So yesterday, then.  It was a pleasant enough day, which ended with a rather inebriated stagger around the garden.  Let me explain: I had to do my ‘popping to another country’ trick as Hubby’s Mate J (not to be confused with My Mate J) needed me to wait in for BT in his new flat while he was doing large wasp impressions up and down to Dublin.  So off I tootled to Northern Ireland, and very happy I was too.  Firstly, I love the journey.  It’s all blazing yellow gorse which looks like the hills are on fire, and lakes and cows and stuff, and secondly I love Northern Ireland. Nothing makes me happier than popping to a shop and paying with real pounds (snaffled from Hubby’s pockets every time he goes home).  Plus, Enniskillen has the largest Tesco in christendom which is good for upstocking (groceries are terribly expensive in Southern Ireland), and there’s a shopping centre containing such treasures as Next and Monsoon next door.  What’s not to love?

Even happilyer (ahem) when I got there, Mr BT was waiting.  A quick cup of tea, a brief read of OK Magazine (Jordan’s died her hair black, Posh and Becks went to a basketball game and Becks got papped checking out one of the cheerleaders’ arses, some bird from Corrie got married and Cheryl is considering taking Ashley back - there, you don’t have to buy it now) and he was done.  And yes, of course I had a nose round.  Well, you have to don’t you.  It’s a lovely flat: penthouse, dahling, with three bedrooms (master with balcony and stunning views), cream carpets, leather sofas, nice kitchen, wet towels on the bathroom floor (tsk, he’s such a boy) and more technology than you can shake a stick at.

When I’d finished poking about, I had a quick unintelligible chat with the BT man (I never have been able to understand that accent; it all sounds like ‘dirdledirdledirdle to me) who eventually got sick of me going ‘pardon?’ every five minutes and wandered off, and headed off to Tesco.  And there, joy of joys, I found Banrock Station’s Sparkling Shiraz is being discontinued (are they mad?) and was on special offer at half price!!  Hence the fact that I opened a bottle once the kids had gone to bed, and spent a happy evening in front of the TV.  The trouble is I had to take Bert out for his evening constitutional and once the fresh air hit me, I found myself feeling somewhat befuddled.  This manifested itself in a very ungainly stagger around the garden.  At one stage I walked straight into our potted Christmas tree (Bert walked straight into it too - and he calls himself a sighthound?).  I just hope D next door wasn’t looking out the window.  Tsk.  What a lush.

So Saturday night, then, we went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  #1 had his mate over for the weekend and they were keen to see it, but I was a bit worried by the 15A rating it had been given.  Now before I get hate mail for being a bad mother (note: I already know!!), a swift search revealed that this means children under 15 should be accompanied by an adult and that it contains ’some comic sexual references’.  Meh, I thought, how bad could it be?  He’s a ten year old for goodness sake.  He’s seen the odd pair of boobs and had sex education classes.  He’s no stranger to a willy joke.  And anyway, most of these comedies with their fnar fnar implied rudeness go right over his head.

Anyhoo, we got settled in with our Maltesers and waited for the film to start.  I sat next to #2 in case I needed to quickly divert his attention from something comically sexual.  The cinema in Cavan is quite small but very nice and we were the only people in the film…on a Saturday night!  I was gobsmacked, but then I’m used to twelve screen multiplexes packed to the gunnels with teenagers throwing popcorn so it was a somewhat welcome change.

So, the film then.  Well, I won’t ruin it for you but basically Peter (played by Jason Segel - a very unappealing slob-like creature) is dumped by his CSI actress girlfriend, Sarah.  He goes on holiday to Hawaii to get over her and, who would have thought it, bumps into Sarah, with her new boyfriend, English rocker, Aldous Snow, played by the fabulous Russell Brand. 

I think my biggest complaint isn’t the comedy - there were some very funny moments - it’s the fact that there were enormously large gaps between anything funny.  Sadly, you had to wait so long for Peter to stop getting drunk, blubbing, moaning and basically boring us to death, that they lost half their comic value.  He then gets involved (unbelievably, because she’s gorgeous and he’s a big fat useless crybaby) with the receptionist at the hotel (played by the stunning Mila Kunis) and, well… you can watch it if you want to know the rest.

