Conversations with teenagers #47
Curtain opens.
Scene: 8am. The interior of a rather banged up 4×4, waiting for the bus to school. It’s raining.
#1: Oh.
Me: What have you forgotten?
#1: My music project. I left it on the side in the kitchen.
Me: The one we spent all weekend working on? When’s it supposed to be in?
#1: Last period today. Damn. Can we go back and get it?
Me: No, you’ll miss the bus.
#1: *Tsk*. Can you get it and drop it at school for me later?
Me: What, you mean drive half an hour to drop something off that you should have remembered?
#1: *Tsk* *Huff* You just want me to get in trouble.
Me: No, I want you to remember stuff in the first place so I don’t have to keep driving up to Cavan and bailing you out.
#1: *Tsk* It’s not my fault. I had a lot to remember this morning.
Me: Oh yes, so you did. There was your overnight clothes for staying at your mate’s tonight, and your girlfriend’s Valentine’s card and present. Oh yes, and there was your school work. Which did you forget?
#1 *Mumble* *grumble* *huff..schoolwork..grumble*
Me: Ah here’s the bus…
#1: [gets out of car, slams door, stomps to bus stop]
Me [cheerily] Bye then!
Ten minutes later, my phone beeps:
#1 [by text]: Sry Mum, will you bring my proj to skl?
Me [by text]: No worries, course I will x
And the normal order of the world is restored. Happy days.
That’s it, I’m now an Oldham Supporter
Isn’t it just the purdiest footie kit you’ve ever seen? The lovely lads at Oldham Athletic are actually donning this get up for charity for their match against Leeds on 2nd March. The kits will be auctioned off afterwards in aid of Breast Cancer Research. I want one.
Fun with wordles
Here’s my very first wordle. And yes, father, before you email me, I do have far too much time on my hands. Heh.
Go make your own wordle at http://www.wordle.net
Chocolate fondant: gooey chocolatey yumminess
So you know how you can cook something with your eyes shut, and then the moment you invite someone round and do it, it all goes horribly wrong? The very thing happened when the Disreputable One visited once – I made the cheesecake I make successfully ALL the time, I presented it at the table with a flourish, tried to slice it and realised in horror that it was completely runny. Seriously dearest reader, you could have sucked the bloody thing through a straw. Gutted, was I.
Yesterday, then, the Lovelies came to Sunday lunch. And I decided to stick to stuff I can make well in advance, so as not to succumb to runny cheesecake syndrome. We got a fabilis chunk of Aberdeen Angus up at Enniskillen and roasted it along with some nice crispy roast potatoes (duck fat, baby), some buttery curly kale and just plain ol’ peas and carrots. I was going to do Yorkshire Puddings too, but I got a bit stuck into the Jacob’s Creek and kind of forgot. Still, it was all good.
For pudding, then, I went for apple crumble and cream, plus a chocolate fondant for the kiddlies (let’s face it, it’s MEANT to be gooey in the middle – how could you bugger it up?):
For 4 people (double it up to feed more)
115g butter
115g dark chocolate
3 eggs
35g plain flour
150g caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas 6. Butter your preferred dish (or 4 of those medium ramekin things) generously, then sprinkle with a little bit of flour.
Now in a bain-marie (heatproof bowl over saucepan of simmering water, blah blah), melt the chocolate and the butter. Meanwhile, mix together the eggs, flour and sugar. Make sure the chocolate is just melted (and no hotter than finger temp), and stir them both together. Pour into your prepared dish and put to one side. Easy. As. Pie.
Now, just when you’re clearing up the main meal, bung the dish in for about 20 mins (less for the individual ramekins – more like 15) until it’s just past the wobbly stage and looks set on the top. Don’t leave it much longer as you won’t get the delicious gooey chocolate centre.
Serve with a flourish, and a bucket of cold, cold cream. And hopefully you won’t need a straw.
You’re an embarrassment…
When did it happen? I swear, I completely missed it. One day I was the ‘cool’ Mum in the playground, the one with the My Chemical Romance CD in the car, the one in tight jeans and Converse that they all came running up to and said ‘hey’ and knew my first name, and chatted away to me as they patted Bert on the head and said ‘corr, your Mum’s cool!’ to #1. The next, I’m surplus to requirements. A means of transport, if you would.
