Poetry

As part of the major rearrangement of rooms that is taking place at home currently, I have been bunging out cupboards and today I came across a box of my kids old school notebooks. The work has made interesting reading, like the following poem penned by my son.

My Mum

You're as smashing as a red rose in a garden

You're as tasty as chicken

You're as cool as a can of Coke

You're as soft as silk

You're as excellent as rock music

You're as cheerful as happyness

You're as lovely as presents

I've done it again

Much to the embarrassment of my kids, I have just accosted a strange man in Tescos. Not that the man I accosted was strange in himself. I'm sure he was perfectly normal in most ways. It's just that it was a man I didn't know from Adam.

It all started innocently enough, my son thought he had seen one of his teachers and decided he would go and say hello. Having already paid for my groceries, I proceeded to go back into the store with him, laden down with full grocery bags, risking being arrested for shoplifting.

When we caught up with the man, my son got cold feet, and knowing the longer I hung around with my bags of shopping the more likely it would be that I would be arrested for shoplifting, I decided enough was enough and grabbed the man by the elbow.

'Well, hello!' I chirped, to which the stranger turned round , looked me up and down, turned beetroot (yes, it does happen!) red and started to back away from the mad woman.

Of course, any normal person would apologise and maybe explain. Not me.. oh no, I started to giggle nervously. Which only made the poor man go even redder (yes, it is possible!)

At this stage the kids have run off in total humiliation leaving me to eventually apologise and let the poor man go on with buying his haemorrhoid cream.

How to decorate a room round a Stade Francais nudey calendar

By the power of the internet

In 1997 we went to visit friends we had met on honeymoon who lived in Boston. Whilst we were visiting them, they took us on a trip up to New Hampshire to a little place called North Conway. North Conway was lovely, with little old fashioned general merchant shops and old inns and a lovely hand-made quilt shop.

At that stage in my life I still had time to do a bit of quilting, but when I saw the specimens in this store I decided I just had to have one. So I selected one (tough job - they were all so nice!) to bring home for our downstairs bedroom.

As I was paying, the lady at the counter told me she had made the quilt herself, and showed me where she had signed and dated the quilt on the reverse side.

I never really thought another thing about it. Until yesterday. I had stripped the bed and was washing the bedlinen and decided that I would also give the quilt a wash. Usually I got it dry cleaned, but I didn't have time for that so looked to see if there were any care instructions before popping it into the washing machine. Well, there weren't, but I did find the lady's signature.

So I thought, I'll google her, which I did, to discover she still runs a little quilt shop in Conway, NH. Then I thought I'll see if she's on Facebook, after all everyone's on Facebook these days. So I typed her name in and lo and behold there she was again.

The long and short of it is that I have been able to contact the lady who made my quilt and send her a long overdue photo of her handicraft in situ in my bedroom.

Isn't the internet wonderful??!

60 minute makeover

I am blogging from the iPhone because the desktop is currently packed
away whilst a major transformation is undertaken with study
arrangements. It may or may not be successful - and that could refer
equally to the blogging from the iPhone and the transformation progress.

As I type the painter is slapping on new dulux and as usual it bears
no resemblance to the colour on the sample card when it's on the wall.
On top of that, I feel like I've been six rounds with Barry McGuigan
having spent the afternoon assembling IKEA furniture.

And in about ten seconds when I push send, the phones gonna tell me
I'm trying to send this email update to an invalid address.

BTW, were already well over the 60 minute mark - even the 60 hour
mark. Why, oh why .....

:-)

Sent from my iPhone

Fairy sleepover tonight

Bollywood

There's a community festival going on round these parts. The kids are
loving signing up to new activities on offer, especially Dolly as
there are no more than three types of dance workshops. After much
deliberation, bollywood dancing was selected from the three.

So I duly took her to the first session last night, fully intending to
drop and go. But would she stay on her own? Would she heck as like!
So it became bollywood dancing for mummies.

Today she was full of me dropping her off and her being on her own, up
until the point we got to the venue when she stuck to me like glue and
it became bollywood for mummies part two.