Russell Brand basically steals the show as the laid back rocker who reminded me SO much of Mad Uncle A it’s not true.  His one liners were fantastic, and his lazy Essex drawl somehow emphasised the fact that he wasn’t trying too hard.

Anyhoo, the boys liked it.  That is, the older boys liked it.  #2 wasn’t sure given that he’d missed half the film as my hands were clamped over his eyes.  Some comic sexual references my bottom.  I tell you, dearest reader, there was more gratuitous sex in the film than I’ve seen in a long time (ahem).  One scene shows Sarah Marshall giving her ex a blow job and while, admittedly, his back is to the camera, it’s pretty graphic, especially as she’s imploring him to ‘get hard for me baby’.  Hmmmm.  Another shows Aldous Snow showing a newly wed how to pleasure his wife by simulating sex with a giant chess piece (you had to be there, but it was dead rude).  Best bits…er…well, they were all Russell Brand really.  When he’s serenading Sarah in a hammock and he’s singing: ‘I’m on a hammock wiv me lady, watching the sea roll by.  Things are great now cos we’re in Hawaii’ is classic, but you need to imagine the accent.  And when he grudgingly wears an awful Hawaiian shirt she’s bought him and the waiter spills cranberry juice on it he deadpans: ‘oh no, not the shirt…take my eyes but not the shirt’.

Aw, okay.  Go and see it then.  It’s not three bad.  Just don’t take the kids.

So.  It’s happened then.  I have to say it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I opened #1’s door that particular morning - half expecting to see some embryonic teenager emerging from a particularly stinky chrysalis, complete with already formed armpit hair and foot odour.  Happily, a rumpled but still cheery greeting from under the duvet confirmed that the small, perky and strangely random mad professor is still amongst us.  J, who already being the owner of a fledgling teenager, has experience in such matters, assures me we have until they’re at least fifteen before the fun really starts.  Phew.  Anyhoo, the little sod tried to find something nice and difficult for his birthday cake but luckily, having a blog has its privileges and none other than Martin Dwyer, Waterford Superchef Extraordinaire, stepped up to the line with a fantastic recipe and bailed me out.  I’m not worthy:

Martin Dwyer’s Chocolate Meringue Recipe

4 large eggs, separated

Pinch salt

Pinch Cream of Tartar

8oz golden caster sugar

1tsp cornflour

1tsp white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tablespoons cocoa, sieved

Whisk the egg whites with the salt and the Cream of Tartar until stiff.  Add your sugar spoonful by spoonful until glossy and it holds a peak when you lift out the beater.  Stir the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla together to dissolve the cornflour and whisk into the meringue.  Add your finely sieved cocoa and stir in.

Draw around two dinner plates (or 3 tea plates) onto baking parchment, place onto baking trays and dollop on your mixture, smoothing it out roughly to the edge of your circles.  Bake at 150 degrees/gas mark 2 for about 45 minutes, then just turn the oven off (door ajar) and leave to cool.

My chocolate creamy custardy stuff:

I was going to do Nigella’s recipe for chocolate crème patissière but honestly, it’s so bloody complicated I couldn’t be bothered.  So I bunged a few things together and it worked okay.  The only trouble is, I’m not exactly sure what I did, so I’m not absolutely guaranteeing that I could repeat it.  I apologise for the verbosity of this recipe, but hey, if you’re my Disreputable Dad and not really interested, you’ll have moved on anyway by now.  If you’re still hanging on in there, it goes something like this:

4 egg yolks left over from the meringue

100g caster sugar

¾ pint full fat milk

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon cocoa

½ bar dark chocolate

Get yourself organised first (learn, as usual, from my mistakes) and have a clean saucepan ready, and a couple of inches of cold water in the sink.  So whisk together your egg yolks, caster sugar, flour and cocoa.  Whisk into a thick paste with a splash of the milk.  Put the rest of the milk on to boil.  Just as it fizzes up, pour gently into the egg mixture, whisking all the time.  Add back in to the clean saucepan and heat, whisking, until it thickens up (or if it doesn’t thicken, whisk in a teaspoon of cornflour mixed with some milk), then turn off the heat and stir in your chocolate.  To stop it getting a skin, it’s best to cool it by bunging the saucepan into the cold water in your sink and whisking.  Once cold, store in the fridge, covered in clingfilm.  To assemble, sandwich your layers of meringue with the chocolate custardy stuff and whipped cream, adding raspberries, strawberries, grated chocolate…hell, whatever you fancy.

