In which I intrepidly head north then get trollied

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So yesterday, then. It was a pleasant enough day, which ended with a rather inebriated stagger around the garden. Let me explain: I had to do my ‘popping to another country’ trick as Hubby’s Mate J (not to be confused with My Mate J) needed me to wait in for BT in his new flat while he was doing large wasp impressions up and down to Dublin. So off I tootled to Northern Ireland, and very happy I was too. Firstly, I love the journey. It’s all blazing yellow gorse which looks like the hills are on fire, and lakes and cows and stuff, and secondly I love Northern Ireland. Nothing makes me happier than popping to a shop and paying with real pounds (snaffled from Hubby’s pockets every time he goes home). Plus, Enniskillen has the largest Tesco in christendom which is good for upstocking (groceries are terribly expensive in Southern Ireland), and there’s a shopping centre containing such treasures as Next and Monsoon next door. What’s not to love?

Even happilyer (ahem) when I got there, Mr BT was waiting. A quick cup of tea, a brief read of OK Magazine (Jordan’s died her hair black, Posh and Becks went to a basketball game and Becks got papped checking out one of the cheerleaders’ arses, some bird from Corrie got married and Cheryl is considering taking Ashley back - there, you don’t have to buy it now) and he was done. And yes, of course I had a nose round. Well, you have to don’t you. It’s a lovely flat: penthouse, dahling, with three bedrooms (master with balcony and stunning views), cream carpets, leather sofas, nice kitchen, wet towels on the bathroom floor (tsk, he’s such a boy) and more technology than you can shake a stick at.

When I’d finished poking about, I had a quick unintelligible chat with the BT man (I never have been able to understand that accent; it all sounds like ‘dirdledirdledirdle to me) who eventually got sick of me going ‘pardon?’ every five minutes and wandered off, and headed off to Tesco. And there, joy of joys, I found Banrock Station’s Sparkling Shiraz is being discontinued (are they mad?) and was on special offer at half price!! Hence the fact that I opened a bottle once the kids had gone to bed, and spent a happy evening in front of the TV. The trouble is I had to take Bert out for his evening constitutional and once the fresh air hit me, I found myself feeling somewhat befuddled. This manifested itself in a very ungainly stagger around the garden. At one stage I walked straight into our potted Christmas tree (Bert walked straight into it too - and he calls himself a sighthound?). I just hope D next door wasn’t looking out the window. Tsk. What a lush.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Russell steals the show

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So Saturday night, then, we went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. #1 had his mate over for the weekend and they were keen to see it, but I was a bit worried by the 15A rating it had been given. Now before I get hate mail for being a bad mother (note: I already know!!), a swift search revealed that this means children under 15 should be accompanied by an adult and that it contains ‘some comic sexual references’. Meh, I thought, how bad could it be? He’s a ten year old for goodness sake. He’s seen the odd pair of boobs and had sex education classes. He’s no stranger to a willy joke. And anyway, most of these comedies with their fnar fnar implied rudeness go right over his head.

Anyhoo, we got settled in with our Maltesers and waited for the film to start. I sat next to #2 in case I needed to quickly divert his attention from something comically sexual. The cinema in Cavan is quite small but very nice and we were the only people in the film…on a Saturday night! I was gobsmacked, but then I’m used to twelve screen multiplexes packed to the gunnels with teenagers throwing popcorn so it was a somewhat welcome change.

So, the film then. Well, I won’t ruin it for you but basically Peter (played by Jason Segel - a very unappealing slob-like creature) is dumped by his CSI actress girlfriend, Sarah. He goes on holiday to Hawaii to get over her and, who would have thought it, bumps into Sarah, with her new boyfriend, English rocker, Aldous Snow, played by the fabulous Russell Brand.

I think my biggest complaint isn’t the comedy - there were some very funny moments - it’s the fact that there were enormously large gaps between anything funny. Sadly, you had to wait so long for Peter to stop getting drunk, blubbing, moaning and basically boring us to death, that they lost half their comic value. He then gets involved (unbelievably, because she’s gorgeous and he’s a big fat useless crybaby) with the receptionist at the hotel (played by the stunning Mila Kunis) and, well… you can watch it if you want to know the rest.

Russell Brand basically steals the show as the laid back rocker who reminded me SO much of Mad Uncle A it’s not true. His one liners were fantastic, and his lazy Essex drawl somehow emphasised the fact that he wasn’t trying too hard.

Anyhoo, the boys liked it. That is, the older boys liked it. #2 wasn’t sure given that he’d missed half the film as my hands were clamped over his eyes. Some comic sexual references my bottom. I tell you, dearest reader, there was more gratuitous sex in the film than I’ve seen in a long time (ahem). One scene shows Sarah Marshall giving her ex a blow job and while, admittedly, his back is to the camera, it’s pretty graphic, especially as she’s imploring him to ‘get hard for me baby’. Hmmmm. Another shows Aldous Snow showing a newly wed how to pleasure his wife by simulating sex with a giant chess piece (you had to be there, but it was dead rude). Best bits…er…well, they were all Russell Brand really. When he’s serenading Sarah in a hammock and he’s singing: ‘I’m on a hammock wiv me lady, watching the sea roll by. Things are great now cos we’re in Hawaii’ is classic, but you need to imagine the accent. And when he grudgingly wears an awful Hawaiian shirt she’s bought him and the waiter spills cranberry juice on it he deadpans: ‘oh no, not the shirt…take my eyes but not the shirt’.

Aw, okay. Go and see it then. It’s not three bad. Just don’t take the kids.