Now don't get me wrong, it's been great fun but tonight I have to say
I'm completely bollywood bolloxed. How bad can it be? you say. Bad
enough that I physically had to use my two hands to lift my legs into
bed tonight, and whether or not I manage to get them lifted back out
again in the morning is anyones guess. I wouldn't go laying bets...

Sent from my iPhone

Crap

With nothing but rain in prospect for the days ahead, I just wondered if anyone could remember the last day it didn't rain? How utterly depressing is the weather in Northern Ireland. I think I was born in the wrong country.

CSSM

Children's Special Service Mission or Come Single Soon Married. The latter never worked for me, as an attendee or a worker.

This week our local CSSM is running, unusually for Northern Ireland anyway, it is an urban setting - most CSSMs are found on the beach. Or, lets be honest, in church halls near beaches sheltering from the rain.

So CSSM has started and, like all good medicines, you get three doses a day - morning, afternoon and evening.

My eldest is the child of responsibility. When notes are given out at school, the eldest child in the family gets them. Before that, at day nursery, notes and even more importantly the monthly bill would also have been put in the bag of the eldest child. My eldest took the responsibility of handing over these little brown envelopes very seriously.

Which is why, when given a gift envelope for the work of Scripture Union at CSSM in his first year attending, he came bolting out of the church shouting 'mummy, we got the bill today!'.

Star signs

We were watching a TV programme tonight in which there was a discussion about star signs, which prompted the following conversation in the room.

'What star sign am I mummy?' asks Dolly.

Pause for a moment, thinking, then: 'I don't know sweetheart.'

Continue to watch TV when a couple of minutes later son pipes up: 'I know. You're a virgin.'

Double entendre

There was a big conference thing going on up in a 'big tent' on the North coast last week. Called New Horizon, this has been happening at the same place for years and years and years, and lots of people make that week their holiday week up in the Coleraine area.

One of my dad's bowling buddies was up for it, staying in his caravan. He travelled into the conference by bus, and being elderly, a bit immobile and having not very good eyesight, (I'm betting you're wondering how this man plays a competitive sport like bowls!) he asked the bus driver would he let him know when they got to the stop nearest the 'big tent'.

Sure enough, after a while on the bus, the driver shouts down "get off here mate for the big tent.''

Which dad's mate did, to find he had been dropped off at ... the circus, which also happened to be in town.

I took the lawnmower for a walk today

I thought I was cutting the grass; turns out the rotors or cutters or whatever you call them weren't lowered.

I wondered why the grass didn't look any shorter when I'd finished.

Actually, I'm going to elaborate on this story. You should know that, so temperamental is the machine that I had to make two phone calls to find out which bit to kick to get it to work in the first instance.

Then, on the one hundredth pull of the cord whilst holding the switch simultaneously in the 'on' position while the 10 year old engaged the brake, when it did start, the thing developed a life of it's own and literally dragged said 10 year old round the garden behind it. With me chasing along behind in my flip-flops.

Add to that the fact that I was then insulted and ridiculed by being told I was using it like a hoover, not a lawnmower.

And at the end of all this, it turns out the feckin grass still hasn't been cut.

Go figure

A novel written in 1997 in which the woman wears a gabardine suit and fur coat, the man wears horn-rimmed spectacles, and they all use mobile phones.

I'm having difficulty because I don't see those things all belonging in the one era.

Not to mention that the gabardine-clad, so called crack team of British spies have never heard of a Chinook. What's that all about??

This book is really starting to cause me angst.

The McWedding

Whilst on holiday recently, we met a Scottish couple who were there with a small group of friends and family for their McWedding on the beach. Kilts, sporrins and wooly socks in 32oC, I ask you.

Anyway, they'd chosen the perfect setting; least of all because of the palm lined beaches, the gentle lapping of sea against the sands, and glorious sunshine ... most of all because it was an all-inclusive resort with drink available in various bars 16 hours a day. If you think the Irish are hardened drinkers, you should see the Glaswegians knock em back!

As the day of the big event approached, it became time for the McStag-Night. One of the party had booked the men onto the sunset cruise. What that person did not understand was that, far from being a booze cruise, it was full of romantic couples, some of which were gay.

I have to say, it's the first time I've actually seen a stag party more sober at the end of the night than they were at the start of it.

