To Ireland, with love.
So that’s it, then. Packing has commenced, the chickens have been collected in a trailer and carted off to their new home, and in a very short time we shall land back on terra firma in the good old Kingdom of United.
I have mixed feelings, frankly. When we first moved to Dublin I was miserable. I missed my friends, my family, the familiarity of having lived in a place your whole life; bumping into people you know in Tesco (frankly, being able to even go to Tesco without an hour’s round trip). It was rotten. The children hated their new school (#1 was the only native English speaker in his class), everything was alien, everything shut for lunch, or on a Monday, or on a Wednesday or had to be requested in writing, and I lasted about 6 weeks before I fled home, leaving poor Hubby blinking in a bewildered fashion in a big empty Irish house.
Still, we made it back. And with a new school for the boys, a new dog (the wonderful and much missed Becks), a new friend in Jenny and a new blog to take up my time (EnglishMuminIreland.blogs.ie – where it all began), I started to settle in. The Irish are a wonderful breed: open, friendly, always up for a laugh, never too busy to help… With Hubby’s new job we found ourselves here in Cavan and from the moment we walked over the threshold of English Towers, we felt at home. With the lovely C next door already terminally ill when we arrived, a sad by-product of being able to help in small ways like minding children or fetching medicine from the chemist was that we (selfishly) felt needed and wanted very quickly. We made friends with The Lovelies, the Galway Cs and Poppy’s Mum and her family (if you’re new here, check out ‘All about me’ at the top of the screen for more info), all via D, who was unceasingly generous with both his time and his friends, and have felt happily and contendedly as though we were home for the past two years. D now has a new, lovely lady in his life. The children are delighted and so are we. We wish them all the love and happiness that they so deserve.
But things change. The Recession came and bit us on the bum and it’s time to move on again. I’ll miss the beautiful countryside, the wonderful people and the laid back lifestyle, but the hustle and bustle of town life is calling me back too. Living in this huge house with the dog and the chickens and the lovely garden has been a massive adventure for us all. The children have made lifelong friends, received a fantastic education and enjoyed some amazing life experiences. They have benefitted immeasurably from their time here, as have the Hubby and I. We’ve been lucky enough to share this fantastic place with our friends and family when they came over for our wedding blessing and have even been welcomed into the new community of the church by the kind and gentle Revd Craig - something I never would have imagined in a million years. I know we’ll return so much more open to new experiences, and with a fresh appreciation for all the people and places that we’ve missed over the last four years.
Onwards and upwards, then. Pass the bubble wrap. Goodbye Emerald Isle. It’s been a blast.
Flares, dead ducks, coop extensions Disney monsters and aliens
So since we bought the two new pullets at the Mullagh Fair, Hubby’s new project, the Great English Towers Chicken Coop Extension, is going quite well. There’s been plenty of drilling and hammering (and swearing), but the finished item will double the size of their roosting/nesting space and hopefully stop Minnie, who was once the lowest in the pecking order and has now morphed into some sort of evil chicken bully, from pecking the new babies to death before they grow old enough to actually lay anything. As soon as Hubby can get ‘this f*cking bit to fit into that b*stard bloody thing there’, then the chooks will have plenty more room to manoevre.
Panini, the new little speckly one, who Mr Lovely thinks might be a Rhode Island Red after all, seems to escape pretty much unpecked, but poor Elvis, the slightly camp-looking Minorcan with the enormous flares (hence the gender dismorphic name) sadly gets the brunt of everyone’s aggression, rushing madly around cheeping and trying to avoid getting brain damage from continually being pecked on the head.
Talking of Mr Lovely, we went up to see their brand new ducks this morning only to find one dead. Poor Middle Lovely had only just put in a pond for them (he’s the teeniest, but most enthusiastic smallholder – it’s pigs next, apparently) and the one remaining duck was waddling about, quacking despondently. I know it’s part and parcel of this smallholding business, but I still felt quite sad. I tried not to cry in front of Mr Lovely though (I’m such a girl), as he and Hubby would never have let me forget it, the gits.