#1′s birthday chocolate pavlova

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So. It’s happened then. I have to say it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I opened #1′s door that particular morning - half expecting to see some embryonic teenager emerging from a particularly stinky chrysalis, complete with already formed armpit hair and foot odour. Happily, a rumpled but still cheery greeting from under the duvet confirmed that the small, perky and strangely random mad professor is still amongst us. J, who already being the owner of a fledgling teenager, has experience in such matters, assures me we have until they’re at least fifteen before the fun really starts. Phew. Anyhoo, the little sod tried to find something nice and difficult for his birthday cake but luckily, having a blog has its privileges and none other than Martin Dwyer, Waterford Superchef Extraordinaire, stepped up to the line with a fantastic recipe and bailed me out. I’m not worthy:

Martin Dwyer’s Chocolate Meringue Recipe

4 large eggs, separated

Pinch salt

Pinch Cream of Tartar

8oz golden caster sugar

1tsp cornflour

1tsp white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tablespoons cocoa, sieved

Whisk the egg whites with the salt and the Cream of Tartar until stiff. Add your sugar spoonful by spoonful until glossy and it holds a peak when you lift out the beater. Stir the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla together to dissolve the cornflour and whisk into the meringue. Add your finely sieved cocoa and stir in.

Draw around two dinner plates (or 3 tea plates) onto baking parchment, place onto baking trays and dollop on your mixture, smoothing it out roughly to the edge of your circles. Bake at 150 degrees/gas mark 2 for about 45 minutes, then just turn the oven off (door ajar) and leave to cool.

My chocolate creamy custardy stuff:

I was going to do Nigella’s recipe for chocolate crème patissière but honestly, it’s so bloody complicated I couldn’t be bothered. So I bunged a few things together and it worked okay. The only trouble is, I’m not exactly sure what I did, so I’m not absolutely guaranteeing that I could repeat it. I apologise for the verbosity of this recipe, but hey, if you’re my Disreputable Dad and not really interested, you’ll have moved on anyway by now. If you’re still hanging on in there, it goes something like this:

4 egg yolks left over from the meringue

100g caster sugar

¾ pint full fat milk

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon cocoa

½ bar dark chocolate

Get yourself organised first (learn, as usual, from my mistakes) and have a clean saucepan ready, and a couple of inches of cold water in the sink. So whisk together your egg yolks, caster sugar, flour and cocoa. Whisk into a thick paste with a splash of the milk. Put the rest of the milk on to boil. Just as it fizzes up, pour gently into the egg mixture, whisking all the time. Add back in to the clean saucepan and heat, whisking, until it thickens up (or if it doesn’t thicken, whisk in a teaspoon of cornflour mixed with some milk), then turn off the heat and stir in your chocolate. To stop it getting a skin, it’s best to cool it by bunging the saucepan into the cold water in your sink and whisking. Once cold, store in the fridge, covered in clingfilm. To assemble, sandwich your layers of meringue with the chocolate custardy stuff and whipped cream, adding raspberries, strawberries, grated chocolate…hell, whatever you fancy.

So Happy birthday #1, thanks for not turning into Kevin just yet. And thanks to Martin. You’re a total ledge.

English and proud (ish)

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So it’s St George’s Day today. Once again it will no doubt pass with more of a whimper than a bang, but in honour of our great Saint’s day - and let’s face it, he slayed a dragon for a lady, the bloke’s a legend - I thought I’d give you a little guide to Englishness. Read it and weep:

English Design: English design is revered all over the world: Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood (okay she’s barking but hey), Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Burberry… Ah Burberry. Once solely seen on stuffy, posh old ladies walking their Labradors, but now gracing a whole new generation of England, with less taste than ever before. A belly button ring, squawking child in a pushchair, white Honda Civic with dodgy plastic body kits and adding ‘innit’ to every sentence are must-have accessories.

The Weather: okay so most of the time you need a raincoat and umbrella, when the sun shines in England there’s no better place to be. There’s nothing nicer than lazing on warm grass watching a game of cricket on a sunny Sunday, or wandering around beautiful gardens like Sissinghurst. Our shores are many and varied, from craggy windswept coastline to golden sandy beach. In the winter, a glass of something in front of a crackling fire down the pub makes you glad to be alive.

The Lingo: ah the Queen’s English. From Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys and Beatrix Potter to Ted Hughes and J K Rowling, our literary accomplishments are huge. Mind you, given that we’ve bestowed our language upon half of the globe, you’d think we’d be a bit prouder of it. But no, we still manage to strangle it in any one of a thousand different ways. I worry that a whole new generation of English children will really think that U SPL TNGS LYK DAT.

The Monarchy: The Disreputable One maintains that on the day Prince Harry was born, one of the throng of journalists hanging about outside was alleged to have said ‘another bleedin’ parasite’. Many would echo that sentiment. After giving us false hope by giving up going out on the piss to join the armed forces, William ruined it all by taking the company Chinook out for a jolly, and Harry came back from Afghanistan to get on with the important royal business of skiing, lounging on various beaches and staggering out of clubs at 4am. Proud? You betcha we are.

But don’t get me wrong - for all its little quirks and foibles, I love everything about my country of origin. I miss watching the fellas play cricket on a perfect summer’s afternoon, wandering down to the village for an ice cream at tea time. I miss walking along the canal in the snow, the ducks skittering about on the frozen water. I miss visits to our beautiful coastline, fantastic restaurants, lovely old pubs, and the odd game of footie. I’m proud of our sporting achievements (okay, so don’t mention the World Cup, but our sportsmen are amongst the best in the world), our fantastic food (it’s not just fish and chips, it’s British Beef, the best seafood, the tender lamb, the fantastic puddings…) and, okay… can I mention the war?

