Another one of life’s small annoyances
We don’t actually have the best track record with pets. I never did recount our heartbreaking attempts to get Bert back and probably never will. Maybe he’s happier in a new home – who knows? Recently, presumably prompted by my waking frustration, I dreamed that we found him again, but even as I was nuzzling his furry ears, I somehow knew that it was a dream and was aware that I was making the most of that last cuddle before I was wrenched into consciousness again.
I know, I know, we only have ourselves to blame. The lady that rehomed him for us obviously thinks so and resolutely refuses to return my calls and texts. But at the time I felt it was best not to put him through shipping and kennelling for an uncertain length of time while we moved back to England and lived with my Mum. I know its unrealistic to ever expect to get him back, but I’d just love to know if he’s safe and loved and happy. They say you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone, and maybe it’s with rose-tinted specs that I think I could cure his growliness and his destructive nature, but I’d give anything for one more chance, and oh for that dreamed-of cuddle.
Little Tetley was maybe too institutionalised after years in her kennel. She never took to home life, was terrified by visitors, other dogs, and other people generally (walking past another dog on a lead meant actually picking her up as she sat rooted to the spot, paralysed by fear), and finally went mental at my niece and had to be sent back to the trainer. He promised that he’ll keep trying. Maybe another less chaotic, quieter household will finally be her happy forever home. I hope so.
We vowed that that was it. No more pets. We’ll be a pet-free household and enjoy the freedom of days out and holidays without worrying about kennels and destruction, we said.
But then we went to Morocco. And while we were there befriended a stray cat whose kittens were so tiny, they looked like little furry sausages. We stole fish and chicken from the restaurant and took it to her every evening, greeted by purrs and little Moroccan meows. We actually felt quite sad when we finally had to say goodbye.
And that, in a roundabout way, is how this happened:
Her name is Ninja (not my fault – blame the Brethren). I think she’ll fit in just fine. She’s a bit mental and she’s a bit of a computer nerd:
It’s weird having a kitten. I do worry that we’re not really cut out to look after something so small. So far, she’s had a bit of a traumatic start: she fell in the bath, then got caught up in the window blinds and had to be cut free. Oh, and I’ve suffered two of those really terrifying ‘oh jesus, have I tumble dried the cat?’ horrors, rushing to tip everything out into a basket, holding my breath that the next thing I touch won’t be a limp and soggy ex-feline.
She’s not Bert, I know, but she’s somebody to love. The strong possibility is that we’ll never see him again (and if the best case scenario ever happened and I found him, how on earth would they get along?!), but I’ll forever hold out hope that one day I’ll get to ruffle those ears again.
2009: A year in recipes, rambles and silly buggery
Well, well. Another year over. I’ve just been reading my post from around this time last year. I called it Love, Loss, Ups and Downs, and I think the title could well apply to 2009 as well.
January was a lemon meringue pie and beef stew and dumplings kind of a month. The greenhouse blew away and I felt all growed up after hosting my first family Christmas. February was perfect for chocolate fondants and learning all about secondary fluffage. March was all pink birthday meringue and bourbon biscuits.
April was a monster month for me,when myself and the other intrepid members of the Disney 7 hit Florida in a big way, following lovely Disney Sarah around Walt Disney World like a little drunken gaggle of ducklings, #2 celebrated his birthday with a ridiculously chocolatey double chocolate meringue cheesecake and the Mad Professor turned 14. I made not cross buns for Easter and continued boring you about my Disney trip well into May (we even got a mention in The Times… yawn…), as well as churning out some rather fattening dark chocolate and peanut butter brownies and having smutty conversations about how much I love a good sausage.
In June, I got the sack and cooked butternut squash and chickpea curry (not at the same time) and in July I rejigged my 70s ginger cake, made some fabulously soft iced buns and learned not to leave my dog in the house alone.
