Friday 30 May 2008

Hamburgers fit for a....family

The weather is fantastic - stunning, unbelievably sunny and blue so we just HAVE to have a hamburger bbq this evening before I go out. I made these about a month ago, had a little sulk when Malcolm was not really inspired to do the fire, in fairness to him when my lip hit the kitchen floor he did say he WOULD if I REALLY wanted him to, but if you know me it was too late by then, damage had been done...
ANYHOOOO... I grilled the hamburgers, they were delicious but just not the same.... *sigh*
Now the weather is marvelous and I am making them again and M already knows that when he gets home he has to light a fire - clear up any misconceptions early on in the day, and things are grand. Now as Jess, the hamburger QUEEN proclaimed my burgers to be the best in Dublin....and I was running against Real gourmet AND Joburger here, I decided to share my
recipe...


500g lean ground beef
1 slice bread crumbed
1 egg beaten
Milk to make a nice sauce (yuk) about 80ml I GUESS
1 - 2 cloves crushed/grated garlic - depends on taste (leave out if you do not like garlic - NO WAY!!!)
a good size handful of basil chopped finely
1 small onion finely chopped.
75 ml freshly grated Parmagiano (spelling...)

Mix the mince with the garlic,basil, onion and parmesan.
Beat the egg, and mix in the bread crumbs and milk and allow to soak.
Add to the rest of the ingredients, shape into patties and allow to rest for at least an hour, well maybe not quite an hour..Feel free to correct me anyone out there...
BBQ over hot coals basting with equal quantities of butter and tomato sauce/ketchup mixed together if you are so inclined..You should be because it makes it even better!!!
For an extra special treat CAREFULLY toast the buns on the bbq before serving...YUM.

* This makes 4 decent patties - nobody will be able to fit in seconds...if they can they are just being greedy...

Bank holiday weekend

Suitcases EVERYWHERE - driving around this morning I would swear that half of Dublin are leaving for the weekend. Sadly I am staying put - I MIGHT have to help unpack a 20 foot container tomorrow and customs are not telling us when it will be released. I had to call someone from the Dept of Environmental Affairs yesterday - they want to sample all the curry powder for sudan red - I think they assume that SA are a bit behind the times, but sudan red was taken off our shelves a long time ago! Anyhow, tomorrow I may be using all my muscle power, carrying boxes, silver cloud is that I am getting exercise without really realising it! Of course it will be a mad day, and I have roped the kids into helping, M graciously declined...he can think of more appealing things to do with his time. If the container does get delivered I will go into Dublin early, visit the farmers market at Temple Bar for breakfast....excellent, I can't wait to sample all their goodies!

IN OTHER NEWS:

My mad friend Lizle is running the Comerades….AGAIN!!! Good luck Lizle and if anyone would like to sponsor her as she is running for a charity this year (details below) please contact the telephone number provided! Off to do my internet banking now…

Casa do Sol School is a school for intellectually disabled learners situated in Linden, Johannesburg. Lizle Austin ran and completed her first Comrades in 2007 and this year she’s running for Casa! Good Luck on your first ‘uprun’ Lizle!
Would you or your company be willing to sponsor him per kilometre or an amount on completion? If so, please complete this form and hand in at the office or fax to the school at (011) 782 7736.
It does not have to be an enormous amount but every little helps towards making a better life for our children at the school. Thank you for your assistance!

Further information can be obtained from the school at Telephone (011) 782 0231.

Thursday 29 May 2008

EYES

Big News that I keep forgetting to tell you all about....
I am having laser eye surgery on 13 June, had all the test done and I am a good candidate, I cannot wait to throw my glasses away. They told me I could not do it in SA, if I ahd done all the tests I could have had it sorted out over a year ago! I guess I am actually lucky though because there is some new technology which is even more precise and I have opted to go for the newer version, no change left from my savings afterwards though!!!

Walking on Sunshine

Now I am not sure how many of you read the INCIDENT WITH THE IPOD - where I merrily washed Kirstin's jacket with the Ipod securely zipped in the pocket...so I replaced it for her and the other day I decided to give the abused one last go, see if it had managed to pull through its little ordeal and it had! Now I walk to work and back with music in my ears, I am fairly sure I must look kinda strange because I cannot help myself - I tend to walk to the tune of the song...but it certainly is a much more pleasant walk now! This morning I was going to catch the bus - still worried about my chest but the day is just so absolutely marvelous that I ended up walking, I could not help myself! I bumped into Meriel getting off the luas at Stephen's Green and kept her company until our paths had to part ;)
I crossed the Millennium bridge looked out at the water with the sun shining, music in my ears and decided that today is an outstanding day! Dublin is beautiful, life is treating me well and I am so happy, and ever so lucky

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Out of the mouth of 12 year olds

A couple of weeks ago while running from shoe store to shoe store, in search of a pair of heels my attention was diverted by a sale in La Senza. I grabbed half a dozen bras and Kirstin and I locked ourselves in the change room. Of course I got irritated at all the adjustments by number 3 and so I told Kirstin that I was done as I was sure she was bored out of her mind. She sweetly replied that she was happy for me to carry on as she enjoyed being with me while I tried on LAUNDRY. Sadly I had to correct her as I shuddered at the conversation that could have taken place in the classroom the next day....lingerie dear girl, shame she was trying to be all "growed" up!!

