Lemonade ... and then ...

You may have noticed that Dana presented me with a 'Lemonade Award' this week for 'taking those lemons thrown at you and squeezing back. Real hard' . Amazing, that someone who has been through so much herself this year should think I am deserving.

The Lemonade Award is not really a traditional tag, but apparently, if I want, I can pass it on.

Well, I want to mark the start of 2009 by passing it on to a friend who has also been through a lot in the last 12 months. She has had more lemons thrown at her than Sprite and 7UP combined would use in their respective beverages, and yet of all she has just kept making lemonade with a smile on her face and faith in her heart.

Wils, I promise I won't tag you again this year :-)

Goodness, it's like buses! You blog for two and a half years and think noone even looks at your mad ramblings and then all of a sudden really generous people start giving you awards! I'm like 'what?? me??'

Judy has bestowed another award upon me thus:

"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are extremely charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly written text into the body of their award."

I guess all those words mean I have an award for being friendly, and hey ... I'm going to pass this one on to all the friends I've made through my blogging.

Happy New Year everyone

Looking forward to meeting many of you next year :-) Really looking forward to that!

And ... tomorrow I get to use my new cupcake calendar.

Vienna

As a frequent vistor to my blog you are very welcome. Please, leave a wee comment to say hello? :-)

I had this wee idea

It is well documented that I am mad, and sometimes do mad things.

I sort of hinted of my latest mad idea to Judy a couple of months ago, and I would have provided a link back to that hint, but Judy has started a whole new blog since then and I can't access the old one. To be fair, I didn't give too much away at the time, but I did say that I had a little project I'd be working on in the new year.

As you know, my mother is a great reader of blogs, and one morning we were discussing Cosmo's blog when mum (who has just become eligible for her free bus and rail travel pass) suggested we should meet Cosmo for a coffee in Dublin some day. It turns out, this throw-away comment started some very dangerous thought processes in my head.

What a fantastic idea to go to Dublin for the day and meet Cosmo, but why stop there? I have been blogging for two and a half years now, and I 'meet' people online on nearly a daily basis that I have never met in the flesh. Always one to love a daft project, I decided it was time to change all that, and I set myself the task of meeting as many people who access my blog as possible in 2009.

Warning No. 1: Don't leave me alone with a computer on Boxing Day

See, that's exactly what happened yesterday, and by the time the other half came back from a demonstration rugby match I had managed to price a day trip to Stansted, London to see Judy, a round trip which included an Ulster rugby match at Newport (South Wales) via Bristol, which is near Nailsea and a cheap flight to Houston, Texas.

We were at mum's for dinner yesterday, and during the meal I was recounting my findings to everyone with enthusiasm. However, my findings seemed to be getting a rather lukewarm reception. Being me I persisted, and as we supped tea and coffee after the meal I got the laptop out and continued to search for even cheaper flights to Texas.

And then my poor husband could contain himself no longer and blurted it all out. You see, what some of you who read this blog knew, but I had absolutely no understanding of, is that behind the scenes, he had been secretly making contact with my fellow bloggers to arrange little 'meets' up and down the country. In fact, the first 'meet' had been arranged for the weekend of my up-and-coming birthday, in a little coffee shop in Dublin. Guess who?? :-)

A subsequent tea for two 'meet' had also been tentatively arranged for a venue in East London, and an initial contact had been made about the same trip which included an Ulster rugby match at Newport (South Wales) via Bristol, which is near Nailsea.

What is it they say ... great minds think alike ... or fools seldom differ??

And so it is that I have now booked a flight to Houston, Texas, which means that on that day of all Irish days I will once again be in the US of A celebrating the saint we know as Patrick with three blogging friends; Dana, Nancy and Kelly. And any other American readers of my blog who care to turn up and join in!

Some of you are now probably thinking that 2009 might be a good year to travel the world, or are wondering how you might gain access to the witness protection programme. Alternatively, let's 'meet' and put names to faces and faces to avatars.

Who all's in??

Happy Christmas

Little Random Acts of Kindness

The Father Ted Christmas special was on last night. This I know because, knowing it to be a favourite of mine, my son left little notes stuck all around the house with the time and channel scribbled on them so I wouldn't miss it.

As it happens, I hadn't been feeling too good the night before that, hadn't been able to sleep too well and so last night I was knackered and went to bed pretty early. Without seeing the Father Ted Christmas special.

This morning, my son's waking question was 'did you watch Father Ted last night?' I explained that I hadn't, worried he might not take it too well considering his not insignificant notemaking efforts. He didn't actually say anything, but once I had made myself a cup of tea, he called me into the living room, announcing that he had got last nights Father Ted on the 'on demand' service for me and we should sit and watch it together.

Which we did, and it was just lovely, even though Dolly didn't really get it, and it lead to me having to try and explain what a Catholic was and what a Protestant was. Where is Steve Tilley when you need him? Later this afternoon, I started to prepare some (OK a lot of) vegetables for a little event thats coming up. After about five minutes my daughter arrived on the scene. Without so much as a word, she got herself a chefs hat, an apron, a kitchen chair so she could reach the sink and a peeler and stood for two hours, I kid you not - two whole hours peeling potatoes, sweet potatoes and parsnips.

Now if that's not two of the best Christmas presents a mum could ask for this Christmas, I don't know what is.

The real meaning of Christmas

As I am working round the house today I have some obsure cable music channel on TV playing Christmas music. The current programme is 'Christmas with the Stars', where stars pick their favourite Christmas song and explain why it's their favourite ... you get the general idea.

So there have been a lot of festive ditties and then we get to Lemar. Lemar has, we are told, chosen a very unconventional tune and the man himself appears on screen to explain that his choice is Silent Night.

Oh, I'm thinking, great! Let's hear why he has chosen this.

Well, Lemar explains he chose this song because it conjures up images of all the things Christmas is about: snow, reindeer flying in the sky at night and little choir boys freezing their nuts off in the cold.

I've since switched channels to the rugby.

I mind the days when the only lights you'd have seen in the sky in Belfast were sparks from bomb explosions:

8 Things

My good blogging friend Nancy from Texas tagged me for this. It's more difficult than it looks, let me tell you, but here goes ....

