Exercise

Most women of a certain age, when they decide they need to do a bit of exercise, enrol in a pilates class, or do yoga.

The more energetic might take to aerobics, either on land or in water.

Some might swim or even spin.

Lots more pay a subscription to their local gym and then never turn up.

Not me.

I've just enrolled in an Irish Dance class for mummies!

Feis

Today was the day!

Dolly danced at her first Feile . She was in a group of 50 girls her age from 5 local Irish Dance Schools.

I am proud, delighted and to be honest a big bit astounded to say that she won three medals of note:

1. third overall in the confined reel
2. highly commended in the reel
3. third in the team dance

I have a wee bit of poor quality video of the event which I am hoping to upload to this post ... watch this space!

Are Youse Gettin?

Went out for coffee last week whilst shopping. To be fair, there wasn't much to choose from by way of eats at the place, but I ordered a tea and a coffee and eyed up a cake on a stand at the till.

'Is that carrot cake?' I asked

Pause ...

'Um, yes' replies girl No.1

I'm not convinced, so as girl No.2 appears from the 'kitchen' (and I use that term loosely) I say

'I was just asking if that was carrot cake?'

She looks at girl No.1 and says

'Yeah, it is ... isn't it?'

Just at this, a third (this time male) member of staff arrives at the scene. The two girls promptly turn to him and say

'Is that there carrot cake?'

His reaction, although not at all conventional, is the most persuading yet - he lifted the cling film off the cake, and sniffed it!!!

Well, I think, in for a penny ... so I also bend down to sniff the cake, now declared 'definitely carrot cake' by the male staff member, to discover it is in fact toffee cake. I don't like toffee cake, so I thanked them for their combined efforts and glanced at the fayre in the cool cabinet beside me.

And there it is, the answer to my now rumbly tummy - chocolate torte.

'Could I have two slices of chocolate torte please'

'Which one's that?'

Pause to think how best to describe the only chocolate cake in the building:

'The brown one'

(Ever wished you had just had a shortbread biscuit??)

So girl No. 1 is cutting two slices of chocolate torte and putting them on plates when

'What are you doing?' asks girl No.2 who has reappeared from the 'kitchen'. 'Cutting her that cake' replies girl No.1.

'No, you can't do that. They're not allowed it.' Then she turns to me. 'You can't have that, you have to have it with tea or coffee.'

OK. So now I'm looking for the 'Just for Laughs' camera.

'But i have a tea and a coffee right here on my tray' I say.

'Yes, but you can't have the cake. Look,' she says pointing at a picture on the counter, 'you have to have it with tea or coffee. It's a deal.'

'Yes, I see that, but ... '

It's no use. I can tell there is no way round it. I push my tray across the counter to her.

'Ok then, I'll have two of those deals instead.'

At which point she cuts two slices of cake and puts them on my tray beside my original tea and coffee.

'Is it OK with these drinks?' she asks.

Dare I say anything but yes, even for a laugh. And there was no chance me asking where they kept the sugar.

The Trevor Brennan Incident

also known as 'Sh1t hits Fan'

Read more here

I drove into a wall today

but it's OK, I was in my husband's car at the time.

Chasing the Friday Afternoon Blues

Sometimes when I pick the kids up on a Friday we make executive and spontaneous decisions about what we will do. Afternoons when we pick up a take-away and a DVD and come home and get changed into our jammies are always popular.

However, the last two times we did this we were caught out, most recently by sister-in-law who thought maybe we were all sick, but more embarassingly first time by a lady from a government department who arrived at 4 o'clock in the afternoon to carry out the latest stage of a survey we have been involved in because the Dolly Molly is a millenium baby.

Now, that was embarrassing. AND more importantly my chips were frozen by the time she'd finished.

Recently we have come up with an alternative Friday afternoon activity. It involves closing the blackout blinds in the playroom, plugging in SingStar on the Playstation, turning on the disco light-ball and standing on the sofa singing our wee (and not so wee!) hearts out.

Today was such a day, rainy, windy, cold, windy, wet and windy. So we had a SingStar session to cheer us all up.

It's a terrible thing to be able to admit, but I've discovered I do a pretty mean version of Bucks Fizz 'Making your Mind Up!' The very knowledge of that useless fact should be enough to keep any prospective visitors away from our door on a Friday - just in case!

The Dog with Two Tails

AKA mummy's little pride and joy mark II

Infamous

I have a birthday this month. A 'big' one.

As a result, and for a surprise, I was taken to Glasgow for the weekend; a little bit of retail therapy, a few geocaches, some very good food and a Celtic League rugby match :-)

So I'm at the match and as usual the craic is mighty and everyone's having a ball. Two very creative ringleaders at the front are calling out the chants and everyone else is giving it the wellie joining in. Some new, spur of the moment chants like 'You're just a suburb of Edinburgh' (to the tune of 'In the lane, snow is glistening') and 'Are you Borders in disguise?' (to the tune of 'we'll support you evermore') (You might have to be into Celtic rugby, or Scottish, to get the significance of those particular chants!)

Anyway, you get the picture: everyone in fine singing voice.

