So phase… er… three?  (I’ve lost count) of English Towers’ race for self sufficiency began last week after lovely C (the one with the boat) and Hubby came to some drunken, pub-induced agreement that we could have the greenhouse that he’d purchased for his wife, the lovely K, but that she didn’t really want.  Hmm.  Have you ever seen a greenhouse in bits?  It looks like some enormous and very dangerous meccano kit.

Still, not to be put off by the prospect of losing a limb, Hubby set to work putting the bloody thing together.  The first thing I’d say is that you need time, an endless supply of patience, and some kind of technical/engineering type background.  Well, he’s okay with the technical stuff, but the patience?  Dearest reader, the air was several shades of blue.

Then, it transpired that several of the panes of glass were broken, prompting a extremely bad-tempered drive up to a glazier in Cavan town.  And then it transpired that some of said panes didn’t fit, prompting much more swearing and an even more bad-tempered return trip to the now terribly apologetic glazier in Cavan town.  And as for fitting 40+ panes of razor-sharp 3mm glass with fiddly little clips whilst holding them above your head? Sheesh.  I spent the entire time hopping around going ‘ooh, be careful!’…’ooh..mind your fingers…don’t drop it…’ and various other bits of worry-mongering until I was finally sent indoors in disgrace (in a not very pleasant way, I can tell you).

And of course, all through this bad-tempered couple of days, it rained, and it rained, and it rained a bit more.  And then (still with me?  Good) it transpired that a 6′ x 8′ greenhouse isn’t actually 6′ x 8′, it’s more like 6′3 x 8′3 and wouldn’t fit in our 8′2″ wide kitchen garden, and so had to be turned round the other way.  Well.  I learned a few, incredibly creative, new expletives.  By this stage, D had been roped in, so we got a couple of Scottish ones too.  Bonus.

Anyhoo, it’s up now.  Hubby has a few fingertips left unsullied and I’m sure we’ll be talking again in a couple of days.  Probably.

Edit:

And here, especially for Roy (Irish Taxi) is the finished article, complete with some ominously dark clouds.  Ah well, half a day of sunshine should see me through until Christmas, I guess:

So yesterday, Hubby and I decided to consult our greyhound guru, lovely M the trainer, top greyhound geezer and keeper of that most wondrous of hounds, Irish Sprinter of the Year, Johnny Gatillo. First surprise was that Mrs M (hello L!) reads the blog.  I love it when I hear that people visit me in dotcom land occasionally, but I was especially pleased to hear that Mrs M drops in as she’s very cool (runs her own beauty business from an amazing wooden log-cabin type building on their land) and rather beautiful.  And you know I’m a sucker for the well-groomed.  Anyhoo, digressing.  So M had a look at the pics and was, frankly, undecided.  The colour could be right, but maybe she was a bit broad across the head?  No ear tattoos, but then she looks too young anyway.  He promised to have a look when she’s older and I got feeding/flea (’what do you mean, Head & Shoulders won’t do it?’ ‘Nope, your fleas just won’t have dandruff’)/worm (ew) advice and a good slagging for being a greyhound snob: ‘you’re like Hyacinth Bucket - you should call it Sheridan’.  But look at her (admittedly blurry) head in this pic that #1 took (don’t, by the way, look at me - I’d just got up).  It’s very greyhoundy, isn’t it?

Anyway, the small furry yobbo continues to rule the roost, although after thoroughly pissing Bert off yesterday by using him as a climbing frame, he finally snapped and issued a loud, growly ‘rururur!’ telling-off, which frightened the pants off her and sent her scuttling backwards across the kitchen (see, he really is brave after all).

Puddles of piddle continue to be an occupational hazard (thank Gordon for slate floors) and house-training is somewhat hampered by the fact that all she wants to do is chew her lead, chase flies or fall asleep on the grass.  Still, early days.

So, my house is slowly filling up with guitars.  In the office/music room/throw-any-old-shit-that-you-can’t-be-arsed-to-put-away room there are guitar stands everywhere; the bedrooms are littered with guitars, there are amps, wires and foot pedals all over the bloody place, and yet they come.

Last Saturday, then, found us once again in our spiritual home: our local guitar shop.  They’re always terribly welcoming and friendly in there (nothing to do with the fact that we’ve probably paid their mortgage in there for the last two years).  #2 has been saving hard for a guitar for rather a surprisingly long time.  It’s been tough going: he’s lusted after Xbox games, drooled over flat screen TVs, coveted sparkly white Adidas trainers, but no.  His determination has seen him through.  So we’d annoyed the lovely people there to death, plugged in various amps, played 17 million gazillion different riffs (’Stairway to Heaven’, anyone?), twiddled with buttons and even had a sneaky play on a couple of drum kits… and then it happened: nestling quietly in the corner is nothing other than (queue angelic choral music) THE GUITAR OF HIS DREAMS!!!! The Fender Stratocaster in cream!!!  Just like on Wayne’s World (remember the scene when he ogles it on the stand in the guitar shop?: ‘It will be mine. Oh, yes — It will be mine’).  Okay it’s second hand, but it’s perfect and tantalisingly close to little #2’s budget and I can feel his hands sweating as he finally gets his mitts on the object of his affections.  Trouble is, it’s still too much money.  ‘Ah’, says Smiley Friendly Guitar Bloke, ‘but we’ve got a sale on next week, and if you’re one of the first fifty in the queue, you get put in a draw for this Gibson Les Paul too’.

