So last week, then, after publishing my ‘woe is me’ blog post, feeling sorry for myself, hating everyone (not YOU obviously) and wanting desperately to curl back under the covers, I decided that a walk down the boat road was in order.  Fresh air, I decided, would blow the cobwebs away.

The two, brand new baby calves were right by the gate.  Obviously, as is my luck at the moment, this was the day I’d decided to come out without my camera.  In fact, as I discovered when I patted my pockets for a second time… something else was missing too.

My keys.

Shiiiiit.

As I walked back up to the house, I wished, hoped and prayed (sorry, Mother) that I’d left the back door open, but even as I tried the handle, I knew what I would discover.

Locked.

I knocked next door and lovely Miss D and I sat and had a cup of tea as we decided what to do, and also agreed that maybe not keeping spare keys to each other’s houses wasn’t our most epic idea.  As luck would have it, D chose this particular moment to walk back into the house, home early from work.

‘I’m sure one of these is yours’, he muttered as he grabbed a big handful of keys off his key/peggy/hanger thing – what ARE they called?  And we walked back to English Towers, feeling optimistic.  Our optimism soon started to fail after every key had been tried in every door about three times.  We did, however, notice that the bathroom window was slightly open.  The upstairs bathroom window.  The really high bathroom window, upstairs.

D grabbed the ladder from the garage (it’s not my ladder, but Poppy’s Dad helpfully left it behind last time he mended my gutter) and he stood at the bottom, averting his gaze from my fetching baggy tracky bottomed-bottom as I teetered up the ladder, emitting small, worried squeaks as I climbed higher…

‘You are holding the ladder tight, aren’t you?’

‘*sigh* yeeeessss.’

The small window, happily, was open.  It was just a case of posting myself through this 1′ x 3′ hole with as much dignity as I could muster.  Well, I mustered none.  I posted my upper body through the hole, squealing a bit louder as my bra strap caught through my shirt on the catch of the window.  I was then half-way through, teetering as my waist caught on the window and my legs flailed in the air.

‘Pull yourself through!’, called D helpfully

‘I’m trying! But I can’t grab onto anything’, I wailed…

By this time, my hands were flat on the toilet seat and the window frame was painfully embedding itself into my upper thighs.  All the blood was rushing to my head.  It’s years since I did a handstand.

‘OWWWWW! That bloody hurts!’, I yelled…

‘Go in backwards!’, was the helpful response.

Fighting the temptation to tell my helpful neighbour what I thought of his coaching, whilst simultaneously sweeping the entire contents of my bathroom windowsill onto the floor with my arse, I changed orientation so that I was now facing the ceiling, and was hanging from the window by the backs of my knees.

D seemed to be having a bit of a coughing fit now and was no help at all so I let my back move slowly down the cystern and rested my neck and shoulders onto the toilet seat, then did a rather awkward backward roll into the room.  D’s cough was getting worse, so by the time I got downstairs and opened the back door, he was bent double, face red and looking like he was going to expire.  I inspected him for signs of hilarity, and finding none, thanked him for rescuing a damsel in distress, bestowing upon him the spare key so this can NEVER EVER happen again.

I’m a bit of a big poof at the best of times and I bruise like a peach.  This morning I am black and blue.  The fronts of my thighs are a fetching purple and the backs of my knees are red and sore.  Seriously, I even have bruises on my ankles.

Oh the embarrassment.  Still, I’m sure I can trust him not to tell anyone… especially the bit when my bottom was stuck out of the window and my legs were waving jauntily in the air…

As he went off down the drive, though I swear his shoulders were shaking a bit.

Here’s the lovely Geeky Mummy, and my old (disclaimer: I don’t mean she’s old, I mean our friendship is old) partner-in-wine the lovely Helen from the Knackered Mother’s Wine Blog:

And here’s the lovely Laura, with Sandy Calico and… wait, is that Jay peeking in there?

And here’s Taralaraloo and Jay doing a bit of hard-core gurning (and yes, we were actually supposed to be paying attention at this point – apparently it’s something about lipstick and turning side on to the camera…):

Oh and then there was so much more – there was wine and laughter and lovely food at my lovely glam friend Tums’ house with Foxy too (sadly my pictures of her gorgeous Moroccan chicken didn’t come out, but trust me, it was gooood), and we went out to dinner with my Disreputable Dad…

…and then rushed off to The Albert Hall and saw the fabulous Classical Spectacular and jumped at the canons and waved our flags and sang along to Land of Hope and Glory, which was such good fun:

…and we went out for a really nice curry with Mad Uncle Ali, and we played on the swings and went to the skatepark with Ali’s girlfriend’s cute little boy, and I went to see my lovely sis in law and got to meet my lovely niece Lu’s new doggy, Bella, the cutest and tiniest little dog in the world:

And we basically managed to speed-socialise with all our nearest and dearest in the space of one weekend.

