Sleepless in Dublin

I can't sleep. It is 12h30 and I was lying in my bed overheating with thoughts buzzing around in my head. This always seems to be the case after hockey practice on a Wednesday but tonight is the worst. After the fitness regime we got put through I imagined myself collapsing into my bed and passing out in minutes, but no...there I lie thinking...oh I must blog about our new eating program! Mmm odd. Of course now you are dying to know what I am talking about aren't you? Well even if you are not I am going to tell you anyway, in the vain hope that I get tired!
Kirstin has decided she is a vegetarian, after spending a week in August on a dairy farm and milking cows and feeding calves the thought of a juicy steak, or any other meat for that matter, makes her feel rather queasy. So humour her I have and last night I prepared a lovely dish of quinoa with broccoli, corn, spring onions, roasted red and yellow peppers with a tomato pesto stirred through, very delicious, perhaps it is a good thing for the entire family that she has turned her back on meat! Tonight was bruschetta and then a chickpea salad - salad courtesy of the fridge at SuperValu I must confess. Oh and to complicate things she will not eat fish either. This has been going on a little longer, she saw a show on fishing and was horrified to see how many poor dolphins became casualties in the nets and so swore off anything from the sea too. I am thinking vegetable lasagne for tomorrow, recipe anyone?
Okay, I am still not tired, this is not good. Tomorrow night I am meeting a few girlfriends and we are going out, there is a new movie aptly titled Women that we are all going to see and then a glass of wine and a chat should round things off rather nicely, except that at this rate I will not make the 20h20 show never mind the glass of wine afterwards! Having said that Malcolm has now done the kids school lunches a couple of times so perhaps a sleep in is not entirely out of the question!
Oh...one more thing! I am so excited I have figured out how to schedule a blog post (will NOT confess as to how easy it is to do...mmm) for a specific date and have got what I think is a great Friday song all racked up and ready..it will be posted on Friday morning at 07h00 - how AWESOME is that!!! Perhaps working and blogging will work out after all. Ha Ha!!!!

Back to reality

I am shocked and amazed, the school summer holidays are OVER, I know Jessica had a very long holiday (a month more than Kirstin)but I have never known months to fly by as they have this summer. On Tuesday I found myself sitting amongst First Year students and their parents in the school hall, a few speeches and then all the class lists were read out and class by class the children filed out with their prefects to learn about lockers, timetables, class rooms etc. So that is it then my BABY is in secondary school. She loves her tutor, he looks lovely, very young but I think that is just because I am getting old!!!
The induction day on Tuesday was the best thing for the kids, they were the only ones at the school and when everybody went back on Wednesday they already knew their way around. The combination locks proved to be troublesome, I had walked up with Kirstin because the books were far too heavy for her to carry and I watched helplessly as child after child visibly deflated as they realised that their locks had the upper hand over them!!! Kirstin called over one of the prefects and she did it all one handed and very swiftly..blush..I had tried crashed and burned at my attempt.
I had watched the prefect carefully so I tried to help the little chap next to Kirstin but to no avail so I had to send him in search of an expert (prefect) too.

Thursday was the first full day and they had sports trials after school so I had asked them to call me and let me know what time they needed to be picked up. At
16h30 I got a call from Kirstin, her trials were not that day but she was happy to wait at school. This is not allowed and I told her I would be up to fetch her pronto. The response I am almost embarrassed to say was this: "Rumour has it that ... is going to ask me out and he is at rugby trials so I am happy to wait." I gave her a stern warning about hanging around waiting for boys, that she was too young, she must just be friends, she had only just met the boy (whose locker I had tried to open incidentally) and all that. I told her I would be there in 5 minutes
(come hell or high water she was not going to get asked out - I had to get there before rugby finished). She was not too impressed but what could she do...I am bigger and stronger than her....for now!

Sligo

Sligo was fantastic, I love mountains AND I love the sea and Sligo has both which makes it a very special place to be. I booked a house in Templeboy, sleeps 10 people and each bedroom had an en suite bathroom which was a HUGE plus. I was surprised to discover upon arrival that we were residing on a dairy farm for the week, some of my senses went to work immediately...the smell of dung, the sight of dung, the gentle sound of lowing cattle, not to mention more flies than we have had the pleasure to associate with so far in our year in Ireland!

