Coughs and sneezles spread diseasles
Firstly, can I point out that I have a cold, so my blogging may well be less sparky and intelligent than usual? Secondly, I want to have a moan. So when we first moved here, we commented smugly on the price of fuel. At the time I was driving a petrol car and paying, at one stage, less than a Euro a litre. Our friends and family used to gape in surprise when we told them how cheap our petrol was.
Now, though, I drive a diesel (better fuel economy, blah blah) and I’m paying €1.45 (diesel prices overtook petrol around Christmas and are now around 10c higher) and this fuel chaos seems likely to get worse instead of better. I heard on the news yesterday that truckers are threatening to ‘bring the country to its knees’ in protest at rising diesel costs and I for one will be right behind them. Fishermen also are paying the price, with Wexford fishermen recently giving out free fish (damn and blast) in Dublin to raise awareness of how this will affect their business. A lot of school transport here is provided by small private services, and some of these are running at a loss, for goodness sake.
So yeah, I know, we could all get bikes – but with a huge amount of rural Ireland travelling a very large distance to school every day (my own school run journey is 1/2 hour each way and #1′s new secondary is a stonking 25 miles away).
So what the bloody blue blazing bejaybers is going on? How come Britain and Ireland have some of the highest fuel duties anywhere in the world? And what are we going to do about it? I mean, I love fish. And I love truckers (ahem). And imagine how terrible it would be if the kids couldn’t get to school – they’d have to stay home *gasp*.
Answers on a postcard, then, please (no, not you Dad, nobody would be able to read it anyway).
PS: Oh, and I’ll be interested to hear how much you guys in the US are paying for your fuel.
To my Disreputable Dad, with love.
So you know when you have those conversations with your kids? Lazy, half-hearted chats on the way home from school, or sun-baked after lunch holiday lounger conversations about ‘what it was like when you were little’, or ‘what’s your earliest memory’ type things? Well one thing that’s always guaranteed to get my kids going is hearing about their Grandad when I was little.
He wasn’t (and still isn’t) your average, run of the mill Dad, granted; but oh the excitement, the adventure of having the Disreputable One for a Dad made up for the fact that he was rarely there at bedtime and could be absolutely, utterly, counted on not to be there for parent’s evening either.
We used to get scribbled postcards (he needs a new spider) from exotic places like Barbados and Dominica (‘why can’t we ever go, Mum?’), and have to sit through interminable slide shows of beautiful beaches and colourful tropical birds when he did finally get home. When he was around, though, there were long summer days down the Cricket Club, building dens out of hay bales and paddling in the stream while the men baked out on the field. I remember doing mad things like driving to the Sheraton Hotel at Gatwick Airport and having lunch in a really posh restaurant while planes jetting off to foreign climes whooshed over our heads. And then there was The Royal Tournament (field gunners…phwoar!!), cash incentives for passing exams, a treasured memory of glimpsing him in the audience when I played the judge in Toad of Toad Hall, late-night car journeys to see the Christmas lights on Oxford Street, or being woken at 4am to get in a taxi to go on holidays to all sorts of exotic (to my 8 year old self) places: Fuengirola, Tunisia, Tenerife…
When he left, I was ‘grown up’ but still we fought and shouted and I hated him for breaking up our family, ruining future Christmases, happy visits to Grandparents for my boys, etc. But hey, he’s my Dad (you generally only get one) and I kind of suspect he’d agree that my Mum’s happier without him (a Disreputable husband too). Now it seems the norm that they’re not together and they’ve even talked on the phone (a milestone).
One memory amongst others sums up my Dad. The night before I got married (for the first time), I sat in tears on their sofa when he came in and sat next to me. I told him I didn’t want to go through with it and that I was worried I was making a huge mistake. After spending all that money on invitations, suits, posh Laura Ashley wedding and bridesmaid dresses, a sit down meal for hundreds, did he rant? Did he tell me I was a nightmare (as usual)? Nope, he held my hand and said ‘Titch, it’s never too late to change your mind’. I didn’t change my mind, and it didn’t last long but, hey, I went down the aisle on his arm knowing that he wouldn’t have cared wasting all that money as long as I was happy.
