So 73 Man, one of my favourite bloggers, recently pointed out that ‘…I can hold a table full of people’s attention on the matter of effective household composting but fail to recognise in others how they might be feeling’. This, I pointed out, just made him male and was nothing to be ashamed of. I can go a whole day with a right cob on and Hubby won’t notice at all. Isn’t it weird, though, that we wish our other halves to notice when we’re annoyed or upset without actually having to point it out?

Bertie fell down the stairs last night (he got up from his bed on the landing and had a shake while standing too close to the top stair - a recipe for disaster) and once I’d checked he was okay and got back in to bed I found myself wide awake. I laid there thinking about a good few things, including the above, and perfected a little list of stuff that’s wholly and unashamedly male (in our house, not nationally), and not wanting to poke fun at our opposite number I’ve added a number of female ones too.

Bloke stuff:

Phones. ‘Your phone just beeped’: Hubby always has his phone on him and can hear an incoming text message from several miles away. I sometimes lose my phone for a whole day and often retrieve text messages that are 24 hours or more old.

Smells. ‘What’s that funny smell?’: every male member of my household catches a whiff of something approximately every five minutes. #1 adds insult to injury by shouting ‘ew it smells funny in here’ every time we walk into a shop/restaurant/sandwich bar/café.

Gears. ‘You’re still in fourth’. So? It’s a gear isn’t it? I’m moving forward aren’t I?

Directions. ‘You know the garage? The one next to the farm down on the Dublin Road? Take the turning just past there on the left, then you take that right and it’s just up there’: Er no, I don’t know the garage. And there’s a farm? And… no, you’ve lost me. How do you notice these things?

Girly things:

People. ‘Ooh look at that lady’s hair/handbag/husband/nose’: I’m always doing this and not only will Hubby not look, but he just doesn’t ‘get’ people-watching at all. I’ve even been known to approach someone to ask where they got something if I particularly like it. This mortifies him and makes him scuttle off in the other direction.

Multitasking: Nothing makes Hubby angrier than when I sit in traffic putting hand cream on, then the traffic starts to move again and he has to steer, or when I’m putting lip balm on in the rear view mirror. Big whoop, I’m a multitasker.

Feelings: I get all girly if I haven’t been hugged a certain amount of times in a given period. Hubby maintains that he’s actually quite shallow and doesn’t register this sort of stuff. Oh and boys? Patting your wife’s bottom when you walk past her doesn’t actually constitute a hug.

Anyone got any they want to add here?

Well, we are the collective family of cats that got the cream this morning. Our little greyhound lad, affectionately known as Doofus, won his first race last night and bloody hell it was SO exciting I nearly popped. He came in a good length and a half in front and we yelled and shouted and made total arses of ourselves. Then I did that really embarrassing thing of standing in the queue for the tote (yes, I bet on him too!) telling everyone that he was our dog and asking if they saw him win. But I don’t care, because he’s a WINNER, yippee!!

Poor old Heather Mills McCartney eh? It must be so dreary having to explain to a court why you need 80 million quid a year to live on. I wonder if they make her break it down at all? That must be worse than having to explain to Hubby where I’ve managed to spend the fifty Euro cash he gave me at the weekend: ‘well, there was the car park fee … erm … and I bought a newspaper … and…oh, there was the croissants on the school run…’ Us mere mortals have a bit of trouble even comprehending those sorts of figures. We were listening to the radio on the way home when they mentioned the £80 mil, and our conversation went something like this:

Me: £80 million? Blimey, what does she spend it all on?

#1: ‘Maybe she buys Tesco’s Finest, although I reckon she’d still have a bit of change’

#2: ‘Ooh, I know - maybe she orders in?

Me: ‘Nope, still not enough. Ah, I’ve got it, maybe she can’t cook’ (having only one leg and all it must get difficult standing by the oven) ‘and needs to employ a chef to feed her and the chavvy.’

#1: ‘Still not enough. Maybe she’s got a Ferrari

#2: ‘Or two’

Thing is, even if she’s got two Ferraris, a butler, a massage therapist, a shopping consultant (never again having to utter the immortal words: ‘what, this old thing? I’ve had it ages, darling’), a nutritionist, an expensive hairdresser, a nanny, a really serious Ebay habit and gold plated bloody pants, I just can’t see that it can be possible to stand in front of this tribunal or hearing or whatever (without blushing) and prove that you need £80 million to see you through. I’m actually quite impressed. That’s some serious spending. ‘Ah’, said the presenter, ‘but is she happy?’ Too bloody right, she is, she’s young, attractive, intelligent, she’s got more millions than you can shake a cheque book at, an adorable little girl and she’s managed to really really piss her ex-husband off. I’d be bloody ecstatic.

