Well, we had a right laugh tonight. #1 was the scary murderer out of Scream, #2 was a vampire (complete with Day-Glo white face, false pointy teeth, dripping blood and flappy cape), L from next door was the most fabulous Corpse Bride, complete with the most beautiful hand-made ragged dress (all home made) and black-rimmed eyes, and Little C was a wonderful glow in the dark skeleton. We made quite a little trick or treat troupe, I can tell you. Oh, and Bertie was ‘bat dog’ with authentic-looking bat-wings sellotaped to his black doggy coat.

Blimey, though, people do Halloween properly here. C and I drove the kids to the more isolated places (some people do up their houses and only get a couple of visitors so it’s polite to make an effort) and then walked round to the rest. One lady had her entire house decorated, with her porch completely wrapped in cobwebs and a loudhailer spouting spooky music. Another had her hall decorated as a huge spider’s web, complete with giant spider on the ceiling. C and I felt a little outdone and vowed to try harder next year, whilst secretly plotting a commando Christmas display of lights that you’ll be able to see from Mars. Anyhoo, they all got a nice bag-load of booty and we finally made it home for drinks and nibbles whilst watching a fellow neighbour’s highly illegal firework display.

Suddenly the doorbell rang. ‘Aaarrrgghh’, screeched #2, ‘teenagers!’. I opened the door to be confronted by 5 or 6 hoodies who’d made no effort at all at dressing up. The conversation went like this:

Me: ‘What have you come as, then?’
Them: ‘Gangsters’
Me: ‘Hmmm very scary. Lucky for you I’ve got a few lollies left’
The hoodies then grab handfuls of lollies and start walking down the drive.
Me: ‘Em… I think you mean thank you’
Them: ‘Yeah, thanks. We won’t burn your house down then’.

Oh. Well that’s a bonus. Happy Halloween.

So I’m a bit of a whiz on the ol’ Microsoft Money. I like knowing where every little penny (or cent, sorry) of our money has gone and I’ll often be found sobbing fat tears of despair onto the keyboard come the 30th of the month. I’ve just found a great new thing on there called ‘Budget Planner’. Basically it’ll set you up a budget, taking all your average spending (or letting you set your own limits) and then giving you a computery smack on the wrist if you exceed it. I like it: a virtual naughty chair for spendaholics and it’s just what we need. So I set to work slaving over my budget. It’s actually very good because it won’t let you be silly and just allocate, say, thirty quid for hair care. It’ll remind you, in very much the same way as J does when I talk rubbish (ahhh, the ‘best friend talking some damned good sense into you’ chat), that you actually spent 120 Euro on your last haircut, and to stop being such a fibber.

Oh dear, though, it seems that currently our outlook is somewhat less than rosy. For example, here’s the good news: if we’re really good, we’ll be able to buy food again next Thursday. Oh, but the bad news is that if we want to buy heating oil every three months either the dog’ll have to go without food (noooooo!) or the petrol budget will mean that we can only take the kids to school once a week (hmmm…kids or dog…tough one.) So heating oil will have to be four monthly in order for me to have an empty house during school hours plus a happily full-up greyhound sans rumbly tummy.

Still, cheer up, people, it’s not all doom and gloom. At the rate I’m going, I’m currently set to retire when I’m 97 and therefore won’t have need of pension payments in my budget. Bonus.

Well, wonders will never cease. I’ve got some exciting news to report: Bertie’s morphed into a ‘dog that cares’. Yes, yes, I mean, I know he cares about dinners and walks and wags his tail when we get home and everything, but greyhounds aren’t generally known for their outlandish displays of devotion. Okay, he sleeps across Hubby and me on the sofa but this is actually a calculated and selfish means to a comfy warm bed whilst getting your ears scratched, rather than actual affection. It could be an axe wielding homicidal maniac on the sofa, and he’d still lick his ears, we fear.