In other news, two more lubly pressies have arrived from the wonderful chaps at Disney (‘good grief’, said Hubby, ‘are you sure you’re not sleeping with anyone at Disney?’). First up was a new Blu-ray version of Monsters Inc. This caused muchas excitement as we’re all big fans, and last night a popcorn and Malteser-fest ensued whilst it got its inaugural viewing. I know I’m scathing about the Hubster’s big ugly monster telly that I’m not allowed to touch – not even to dust – not that I actually ever do dust anything, but still… anyhoo, you really could see every little strand of fur on Sully’s back with the combo of HD TV and Blu-ray disc. (Ooh, listen to me, I’m all technofabulous!)
My other pressie was a new Wii game called Toy Story Mania. Now me and the other Disney 7 girlies had a bloody ball on this ride at Walt Disney World. It changed even the mildest-mannered Dulwich Divorcee into a sharp-shooting, evil killer (‘die, m*therf*ckers, die!’). Happily, shoot ‘em up games are my lot’s absolute fave, and this one’s eye candy into the bargain (I love those little alien thingies – they’re soooo cute!). By the way, my #1 son just looked at this picture and said ‘Mum! You can’t put that on the blog, it says ‘great knob’!!’ Er no, that’s a J, darling.
Oh, and while Hubby’s been building and the kids have been happily killing aliens, I’ve been doing a bit of experimentation in the kitchen. Watch this space for a nice fruity teabread, coming soon!
The Friday photo: summer holidays, sports days, goggies and wabbits
So it was #2′s sports day yesterday. As usual, The Lovelies swept the board, with Big Lovely winning every heat in his age group (the short race across the field and the one that’s twice round the field – we don’t exactly measure metres) and the finals as well, Middle Lovely doing the same, and even teeny Little Lovely is well on the way to upholding the Lovely tradition with a very respectable third place in the tiddlers’ race (resplendent in velour joggers and pink hoodie, no less). D-next-door and Hubby all of a sudden remembered urgent appointments just before the Dads’ race and had to rush off, but Mr Lovely was forced into it by his offspring, and, true to form, won it by a country mile, and I came…er…hrmph in the Mum’s race. What? Didn’t catch that? Oh – I was somewhere in the middle.
Bert was an honorary sports day guest (special four-legged dispensation was given by the headmaster) and basked in not only the beautiful un-Irish sunshine, but in the masses of cuddles, wet kisses, half-nelson type hugs and friendly ear ruffles.
One tiny little girl (whose Mam assured me she loves dogs) eyed him suspiciously, dummy firmly in place:
TLG: ‘Zat a goggie?’
Me: ‘Yup, he’s a doggie’
TLG (narrows eyes and looks suspiciously like a homicide detective): ‘You shure?’
Me: ‘Yes, I’m positive. He’s a very rubbish greyhound, but he’s definitely a greyhound’
TLG: ‘Oh’ – removes dummy, inspects it and pops it back in – ‘he’s vewy big to be a goggie tho…’
Me: ‘Er..oh, is he?. Sorry about that’.
TLG (lying lengthwise across a sunbathing Bert and giving him a full, smacking kiss on the ear): ‘herro goggie’
In other news, the evil squadron of House Martins has returned to terrorise English Towers – luckily the weather’s usually so bad that I never get to hang out washing, otherwise I’ll be dive bombed into submission again. In worse news, they’ve decided to build a nest on the gable of the garage as well so we’ve got two families of the little buggers attacking us every time we go outside (sorry for the bad photography, but I feared for my life):
Chocolate fondant: gooey chocolatey yumminess
So you know how you can cook something with your eyes shut, and then the moment you invite someone round and do it, it all goes horribly wrong? The very thing happened when the Disreputable One visited once – I made the cheesecake I make successfully ALL the time, I presented it at the table with a flourish, tried to slice it and realised in horror that it was completely runny. Seriously dearest reader, you could have sucked the bloody thing through a straw. Gutted, was I.