8 TV shows I watch:

1. Top Gear
2. NCIS
3. Strictly Come Dancing
4. Father Ted
5. Deal or No deal
6. Desperate Housewives
7. Come Dine with Me
8. Extreme Makeover Home Edition

8 favourite restaurants:

1. Bourbon
2. Scalinis
3. Niks Warehouse
4. Metro
5. Bushmills Inn
6. Beatrice Kennedys
7. Villa Italia
8. Thai Village

8 things that happened to me today:

1. I got kisses from my kids
2. I had a past student come back to visit me
3. I got a free ticket to an ice hockey game
4. I got a really nice compliment from a colleague
5. I received a Christmas card from someone I've not seen in years
6. I had a phonecall offering me work
7. I got a special cuddle from my son
8. I was accosted by a man dressed up as a Subway sandwich

8 things I look forward to:

1. taking my boots off!
2. having all the family round for Christmas
3. finishing work for the holidays tomorrow
4. book circle and pudding club
5. going to Paris with Dolly
6. having my mortgage paid off
7. Ulster rugby matches
8. sleep

8 things I wish for:

1. good health, happiness and sanity for my family
2. all my Christmas shopping to be done
3. a trip to the islands of the South Pacific
4. troops to be brought home from Iraq and Afganistan
5. a lifetimes supply of benefit makeup
6. a landscaped garden
7. a cure for cancer
8. my mortgage to be paid off

8 people I tag:

1. Dana
2. Judy
3. Kelly
4. Jewel
5. Wils
6. Jessie
7. Alice
8. Cosmo

or anyone else who knows me and feels that way inclined :-)

Maple & Mustard Glazed Parsnips

• 1lb peeled parsnips
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp maple syrup
• 2 tbsp wholegrain mustard

Preheat oven to 400 oC. Halve parsnips and place in roasting dish, sprinkle over oil stirring well to coat. Season and roast for 40-45 minutes or until parsnips are soft and golden. mix maple syrup and mustard and pour over parsnips for the last 5 minutes of cooking time.

Creamed Brussel Sprouts

• 1/2 pint fresh double cream
• 1 clove garlic, bruised
• 2lb brussel sprouts
• nutmeg

Boil the cream and garlic in a saucepan until the quantity is reduced by half, stirring to keep from burning. Keep warm. Boil the sprouts in salted water until tender. Drain and finely chop. Mix the cream with the sprouts and add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

Candied Sweet Potatoes

An all American recipe from my good friend Rose in Boston, Mass. really for Thanksgiving, but adaptable :-)

• 4 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes
• 9 tbsp butter
• 1 cup cider
• 1 cup orange
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick

Preheat oven to 400 oF. Parboil peeled sweet potatoes, sliced into 1/2 to 3/4 inch slices. Arrange sweet potatoes in a greased casserole dish. Combine cider, orange juice, brown sugar and cinnamon in a pan and boil for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove cinnamon. Whisk in butter and pour over sweet potatoes. bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until heated through.

Yum yum!

Christmas preparations

My christmas preparations are underway, and you can imagine my delight to discover a 'Countdown to Christmas' checklist.

It reads as follow: One week to go -

• make cranberry sauce (done! I did that last week when cranberries were BOGOF at Tesco!)
• decorate tree (done! Did that last weekend in time for Dolly's birthday)
• ice and decorate cake (thankfully M&S sell them like that)
• check thawing time for turkey (ahem, slight bone of contention there ... )

Not so happy to read back a bit though and discover -

• make Christmas decorations (8 weeks to go!)
• buy store cupboard essentials for the Christmas period, see list page 14 (5 weeks to go!)
• begin to make your table decorations (4 weeks to go)
• make wreath (3 weeks to go)

Ah well, we shall just have to struggle through the season without the pleasure of homemade decorations and table centres this year.

Oh, and in case you are concerned about having appropriate store cupboard essentials for over the Christmas holidays, the list on page 14 reads thus:

• dried beans and lentils for soup
• dried mushrooms
• canned beans
• canned tomatoes
• hoi sin sauce
• dried milk
• soy sauce
• sun-dried tomatoes
• selection of pastas
• walnut oil

Does anyone feel an Ainsley Harriott 'Ready, Steady Cook' moment coming on?? No, me neither. Now, pass me the crepe paper 'til I start making paper chain decorations ....

Return of absent Bloggers

In recent days the junior bloggers Dolly, Michael and Gracie have all started posting again. Check out their new blogs, I hope they all manage to stick with it this time :-)

Oh, and Wils has also made a return to BlogLand, so it's just Pluto who remains in absentia!

Nous allons à Paris

My daughter's surprise for her birthday was a trip to Paris in January with mum. She loves France and all things French, so it was the perfect surprise for her.

And, as my brother was very quick (too quick, truth to be told) to point out, the best presents to give are the ones you can actually enjoy yourself as well!

So I should point out now that the fact that we are going to be in Paris the weekend Ulster play Stade Francais (remember them??!) is a complete and utter non-coincidence :-)

Oh, and ever sacrificial, I'm more than happy to take orders for the calendar ...

Eight years ago today

I was nine months minus one day pregnant and hobbling round on crutches because I had fallen at work and 'probably broken that ankle, but we can't x-ray until after the baby is born.' Of course, once baby was born I never went back for the x-ray, and two years later was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in the joint.

I was living with my mother because the extension to our house was not quite finished. Mind you, I spent the day putting a Christmas tree up, much to the merriment of the plasterers, plumbers, electricians, painters, industrial cleaners, furniture movers and Tesco delivery driver who at one point or another were all on site. The plan was to move from mothers to delivery ward and from maternity ward to home, and we managed it.

I opened mum's front door to find two Mormons standing there, and instead of giving them the brush off, entered into a full scale conversation with them. I even invited them back to finish the conversation 'in a couple of weeks after the baby arrives'. They've been turning up at mum's door looking for me ever since :-)

We decided it was time to start thinking of a name or two. You have nine whole months to do these things - why do they get left to the last 18 hours??

I had my last sleep before little Jill weighed in at 6lb 11oz, delivered by Caesarian section at 2.25pm on 13th December 2000. And here's the interesting bit for American friends: while I was having the surgery, Bill and Hil Clinton were just a mile down the road, having a cup of tea with Ian Paisley. Of course, they didn't pop in to visit us, oh no!

Happy Birthday for tomorrow Dolly Dill xx

You asked for it mother ...

False eyelashes and hairnets

I had to wear a hairnet to bed on Saturday night. The girl who did my Forties French roll hairstyle said it would help to keep it in shape for the concert on Sunday night. That and the 50 clips she used plus half a tin of hairspray.

Anyway, a hairnet looked pretty flimsy to me, so I put eight on, just to be sure.

I had help with the eyelashes; after nearly 30 minutes of struggling I called in the cavalry for assistance. The assistant stuck them half way up my eyelids, and I had to point out that I was going for the Forties look, not a part as an extra in the next Alien movie.

I think the fact that Dolly was shouting 'don't push so hard, you'll squeeze her eyeballs out' the whole time they were being applied maybe didn't help.

I guess I should really be grateful I didn't end up in casualty with my eyes glued permanently shut. Wearing the dress someone had pulled out of a skip. And eight hairnets. That would have been quite a look.

Fun Monday

Mamalang has set the theme for this weeks Fun Monday and I have to list my three favourite carols. This is not an easy one as I love carols, and also because I sang in a choir for many years and so have lots of carols in my repertoire! But ...

My first and absolute favourite carol is Carol of the Bells (also known as the "Ukrainian Bell Carol"). I just love it with the whole bell sound thing going on. Love it, love it, love it!