Last night then, we graced the local Pumpkin Festival which came to a spectacular climax with fireworks over the loch (which I missed because I was on the way back from the airport, but hey, I got there in time to go to the chippy) with C, D, L and Little C (who was a star in the parade but don’t mention it EVER AGAIN, OKAY?). When we came back, Hubby and D decided to go down the pub to carry on the festivities, seeing as it’s Halloween Bank Holiday today (yep, they have a day off especially for Halloween!). Bertie was not impressed that one of his family wasn’t in their proper position come bedtime and paced annoyingly up and down the hall like some furry Sergeant Major inspecting his troops. I finally fell asleep but was woken at 3am by a noise that sounded a bit like an embarrassed cough: ‘humph’. Then another: ‘hruff’ and finally a full blown but very tiny ‘woof’. I sat bolt upright. Firstly because it was 3am and I realised that the bed next to me was still empty, but secondly and more importantly, this was the first time that Bert had ever barked in anger. A real bark! My baby!

Anyhoo, it turned out that he was barking at a very tired but remarkably sober Hubby who was walking up the drive, obviously looking menacingly burglar-like and Bertie had taken it upon himself to clear his throat and for the first time ever, protect his family. Well, dear reader, I was touched. And not a little emotional, I can tell you.

This morning, Hubby was well impressed that Bert had taken it upon himself to be family defender in his absence. Who’d have thought eh? Behind that silly face, cute floppy ears and those balding, gangly legs, there’s a scary guard dog just waiting to get out. Well, kind of.

So we’ve got a house-load this weekend. Me Mam’s over with my twin niece and nephew (The Fleas). The house has echoed to the sounds of thudding little feet, MarioKart wars, raucous laughter and (occasionally) indignant argument. Cries of ‘I’m hungry!’, ‘ow, get off!’, ‘it’s my turn!’ fill the air, and I’ve yet to sleep in past 7am (6am this morning with the clocks going back).

But it’s lovely to see them and fantastic for my two as they miss them loads. So this morning we had a huge, final breakfast with croissants, pains au chocolat, baguettes and these yummy little fruit soda breads, adapted from Rachel Allen’s recipe which I must have tried ten times and just couldn’t get to work for some reason.

1lb (450g) plain flour
1tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
25g sugar
100g sultanas
1 egg
350 - 400ml buttermilk (or just sour some normal milk with juice of ½ lemon)

So first, whack your oven on as high as it’ll go and weigh out your dry ingredients. Make sure you sieve the flour, salt, and bicarbonate of soda really well. If you don’t, little bits of soda will show up in your finished scones as green lumps. Not very appetising. Then stir in the sugar and sultanas.

Crack the egg into a jug and give it a whisk, then add your buttermilk (or if you’re not using buttermilk, remember to add the lemon juice to the milk), topping it up to about 400ml altogether. You might need a bit extra but I never do.

Pour the milk mixture bit by bit into the flour, stirring with a fork. You’ll probably find you won’t need all the liquid but that’s fine as you can use it to glaze them at the end. It’s a bit messy but be patient as it’ll come together into a nice soft dough. Turn out on a floured board and pat into a big flat squareish shape. Cut into 9 or 12 or whatever, depending on how big you want them. Brush with the leftover milk mixture and sprinkle with crunchy brown sugar.

Stick your little soda breads on a baking tray (non stick preferably) and bake them on the high setting for about eight minutes (I had to turn mine round half way through as my oven doesn’t cook very evenly). Then after the eight minutes turn them down to about 200 (gas 6) for the last five or six minutes. Watch them just in case as the smaller the buns the less time they’ll need. They’ll sound hollow when you tap them if they’re done.

Serve warm with lots of butter to melt into them and enjoy the (brief) silence.

Okay, so Mrs Isitjustme wants to know where we all do our internetting. Here’s the desk and dog for your delectation. Not sure what the wipes are doing there but the rest is just general crap. So now, next time you’re reading my endless stream of drivel, you can picture me and Bert sitting in our little dark hovel.