The kids were absolutely thrilled, and went off exploring within minutes of our wheels stopping on the tarmac outside the house. They discovered young calves who were being hand fed, 60 something cows for milking and a grey mare/pony, perfection. We got to marvel at an amazing sunset and a superb view which we drank in for as long as possible...thank goodness because by the next day it was obliterated by rain and clouds, and the next and even the one AFTER that!

Wednesday

Yes, you may get jealous here...woke up to a glorious day AGAIN, getting a little tiring now, but how can I NOT mention it?

We started off with our usual coffee and then headed off in a new direction on our walk. We ended up going along a very quiet road and had the misfortune of an assault on our olfactory senses by the most foul smelling fertilizer ever - well I hope it was fertilizer! The walks are decidedly pleasant under normal circumstances, sunflower, wheat and maize fields abound in the area we were based.

We got home and had some breakfast and then I did my daily ritual of donning my polka dot bikini and heading for the sun lounger with my book for about an hour. Then it was back to the shower and off to Dixieland for lunch and we hoped that the chateau would be open for visitors. The menu at Dixieland was unexciting but we decided that we liked the setting and settled for one of the few options they presented to us and then spent a pleasant 40 minutes waiting for our lunch and enjoying the pleasant surroundings. After lunch we chatted to the waiter and discovered that the chateau was not open to visitors so we walked around the town for a while before heading home again. The afternoon was spent playing badminton, Malcolm and I had a great game and a good bit of exercise too.

Dinner was easy...I found a hand held blender, abused the ratatoiulle from the previous evening, added creme fraiche and served it over tomato, basil and mozzarella tortellini - delicious! Quaffing of more wine followed and a pleasant evening of Rummikub rounded the evening off.

To market to market

We woke up to yet another absolutely awesome day, the sky was an unbelievable blue and not one fluffy cloud in sight. We had our ritual coffee on the patio and then got ready to go to the market in Mansle - our only planned activity of the day.

We purchased some strawberries and raspberries and then with all the wonderful vegetables avaiable I was inspired to make rattatouille (spelling?) and so spent an unbelievable €6.46 on our dinner! If only there were markets like that in Dublin, we would eat like kings. We also walked into a 'boucher' and after surveying the many different cuts of meat decided that the easiest option were the beef kebabs, pointing at them and holding up 4 fingers was definitely the easiest way to go!

After that we did some more exploring and discovered a lovely place to sit and have a coffee and as kirstin was hungry we surveyed the menu and decided that jambon frommage would be a cheese sandwich/roll. What arrived to our surprise was half a baguette with ham, which was delicious but we were fairly sure that frommage is cheese? Turns out that jambon is ham, but I am still at a loss as to the where the frommage was.

Mansle:

We also stopped in at the bolangerie again and got a baguette as Jess was desperate to prepare her favourite meal - bruschetta, this time I had managed to get together all the necessary ingredients after we finally visited a grocery store for the rest of our supplies.

A lazy afternoon followed, I lay in the sun and read my book and Jess fed me her divine bruschetta and we even added an avocado to some of the mix for something a little different - bliss. After that it was a cold shower and then a late afternoon glass of wine and a long chat with Malcolm while the kids tried to catch some fish and played more badminton. I went inside and prepared my planned dinner and a fruit salad and then the kids challenged me to a game of badminton, mom vs kids ensued and I was victorious. Kirstin told me that as a parent i should have let them win, that is something a good mom would do...I told her that a BETTER mom teaches her kids that they cannot win all the time and that losing isn't so bad....What can I say....sometimes I really like to WIN.

Sunday

We awoke to a spectacular day in Pitou Charente and headed for the kettle and coffee and then out to the porch and the chairs to soak up the early morning sun and watch the river lazily flowing by...ahhh peace.
After a breakfast of smoked salmon and baguettes - yes odd I know but I had been hankering after salmon...(need the oils to keep the brain functioning) we all climbed aboard the little green boat and went for a ride with Jess at the helm, okay then - the OARS. She used to do rowing in S.A. and has certainly not lost her touch, her confidence and handling of the boat is impressive. Of course I could not resist having a go myself and I was not too bad although my facial expressions apparently made for a good laugh and the kids spent most of my rowing time in stitches. Kirstin was delighted at getting a few candid pictures but I got to them and managed to oblierate them - thank goodness.

Enjoying being rowed around...

