Thought for the day

Be a fruit loop in a world full of cheerios

Old age

Alice Smith was sitting in the waiting room for her first appointment with a new dentist. She noticed his DDS Diploma, which bore his full name.

Suddenly she remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name who had been in her class in school 30 odd years back. Could he be the same guy she had had a secret crush on all those years back??

Upon seeing him, however, she quickly discarded and such thought. This balding gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been her classmate.

After he examined her teeth, she asked him if he had attended the school she had gone to. 'Yes. Yes, I did' he gleamed with pride.

'When did you graduate?' asked Alice

'1967' he replied 'why do you ask?'

'You were in my class!' exclaimed Alice

He looked at her closely. Then the ugly, old baldy, wrinkled, fat ass, gray-haired decrepit son-of-a b asked

'What did you teach?'

Amusing blog fact

I have a friend who checks this blog on a regular basis. He was telling me the other night about the time recently he surfed in at lunchtime and Toni Basil's 'Hey Mickey' started blaring full blast across the office.

Apparently, it caused more than a little interest, amusement and consternation. (It appears, Nancy, that not everyone shares our love of 80's music!)

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall as he struggled to find the volume control on his PC, whilst manfully ignoring those who stood up at their desks to peer in his direction.

Hope the office like the current musical offering a little better!

56. my home was wrecked in an IRA bomb

Wednesday 23rd September 1992

The PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) exploded a huge bomb, estimated at 2,000 pounds, at the Northern Ireland Forensic Science laboratories in Newtownbreda, south Belfast. This was the biggest bomb the IRA had ever used in Northern Ireland, and the building was completely destroyed. My house was directly behind the Forensic Science labs, and it and most of the others in our street were destroyed with it.

Some said it was an attempt to destroy evidence in the labs. Others maintained that the massive bomb had been intended for RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary, or police) headquarters at Knock in east Belfast, but that the police had had a tip-off and security in that area was tight, so instead they drove to the Forensic labs and dumped their bomb there.

The Provisionals used a 'van bomb', basically a lorry loaded with explosives, which they abandoned on the public road in front of the building without warning. Let me explain 'without warning'. On occasions, the IRA would have telephoned bomb warnings through to the media or the Samaritans to give the police and army an opportunity to cordon off the affected area and remove 'innocent' people before the bomb exploded. (nice of them)

So no warning, but such was the level of fear in Belfast at the time that any empty vehicle near any government facility was immediately declared suspicious and as a result, and 8.25pm, the police arrived at our front door to say they were evacuating the area because there was a van that might be suspicious, and could we please leave.

Well, my dad has just brought all his shoes downstairs and had started cleaning them, and when the officer left he returned to his polishing job, unperturbed as usually these things were hoaxes and anyway the police hadn't seemed that urgent and hadn't said we had to go.

Mum, on the other hand was a bit more concerned and insisted that dad leave his shoes and we all leave the house. Our neighbours were beginning to saunter down the street at a leisurely pace but we called with an elderly lady who lived across the road to take her with us, and because she was quite frail, dad decided he would take the car.

Our street was a cul-de-sac, and in order to get out, we all actually had to go towards the bomb, so when the lorry exploded just before 8.40pm we were literally 100/150 yards away from it. I remember the flash. Everything went orange, and I vividly remember curling in a ball, putting my fingers in my ears and thinking 'wow, the bang's going to be big when it comes!'

And it was. The force lifted the car off the road. It blew people around us off their feet. And I remember seeing 'stuff' flying through the air. Turned out that 'stuff' was blasted parts of lorry - two foot of the axle was located in our back garden the next morning.

Miraculously, and it really was a miracle, only twenty people were injured, (none seriously) but approximately 700 houses were damaged in the blast. When we were eventually allowed back to our house later that night I remember looking at the front of it and thinking how pretty it looked, like a Christmas tree draped with icicles, only the icicles were the jagged remains of our double glazed windows. And I also remember being a bit cross that nobody had thought to close the front door before we had left earlier, until we found the front door blown off it's hinges, through the hall and into the kitchen.

Then I had my first experience of the 'Dunkirk spirit'. Neighbours helping neighbours sweep up glass and make their homes as secure as possible that first night. Candles were shared and people set up barbecues and portable gas rings in the street to boil water. People from voluntary agencies arrived with soup, sandwiches and flasks of hot water and somewhere down the street someone had a radio blaring; the song? Annie Lennox 'Walking on Broken Glass'!! And in the wee small hours, the moderators of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Catholic churches appeared out of nowhere and shared a dram of whiskey.

The cost of repairs was estimated at £6 million. We never got back all the money we had to spend fixing our house. Nobody did. We had so much structural work that needed to be done that it was into the new year before I was able to sleep in my own bedroom again. Up until that point I camped out on the floor in the lounge, sleeping under the Christmas tree over the holiday period. Oh yes, our houses might have been blown to bits, but we all still had our Christmas decorations up!

Somewhere, there are photographs. I have hunted all over for them ... twice. I will hunt again and if I find them I will post the visual evidence. Until then you'll just have to use your imagination. Probably the more vivid the better!

Just for the record, that wasn't the first attack on the Forensic site. In 1975 significant damage was caused to the premises when an employee was forced by the Provisional IRA to drive a car bomb, basically a car loaded with explosives, up to the building. That bomb, however, caused only moderate damage. I remember that night well too, because the resulting fire in the labs set off all the stored ammunition and we had to be evacuated in the middle of the night in case a stray bullet found it's way through one of our windows!

Don't you all just wish you'd had the chance to grow up in Belfast??

Mayday, Mayday!

Yesterday was the May Bank Holiday Monday. A scortcher to boot. The first decent day of the year.

What better day then for our local 4* Ramada hotel to stick up a picture of Santa Claus and announce that they are now taking bookings for Christmas '08?

Bad day at the office

I decided to take this post down. It served it's purpose last night, but today is a new day!

However, Steve made this point which I think is worth keeping:

'We need to train the whole world that, 'Hello how are you?' is a fine question to anybody, whether or not you know they have been ill and regardless of what sort of ill they've been.'

PS when the radio alarm went of at 6.30 this morning, what was playing? 'The only Way is Up' - Yazz and the Plastic Population. Honestly! How about that then

Cheers!

The girls attended cheerleading classes today. Well, only one took part, but the other had to watch for 'moral support'.

So now Dolly is a signed-up member of the Junior 'G Crew', official cheerleading squad to the Belfast Giants Ice Hockey team. We don't even like ice hockey.

And of course, she has to practice, hence the new blog music. If you have to have the sound on, I advise the use of earplugs. Industrial strength ones if you have access to them.

More on the concept we call the pyjama mama

Cosmo, please take note:

I have made a further discovery regarding the life of the frequently-spotted pyjama mama. Previous to this current exposure to the breed, I believed that they only delivered their children to school wearing their night attire.

After further study in recent times, I am able to confirm that they also collect their children from school at 1.30pm, still sporting their night attire. Even in the rain.

The other, more distressing discovery I made this week is that I am now teaching my pupils kids :-(

Irish weather

Irish weather has been declared Muslim:

It's partly Sunni, but mostly Shi'ite

Waiting on the fatwa!

New blog alert

Much in the way my sister-in-law encouraged me to start blogging many moons ago, I have been working on a friend to do the same.

Of course, my sister-in-law had the advantage of being a psychiatrist. So, if she'd recommended that I stood on my head in the middle of the street to make me feel better, I'd have done it. I am on the other hand, just your ordinary nutter who nobody takes too seriously, so my job has been more difficult.

But hey, my efforts must have worked because look!

I'm not going to say too much about my friend or her blog - you'll just have to pop over, say 'hi' and find it all out for yourself, but I can promise this; this is going to be a blog to watch!

(No pressure Wils!!)