No, honestly I’m not a Girls Aloud fan, I promise. There are no girls in the house apart from me so I’m sublimely cushioned from the delights of the long legged lovelies and their ‘you go girl’ brand of poppiness. Apologies, then, for stealing a Girls Aloud song as my title, but it just seemed so apt. You see, it’s Nigella again. Not content with selling out by punting recipes designed to feed a football team in less time it takes to open a packet of frozen pastry (sacrilege), she’s now holding forth in Esquire magazine about all manner of horrors. Let me elaborate: first of all she’s dressed up like a wanton oven-ready turkey in some kind of aluminium foil getup, then to add insult to injury she starts banging on about some very risqué personal stuff. Prepare to cringe:

‘Stockings never fail to make you feel sexy. I like hold-ups, but the problem is if you’ve got too much meat at the top, you get a bulge there. So I often wear those over-the-knee French schoolgirl socks. But I know men like the whole strappy thing of suspenders, so I’ll wear them. In fact, thinking about it, I’ve actually worn them with nothing but a pair of shoes in bed before.”

Oh. My. God. Me Mam always drummed into us that it was bad manners to talk about ‘personal stuff’ in public and I’m afraid I agree. It’s like asking someone how much they earn. I’m in the Indo today (blink and you’ll miss me) discussing domestic goddessness and I mean, yes, Nigella was the girl who made cooking all a bit cool and saucy - the odd raised eyebrow and licked finger were very seductive and made us think of food as more than just sustenance. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not against quick cooking, frozen pastry or any of that other stuff. But it’s just not Nigella. Yes, she’s millions of men’s fantasy…culinary crumpet, blah blah blah. But this? Nope, sorry. Next time I’m making one of her recipes (from her old books, not Nigella Express) my mind will be filled of horrifying images of La Lawson gallivanting around the bedroom with ol’ Charlie Saatchi, her bulgy thighs hanging over the top of her stockings. And as for her perving over the entire Chelsea football team? Ugh. I can’t even tell you, you’ll have to read it. John Terry’s probably having a lie down as we speak.

What’s happened to my heroine? And shall I be forced to take her signed photo off the front of my fridge? Watch this space.

Okay, so I’ve decided to embrace the whole chocolatey thing going on with my curtains (that, and Hubby won’t let me buy any more) and here’s the latest addition: choccy bedlinen! It’s taffeta, dahling, and actually surprisingly comfortably if a little slippy. Turn over in bed too quickly and you’re likely to whizz out onto the floor quicker than you can say ‘Jamaican bobsleigh team’. Still, it looks nice. And as you can see, I’ve accessorised wiz a leetle greyhound throw. Peachy.

Oh, and be grateful. I picked up all the clothes and crap all over the floor and the bed just so I could take this photo.

Hmmm…bit of a funny day yesterday. We decided to head out and start getting some of the items on our unfeasibly large list. There’s everything from loo brushes to bookshelves on there. We also went and had a nice loud family argument in the carpet shop over which colour carpets we should have upstairs (#1: red, #2: blue, Hubby and I: a nice nondescript beigey colour. We won). We really liked our pine floors at first, but when he and J came round, C was horrified to see Bertie lolloping up and down the stairs (an accident waiting to happen apparently - this being due to the fact that he has several hundred skinny legs that could all get tangled). Not only that, though, it’s like living below a herd of incredibly clumsy elephants when the children are crashing about upstairs. And with Little C being a permanent fixture in our house and still hobbling around on crutches too, soundproofing is definitely needed.

Later, we were out at the school’s ‘Wine and Cheese’ party. It was very nice - Hubby indulged in the stinky cheese and I ate the grapes off the edge of the plates and drank the wine. I like these events at school, they’re such a good idea. We get to have a bit of a chat with the kids’ teachers when they’re ‘off duty’ as it were. They’re much more fun after a few glasses of vino and you get to find out more useful information than during parents’ evenings when they’re on such a tight timescale to see everyone before the evening’s out. For example, #2’s a bit scared of his Irish teacher. ‘Pah’, she said, ‘I’m not scary really but I have to keep them in check otherwise they’d walk all over me’. Fair point, well made.

When we got home, Bert had obviously found himself at a bit of a loose end and we found mysterious scenes in the bathroom where he’d decided to knock the top off the laundry bin and take all the laundry out. He must have done this with his teeth, but nothing was damaged, just spread all over the bathroom floor. Greyhounds, eh? Weird.