At about noon we got back to the cottage and I prepared bruschetta with a twist for lunch. i ahd no basil, olive oil or garlic so I used a jar of pesto with the tomaoes and onions and it actually turned out pretty well.
After lunch Malcolm and I donned our walking shoes and headed off to explore the village of Chenon and beyond. Chenon is literally a few homes, not sure if it even qualifies as a village because there is not one single shop there. The walk was lovely though and we vowed to have many more during our week long stay.
When we got back to the house the kids were playing badminton and they managed to cajole us into joining them for a game, the joys of older kids!!!
When in France do as the Italians do....pasta on the menu for dinner! I made spaghetti bolognaise as it is so easy and always provides left overs for another day. The kids went for another boat ride, took the fishing rods and tried to catch some fish, it was absolutley awesome to see them making the best of their surroundings, besides meal times I do not think they se a foot in the house!

Bon Jour

We landed at the single strip airport in Poitiers at 16h30 on Saturday afternoon. The airport is tiny, literally opens and closes according to the flight schedules!
We had hired a car and to Kirstin's delight it was a Toyota Verso WITH the extra seats in the back. We got Molly out and plugged in our destination "Chenon" and discovered that before we even began to tackle driving on the wrong side of the road we had to figure out how to start the car without a key, finally figured out that you have to push the clutch in and then push the button that says 'start engine'.
Anyhoooo...off we went and Malcolm soon disregarded Molly's gentle direction to turning in 100m and turned in 10m and she started recalculating...but then I saw what looked like a mall and we needed groceries so we carried on ignoring Molly and made our way over to see if it had a grocery store. The first good sign was an advert for specials on the door to the mall, and then the beautiful sight of a family unpacking groceries into the boot of the car! Yay! Food. The grocery store - Auchan was enormous, I think I would have preferred a small store, less confusion! We managed to fill a trolley with what we felt would be needed for a week and only after paying considered the fact that we had no space in the boot...oops. Somehow we managed to get everything into the car and this time followed Molly's instruction and found our way to the cottage. We arrived at 20h30 and the evening was so marvelous we decided to light a fire and have a bbq. I got to work on salads, the kids headed straight for the boat and before long we were all sitting at the long dining room table enjoying our first meal in France.

London

Wow! It is SO busy here. Yesterday the girls and I only got into London at 13h00 and we zipped around, checked out the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square (climbed the lions!) AND Harrods. I am not sure how we managed but I think it had something to do with my excellent map skills and my ability to figure out the underground at impressive speed! Hee Hee. On my quest to find maps and information at the tourist centre I almost broke my neck, too busy reading a map while trying to descend a flight of stairs...misjudged it, thought I was at the bottom and there were still 4 to go, luckily landed on my feet dignity intact...it did of course provide welcome entertainment to the kids because they just saw me flying through the air and thought that I had been trying to race them, as they had opted for the lift while I feel that while my legs still work I ought to use them!
Sadly we had no camera for the day as it was in Malcolm's luggage so the memories will just have to remain in our minds for years to come....or we can do it all again...
Malcolm was supposed to be with us but the radar at Dublin airport was down so his flight was cancelled and he had to go home and organise another flight for Thursday. It was so frustrating and such a waste of time, he finally arrived in London at 18h00 on Thursday evening.
We took Rob and Kirsty out for dinner and the kids stayed home, ate pizza and watched TV which was just what the doc ordered for them.
Today we found ourselves back on a train heading for London, this time with Rob and Malcolm for company. Rob had managed to organise tickets to go and see South Africa playing at Lords and Malcolm was enormously chuffed as he has wanted to go to Lords for many years.
The kids and I were heading off to The London Dungeon - a history tour with a bit of a twist. The queue was LONG - we waited 2 hours!

Waiting in line...

Of course had we known it would be so slow...and that the queue continues once inside, we may have opted for something else but after an hour we were all loathe to abort. At 14h30 we finally began the tour with rumbling tummies because of course by now we had also missed lunch. We finally stumbled out of the Dungeon at 16h00 ravenous and headed back to Waterloo train station, buying food en route to enjoy on the long train ride back to Surrey. Would I recommend it? Difficult question, we stood for 2 hours, got rained on to add insult to injury and the tour is fun but tiring when you have already been standing for so long...I guess the best advice would be...buy tickets before you go, then it may be well worth it. There is a drop ride at the end - the kids FORCED me to buy the picture because they thought it was so funny, our faces are all absolutely terrified! MAYBE when I get home I will scan it and share it with you all...if you ask me nicely...