100 random things about me

Wallace at Irish Rain encouraged me to try this after I made comment on his list on his blog. It is not as easy as it looks. It has taken days! So here it is, not in any particular order, my list:

1. politics bore me rigid
2. I am jealous of my daughter's eyelashes and my son's hair colour
3. summer and Christmas are my favourite times of year
4. I can be a bit of a tidy freak
5. as a rule, I don't vomit
6. I have a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award
7. my hair is probably officially grey
8. I play the bodhran
9. sand is better than snow in my opinion
10. I have fired a gun, I'm a pretty good shot
11. my only piercings are in my ears
12. gardening is not my thing
13. I want to visit the islands of the South Pacific, all of them
14. don't ask me to get on a horse ever again
15. I am not a morning person
16. my cup's generally half full
17. I hate feet
18. geocaching is my current 'sport' of choice
19. I went to school with Ian Paisley Jnr
20. the first car I had was an old mini
21. my mum does my ironing
22. I had half my hair cut off once for a show. The left half.
23. every plant I touch dies
24. I know how to get incriminating photos of Pluto
25. quilting, cake decorating and scrapbooking have all been hobbies
26. if I had one wish it would be to die before my children
27. my hair is 100% naturally curly
28. thanks to Jaws, I'm scared of fish
29. if you need a wall plastered, I'm your girl!
30. the only sport I watch is rugby
31. I have eaten rat
32. David Soul was my hero even before I met him in a hotel lift in Dublin
33. I could eat Turkish Delight all day, and sometimes do
34. when I can, I buy Fairtrade
35. organisation is my strong point
36. coffee goes straight through me
37. my sister-in-law turned me into a Desperate Housewives addict
38. I have never had a ticket or points on my license
39. The Beatles, The Who and The Stones - no thanks
40. I taught English in Poland
41. the tonsils are gone, but the appendix is still there
42. I am terrified of heights
43. baking and cooking over cleaning any day
44. my current ringtone is Girl from Belfast City
45. I honestly do like camping
46. Ben & Jerry's phish food is the best icecream in the world
47. I've never broken a limb
48. the best book I ever read was Brian Keenan's An Evil Cradling
49. given a chance, I'd spend all my money on holidays
50. I won a prize every year at school
51. Cancer Research is my charity of choice
52. I have a wee job that nobody knows about
53. Songs of Praise rejected me
54. anaesthetics don't agree with me
55. I lived in a mud hut in Africa for a while
56. my home was wrecked in an IRA bomb
57. crisps are my weakness
58. I wear a lot of black
59. for a year I paid money to a gym, but I never went
60. I've worked in a pharmacy
61. once I was Brethren, now I'm non-denominational
62. filling in forms drives me nuts
63. I have travelled pretty extensively
64. purple is my favourite colour
65. I worked alongside UNHCR in Croatia during the Balkan war
66. Martini with lemonade is my tipple
67. I have osteoarthritis
68. my 1st teaching job should have been in the Bahamas, but I turned it down
69. best concert I attended was the Eagles, Dublin 1996
70. I hate, hate, hate football
71. Top Gear makes me laugh out loud
72. I have been to several garden parties at Buckingham Palace
73. sometimes I write for a satirical website
74. I can waterski
75. secretly, I've always wanted a go at being an air hostess
76. Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most moving place I have ever visited
77. I have had a mental illness
78. I always leave the coconut ones in liquorice allsorts
79. freesia are my favourite flower
80. we had kids from Chernobyl stay with us for re-hab
81. I'd rather be rich than famous
82. my pet peeve is finding used teabags in the sink
83. you can't beat Karen Carpenter's voice, or Michael Buble's, or Bryan Adams ...
84. scrabble and yahtzee are my games of choice
85. I once bought my husband half a grave for Christmas. He bought me the other half
86. I'm in a book club
87. I don't do sleep deprivation
88. what's a screwdriver? what's a hammer?
89. benefit makeup works miracles
90. I have a head like a sieve
91. my perfect pizza is mushroom and pineapple
92. I love the smell of honeysuckle, suntan lotion and fresh cut grass
93. culturally, more Irish than British
94. I generally only swear when I'm watching rugby
95. my old art teacher begged me not to do 'O' level Art
96. apparently, I always order the pasta
97. I support a child in Kenya through Tear Fund
98. shhhh, I'm not supposed to tell you this; I was a Samaritan
99. unfortunately I know all the words to High School Musical
100. I've just discovered I don't like writing lists

Gee, thanks!

I made chicken korma for dinner last night. I mean I didn't order it from a takeaway or buy it prepared in Tescos, I made it from scratch.

I knew by the look on her face when she sat down at the table :-(

She put a forkful in her mouth, and pronounced:

'You know, this actually tastes quite good!'

Everyone's a critic

My little one was playing in a rugby tournament today. Luckily, despite having an inch of hailstones for the Ulster Magners League match last night, today was a splendiferous day (I apparently, have a bit of a tan about my face!) so I was able to go and watch without suffering the risk of a further chest infection or a bout of hypothermia.

I don't mind doing the touchline thing, apart from one factor: other parents. And unfortunately, today was no different.

My little one plays for the P3 team, that's 6-7 year olds. IRFU say you have to be 6 years old to play mini-rugby (though a few always creep in under the wire) so this is their first year of playing. IRFU also state that at that age they are to play tag rugby with no contact. All good sensible stuff.

The reality of the situation is that 6-7 years olds are kids who don't always remember to pass the ball behind them, don't understand the 'offside rule' and sometimes enthusiastically run in touch in their desire to get to the try line. I've even seen them run down the wrong end of the pitch in their efforts to get over a line. So, they're only wee, and it's only a game, and you want to encourage them and make sure they enjoy it.

As ever, there are two type of parents at these events; the winning parents and the losing parents. Let's start with the winning parents today. I had one standing beside me during the first game who really should have been on the pitch refereeing the game himself. Some of his mantras included

1. touch, referee, touch
2. referee, they're offside
3. get in their (by this he meant the oppositions) face
4. referee, are you watching the run of play?
5. we got that tag 5 yards up the pitch ref

Now, I'm not one for listening to this kind of piffle at a 6-7 years olds tag rugby match. At an Ulster match, definitely - in fact I've been known to be quite vociferous myself. But there's a time and a place. And this was not the time or the place. So I gave him a look. Which, I have to say, he manfully ignored, but his wife caught it and started to say things like, 'it's only a game dear' and 'I think you're maybe taking this a nit too seriously'. You think, eh?

Then there's the losing parents, of which, today, I was one. All sweetness and light when the coaches are standing chatting with them, but as soon as the losing starts they are criticising 'selection procedures for teams' and 'coach involvement on the pitch', taking a pop at 'the way the team have been trained throughout the year' ... I could go on.

I have a husband who is a mini rugby coach. They are at the ground first every Saturday morning for 9am, and they leave last when all is tidied up. Or when all the kids are collected, which sometimes can be up to an hour after the session is over. They also have mid-week training and matches on occasions and frequently have organisational/planning meetings during the week, particularly in the run up to events like todays. This morning, the coaches were at the grounds from 7am to set up. They were there until 5pm this evening. And they are, of course, all volunteers. In fact, they have to pay membership to the club for the privilege of coaching other peoples kids, whereas the majority of parents just turn up and show no financial allegiance whatsoever. And yes, if coaches have kids, their kids still pay full wack mini rugby fees as well.

So, if you are a parent with issues, be a coach I say. Or get married to one. Then come and criticise with impunity.

10 years old today

The Good Friday Agreement,

aka

'The Peace'

Plan for your future

I had occasion to be in an old peoples residential home recently.

I noticed that about five minutes after we arrived the residents seemed to be getting up and vacating the lounge to form an orderly queue at the office. Well of course, nosy me, I had to go see if I could find out what was going on.

They seemed to be returning with little plastic beakers. Ah! Medication I think. Obviously I was staring a little too hard, because one of the care assistants winked my direction and explained that it was 'tipple time'. Whiskey and sherry to be precise, and its administered three times a day.

Well, I guess it must save then a fortune on anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

It's true what they say: be nice to your kids, they choose your residential home.