Second come Away in a Manger simply because for me it is what Christmas is all about.

Third I'm going to say the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah because I got most satisfaction from having learnt it as a choir piece.

OK, can I sneak in a fourth? Immanuel by Michael Card.

The second part of the challenge was to a share a Christmas picture - mine is in the post below!

Christmas

Christmas finally came to our house on Saturday. I say finally because I know some of the readers of this blog have had their decorations up for, like, forever! (Judy)

And truthfully, this is very early for us to have the house decorated. Dolly likes the tree up for her birthday, so we usually put it up the weekend before that, but as her birthday is next weekend, this year we have to put the tree up a whole week in advance.

I was at the hairdressers yesterday afternoon getting forties-fied for SingSwing tonight, and when I came home a posse which included my mum and aunt had been busily decorating the house which meant all that was left for me to do was to mull some wine :-)

My brother and his family called in and we all had tea together and more mulled wine. Great start to the Christmas season.

You may have noticed no mention of my son in this fable. That's because my dad took him on a trip of a lifetime over to see Manchester United play Sunderland at old Trafford. Well, it's his idea of a trip of a lifetime anyway ;-)

Furry feline fiend, opps friend

My mother is in Poland visiting the Christmas Markets of Krakow. That's why the visitor stats are down on everyones blogs this week. We sent her, along with my father, for his 70th birthday.

They left their cat behind, in our charge. We have cat-sat before, it's easy (I can say that because I manage to avoid doing most of it). This time however, it is proving a little more difficult.

Because ... I have lost the keys to my mother's house and so, with temperatures at 5 degrees below, I have had to bring the cat into my house. And we have no 'stuff' for a cat - you know, like bed or mat or bowl or food even. Or litter.

So the brainy one in the family puts a bathmat, that's right folks, a bathmat on the floor in the living room and then tells the cat to lie on it and go to sleep. I know this to be true because I could hear it happening. I can also imagine the sly look cat gave human at this instruction.

So when we came down early (very early) (far too early) next morning to let the cat out because we have no litter, it's no surprise to see cat curled up in a nice cosy wee ball, tucked into the corner of the sofa, at the very far end of the room from the bathmat. Grinning at us I swear.

The cat lodged with me once before. It was a planned visit and I was left the 'stuff'. Cat took up residence in the conservatory for his short visit. I remember it well but not lovingly, because on that occasion, I forgot cat was living in the conservatory, walked into the room in the pitch dark, placed foot on very edge of litter tray and projected the whole bloody lot round me and the conservatory.

One week to go

As readers of this blog will know, I signed up to sing with SingLive earlier this year.

In many respects that all seems like very long time ago now, though in other respects, with only one week to go (!!) until the big performance in The Waterfront Hall it doesn't seem long enough ago. We are in the final week of rehearsals and it's pretty hectic.

The show is SingSwing and features old favourites like New York, New York; Chatanooga Choo Choo; Me and My Gal; Fly Me to the Moon; String of Pearls and loads more to get the old feet tapping. As well as choir pieces and a swing band there will also be a range of solos by some very talented, if somewhat mad, choir members!

The best laugh is that we all have to dress in 40's style, which has proved a little interesting. There are not too many choirs where the tenors wear bright red lipstick!

Do you know what, if you read this and you're in the area next Sunday evening and fancy a good night out with some familiar music, you could do a lot worse than buy a ticket.

And beware, because these things travel round the UK, and a tenor in bright red lipstick could just appear in a venue somewhere near you.

10,000

Hit no. 10,000 was at 7:45 on Saturday night by someone who read as being from the City of London (though that means nothing!). They browsed the blog for 2 minutes and 18 seconds.

And I have no idea who that is, so if it's you please own up and claim your prize!

Lets just enjoy it

After a stonking 7 try win over Connacht last night, Ulster (who were once bottom) are now 4th in the Magners League.

Of course, half the teams in the league are a game behind us, but hey ...

9942 and counting

At this rate I think I will have had my ten thousandth hit before the weekend. How exciting is that!

Roll up, sign in win! Not much time left

What the frock??

Ulster rugby players advertise new family tickets.

Where did Big Justin get that dress??

Who says the Irish are thick?

An Italian lawyer and an Irishman are sitting next to each other on a long flight. The lawyer is thinking that Irishmen are so dumb that he could put something over on them easily...So the lawyer asks if the Irishman would like to play a fun game.

The Irishman is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks. The Italian lawyer persists, and says that the game is a lot of fun. I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5; you ask me one, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500, he says. This catches the Irishman's attention and to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. 'What's the distance from The Earth to the Moon?' The Irishman doesn't say a word, reaches in his pocket pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it's the Irishman's turn. He asks the lawyer, 'What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?' The lawyer uses his laptop and searches all references he could find on the Net. He sends e-mails to all the smart friends he knows, all to no avail. After one hour of searching he finally gives up. He wakes up the Irishman and hands him $500. The Irishman pockets the $500 and goes right back to sleep.

The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer. He wakes the Irishman up and asks, 'Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?'

The Irishman reaches in his pocket, hands the lawyer $5 and goes back to sleep.

Don't mess with the Irish.

Let's look at the evidence, Madam ...

I am sure those of you who live in the UK are familiar with the Marks & Spencer meal deal, were you get a main course, a side dish, a dessert for two and a bottle of wine for £10. Fantastic value and not bad food either!

What you may not know, (I have insider knowledge), is that if you go to a Simply Food M&S where they do not sell alcohol, you get a box of chocolates with your meal instead of a bottle of wine. In fact, because of this, if you feel so inclined, you can actually ask at any M&S store to have the chocolates instead of the wine.

On Thursday this week M&S gave 20% off everything. Absolutely everything. Also, if you bought 12 bottles of wine you got an extra 10% off the wine, and you could also use a coupon in their free wine brochure to get another £5 off your wine bill.

On Saturday this week, staff members got these deals, plus their staff 20% off too. I have a relative who is a staff member at M&S. She is also a Methodist lay-preacher; the significance of that will become clear later. She spends Christmas with us every year and said she would, using all the generous M&S discounts, procure the wine for this years festivities.

She then went on to say she was going to stock up on meal deals while she got her extra discount, but indeed she would ask for the chocolates instead of the wine as she doesn't drink.

Here I stand at the checkout with my 12 heavily discounted bottles of red and white wine in my trolley, but could I please have the chocolates with the meal deal, as I don't drink. Uh-huh ;-)

Forgery

I am currently working in a placement teaching lifeskills to young adults who have moderate learning difficulties. We have been doing things like filling in forms, budgeting and ordering goods from catalogues and online.

It's all good stuff, but we hit a brick wall everytime it comes to the stage were you have to pay as we don't have bank details, so I have spent the weekend making fake Visa cards for them!

Turns out I'm pretty good at it too, even though I do say so myself. I had the other half convinced they were real anyway!