Tomorrow it is back on trains and planes and off to rural France for a week of R&R so this reallyIS my last blog post for a while...keep well and come on...play in my comment box...I dare you!

Whistle stop tour of our last days

I have not even gone through Sunday, Monday or Tuesday yet....a whirlwind tour then? After all it is 00:18 and I am due to wake up at 05:00 to catch a plane to London, so be VERY impressed that you are even been given this much!!!!
Sunday was Marianne's birthday.....we had breakfast at the hotel, went to Masstrecht -too tired to remember the spelling -SORRY!!!!! It is a very old Roman city in the south of the Netherlands and because I am exhausted you will need to Google for more information! We did wonder around, enjoyed lunch there and then made our way back to Kerkrade because we were having dinner at a Greek restaurant for Marianne's birthday....a GREEK restaurant with pizza and pasta on the menu...??? NOT that I am complaining because Jess was very happy to order a pizza! I was craving vegetables by this stage of being on holiday and ordered a VERY traditional Greek meal.....Baked vegetables in roomsous (cream sauce) - a mix of broccoli, cauliflower, peppers and spinach....YUM. Traditional....NO.
On Monday we went to Snoworld to have a look at options and discovered that we could have a 4 hour snow pass for €23....we wanted a lesson but the instructors were fully booked and as Marianne is a good skier we opted for a lesson from her!
Well....I really do not want to bad mouth myself BUT....I moaned like a baby about the ski boots. I have never been more uncomfortable in my life! I did ski, I DID fall and I DID have fun...but I still need a little convincing that a ski holiday is a good idea....I mean I wear CROC's!!!! Comfort people....
Anyway, the skiing was great, I stayed on the baby slope but felt like an expert when I managed to do a few turns and even got Eric and Lara down the baby slope on my own! This morning I felt vindicated when I discovered a beautiful blue bruise on my right shin from the ski boots...see...not moaning for NOTHING......The kids had an absolute ball and I think we will be saving for a ski holiday...aching feet or not!
Today we had to make our way to Eindhoven for our flight home, we had a lot of rain....Holland was sad to see us go!!! Kirstin was sad to leave, she was trying to convince us that pig latin helped her get to grips with Dutch..mmmmmm.

Illegal aliens

Saturday then....drove from the north of the Netherlands down to the south to Marianne's home town Kerkrade. Convoy did not last but we had given Molly to Mariannes folks, luckily she speaks Dutch...Jess went in their car with Eric and it was agreed that we would meet for lunch. We should have known from past experience that this would not happen. When we called and asked Jess where they were she told us the road she was on...Marianne was confused so we consulted the map and discovered that they were in Germany....sans passports...OOPS. Jess was not as surprising in her reaction this time, she was livid. They ended up arriving an hour and a half after us after truning poor Molly off and getting lost. My daughter was NOT impressed. The good news is that while she was tearing her hair out we were enjoying a traditional lunch, I got to try krokets, something a friend had suggested I taste (nice but rich, not sure I would eat it again) and Marianne ordered Frikkadel Special which I tasted too. Kirstin also decided to try a traditional meal and had pasteijie (spelling?) with chicken and mushrooms covered in cheese sauce. She absolutely loved every mouthful. She tried the frikkadel and kroket too, adventurous palette, made me so proud!!!
On Saturday evening we went to marianne's sister for her birthday and I got to try the apple pie thaat the region is famous for. I also tasted a cake made with rice pudding type filling, will have to find out what it was called and a yoghurt apple cake - all of it was good.
We went back to the hotel put the kids to bed, left Jess and Kirstin in charge for a couple of hours and headed off to see the night life of Kerkrade. Mmmmmmmm, sadly there was none, we had a drink in a very quiet pub, but Marianne knew the owner so it was worth it for her to have a chat and after that we headed towards the market square...it was actually eerily quiet, nobody walking the streets and a handful of people in the pubs, at least we did not have to wait too long for our drinks!!! We managed to stay out until midnight so that we could see Marianne's birthday in and then headed back to the hotel, I think we would have had a better party with more people if we had just stayed in our hotel room with the kids!!!