Neighbours

1. I have noticed that when the couple next door take their dog for a drive, it sits in the front on a cushion and the wife sits in the back seat
2. The family on the other side of us are moving to Austin, Texas in June for two years because of work committments

Turn your sound on

What's that then?

Rant

It was with a knot in my stomach that I read this report on Steve's blog today.

To summarise, teacher David Buckley, writing in the Guardian's education supplement, tells the sad story of how he visited the Facebook site called 'The Dave Buckley Appreciation Society' and got a bit of a shock. He found himself described as patronising and disorganised with ill-fitting shirts and coffee stains on his clothes. He's had the site closed down, arguing rightly, that he signed up for scrutiny from a small audience not an international one.

As I commented over on Mustard Seed Shavings, I think this piece is absolutely horrendous. Personal attacks and incidents like this are why good people are leaving the teaching profession in their droves, and why the government are finding it so difficult to recruit others to the job.

There are, in teaching as in most other jobs, proper structures in place to evaluate the effectiveness of staff, and procedures for correction where appropriate. These include OFSTED (or DENI locally) inspections, the reports of which are published on the appropriate body's website for public consumption.

Then there's PRSD, the Performance Review and Staff Development scheme, were teachers are reviewed annually 'on the job' by their Principal or a member of Senior staff designated by the Principal. This involves monitoring of performance and classroom observation. (The outcome of these reviews is actually linked to pay, so they are not insignificant!)

Let's not forget about League Tables, a document published that showed the results for each exam class in each subject at every level in every school. You could use these documents to see, for example, what grades the class of a colleague who taught the same subject in another school got.

It's one thing to be judged by other professionals in your field. It's something completely different to be judged by those who are neither working in your field, nor professionals.

For years I taught students who didn't want to be there, didn't want to listen, didn't want to learn, didn't want to do any work and didn't want a job because they knew they could live very nicely on Government handouts thankyou. So, because I persisted in teaching the syllabus, because I expected them to listen to me instead of their MP3 players, because I pushed for coursework (and coursework of what I considered an acceptable standard for each individual pupil), because I expected a level of behaviour above 'riotous' in my classroom, and because I pushed them to be the best they could be, do the best they could do, improve themselves and their opportunities, I was judged. I was the bitch. Actually, I was the f**king bitch.

Of course, I wasn't the best teacher in the world, but I'd had my fair share of positive reports from DENI Inspectors and my exam results were always above average both in my own school and across other schools. I wasn't a greenhorn or a soft touch either - I held a fairly senior position within the school. However, where some of my students were concerned, because I didn't let them listen to their music, chew gum, swear at each other or me, do colouring in all day, talk about (or even to) the oppostie sex, beat each other up, write paramilitary graffiti and smoke or drink in class, I was a rubbish teacher.

People in some other professions just wouldn't take the abuse that a minority of students who act as judge, jury and executioner deal out to their so-called 'rubbish' teachers. Mine were rude; personal and hurtful. They told me they hated me. Frequently. I was sworn at and threatened. They made up ficticious stories. I was man handled (I was pushed off a bus when I was five months pregnant). They went out of their way to try and make life hell in the classroom. Will I go on? I'm thinking you're getting the picture.

And today, it's on a whole new level because they do it in the public domain of the internet. Go see 'Rate my Teacher' dot com.

It's bullying. And it's hateful, and it's hurtful, and it gets you down.

But, let it be said that, as in the story of the 10 lepers, there was generally one student who came back at the end of it all to say thankyou, and that in itself made it all worthwhile and maintained my sanity for many a year.

Just for the record, this wasn't the main reason for my breakdown, which led to me resigning my full-time job. However, who's to say if the constant wearing thin of my elephantine hide by such behaviour wasn't a contributory factor to it. One thing was for certain, life had got to the stage were I had to stop raising other peoples kids and start enjoying raising my own while I still had the mental capacity to do it.

PS. I think I need to finish off by saying that I love teaching, which is why I'm still doing it instead of working the till at Tesco!

Dopey, dopey mummy

The stupid thing here is that all schools had different holidays, with as much as a week between them starting, so although the schools I work in, my brother works in and my niece goes to all finished for Easter on the 14th March, my kids school didn't finish until the 20th March. With the result that we had to take our kids out of school for four days so we could all go to Stowe at the same time.

Now everyone else is back to school, and my kids have another week off. Of course, the great advantage of being a sub teacher is that I can pencil out this week to look after them. Of course, the great disadvantage is that when I don't work, I don't get paid!

Anyway, they had been given some work to do over the holidays to make up for what they missed on those last four days and yesterday we (reluctantly) started it. We have a few jobs that need to be done as well, and this morning we set off to buy the new music book Michael needed for returning to school.

We had just set off when my mobile rang. My end of the conversation went something like this:

'Hello' pause 'Oh hello Mrs McClure'.

Shocked faces in the back seat of the car, Mrs McClure is the kids school secretary.

Giggles 'Oh good grief, I don't believe you!' pause 'I'm so sorry, I just didn't realise'

Scared faces in the back seat.

'OK Mrs McClure, thanks for letting me know' pause 'OK, bye!'

Immediately from the back seat 'I told you we had to go back to school today Mummy!' At this point they first worked out how Mrs McClure had known they weren't at school and then they worked on a plan for not getting into trouble with their respective teachers. Michael phoned his dad to tell him the bad news.

'OK' I say 'do you want me to turn back and take you in now, or will we wait until we've done our message?'

Silence, and then in panic 'But we've not finished our homework yet! ' A quick glance in the rear view mirror showed that tears were welling up in eyes.

'Never worry' I said, 'you don't have to go back today, we can go home and finish off the work and then you can go back tomorrow with it done.'

Pause 'Oh, and April Fools!'

Mama Mia

My mum and dad went to see this musical when they were in New York last year with friends, and they haven't stopped talking about it ever since. Mum wanted her grandaughters (and their mums!) to have the chance to see it, so yesterday we went to see it in Belfast.

I have to admit here that in my formative years I was an avid ABBA fan and so yesterday I was just in my element. I knew every song - no ... I knew every word to every song! Dolly had been force-fed a diet of ABBA music whilst we were in the States in preparation for the event, but even though she didn't recognise all the music, she loved the dancing, especially when the boys did a bit of Irish in their flippers!

I highly, highly recommend this musical to anyone; the music is great, the dancing superb and the story a good one. At the end of the show the whole audience were dancing in the aisles. Nancy Mon, I believe you would particularly enjoy this.

Don't waste your time waiting for the movie to be released later this year (although the movie does have Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth in it, yum yum!), splash out and go see the real thing!

Can you remember what you were doing 12 years ago today?

I can. The events of the day are stamped on my brain with indelible ink. Mine and a few other people's as well, a few hundred other people to be precise!

12 years ago today, for the very first time ever in my life, I fainted. In front of a church full of about 200 people. And then, about 8 minutes later, I did it again.

I know you can tell I'm leaving something out in the detail here, and that would be right. Because Friday 29th March 1996 also happened to be my wedding day, but what transpired to be a nasty dose of vertigo turned what should have been a serene day into a bit of a pantomime.

For context: Vertigo is the sensation of spinning even when you are standing completely still. Your surroundings appear to be moving either vertically or horizontally. Some people feel that they are actually spinning. The effect may be slight and only just noticeable, or it may be so severe that you fall to the ground. That was my type.

So we're all standing at the front of the church during the first hymn, Be Thou my Vision, when suddenly I find myself sitting on the front pew. Apparently I had blacked out completely, had been caught on the way down by my (not quite) husband and placed there whilst everyone else sang on, mostly oblivious to what had happened. Half the bridal party, though, had disappeared in different directions to try and secure a glass of water, smelling salts, towels and hot water or whatever people look for in an emergency!

The Elder from the church who was marrying us (I attended a Brethern assembly at that time, hence no minister) made the sensible decision to carry on as if nothing had happened which was exactly what we wanted to happen.