All this happened on Saturday, which saw me sneaking around in the cinema, lest my #1 son, out on a date with a young laydee, picked up any slight hint of his family’s existence. I had my instructions: we were to drop him at the cinema, then disappear. He was horrified when we pointed out that we couldn’t quite dissolve into thin air for an hour and a half, and what exactly were we supposed to do once we got there? And no, we wouldn’t just drive the half hour home, then drive the half hour back again later to pick him up. Okay, he said, you can come to the cinema, but drop me outside and DON’T talk to me when you come in. And sit down the front. And don’t look round. ‘Har de har!’, said #2 in the car, we’ll throw popcorn at your head! Nope, there was not a snigger, or even a hint of a smile. We were to pretend we didn’t know him and watch the film in silence. Any slight glance in his direction from ANY member of his family, would incur severe penalties. So we sat. And squirmed slightly, while our newly hatched teenager watched the film several rows away from us in complete denial of our very being. At one point, I caught his eye. And he raised his eyebrows imperceptibly and looked away, as if to say ‘don’t do this, Mum, don’t blow my cover’. I know, it’s part of being a teenager: the fledgling fluttering his wings, but my heart sank. Just a little.
So it’s happened, then. I’m an embarrassment to my teenage son. Of course I still had to buy the tickets… and the popcorn… and the coke…. but officially, I wasn’t there. Of course as soon as she’d gone, he morphed back into normal #1,but I can see the signs. I think I might as well just buy my buss pass and start wearing sensible shoes. It’s all downhill from here…
The Friday Photo, part deux: pillow hogging and photo challenges
So this one will kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, to shut my cousin up appease the Bert Fan Club for the lack of any furry spindly pictures today, and secondly to accept a challenge from lubly Hails at Coffee Helps. Let me explain: Hails challenged me to go to my pictures folder, pick the fourth folder, then pick the fourth photo, and publish it. By a happy coincidence it’s a rather bad photo of Bert (complete with laser eyes) hogging #2′s bed (and yes, the child is in the bed too, somewhere).
And just to get Bugs back for moaning, and to annoy Moon who challenged my choice of beer earlier, I’m going to pass on the challenge to both of them. Get to it, chaps.
The Friday fridge photo
So you’ll like this. I’m bored of the Friday photo. I’m always hunting around for something interesting to happen, and then when it does, it’s Saturday, and by the time Friday comes around again, I’m wondering if it’s not really so interesting after all.
So anyhoo. I’ve just been shopping. Yup, up to Enniskillen – naughty, I know, not supporting the Euro and all that, but I only go once a month, honest, hofficer. The rest of the time I drive miles to pay double for less choice. And I thought how nice my fridge looked, all full up with goodies. So I thought I’d show you. And guess what? Next week it’s your turn. A description and a lubly photo of your fridge, please. And we’ll carry it on until we run out of photos, or get bored, or er…. well, you get my drift. Off you go, then.
Oh, and just in case you don’t fancy looking at my fridge, here’s a snow angel, competently demonstrated by #2 (‘y’see, Mum? You have to kind of flap yer arms and legs’. ‘Okay, darling, I promise I’ll come and have a go in a minute’).
Suicide goat
Off in the car again tonight, then, and once again I encountered the mysterious suicide goat.
Let me explain: shortly after the clocks went back, I was on my way down the windy road that leads to the bridge that goes over the lough (keep up, people), and noticed something in the hedge. Humph, I thought to myself, some people are such bloody knackers chucking their rubbish bags in the hedge.
Anyhoo, thinking no more about it, I picked up the smalls, and we were happily pootling back up the windy road, chatting aimlessly, when the ‘rubbish bag’ had parked itself in the middle of the road, and what’s more, grown an impressive set of horns and a steely glare. It stood, and it glared. In the middle of the road. The noise in the car as I slammed on the anchors, went something like this:
WHOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHHHHHHH….SSSHHHHHHHHIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!
Juddering to a halt, and gathering our wits about us, we found ourselves eyeball to bumper with a very depressed looking goat. He’s a big lad, too, with those huge great horns that look like… well, a massive pair of horns – you know those yokes that kind of curl backwards like those creatures in Star Wars?
‘Holy crap’, said #1
‘Indeed ‘, said I, too shocked to do the whole Mother thing about his filthy mouth.
And there we sat. He stared at us, and we stared back – mouths open. We probably looked like some kind of small operatic trio with the sound turned off. Occasionally, he sighed, but generally, he just stood and looked miserable. I felt quite sorry for him.