Loop da loop

Friday was another beautiful day, does not weaken Kirstin's resolve to move to Holland. Yep, from the day we landed Kirstin has been asking if we can move here, bizarre considering she is the one who likes moving least of all.
I looked after all the kids while M's folks went on a little shopping spree in the morning. Marianne was hoping to get off a bit early on Friday and she did so we all piled into cars and IN CONVOY went to Slagharen Adventure Park. We were very lucky because it was quiet and so we let Jess and Kirstin go off on their own, Marianne's folks went in another direction and we took the little ones on a few rides that did not have severe height restrictions. An hour later we all met up again and we sent the little ones off with their grandparents, Jess and Kirstin went charging off on their own again and Marianne and I headed for the roller coaster. It was such a quick one, we did it twice! After the second go we decided to look at buying the photograph and discovered that there is a VIDEO we can buy. We stood their and watched it..I sat down and 'buckled' up talking all the while...by the end of the roller coaster ride my mouth was still moving, my god I can talk!!!!!! I vetoed getting the video, thank goodness Marianne agreed that a picture was a good enough memory of the roller coaster!

Detours

Back to Thursday then...We had all been invited to Martin's house - he is a friend and colleague of Marianne's. VERY very brave as we were a large group, Marianne's folks, kids and of course my brood too. We left in 2 cars and my garmin was even allowed out to tell us which way she thought was best to go. We left the guesthouse and stopped outside the hotel to wait for M's folks, they never appeared so we turned around and went back to the parking area....gone. As far as we knew all they had was the address of where we were going and possibly a telephone number....oh and most importantly MY CHILDREN!!!! There was nothing else for us to do but make our way to Martin's and hope and pray that the other group did not get lost. Molly (Garmin) did a superb job, Marianne did ignore her a couple of times when she knew a shorter route, but Molly is a very agreeable creature and went with it happily.
We got to Martin and discovered that we were first, no panic yet, M's folks apparently drive slowly. 30 minutes later, irritation and worry, I am wondering how my kids are coping...they have been in a car for 90 minutes with people they CANNOT communicate with. Finally the phone rings and a rapid Dutch conversation ensues which leads me to believe that a) they have a phone number and b) they are hopelessly lost.
I dread the thundercloud that will be above Jess's head when she walks in the door, the daggers that will be shooting forth from her eyes, I even go as far as explaining to everyone that Jess will not be impressed, she HATES being lost, not knowing what is going on AND sitting in the car for 2 hours plus.
I under estimated my daughter....she emerged from the car looking........calm, smiling and a bit tired around the eyes, wow!!! Of course they had realised that they were hopelessly lost, Kirstin had a game going counting the U-turns (6 if you must know) and took to writing them on the seat between them with ehr finger. At least they managed to turn it all into a game! We drank wine ate Chinese food and made sure that M's folks FOLLOWED us home at the end of a wonderful evening.

Land of Cheese

We were greeted by a heatwave - 31 C so it really was warm! The girls and I had a good snigger at one of our bus companions from Ireland - he was complaining about roasting, shame he has probably never experienced temps above 22 C... Arrived at the train station, impressed myself ordering tickets and then discovered that I had no clue which platform to go to! I had to go all the way to information, stand in a long queue which turned out to be a life saver! The reason I could not find our train on the list in the station was because I had to change trains! Information staff were very friendly and helpful and printed out a schedule for me which told me whre to change, which platform to go to and what time the train would arrive -Dutch efficiency at work! From then on things went very smoothly until we arrived at Enschede and did not know which way to go to meet Marianne in the town square. I confidently told the kids that my Afrikaans would help get us through the little predicament only to discover that it really was not much use! I understand Dutch better than they understand my afrikaans!!! I decided to follow my nose for a while and then saw an approachable looking couple and asked for directions. Luckily we were heading in the right direction and found the pizza place, Pinochio's which Marianne had told us about. Gratefully sat down and ordered a late dinner, the kids had pizza and I had a vegetarian pasta. The pizzas were delicious...probably something to do with the Dutch cheese! Marianne joined us after her dinner and we had a glass of wine before heading off to Vasse, exhausted by now -it was almost 23h00 and it had been a very long day.
Wednesday was a stunning day! A little bit too stunning, I sat in the sun and got a little bit sunburnt, had a swim and lay in the sun a little bit more, followed of course by another swim because it was 34 C....The kids were all happy to see each other and my only frustration was the fact that I could barely communicate with Marianne's folks as they speak in a dialect. I did go to the supermarket and bought supplies for lunch and dinner which I prepared for everyone - after all I was planning on desserting them all on Thursday to go off on my own little adventure.

