Firstly, the highs. The greenhouse with tomatoes far left, dwarf french beans to the right of them and aubergines at the back:

My outdoor tomatoes have real babies on them!:

My herb garden with, back row left to right, sweet peas, chamomile, flat leaf parsley, the triffid that is my fennel plant, then front frow: chives, mint, more chives and at the bottom you can just see the basil, rosemary and thyme.  Oh and that’s a little bay tree to the left:

And finally, the pumpkins.  Oh dear:

When you become a blogger, you join a diverse and very widely spread family.  I love it.  I suppose I’m a little odd in that I currently subscribe to the feeds of about forty different blogs, but hell, I love to read and have fresh reading material at my fingertips every day!  I’ve got friends all around the globe and people pop by English Towers all the time.  What’s not to love?  Anyhoo, this award is from Jay, who says:

“She encourages new bloggers, promotes the cause of ex-racing greyhound adoption (she is owned by the delightful Bertie) and writes in a pithy and often very funny way about a wide variety of subjects. She has also led me to some great blogs which I now read regularly”

But wait…there’s a catch: if you accept the award, you must:

1. Pick five blogs that you consider deserve the award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of the Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

So I’ve tried to go about this from a slightly different angle, in that I’ve gone for people who, in my humble opinion, write really well.  Here goes, then:

For Travel Writing

My first award goes to Hails over at Coffee Helps.  Originally from Northern Ireland, Hails is currently on a one-woman mission to circumnavigate the globe, and the stories of her travels are really informative and often laugh-out-loud funny.  She’s relentlessly optimistic and incredibly versatile (managing not to starve to death even after being pickpocketed of all her worldly cash in Lyon).  A great blog.

For Razor-Sharp Wit

Next up is lubly Baino over in Australia.  Baino describes herself as ‘old enough to know better, too young to care. I am a lazy left-wing, arm chair radical with far too much time on my hands’.  I love her intelligent social commentary, and, frankly, couldn’t live without the Friday Fuckwit.  Enough said.

For Being Inspirational and Aspirational

Tara at DC de facto is who I’d like to be if I wasn’t me.  She spends her days ’protecting one pound people’ in a special care baby unit, still finds time to give us a slice of DC life, and her photos just sparkle.  Fantastic.

For Foodie Excellence

Well, I couldn’t pick five blogs without including the best foodie.  Pop over to Jen over at Little Bird Eats for droolingly good recipes and great photography (I never could master taking photos of food).  Small of stature, but big of appetite, The Wee One is a real foodoholic.

For Soul-Baring Excellence

Annie, over at The Little Pinch of Salt, is a true web-diarist.  She really does open her heart and her writing is just beautiful.  She’s also a big clever clogs in the film world and her photography is abolutely stunning.  Read it and weep.  Really.

Thanks, Jay! xx

So yesterday we got a pack through from #1’s new school.  After nearly having heart failure at the book list (you have to BUY their text books!  All of them!  For the whole year!  In advance!!!) and the uniform list (how can one child possibly wear that much clothing?  It would be like Joey in Friends when he wears all Chandler’s clothes at once: ‘and I’m going commando…’) we look at the Code of Behaviour.

Me (reading aloud): ‘Explicit demonstrations of a sexual nature between pupils are strictly forbidden’.

#1 (looking worried): ‘Phew, thank goodness for that’.

Me: ‘Mobile phones are prohibited during all in-school activities, including class and will be confiscated if found switched on, regardless of whether it is being used or not’

#1: ‘Ooh, harsh’

Me: ‘Hair styles must avoid extremes of fashion and must conform to accepted rules of cleanliness, tidiness and safety’

#2 (snorts) to his big brother: ‘Heh, that rules you out, then’

#1: ‘Shut up Doofus’

Me: ‘Pupils must present a neat and tidy appearance at all times’

#1 (chronically incapable of tucking in a shirt or choosing matching socks): ‘Uh oh’

Me: ‘No facial piercings are allowed’

#1: ‘What about nipples, then?’

Me: ‘Hmmm… probably rules nipples out too - why, have you got something to tell me? 

#1: ‘Nope, my nipples are a temple’

Me: ‘Okay, next one: Tattoos are strictly forbidden’

#1: ‘What, even on your johnson?’

Give me strength.

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 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’.

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.

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.

Okay, ’specially for Jennifer, then.  Here’s a Bert photo to entertain you until Monday.