I have a feeling this could be quite a lucrative pastime to tide me through the credit crunch.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Tomorrow, Thursday 20th November, is my Dad's 70th birthday!

Indulge me while I tell you a funny story about my Dad. A couple of years ago he had cancer of the colon and had to have major surgery and treatment. Obviously, that's not the funny part of the story, but I'm getting there! After all this, there were certain foods he was not allowed to eat, one of them being his absolute favourite in the entire world: nuts.

Imagine then my horror, to arrive up at the hospital to see him one evening and find that some well meaning visitor had left him a giant size bar of Cadburys Whole Nut chocolate, and only the wrapper was left intact!

I of course told him off very severely for going against his consultants instructions, at which point he sheepishly produced a bed pan from beside his bed, full of hazel nuts.

He had sucked all the chocolate off and spat the nuts into the bedpan ... bless! Mind you, you gotta feel sorry for the poor nurse who was going to come across that bedpan later that night.

Happy Birthday Dad, and many many more of them. (Mum, show him this, would you!!)

Getting closer

Remember my little give-away!

Not sure what the prize will be just yet, but it'll be a good one :-p

Fun Monday

It's been a while ....

M set the topic this week, to show a piece of jewellry that has special significance for you.

Mine is a ring I got when my son was born. He was the first baby, and because he was a boy I thought I might like something with a blue stone in it.

However, when we got to the jewellers and I saw this particular ring, I fell in love with it instantly! The stone is called tanzanite and is the most unusual shade of purple; not pink/purple like an amethyst would be, but a fabulous blue/violet purple - just the colour of my new baby's eyes.

A photograph of my ring does not do the stone justice, as you cannot see and fully appreciate the colour, so I have posted this picture of a tanzanite instead.

Mmmmm!

Ever nipped to the shops after a hard day at the office, feeling a bit cold, maybe even peckish, and spent an absolute fortune on confectionary?

Just half an hour ago!

Tonight I discovered, in the sweets and chocolate aisle (which was the only aisle I visited apart from the toilet roll aisle - which was my main reason for making the journey in the first place) that Green & Blacks organic chocolate manufacturers have two new flavours out for Christmas (which, thanks to Judy's countdown, I can tell you is only 41 days away).

So I sit here before you, munching on Green & Blacks dark and gingerbread chocolate and humming Christmas carols. Yes, it actually makes you do that!

Thankyou Tescos for making that 2 for £5 this week. I'll be back.

Tonight I am going to a McFly concert

Nuff said

Appearing naked on a fridge near you!

I was in my sister-in-laws kitchen last week when I just happened to glance at a photograph on her fridge. A photograph of me in the bath!

So I'm 8 or 9 in the photo, and OK, my brother, her husband is there too, but ... that ought to sour the milk!

I'd get the kettle on Lou, you're about to have a rush of visitors ;-)

Busy, busy, busy!

Boy, life is hectic at the minute! I'm busy at work, I'm busy in the evenings providing a taxi service round Girls Brigade, Boys Brigade, Irish Dancing, choir, French Club, Scripture Union and swimming.

And in between all of that I'm attending rehearsals and trying desperately hard to learn my part and the words for Sing Swing, which is happening (whether I like it or not!) in less than five weeks.

Doo - wah, doo - wah, doo - wah, doo - wah, doo - wah, doo - wah, doo - wah, doo - wah!

Tea for Two

or three hundred.

At least, that's what it seemed like at one point yesterday! The house was packed, the kitchen was steamy from boiling kettles and there were crumbs everywhere. And I mean everywhere!

However, it was well worth it with £1300 (that's $2100 if you speak American, or 1650 Euros if you are a true European) raised for TearFund.

It was a truly amazing morning even apart from the money raised. As well as support from friends, family and church, we had neighbours from the street who we had never spoken to and didn't even recognise calling in, rugby mums and even rugby coaches dropping by and a busload (or so it seemed) of people navigated in from the far side of town by my Aunt. And yes, they did eventually find us!

And of course Wils, who just spent her visit giggling (in the scale of C major) and starting sentences with 'Next year ...'

Big, Big, Big thankyou to everyone who baked, looked after children, came, bought and dropped money in our bucket.

Next year ...

We carved the pumpkin out tonight

I'd love to tell you this was it, but that would be a lie. Have a good one, whatever way you choose to celebrate (or not) the festival.

And if you're nearby, please feel free to call in on Saturday morning for a cup of coffee in aid of Tear Fund.

If you're not nearby, I'm still happy to accept your money!

Impulse buying

I took the mini convertible in for a routine service last week ...

... and came home with a brand new one!

Here they are, old mini mouse(black) and new mini sidewalk (white)

I should say, that I have subsequently been confined to barracks

Gilbert who?

I am just home from a Gilbert O'Sullivan concert. It was a slightly disconcerting experience, as I actually thought I was going to see Gilbert & Sullivan, which, granted, might only have been marginally better, but whose music I am probably relatively infinitely more familiar with.

Mr O'Sullivan was appearing as part of the Belfast Festival at Queens, and as an old (old, old) boy of the University, my other half received an alumni email this week offering him free tickets to the show. Big, big warning sign there folks. Free tickets; not a competition to win tickets, or a draw for tickets, but free tickets - as many as he wanted!

We had to collect our free tickets at the door, so I joined the queue of other people collecting their free tickets and very quickly established that everybody at the concert seemed to be there on the free ticket scheme, with no one actually arriving at the venue with a £25 ticket and walking straight into the main hall.

Once I got the tickets, I noticed with absolute horror that we had seats in row A. However, the nice lady on the door told us we could sit anywhere we wanted, so we chose the back row. Or at least the back row that was in use, which was actually the sixth row!

I didn't recognise one song the whole way through the first hour, and at the end of the hour, when O'Sullivan took his bow, I got up to leave. Unfortunately, this was only the interval, and although they locked the doors so that no one could vacate the building, I do think old Gilbert took opportunity to write a few more songs during the tea break, as the second half of the concert was slightly longer.

I should say that most of the audience looked like they were on a day pass to be there, (my own companion fell asleep during song three) and can anyone tell me why the ones with the weakest bladders always sit in the front row?

Finally, two songs before the end, I was raised from my stupor by the familiar sound of this little ditty I remembered from many moons ago. I got momentarily so excited I nearly had to make a dash for the toilets myself. And then it was over.

To be fair, Mr O'Sullivan gave a good concert. And he was delighted with the crowd because, when he last performed in Belfast, it appears that there were only about 10 people turned up!

Obviously nobody told him Queens had emailed everyone who had ever attended, worked at or even walked past the University in the past 25 years and offered them free tickets to be there and still could only fill a third of the venue. But hey, who am I ...????

Roll up, sign in!

In the not-too-distant future, my little blog will have it's 10,000th hit! Did you ever believe there were that many idiots with nothing better to do of a day in the world??