So Happy birthday #1, thanks for not turning into Kevin just yet.  And thanks to Martin.  You’re a total ledge.

First up, then is Jay’s lovely patriotic fur-family.  I want one of those for Bert (don’t tell him though).

And second.  Does anyone else think that Jodie looks a bit like Tamsin Outhwaite without all that hideous slap and balloon boobage?  Incidentally, she claimed that she did this ‘no make-up’ stunt for Refuge.  The charity quickly issued a statement denying all knowledge.  Heh.

Okay, so I’ve been tagged again.  This time by Jay over at The Depp Effect.  For those not in the know, this is a little game that us bloggers play where we send little tasks or challenges to each other.  Mine is to tell six random things about myself.  Here goes:

1. I’ve flown a helicopter (badly, as Hubby will testify)
2. I’ve had two tattoos.  One was removed and the other is still nestling in the small of my back.
3. I’ve never broken a bone (mine or anyone else’s)
4. I’ve always wanted to play the drums
5. I demolished a wall once in a car accident
6. I dropped both my children when they were babies (Baaaad Mummy)

As usual I’m going to be all rebellious and pass my tag on to you guys.  So, comments please, then.  6 random things about you.  The weirder the better.  Off you go, then. 

So it’s St George’s Day today.  Once again it will no doubt pass with more of a whimper than a bang, but in honour of our great Saint’s day - and let’s face it, he slayed a dragon for a lady, the bloke’s a legend - I thought I’d give you a little guide to Englishness.  Read it and weep:

English Design: English design is revered all over the world: Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood (okay she’s barking but hey), Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Burberry…  Ah Burberry.  Once solely seen on stuffy, posh old ladies walking their Labradors, but now gracing a whole new generation of England, with less taste than ever before.  A belly button ring, squawking child in a pushchair, white Honda Civic with dodgy plastic body kits and adding ‘innit’ to every sentence are must-have accessories.

The Weather: okay so most of the time you need a raincoat and umbrella, when the sun shines in England there’s no better place to be.  There’s nothing nicer than lazing on warm grass watching a game of cricket on a sunny Sunday, or wandering around beautiful gardens like Sissinghurst.  Our shores are many and varied, from craggy windswept coastline to golden sandy beach.  In the winter, a glass of something in front of a crackling fire down the pub makes you glad to be alive.

The Lingo: ah the Queen’s English.  From Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys and Beatrix Potter to Ted Hughes and J K Rowling, our literary accomplishments are huge.  Mind you, given that we’ve bestowed our language upon half of the globe, you’d think we’d be a bit prouder of it.  But no, we still manage to strangle it in any one of a thousand different ways.  I worry that a whole new generation of English children will really think that U SPL TNGS LYK DAT.

The Monarchy: The Disreputable One maintains that on the day Prince Harry was born, one of the throng of journalists hanging about outside was alleged to have said ‘another bleedin’ parasite’.  Many would echo that sentiment.  After giving us false hope by giving up going out on the piss to join the armed forces, William ruined it all by taking the company Chinook out for a jolly, and Harry came back from Afghanistan to get on with the important royal business of skiing, lounging on various beaches and staggering out of clubs at 4am.  Proud?  You betcha we are.