Oh, and yes I know I need a bath panel. It’s on my list.

Bertie’s definitely the strong, silent type. He’s not prone to undignified fits of barking, even when someone comes to the door, but there’s something about our new neighbours that really gets his goat. You see, we’re surrounded on two sides by fields which currently contain the most adorable fluffy, huge eyed baby cows (yes I know, there’s probably a technical term for them but I’ve no idea). Whenever we take Bertie out, they come rushing up to the fence to have a look and for some reason it really annoys him so he barks. And barks, and barks, and barks. The babies, for their part, don’t give a monkey’s and carry on regarding him with their big, liquid eyes. Hubby says it’s lucky I’m not a farmer or they’d all be crowded into the kitchen (wellll, I feel sorry for them when it gets dark).

So back in August, around the time we were moving, I received a phone call from the Disreputable One. There was a fair bit of embarrassed umming and erring and straight away I thought ‘hello, what’s all this then?’ Now don’t get me wrong, having a Dad that’s a bit of a pickle (putting it mildly) is endlessly entertaining, but if you haven’t been told a revoltingly rude joke within the first five minutes, you know something’s up.

Turns out he’d sent us some chocolates - three boxes as it turns out - and having not heard from us was in that weird situation one sometimes finds oneself in when bestowing gifts of having to phone up the gift recipient and politely ask if they’ve received the present without a) seeming like you’re fishing for thank-yous and compliments, and b) inferring that the recipient is rude for not getting in touch. Well, no, we hadn’t had the chockies and bugger me, I could have done with some when we were moving so I was more than a bit gutted. ‘Not to worry’, said the Disreputable one now all that inconvenient embarrassing stuff was out the way, ‘I’ll get on the case’, and off he went.

Anyway, we’d forgotten all about it again when he emailed (it’s less embarrassing) asking if we’d had them delivered to our new place. ‘Nope’, we said, ’still no bloody chocolates’. We supplied the full address (again), our home number, my mobile and Hubby’s mobile just in case (not that he ever answers it in case someone asks him to do stuff) and off he went again. This time the reply was even more bizarre:

DD: ‘They say that the chocolates have been delivered; they were signed for on the 12th at 12.04 by a Stephen Wild. Anyone you know?’

Me: ‘No’

DD: ‘Oh bugger. This is getting ridiculous.’

Me: ‘I hate to point this out, but lucky old Stephen Wild. Whoever he is he was obviously minding his business one day when some random delivery guy knocked on the door and gave him a shipload of chocolate. He must have been ecstatic.’

You can just imagine it can’t you:

Witless Delivery Guy: ‘Hello, are you English Mum, I’ve got a load of chocolate for you’.
Stephen Wild: ‘No’.
Witless Delivery Guy: ‘Ah feck it, here, have them anyway.’

Well, I could feel a ‘Horrified of Hemel Hempstead’ letter coming on, and lo and behold in my in-box today was a copy of DD’s poison missive to the chocolate company: did they not think it weird that the guy who signed for the goods had a different name (and address obviously)? And frankly (as I’d already pointed out) it’s just as well that they are in the chocolate business and nothing more important like nuclear physics or something. Good Gordon Ramsay, who do they employ to deliver their goods that can’t differentiate between two completely different surnames? Trained chimps?

His final suggestion, though, took the biscuit. Knowing the DD as I do, I’ll bet you two Double Deckers and a Curly Wurly that he was laughing his ass off as he wrote it: ‘My suggestion is that your Managing Director should arm himself with three parcels and personally deliver them to my daughter. You might also consider it necessary to reimburse me (a) for the frustration and stress that this has caused, and (b) for the costs of the whole operation. I did, last year, use your services for a reasonable percentage of my Christmas presents. If this is the way your company is going, I think I should probably follow my partner’s advice and forget it for this year.’

Ouch. Nasty.

Oh, and by the way, I asked him if his Child Bride minded being called The Child Bride and he said he wasn’t sure but that it was okay because if it’s good enough for Des O’Connor, it’s good enough for him.