To celebrate this stupendously momentous event, I feel another little giveaway coming on. There will be a 'little something' for whoever is the 10,000th visitor (according to the Sitemeter statistics for this site) to these ramblings.

So come all you anonymous regular readers, I know you're there - now's the time to sign in and identify yourselves!

Why ..

.. does my mum think that, when asked the question 'who is your favourite celebrity chef?' I shouldn't have answered Colonel Saunders?

Heathrow Airport

First of all, can I say this airport is to be avoided at all costs. It only takes you 50 minutes to fly there from Belfast, but then you spend 35 minutes flying round and round and round in the skies above it waiting to land.

Oh, and when you do land (ahead of schedule, because the schedules are all super inflated to allow for the 35 minutes holding time), they will congratulate themselves on being 10 minutes ahead of schedule, but then inform you that you can't actually get off the plane for another 15 minutes because they need to find steps and a coach to take you to the terminal.

Grrrrrrrrrr

I was over in London for a rugby match. Pause for a moment and picture the scene. 500 Ulster rugby supporters marching through the leafy streets of Twickenham led by those brandishing 'flegs' (flags), only, because you can no longer take your flegpole on your flight, these flegs were attached to bamboo canes, broom handles and mops (yes, mops!) purchased from the local hardware store. Or maybe the bamboo canes were purloined from local gardens, who knows.

Even more amusing than this sight was the look on the opponents supporters faces when, at the end of the match, they were offered gifts of bamboo sticks, broom handles and mops to take home with them!

Anyway, I digress. So I was in London and I flew into and out of Heathrow airport. But because I'm getting there in the most cost and time efficient way, I flew in with one airline (BMI) ... and home with another (Aer Lingus). Makes perfect sense to me.

But not, unfortunately, to the man who recognised me from the BMI flight into Heathrow and subsequently decided it was a good plan to follow me through the airport on the way home to the departure gate. Even the sight of the big green plane at the gate instead of the big blue plane we'd had on the way over didn't seem to warn him of impending doom.

By the time he realised, and had asked me were we in the right place, his flight had more than likely departed. Last seen charging out the no exit doors at gate 78, pursued by a hefty looking security man and probably soon to be seen on an episode of 'Airport'.

I feel a bit guilty! I hope he got home. Eventually.

Titter titter

A doctor walks into a bank totally exhausted after a 20 hour shift.

Preparing to write a cheque, she pulls a rectal thermometer out of her handbag and tries to write with it. She looks at the flabbergasted cashier and without missing a beat says

"Well that's great, that's just great! Some arsehole's got my pen!"

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy)

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary')

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776)

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

Photos from the Game

Photos of the Game

Excusez-moi, une photo s'il vous plait?

I had the digital SLR with the super dooper telescopic lens with me yesterday at the match and spent the afternoon studying art :-)

After the game the the father of a young friend saw me loitering with the camera and asked could I take a picture of his son with his hero Bergamasco when he appeared. Of course I was happy to oblige.

Eventually he comes out of the changing room and chats to my friend and his dad and I'm standing waiting to take the photo, but he starts to move away. I frantically make eye contact with dad, who is mouthing 'NO!' and I'm thinking 'didn't he ask if he would have his picture taken? Did he ask and did Bergamasco say no!'

And still dad is mouthing 'NO!' and making slashing signs with his hand across his neck and I'm thinking I'm not letting him away with a no, so I tottle over, grab Bergamasco (gently - he's a big lad!) by the elbow, indicate towards my young friend and in my best French ask him can I have a photograph.

'Certainement' came the enthusiastic reply which has me thinking what was all the fuss about dad?!

So I take a few shots of them all, but as I have run out of French and am too in awe to speak anyway, give him my best smile and a thumbs up to indicate I am done and off he goes.

At which point dad appears at my side laughing. It was the wrong Bergamasco. I had accosted Mirco, when in actual fact my friends hero was his brother, Mauro . So ... I got to do it all again :-)

As a sad Post Script to this post, I know some of you have been logging in looking for my photos from the game. It appears that the memory card I used was damaged and I cannot access the photos. What an absolute travesty it will be if an entire afternoons efforts have been lost. I have not given up hope of retrieving them yet though

I had some absolute corkers, especially of David Attoub, who posed for me for 5 minutes when the camera jammed (honest, it did!) and who is my new all time favourite prop forward.

Take it from me ... Pink IS beautiful!

How was it for you?

Goodness, I've had one of the most stressful World Mental Health days ever!

First of all, work was manic. Suffice to say there'll be a full moon tonight, and anyone who teaches knows exactly what I mean by that!

Second of all, my beloved motor mini mouse conked out not 2 minutes away from work ... on the way home. So I did what all sensible, mature, grown woman do in that situation and sent for my dad.

Third of all, while I was sitting in the car, in the rain, hazard lights flashing, waiting for Dad to arrive I was approached by a policeman. Now, maybe I'm a product of my Belfast upbringing, but I still get a tad nervous everytime I am approached by the police.

It's not so much a fear that they will caution or even section me, but more that someone taking a pot-shot at them will miss and get me instead! Anyway, I was reduced to a quivering wreck and was actually heard to utter the word 'ossifer' during our brief exchange of words.

To cap it all, tonight I took the Dolly shopping for clothes. And I have noone to blame but myself for that one.

Mais, je suis heureuse parce que les hommes du Stade Francais a Paris sont ici demain. Ohhhh la la!

In the meantime, I'm off to bed with a good book and a mug of tea. Bon soir!

World Mental Health Day

Today is World Mental Health Day.

A little advice from someone who found herself standing in the shower one morning, fully dressed, but who has gradually (over two and a half years) been clawing her way back to relative normality and sanity - don't ever take your mental health for granted.

Now, have a great day!

Feel your Boobies!

Better still, get someone else to feel them for you :-)

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month

Wishing my life away

• 4 days until my next 'work-free' day
• 5 days until the men from Stade appear in Belfast
• 8 days until my next pay cheque
• 12 days until my trip to London
• 17 days until the Halloween holidays
• 29 days until the next book club meeting

... and only 61 days until Sing Swing! Now that's scary!!

I've sent my husband to Poland

Some years ago I went to Poland for a summer to teach English. It was during the time of Lech Wałęsa and Solidarność, a very eventful time in a very beautiful country.

It was a summer of many superb experiences, excitement and fantastic sights, but the one unforgettable experience was a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps.

I thought I understood the horrors of what happened during the war, but I very quickly learnt on a sunny day in August in a quiet corner of Poland that I knew nothing.

Several memories from Auschwitz are as clear today as if I had been there yesterday. Like watching in sadness the film that was shown of the Russian army 'liberating' the Poles at the end of the war. How particularly poignant that was in those early days of political change.

Like the smell of the hair cut from the Jews that was housed behind a glass wall in a display that stretched the length of one of the huts. Or the tiniest of little white baby dresses, simply pinned out in a glass-topped wooden display case.