Should I stay or should I go now...

I think I may have overdone it slightly this past weekend....I woke up this morning and my throat and chest were burning, now I do not get sick very often and I have hockey tonight so am in a dilemma...I have taken a fistful of Echinacea, 2000mg of vitamin C and am using my mind power to improve my health asap. So do I play this evening or give it a rest? It will probably be so sad going to the club after the weekends festivities, so many people and all the colours, orange and white, lilac, pink and purple, blue and white and many more moving around the pitches at high speed...tonight there will probably be 20 of us, if we are lucky!!!
We are also off to London next Saturday to celebrate Adrian's 40th birthday, and I certainly want to be 100% healthy for that, when we see the Collins' family it is ALWAYS fun.

In other news....Jess broke up today so she is officially on holiday, until the end of August, how long a summer holiday is THAT!!! Kirstin is not too impressed as she has to continue on with school until the end of June. I am now working Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and every second Friday from 10h00 - 14h00 still loving the job - I get a kick out of walking the streets of Dublin every day, will that ever wear off?
Summer has disappeared, yesterday was a cruel joke - 10 degrees and raining - today is still cloudy but at least a little warmer!

Tuesday 27 May 2008

Three Rock ROCKS!!!

Feeling neglected little blog? Well you should!!! I have been up to my eyeballs in having fun and have not found Q time for you and me. So I have poured myself a glass of wine and sat myself down to try and give a short (ha) overview of the past weekend.
Three Rock Ladies Vets team hosted a hockey tournament all weekend, 8 men's and 6 women's teams and in true Irish style, our guests were wined and Guinessed all weekend, with a little food thrown in for staying power.
It all started on Friday evening....many TR ladies busied themselves making pans (sliced loaves) of sandwiches to feed all the hockey teams, well to soak up the Guinness if truth be told. At 20h30 3 coaches bursting with eager hockey players arrived at the club, ordered drinks, registered, drank their chosen poison and then proceeded to fling themselves around the dance floor to a live band until 01h00...because the buses were returning them to the hotel at this hour, from what I heard the bar did a booming business from 01h00 to 04h00 or thereabouts...not sure if there is any truth in that rumour as the hockey was first class on Saturday morning.
On Saturday I prepared myself a feast of bacon, eggs, fried tomato and baked beans before heading off for the club where we played a few hockey games, watched a few and ate lunch in the clubhouse; the caterers did a fantastic job at keeping us nourished with all manner of goodies. We sunned ourselves while drinking gin and tonic and shouting encouragement to whichever team was occupying the pitch throughout the afternoon. At 17h00 we all dashed home for a shower and a makeover arriving back at the club at 20h00 looking like different people, not a sweaty sock in sight!!! We quaffed chamapgne in the foyer and then made our way upstairs to long lines of tables and claimed our seats. Dinner was great - will not bore you with the details. After dinner all the tables were cleared, chairs collapsed and everything was removed for the dancing part of the evening. What a lot of fun, it is so great to dance and be silly with like minded people!!! At 01h30 we sent everyone back to their hotel where the party continued at the bar while TR ladies slept peacefully in their beds.
Sunday morning found us all back at the club for round two, I did not feature much - the teams were tough and my comerades certainly needed experience on the pitch so I spent my time watching and shouting encouragement most of the time!
On Sunday evening there is a tradition to follow, TR ladies and the Yorkie team go out for dinner and we had a superb meal at a thai restaurant, after that it was back to the hotel for a nightcap and I finally stumbled home at 01h00 - exhausted but happy.

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Now that would be telling...

So an exhausted me returned from Blackpool on Monday evening. I had a fabulous time, we played a lot of hockey and spent an entire evening on the dance floor too. Late nights...more like early mornings but somehow I managed, decided I could sleep when I got back to Dublin.
Unfortunately what goes on tour stays on tour so that is all you gonna get!!! Good excuse for me - too lazy to do a long post, on top of which there was so much to type that you would have all lost interest halfway through!