August was the month when our wedding blessing plans really began to take shape. My easy tandoori chicken with cheaty flatbreads recipe got a mention in the Irish Times and the site got a well deserved facelift courtesy of the wonderful Andy at ADD Creative. It was, however, also the month when Hubby was told that he was going to lose his job.
Despite this, our wonderful wedding blessing in September was everything we’d hoped it would be, and I continued with the family theme, making Grandma Maudie’s cranberry teabread, as well as chicken and broccoli pie with step by step pastry.
October saw The Death Wish Child learn that it’s probably not politically correct to put disabled people in a stew, English Grandma popping over for a birthday visit and some rum and raisin brownies, but shortly afterwards Hubby was offered a job in the UK and went off to work there. I think in my heart I knew that the boys and I wouldn’t be happy without him for long, and in November, we packed up our wonderful Irish home and headed back to Hertfordshire, waving a sad goodbye to our friends in Ireland, our lovely chickens, and Bert the greyhound.
Regular readers will know that we’d already more or less decided to find Bert a new, loving, child-free home after a couple of worrying, growly incidents. The prospect of moving back to the UK and living, albeit temporarily, with my Mum (along with her dog and cat) while we found a house galvanised us into action and my mate Jen, who is well-connected in the greyhound world, found Bert a new home. Still, driving up north to meet up with the greyhound charity lady who was arranging it was an incredibly sad journey. I hope the old boy is happy in his new home. Sadly, the lady has ignored all my attempts at contact, so I just have to hope it all turned out well.
December, then, finds us back home in Hertfordshire. I’m pleased to be back with all our family and friends, but have struggled with the move, wondering exactly where I fit in. Still, Christmas was wonderful, with masses of champagne, Christmas baking, turkey and stuffing.
And what of 2010? Well, this blog will see its 4th birthday and I’ll see my 40th (hopefully in Paris… hint, hint). I’ll be well on the way to 1000 blog posts and 10,000 comments. Hubby is happy in his work and my lovely fellas, The Mad Professor and my little Death Wish Child are finally settled back into the local school, enjoying rebuilding old friendships.
And me? I’ll be here, in the kitchen baking cakey buns, probably. Who knows, maybe even with a new little canine companion and hopefully some work to keep me occupied. Remember to pop in and say hello (especially if you’re the Editor of a magazine – I’ll work for alcohol!).
I hope that this new decade brings you health and happiness. I hesitate to say wealth as I think we’re all beginning to realise that there are so many more important things in life. So wherever you are, thanks as always for reading, and have a very happy new year!
The Friday photo: Dog training? Piece of cake.
Soooooo, the ‘keeping off the sofa’ training is doing really well….
Personal blogging: cathartic or a step too far?
I was interested to read (on Twitter, via my friend Laura) that the legendary blogger, Petite Anglaise, was hanging up her keyboard once and for all. And although our thoughts turned first to the fact that it will leave a space in the #1 slot of the Top 100 British Mummy Bloggers chart (elbows out, girls!…hey, hang on, I’m down 9 places to #15 – the shame!), her reasons for ‘turning the page’ on blogging were very interesting.
It seems that personal blogging, the very thing that earned her the lucrative book deal and led to a career as a writer, had started to leave an unpleasant taste in her mouth. If you don’t know the story, she famously got fired by her boss, about whom she was distinctly unpleasant, when her anonymous blog came to light (she did subsequently win damages against him in court, though). The story made her quite famous, but once the anonymity had been removed, there was the constant worry that somebody would be upset or offended with what she might say, and with that new-found worry came the inevitable dearth of subject matter. Interesting, also, that it was THIS INTERVIEW with Liz Jones, a weirdly neurotic, no-holds-barred journo who has managed to alienate half her family and her entire village (including my friend and fellow Disney 7er Exmoor Jane) with her bare-all style of writing, that finally tipped her over the edge. But in short, she just stopped enjoying it.