ZWOLLE

Thursday morning was pleasant enough to start. There had been thunderstorms the previous evening but blue sky was visible which was great as I was going to have a day just for me in a town called Zwolle. I had tried to look up some information online and besides finding out that it was just over an hour away on the train and that it has a VERY old church I was not sure what to expect!
The train journey was pleasant and I cannot tell you how friendly the Dutch people are! At one stage I started wondering if I had missed Zwolle so I turned to a man sitting across the aisle from me and asked if he knew how long until Zwolle, he told me 2 stops and then proceeded to give me a little bit of a background and gave me directions on how to get into town, appologising because he was going to Zwolle for business so did not have the time to show me the way!!!
Zwolle was lovely, I wondered around, enjoyed a coffee at a nice little coffee shop and walked down cobbled streets and into an old church which was being refurbished. I enjoyed a walk along the canal with a couple of stops along the way to enjoy the peace and quiet and watch the boats. I absolutley loved my day away from everything, not having to worry about a thing for a few hours was awesome.
Of course all good things come to an end and it was a very sad little me back at the station waiting for my train to take me back to Enschede!
In Enschede I had a coffee and a muffin and walked around a bit before heading off to Marianne's office for the trip home.
I have so much more to tell...but think I will have to do it in instalments or this post is going to be too long....so next time I will tell you all about....trips gone bad, children in Germany without passports and more!!!

School Play

Last night we went to see the senior infants and the 6th class perform their plays. The senior infants went first and they were ADORABLE, jeez they are cute at that age! They did a little story on a village - the Lazy Daisy Village and littering, it was too cute with a little 'litter muncher' who went munch munch...I think I smiled throughout the performance.

After that the 6th class put on a sterling performance of Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat which was better than the show that Kirstin did during her extra mural...expensive drama lessons...will definitely not be sending her back there!I sat and watched young ladies on the stage and wondered where on earth all those years have gone, all those tall, grown girls on the stage and mine is one of them! There certainly are many benefits to the girls being older, like being able to go on hockey tours...or to watch Def leppard knowing they can be left in the hotel room..but when they were little and I could not do any of those things I certainly did not mind!

Anyway...after the play Tracy and Warren were taking their 2 girls - cute little girls to Eddie Rocket's and Skyla begged us to join them. Malcolm was playing cricket and then watching the soccer, I had already eaten at home, but the kids hadn't - sly move on their part me thinks... so I thought, why not! I am glad we went, the girls enjoyed it, they all sat at a table together and I got to be the third wheel with Tracy and Warren, a good third wheel though...a tricycle! We sat there long after we had eaten having great craic and then realised the kids still had school, it was 21h30, the sun was still shining, oh how I love the Irish summer...lots of rain but so many daylight hours!

Carlingford Adventure Centre

Kirstin's class is going to the Carlingford Adventure Centre tomorrow. The teacher asked if a parent could volunteer to go along and help with the kids, I offered my assistance willingly.
We are leaving at 07h40 tomorrow on a bus and will spend the whole day there.
The best part is that I get to take part in all the activities, I think I can choose four...I am so looking forward to it, I am sure that even the drive up will be great, beautiful Irish scenery and lots of noisy girls...hmmmm. Best I go and get a decent night sleep then...

Where did you blog from?

It is raining, a lot! Of course as I left the house this morning I paused at the door wondering whether to grab my rain jacket and decided not to bother. Bad decision. I am also wearing flip flops, worse decision. I had to walk Jess to Trinity College today at noon, (about 10 minute walk) it rained the whole way, a fine rain so I did not get too wet, a few odd looks...crazy lady with no umbrella/rain jacket...but hey!
It rained the whole way back to work too...so by the time I got back my cardigan was rather damp, and me with a cough I cannot get rid of...oops.
At 15h00 I had to walk BACK to Trinity, fill in some questionnaires and such. This time I got an umbrella from work but because the streets were so wet my feet kept slipping out of my shoes, I was shuffling along using my toes to keep my shoes on, now I think I need to disinfect my feet! It will have to wait though as I am still sitting at Trinity, on one of their computers (all my questions were computer based and as Jess is still busy they said I could go onto the internet..he he) yep blogging from Trinity - pretty cool hey!!! Who would ever have thought....

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!

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!!!

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!!!