Disreputable? Yup. Unreliable? Surely. The best Dad in the world? Absolutely.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
The Friday Photo: the people of Ireland vote no
I’m an alien, so I didn’t vote. But I would have voted no, having a basic suspicion of saying yes (founded upon a very misspent youth) to things that I don’t understand.
Spam, spam, spam, spam…
No, I don’t want to watch a Pamela Anderson video. Nor do I want to watch one with Eva Mendes in it. Or Paris Hilton, for that matter. Or Lindsay Lohan. Oh, and nor do I want to watch cross dressers, men in petticoats (yes, really) or ‘amateur girls’ (and I don’t even want to think about how they differ from ‘professional’ ones).
And no, I don’t want to ‘watch animals mating’. Nope, I’m not interested in the sex lives of monkeys, dogs, horses, snakes, rabbits or bloody chipmunks for that matter. And I don’t want to enlarge my p*nis (don’t want Google hits on that little beauty) or ‘get big sexy boobs’. And no, I don’t want to see pictures of big boobs/bouncy boobs/celebrity boobs/tiny boobs or any other kind of boobs. No, really. I don’t. I’ve got some myself and I can always look down my top if I need a boob moment.
And no, I don’t need insurance, or a house in Florida, or to help some deposed African leader’s widow get her money safely out of the country. And I don’t need any Viagra. Or Xanax. I don’t even know what it is, but I don’t want it. Honest.
And these are just the ones I could reproduce on a family blog. God alone knows what hits I’ll get on Google now. But seriously, what do spammers think they’re going to gain from sending me thousands of these things? My spam filter has caught 7300 of the bastards so far and no, honestly, I’ve really never been tempted to click on a link to see a ‘Nicole Richie upskirt’. Really. I’ve never thought ‘ooh, I’ll log on to my blog today and see if someone’s spammed it with hundreds of invitations to watch videos of people I don’t know doing things that probably aren’t legal. Yippee!’. I haven’t. Ever.
Sigh.
Okay, I lied…
So remember when I said this?:
Well seeing as it’s summer and all, and I’ve just bought a new (tropical print with little tiny beads on it) bikini in which I intend to spend long hours lolling about in my lubly garden, I thought I’d get the dreaded beast of an epilator out from its hiding place in my knicker drawer.
Well, holy crapola, it hurt so much I nearly dropped dead on the spot. Imagine a whole nest of fire ants, all wearing tiny, poison-tipped pointy heeled stilettos, crammed under your armpit, each armed with a little tub of Vics Vaporub to rub into the open wound after they bite you and you’re not even halfway there.
Hubby the dog whisperer
So I can’t remember if I told you, but Hubby and I discovered that if you walk along the road, go past the top of the Boat Road, turn up towards the church and just keep going, this eventually wraps around and joins the very bottom of the Boat Road by the lake and is a very enjoyable 45 minute round trip. Bert’s not happy about the added walking and has been protesting by sitting down every ten minutes or so for a breather and pretending to pee every five seconds to slow us down.
Anyhoo, today we were just up past the church and had started on the first little downhill bit when were were accosted, yes, dear reader, accosted by a small ginger midget. The furry little yapper could only have been about six inches tall but came at us like a teeny torpedo: ‘yapyapyapyapyapyapyap…‘ Bert did his best ‘oh look at that really interesting fence’ routine of ignoring anything remotely annoying, and we trotted briskly on our way, hoping the little yappy twerp would bugger off. No such luck. The ‘yapyapyapyapyapyapyap…‘ was hot on our trail. Now halfway down the slopey bit and I could see Hubby starting to come over all cross. He’s not a fan of high pitched noise (small squeaky children being a particular bugbear) and little yappy dogs are no different. We carried on, faster. Me bustling on, trying to encourage Bert to get going, and Hubby silently simmering with rage. Hot on our heels, small ginger ‘yapyapyapyapyapyapyap…‘ brought himself up to his full six inches, bristled a little bit and yapped harder, prancing around poor Bert’s feet.
All too soon (and I knew it was only a matter of time), Hubby lost the plot and, rounding on the little hairy shortarse shouted:
‘WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!’
in a very uncivilized manner. Well. Ginger yapper looked a bit shocked, gave us his best ‘how very dare you’ glare, stopped yapping and trotted back the way he’d come.
Cesar Millan eat your heart out, eh?