I sympathise, I really do. When I started my blog, way back when we first moved to Ireland, I was obsessive about anonymity and never posted pictures of anyone I knew. Slowly, I’ve relaxed this rule. I still try not to post full-face photos of the children, or anyone whose permission I haven’t sought (Mad Uncle Alg is fair game, obviously), and don’t mention people’s full names. But now we’re settled here, it’s natural that more and more people get to know me, start to read the blog, and my cover has been, I suppose, somewhat blown. In fact, I’ve even been caught out giving my rather frank views by someone that turned out to be a reader. Yup, that was awkward. I’d hate to think I’d ever hurt anyone by what I’d written and I’ll always check first with, say, D-next-door before I mention C, or the kids.
With all this in mind, I’ve had a long hard think about this blog and did decide to go back and remove certain pictures and videos, including our wedding vid. You can still email me for a link, but I wondered if I was going too far towards making my family live a life online, so I took a step back.
Add this to the fact that I now write for other websites, such as the fabulous HaveALovelyTime.com and you’ll probably find my first name dotted about, if you really look hard. Funnily enough, when I, and my fellow Disney adventurers travelled to Walt Disney World and met up with our American alter-egos, the ‘Mommy Bloggers’, they were completely dumbfounded by our wish to remain anonymous. Most published their full names, pictures of themselves and their families and couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t wish to do the same:
‘What, you don’t WANT to be famous?’
‘Erm, no, actually, I don’t’.
Englishmum.com is a, I suppose, a bit of an eccentric mix. There’s family stuff, yes, but the foodie/garden stuff tends to take precendence. And if I’m honest, I suppose that as the children get older, it’s harder to write honestly without risking embarrassing them in front of their school mates (#1′s been known to comment whilst in his IT lesson). My readership has risen steadily (thank you!) and though I’m sure I’ve lost and gained different readers as my content has meandered, I am lucky to be blessed with friendly and loyal readers and commenters. I regard my blog as a little piece of me. It’s stuffed full of things that I love and I’m always happy that people pop in and enjoy reading my waffle.
And this, I suppose, brings me neatly on to the fact that after much soul-searching, we’ve decided to have Bert rehomed. This is a HUGE decision for us, but basically he’s been showing some signs of aggression for a while and obviously our children have to be our main priority. There’s a load of history behind this that I won’t bore you with, but my lovely mate Jen is still in touch with a lot of people in greyhound rescue, and is going to make sure he goes to a good home somewhere with people that know his history and will really love and care for him well. I’m sad, but I think it’s the right thing to do.
So for now, I’ll crack on (800 posts, 8553 comments and counting…), I’ll continue to be anonymous-ish, and there’ll be the same old stuff – maybe a bit more food and a bit less about the fellas, and obviously no more Bert, but don’t worry, if anyone humiliates themselves in any way, you’ll be the first to know.
Oh and here’s my rather pathetic review on Mmmmmmcake. ‘It was nice’? C minus for effort there.
The Friday photo: The fallout from Marmitegate
"What? I'm just catching up on 'You and Your Wedding'"
So I won’t lie to you. I’m not loving Bert at the moment I think it all started with him eating the house while we were away. I have this theory that because he did all that damage and nobody was there to tell him off (well, I could hardly expect poor D and Little Lou to read him the riot act, could I – although I expect they felt like killing him) he now feels a sense of invicibility which means he can do what the hell he likes and get away with it.
First up was the incident now referred to at English Towers as Marmitegate. At the beginning of the week we planned a shopping trip up North. This takes a while so we leave quite early in the morning. Someone left the marmite out on the kitchen table (although obviously nobody will admit to it) and Bert decided he’d like some. His cunning ten-step plan went something like this:
1. Sniff tasty substance in brown jar on kitchen table
2. Get paws up on kitchen table and sniff top of brown jar.
3. Discover that substance inside brown jar smells quite nice.
4. Lick top of brown jar and discover it tastes quite nice and is worthy of closer inspection.
5. Knock brown jar onto floor, smashing glass and squelching contents over floor.
6. Step in squelchy brown contents then decide to have a rest and pop upstairs for a nap, taking a piece of brown jar (with squelchy contents) along for later snackage, trailing sticky brown footprints throughout entire house.