The English are renowned for their reserve (which is funny when you think that our teenagers are currently vomiting and fornicating their way around half of the resorts in the Med) but it’s high time we started being a bit more patriotic. So I’ll start, shall I? Happy St George’s Day, people. Innit.

Further Reading: Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island, anything from William Shakespeare, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, England for Dummies by Donald Olson

Earth Day

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Oh, and I\'d like to thank my mate, C, for my lovely badge. It kind of sums up my mood today.

I’d like to thank my mate C for emailing me this lovely badge today. It kind of sums up exactly how I’m feeling. Anyhoo, so because it’s Earth Day, and because Thrifty just revisited some of his favourite posts, I’d like to republish my original Earth Day post for your delectation. That, and I can’t think of anything funny.

Okay, so it’s Earth Day today and according to some really dodgy ‘family’ website I found which had articles on ‘Making Mealtimes Fun’ (ban your children from the table?) and ‘Make Your Next Family Camping Trip a Success’ (cancel it and book a hotel instead?), it’s a ‘special day to learn about our planet and how to take care of it’. So in the spirit of Earth Day, here are ten things that we all should teach our children so that we’re doing our bit to take care of our own Mother Earth:

  1. Energy is precious. This means that having three televisions on in three different rooms, plus the computer and every light in the entire house is not good karma, especially when you’re in the bath playing your Gameboy.
  2. Conserve our precious water. Like when you’re cleaning your teeth and you wander back into one of the rooms where the televisions are blaring to stare goggle-eyed at the screen, you really should turn the tap off first.
  3. Showers and baths need to be small to use less water. Thirty-minute showers where you sing the whole of Green Day’s repertoire and make your hair into several different mohicans with shampoo whilst trying to emulate Billy-Jo are just not cricket.
  4. Wearing an item of clothing for ten minutes, then putting it in the dirty clothes basket because you ‘fancy having shorts on now’, doesn’t mean it’s dirty and needs to be washed, nor is bunging it in there an acceptable alternative to folding it and replacing it in the drawer.
  5. Aim to choose products that are not over-packaged. Easter is therefore cancelled next year because Easter Eggs have five different plastic and cardboard layers before you get through to the ounce of chocolate in the middle.
  6. Learn to recycle. By the way, recycling isn’t where you put the empty orange juice carton back in the fridge so that when Mum goes shopping she doesn’t buy any as she doesn’t think we need it.
  7. Daddies need help learning about recycling. This means that putting everything in the kitchen bin so Mummy has to get in there and rescue all the tins and bottles from the stinky black depths leads to the withdrawal of certain privileges. You know the ones I mean.
  8. Learn to re-use. Yoghurt pots make good containers for growing seeds. You could grow herbs on your windowsill so Mummy could cook with them and then you could spend ages picking all the green bits out of your food.
  9. Learn more about energy consumption. Some ‘gas guzzling’ cars are really bad for the planet. Obviously these do not include the new Land Rover Discovery 3 TDV6 HSE in Lugano Teal that Mummy is currently trying to persuade Daddy to buy her.
  10. And finally, one for the Mummies: tumble-drying our clothes in the middle of summer so that the entire kitchen becomes sauna-like is not an acceptable alternative to hanging clothes out. Even if, frankly, you just can’t be arsed.

That’s it, then. Off you go and save the planet.

In which #2 goes native

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So hot on the heels of the big fella, the little chap is off on his travels today. #2 is rather an Irish speaking whizz (the only one in our family, #1 was considered too old to start learning). He can say ‘kiss my arse’ in Irish, which is impressive in itself, but to further improve his rich Irish vocabulary, he’s off to spend a week in the Donegal Gaeltacht.

Those of you who don’t know what the bloody hell I’m on about will be pleased to know that it’s not some kind of ancient Irish torture, but a week in the beautiful North West of our green and soggy country, mixing with the locals and improving his Gaeilge. Irish speaking (or Gaeltacht) regions are dotted all around Ireland, mostly in the west, but there’s a little one quite close to us in Meath and another in Waterford. School trips to these areas are commonplace (kind of like a French exchange except you don’t have to have the stroppy, hairy French teenager making your house look untidy for the week). What he’s supposed to do is speak nothing but Irish for a whole week, thereby improving his spoken Irish no end, soak up the culture, revel in the magic and folklore and discover a little more of Ireland’s unique heritage. What he’ll probably be doing is sodding about with his mates, doing things he wouldn’t get away with at home and thoroughly enjoying his freedom, but that’s an aside.

So Donegal, then. It is, apparently, Ireland’s second largest Gaeltacht region: a beautiful and breathtaking land of huge mountains, lakes and valleys whose amazing coastline is lapped gently by the Atlantic. The beaches are supposed to be some of the best in the whole of Ireland. I’m dead jealous, frankly.

So off he went this morning, then, staggering under the weight of a holdall almost as big as he is, and armed with the spare phone (the lesson in texting wasn’t overly a success so whether we hear from him at all remains to be seen), the usual cornucopia of electronic devices, some spare underwear and his Lynx spray that smells like chocolate. Oh and he’s packed his Gaelic Football gloves and his boots. Well, you never know when you might get a game…

Happy Double Chocolate Cheesecake Day!