But don’t get me wrong - for all its little quirks and foibles, I love everything about my country of origin.  I miss watching the fellas play cricket on a perfect summer’s afternoon, wandering down to the village for an ice cream at tea time.  I miss walking along the canal in the snow, the ducks skittering about on the frozen water.  I miss visits to our beautiful coastline, fantastic restaurants, lovely old pubs, and the odd game of footie.  I’m proud of our sporting achievements (okay, so don’t mention the World Cup, but our sportsmen are amongst the best in the world), our fantastic food (it’s not just fish and chips, it’s British Beef, the best seafood, the tender lamb, the fantastic puddings…) and, okay… can I mention the war?

The English are renowned for their reserve (which is funny when you think that our teenagers are currently vomiting and fornicating their way around half of the resorts in the Med) but it’s high time we started being a bit more patriotic.  So I’ll start, shall I?  Happy St George’s Day, people.  Innit.

Further Reading: Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island, anything from William Shakespeare, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Eats,  Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, England for Dummies by Donald Olson

I’d like to thank my mate C for emailing me this lovely badge today.  It kind of sums up exactly how I’m feeling.  Anyhoo, so because it’s Earth Day, and because Thrifty just revisited some of his favourite posts, I’d like to republish my original Earth Day post for your delectation.  That, and I can’t think of anything funny.

Okay, so it’s Earth Day today and according to some really dodgy ‘family’ website I found which had articles on ‘Making Mealtimes Fun’ (ban your children from the table?) and ‘Make Your Next Family Camping Trip a Success’ (cancel it and book a hotel instead?), it’s a ‘special day to learn about our planet and how to take care of it’.  So in the spirit of Earth Day, here are ten things that we all should teach our children so that we’re doing our bit to take care of our own Mother Earth:

1. Energy is precious.  This means that having three televisions on in three different rooms, plus the computer and every light in the entire house is not good karma, especially when you’re in the bath playing your Gameboy.
2. Conserve our precious water.  Like when you’re cleaning your teeth and you wander back into one of the rooms where the televisions are blaring to stare goggle-eyed at the screen, you really should turn the tap off first.
3. Showers and baths need to be small to use less water.  Thirty-minute showers where you sing the whole of Green Day’s repertoire and make your hair into several different mohicans with shampoo whilst trying to emulate Billy-Jo are just not cricket.
4. Wearing an item of clothing for ten minutes, then putting it in the dirty clothes basket because you ‘fancy having shorts on now’, doesn’t mean it’s dirty and needs to be washed, nor is bunging it in there an acceptable alternative to folding it and replacing it in the drawer.
5. Aim to choose products that are not over-packaged.  Easter is therefore cancelled next year because Easter Eggs have five different plastic and cardboard layers before you get through to the ounce of chocolate in the middle.
6. Learn to recycle.  By the way, recycling isn’t where you put the empty orange juice carton back in the fridge so that when Mum goes shopping she doesn’t buy any as she doesn’t think we need it.
7. Daddies need help learning about recycling.  This means that putting everything in the kitchen bin so Mummy has to get in there and rescue all the tins and bottles from the stinky black depths leads to the withdrawal of certain privileges.  You know the ones I mean.
8. Learn to re-use.  Yoghurt pots make good containers for growing seeds.  You could grow herbs on your windowsill so Mummy could cook with them and then you could spend ages picking all the green bits out of your food.
9. Learn more about energy consumption.  Some ‘gas guzzling’ cars are really bad for the planet.  Obviously these do not include the new Land Rover Discovery 3 TDV6 HSE in Lugano Teal that Mummy is currently trying to persuade Daddy to buy her.
10. And finally, one for the Mummies: tumble-drying our clothes in the middle of summer so that the entire kitchen becomes sauna-like is not an acceptable alternative to hanging clothes out.  Even if, frankly, you just can’t be arsed.

That’s it, then.  Off you go and save the planet.

So hot on the heels of the big fella, the little chap is off on his travels today.  #2 is rather an Irish speaking whizz (the only one in our family, #1 was considered too old to start learning).  He can say ‘kiss my arse’ in Irish, which is impressive in itself, but to further improve his rich Irish vocabulary, he’s off to spend a week in the Donegal Gaeltacht. 