7. Decide that maybe the brown stuff isn’t as nice as you thought when imbibed in vast quantities and vomit it up on the door mat.
8. Look surprised when Mum comes home and goes all red and screechy.
9. Get shouted at. A lot.
10. Get sent to bed.
The next night, he aced this one by tipping all the bin out and distributing the contents throughout the entire house once again (including the jar of smashed Marmite and accompanying disgusting squelchy bits of Marmite-covered kitchen towel).
But I think I need to devise another punishment. Getting sent to bed doesn’t seem to affect him all that much…
'I could do with another pillow though...'
Olive
Everything in the garden is…
…well, frankly, a bit pooey.
Let me explain. We woke up this morning to much commotion. There was howling and yowling and even the odd woof (very unusual – Bert’s usually completely non-woofish). Anyhoo, disgressing. So a very excited Bert was telling us something crucially important, and we needed to get downstairs right away. Something wasn’t quite right in the garden.
‘
Look!’ he was shouting in Greyhoundese (he’s fluent y’know), ‘something’s in the garden! I want out!’ And then: ‘oy! gerrof my land!’:
So I joined in too. ‘Oy!’ I shouted, ‘gerrof my bloody sofa!’. So then I looked. And yes, I could see why he was slightly annoyed:
Not only did we have furry invaders, but they were making themselves comfy:
So I grabbed the phone and rang Bridget the Farmer. The conversation went something like this:
Me: ‘Bridge! Wake up! Your sheep are in our field!’
Bridge: ‘Er… wha? It’s 7am…’
Me: ‘Yes but your sheep are all in our garden and I don’t know what to do!’
Bridge (groggy): ‘Sheep you say? Oh…’
Me: ‘Yes sheep! I need something doing – they’d better not find my veg garden, and I can’t take Bert out there and he needs to…well, y’know… go.’
Bridge: ‘There’s one problem’
Me: ‘What?’
Bridge: ‘I don’t have any sheep’
Me: ‘What? Er…oh. Sorry’
Ah. Muchas grovelling and apologies later, I hung up. By that time, Hubby had gone to work, chasing them all down the drive when they turned and went up D-next-door’s drive, and later, pootled off down the boat road, where, presumably, they found their way home. They left behind piles of droppings of epic proportions and a very disgruntled hound, who’s still huffing and puffing about it even now.
And yes, Linda, I did happen to take a video, although it’s incredibly boring:
I was glad, though, because my garden’s looking really nice, and I was worried they’d eat my beautiful Hebes:
…and #2′s lovely poppies:
Country life eh? It’s all go…
How long do you get for attempted dog murder anyway?
I think I almost killed the dog.
Not on purpose, obviously. No, I’d forgiven him for the whole eating the house thing ages ago. This was a complete accident. It’s a bit of a long story, but our road is more of a lane, although it still has quite a lot of traffic - even though as far as I can tell it doesn’t really lead anywhere – and its surface is kind of like that of the moon: large craters and lots of loose, shingly stuff. Every 6 months or so, this enormous bright yellow machine comes along filled with old men in fluorescent jackets called ‘The Patcher’ and squirts a mixture of wet tar and more shingle into the largest of the craters. Obviously, this ‘patching’ lasts about five minutes as most of it is evenly distributed along the wheels and undercarriages of the next five tractors to drive through the wet, tarry crater. Trouble is, I wasn’t really watching as I was texting, and Bert always walks really far behind me like he’s embarrassed of me or something so I didn’t notice that he’d stepped in the black goo. As he walked, he picked up more and more shingle and his feet got bigger and bigger and then he got all confused and started to shake his feet, which did nothing except confuse him further and make him fall over a lot.