And we did, until we got to the first set of vows when I did it again. Only this time my (not quite) husband shouted 'Oh Shit!' (he was Presbyterian at the time) into the inconveniently placed microphone for the whole congregation to hear. (Our church spilt not long after we got married. I don't believe there is any direct correlation between the events, but ...)

At this stage, the Elder decided we should retire to the vestry. How I got there I'm not too sure. I have a vision of me being carried arse up over someones shoulder out the front of the church. The photographer didn't get that shot.

I was very well attended to in the vestry; luckily we had a neurologist, a cardiologist, a psychiatrist, an orthopaedic surgeon and at least three GPs attending the wedding, and actually after a few minutes break, we continued with proceedings, said everything we were supposed to say and got married.

Or at least, that's what we told the guests when we returned to the church some 10 minutes later to a standing ovation. Who can say for sure?? ;-)

Skiing at Stowe

So, we are home!

We've had a great holiday, St Patrick's Day in Boston was special, and the skiing at Stowe was brilliant! This is the kids first time skiing and they absolutely loved it and took to it like ducks to water.

This little clip shows Michael running his dad off the mountain, and there's a guest appearance by Jill the 'skiing marshmallow' at the end of the clip!

Pleased to report no major accidents or incidents, just one very bad chest infection (me), a couple of bad coughs and four lots of dry lips to prove we were even away.

The flight over adled my brain

That's the only way I can explain the fact that yesterday afternoon I was found standing outside in the snow in my bikini.

OK, so there was a heated outdoor pool involved in this story as well, but all the same ...

Happy St Patricks Day

Blogging from America!

Just a quick post from Boston, wishing everyone a very happy St Patricks Day. We had an eventful journey over, maybe more on that after our return, but here we are.

Spent yesterday afternoon at the St Patrick's Day parade which was great, very different to anything we are used to here. We then met up with some friends from the Boston area for a meal and some great craic in the Cheescake Factory (I've NEVER seen portions as big :-s) It was super to see these friends again; we met on honeymoon 12 years ago and have been in touch ever since.

Bob & Rose, if you're reading this, it's time you came back to Ireland!

My three greatest 'Irish' moments: in 1st place

In the Autumn of 2003 England won the Rugby World Cup. Or, to be more precise, Jonny Wilkinson had an exceptional run of matches, scored a load of points with the boot and won the Rugby World Cup for England.

Will the rest of us ever be allowed to forget it? No. Never. Not a chance.

Ireland's performance in the 2003 World Cup was a disappointing affair, although we did manage to get to the quarter-finals, where we were fairly comprehensively hammered by the French and that was the end of that.

After their victorious return from Australia with the Webb Ellis trophy, England had met and beaten both Italy and Scotland in the 2004 Six Nations. Both had been away games. Against Ireland, the English Champions were playing at home, in England for the first time since lifting the cup.

The English (and in particular the English press) were buzzing. For weeks before it, the hype was hyped. A carnival was planned for the day of the match, it was arranged that the RAF would do a fly-by, the trophy would be on full display. The papers talked of nothing else, we were reliably informed that God was an Englishman and the word 'champions' was gravely over-used. You could have been forgiven for thinking the English were the only team taking part in the Six Nations that season.

And the Irish sat quietly in the corner, picking the bog out from between their trotters and watching the pig in the parlour.

Saturday 6th March. 4pm kick off.

Now, I usually shout at the TV when there's rugby on, but this day was inordinate. When D'Arcy made his break I remember standing two foot away from the box guldering at the screen. By the time the ball was passed to Howe on the second occasion, I was on my knees on the floor, peeping through my hands, crying. And when I finally drew breath and looked round, my dad was crying, my mum was crying, my hubby was crying, the kids were crying - the whole flippin country was crying!

Final score: England 13, Ireland 19. Fan-feckin-tastic.

My three greatest 'Irish' moments: in 2nd place

In March 2003 the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment were preparing to move into Iraq from Fort Blair Mayne desert camp, 20 miles from the Iraqi border.

Before they went, their commanding officer, Belfast man Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins, gathered them round in the compound and gave this off the cuff pep talk.

Amazing words.

Having heard it reported back in Britain by a journalist from the Mail on Sunday who was shadowing the regiment, the colonel's speech won high praise in a personal letter from Prince Charles, while President George W Bush is understood to have requested a copy for the wall of the Oval Office.

If you get the chance, and feel that way inclined, I recommend you read Collins' book Rules of Engagement for an honest, gritty insight to the war in Iraq.

My three greatest 'Irish' moments: in 3rd place

Every year we endure an event called the Eurovision Song contest. This is broadcast live around Europe and the basic format is that each country performs a song specially written for the competition and then, after everyone has performed and during an interval item, expert panels from each participating country award points for their favourite song and the country with the most points wins.

In 1994 Ireland had the dubious pleasure of hosting the final of the contest in Dublin. The songs were the same basic Eurotrash rubbish we'd come to expect (but love) over the years, but this final stood out because of the normally insignificant interval item. This was the night that RiverDance was first performed to an audience anywhere in the world, and what was intended to be the 'half-time entertainment' turned out to be the show stopping winner.

I was watching it with a crowd of friends and gradually the chat in the room stopped as we were caught up in the magic of the spectacle unfolding in front of us. Frankly, it was the most amazing thing any of us had ever witnessed and mouths were literally hanging open as we watched.

Two things I still remember very clearly about that night;

1: the noise of the cheer from the live audience in Dublin when it finished, and
2: the complete silence in the room as we were all completely and utterly lost for words afterwards

This is a clip of the first and original performance of an Irish phenomenon that has, and still is, sweeping the world 14 years on.

Listen for that cheer.

Should've had my roots done

Dana, how could you??

Dustin the turkey dished by Dana.

Undergoing essential repairs

I lost my voice yesterday. Mid lesson. It just sort of slowly disappeared to the point where I had to bang the table with a wooden spoon in the middle of a practical lesson and mime! Made for an interesting lesson anyway.

For only the second time in my life, I was rendered completely speechless. The first time was when I lost my voice the week before I was due to sing in church. There's testimoney to the power of prayer.

I lost a crown this week too. It lost its bearings as I munched my way through a bowl of icecream adorned with jelly tots and M&Ms on Mothers Day. Luckily a trip today to my (NHS) dentist and £25 soon saw me right on that one.

Getting my voice back should be cheaper, but will probably take longer. My husband was loving it, up until the point I was able to remind him that communication can be both spoken and written. Don't you just love Post-its?

Happy Mothers Day

And the winner is ...

DAY-NA!

It is actually tomorrow here, and we kept mum up way past her traditional cocoa time to make the draw. She tried to cheat and pick Millie, but we kept a very close eye on her!

From the country that gave you Dustin the Turkey ...

Due warning

Because I am now required to do paid employment on Friday 29th February, the draw for the St Patrick's day giveaway will be held on Thursday 28th February - tomorrow!

There are two reasons for this:

1) I really need to get the parcel posted (if it has to be posted) before the weekend if possible, and doing that on Friday is now ruled out

2) I don't trust me mammy to do the job unsupervised, you've all swelled up her head so much with nice talk.

So just to recap ... tomorrow, tomorrow, TOMORROW!

Me Mammy!

With a dead bird on her head

(in case you thought it was Dustin the Turkey revisited!)

((she sings better than the turkey))

(((she once sang with Sir Cliff Richard)))

She's not got the IT skills to reciprocate!!

It's working again now!

Every year the countries across Europe compete in a songwriting and singing competition called the Eurovision Song Contest. Of course, our anally retentive neighbouring European countries take it all very seriously.

This is Irelands entry this year, chosen by telephone poll just last night. How many times did YOU vote Cosmo??

The 'song' is written and 'performed' by Dustin the turkey.

GO IRELAND!!!