Jeremy the helicopter pilot

Not, not a children's book written by a certain (ex) Royal but some lessons learnt from my second ever helicopter ride that I didn't learn from the first one

1. turbulance is a very bad thing
2. dont' ever fly in a helicopter in a thunder and lightning storm
3. Enniskillen whirlybird pilots are much more 'terrified user-friendly' than St Lucian ones
4. when the pilot asks 'do you like rollercoasters?', the answer is always 'no' and should be given without a moments hesitation. In fact, I would clear that point up before I even got into the thing
5. everyone wears the headsets, therefore everyone hears you swear
6. helicopters don't carry boke bags

Richard Branson

If you are in the habit of 'googling' your own name and find this
post, I want you to know that your pilots look nothing like the one
one the '25 years and still hot'.

Disappointing. Very disappointing.

Sent from my iPhone

Conundrum

If the Twelfth is on the thirteenth this year, when is the Eleventh?

The discerning few

may have noticed that the diary has become a very quiet place of late. The music, more often chosen for it's witty context than musical value, has disappeared from my blog.

This is because the site I used, Playlist, seems to be having legal difficulties whereby every time I try to link in a witty ditty I get a message to say that due to licensing restrictions, some or all tracks may be unavailable for playback in your country. It would appear the word 'some' is there purely to create false hope in my country.

So turn on your sound, crack up the volume and do not be afraid - the days of being assaulted by such musical masterpeices as '99 words for boobs' on this site are, sadly, gone.

Fun Monday

It's been a while since I did one of these; busy, busy, busy!

This idea is contributed by mamarehema who is interested to know how people have spent 4th July - American Independence Day.

Being in the States on St Patrick's Day is a favourite of mine (twice in the past two years!) but way, way back in 2001 I attended a conference in Rhode Island and had opportunity to take a bit of a break in Cape Cod before I travelled down.

I was really looking forward to being State-side for the 4th July holiday and seeing all the pomp, ceremony and fireworks up close and personal. But as luck would have it, on the morning of the 4th I woke with a streaming cold.

So off I pop to the local shop and, being a little Irish girl instead of a local, buy myself something that looked like it might help clear all the rotten cold symptoms.

Only it must have been three times as strong as anything we sell over the counter in Ireland, because within an hour I was out for the count, in the sleep of the dead, comatose. And so remained for the rest of the day, completely missing any festivities that may have taken place around me. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call Murphy's Law.

Just for the record, we don't have an Independence Day in Belfast. We have'The Twelfth'. 'Nuff said.

The 'stupid cat' is dead

Let me tell you about Harry.

A long, long time ago, Harry arrived in our family quite by mistake and with an ultimatum. My brother was involved in a church outreach programme on the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast and the team were having lunch one day when there was a knock at the door.

My brother and the leader in charge went to see who was there, but were a bit puzzled to see nobody on the step. About to turn round and go back to their lunch, the leader in charge heard a faint sound. On closer inspection, he noted that the sound was coming from a plastic bag at the doorstep. On closer listening, he decided it was a baby abandoned for them to take care of.

And then that big strapping (now lawyer) leader in charge showed his true leadership qualities and ran and hid whilst my brother was left to investigate the baby in the bag.

The 'baby' turned out to be a wee new kitten, orange and white and completely feral. Everyone oohed and ahhed but at going home time nobody stepped up to the mark to take the kitten home.

By happy coincidence, mother and I were in Crete that week on holiday, so the kitten was smuggled into our garage, where it lived in blissful ignorance for four days until we got home. We first knew something was a bit odd when we saw a note sellotaped to the garage door that said 'Do Not Open'.

Brother introduced us and mum told him he had three days to find 'it' a home. He was canny, my brother, and didn't bother his backside doing anything about it and soon three days turned into a week, a fortnight a month and then Harry (so named as he was dumped in a Harrods plastic bag) was a permanent fixture at home.

So permanent in fact, that nine years ago when my brother moved out into his own house, Harry stayed with mum. Showing that, despite the fact dad insisted on renaming him 'that stupid cat' and chasing him out of the house every opportunity he got, Harry was indeed a very clever cat!