Yesterday, then, the Lovelies came to Sunday lunch. And I decided to stick to stuff I can make well in advance, so as not to succumb to runny cheesecake syndrome. We got a fabilis chunk of Aberdeen Angus up at Enniskillen and roasted it along with some nice crispy roast potatoes (duck fat, baby), some buttery curly kale and just plain ol’ peas and carrots. I was going to do Yorkshire Puddings too, but I got a bit stuck into the Jacob’s Creek and kind of forgot. Still, it was all good.
For pudding, then, I went for apple crumble and cream, plus a chocolate fondant for the kiddlies (let’s face it, it’s MEANT to be gooey in the middle – how could you bugger it up?):
For 4 people (double it up to feed more)
115g butter
115g dark chocolate
3 eggs
35g plain flour
150g caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas 6. Butter your preferred dish (or 4 of those medium ramekin things) generously, then sprinkle with a little bit of flour.
Now in a bain-marie (heatproof bowl over saucepan of simmering water, blah blah), melt the chocolate and the butter. Meanwhile, mix together the eggs, flour and sugar. Make sure the chocolate is just melted (and no hotter than finger temp), and stir them both together. Pour into your prepared dish and put to one side. Easy. As. Pie.
Now, just when you’re clearing up the main meal, bung the dish in for about 20 mins (less for the individual ramekins – more like 15) until it’s just past the wobbly stage and looks set on the top. Don’t leave it much longer as you won’t get the delicious gooey chocolate centre.
Serve with a flourish, and a bucket of cold, cold cream. And hopefully you won’t need a straw.
In which Little Miss Lovely makes girly pink muffins and biscuits
So as you know, I don’t get much in the way of girly conversation here at English Towers. I think the nearest we got was the recent discussion about whether that pathologist in CSI:Miami is really a girl at all (oh come on, her name is Khandi). Anyhoo, so Mr and Mrs Lovely were away for the weekend and we happily volunteered to cover a shift of looking after the little Lovelies yesterday afternoon. Little Miss Lovely and I decided to have a girly afternoon in the kitchen while all the boys killed zombies or whatever they were all doing crowded around the X-box. First of all we made pink muffins. I mean really pink muffins: pink sponge cake, pink royal icing and lots of pink bits and bobs on the top. After that we made biscuits, then we made chocolate chip biscuits, and then we smothered all them in icing and pink bits and bobs too.
At one stage Middle Lovely wandered in, and quite fancied joining in but no. He was firmly instructed that this was a girls-only baking session and any argument was followed by an instruction to talk to the hand by Madame, who was concentrating (tongue out) on a particularly difficult bit of pink glitter addition.
You know the drill on the muffins by now, but here’s the low-down for Little Miss Lovely’s rather lush biscuits.
250g butter (best at room temp)
125g icing sugar
375g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
Teeny pinch of salt
This is best done with an electric whisk, but you can do it the old fashioned way if you’re a bit of a martyr. So first beat the hell out of your butter until it’s lovely and soft. Next, sieve the icing sugar into the butter and mix well. It’s best not to whizz it at full power at this stage unless you want your kitchen looking like an icing sugar bomb has exploded. Then sieve in your flour, baking powder and salt. It’s best to switch to a metal spoon now. Mix it all together gently until it starts to come together, then dive in with clean hands and squish it all together until it forms a dough (have patience, it will).
Now roll the dough into a sausage shape, wrap with clingfilm and chill until firm. Then just slice it up into about 1cm slices and bake on a baking tray at 180/gas 4 for about 15 mins. The biccies won’t spread too much so don’t cut them too thick or they’ll be like bricks. If you like you can add about 100g chopped chocolate (or chopped nuts, lemon zest, sultanas, whatever) to the mixture too.
Then just allow to cool and either ice (we used royal icing turned a delicious pink with a little red food colouring), dip in melted chocolate, or eat them as they are. Pink glitter is, obviously, optional.