Phew.  Now I’m back.  With 500 million emails to catch up on and chickens to clean out and a very disgruntled Ninja Cat of Death to placate (she hates it when we go away).

And then I’m going to have a lie down and a gin.  Not necessarily in that order.

First up, then, on Friday night we went out with the Disreputable One to a very nice Chinese restaurant, where we seriously stuffed our faces and made inappropriate jokes about Hubby wearing a mankini to the blessing (hope you’re not reading this bit, Rev’d Craig!).  Great time was had by all and the food was fabulosi.

Saturday saw us generally sodding about and ended with a scared me and a rather enthusiastic Hubby out ‘on the lash’ with Mad Uncle Alg and a few of his mates.  We got to the bar, got our drinks, found a table, got introduced to everyone (‘you know Jav and Wrighty don’t you?  This is Tucker, and this tosser is my Aussie lodger…’ ) and I’d taken the first sip out of my pear cider only to discover that the rest of them had already drunk up and we were off to the next pub.  Sheesh.  I won’t go into the gory details but needless to say I was telephoned the next day by my brother:

Ali: ‘You’re not a boozing legend, Sis’

Me: ‘No, I certainly am not.  I couldn’t keep up with you’

Ali: ‘Poor effort, Sis, poor effort’

Me: ‘At least I didn’t get drunk and show everyone my butt crack’:

Alg: ‘Ah, but I am a boozing legend…’

Me: ‘You certainly are’

Sunday saw us off to the beautiful pad of my older brother, Uncle I, the Lycheeni Legend, and his lovely wife L, along with my nephew, budding chef Jackson who often tries out my recipes for me (‘I made a pavlova!’):

…and my niece, the beautiful Madame Turtle (‘I made it sparkly!’):

Along with their ancient and adorable German Shorthaired Pointer, Lottie:

and their mad collection of animals, including several bonkers chickens and these, their second generation of tortoises:

Ah, good times.  On Monday we went Wedding Blessing Shopping (oh yes, suits…dress..the works – and we bumped into my lovely Auntie [Moon's Mum] and cousin in a shopping centre – how spooky is that?) and I finally got my longed-for evening out with my lovely girlfriends Tums and Bex – we had a fantastic meal (antipasti, a gorgeous Halloumi and spinach salad with a lovely pear chutney, and a panna cotta with rhubarb….slurrrp) and a bottle of wine and caught up on all the goss (I miss you guys already – see you in September! xxx).

Tuesday saw us off to London for a spectacular ’flight’ on the London Eye:

… and a fantastic ‘Ultimate James Bond London Adventure trip on the Thames, which saw us hurtling up and down the Thames at breakneck speed.  It rained at one point and the sensation was akin to being sandblasted, but still, it was amazing and the kids LOVED it.  Brace yourself, this video’s a bit noisy:

On the way back we slowed down and did a bit of history stuff – our hosts were friendly and funny (‘if anyone feels sick, just put your hand up in the air.  Don’t feel ashamed - you’re letting yourself down and ruining the trip for everyone else – but put your hand up anyway’). 

The lovely chaps at London RIB Voyages gave me three 20% off vouchers too, so if anyone is planning a trip to London and wants them, drop me an email and I’ll send them to you.

After all that excitement, and looking somewhat like Animal from the Muppets (note to self, schedule speedboat at the end of the day), we headed to Covent Garden where we obviously had to go and have lunch at the legendary Porters:

… then pop into Patisserie Valerie for a little dessert.  Hmmm, decisions, decisions…:

Caught up with my lovely friend Jules on Wednesday (there just isn’t enough time to catch up with everyone) and Hubby and I managed to go out for a curry too (first one in TWO years – it was awesome) and before we could blink, Thursday saw us waving a tearful goodbye to my Ma (who must have thought a whirlwind had whipped through her house and left a trail of destruction in its wake) and whizzing back up to Holyhead and the doggy decimation that was English Towers.  Still, nice to be home…

So the spanking new camera I got for Christmas has finally got an airing.  On Saturday, D next door took me to the fantastic butcher near Lough Sheelin which I’m incapable of finding on my own, hidden as it is down several miles of windy roads.  They had some beautiful looking cubed beef, so seeing as it’s freezing outside (-4 this morning) and pefect weather for stew, I thought I’d have a little play and photograph my efforts while I was cooking.  Muchas Gracias to Jen from BellyRumbles for the tips on food photography – I’m probably her worst student but hey, I’m trying (very trying).