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So I don’t know how, but both my children have their birthdays within two weeks of each other. Maybe it was the bad English summers that sent us indoors in search of better things to do? Whatever. First up on the birthday honours is #2 who finally hits double digits (‘Finally, I’ve got double Ds!’ He told me innocently in a somewhat Jordanesque manner). And in true English Towers fashion, he picked his birthday cake wisely: ‘I’ll have a chocolate cheesecake… no, I’ll have a white chocolate cheesecake… no, I’ll have a dark AND white chocolate cheesecake… with a chocolate biscuit base and… er… more chocolate on top’. A fine choice. So here we are, then. I know I’ve already given you a recipe, but I’ve tweaked it a bit and it’s even more coronary inducing than the last one:

100g butter

300g pack of dark chocolate digestives

500g cream cheese

100g icing sugar

200ml whipping cream

175g bar of good quality dark chocolate

100g good quality white chocolate (I used Tesco White Belgian Chocolate)

Melt the butter in the microwave or in a saucepan and in the meantime smash up your digestives, either by whacking them with a rolling pin or whizzing them in the processor (remember to put the little lid bit on, I got an eyeful of oatmeal) until they’re just crumbs. Stir the butter into the biscuits then press into the bottom of a springform tin (you’ll never get the bugger out otherwise) and leave to cool.

Now, get two pans of hot water going, and melt the white chocolate in a bowl over one and the dark chocolate over another (reserve a couple of squares of each for the decoration), turning the pans off once the water boils. Put the cream cheese in a bowl, beat it until smooth then beat in the icing sugar.

Now, while you’re waiting for the chocolate to cool, draw out your birthday person’s age in big fat letters on a piece of greaseproof paper (or just do circles or stars or something… pah, you can write ‘bum’ on it for all I care) and carefully fill it in with the melted white chocolate. Make sure they’re thick enough to stand up on their own.

Now add your cooled chocolate to the cream cheese and icing sugar (bunging in the leftover white chocolate too), stir it in, then whip your cream and fold that in too. Smooth it over the biscuit base and chill in the fridge for a good few hours until set. There’s probably a way to swirl the white and dark chocolate in, but the cream needs to be last really as it’s full of air. I’ll come back to you on that point.

Anyhoo, to serve: remove from tin, finely grate over some white and dark chocolate and add your white chocolate numbers. Present, with a flourish, to goggle eyed birthday child and smile smugly to oneself as it disappears.

Happy birthday big man xx

What I done on my holidays by Moon, aged 36 and 3/4

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This, laydees and gennlemen, is my stunningly attractive cousin, Moon (gorgeousness runs in the genes, see?), doing something with a Beluga. And no, I don’t know what a Beluga is either. Any snorty remarks along the lines of ‘which one is the whale?’ will be severely dealt with. Now, Moon, if you’d like to come up and stand at the front of the class and tell us exactly what you’re doing here…

Bird in drafty hole shocker

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So I was pootling about in the kitchen this afternoon, then. I was going to make gingerbread, but then I’ve made about 300 recently and was idly wondering what else you can do with black treacle. So I thought I’d make some flapjacks with black treacle, maple syrup and cashew nuts (no method to my madness, just what happened to be in the cupboard). Anyhoo, digressing. So I turned on the extractor fan and holy bloody freeoly, all hell broke loose - there was banging and scraping and thudding and all manner of commotion. So I turned the fan back off and stood for a moment, wondering if I’d imagined it all. And then, because it’s the kind of girl I am, I turned it back on again and there, sure enough, was the banging, clattering and, if I wasn’t very much mistaken…flapping.

Now I must admit to a teeny weeny sulky and wholly unbecoming tantrum about this bloody extractor. We’ve lived in all sorts of houses and had all sorts of kitchens and finally we had a chance to choose our own. We took a very long time and several long journeys to various kitchen places to secure the Oven of My Dreams. The OMD is a shiny, stainless steel beauty, complete with gas hob with wok burner (I’ve ALWAYS wanted one of those). The kitchen fitter thought I was quite mental when I said I didn’t want an electric hob (there’s no gas supply here) and we were going to fuel it with gas bottles. And when we came to picking the extractor, I wanted one of those sweeping glass and stainless steel ones which was breathlessly ordered and then a lot less breathlessly sent back because it didn’t fit in the hole between the two eye-level cupboards. Well, I was a bit miffed to say the least, but I settled on a very nice Indesit one and no, it doesn’t match, but hey - if that’s the worst thing I have to worry about then I’m very lucky.

Where was I? Oh yes. So a quick check outside confirmed that when a hole was drilled through the wall for the extractor fan, one of those little grille things was never screwed over it (in fact, I have a vague recollection of being told to order one. Oops) and some sort of very cross bird had moved his family in. I didn’t manage to see him, not being 8′ tall and all, but he sounded less than pleased. Now what? Do I just not use the fan at all? Or will I have to uproot my little feathery lodgers? Oh dear.

In other bird news, our House Martins are back. We love them. They’re the noisiest, messiest little f*ckers - the bird world’s very own gang of teenagers on scooters, if you will. They squawk and flap and argue and throw stuff about, and leave a terrible mess all down the front of the house, but, well, when we viewed the house and saw them whizzing overhead to their little nest in the eaves, it kind of sold it for us. They may be tiny blue yobs, but they’re our tiny blue yobs and we love them. I’ll try and get you a photo but they’re very fast. Oh and yes, the flapjacks turned out just fine, thank you for asking.

Ooer, it’s the Ring of Death

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Oh the weeping and wailing, the gnashing (or should that be ganaching? Mmmm… ganache…) of teeth, the tantrums, the moaning, the groaning, the unfairness of it all. The house has been reverberating to the sound of near-teenage unhappiness for a good 48 hours now. All the ceilings have new cracks due to excessive upstairs stamping and hormonal stropping about. Every door has been slammed, every request is met with melodramatic sighing and shrugging, and melancholy hangs about the eaves of English Towers like a bad smell (mind you, that could be Bert).