And so it continues, until a lull in play just into the second half of the game when ringleader No.1 turns round and says 'OK everyone, we're going to sing Happy Birthday to Alison!'

'Who's Alison?' a few people shout back? I'm wondering the same thing myself, and then the reply comes 'I don't know, but Rooster (see post below 'Acknowledgement') texted 3 of us and told us we had to sing it'.

Ohhh ... I think I know who Alison is ...

'Give us an A!'

'Give us an L!'

'Give us an I!'

You get where this is going, and when they reached the 'N' the combined choir of Ulster travelling support all sang Happy Birthday to me, as heard back home on BBC Radio Ulster and Setanta TV!!

And later that night I'm walking down the street in Glasgow and someone shouts from across the road 'Hey Alison, Happy Birthday!' and people in the hotel are saying 'There's Alison, it's her birthday!'

I even have my own thread on the UAFC messageboard here

Rooster mate, I owe you!

Those lovely People at EasyJet

Just home from a weekend in Glasgow (more on the specifics of that in a later post) but I have to share my EasyJet experience.

We were booked on the latest flight home tonight, but arrived to book in very early, just to discover the late flight was delayed and instead of leaving at 7.45pm wouldn't be leaving until later at 9.00pm. So off we trundle to the EasyJet counter to ask the nice lady there what would be the earliest we could check in our bags for the late later flight.

Hope you're following all this!

We explained that we were on the late flight which was now running later. She thought for a minute and then made a phonecall. Apparently the earlier flight was also running late, so she checked to see if we could change our flight from the late later flight to the late earlier flight.

And do you know, those lovely people at EasyJet said 'YES!' How's that for a Del Monte moment ;-)

Acknowledgement

Thanks to my friend Rooster, from the Chicken Coop, who allows me to post his fantabulous photos of the Ulstermen on my blog, like this one and this one too.

See more of his handiwork here

My Computer is Constipated

It's been trying to download an e-mail all morning with no success, and now there are three stuck up there in the ether somewhere.

I've tried everything I can to ease the situation, which has involved repeatedly hitting the send and receive button and shouting at the screen.

Next move:

End of Year Review 2006

If you had asked me this time last year what I’d be doing this time this year, I’d not have said updating my blog before heading out geocaching for the afternoon, after a morning at the spa having a relaxing body treatment.

Two of those words didn’t even exist in my vocabulary (blog, geocaching), and the third (spa) was known but unheard of, if that makes sense!

So what happened to make it all so different?

The funny thing is, although this blog was borne out of the frustration of the circumstances I unwittingly found myself in, I have never actually said how I came to find myself there in the first place! Suffice to say that at the start of the year a number of difficult situations at work (that had been on-going for quite some time) finally boiled over and the resultant effect was that my brain literally went into ‘meltdown’! I was unable to function on any level initially, and the frustrations of this eventually lead to depression.

To cut a very long story short, in May of 2006, after 4 months off work and much soul searching, it resulted in me resigning from my job of 17 years and taking a leap of faith into the unknown.

So now the scene has been set, what about 2006?

Things I have learnt in 2006:

Friends

If you ever need to sort out who is a real friend, then have a major life incident! I have been blessed with many very good and faithful friends.

Faith

When you hit rock bottom, and you need someone to take control because you can’t anymore, ask God. I don’t often wear my spiritual heart on my sleeve, but I would gladly preach a sermon on the ‘Parable of the Stolen Mini Convertible’, a time when God worked in my life in the most amazing, extraordinary and totally downright unbelievable way!

Thermal underwear

It might not be pretty, but it does its job :-)

Things to take into 2007:

Geocaching

My sport of choice ;-) Current total of caches found stands at 48, including several International caches (the South of Ireland counts as International in this regard!) with our furthest away cache being in Dubai, even though we didn’t actually manage to put our hands on it.

We also have four travel bugs circulating the globe, two currently in the South of England, and one recently arrived in New Zealand’s North Island! More info on the bugs here

Blogging

You can’t buy this kind of therapy :-)

Trips to the library

But could Val McDermid please write some more books as I have currently read all that are available

Walking

Every list has a surprise entry, and this is mine. I am particularly looking forward to walking now that Tesco have built a new hypermarket complete with café serving full Irish breakfasts at virtually the end of my street ;-)

Spa treatments

So long as someone else is paying. It doesn’t seem so indulgent that way, which is far more relaxing!

Things to leave behind in 2006:

Gardening

It was a good distraction when one was needed, but I’m afraid the old adage ‘Bugger the Garden, I’m watching the Rugby’ comes back into play now that my brain can make it’s own decisions again

Regrets

I’ve had a few, but then again – too few to mention. Suffice to say, giving up my job of 17 years has not been one of them!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and sane 2007!

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

But 4988 didn't turn up.

Their share is currently in the freezer - my freezer, my mum's freezer, the new freezer my mum took delivery off on Christmas Eve ...

For someone who prides themself on never having turkey left over on Boxing Day, this Christmas I have enough to keep me going until New Year ... 2008

Happy Christmas!