The mountain of dumped suitcases, most with labels still attached, hand written by those who thought they were going to work, not to death. The sound of an old Jewish man sitting playing a violin outside one of the many, many huts.

And the rows and rows and rows of photographs of people who had passed through the camps. From ceiling to floor along both walls in every hut. Black and white images of men, women and children, shaved and robed in striped overalls. It all started to look the same, until the third or fourth hut we went into, where in the distance something red caught the eye.

As we got closer we saw it was a single red rose, tucked behind a photograph of an old man. And that's when you realise, this was someones father, brother, son, grandfather, uncle, cousin, husband. A real person, not just a photograph on a wall.


If the sights, sounds and smells of Auschwitz stunned us into silence, nothing prepared us for the trip across to Birkenau.

Here we saw the true extent of the deception that was carried out as Jews got off the train. Work camp to the left, death to the right.

I will never forget the size, scale and number of gas chambers, the mass communal graves and more than anything else, the eerie silence all around. I remember standing at the end of the train track, looking to my right and seeing row after row of huts. And beyond the rows of decrepit huts, where the worse buildings had been demolished, the chimney stacks remained, as far as the eye could physically see.

I know from hearing other peoples accounts from recent visits that Auschwitz-Birkenau has changed quite a bit since I was there. You can no longer wander round freely as we did, for example, and at Birkenau they have cordoned off the original huts and built replicas housing displays instead.

However, the impact that a visit to this place has on you will never change.

I recommend The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Silver Sword and The Book Thief as three pieces of fiction which cover the events of the holocaust and the plight of the Jews in three very different ways; read all three - it's worth taking the time to do that.

But I strongly believe everyone should see Auschwitz-Birkenau firsthand, that's why I've sent my other half to Krakow this weekend, and urge you if at all possible to go too.

11 days to go

The countdown is on until the lovely, sexy, gorgeous, supremely talented, French, rugby playing men from Stade Francais arrive in Belfast. (Yes, the link is definitely worth checking out again!)

Oh happy, happy, happy days!

A volunteer is worth a hundred conscripts

Most teachers spend their entire teaching careers trying to avoid being inspected. And who could blame them? I've had my fair share of inspections and they can be pretty stressful events.

It just so happens that one of 'my schools' is having an inspection this week. Lo and behold, I got 'the call', and yes - tomorrow I am voluntarily walking straight into the lions den!

May the good Lord have wired their jaws shut ... a la Daniel.

New role

Guess who has been asked to join the Board of the YMCA locally??!! I know, how unbelieveable is that? Especially considering the General Secretary reads this blog occasionally!

I hope they let me be the Red Indian

Fun Monday

This week Heather at Heather's Recipes asked us to write about 'the sports team that you are rabid about'.

French rugby team Stade Francais; words fail me ... see charity calendar pictures:

Of course, those who know me or who read this blog on a regular basis will know that I am absolutely, genuinely nutty about rugby as a sport. The fact that there are players who look like this is merely a bonus!

Whose idea was it?

I am just home from Ravenhill where Ulster have had their third defeat ... nay ... thrashing in as many Magners League games. We are now bottom of said league, below even Connacht, who beat Glasgow Warriors tonight to leapfrog us in the table.

The team are playing like amateurs, schoolboys even. Performance, unbelieveably, is getting worse week by week and, with only two matches before the Heineken Cup starts, the future is looking very bleak.

And somebody, somewhere with a sick sense of humour or a death wish chose this music to be played at the end of the game.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Tagged again

Judy was obviously feeling sorry for me as I suffer 'Pluto Syndrome' and tagged me so I would have something to blog about. I'm going to try and make mine follow a theme, so here goes (apologies if I have covered some of these points before)...

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.


2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.


3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.


4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

1) 20 years ago this year I travelled to West Africa with a Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme Gold Award holders group to work on a building project in an isolated village in Gambia

2) I spent a summer working in Poland with UNESCO teaching English to young people at Summer School. That might explain why so many Poles now live in the UK, and if any near you speak English with a strong Belfast accent ....

3) Last week I was escorted through Manchester Airport with great urgency and at very high speed because I thought I was late for my flight. Turned out the information I had read on the departure screen was for another flight to Belfast from earlier in the day that had been delayed, and eventually left only 20 minutes before my plane

4) I was flying home from a ski trip to Bulgaria when, during take off, the seat beside mine fell into the central aisle and started sliding towards the rear of the aircraft. Only that someone was sitting in it at the time, it might have been quite funny

5) During the war in the Balkans, I worked alongside UNHCR distributing humanitarian aid to Croatian refugees in Daruvar, Sector West

6) I have only ever flown Aeroflot once. They made me take my case onto the plane with me and sit with it on my knee for the journey

7) I travelled half way round the world to Indonesia to take a friend a cheese and jam sandwich made in a barmbrack. The sandwich was a bit squashed by the time it got there, but then having flown Garuda (and lived), so was I

8) When my daughter was sick in bed whilst on holiday in Dubai, I asked could the bed pleased be changed. They actually brought an entire new piece of furniture into the room ....

Now I need to tag some people, do I know eight?? Lets see:

Cosmo Jessie Jewel Kelly Pluto Steve Wils Mr Gnome

Thought for the Day

Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you can't eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away!

Fun Monday

The hostess for this week’s Fun Monday is Rayne at Crunchy Bits and she wants to know what junk thing or things I hang on to. Well, here they are : Receipts ... literally thousands of receipts. I have more till roll in my receipt box than Tescos have in their local supermarket!

I went through a few of them to see what they were for, and apart from several hundred grocery receipts, I found one for a toilet seat we bought in November last year (what, did I think we were going to return it after all this time??), there was one for a jumper from Next which, having worn to a frazzle, I sent to a charity shop last week and one for an eyebrow wax in a beauty salon that has been closed for 18 months!

I didn't take time to work my way right to the bottom of the pile, but the oldest receipt I found was one dated 16/09/06 for some cushions I bought in Dunelm Mill. How ironic, that's two years nearly exactly to the day.

Goodness!

I've not blogged for a whole week!! I'll be changing my name to Pluto next :-)

Singlive!

I love singing. I used to sing in a choir, and I really, really loved that. As I watched the recent BBC competition Last Choir Standing I developed a real 'pang' to sing again. In a choir. OK, truthfully, what I actually wanted was to sing in Only Men Aloud, but I can't afford the surgery.

A quick Google search indicated that finding a choir to join might be easier said than done as any choirs listed locally were recruiting men only, were a bit highfalutin / hoity-toity, required individual auditions or sang in latin.

And then the other half discovered Singlive Belfast! Who just happen to rehearse 2 minutes drive from my front door. So I wandered down tonight to their recruitment night to find out a bit more and see if they'd have me, and ... I'm in!