And so it came to pass that we were out of bed and away from English Towers before the bloody rabbits  (note to self: must get a gun) this morning to get down there to join the line of other hopefuls (we were twelfth - not bad eh?).  It’s been a tense week - what if it’s sold before I get there?  What if I still can’t afford it?  But happily, opening time finally came, and stomachs rumbling (damn you, McDonalds - not opening until 9am on a Saturday?) we rushed upstairs to the guitar section to find #2’s beautiful Strat not only still there but IN THE SALE!

Long story short then, the Strat is ours, #2 is immensely happy, and yes, we got in the draw for the Les Paul.  Fingers crossed, then, and as Mad Uncle A would say: ‘rock and roll!’.

So today’s FP is dedicated to that most wondrously lazy and patchily hirsute of individuals, the Bertmeister, aka Burpy, the Biffer, Biff Sniff, Sir Biffington Sniffington, Bishous, Mumma’s bubby (sorry), the fella, the geezer, yer wan, that f*cking dog!!!, and any number of other stupid nicknames depending on how loved up we’re all feeling and whether he’s nicked one of your trainers and you really, really need to go out in a hurry.

‘Tis a glorious thing for a greyhound to be retired to a comfy sofa rather than being, er, retired in a completely different, somewhat euphemistic way.  I’m a realist, and let’s face it, people aren’t exactly queuing up to adopt a retired greyhound, and there’s a serious glut, which is a shame as they’re rather good company.  And for a greyhound quite as utterly, totally, completely, thoroughly, uselessly rubbish at racing as Bert was to have lived to have seen his fourth birthday is practically a miracle.  Thanks, Jen.

Once, when we were at the races, I remember #1 asking someone how long greyhounds live.  ‘Hmmm’, came the answer, ‘depends how good they are’.

So here’s wishing the gangling, clumsy great duffer a happy fourth birthday.  He might be shite at racing, but he always seems to get to the sofa first.  Bless.

So he’s mowing the lawn and he rushes into the house and says ‘there’s something wrong with the lawn, you’d better go upstairs and look’. 

‘Hmph’, says D over the fence from next door later.  ‘Should’ve drawn her a hoover’.

…with a camera, we’re not that bad.

So we continue to be pestered to within an inch of our lives by the House Martin Hoodies.  Poor Bert lives in permanent fear of being divebombed mid-pee in the garden, and hanging out washing (the whirly is by the garage door) has become seriously dangerous territory.  Walking past the garage the other day I was attacked so mercilessly and squawkily I nearly fetched me tennis racquet.  Hubby couldn’t resist having a cheeky peek in the nest just to see if there really were babies in there, and yes, teeny fluffy hoodies are being groomed for thuggery right there in our garage.  The final straw, though, the pièce de résistance if you will, was when the lounge window was open at the weekend and one of the little buggers actually flew in through the open window and buzzed me as I sat at my desk.  Being a big cowardly girl I sat and screamed until the boys plus their very brave mate came and rescued the bloody thing and threw it back outside.  And it pooed on my desk too, the little f*cker.

Jeez.  I’m renaming English Towers the Hammer House of House Martin.  Be afraid.

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.

Here’s the skinny.

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…

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?!

So okay, I know at this exact precise moment it’s still Thursday but I’ll be FAR too busy tomorrow to post anything so you’ll have to indulge me.  What’s that you say?  Why will I be busy?  Well, dear reader, I’m having a PARTAY!!

You see, people, in Ireland you definitely have to go with the flow a bit.  A party can often start for the most inane reason.  For example, last Friday we popped over to D Next Door’s sister A’s house to pick up #2 who was round there playing with little K, and ended up staggering home some time after 2am, sans child (he stayed over having lost the hope of ever dragging us home somewhere around 11) and last night turned into a bit of  a sesh round D’s (Hubby popped in for a chat, cracked a beer with D, then other people popped in and suddenly there was a houseful and, well, it’d be rude to leave), so we ended up staying until 11pm (headaches all round again this morning).  And this, apparently, is only the beginning of the summer barbecue season.  Now you know why the kids here have such bloody long school holidays, it’s because the parents are planning on being so hungover they can’t possibly do the school run for three whole months. 

Anyhoo, so we thought we’d get in there quick and invite all the lovely people we’ve met here for a little gathering: D and the kids, obviously, C and his lovely wife C (the ones with the boat) and D’s sister A and her Hubby J and their kids, and T & L who live next door to A & J, T who fixes the cars and his wife G, and probably a few other stragglers from GAA (that’s Gaelic Football to you foreigners, heh).

We got the usual burgers and sausages, etc, and I thought I’d marinate some chicken in different stuff like honey, mustard and soy, and Thai green curry paste, etc and do kebabs with various dips, plus those minced lamb kebab things and then just round it all off with an enormous plate of pistachio brownies and ice lollies for the kids.  Drinks-wise, I thought as well as wine and beer, we could whizz up a big blender-full of Frozen Strawberry Daquiris just to get things going, plus various non-alcoholic fruity smoothies for the children (no, don’t worry, I won’t mix them up and get the kids drunk).

So Hubby and I went up north again today (the £ being terrifically bad against the Euro, it’s cheaper for us to do our shopping there) and came back with a car load of food, beer, wine, champers and….er…jelly.  Yes, jelly.  Well I’ve always wanted to make jelly shots and… oh dear, this could be another late one.