Well, by the time we got home, he looked like he had a pair of enormous black wellington boots on, and I decided I’d better get the stuff off before it dried. Picking it did nothing, and neither did washing his feet, so I took him into the garage and got the white spirit out, which worked very well at dissolving the black goo, but obviously started to sting, as Bert started hopping about , squeaking and howling. This worried me a little, so I decided I’d probably better stop and wash off the remnants. When I came back with a bucket of soapy water, he charged at the door, pushed past me and took off at full pelt across the garden where he did some very weird greyhound-breakdancing type thing to try and remove the burny stuff from his feet, then flung himself on the ground, legs in the air, and started rubbing his nose upside-down on the grass, as if trying to remove the top of his head. Curiouser and curiouser. I started to wonder if I’d poisoned him or something. I mean, I know he’s always mental but he’s usually quietly mental, not, well, mental mental.
I rushed back in, grabbed the kids as reinforcements and - when they’d stopped laughing – between us we managed to trap him in the top corner of the garden, pin him down (children are useful for sitting on wiggly greyhounds) and wash the remaining stuff off his feet. Trouble is, by then I suppose, he’d absorbed so much white spirit through his feet, that he was probably about 70% proof and he’d gone completely mental. He was all wild-eyed and crazy and when we let him back in the house, he started to run laps around the ground floor, skidding round the corners and drooling like a mad thing, panting, rushing up and down the stairs and basically being bonkers.
So, dear reader, I did whatever any good greyhound-owner would do in such circumstances – I went out. Well, we’d booked Harry Potter tickets, see? So we had to go.
Anyhoo, by the time we came back he was fast asleep on the sofa and seemed absolutely fine, maybe with a touch of hangover. Moral of the story? Don’t walk and text. It’s why he trod in the bloody stuff in the first place, because I wasn’t watching, just doing my normal trick of dragging him along as he dawdled at the end of the extending lead, 5m behind me.
He’s fine now. He even enjoyed a little sleepover over the weekend:
Except he went and let himself down with his poor personal hygiene:
Happy days.
Note to self: dogs and empty houses? Uh uh.
Back live! Hope you’ve all missed my inane ramblings. We had a lovely time in England – saw all the family and had a fab trip up to London (details to follow). One thing that was slightly ominous while we were there, though, was a text from D. All his texts had been ‘dog fine, stop asking’, ‘been for a walk, he’s grand’, etc, but then I received one that said : ‘Been trying to ring. Dog fine but couple of toilet accidents and he has damaged window sill in hallway (badly). Wood can be replaced don’t stress’
Stress? Me? Nooooooo. The dog’s just eating my house and I’m in a different country. What else can possibly go wrong? Well, lots apparently. D then locked him in the kitchen thinking he’d contain the damage but oh no. Bert started on the wall next to the back door:
And then the utility room door:
And then my lovely bar stools:
And then the back door itself:
And this was the window ledge – not sure if you can see but he’s actually completely broken the corner off too:
I’m completely dumbfounded to be honest. He’s never so much as chewed a shoe before – yes okay so he’s nicked the odd bar of chocolate we left lying around, but this? Apparently he was absolutely fine for the first four days, then D and the gang started to hear him crying in the house and no matter how much time they spend with him, every time they left him alone he did more damage. And poor Lou – however grown up she is, it’s not fun to have to clear up a big dog poo that Bert generously left her on the landing carpet. He’s never ever messed in the house either. All I can put it down to is stress. It’s my own fault – Hubby decided to join us at the last minute and I thought Jen would have Bert, and then when she couldn’t, it turned out that his innoculations had lapsed and I couldn’t get him into kennels. D, Lou and Little C did me a great favour saying that they’d look after him, come in four or five times a day, take him for long walks, etc, but he just obviously couldn’t cope with the nights on his own.