And the source of all these histrionics? The font of our misery? The X-Box has broken. Oh yes, the small grey and white, addictive little electronic babysitter has fought its last fight, taken its last Daytona corner… zapped its last alien, if you would.

Oh, I did my bit. I placated, I fiddled with wires (let’s hope nobody tells him I don’t know what the hell I’m doing), I jiggled HD leads (whatever they are) and turned it off and on again. I phoned Hubby, received telephone instructions, jiggled more wires… And do you know what? He was right. It was broken.

Doing my motherly bit, then (and nothing at all to do with the fact that I’m considering echoing several lifestyle choices in the animal kingdom and eating my firstborn child) I popped in to PC World and a polite enquiry quickly got me pointed in the direction of TechGuy (no really, that’s his title). TechGuy had that ‘Comic Book Guy’ air of grown up geek about him (unkempt, slightly mad hair, wonky glasses), but seemed friendly enough, so I pressed on with the symptoms: overheating, cutting out, and finally, conking out completely showing just a red ring around the on/off button… TechGuy nodded sagely and a knowing smile crossed his shiny face: ‘ahhh yes’, he said knowledgably, pausing for dramatic effect before adding ‘you’ve got the ring of death’. ‘Oh, so nothing drastic then?’. Missing my stab at humour, TechGuy hurried to assure me that on the contrary the ‘ring of death’ is, as the name would suggest, completely fatal to the X-Box. Happily, though, it’s apparently a known fault and a phone call to Microsoft would herald a UPS courier to whip away the minger and return us a fresh one within two weeks.

Off I toddled home, then, and a quick chat with a very chummy chap at Microsoft (‘ahhh yes, the ring of death…’) confirmed that we are, indeed, entitled to have the offending article removed and a spanking new replacement delivered. So that’s that, then. #1 waits every day for the courier, his little nose squished happily against the window (in the meantime they’ve organised a hostile takeover of Hubby’s PS3 - potential trouble brewing there) and contentment and equilibrium have returned once again to English Towers. Mind you, that bad smell’s still hanging about…

Cheese Bread Wedges

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What is it about Heinz tinned soups? They’re actually pretty disgusting - I mean, how do they get that gelatinous texture? It doesn’t bear thinking about. And the mushroom flavour, which is #1′s preferred choice, is frankly revolting. Too creamy, oddly grey in colour and, well, mushrooms don’t really taste like that, do they. And then there’s the tomato flavour. It’s bloody orange, for goodness sake. If there’s a power cut you could just crack one open and bingo - you’d all be able to see by the luminous orange glow emanating from the tin. But hey, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, sometimes only a tin of soup will do (I favour Baxter’s curried vegetable and lentil one personally) and I often whip up these little beauties, which are actually more scone than bread, to dunk in a revoltingly bad mannered way, into the bowl.

8 oz self raising flour

1 1/2 oz butter

4 oz cheese

1 egg

1/4 pint milk

So put your flour into a bowl, season generously with salt and pepper, then rub in the butter just like you would for, say, a crumble or whatever until it looks breadcrumby. Grate the cheese and stir into the flour mixture with a fork until well blended (you don’t want big lumps of cheese). Then measure out your milk in a jug, add the egg and whisk until combined. Pour slowly into the floury cheesy mixture, mixing until it just comes together and makes a soft dough. You can reserve any leftover egg/milk mixture to brush onto the top before baking.

So tip it out and give it a gentle knead just until it comes together in a nice ball. Flatten it out until it’s about 2″ thick and vaguely circular and then just divide it into six or eight wedges. Brush with the leftover milky mixture and bake at 200 degrees for about 15 minutes. Eat warm with your weirdly gelatinous soup, or with a nice salad, or with cheese and pickle…mmmmmmm…

By the way, if you’re having a posh dinner party, these are amazing made with, say, half and half cheddar and parmesan and a sprinkle of chopped rosemary, or with snipped chives and a teaspoon of mustard, or any other flavourings you can think of. Chopped sundried tomato and fresh basil would be lovely with a fresh tomato salad. Much easier than baking bread rolls and with a lovely soft texture.

Nethers knowingly undermanicured

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Damn. Must find my tweezers.

Fellow blogger K8 the Great recently did a fantastic piece on the trials and tribulations that us laydees suffer to become hair free - or at least less hairy than we were before. Now I ummed and ahhhed about telling you this, wary of the fact that I’m constantly giving you far too much personal information and one day you’ll just all bugger off because either a) I’ll go over the top and you’ll be too disgusted to come back , or b) You’ll know absolutely everything about me and won’t need to read any more. But what the hell. I was swayed by the fact that I told J (in confidence, natch) about this and she told me I HAD to blog about it, but to say it happened to a friend. Then there was a pause. ‘Oh hang on though’, she said, ‘then they’ll all think it was me. You’ll have to fess up’. So here I am, then, baring my soul once again just to extract a cheap laugh out of you.

So there’s something just horrific about going to have a bikini wax. First up, I always seem to get the girl that’s about twelve. It’s bad enough having to lie on a bed with your legs contorted behind your ears while some random stranger tortures you by ripping out your nether-hair (or ‘lady garden’ as J calls it), without it being a lithe and wide-eyed young stick insect doing the ripping. You can almost hear her thinking ‘ohhhh, so THAT’s what I’ll look like when I’ve had two children - I’m keeping my legs crossed, like, forever’.

Anyhoo, digressing. I decided to spare myself the embarrassment and go for one of those home waxing kits. Basically, you get a pot of wax which you just microwave until it’s runny, smooth a dollop onto your hairy bits, wait a min until it hardens, then rip it off along with all your unwanted stragglers. Easy. Except the stuff is so bloody sticky, you end up with great sticky strings of goo attaching themselves everywhere. I managed to stick the spatula thing to my thigh, then drop it onto the bath mat, then when I picked it up there was a big sticky string of gloop attaching me to the bathmat which then got stuck to my shin, and another attaching my boob to the sticky patch on my thigh…. And finally, just when I was getting the hang of it, the stuff had got so hard it needed microwaving again. And that’s when it happened. I forgot it.