Those of you who don’t know what the bloody hell I’m on about will be pleased to know that it’s not some kind of ancient Irish torture, but a week in the beautiful North West of our green and soggy country, mixing with the locals and improving his Gaeilge.  Irish speaking (or Gaeltacht) regions are dotted all around Ireland, mostly in the west, but there’s a little one quite close to us in Meath and another in Waterford.  School trips to these areas are commonplace (kind of like a French exchange except you don’t have to have the stroppy, hairy French teenager making your house look untidy for the week).  What he’s supposed to do is speak nothing but Irish for a whole week, thereby improving his spoken Irish no end, soak up the culture, revel in the magic and folklore and discover a little more of Ireland’s unique heritage.  What he’ll probably be doing is sodding about with his mates, doing things he wouldn’t get away with at home and thoroughly enjoying his freedom, but that’s an aside.

So Donegal, then.  It is, apparently, Ireland’s second largest Gaeltacht region: a beautiful and breathtaking land of huge mountains, lakes and valleys whose amazing coastline is lapped gently by the Atlantic.  The beaches are supposed to be some of the best in the whole of Ireland.  I’m dead jealous, frankly.

So off he went this morning, then, staggering under the weight of a holdall almost as big as he is, and armed with the spare phone (the lesson in texting wasn’t overly a success so whether we hear from him at all remains to be seen), the usual cornucopia of electronic devices, some spare underwear and his Lynx spray that smells like chocolate.  Oh and he’s packed his Gaelic Football gloves and his boots.  Well, you never know when you might get a game…

Leave a couple of small boys alone with a camera and a greyhound, wait for the sound of muffled giggling, then check your camera.  I blame the parents.

So I don’t know how, but both my children have their birthdays within two weeks of each other.  Maybe it was the bad English summers that sent us indoors in search of better things to do?  Whatever.  First up on the birthday honours is #2 who finally hits double digits (‘Finally, I’ve got double Ds!’  He told me innocently in a somewhat Jordanesque manner).  And in true English Towers fashion, he picked his birthday cake wisely: ‘I’ll have a chocolate cheesecake… no, I’ll have a white chocolate cheesecake… no, I’ll have a dark AND white chocolate cheesecake… with a chocolate biscuit base and… er… more chocolate on top’.  A fine choice.  So here we are, then.  I know I’ve already given you a recipe, but I’ve tweaked it a bit and it’s even more coronary inducing than the last one:

100g butter

300g pack of dark chocolate digestives

500g cream cheese

100g icing sugar

200ml whipping cream

175g bar of good quality dark chocolate

100g good quality white chocolate (I used Tesco White Belgian Chocolate)

Melt the butter in the microwave or in a saucepan and in the meantime smash up your digestives, either by whacking them with a rolling pin or whizzing them in the processor (remember to put the little lid bit on, I got an eyeful of oatmeal) until they’re just crumbs.  Stir the butter into the biscuits then press into the bottom of a springform tin (you’ll never get the bugger out otherwise) and leave to cool.

Now, get two pans of hot water going, and melt the white chocolate in a bowl over one and the dark chocolate over another (reserve a couple of squares of each for the decoration), turning the pans off once the water boils.  Put the cream cheese in a bowl, beat it until smooth then beat in the icing sugar. 

Now, while you’re waiting for the chocolate to cool, draw out your birthday person’s age in big fat letters on a piece of greaseproof paper (or just do circles or stars or something… pah, you can write ‘bum’ on it for all I care) and carefully fill it in with the melted white chocolate.  Make sure they’re thick enough to stand up on their own. 

Now add your cooled chocolate to the cream cheese and icing sugar (bunging in the leftover white chocolate too), stir it in, then whip your cream and fold that in too.  Smooth it over the biscuit base and chill in the fridge for a good few hours until set.  There’s probably a way to swirl the white and dark chocolate in, but the cream needs to be last really as it’s full of air.  I’ll come back to you on that point.

Anyhoo, to serve: remove from tin, finely grate over some white and dark chocolate and add your white chocolate numbers.  Present, with a flourish, to goggle eyed birthday child and smile smugly to oneself as it disappears.

Happy birthday big man xx