Turkey stuffed; vegetables washed, peeled chopped, sliced and diced; pies minced and prawns cocktailed!

Table set; house hoovered; presents wrapped; trees twinkling; carols playing; wine mulling.

Milk poured; cookies left; reindeer food sprinkled; rudolf carroted; sacks displayed in a prominent position.

Kids bathed; pyjamas on; Santa expected; dressing gowns ready; trying hard to sleep ;-)

Merry Christmas!

Jesus is THE reason for the season

Cutting Cake

I've just cut up my third rich fruit cake in a week!

The first was a christmas cake for parents after the schools performance of Aladdin. That one had to be cut into 40 pieces.

The joys of teaching in a small school where appreciative parents send in Christmas Cake for the staff meant I had to cut cake number two into 30 pieces.

The third was a tier of a wedding cake to be used as a Christmas cake.

Husband's getting a bit concerned with all this cake-cutting going on. I think he thinks I'm in training for a big event ... ;-)

It's Official!

My six year old now owns more make-up than me, thanks to the generosity of her friends, four of whom brought her complete make-up sets for her birthday.

I guess thats what happens when mummy pays for the Party Pixies to come and give you and your mates a makeover party for your sixth birthday.

Gone are the days of pass the parcel and musical bumps!

Christmas Preparations

It's been very quite in Chemical Land recently, at least the online version. Real life has been a little more hectic with birthday parties, Christmas preparations, important rugby matches and such like all happening at once!

I went to M&S today to buy some 'Christmas Provisions', after all this time next week we'll be in the thick of it. I know, I know - I shouldn't have sinned my soul to buy groceries on a Sunday, and yes, we deserve to choke on them. Now that we've cleared that up ... on with the story.

I got the turkey today. We always get a turkey crown - thats a turkey without legs. I'm not too sure if it's born that way or the legs are removed after its slaughtered, but that's a whole new blog! Anyway, there are so many of us for Christmas dinner (13), we need a really big turkey, so when I see a monster bird in the shop, I buy it and if necessary stick it in the freezer. That's what has happened this year. It's what happened last year too, but hopefully thats where the similarity starts and ends.

Last year I bought 'the bird' early and stuck it in the freezer as described. I got on with the normal pre-Christmas preparations and was so well organised was able to invite my bro and sister-in-law (then to be) and niece-in-waiting round on Christmas Eve for lunch before we all headed out to see the 3D film Santa and the Snowman.

On the way home after the event we stopped off (with half of Belfast it seemed) to get the car washed. And it's as we are sitting in the queue at 4.15pm on Christmas Eve that I suddenly remember that 'the bird' was still in the freezer.

Well, there was no point rushing - an extra 5 minutes wasn't going to make a button of difference at that stage - so we sat on, got the car washed and then headed home.

Of course 'the bird' is solid as a bl%dy rock. The first defrosting technique was to wrap it in filled hot water bottles. Marginally successful, but not good enough. Then we decided to wrap it and the hot water bottles in towels, which wasn't much better so eventually we resorted to the other half sitting hugging the bird (which was still surrounded by hot water bottles and wrapped in towels) whilst watching midnight mass from Kings.

At one stage there was genuine, major concern that he might have to turn on the electric blanket and take the bird to bed with him, but thankfully for all parties concerned that was avoided.

So, today I have added a reminder to my Outlook for Saturday 23rd to 'take turkey out of freezer'. And just in case I forget to turn on the computer, I have asked mum to phone me and remind me about the turkey. And with her memory the way it is, I've also left a post-it on my desk, one on my bedside table and one in the kitchen that all say

'TURKEY (eat, not holiday)'

Failing all of that (and believe me, it could all fail!!) the kids are practicing their turkey waddles and gobbling at each other, and the other half has set a reminder on his PDA, mobile phone and even on NTL.

There's times when I think being vegetarian would be a good thing :-)

Christmas Gift Ideas for the Other Half #1

Irish Technology

After having dug to a depth of 1000 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 1000 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 2000 meters and shortly after headlines in the UK newspapers read; English archaeologists have found traces of 2000year old fibre-optic cable and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech digital communications network a thousand years earlier
than the Scots.

One week later, Irish newspapers reported the following: After digging as deep as 5000 meters in a County Mayo bog, Irish scientists have found absolutely nothing. They, therefore, have concluded that 5000 years ago, Ireland's inhabitants were already using wireless technology.

And talking of Numeracy ...

On one occasion I was required to cover a maths class.

Now, I have an A/O level in Additional Maths - for the unintiated thats halfway between an old 'O' level and an old 'A' level. Achieving this qualification was not of my own doing; the school I attended (for some unknown reason) selected me to take the course and, with the help of a tutor for the Mechanics section of the syllabus, I managed to get a decent grade.

That said, maths is not my strongest point.

So the class are looking at the probability of getting a three when you throw a dice. Bearing in mind my qualification in this area, and more importantly the fact that I am a champion Yahtzee player, I thought I could manage this OK - even I knew the answer was one in six!

Until I met the student who convinced me it was one in two. After all, you either did or you didn't!!

With mathematics like that, I'm for doing the lottery on Saturday ;-)