‘What shall we do?’, asked #2, realising within the nick of time that it probably wasn’t a good idea to be sitting in the pitch black, roughly in the middle of an unlit, windy country lane in a big 4×4 having a stand off with a big, pissed-off goat.
‘We’ll go round him’, said I, sounding much more confident than I actually was. And so we did. Slowly, and not breaking eye contact. He regarded our progress with disinterest, but wasn’t at all intimidated. And he was still standing miserably in the road as we drove off.
‘Well that was weird’, said #1.
And that was that. Our first encounter with the suicide goat. Obviously he hasn’t been very successful in his mission as he’s often there, standing limply in the middle of the road, making innocent motorists screech to a halt. I’m wise to him now, though, and as I round that particular bend I’m already looking out for him. Sometimes he’s standing aimlessly on the grass verge, and sometimes he’s smack bang in the middle of the road.
I’ve vowed that from now on, I’ll keep my camera in the car so that I can take a picture of him for you. That’s if someone doesn’t put him out of his misery before then. I wonder if therapy would help…
Journeys
So as you know, we do plenty of driving. In fact, sometimes I feel like I live half my life behind the wheel. Still, we choose to live where we do, and actually I don’t mind it (and hey, there ain’t no acreage without some mileage). So yesterday I thought I’d take you with me, as it were. Fasten your seat belt, then:
And we’re off. Down to the Dublin road to wave #1 off on the bus (what? of course I wait, I don’t want my cherub being abducted by an axe murderer now do I?)…
Later, I got stuck in a big traffic jam in Kells (I love these little houses, they’re all in a little row, painted different colours)…
Then it’s back home, over the lough (not looking too inviting today)…
Past the ‘Pundertakers’ (drink yourself to death, no need to leave, so…)
The return school run was even less inviting: horizontal slush pounding the windscreen. Here’s a good old fashioned Irish roadsign: where do you want to go? Ah, whatever, just go that way.
And back home for steak and rosemary roast potatoes. Yum. Here’s #1 after winning the hard-fought ‘who gets to bash the hell out of the steaks with the funky wooden mallet thing’ competition:
So how was your day?
In which Little Miss Lovely makes girly pink muffins and biscuits
So as you know, I don’t get much in the way of girly conversation here at English Towers. I think the nearest we got was the recent discussion about whether that pathologist in CSI:Miami is really a girl at all (oh come on, her name is Khandi). Anyhoo, so Mr and Mrs Lovely were away for the weekend and we happily volunteered to cover a shift of looking after the little Lovelies yesterday afternoon. Little Miss Lovely and I decided to have a girly afternoon in the kitchen while all the boys killed zombies or whatever they were all doing crowded around the X-box. First of all we made pink muffins. I mean really pink muffins: pink sponge cake, pink royal icing and lots of pink bits and bobs on the top. After that we made biscuits, then we made chocolate chip biscuits, and then we smothered all them in icing and pink bits and bobs too.
At one stage Middle Lovely wandered in, and quite fancied joining in but no. He was firmly instructed that this was a girls-only baking session and any argument was followed by an instruction to talk to the hand by Madame, who was concentrating (tongue out) on a particularly difficult bit of pink glitter addition.
You know the drill on the muffins by now, but here’s the low-down for Little Miss Lovely’s rather lush biscuits.
250g butter (best at room temp)
125g icing sugar
375g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
Teeny pinch of salt
This is best done with an electric whisk, but you can do it the old fashioned way if you’re a bit of a martyr. So first beat the hell out of your butter until it’s lovely and soft. Next, sieve the icing sugar into the butter and mix well. It’s best not to whizz it at full power at this stage unless you want your kitchen looking like an icing sugar bomb has exploded. Then sieve in your flour, baking powder and salt. It’s best to switch to a metal spoon now. Mix it all together gently until it starts to come together, then dive in with clean hands and squish it all together until it forms a dough (have patience, it will).
Now roll the dough into a sausage shape, wrap with clingfilm and chill until firm. Then just slice it up into about 1cm slices and bake on a baking tray at 180/gas 4 for about 15 mins. The biccies won’t spread too much so don’t cut them too thick or they’ll be like bricks. If you like you can add about 100g chopped chocolate (or chopped nuts, lemon zest, sultanas, whatever) to the mixture too.
Then just allow to cool and either ice (we used royal icing turned a delicious pink with a little red food colouring), dip in melted chocolate, or eat them as they are. Pink glitter is, obviously, optional.