So I like it up here in Cavan. It’s lovely and quiet (apart from our new baby cows which are currently mooing the place down - pics soon), the people are lovely and the scenery is spectacular. But oh, the driving. I seem to spend my life in the car. Firstly, there’s not really any supermarkets near here, well, unless you count a very teeny EuroSpar that in no way caters for my ridiculous and diverse taste in ingredients, so I face nearly an hour’s drive to get down to my nearest Tesco. To be fair, I could drive up to the SuperValu in Cavan town in 45 minutes, but I figure 15 more minutes for twice the size of shop is a small price to pay. Every so often I go mad and drive to my nearest Dunnes which is kind of like food shopping in Marks and Spencer (bliss!), but I don’t do that too often as a) Hubby goes a funny colour when he sees the bill and b) my freezer stuff is defrosted by the time I get home. Oh, and by the way, when you live here it’s ‘up to Dublin’ even though geographically it’s south, and then if you’re in Dublin and you’re driving home, you’re going ‘down the country’. I’m getting used to it. So just to give you an example, here was yesterday’s tally:

1. Drive boys to school: 30 minutes
2. Drive home again: 30 minutes
3. Drive down to Ashbourne to walk round the lovely shops and visit aforementioned Dunnes: 60 minutes (plus 10 minutes stuck in roadworks on N2 - narrowly avoiding the urge to leap out and berate the little man that holds that STOP/GO sign for unfair twiddling of his sign in favour of the other side)
4. Drive back up (or should that be down?) to collect boys: 60 minutes
5. Drive home: 30 minutes
6. Drive back to school an hour later to pick #1 up from after-school activity: 30 minutes
7. Drive home: 30 minutes

Okay, I suppose it was exceptional with the shopping and the after school thing, and I really should have gone straight out shopping after dropping the boys off (duh) but still, even my meagre maths skills make that nearly 5 hours in the car. 5 HOURS! And some people actually commute from here to Dublin every day. Can you imagine? They must be frazzled.

Still, in my continual quest for the bright side, here are a few reasons why it’s not the end of the world:

1. If I’m in the car I’m not having to do housework and boring stuff like that
2. I get to listen to the music that I like, as loud as I like and sing along too (I’m currently spending quality time with Enrique Inglesias - no honestly, it’s a good album)
3. Bertie likes doing the school run and it keeps him from getting fixated in a very unhealthy way on the baby cows (and drooling on my windowsill too).
4. When stuck in traffic I get to file my nails, have random text conversations with J, put hand cream on, look in the mirror and all the other stuff that drives Hubby bonkers.
5. I can drive merrily along in 4th gear without Hubby huffing and puffing next to me and tapping the gear stick officiously.

There you have it then. Driving: not a complete waste of time.

Well, it’s been a while but I got The Phone Call again today. Oh you know The Phone Call… the one that goes ‘oh hello English Mum it’s Matron here - nothing to worry about *worrying pause* but I think you better pop down to the school’. Aaarrrggghhhh.

This time, amazingly, it wasn’t the Death Wish Child, but #1, who had been late for a lesson and, in his haste (running in the corridor tsk tsk), had tripped over a rug and gone head first into a doorframe. ‘I really think he should go to the doctor’, said the Matron. It’s swelling rather alarmingly and it’s looking very ugly’ (cue indignant huffing noises in the background from #1 - later he said ‘can you believe she called me ugly?!’).

I know we were having that nature/nurture chat the other day, but it really does worry me that I’ve bestowed my natural clumsy-arsed bumbling upon my children. Take Saturday night when I decided we’d christen the new, hideously expensive granite fireplace (every time Hubby looks at it he goes a bit pale and has to sit down), so in I come, totally forgetting about a cardboard box of wood I’ve just put down, and fall straight over it. I actually landed face down lengthwise along the hearth, with the really tender part of my shin against the nasty hard edge and have a bruise the size of Lindsay Lohan’s liver to show for it. Ouch.

Anyhoo, back to the child formerly known as the sensible one. Off to the doctor’s we went, and very charming he was too. He actually said to #1 ‘oh, you brought your sister’ and damn my pink painted toenails if I didn’t giggle like a 12 year old. Pathetic really. After a thorough examination (questions included: ‘how many pens am I holding up?’, ‘any bleeding from the nose or ears?’ and the classic ‘and how many children do you have?’) plus a terribly painful prod about, the verdict was that #1 was bloody lucky it was an inch to the right of his eye, that he didn’t think it needed x-rays and the best thing would be to wait until the swelling, currently looking like half a plum stuck to his face, went down and if there was any indentation left on #1’s cheekbone, it would have to be ‘brought forward a bit’. This made #1 do an impression of his father looking at the hideously expensive fireplace, so Dr Charming quickly added that this would be unlikely and that #1 would be sporting a most fantastical black eye for a couple of weeks that would seriously impress his peers.

Smiles all round, then, and fifty quid lighter (I can’t get used to paying for a visit to the doctor, even if he is charming) we set off for home. I’m thinking full body armour and a full-face crash helmet for Christmas, then.