In my defence, Bert was doing that rather anxious rushing to the door then rushing back up to me thing that he does when he needs to go out, so I took him out, and then I was wrapped up with putting my wellies away and then finally I registered that strange humming noise: the microwave. Oh shit. Well, the wax was certainly melted, in fact, it was completely liquid, along with the pot it came in. My entire pot of bikini wax was now swimming around in the bottom of my microwave in a big purple and brown treacly mess, with the label floating happily on the surface.

Oh. My. God. I cannot begin to tell you how long it has taken me, with kettles full of water, spatulas, white spirit, an entire pack of kitchen roll and two pairs of rubber gloves (the fingers of the first pair stuck firmly together and refused to budge) to extricate the sticky, stringy pool of congealed mess from the bottom of my microwave. At one stage, I brushed my hair out of my eyes and ended up with a big blob of the stuff hanging from my eyebrow. God, who invented such evil, vile-smelling goop? I bet it was a man. I reckon it’s what the Saxons used to tar and feather people.

Still, looking on the bright side, my microwave is now gleaming, I did manage to get my bikini wax done first. And, as I pointed out to J, at least my knickers won’t fall down any time soon.

Cleanliness is next to grumbliness

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So cleaning, then. What a totally pointless activity. I’ve been considering this fact recently as Hubby is away (miss you, darlin xxx) and in his absence, I have inherited the role of ‘only person who ever bothers cleaning the telly’. Hubby was always top man for this job as, well, he’s the only person who really gives a shite. And it’s his telly, and it’s bloody enormous and new-fangled and techno-fabulous (Imagine a huge great black patio door on a stick with lights all round it), and nobody else really dares touch it. He’s a bit like Bert with his bone. If you even look like you might be headed towards it, a low rumbling grumble will develop somewhere in the direction of Hubby, and said person will quickly divert and pretend they were just wandering over to look at the sheep out the window. The trouble is, the bloody thing attracts dust like you wouldn’t believe. Hubby has a special chamois leather thing, the sole purpose of which is to keep said new-fangled techno whatnot sparkling clean. I, on the other hand, sprayed a bit of Pledge on it (not the screen, I’m not THAT stupid) and pushed it around a bit. And now the dust has congealed into long streaks of sludge and looks ten times worse. Bloody cleanliness. Bloody telly.

And then, while we were out the other day, Bert decided he’d add to my woes and knock over one of my vases of birthday flowers. They were in the bay window behind the sofa and looked very pretty. When we came home they were at an odd angle and Bert was strangely not very happy to see us. Instead of silly jumps and mad wags and attempts at face licking, he scurried into the kitchen in that well known greyhound manner known as ‘better scarper, I’m in the shit’. The water from the flowers, being a week or more old, was nicely green and smelly and, mixed delicately with all the dust bunnies behind the sofa, had created an interesting pool of grey-green sludge. Well, that was the final straw. Shamed by my second pool of sludge in less than a week, I decided there and then to do some cleaning. So basically, then, I’m completely knackered. I’ve hoovered, mopped, dusted, cleaned out the fridge, chipped all the crusty toothpaste off the taps and even moved the office around so that my desk is by the window, giving me a fine view of the cows on the hill that goes down to the lough. I should point out here that my kitchen was spotless already - I can’t work in a yicky kitchen - and my beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous, shiny oven cost us so much money that I feel duty bound to remove even the teeniest speck of ick in case Hubby decides I don’t need it and takes it back to Harvey Norman.

Here’s my newly cleaned and repositioned desk. And now it’s not covered in CDs, newspapers, magazines, cookery books, phone bills, electricity bills, receipts, lottery tickets (3! I might well already be a millionaire) and various pages of my book (how’s that proofreading coming on, J?) you can see it’s made of wood. Who’d have thought it, eh?

Kid-friendly Lasagne with no bits

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Little Italian interlude today then. Hubby’s away so we’ve been stuffing ourselves with pasta (which he hates) and all thoughts of a Sunday roast were quickly discarded as we were all suddenly overtaken by an inexplicable need for lasagne. This, by the way, contains #1′s tried, tested and patented recipe for tomato sauce, which is the only one that his brother will eat, considering that English Towers enforces a strict ban on sauces in a jar (ew).

#1 is a bit of a whiz in the kitchen. Being older, his problem is less the safety aspect (#2 is permanently trying to separate his digits from his hands) but more his penchant for odd ingredients. Still, if you don’t mind the odd peanut butter, chocolate and jelly baby muffin for breakfast, you’re quids in. I’m keen that by the time they have to fend for themselves, they’re more than capable of making a few basic recipes in order to stave off any yearning for Pot Noodles. #1 is a big pasta fan, and taking into account his little brother’s hatred of lumpy sauces, has created this easy sauce: which works for everything from pouring over penne, to making pizza. You can even add some vegetable stock and a couple of cans of butter beans or chickpeas and make it into soup.