Righto then: beef stew or casserole or Daube, if you’re feeling all Gallic and fancy and want to add a bit of garlic and some herbs.  Firstly you’ll need:

About 1/2 kilo braising steak/stewing steak/some sort of cubed beef (Irish obviously)
3 tbsp plain flour, well seasoned 
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped (or use baby onions – either way I keep them big so fussy ones can pick them out)
Carrots, cut into big chunks
Large glass red wine
Jug of beef stock (about 1 litre)

For the dumplings:

100g self raising flour
50g vegetable suet
Big pinch salt
About 5 tbs cold water

So firstly, gather yourself together.  Trim the beef of any excess fat or sinewy stuff, but don’t worry about the soft fat, which will melt, then put the flour in a bowl and season (generously season – this will flavour your gravy remember), and get your oil heating in a nice, heavy-based pan:

Now, taking a few at a time so as not to overload the pan, toss a handful of beef cubes in the flour, shake off the excess, then fry until they start to look nicely brown and caramelised on the outside. 

Remove this meat to another bowl, and carry on with another handful and so on until all the meat is browned.

Then, fry the chopped onions (you might have to add a bit more oil) and reserve those with the meat. 

Next, turn up the heat and slosh a generous glass of red wine into the pan to bubble up and scrape at all the bits in the bottom of the pan.

Then add your meat and onions back in …

…along with your stock and carrots (or mushrooms/parsnips/chunks of swede, whatever).

I cut the carrots quite big because I can’t be trusted to remember to put them in later – this way they don’t get too mushy. 

Now, stick the lid on and bung the dish into the oven (about 160/170 degrees) and forget it for an hour.

To make the dumplings, just bung all the dry ingredients in a bowl  – I picked fresh little parsley shoots from the garden (in January!)…

… and add the water carefully (you might not need it all)  until you’ve got a nice soft dough.    Roll the dough into little balls (it’s a standing joke in our house that I always make seven – no idea why), then just pop them on top of your casserole for the last half hour.  Make sure your lid fits properly as they need to steam to make them nice and fluffy.

The flour that coated the meat thickens the gravy.  If, when you go to pop the dumplings in, the gravy is quite reduced (as mine was – see above), you might need to add a little more stock, otherwise the dumplings won’t steam and be lovely and fluffy.

Serve with fresh veg and a big, steaming pile of buttery mash.  Oh, and try to bite your tongue as you watch your youngest child pick out every single piece of onion. Grrr.

Too right, said I.  We had a chat with the fellas about Christmas: you don’t want to terrify the little sods, but we tried to explain how the credit crunch affected everyone, even Santa, and that maybe Christmas would be a little smaller this year.  Still, they’re going to have a house filled with fun and laughter for Christmas, stuffed with Uncles, Auntie L, their cousins and their Grandma, which will definitely make up for it.  I told me Ma about Lou and Little C.  They came to dinner on Sunday evening as D was out with Hubby.  When I offered her sprouts, Lou said ‘erm, can I just have one?’ (I’m sure she hates them, but didn’t want to be rude).  After dinner, the boys went off to play Xbox or PS3 or whatever, and Lou and I sat and watched MTV and talked about phones (she wants a pink one for Christmas) and shopping and stuff.  She told me that they’d got all their Christmas decorations out, and I was struck by how hard it must be for them: unpacking everything that their Mum had packed away last year.   Mr and Mrs Lovely are fantastic and do so much for D and the kids, but blimey it can’t be easy.  Don’t get me wrong: they’re kids and they’re not perfect, but they’re always upbeat and they’re absolutely no trouble to look after.  Their Mum would be so proud of them.

So like my Ma, I’m counting my blessings today.  My kitchen is warm and fuggy with the delicious smell of the Christmas cake that is cooking in the oven, I’m filling the freezer in anticipation of my family arriving and I’ve just made a fire, which will be crackling away nicely by the time #1 gets home (#2 is in bed with a cold – don’t worry, he’s happily watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail on his PSP).

And next time I hear someone moaning, I shall wish that like the Ghost of Christmas Present, I could transport them to the window of the house next door, where two little ones are preparing for their first Christmas without their Mum.

Earlier, Bert and I wandered up to the churchyard to spend a while at C’s grave.  I noticed that the flowers I took up there had been cleared away by someone thoughtful (Mrs Lovely, probably) – there’s nothing worse than dead flowers by a grave – and felt guilty that I hadn’t brought fresh ones.  There’s no headstone yet, D says it’s too early, but various people have left terracotta pots full of flowers and it looks very pretty.

Every time I go, I remember snatches of conversations; brief moments in time that now seem so long ago: snorty belly laughs as well as tears and frustrations.  Was it really last October when we went to the pumpkin festival together?  Last November when we did trick or treating, jamming our overdressed and overexcited children into the back of the jeep so we could visit the neighbours?