In which English Towers forges on towards self sufficiency
So the day finally dawned, then, and we awoke to that most beautiful of sounds, the clunk of machinery. Now we’re no strangers to a tractor, seeing plenty rattle past the house every day, but to see one juddering up the drive caused much excitement. A van containing the railway sleepers arrived shortly afterwards and I set to work badgering the landscapers about the perfect position for my new kitchen garden, and generally being a huge pain in the arse. Eventually, catching on that raised eyebrows and stifled sighs aren’t a sign that someone’s particularly interested in what you’re saying, I let them get on with it, and here’s the fruit of their labour, as it were. Firstly, when we’d decided on the perfect position (low and to the right, thanks Coastal Aussie!), the railway sleepers were stacked on top of each other and cut in to the sloping lawn:
Next, they were all screwed together:
And finally, a trailer load of Cavan’s finest horse poo was added in a thick layer at the bottom, followed by several tractor-loads of topsoil:
And here’s what it looks like this morning. Seeing as it’s a bit daunting, I’ve divided it into quarters, and so far I’ve got my herbs in one and my tiny cucumber, aubergine and french bean babies plus sweet peas in another. The other two are going to be potatoes and, erm, something else. Now all I need is to buy that book that Thrifty told me about and soon I’ll be ‘knitting my own yoghurt’ as my mate 73man so nicely put it.
Now if only I could persuade Hubby about the bloody chickens…
The Friday Video: Ash, ‘Burn Baby Burn’
Okay, seeing as I’m now all au fait with YouTube, and we’re having a little musical end to the week, here’s one of my all time favourite songs (and videos). How cool is the girly rockin’ her guitar?!
In which I fair bust with pride
So as you know, my little fellas are both guitar crazy. English Towers rocks day and night to the sound of their beloved Fenders (delivered at great expense by a severely financially depleted Father Christmas), mighty vocals, severe reverb and all sorts of foot pedal trickery. The summer concert at school holds much excitement, and both of them got a spot on the playlist this year.
Firstly, then, for your delectation, is #1 singing Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance’ (Time of Your Life) on his mate’s beautiful acoustic.
And not to be outdone, his little bro’ (with his mate on the drums) does ‘Wipeout’:
And this is ‘Back in Black’ with his guitar teacher helping. Lots of tricky finger stuff here:
Oh, and this is #1 and his mate on the bass doing Green Day’s ‘When I Come Around’. That’s it now, I’ll stop crowing. I promise.
Just listen to the applause afterwards. I nearly spontaneously combusted with pride. My rockin’ babies, eh?
Coconut Chilli Chicken Noodles
So noodles then. Unfortunately with noodles, we’re a family at war. We all love them, but #2 likes stir fried chicken noodles with frozen peas (‘and NO juice’), #1 likes chilli, Hubby likes chilli and lots of soupy stock, I don’t mind chilli but prefer them with coconut milk… Oh the dilemma. This latest edition, then, is a kind of mixture of stuff that everyone likes. It went down quite well:
1 pack fine egg noodles
2 chicken breasts or some leftover chicken, shredded
2 tbsp oil
Marinade:
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped, or 1 tsp chilli flakes
Juice of a lime
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce (Nam Pla)
2 tbsp brown sugar or honey
1/2 tin coconut milk
1 pack Pak Choi, sliced and washed (can be gritty)
Couple of spring onions, thinly sliced
To garnish: Salted peanuts, chopped coriander
So first boil up a big saucepan of salted water and chuck in your noodles. Mix up the marinade ingredients (don’t put the coconut milk in yet). Heat the oil in a wok and snip up your chicken breasts into strips. Bung them in along with the marinade (you can marinate it first but frankly I can’t be arsed unless I’m making kebabs with it).
Stir fry until the chicken’s cooked and the marinade is starting to reduce. Now add the coconut milk and your chopped spring onions and Pak Choi. Stir until it’s just wilted then drain your noodles and tip them into the wok, mixing them all in with the chicken and the sauce. Serve sprinkled with chopped salted peanuts and some coriander.
If you’re a fan of coconut milk, you can always add more (I would if it was just me). And if you are just marinating chicken to make kebabs or just to grill or whatever, bung the coconut milk in with the marinade. It’s yum scrum pig’s bum (bless my children and their wordy ways).