For the ‘bolognaise’ sauce:

1 large onion

1 clove garlic

1 tin good quality tinned tomatoes

Handful of basil leaves

Generous pinch of dried chilli flakes

Salt, pepper and sugar to taste

So first slice the onion, finely chop the garlic and fry gently, along with the chilli, in a pan with a splosh of olive oil, adding a sprinkle of salt until soft and slightly golden. Leave to cool while you open the tin of tomatoes, then blitz them until smooth in the blender. Add your onion and garlic mixture, plus the basil leaves and blitz again. Of course, if you’re normal and don’t care about lumps you can omit the blending bit and add the meat straight into the onions. Back to the pan, then, bung in a little olive oil and then add your mince, frying until brown. Then add back the blitzed tomato sauce and add salt and pepper and sweeten to taste with the sugar. Let this bubble away while you make the cheese sauce. If it seems a bit thick you can always add a bit of beef stock (remember the pasta will absorb some liquid).

For the cheese sauce:

1 fat slice butter (about 1oz should do it)

About the same quantity of flour (a heaped tablespoon I’d say)

1/2 to 3/4 pint milk

Handful grated Wexford mature cheddar

Handful grated Grana Padano (my current fave) or Parmigiano Reggiano

Plus, obviously, a pack of dried lasagne sheets

Melt the butter on a low heat and add the tablespoon of flour. A little whisk is indespensible here - whisk it until it makes a lovely smooth paste. Now you can start gradually adding your milk, stirring all the time to make a smooth bechamel sauce. The amount of milk you need will depend upon how thick you like your sauce. Just judge it by eye. Now add all but a little smidge of your cheeses (reserve a bit to sprinkle on top).

Now gather up all your bits and pieces (steady) and in your lasagne dish (deeper is better than wider, I find, as you can create more layers). The trick here is to start with a thin layer of cheese sauce, then just layer it up with lasagne sheets, then cheese sauce, then bolognaise, then lasagne, then cheese sauce, then bolognaise. Finish with a thin layer of cheese sauce and sprinkle on your reserved cheeses. Bung it in the oven at around 180 degrees for about 20 minutes and serve with a fresh green salad, some garlic bread and a big smug grin.

All my illusions shattered

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So according to my favourite gossip site Holy Moly The Stig’s not even real. Can you believe that? Their ‘mole’ states:

My father-in-law works for a British Formula One constructors company; they often go to Dunsfold/Top Gear studio to deliver cars etc. It’s a well-know fact that the Stig isn’t the same person at all; rather the test driver from whichever car manufacturer is ‘doing the lap’. Apparently, there’s no way that one person would ever be allowed to test the ‘sacred’ cars - even if they were a good driver.

They even state that Lewis Hamilton’s been The Stig on the occasional programme. Damn. And there’s me thinking he was a real person.

Oh, and Holy Moly quote of the week (which made me swallow a big mouthful of hot tea VERY quickly). On the news that Christina Ricci told Elle Magazine that she’d like a bigger bum:

Christina Ricci wants a big arse. I hear Paul Danan is single.

In which #1 goes out into the big wide world

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For the last…ooh…ten weeks, #1 has been eagerly anticipating his school trip. It was extra special as places were awarded on merit (trumpet blowing? Moi?) and as soon as he knew he’d got a place he began asking, frequently daily hourly how long to go until the big day.

Saturday, then, one day to go, sees him insisting on doing his own packing and eagerly charging up every conceivable electrical gadget (‘it’s a long trip, Mum’). His normally tidy bedroom is in turmoil with a delighted Bertie perched on top of all the mayhem (he’s had several hundred hugs and kisses goodbye already and is hoping for a few more). I wonder vaguely if he needs any washing done. ‘Ah, yes’, comes the answer, along with a worryingly small basket of laundry.

Sunday morning, half an hour before we need to leave, and he’s all packed: he’s borrowed a mobile phone, got his DVD player, #2′s iPod (secured with confectionery bribery), Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, vast piles of games, random DVDs (half of which he had to put back - ‘er, sweetheart, I really don’t think you should watch American Pie - at least for another few years yet’) and he’s standing eagerly by the front door. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: ‘Have you packed any underwear?’

#1: Blank look.

Me: ‘Pyjamas?’

#1: Blank look continues.

Me: ‘Toothbrush? Toothpaste? Shampoo? Shower gel?’

We head back upstairs, five minutes before we need to leave, me fuming and him looking vaguely bewildered, wondering what all the fuss is about. It turns out he’s got two pairs of boxers clean. ‘But I asked you to give me your laundry!’ I fume. ‘I did!’, he squeaks, ‘I picked it all up off my bedroom floor’. ‘And did you actually get any laundry out of the laundry bin?’ ‘Er…no’. My face is starting to turn hot and red and - inevitably - I boil over into a motherly bout of hollering: ‘So let’s get this straight - you’ve stuffed your bag full of gadgetry but are presumably planning to spend a week in France stinking like a skunk with two changes of underwear and extremely furry teeth?’

We spend the journey to school in silence - me gently simmering and #1 in the back still frantically trying to force his hastily assembled wash bag into his overstuffed holdall. We arrive at school and he rushes off to compare electronic equipment with his mates, then comes back when he remembers he forgot his wallet containing his carefully saved pocket money and proceeds to clear out my purse instead.

Finally, the coach leaves - look out, France, here they come - shiny, happy faces beaming from the window. And, waving, I realise the car’s on vapour, he’s not taken his seasickness tablets, and I’ve forgotten my credit cards and have just given him all my cash. I’m hit by a rush of emotion: my firstborn baby - my scatterbrained, disorganised, affectionate, know-it-all, dithering, infuriating, mad professor of a child - is all growed up and off on his first big adventure. God help us.

Bye bye Bertie

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No, not my lovely Bert, but straightforward, honest aul’ Bertie Ahern, who is, apparently ‘confident that he will be exonerated of wrongdoing’.

I don’t see the problem meself. I’m always hiding great wodges of cash, too.