Thursday 15 May 2008

French maids - but no fishnets!

So tomorrow I am off to Blackpool with 8 similarly minded women, we plan to play a lot of hockey and have an extraordinary amount of fun too. I have been told: 'What goes on tour, stays on tour' but that is all hot air talk coz I was not on tour last year and I already know all about Blackpool 2007!!!
On Saturday night there is a dinner and we have to dress up to a theme, VE Day, and we are all going as french maids, O sewed up frilly aprons and hair pieces and we were all going to wear fishnets but as we are classy french maids we have decided that good ole' black tights will do. I have my first pair of heels which I wobble around on considerably, how am I supposed to walk on heels???? Is it toe heel or is my clomping heel toe right? I did choose a good solid heel, no stiletto type heel for me, I swear I could not walk 2 steps in those, as it is my kids are trying to give me lessons but considering they do not wear heels either how the heck do they know? HELP!!!! Also at 5'11" and then another 2" of heels I feel a little giant like....

Tuesday 13 May 2008

All About Me

I had my pedicure today. I chose the colour and I could see a flicker of concern over my choice on the therapists face. I love pink for my feet, I always chose it in S.A. So I stuck with my decision and when she was done she looked pleasantly surprised at the final result. Now when I look down at my toes I see summer. Best thing I learned today...the colour is called "All about me" he he.

Monday 12 May 2008

Madness

My legs are a bit like pudding, jelley to be precise. I chose to ride my bike into work, first I escorted Kirstin to the luas, came home for 20 minutes and then set off on my journey. I only have to be at work at 10h00 so the roads were already fairly quiet when I set off at 09h00. The ride to work was great, it is nice and cool and there is a bicycle path for a lot of the way, sidewalks too...ONLY when there are no pedestrians present....I hope that is allowed. Anyhow, I got to work within 30 minutes which was pretty cool. At around 13h30 I started dreading the return, the saddle imprint was a bit of a clue to the possible (probable) discomfort about to be experienced. At 14h00 I grit my teeth hopped on my bike and headed home, it really was not too bad. My legs did protest at the only real hill I encountered and I did consider walking but I was a bit embarrassed becasue the hill really was well, just a hill, so onward and upward I went. I made it home by 14h30 and when I got up realsied that my scheduled evening walk with a friend was probably not a very good idea, so tomorrow I am having a lady day, a pedicure and a leisurely stroll around Dundrum ought to do the trick...ahh part-time employment is bliss.

Saturday 10 May 2008

DONIMATOR...

Back to the awesome weekend then....Friday night. Climbed ino bed with my latest acquisition, This Charming man, and settled down for an enjoyable hour.....okay okay yes it is the latest book by Marian Keyes, but hubby was downstairs watching TV - I thought that this was a much more exciting start to my latest post...
So I here my man's voice booming on the phone -I am not sure he actually knows HOW to talk quietly...I deduce from the conversation that his brother Donovan - Dono - is on his way for a visit...cool. I fall asleep before he comes upstairs and so am not able to interrogate him about said conversation.
Saturday morning first words out of my mouth..."So, when is Dono arriving?"
Malc's tries to tell me that Dono is not popping in for a visit but I explain my UNINTENTIONAL eavesdropping of the night before. Sadly it was meant to be a surprise for me and the girls - I explained to Malcolm that in order to keep a surprise, talking quietly on the phone is a prerequisite...luckily the girls were fast asleep so at least for them it our Monday morning visitor would be a surprise.
On Sunday there was a gathering at Wanderers in Ballsbridge for all Southern African folk in Ireland. We had heard bad reviews about the previous years fiasco but safety in numbers (10 0f us) made us all brave and we decided to give it a try. Mmmmm an hour later after trying to shout above the distorted music, watching an extraordinary amount of lighter fluid being added to the bbq's and very dodgy looking braai packs, 10 people were jumping into cars and heading off to the nearest shop to buy meat and drink - rendezvous - our place, as quick as possible. I got stuck in the kitchen making salads but of course I had all the women folk in the kitchen with me, chatting away while I showed them all what a messy cook I am! To make matters worse I buckled under the pleas for milk tart and had to make that too!!!

The day was glorious, the sun was shining, the temperature was ALMOST at 20....in JHB we would all have been wearing sweaters, here in Dublin we were running around in our summer finest! We wrapped things up at around 23h00, it really had been a great day.

Monday and I was trying to clean up from the night before, hung around in my pj's and waved Malc's off, the kids thought he was off to a cricket match but he was actually going to fetch Don from the airport. I managed to get the house half way respectable, no way I was spending the whole day cleaning, we had a VISITOR and fabulous weather AGAIN!!!

