So if you’ve just joined me, I suppose I should tell you a little bit about me and the people in my world (or more specifically, my blog). Here goes:

Me: I’m a 38 year old layabout with a penchant for cooking, shopping, hot baths, Green & Black’s and a nice glass of red. Not necessarily in that order. I can be lured anywhere with something pink and sparkly or anything that smells nice. We moved from the UK in 2006 and moved to English Towers in the wondrous county of Cavan in August 2007.

Hubby: Lubly Hubby and I have been together for an unfeasibly long time and married for 13 years (shotgun: #2 is only 12). He doesn’t suffer fools gladly (goodness knows what he’s doing married to me) and professes never to read the blog so I can say what I like about him. But I need his money so I’m keeping quiet.

#1: my oldest son: slightly quieter and more studious than #2, he sings like an angel, reads books faster than that bloke off Criminal Minds and has a wit sharper than a razor. He is the only tidy person in the whole house and always smells nice too. All fan mail gratefully received.

#2: Our very own Death Wish Child. This one also has the voice of an angel and a very expensive guitar habit. He has a nose for trouble and is no stranger to A&E. Ongoing me vs #2 battles include: his minimal consumption of fruit and vegetables; his ability to wear the same pair of socks for a fortnight and his pathological aversion to the bathroom.

Jen: my greyhound-mad buddy.  We were separated at birth and managed to find each other even across the Irish Sea. Equally as forgetful and featherbrained as each other, we share the same passions (see above) including a love of our needle-nosed friend. J combines motherhood with running her beloved greyhound rehoming charity. Oh, and she runs out of petrol a lot too, much to her other half, C’s constant annoyance.

The Disreputable One: ah, my disreputable Dad. My Dad is the worst Grandparent in the world if you’re the parent of those children, but the best Grandparent in the world if you’re the kid. He’s the kind of Grandparent who has them in stitches all the time doing things they really shouldn’t do. One classic example was the cherry-pip-flobbing competition off a bridge over the canal in Copenhagen. This elicited several tut-tuts and shaking of heads from passers by, while my disreputable Dad and cheerfully compliant sons merrily chomped through several bags of cherries and then spat their stones as far as they could towards the other side of the water. Civilised trips out for dinner end up in arm-wrestling competitions; the fierce spinning round of the central serving plate in a posh Chinese restaurant, and, most recently the pouring of soy sauce into Grandad’s coffee. All this naughtiness causes so much disruption in these otherwise sedate places that I’m amazed we never get kicked out, as I sit - steam coming out of my ears - watching the chaos unfolding around me. Yep, we miss Grandad.

Me Mam: starts her emails with ‘Yoo hoo!!’, likes a sherry (well, anything really), sends the boys mad postcards with pink sparkly elephants on, and has a sign on her fridge that says ‘welcome to Grandma’s house, children spoiled while you wait’. I think she has adopted this as her mantra, and nothing - ever- is too much trouble. The boys drive me bonkers when I go there - regressing into lazy toddlers while poor Grandma runs around after them whipping up hot chocolate and producing teeth-aching amounts of confectionary. She laughs at their jokes, runs around like a loony with them on the beach instead of falling asleep like most adults do, and has endless patience for guitar riffs, the complicated plot to the latest PS3 game or a frank discussion about how well Liverpool fared against Arsenal. A shopping trip with Grandma always ends with them rushing back in, pink faced with excitement and armed with several carrier bags of booty. ‘Don’t ask for anything…’ I whine desperately as they disappear with her, knowing that they’ll have everything they can have ever wanted by the time they get back.

D, Lou and Little C: Our lubly neighbours (okay, our only neighbours but hey, who’s counting?).  D is the terribly bad influence and best pub buddy of the Hubby.  Since our wonderful, brave and much-missed C died in May, he’s been gamely battling on playing a joint Mum/Dad role to the gorgeous and unfeasibly glamorous 11-going-on-18 Lou, and my fellas’ favourite X-box chumly, Little C.

C, R & B: my lubly friends from across the water. I miss them all lots: the ever-glamorous C, seemingly unaware that she makes grown men drool and her wonderful hubby, Big R, who does a lot of the drooling. Then there’s wonderful R, whose kindness and enormous smile make complete strangers feel weak at the knees, and her fantastic chef of a hubby, M, and lastly but not leastly, the lubly B who sends copious mad emails and whose tea, sympathy and awesome scones I miss every day.

Other assorted players include: Mad Uncle A: my brother, the oldest teenager in the world ‘thanks for my birthday money, Uncle A’. ‘No problem pal, spend it on loose women and alcohol’, my eminently more grown up oldest brother, I and his twins, named The Fleas for their ability to ping about a room at great speed, Hubby’s Mam, the lovely Nanny A: often found to have chocolate secreted about her person, much to her Grandsons’ delight, and last but not least:

Bertie: the Bertster, Bertilicious or Bertiful to his mates. The lardiest, laziest greyhound in the world. A lover of contraband Bourbon biscuits and hogger of sofas, he is the furry love of our lives, spoilt to within an inch of his life and cuddlier that an entire skip-load of fluffy bunnies.

Something to say? Drop me a line at englishmum@dublin.ie