Time flies.  We’re already making plans for Christmas – my family are all flying over and we’re tremendously excited, but it’ll be bittersweet.  Last year, we spent both Christmas and New Year’s Eve with C, D and the kids.  D does a good job, and I have to stop myself from flapping over the children: do they have the right stuff for school?  Do they need new swimmers for their imminent holiday?  He’s very patient and I think (hope) realises that I’m only trying to help – he has The Lovelies, who help in so many ways, and his parents.  The children have lots of support, but every so often it will hit me that things will never be the same: like a well-intentioned note on Lou’s hospital appointment that said ‘remember your Mammy can stay overnight with you’.

Her number’s still in my phone.  I kept her texts: frustrated ones from hospital: ‘goin stir crazy in here’, supportive ones: ‘yr the next Delia Smith!’, and downright silly ones too.  Life goes on.  We all carry on, but she’s not forgotten.  ’Remember when Mum gave all the cows names?’ Little C said last week.  Yes, I do.  Like it was yesterday.

Happily, Little C and Lou are cheerful, muck-in with everybody kind of chaps, so it’s no hardship to have an extra couple of smalls about during the hols.  There are obviously stumbling blocks (I for one feel very weird if I ever have to tell them off), but D also has a lot of support from his wonderful family, so nobody ever feels overwhelmed.  One problem I do have is with food.  Little C, like #2, is not a big eater, and finding something that everyone will eat can sometimes be a struggle.  I’d never be one to force kiddies to eat stuff they don’t like, but I’m not going to let them eat Nutella sandwiches, either.  Happily, with her usual forward planning and attention to detail, C left behind a folder of recipes; everything from how to make mashed potato to how to roast a joint is explained perfectly and, sitting in D’s kitchen the other day flicking through them, I noticed this little beauty.  And do you know what?  It was hoovered up by everyone – even the veg-phobic Little C.

1 tbsp olive oil

2 litres stock

1 onion

1 celery stalk

2 carrots

1/2 swede

1 parsnip

Handful frozen peas

Couple of handfuls red lentils

So heat your olive oil in a large heavy based pan, and chuck in your chopped onion and celery, sprinkle with salt, then fry gently until translucent.  Then add your stock (either defrosted chicken stock, or made with cubes – whatever), and finally chuck in all your chopped vegetables and the lentils.  Bring to the boil and let it bubble away for a good half hour or more until all the veggies are soft.

Whizz in the blender until completely smooth and serve with plenty of warm cheese bread. 

Good ol’ C, eh?

Okay, so all that crap I said about our neighbours being lovely?  Scrap that.  D wanders in earlier, on the hunt for a missing child, oh and a spare Hubby to hit the pub with.  ‘So what’s for dinner?’, he says.  I open the oven, where a rather beautiful toad in the hole is puffing up nicely, and wait smugly for the compliment.  It doesn’t come.  ‘Ew’, says D, ‘you’re having sausages in pastry for Sunday dinner?’.  I resist the urge to whack him good and hard with a saucepan, (I’ve got new copper based ones) as he arranges to come back in half an hour for their jaunt to the pub.  ‘I’m off home for now’, he says, ‘at least we can afford a Sunday roast. Come on, little C, before her cooking puts me off’.  Grrrrrrr!  Bloody Irish neighbours.  I’m thinking of investing in an electric fence.

Anyhoo, now the men have been despatched to the pub with a warning to play nice, I can give you my recipe for the little beauty that is Chocolate pudding with gooey chocolate sauce.  This is similar to Bill Granger’s little individual self saucing puddings in that you whack sauce over the top of a standard  sponge mix and it magically ends up at the bottom.  Here goes then:

For the sponge mix:

4oz butter

4 oz caster sugar

2 eggs

6 oz flour (you need more flour because of all the liquid)

2 tbsp cocoa powder (Use Green & Black’s it’s fab)

For the sauce:

300ml hot water

75g brown sugar

3 tbsp cocoa powder

So put your oven on about 180 (gas..er…dunno – well, sorry, but I haven’t got a gas oven).  And then butter a nice pie dish, or similar (make sure it’s pretty deep, this rises a bit).  Make the sponge by whizzing together the butter and sugar with a hand held electric whisk (or use old fashioned elbow grease if you’re not as lazy as me).  Make sure the mixture is light and fluffy before adding your eggs one at a time then folding in your sifted flour and cocoa powder.  This was a bit of a difficult recipe to get right as it needs a lot of flour for all the liquid but the downside is that your mixture gets very thick.  If it gets too hard to mix, splosh in some milk.  I did, and it doesn’t seem to affect the end result.  Then just dollop your mix into the dish.

Meanwhile, put the water, brown sugar and cocoa into a saucepan and stir until it’s all dissolved, then just pour it over the sponge mix and bung in the oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.  Serve with some softly whipped cream, or if you’re animals like us, then serve it with mad ice cream flavours like chocolate & marshmallow.  The make sure you’re serving it up just as D comes to get Hubby for the pub.  And smile sweetly while stuffing it into face.  Heh.