Dono snuck in the back door and surprised the girls, they were absolutely thrilled to see the one and only Uncle Don!

Malcolm did actually have a cricket match so he left us to go and "throw" balls and hopefully hit a few too. Jess had arranged to meet some of her school friends at the fun fair in Leopardstown at 15h00 so we decided to go off to REAL Gourmet Burger in Dun Loaghrie for the best burger in Dublin that we have found so far before dropping Jess off. Sadly it was closed - some air conditioning problem so we headed over to Gastro Pub instead. We spotted a table which was in the sun and then discovered that they do not serve food outside!!! I found this mind boggling, to have to sit inside on such a sunny day when there was such an awesome table begging to be occupied was sacrilege.

After lunch we headed over to the fair and Jess met up with her friends and Don, Kirstin and I decided to attempt throwing balls into milk urns to win a stuffed toy. €6 and 12 balls later we abandoned the stupid milk urns for a darts game. Then we shuffled from the dart board...still empty handed to a horse racing, ball throwing game, once again we left sans toy. After all that the Ferris wheel looked like a bit of fun so we hopped into a swinging basket and off we went. Sadly the views were not as spectacular as I thought they would be, I guess having a fun fair next to the M50 ain't going to be too inspiring but we did get a good look at the racetrack. Kirstin desperately wanted to have a go at a roller coaster type ride so we found a Mickey mouse one and her and I clambered aboard. Donovan wisely stayed on Terra firma, it was a silly looking ride and he had already had his fair share of proper rides in Vegas! The ride was a laugh until we got spun around in a horrible jerky manner and I started feeling a little queasy, Kirstin told me she wanted to throw up and I ordered her not to. She thought that this was my clever way of controlling her heaving stomach...it was really a desperate attempt to avoid getting messy. Being the obedient (ha ha) child that she is she did manage to retain her lunch and I rewarded her by buying a photograph taken of us on the ride. She looks suitably horrified and I am calmly sitting there smiling, in reality I was trying to ensure my skirt did not provide any unnecessary distractions for anyone!

Donovan was determined to win a fluffy toy and so we returned to the milk urns, then we made a turn at the darts. He finally gave up and we all piled into the car and headed for home. We went down to the cricket grounds in Rathmines and watched the last few overs of Malcolms game and then had a drink in the bar. After that it was home to braai/bbq a few steaks and make a salad. we ended up eating at 22h00 - this light until 21h00 throws us a bit sometimes!!!

On tuesday Jess had school, shame Kirstin scored - she was still on her half term break! Jess desperately wanted to miss school but they are doing revision for exams and she ahs missed so much work so we had to deny the poor girl.

In the evening we caught the bus into Dublin and walked around St Stephen's Green, while standing on the bridge a swan came running across the water and Donovan managed to snap a fantastic shot...what a picture to wrap up the end of a LONG post!!!




Tuesday 6 May 2008

The beginning of a smashing weekend...

Fabulous. The weather, the company, the surprise, the weekend all of it. Fabulous. Friday started out a bit miserable but by dinner time we knew we had to braai so I ran out to get meat at Supervalu. Ooh, ooh, ooh... when we got out of the shop there were 3 Garda cars and people milling about, sadly we had missed all the action while merrily shopping. The next day we heard that there had been a fight between 2 gangs in the car park! Not sure if that is the real story, will find out from our neighbors once they get the scoop!!!
So....the braai was great, Malcolm did an awesome job and we ate chicken kebabs, ribs AND steak, blew the budget but a BRAAI with GOOD weather people!!!! Have to grab oppurtunities like that whenever we can! Saturday the forecaster had promised rain, intermittent showers, so the chance of good spells (He he listen to the weather girl in me) and we had another awesome day, it started out looking rather threatening but by the time I got in my car and drove to Naas it was gorgeous! Naas, what can I say about Naas? What a pretty little town!!!! I absolutely loved it. Unfortunately I did not get to explore, I was fixing a WHOOPS I made at work and had business to attend to!!! Divine intervention is what it was. I ended up sitting around the kitchen table at L and G's for at least an hour and a half having the most excellent chat. We all decided that a dinner or a braai is definitely on the cards, all because I forgot to send off a delivery on a specific date!!! When I got home the kids had vacuumed, dusted AND mopped the entire downstairs AND had gone off to the little local hardware store and bought me little pots of mini pansies for outside the front door!!!! Not only that, Jessica had also made us a full on breakfast that morning, what on earth did the kids want? Nothing, absolutely nothing - I am one lucky parent, Malcolm is the other one! There is so much more news, but if I give it to you all in one go it will be too much reading so ........ LATER dudes!!!