I’m not cross. Actually I feel really guilty. Poor Bert, he didn’t know what to do when we came home – he was crying with excitement at the same time as shying away from us as he knew he’d done something wrong. I wonder what the hell my house insurer is going to say about this little mess.
Six unimportant things…
So this is a good one. I got tagged by Jane at Foodzilla over in Michigan (I know! I’m feeling all international and cosmopolitan now) to tell her six unimportant things that I love. Actually, this is more difficult than it seems as every time I thought of something it occurred to me that it really was quite important after all. Still, I managed, so here goes:
1. My doggit. Yeh, okay, so he’s just a dog. Most Irish people think we’re mental for a) having a ‘working’ dog as a pet and b) having him living in the house! But he’s the softest, silliest, and most adoring fella you could ask for. He’s immaculately clean in the house (even after a marathon 8 hour shopping trip to the north – bladder of an elephant, that one), incredibly gentle and sweet natured and he just loves us all to bits (slightly annoying having a lanky, furry lesion attached to your leg at all times but hey). Okay so retired greyhounds are ten a penny, but still, we love him.
2. My garden hearts: Hubby’s a man of few words, but he does occasionally surprise me with a nice little gesture when he’s mowing one of the lawns. I love looking out of a window and finding this:
Sometimes it’s not all about words.
3. Great ingredients. I love using real butter, free-range eggs and lovely fresh, Irish produce. There’s a great fruit & veg wholesaler local to us and I’ll often be found there picking up tons of great quality fresh stuff (they do local duck eggs too) and planning menus in my head. The great butcher at Sheelin has a little white-board up where he writes ‘this week’s lambs came from…’ and the name of the local producer. His meat is amazing. Unimportant, but it makes me happy.
4. Forward planning. I’m a bit obsessive about stuff, and nothing makes me happier than having something to look forward to. Obviously our forthcoming wedding blessing is occupying a lot of my time at the moment, and a swift search of English Towers will see me ensconsed with my notebook and a couple of magazines, daydreaming and planning about table flowers, menus, dresses… you name it.
5. My garden. I’m a novice gardener and kill as many things as I nurture, but I’m really enjoying learning all about it and our dinner yesterday featured home-grown new potatoes and baby carrots, which I served up with a certain amount of pride.
6. Our little community. It’s only when I hear people talk about ‘school runs’ and Tesco delivery that I realise quite how rural we really are. There is no school gate ‘Mommy mafia’ at the little school here, as the children that aren’t within walking distance are all picked up and dropped off by bus, such is the huge rural catchment. Tesco probably hasn’t even heard of us, let alone decided to deliver here to the arse end of nowhere, and shopping is a half-day challenge. Still, bimbling down the boat road with Bert yesterday, the scent of the honeysuckle so heavy you feel it could pick you up and float you away, and stopping and chatting to the lovely lady with the new baby, I couldn’t have been happier.
Small things, but often they mean just as much as the heavy stuff. I’m off to visit the folks for a while (and have a speedboat trip booked in London! Thanks Ma!), but while I’m gone, how about you, then? Six unimportant things that you love…
The Saturday photo: Why have a dog and bark yourself?
So oopsy, was so busy ranting about the Evil Octopus Woman I completely forgot the Friday photo. I did have one in mind, which became even more relevant when I took a quiet wander round the English Estate this morning and discovered not only a new rabbit hole from the field into the garden, but a tunnel. A TUNNEL! In my raised vegetable bed. The cheeky furry little bastards have dug a tunnel through the potatoes (the hole is in the middle and all the yuck they threw out is covering my spade):
… and under the rhubarb:
I mean, what’s that supposed to be? They do realise it’s a raised bed and they can’t actually dig anywhere do they? Or is it just that they’re sneakily trying to reach the carrots on the other side with a covert underground access-point?
And, to add insult to injury, where – you might ask – was my rabbit-chasing, ex-coursing greyhound during all these rabbit digging shenanigans?
*sigh*
