lurching between feelings of ‘I wish I was still single’ and ‘God, I’m glad I’m not still single’. Wondrous.

6. Internet things I’ve missed part 4: emails! The lovely, chatty e-mails from my friends that keep me feeling like it’s not just me, Bertie and several cows in the world. Oh, and emails from me Mam telling me off when I swear on the blog (sorry Mam!)

7. Things we need to talk about, part 1: Nigella Express. What the hell? J and I always drive our respective partners mad whilst watching our favourite TV programmes as we text each other continually but this programme generated 9 texts each. Yes, 9. What was all the smug posing (’think a TV dinner in ten minutes is fast? Watch me whip up a family feast in less than half an hour’), the false laughing to camera and the copious use of frozen veg? I’m sorry, it was all wrong. And I love Nigella too. Disappointing.

8. Things we need to talk about, part 2: my pathetic inability to purchase items of soft furnishings that a: go with the other items of soft furnishing that I’ve already purchased and b: don’t make the house look like a 1950s Clacton B&B or a dodgy booth in the red light district of Amsterdam. What the hell is the matter with me? I’m a woman, shopping is what we DO.

9. Things we need to talk about, part 3: my kitchen. Holy hell, it’s fab!

10. Well that’s it, I can only think of 9, so I’ll be off out with my camera then, ready to report back to you soon. It’s rather wondrous to be back. A bientot, then, ma cheries x

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