Rehearsals start on Monday night for the performance of 'Sing Swing' (Mac the Knife, Fly me to the Moon, Chattanooga Choo Choo and the like) at Belfast's Waterfront Hall on Sunday 7th December. Gotta wear 40's clothes ... anyone got access to a wartime nurses uniform??

113 sleeps til Christmas

and yet of all, today, in the NPO at the Carryduff Centre, you could buy your christmas cards. Racks and racks and racks and racks of them they had.

Can't we at least have Halloween first?

Content of a (slightly) sensitive nature: men you have been warned!

My Dolly is a great shopper. She can go through a rail and find a size for you faster than anyone I know. In fact, there's nothing she likes doing more. So when I needed to buy some new underwear last week, I took the Dolly with me.

We have already established that I experience difficulty in the underwear buying department; the situation has got worse since I was recently remeasured as 2 inches smaller and a cup size bigger. In fact, it is nigh on impossible to acquire a bra in my size, let alone one that does not look like it was built at Harland and Wolff shipyard. So the Dolly came in very useful as we trawled through rails and rails of undergarments.

Eventually we found one (that looked like something coco the clown would wear, but no matter, it was my size) and Dolly immediately started to look for a matching pair of knickers. There were only one pair my size, which she pulled out triumphantly, and then the expression on her little face turned from one of joy to one of complete shock as she noticed she had indeed lifted a string (or cheese-cutter as a good friend likes to call them)

'Oh mummy' she exclaimed at full volume. 'You couldn't wear those. They'd give you an awful wedgie!'

Fun Monday

I've not done this before, I saw it on Judy's blog and thought it looked like fun, but then never managed to remember it was Monday in time to take part!

The hostess for this week’s exercise is Gattina at Writer Cramps and she wants to see photos of blogging places. You'd have thought I'd have tidied mine up before I took the picture. I reckoned that would have defeated the purpose though!

I have been asked to say could you please note my daughter's lovely sunflower, and if you can spot the red sticker at the bottom of my monitor, the story behind it is here

Now, that was a nice easy one for me to start with, thanks Gattina. I can't guarantee I will ever participate in Fun Monday again. It depends if I can remember what day of the week it is ...

Absolutely superb!

Last night at Ravenhill

From the Kukri Allstarzz blurb:

'The team is the only professional sports dance team in the UK and is made up of 24 of the finest dancers hand picked from nationwide auditions'

So when a bevy of beauties pranced out onto the pitch to do their stuff at half time, accompanied by a fat ginger bloke in shorts, you can see how I thought the bloke was a spoof, an infiltrating clown from the Ulster faithful having a laugh or some plant picked from the spectators.

Sadly no. He dropped his girl, fell on his ass and danced like he'd just had 6 pints of the best Magners have to offer.

'The Kukri Allstarzz - accept nothing less because second best is never good enough.'

What were you doing when?

Thanks to Steve (I think!) for nominating me for this wee meme. Five events and the opportunity to record the impact they had on you:

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

I was at home in Belfast, woke up on the Sunday morning and turned on the radio beside the bed. Unusually for a weekend, even in Belfast at that stage before 'the peace', the Rev Ian Paisley was sermonising, so I snuggled back down under the covers, not paying too much attention. Slowly however, the reality that something REALLY big had happened started to dawn, so I paid more attention, but was unable to establish exactly what (at one stage I actually thought the Queen was dead). It took me to get up and turn on the TV to find out that Diana had been killed in an accident.

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990

I am not, and never have been, a political being. Therefore, although I do remember Margaret Thatcher leaving No.10, in the political cauldron that was Northern Ireland at the time, it really didn't mean much to me. Just a new face on a new leader with new ideas on how to solve our age old problem. We'd still be shooting and bombing each other, ruining our economy, our image and our country, and driving our young people away no matter who held the reins.

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

I was at a meeting in work when a colleague literally burst in and told us the world trade centres had been blown up. Naturally, we didn't believe him, until we huddled round a TV set in the office and saw it all for ourselves. That's when another colleague suddenly realised that her daughter was in New York at the time. Scary, very scary. At home, we had to turn the coverage off because my then 2 year old thought every rerun of the footage was a new plane crashing. We thought 30 odd years of terrorism had hardened us. It hadn't.

England's World Cup semi final v Germany - 4 July 1990

Really, I don't know because really, I wouldn't have cared. Football? England?? However, I can tell you EXACTLY where I was and what I was doing when Ireland beat England in the rugby Six Nations, Saturday 6th March 2004 :-)

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

Not to put too fine a point on it, I was a little ovum in a little ovary. I wasn't even a twinkle in anybody's eye, because it would be another year before my parents were even married. Having said that, I love a good conspiracy theory, and the release in 1991 of the film JFK starring Kevin Costner started me on an extended period of reading everything and anything to do with the assassination. The earliest 'celebrity' death I remember was Elvis, August 16 1977. I was 10. I cried.

I now nominate:

Wils
Cosmo
Judy
Dana
Pluto

Shoe Day

This is the day, generally in August, when we buy the new shoes required by the children for the incoming years activities. This includes:

1. school shoes x2
2. gym shoes x2
3. rugby boots x2
4. Irish dance shoes x1

Today was shoe day. The total bill for shoes this year came to £209.97. Or two days work.

FINALLY, there was enough sun for me to get the top off

On my car of course;-)

(It still rained a bit though)

Where's my ark?

Just in case any of you didn't believe me about the amount of rain we have been having this summer ... watch this clip to see the effect of Saturday's rain alone!

Apparently there were at least six cars trapped in this underpass, and police divers had to go in to ensure it was only cars and not their occupants.

And guess what ... it's raining again today ... and theres more forecast for tomorrow ... and the next day ...

Well, if it's not going to stop .....

Standing Up for the Ulstermen at Ravenhill!

Ready for the new rugby season

End of a Facebook era

My good friend Pluto contacted me yesterday (having been released from his incarceration in Siberia for being an International terrorist) to tell me he was deactivating his Facebook account.

He sited boredom as his reason, although I think it has more to do with the fact that he's been on Facebook for ten months now and has not managed to get any friends. Not one. Except me.

So I was instructed that I would just have to call round to his place of work if I wanted to poke him or write on his wall.

Well now, don't tempt me buddy - you know I might just do that!

Could you please remove your belt

Yesterday I had opportunity to fly to Glasgow for the day. I love flying, but I have to say I find the hoops I increasingly have to jump through for security reasons quite irksome. Especially as there does not appear to be consistency between airports or even between visits to the same airport!

For example, yesterday on my return journey from Glasgow nobody anywhere near security asked me did I have any liquids in my handbag, checked to see if I had any liquids in my handbag or offered me a clear plastic ziplock bag to put any liquids I might have had in my handbag into!

Whereas in Belfast on the way out a couple of passengers were removed from the security queue because they were putting their liquids into said clear ziplock plastic bag whist waiting in the queue. Indeed, great show was made of the fact that this had to be done before you got anywhere near the back of the security queue.