The maths

With the draw being made on Friday morning, I've been having a look at the maths involved. There's

• a 1 in 4 chance the parcel can be hand delivered to the winner
• a 1 in 3 chance it's going to end up in Houston Baptist
• a 1 in 6 chance it will go to someone Irish
• a 1 in 6 chance it's going to Nancy (Dana tipped me off)
• a 1 in 12 chance it will end up in Canada

You can still enter here. I'm think I'm going to let my mum make the draw, there's not much excitement in her life since she gave up the extreme sports!

Don't forget ...

... to enter the giveaway!

Miserable Part 2

I'm sat here with a tissue stuffed up each nostril again. It's not even a fortnight since I shifted the last dose of the cold and here I am again, feeling pretty miserable and extremely sorry for myself :-(

Even the thought of the English being hammered by the French in the Six Nations tomorrow doesn't really cheer me up!

The investing types should investigate shares in Kleenex.

I forgot the worst 'p' of all ...

... but was reminded in glorious technicolour just before breaktime - puke.

Yes, I had a puker. But by the time it happened I was already so far gone I was able to cope admirably.

To put the days events in context, I should explain that for the last number of years of my teaching career, I headed up courses training young people over 16 to become nursery assistants and classroom assistants to the 7 and unders. Read the books?? I'd flippin' lectured on them! And I'd seen Kindergarten Kop and Daddy DayCare too many time to mention - I was so qualified for this job!

Yeah, right.

School started at 9am, and believe it or not, it took me until breaktime to mark the register. In fact, it took me to breaktime to work out exactly how many there were in the class, such was their speed.

Hokey toot, what next but someone snuck £2 dinner money onto the teachers desk during the course of the morning. 'Who put the dinner money on the teacher's desk?' Blank looks. 'If you put the dinner money on the teacher's desk, could you put your hand up?' Immediately 12 hands shot up, and then 2 seconds later the remaining four went up when they realised the rest of the class had their hands up.

I never did work out whose dinner money that was. Eventually, I cut my loses and took the money to the school office, apologising for not knowing who had paid it. 'Ah' said the very patient lady in the office ' did no-one own up to owning it?' 'That's just it' I replied 'they ALL owned up to owning it!'. The good news is, everyone got fed anyway.

Having spent the morning marking the register and sorting out dinner money, hooray! - it was nearly breaktime. All I had to do to get the class ready for break was to feed, water, toilet and dress them for outdoor play. So I started a good half hour in advance of the break bell, and I managed to pull up the last coat zipper just as the bell rang for the end of break.

We got into routine after that and when it came time for dinner, my class were still last to get there, but they were only just last! With the added bonus of only and hour to go after lunch!!

Until the P4 teacher arrived down to tell me that when my class went home at 2pm, I was to take her class for PE... For and hour... Outside.

Money well earned today people!

What have I done

As you probably know, I work as a substitute teacher. In other words, if the regular teacher is off work because they are at a training day, ill or just fancy a sickie (Pluto), then I come in and teach the classes.

I taught for 17 years full-time in a school for 11-18 year olds, although laterally I was involved mostly with post-16 courses. Since I started subbing, I have been employed exclusively by special schools for children with moderate learning difficulties aged 11-16.

Tomorrow I have agreed to do a days work in a primary school. Teaching P1s (over here thats 4 year olds)

Now, I don't own a four year old, so in order to prepare myself for the event I did a bit of research amongst friends and neighbours that do. I needed to find out important facts like can they read (not much), can they write (just scribbles), can they do complicated algebra (you're having a laugh ... ) and most importantly, can they go to the toilet and all that stuff by themselves.

Then I texted a friend who used to be a primary school teacher. She's due to start chemotherapy tomorrow and I wanted to wish her well, as well as give her a laugh at my impending predicament. She sent me one back saying she wasn't too sure which of the two of us were going to have the worse day, but she reckoned it would probably be me. Thanks pal ;-)

Please Lord, don't let anyone poop or pee their pants in my class tomorrow.

Today is the day!

My kids have been in traning for this event for weeks. They know every word of every song, (from both 1&2), every dance move, every line of script, every throw of a basketball.

The t-shirts are ironed, even the make-up has been selected. They couldn't be more ready.

Which is good, because at 5 o'clock today it should all come together, when we go to see the long-awaited 'High School Musical - the Ice Tour'.

The great St Patrick's Day giveaway!

OK, it's a big risk, (nobody might post!) but I'm going to do it anyway:

I've been inspired by the generosity of Nancy Mon, and have decided to offer a giveaway of my own! Next month we celebrate the day of our patron saint, and in honour of all things Patrick, I have a parcel of some Irish goodies to give away to someone.

My children are off for half term today, so we made collecting items for this parcel our project for the day. We've had great fun; everyone got to choose things to put in (be warned!) and we hope whoever gets the parcel has great fun with it too.

Just to give you an idea of the contents, there's a photo journal of Irish travel experiences, a CD of traditional Irish Airs, a short DVD showing scenes from Northern Ireland, some Irish linen, a sample of the best Irish whiskey and a variety of party items and nic-nacs (and no, that's not the Irish word for undergarments!) to get your St Patricks Day celebrations off to a good start.

Depending on the behaviour, I might actually include one of my kids in the parcel as well.

So, if you're interested all you have to do is post your name (and of course a comment!) in the comments section for this post and we - it's a family affair now - will make the draw on 29th February. That gives us plenty of time to ensure the parcel gets to where it has to go in time for the big day ... and yes, I will 'ship' to anywhere in the world!

Do maith ocus líth dúib!

I hope you dance

10 years ago this month, Marie Keating, Ronan's mum, died as a result of Breast Cancer. In 2004 he released this single to support Breast Cancer Care in her memory.

I love this song and I see a lot of symbolism in the lyrics: do I partake in life and it's opportunities, or do I sit on the sidelines, envying those that do?

Am I afraid of the mountains in the distance - those 'great' things that are expected of me, things that I feel unequipped to handle. Do I risk failure? Do I risk making mistakes for the opportunity to do something amazing?

And if I am successful, am I humble enough to stand beside the ocean and still feel small...

Every day we have the choice of sitting out or dancing - and most of the time we might choose to sit out - usually to our regret.

I hope that today, you danced.

To obey or not to obey?

When we got married (nearly 12 years ago) we made a decision not to have the word 'obey' in our wedding vows. Lets face it, we were just being realistic ... we both knew each other well enough to realise that even if we did promise it, with the best will in the world, it was never going to happen!

What did any of the rest of you do?

When he was sick with a tummy bug last week, I was reminded by my husband that actually, if I'd wanted to be really honest about the whole thing, I should have left out the 'in sickness' bit as well.

He casts this up every so often. It stems from the first night of our honeymoon in St Lucia, when I woke in the early hours to find him missing and the bathroom light on. Turned out he had a very bad dose of something very bad, and, once I had established that, I went back to bed and left him to it.

Apparently I was supposed to hold his hand and mop his fevered brow!

So, I was tagged:

Dana did it. And now I have to do some stuff according to these rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I found one difficult as my desktop is beside three bookcases, all crammed full. With books of at least 123 pages. However .... in preparation for our trip to the States at Easter, I am currently reading 'Notes from a Big Country' by Bill Bryson:

(for context) Some time ago, as a way of dealing with the increased threat of terrorism, America's airlines began requiring passengers to present photographic identification when checking in for a flight. The first I heard of it was when I showed up to catch a plane at an airport 120 miles from my home. 'I need to see some picture ID,' said the clerk, who had the charm and boundless motivation you would expect to find in someone whose primary employment perk is a nylon tie. (end of context)

'Really? I don't think I have any,' I said and began patting my pockets, as if that would make a difference, and then pulling cards from my wallet. I had all kinds of identification - library cards, credit cards, Social Security cards, health insurance cards, airline ticket - all with my name on them, but nothing with a picture. Eventually, at the back of the wallet I found an old Iowa driver's licence that I had forgotten I even had.

'This is expired,' he sniffed.

'Then I won't ask to drive the plane,' I replied.