Dark days indeed

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So I don’t know if you ever read Dogs Today magazine. The greyhound world has been fair thrown into turmoil by an article written by their vet following a horrific incident where an elderly couple’s little dog was killed by a pair of greyhounds. The vet, Emma Milne, treated the dog and was obviously incredibly upset by the incident. In the article, however, she goes on to question whether we should rehome greyhounds at all. To make matters worse, in an open letter on her website, she went on to say that she feels greyhound racing should be banned, calling it ‘an industry using animals for human entertainment’ and questioning ‘an industry that sets out to make a breed that is designed to chase and kill’.

Well, being a wordy sort of gal, obviously I fired off a letter to the Editor, Beverley Cuddy. I said firstly that I was sorry that Emma had received hate mail from greyhound lovers. That’s just base and inexcusable and doesn’t do anybody any favours, however that I had to doubt the wisdom of singling out a breed when, obviously, any breed will chase and kill another animal - I’m afraid that’s not exclusive greyhound territory. I also said that I’ve fostered ’non-chasing’ greyhounds such as Louis (Lethal Party) who went on to be rehomed with cats and small dogs. The responsibility for this, and any other incident of one dog killing another, lies solely with the idiotic owners who do not keep their dogs on leashes and firmly under control.

I told Beverley that we, as greyhound lovers, fight an ongoing battle (especially here in Ireland) with people who do not view greyhounds as pets, but more as ‘livestock’ and that whether it was intentional or not, Emma has added to this problem with her ill-advised comments. Adding in her response that ‘greyhound racing should be banned’ is also ill-informed and inflammatory. Although I’m no expert, I would worry that without legitimate racing, as with any sport, many people would lose their livelihoods, and the dogs, which genuinely enjoy the racing (nothing better than seeing a perky greyhound with tail going like the clappers after it’s run a race!), would end up being bred and raced ‘underground’ and unregulated with catastrophic results.

I know many greyhound owners and trainers, such as the lovely M and his family, and they’re good people who love their dogs. Sadly it’s the odd bad penny that gets all the press. I went on say that greyhounds often get a very rough deal and that I hoped that Dogs Today would continue to give a balanced view of the greyhound as a pet, and even offered to give an insight into greyhound ownership.

Happily, I got a very nice email from Beverley this morning directing me to her blog where she had written in depth about the article. I’ll let you read it but I’ll just quote the following:

We should have picked the piece up as a knee-jerk reaction to a horrible series of events.
It was like allowing the mother of an abducted child to write an article on paedophiles. Emma was far too close to the story and needed to have had time to cool off - or for us to interject some balance.

I have to say, I’m well impressed. Sometimes you just expect people to close ranks around their own, but Beverley was brave enough to say ‘no, hang on, this isn’t right’ and I’m sure she’ll appease a lot of people. In the mean time, Dogs Today, with the article in it, is circulating for the entire month. And I just wonder what damage it will do to the hard work put in every day by greyhound rehomers like Jen, and every retired greyhound waiting patiently for a loving home.

A postbox full of loveliness

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Postie please stop here

Ooh, I love post. One advantage to living here is the extra excitement that builds on the walk down the drive to the postbox. Nobody in Ireland seems to have a letterbox in their front door. They all have a lovely little tin box thing on the front gate that you have to open with a key. A key! Hubby hates post because he gets all the bills and crap, so I get the special job of walking down and emptying the post box. Sometimes it’s even a parcel. I reallylove a parcel. I must be the only 38 year old woman who still gets excited opening her pressies on her birthday (and I got some right corkers this year). I am also lucky to have incredibly thoughtful parents. Me Ma sends little cards and letters (often with a very welcome €10 for the boys) and The Disreputable One will often send jokes and stuff to the boys, and cut clippings out of the newspaper about things that he thinks will interest me. A recent photocopy of an article about censorship in Ireland being a good example: did you know that as late as 1967 (when the Censorship ofPublications Act was finally reformed) Ireland had probably the toughest censorship laws in the ’free’ world? And did you also know that the list of authors whose books were banned by the Irish Censorship of Publications Board included Hemingway, Steinbeck, Shaw and even Raymond Chandler (my goodness, how did the people of Ireland live without Philip Marlowe?)? Anyhoo, digressing. The point is that my Disreputable Dad knew instantly that I’d like it, and was kind enough to stick it in the post. Ripping it open and reading it as I wound my way back up the drive absolutely made my morning - like a little chat with the aul’ boy even though he’s not here.

One downside of this love of parcels is a serious Ebay addiction that knows no bounds. This, though, combined with the memory of a goldfish, means that I’m permanently pleasantly surprised by my purchases. I’ve been trying to cut back, as you know, but this morning even our seriously overworked Postie had to admit defeat and leave one of those little yokes in the box that means you have to pop to the Post Office and pick up your bulky items (I love those too).

Four parcels offered up such wonders as ‘The Water Boy’ DVD (LOVE that film: ‘Youuu can doooo it!’), a DVD of the original ‘Italian Job’ which I really want the boys to see (‘you were aownly suppaowsed to blaow the blardy doors off!’), a copy of Helena Frith Powell’s ‘Two Lipsticks and a Lover’ which I’ve wanted for ages (I just really need to learn the secrets of Parisian women), and the pièce de résistance: a signed copy of Nigel Slater’s ‘Eating for England’. I just love a deliciously new pile of books by the side of my bed. And you can almost guarantee that by the time the pile’s back down to two or three, the ‘To Do’ list in my phone will have another huge list of books and films that I’ve read about, or been recommended, or just remembered that I liked, and after a couple of glasses of Merlot and a lubly Ebay session, the little tin box at the end of the drive will be full again. Bliss.