Also, at security in Belfast I had to take my shoes off and put them through the x-ray machine. It's not three weeks since I last passed through the same airport enroute to Crete, and nobody had to remove as much as a shoe on that occasion. Explain?

The defining moment came, however, when I was asked to remove the belt from my trousers. I was wearing a pair of baggy style jeans which fitted perfectly when I bought them about a year ago, but something has happened to me in that year and I have become narrower. (This I am actually able to prove through another experience I had in John Lewis yesterday where I discovered I had lost 2 inches off the width of my back)

As soon as I removed the belt, the jeans started to slip. So I'm manfully holding onto a handful of waistband with one hand whilst putting my stuff on the x-ray machine with the other and sliding about in sock soles. And then I have to walk through the x-ray machine and of course be searched, which required me to put my arms out. Both of them at once.

Now, I know it's trendy for boarders to wear their waistbands halfway down their arse, but I'm a 'something' year old woman, and I don't believe the staff and passengers at Belfast International deserved to see such a dazzling display of my M&S (bought before the tit tax) undies so early on a Saturday morning.

Though there's a part of me that says serves them right!

Last night I died and went to chocolate heaven

Wils, I think you need to fill us all in ... and post a recipe!

Yum yum yum :-)

Last Choir Standing

For those of you who live abroad, or who don't watch the BBC show, have a look at this link and see the excellent choir from Belfast taking part in the competition.

22:00 hrs update. Actually, they've just been put out of the competition, but they're still excellent and worth a listen.

Back home, and guess what?

yep ...

An obtuse moment at the pool today

And, no, unfortunately it has nothing to do with free massages.

We have elected this week to sun worship at the 'party' pool. In other words at the pool where they play music all day. The main reasons for this are because

1. it has a snackbar at it, handy for kids with the munchies
2. they have organised pool activities for kids throughout the day
3. therefore plenty of other kids to keep kids occupied

To be fair, the music is fairly mellow, and not that loud. However today an odd thing happened.

As I was lying sizzling in the sun, I became aware that people were starting to sit up on their sunbeds or had stopped reading their books. Then a sort of eerie silence seemed to descend on the area as it was obvious people were straining to hear the music currently being played at the poolside.

Next people were asking the people beside them for confirmation of what they thought they might be hearing. And then there were looks of amazement and the laughing started.

Eventually, the pool had come to a standstill and some sunbathers had started singing along. The song? Mariah Carey, All I want for Christmas!

Well, it is only 5 months away ...

Kids are loving Crete

I left them at Kids Club this morning and went back an hour later to see them supping cocktails and playing Bingo!

I hate Crete :-p

Free massages given by a Greek Adonis at the pool today - what's to hate you ask??

Unlike me as it is to miss out on a freebie, especially such a handsome looking freebie, I didn't manage to get one :-(

Maybe tomorrow ...

Drunks, miracles and clapping, but not necessarily in that order

I am currently blogging from Greece. We arrived here at 4am (local time) this morning and have since enjoyed a relatively quiet and hot day at the pool.

The journey was virtually wholly uneventful, well, more so for us than for the two pensioners who were frog-marched off our flight by police before take-off at Belfast for having consumed too much alcohol. Tut tut the older generation!

Here is something I am keen to find out. We had a very pleasant, smooth, and otherwise quiet flight but when we landed in Crete last night, the entire shipment of passengers gave an impromtu round of applause for the pilot. You do have to ask yourself why; I mean if a trained pilot can't get that bit right ....

I have to say, this is not unusual for flights from Northern Ireland, in fact I can think of a number of flights were this has been the case. However, I can't think of one example on any flight I have taken from any other airport were people have clapped when the pilot has landed.

Anyway, I am interested to know if anyone else has ever had the inflight 'clapping' experiences.

One other observation from the airport yesterday. At check-in, the line beside us were heading to Lourdes. Obviously, due to the nature of the trip, there were a lot of disabled travellers, and the children were interested so we explained briefly what the nature of their trip was.

Imagine then, the look of absolute surprise on little faces when the lady at the front of the queue got up out of her wheelchair and walked up to give her ticket to the girl at the desk.

Thanks Nancy!

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Glitter, glitter everywhere

My daughter made me a card today, a beautiful card smothered in red glitter, and I am delighted with it.

Even though the rest of the house seems to be smothered in red glitter now too.

What apparently happened was that she opened the glitter tube the wrong way, and as a result the contents (entire) of the tube spilt out onto her plastic mat. Good girl - you remembered to use your plastic mat! Some missed the mat however and went on the carpet.

She tried to scoop the glitter back into the tube off the mat, but that wouldn't work, so between them they worked out that if they folded the mat, they could pour the glitter back into the tube. Even better, they thought they should do this over the bathroom sink. Good thinking kids, you've got the right idea. Result; glitter sprinkled from bedroom to bathroom.

They managed to get some of the glitter back into the tube (half approximately), some down the sink which was 'wiped away' with not one but two facecloths and the rest remaining stuck to the mat, which was walked downstairs to be brushed. Result; glitter upstairs and downstairs.

Hoover was then deployed to suck up glitter from carpet, but seems to have as much stuck to the outside of it as it sucked up, and two pairs of little feet are trampling glitter everywhere they go as I type.

But, I absolutely love my card :-)

Camping latest

Our previous summer camping trips have been well documented on this blog here, here and here. And yes, the date we have all been waiting for, the start of this years trip, is just around the corner!

This Saturday, the 19th July, we are due to set off on the next camping expedition, this time to Co. Kerry on the far west coast of Ireland.

Only ...

Mummy found a cheap holiday to Greece on the internet and instead of a rainy week in lovely Co.Kerry, we'll be heading off for a sunny week in glorious Greece!

Hubba hubba :-)

PS all suggestions for holiday reading greatly received

Sizeism

Definition: discrimination because of size: discrimination against somebody on the basis of the person's size, especially the person's unusual tallness, shortness, fatness, or thinness.

I would like to ask Marks & Spencer, if you don't charge a woman who is size 20 more for a pair of trousers, then why should I pay more because I wear an F cup in a bra?

My Wordle

Dana, one of my eloquent friends from Texas, created a wordle for her blog, and I fancied one but couldn't get it to work for me, so the very lovely Dana did this one for me! Doesn't it just highlight my current obsession nicely?? Thanks Dana for going to the trouble of doing this :-)

The 'great' British weather

If Noah was alive and well and living in Belfast, he'd have started building another ark by now. And I'd have been helping him.

Apart from one days glorious respite yesterday, when, even though the forecast was for rain, the sun shone all day, it has rained here for 7 days and nights continuously.

And the weather for the next 5 days is no better; heavy rain today, light rain tomorrow, light rain on Monday, heavy rain on Tuesday and heavy rain on Wednesday.

Of course, you know why this is, don't you. Yep, we've been talking about going camping ....