And now to tag five other people. I have a distinct disadvantage here, because I'm unsure I know five people with blogs, never mind five with blogs who read. But I tag:

Nancy because she does some pretty interesting writing so I'm sure she does some pretty interesting reading
Cosmo because he is just so clever
Jessie who I stole from Cosmo's links because I often sneak a peek at her blog, she reads and I had run out of people to tag!
Alice who needs to blog more
Pluto even though Dana already tagged him because he needs to read more

(oh, PS. I cheated. On the page numbers. Some of the right numbers are there, just not in the order instructed!)

Spring has sprung!

I went to bed last night and winter was howling round the eaves of the house, I woke up this morning and it was spring!

Birds are singing, crocuses have pushed their heads above the ground, buds are bursting and children are playing out in the street.

In fact, so mild is it today that I went to watch the mini-rugby this morning in just a jumper!

(and Pluto, before you say it, of course I was wearing more than just my jumper - what I mean is not wearing my usual gortex coat!)

Why men don't listen and women can't read maps

My husband bought himself this book this week. I can't believe such a blatently blasphemous title - I am a qualified mountaineer; show me a map and I can instantly point out any local feature of interest such as a shopping centre or a coffee shop.

I had a wee flick through it this morning to see what other kind of lies and rubbish it spouts, and was interested to find a short section entitled 'How to motivate a man to action'. This, I thought, might be useful and so for the edification of readers I will recount:

Apparently, when a woman ask a man to do something they say 'can you take the rubbish out?'. The man, apparently, interprets the question literally and hears 'do you know how to take the rubbish out?' thus believing the woman to be questioning his ability (what's so wrong so far??)

To motivate a man, apparently you should ask 'will you take the rubbish out?'

I don't know about all this mumbo-jumbo: 'take the fecking rubbish out' always works in our house ;-)

Pancake Tuesday

I was on a promise to make pancakes for breakfast this morning. Not crepes, 'proper' thick pancakes (also known as drop scones)

So, when this morning hadn't quite dawned, I was eagerly reminded by a small pair of cold hands in the small of the back that today was the day and I had promised ...

Recipe for fool-proof, early morning friendly pancake mix:

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 25g/1oz caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 300ml/1/2 pint milk

Alternatively, Tescos have so many of the things they're selling them.

Hormones

My seven year old had me take her to the shops today so she could buy a Valentine card. For her boyfriend.

Don't tell Pluto I told you this one ...

Pluto recounted this story to me the other day about how he and his missus were lying in bed listening to the next door neighbour's dog barking. It had been barking for hours and hours. Suddenly he jumped up out of bed saying "I've had enough of this". He went downstairs.

When Pluto finally went back up to bed his wife said "The dog is still barking. What have you been doing?"

"Ah," he said "I've put the dog in our back garden . Let's see how THEY like it !"

Sexism in Sport

My daughter is the only girl in her tag-rugby team. This does not concern her, and from day one of her attendance at mini rugby, it has not concerned her team mates either, even when she breaks into Irish dancing steps during lulls in play!

Last week my kids had away matches against a rugby club in another city in our Province. When they arrived and started their warm up, the opposing team all took great delight in whooping and laughing at the girl on the visiting team.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

She of course heard them. I was a bit annoyed that their coaches didn't say anything to stop them from making their comments, but hey, a bunch of no-brainer men in charge - what did I honestly expect? I was also concerned that she would be upset and refuse to play. But only for about a minute!

Being her mother's daughter, she went out there and kicked them where it hurt (although unlike her mother she did it metaphorically, not literally) She managed to tackle and de-tag one of their team in the first few minutes of the match, thus shutting up her critics with a well applied dollup of skill.

Go Dolly!

Snow Alert!

The city, actually the Province, is on snow alert tonight. Such is the severity of the expected snow that schools were emailed by the governing education authorities to warn them of it so plans could be formulated in the event of staff and pupils being snowed out of school.

My kids were told today that if there was snow to stay at home. Well, that's what the youngest said. I think memories of our last snow day about three weeks ago lie heavy in her mind ;-) The more senior child told me that if there was snow he had to listen to the radio to see if the school was open or not.

If you ask me, the whole things smacks of teachers wanting an extra day off ;-p

So they are sitting at their respective windows, waiting for the snow. Unfortunately at the minute there are only gale force winds, but the BBC are prediciting snowfalls from 6am tomorrow until 3pm in the afternoon.

I wonder what the teachers' plan is for being snowed into school?? I hope it includes porridge - my Dolly loves her porridge on a Saturday morning!

The ATM has failed

I do remember thinking, as I walked towards the 'hole in the wall' last Saturday night, that the writing looked a bit slanty on the screen, but such was my urgency for cash I sort of ignored my thinking.

Which is why, when the machine went clunk, clunk, clunk once, twice three times too many, I sort of thought maybe I should have trusted my first instinct. But the screen said that the machine was counting my money and I trusted it implicitly, even though I was thinking 'I only wanted £20 and it sounds like it's counting out £200 ... in fivers!'

In fact, it was taking so long, I let the man behind me see the message on the screen as I'm sure he's thinking 'this doll's put in the wrong pin number and it's eating her card.'

And then the final clunk. Followed by silence. No whirring of doors opening to spit out cash or card. I'm left standing with my hand in mid-air waiting to catch whichever the machine decides to spew out first to discover it's constipated and nothings coming. And the message on the screen says 'the ATM has failed'.

That's when I start doing the irrational things that draw attention to myself, like responding to the machine saying 'what do you mean failed?'. I knew there was no point kicking it because it was embedded into a brick wall and I was never one for self-harming, so the next logical thing to do seemed to be the slide up the door where the money comes out to see if theres any there for me. Of course there's not.

I didn't have much success when I tried to stick my fingers into the 2 mm wide slot to try and retrieve my card either, so I spoke to it again and demanded that it give me back my card. I pushed a few of its buttons just for good measure - well, it had pushed a right few of mine so I reckoned at least we'd be even.

As I moved in to try and look down the 2mm slot to see if I could see my card the man behind asked was everything OK. I told him the ATM had failed and pointed at the screen, only to see that the message now read 'Welcome, please insert your card'. He disappeared rather quickly, I'm not sure what worried him more - losing his card or me.

I had an urge to stick over the slot with sellotape just in case the machine decided to spit my card back out while I went into the shop to report the incident, but I didn't have any sellotape.

The spotty faced youth (that's an exact description) inside the shop had obviously been watching because as soon as I set foot across his threshold he mumbled 'it's not my problem' and then, just to clarify who's side of the war he was on: 'it worked alright until you came.' Part of me wished I'd just filled up with petrol and wasn't able to pay him. Alas, no.

Such began a week with no cash, no cashcard and no debit card. And no husband to bail me out as he was still skiing in blissful ignorance of my dilemma. Of course, I had my credit card, but gone are the days of signing a slip and I can't remember the pin so keep trying to punch in my photocopy ID from work. Have you tried to pay by cheque recently? Nowhere takes them.

Not that I had the card to guarantee them anyway ...

Smile!

At Christmas we were given a voucher for a photo session with Venture. I was really excited about this because

a) we've not had a family photo taken since the Dolly was 2 weeks old, and

b) I love the Venture style

Traditional photoshoot this was not!

Friday was the designated day, and we spent an hour in the studio chasing each other round, playing with a rugby ball and on bouncy hoppers, being beaten up by the kids and rolling round the floor on top of each other.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of it ... watch this space ...

Crumbs

Is that George Clooney who crash-landed the BA plane in Heathrow this week??

My life is trickling down my nostrils and dripping off the end of my nose

Indeed, I think I might have man-flu. Yes, it's that bad. And if I knew which bl%dy man had given me it this week of all weeks, I'd kill him.

Answers in the 'comments' please

I appear to be mathematically challenged. I didn't think I was until my son started to get maths homework. I think I first realised when I started to leave the more complicated stuff for the engineer in the family to work out. Not that I purposely left it. No, I just would drag out all the other stuff until my hubby arrived home and then - oh look, there's only the maths left to do!