Middle Lovely’s Chocolate Breakfast Pancakes… & grown up cranberry and orange ones
So it’s half term. And Middle Lovely came for a sleepover with #2. He’s a happy little chap; talks ten to the dozen like #1 and he loves to cook. So last night I got talked into having chocolate pancakes for tea, and this morning we all made a cake. He could never live with us full time as our arteries would probably explode. Here goes with the pancakes, then:
For the basic breakfast pancakes:
2 eggs
1/2 pint milk
225g self raising flour
4 level tbsp caster sugar
Then for the cranberry and orange ones, you’ll need:
Handful dried cranberries
Zest and juice of one large orange
So sieve the flour and stir in the sugar. If you’re making the grown-up version, it’s really nice to heat the cranberries in the orange juice and zest in a small saucepan to soften them up a bit. Then just make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and whisk in the eggs and milk to make a thick batter. Now, remove most of the cranberries from the orange with a slotted spoon and stir them into the batter. Add a couple of teaspoons of sugar to the remaining orange liquid and bubble gently to reduce into a fruity syrup.
Next, heat a heavy-based frying pan and lightly brush the surface with oil. Dollop a couple of tablespoons of the mixture into the pan, trying not to let them touch, then wait until you see bubbles on the surface before flipping them over. The first one will be a disaster, it always is, but after that you’ll get light, fluffy pancakes studded with beautiful soft little fruity jewels Serve with your orangey syrup. These also make a lovely dessert with a slug of Cointreau added to the fruit juice, and served with mounds of whipped cream.
Or if you’re Middle Lovely, make the basic mixture, then stir in 50g chopped chocolate. Make the pancakes in exactly the same way and serve them with more chocolate in the shape of chocolate spread, or gag-making amounts of golden syrup. Nice one, Lovely.
When enough is just, well, enough.
So yesterday we were invited up to The Lovelies’ house for the evening. The sun was out and the lads (yes, ours as well – never slow to take up an invitation) were in the hot tub. One of the things I love about living here is that they have so many mates around, something they’ve never really had before. We sat around in the kitchen and had a chat over a couple of beers (Mr Lovely and Hubby) and a glass of wine (me – Mrs Lovely is on medication for madness [joke] and wasn’t partaking). Mrs Lovely was making a lasagne to freeze and I helped by making the white sauce. I then helped a little bit less by eating a great big wodge of it (it was darned good) when it was cooked. In my defence, I did bring a sausage of cookie dough round too. Later, their neighbours popped round and we drank and chatted while the kids played PS2 or Xbox or something, finally getting a lift back round the corner by Mrs Lovely at about midnight. A thoroughly nice evening was had by all.
This morning though, as I was concocting a dirty great fry of epic proportions, I started to think more about our evening. Bearing in mind that Mrs Lovely wasn’t drinking, I managed to polish off an entire bottle of wine on my own. Granted we started about 7pm and didn’t finish til midnight, and I had a couple of glasses of water in between, but still, I was shocked: a whole bottle to myself? And I didn’t even feel particularly merry? Jeebus. I’m an alcofrolic.
The thing is, dearest reader, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with alcohol. I love a glass of champers, and adore a nice glass of wine. A couple of glasses make me happy, but I don’t like the feeling of being drunk (especially in front of other people) and I don’t like being in the company of drunk people. Generally I’ll stagger (heh) my glasses of wine with a coke or a fizzy water, but my most memorable and miserable evenings have been those when I’ve had too many. I felt uneasy this morning and started to wonder about my whole motivation for drinking in the first place. I shared my unease with the Hubby: ‘calm down’, he said, ‘a bottle over the course of 5 hours is hardly excessive’. And #1 added: ’if it makes you feel uncomfortable, why do it?’.
And that’s the question, then: why do we drink? In particular, why do I drink when I like the taste but not the sensation. In the future, I’ve vowed to take better care to buy nice wine and to savour the taste in the comfort of my own home. Then when I’m out, and not really paying attention to what I’m sipping, I’ll stick to the coke. I feel happier already.