Large greyhound squeezed into impossibly small chair: courtesy of Abhaile Greyhounds
Computer: courtesy of Dell
Printer: Hewlett Packard
Baby wipes: Tesco Value
Mug: Emma Bridgewater
Handcream: Nivea
Trailing wires: courtesy of Eircom who wouldn’t put an extra socket in. Thanks, guys.

Where do you do the deed, then?

Remember those ghastly plastic surgery programmes where the surgeon has got that ENORMOUS canula thingy and he’s raking it up and down inside the flabby person’s stomach like he’s digging for potatoes or something, and the horrible suction machine is filling up with all that oozy yellow fat? Bleeuurrrggghh. Well, there’s a real flurry of advertising here in Ireland for this new procedure which is sort of like liposuction ‘lite’. And ok, although I’m pretty normal size, I’m alarmed to say I’ve noticed a tendency to muffin-ness in the abdominal region. I have to say if the Euro Fairy visits me in the night tonight (that, or if ma hoond, the Doofus, comes in fast at Dundalk) I’ll be signing on the dotted line.

So get this: it’s done under local anaesthetic, they insert this fibre optic laser thingy into the skin (yes okay it’s a canula, but a teeny weeny one, not that tent pole they usually use) and the laser zaps your unwanted flab which is then reabsorbed into the body gradually over the next few weeks. Yes I know it’s still surgery and yes I know it’s vain and unnecessary yada yada, but if someone said ‘hey, give us a couple of grand and I’ll make your fat disappear’ you’d probably offer to sleep with them as well as handing over your dosh. Or is that just me?

Talking of Isitjustme, she’s currently explaining to me in words of one syllable how to do stomach crunches. She reckons 100 a day should do it. Watch this space.

Right, so we’ve decided. The downstairs room that was going to be a kind of ’boutique hotel room’ thingy (for this read ‘office with a bed in’) has been kicked into touch. This was partly because we can’t afford to get an en suite put in, and partly because I thought it would be a bit dodgy to knock on my guest’s door and ask to use my desk when I got a sudden urge to blog at 11.30pm.

So we’ve moved the bed upstairs to the spare room. The upshot of this is that Bertie can no longer sprawl on the bed while I’m blogging (another reason I wanted to move it - I thought he would get too used to sleeping on the bed and try and hop in when guests were using it). He’s a bit of a people-dog, our Bert, and doesn’t like to be in one room when we’re in another. He was mighty disgruntled, then, when he ambled in after me only to discover that his usual comfy spot had disappeared. He walked out, walked back in, sniffed the (rather small) chair next to my desk, walked back out again, then, having finally made his mind up, stepped gingerly up onto the chair and proceeded to do at least three very tentative 360s before he could get all his unfeasibly spindly legs tucked underneath his bony body. He seems comfy enough but looks can be deceiving. He might just be stuck.

By the way, can you see that his little bald thighs have finally got a teeny sprinkling of bum fluff? How cute is that. He’ll be furry by Christmas I bet.

Oh, and thanks to Isitjustme for this link. Apparently I’m a PG13 because I said ’sexy’ four times, ’slap’ twice and ‘crap’ once. I’m sure I’ve said shit a couple of times too. Ah well.

Now I’ll confess I have a tendency to fiddle with recipes. Usually this is just a personal taste thing, or sometimes it can be because they’ve got too many ingredients and I can’t be arsed to put them all in. This time it’s because I live in the middle of bloody nowhere and couldn’t actually find some of the ingredients. The original recipe from my mate 73 (he adds 3 tbsp bran and 2 tsp wheat germ, as well as the odd handful of nuts or seeds) is linked here and is incredibly good so please try it out. Here’s my pared down tinkered-about-with version of Mr 73’s proper Irish brown bread which we scoffed, in its entirety about 5 seconds after it came out of the oven

300g coarse brown flour
200g plain white flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp black treacle
450 - 500ml milk

Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the black treacle then enough milk to combine into a lovely pasty mess.