Here is tonights maths homework. I challenge you to see how many you can get, never mind how many you can get right!

1. 4 equal sides but no right angles
2. 6 equal sides
3. a triangle with 3 equal sides
4. 1 curved side with no angles
5. 5 lines of symmetry
6. a triangle with 2 equal sides
7. a four sided shape but no parallel sides
8. 4 sides, 4 right angles and 2 lines of symmetry
9. 4 equal sides and 4 lines of symmetry
10. a triangle with a corner
11. Now write a clue for a 'parallelogram'

In true Nancy Mon style, there is a prize for the winner-the person with the most correct answers gets to be my online support for all maths homework whilst the engineer is away skiing this week :-)

PS Pluto, I expect an entry from you, and no collaborating with the maths department at work!

Need a laugh?

This post on Steve's blog is just too funny. What a nutter!

Bloggers Block

I'm not often stuck for words, and my life is such that there are usually blog-worthy events occuring, but at the minute I'm suffering a bit from bloggers block. But as tonight I had my 3000th hit, I thought I really ought to blog about something.

Just on the note of the 3000th hit - hello mum! She reads my blog three times a day (this I know by the power of Sitemeter) even when she knows I'm at work and can't update. And for the record, if you're listed over there on the right, she reads your blog at least three times a day too. She also frequently instigates conversations about you all! So, just so you all don't feel it's a bit one way, let me tell you a great story about my mum.

Many years ago we went on a family skiing holiday (I know, you can tell already that there's going to be a disaster involved here). Before we set off, mum and dad took us to the artificial slope and we all had some lessons. Picture the scene; the class of about 8-10 beginners all lined up along the side of the slope, each in turn stepping out and starting down the hill doing snowplough turns.

And then it was mums turn. She started off fine, but she was a bit 'all snowplough and no turn' with the result that she skiied into the line of waiting beginners on the side of the slope, knocking them all down like dominoes. Every single last one.

Not content with that, just before she skiied off the side of the slope onto the grass, she pulled off the most phenomenal snowplough that pulled her right back onto the slope, straight into the path of the student who had set off before her, knocking him down too. If I remember correctly, Dad got a broken finger out of the whole incident.

Most people would have given up after that, not my mum. I remember standing at the bottom of the slope later that night and overhearing two Mummies (who were watching their kids, also in our ski class) saying 'Look, here comes that woman in the green hat again.' In fact, punters were coming out of the clubhouse with their beers to spectate!

Turns out my hubby (I didn't know him then) was teaching at the same ski-slope at that time, although not on that night, and even HE got to hear of the 'woman in the green hat'! Imagine the pride he must have felt so many years later to be able to tell his coaching colleagues that HE was marrying the daughter of the legendary 'woman in the green hat'. Though to be fair, she wore a brown hat to our wedding. The type you'd wear with a camel coat, but thats a whole new blog!

Bless you mum, now the blogging world knows where I get it from!

High School Musical meets RiverDance

I'm so dead if she sees this ...

I hope he says 'No'

Bill Clinton has been invited back to Northern Ireland for a party.

The first time he was here, I was on the slab for surgery to remove my tonsils. The second time he was here, I was on the slab for surgery to remove my daughter.

Snow Day

It's snowing!

"Days Like This - The Big Match"

This is a short animation by a local company which is to be aired on TV sometime soon.

It's a nice wee story, but the reason I have posted it here is because my son was the 'model' they used to produce the animation of the young boy and he had an absolute ball.

Thanks to all concerned for this priceless opportunity!

After Dinner Entertainment

We had dinner at mum's today. A very nice, relaxed, civilised affair - so how we got from that to this, I just don't know.

After we had eaten my son suddenly says 'look what I can do'. He then pulls his trousers up past his knees, lies on the floor on his back and curls up in the foetal position with his knees tucked up against his chest. He grabs the underside of his knees with his hands and starts kicking his legs up and down like billy-o. To produce farting noises, from his knees.

My son is eight. He has a legal right to do these kind of things. My daughter is seven. She also can get away with such behaviour. It should have stopped there, but when she said 'mummy, you have a go' ...

Then hubby had a go, but we had to be careful he didn't sneak a real one in; I'm sure dad would have joined in too had there been any more room on the floor. I don't think mum could quite take it in, especially when the doorbell rang and she had to answer the door to a symphony of farting noises coming from the next room.

Great icebreaker, should you ever need one.

And a flippin 'Happy New Year' to U too

Every Christmas, when the Christmas/New Year edition of the TV Times comes out, I go through it with a highlighter pen and mark up anything that I think might be of interest for the kids. And each year there is less and less highlighted - in fact this year there are whole days when there's not a highlighter mark anywhere on the page.

But this, I highlighted. This I wanted to see:

'No one will be on the streets of London to hear the chimes of Big Ben. Bars and restaurants across the country will be mysteriously empty. House parties will be abandoned, with expectant New Year's Eve hosts sobbing over their cheese-and-pineapple-on-sticks because their guests have failed to turn up for their New Year's party. And why will everyone be staying at home? Because the greatest boy band in the whole world ever are on the telly! Joy, oh joy; we couldn't think of a better way to welcome in 2008 than singing along to some Take That tunes.'

Well, they (and I) mightn't be able to think of a better way to bring in 2008, but never underestimate those lovely people at Ulster Television, because, at 11.15, when the rest of the country is firing up their lighters and tuning in to see Take That Countdown to Midnight, we in the U.TV region have the absolute pleasure of watching 'Gerry Kelly's New Year's Eve Party'. Yipee!

Gerry Kelly. Gerry Termonfeckin Kelly. The rest of the nation gets to watch Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and friends and we get to watch a retired local primary school teacher turned chat-show host.

But, (as the angels said to the shepherds) do not be dismayed! Gerry is not alone. He will see in the New Year with:

'a lively mix of music and chat. Singer Dickie 'the name says it all' Rock is just one of the 'famous' faces on hand to ensure the party gets off to the worst, sorry best possible start.'

Dickie Rock is best known by my mothers generation for playing in the local Showbands in the 1960s. If you are familiar with Coronation Street, he's a real life Vernon. And I'm thinking, if Dickie Rock is the only 'famous face' they are prepared to name in the TV guide, just how bad must the rest of the line-up be?

So, Happy New Year to you all (except if you work at U.TV programming) and, if like me the year started out a bit crap, remember ... in the words of Gary Barlow ... 'have a little patience'!

ha ha ha ha ...

ha, ha he, he, ha, ha, ha

-------------------------------------------------> (and up ^ a bit now)

OK, so I'll leave it up for a while to give all the regulars a laugh. This post ought to have knocked me down a peg or two though ;-)

I bought a pair of skinny jeans and it gave me shocking flashback

A history lesson:

More years ago than I can count on two hands and two feet, when I was impressionable, the trend was to wear your jeans really, really tight. Really, really, really tight. The thing is, although today you can buy baggy jeans, skinny jeans, bootleg jeans, stretch jeans etc etc, back then you could just buy plain jeans. And there was no such thing as lycra.

So, what we had to do was to buy a pair of these plain jeans - but they had to be the smallest size you could get your hands on and your ar$e into. Then you took them home, turned them inside out and assaulted them along both inside legs with the sewing machine.

You would try them on, and if you could get into them without cutting off the circulation to any part of your body below the knee, you took them off and got the sewing machine out again for a second go. Such a waste of money, as you usually ended up throwing away half the fabric from each leg in pursuit of the correct fit. The entire alteration process was only successfully completed when the jeans cut off the circulation at both the knee and the ankle.

To wear these items of fashion, you had to have great upper body strength, loads of time on your hands and decent floorspace. Jiggling your bits into the denim whilst pulling the waistband with all the force you could muster was not a job for the faint-hearted, or those with nails, and you couldn't just 'slip on a pair of jeans'. Getting into them could take up to half an hour, with the last 10 minutes reserved for lying on the floor trying to get the zip up.

With a pair of white baseball boots and a poodle perm to complete the 'look', the fashion was totally impractical; you could neither sit, bend nor run in the trousers, and God help you if you needed the toilet in a hurry. But boy did we look cool as we strutted about like Frankensteins monster!

With hindsight, this fashion trend should have come with a Government Health Warning. Looking back, its a mercy teenagers weren't dropping dead on street corners of DVT, in fact, is it any wonder I had to have surgery to remove varicose veins at 35 and a hysterectomy at 40!

Christmas Ramblings

I know it's not all about the presents, but:

The best Christmas present idea I saw this year was my brother and sister-in-laws gift to Mum and Dad. They had transferred some old cine film of their wedding 42 odd years ago onto a DVD, complete with 60's music. Brilliant idea, and so cheap ... why didn't I think of that ;-)

The worst Christmas present idea had to be Dad's effort for Mum. I swear if my husband ever gives me a waffle maker and a box of yeast for Christmas, I'll hit him over the head with it. (I know you read this, consider it a warning!)

Surprise that got the best reaction had to be brother and sister-in-law again, this time referring to the look on my son's face when they told him they are having a baby in June.

Most environmentally sound gift was one I got today. A CD, the case of which was made completely from recycled, environmentally friendly materials. I was pretty impressed.

On the subject of the environment, I have been inspired to take my real Christmas tree (when it eventually dies) to the local council dump where it will be made into chippings, and to deliver all my received Christmas cards to Tesco, who do something equally ethical with them.

Of course, I do this out of guilt, to offset the carbon footprint created by the brandy butter we had with our Christmas pud this afternoon. My Dad, under strict instruction from Mum who had spotted it on the exclusive 'Williams - Sonoma' store website, brought it home from a recent trip to Kansas City, just to discover it had been shipped there from the manufacturers retail outlet in Norfolk, England.

Oh, and by the way, the answer to this little teaser; two Nintendo DS Lites, one pink (very important), one white. Our house has been so quiet today, I should have bought these years ago ;-)

He's on his way!

And thanks to those very kind people at NORAD, we can see exactly where he is on the Santa tracker!

Merry Christmas to 'you and yours' from 'me and mine'

Ali xxx

Dan Fogelberg

26 years ago, 'The Innocent Age' was the album I wanted more than anything else in the world. And eventually, after many, many, many months of trying (even whilst on holiday in the States!)I managed to get a copy.

It became the standard for my adolescent years and thus began a love affair with the music of Dan Fogelberg.

Sadly, Dan passed away this morning having suffered from cancer.

This track, 'Same Auld Lang Syne' is probably one of his best known pieces. It's also hauntingly seasonal.

If you've never heard of Dan Fogleberg, or his music, take time to listen to this track. It's worth the 5 minutes it will take.

St Patrick's Day

I know what you're thinking - get Christmas out of the way first woman! That's because, if you're not from Northern Ireland, you probably think that St Patrick's Day is a major holiday we celebrate over the period of a week or more with parades and green rivers and shamrock and green beer and little green men and the such.

It's not. In fact, I can't remember the last time I had St Patrick's Day off work. I do remember once, in about 1989 my mum buying a cake that had a marzipan shamrock on top of it. Although I think she actually bought it the week after St Patrick's Day, reduced because the shop couldn't shift them.

But this year we have big plans to celebrate St Patrick's Day in style; if St Patrick won't come to us, we've decided to go to him. And so: breaking news alert: today we have booked to celebrate St Partrick's Day in ..... that most Irish of cities ..... Boston!

This year Christmas is sponsored by ...

... the Samaritans.

Truth to be told, I'm not so sure if I'm sponsoring them or they are sponsoring me - it's a pretty close call at the minute!

I like to send charity cards at Christmas, usually supporting the cancer charities, but this year (bearing in mind my recent mental health history) I thought I would shift allegiance to another very deserving cause. It helps that I used to be a volunteer with this charity and am very familiar with the excellent work they do and service they provide 24/7, 365.

However, I am annoyed. For a charity that works so hard to help people who feel under pressure I think they do a great dis-service to the paying customer by actually handing over their Christmas cards when you give them your money. I would consider it much more in keeping with their ethos to simply take your money and say 'sod the cards, it's much too stressful!'.

Had they adopted this attitude, I wouldn't have spent the last few nights writing cards and my entire morning off printing labels (which for some reason would only print one individual label at a time), sticking envelopes and getting paper cuts on the tongue. I wouldn't be following the ridiculous practice of writing, printing, sticking, licking, stamping and posting a card to the people who live ... NEXT DOOR.

Pluto, I am coming round to your way of thinking.

So, for the many of you who won't be getting a card from me this year, I have made a referral, sorry - donation to the Samaritans on your behalf. And I hope you all have a Happy, Healthy, Sane and STRESSFREE Christmas!

Out of Sight, Out of mind?

We can't be having that! Especially for Dolly as it's her birthday

Greetings

It has been amazing, the number of people who have put a wee note in their Christmas cards to say that they read my blog.

I'm tickled :-)

Of course, a nice fat cheque would have been equally welcome

Christmas 'chez nous'

The 'real' tree (note the pine needles on the floor already) where

presents will eventually appear

The reason

The 'other' tree in the conservatory off the kitchen

Dana, my tree is up!

The first sign of Christmas in this house is Dolly's birthday. It happens later this week, which we consider a lucky break as she was actually due on Christmas Day. She's a millenium baby - I'll leave you to do the maths! (she'll be 7 Pluto)

She likes the Christmas trees up for her birthday, so I put them up at the end of last week (yes, even the real one, which is dropping already!) We've had our first mulled wine and in Tesco yesterday I was able to buy the brandy cream. I've not made any pudding yet to put it on, so on Christmas Day I might just open the tub, set it in the middle of the table and hand out spoons. Sounds like a plan!

Love is ...

... being on your hands and knees in a puddle in the middle of a packed school car park, retreiving the christingle your son made at Scripture Union which (in the chaos which is getting son, schoolbag, music folder and christingle into the car) made a bid for freedom but stopped under a car halfway across the carpark.

I could hear them thinking it: There's that mad woman again .....

Hello, I'm calling from Ireland

Not too many telephone conversations start like that, but one of mine did today.

There are two things I want, two things I really, really would like to get my hands on for a very special reason. And I have tried. But I just can't get any. There is not one of these things to be had in Belfast, in fact in Northern Ireland. There are none available online, which I guess covers the rest of the UK, and I even tried the Republic of Ireland as well. Completely unobtainable.

There was a rumour that one might be available in a store not a mile from my house, but when I got there and joined the queue that was winding round the shop, I quickly realised that that was all it was - a rumour.

Not one to give up easily, I applied my brain to the situation. I am going to Wales during the week, and might be able to find what I wanted there. Unlikely though, that I would have the time to complete a thorough enough search.

Two mugs of tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits in, and it struck me.

My dad is flying home from Kansas City tonight. He will have to travel through Duty Free. Duty Free might sell what I want.

By the power of the internet I was able to search Kansas City Airport for an appropriate store. Alas, my search produced nothing even remotely suitable.

It's as well then, that he changes flight at Chicago! Another internet search and I think I might just have found a possibility, a store that sounds like it might have what I'm looking for, and it happens to be in Terminal 3, which just happens to be the Terminal he is flying out of. But I need to be sure they have them.

And so, I wait until 12 noon (6am Chicago) and then I phone.

I think the person on the other end thought it was a prank call. I sort of understand that, we Irish have a reputation of being a bit mad! However, I explained why I was calling and then I asked the question; did they have what I was looking for? And the answer:

TWO! Only two in the entire shop - and EXACTLY what I wanted, right down to the last detail for each. And YES! they would keep them until 6pm local time this evening when my dad would be passing through en route to Dublin so that I could have them!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Santa is alive and living in InMotion, Gate H1, Terminal 3, Chicago O'Hare Airport, USA. And her name is Sue.