Butter a loaf tin then bake in a pre-heated oven for 20 minutes at gas 6 (200º), then another hour at gas 3 (170º).

It’s a testament to the simplicity of this recipe that one of my kids turned the oven off by accident half way through cooking. When I discovered, I quickly turned it back on and it still came out perfect. It makes a beautiful, moist, dense loaf, which is crying out for a thick covering of butter and some really good jam. Nice one, 73.

I’m SO cold that I’m actually struggling to type this morning. I hate being cold, it makes me really grumpy. My nails have gone blue and my nose is red. Oh no, I’m not expecting any sympathy, Hubby and I let the bloody heating oil run out. In our defence, we’re used to gas central heating, which takes no more maintenance than an ability to pay the bill at the end of the month. All this putting your wellies on, squelching across the garden, hopping up on to the concrete ledge bit, undoing the lid and peering into the stinky gloom to see how much oil there is left is, frankly, beyond us. I’ve spent a large portion of this morning swearing a lot and standing under the shower trying to get warm. It did work but when I finally got out you could have picked the icicles off me. Nasty.

Last night was okay because we had a big roaring fire going in the unfeasibly expensive new fireplace. Hubby had a mate round and while they talked about man stuff (I try to join in but then there’s just this high pitched whistle while I watch their lips move) I spent a very contented half hour or so snuggled up in front of the flames with a nice glass of Hardy’s talking to J on the phone about all sorts of stuff, but mostly about why men take us for granted (yes, I know, another bloke vs woman thing). It’s true, though. J mentioned to C that a chap at work had asked her out. ‘Ha’, replied C, ‘he’s welcome to you’. No, no, no. You see, this is entirely the wrong response (just for future reference, C). The correct answer should not have been accompanied by any snorting laughter and should have been more along the lines of ‘what?’ (in suitably horrified tone of voice) ‘Another man interested in my darling? Well you can tell him you’re well and truly taken with a man who loves you with a fierce passion and who would fight to the death for you’. This reminded me of the incident when that Garda gave me his telephone number and Hubby nearly wet himself laughing. Not exactly the most flattering of responses, especially when you know how much time men actually spend checking out other women. 73 Man calls it the ‘male public gaze’, although maintains that sometimes it’s actually involuntary. You know the thing, when they surreptitiously (or not) check out the view as a fit girl walks past them in the street. It’s kind of like the subtler version of the ol’ builders-on-a-scaffold wolf whistle.

Anyhoo, Hubby’s (single) mate, J, heard me telling my J that I could walk around butt naked all day and Hubby wouldn’t even notice. He thought this was very funny and said ‘that’s why I’m never getting married’. ‘Ah’, says I, sagely, ‘but at least I don’t have to do all that excruciating dating stuff any more, and I do still get lucky occasionally’. Oops, too much information.

Is anyone else totally obsessed with this programme? Tuesday nights we scrabble around trying to get the kids in bed so we can be sat in front of the TV by 9pm. If you haven’t seen it, it stars the fantastic (and thoroughly gorgeous) Jennifer Love Hewitt as Melinda Gordon, a girly who can see dead people and helps them sort out their unfinished business so they can ‘cross over’ (or something). Anyway, it’s not all the ghosty stuff that interests me most, although the stories are generally quite good, it’s JLH’s wardrobe which is AMAZING!

She’s not one of these size zero girls, which is thoroughly refreshing, and dresses to show off her amazing curves. She’s obviously got a very creative (and quirky) stylist and although there’s been some shockers (black net skirt with biker boots à la Avril Lavigne) generally she looks stunning. Last night she had this lovely low-cut top on with some great jeans and in the scene when she went to bed, she actually took it off too - Hubby nearly had heart failure.

Check it out if you get the chance, girls - for the fashion if not for the fiction. Oh and for the boys, well, just look at the pics - need I say more?