R.I.P., Our Fish Has Died.

Treasure was his name, he lived with us for 6 weeks before being found dead one Saturday morning by my daughter.

SmelloTweets and Apple Pies

I am such a big show off!

There is a delicious apple pie baking in my oven at the moment and I couldn't stop myself from opening the kitchen window so that everybody in my street gets a whiff of what's cooking in my kitchen.

If it tastes half as good as it smells, it will be the best thing I've ever eaten, nevermind the fact that I've used cheap Lidl ingredients with the apples sitting in my kitchen for about a week (well, no one, including me, seems to want to eat them and I hate the idea of throwing them out, anyway, they must be loaded with pesticides and preservatives because they are still firm and none of them has started to rot yet).

I've already tweeted about the fact that I was making an apple pie and a quiche today but if I could convey smells over twitter, I would probably tweet the smell of that apple pie because I am such a big show off (well, online anyway).

Well, time for me to check back in the kitchen, I wouldn't want to waste all that hard work by letting it burn!

Koran Burning, Are We Back in the Middle Ages?

Anyone who knows me a little will be aware of my views on religion in general: the biggest scam ever invented by man. Crap, crap and more crap!

The fact that I don't believe in God does not mean that I have dodgy morals (unlike some catholic priests and nuns who preyed on vulnerable children for decades, as we learned in the Ryan report not so long ago).

When I heard that an American pastor was calling for hundreds of copies of the Koran to be burned in a ceremony to mark the anniversary of 9/11, I was shocked and my lack of faith in any kind of religion was once again reinforced.

I can vaguely remember a history class about the books of Copernicus and other great scientists being condemned as being the works of heretics and ordered to be burned by the Church. If my memory serves me right, the Nazis did something like that too, so what do the people who want to burn the Koran think they're at? Do they think that all Muslims are terrorists? Do they wish to return in the Middle Ages?

If that guy goes ahead with burning Korans, I suggest anyone who owns a copy of the Bible burns it too, along with all the fairy tale books stories that children have believed to be true for years.

Oh, and there's no such thing as Santa or the Easter Bunny (just wanted to say that for a long time).

Thanking International Organisations in Advance

You may have heard that New Zealand has just suffered a powerful earthquake in the last few days.

This morning, I heard that the country has turned down offers of international aid; at first I was gobsmacked at these news, but after a while, I got thinking: if international agencies are willing to give a nice bunch of money at the drop of a hat, that's fine by me, if New Zealand doesn't want it, just give it to me, I'll make sure to put it to good use!

So where do I send my banking details in order to receive the money promptly?

P.S. If there are any good-looking volunteer rescue workers, I'll take one of them too please.

Shrek And I

So this is what I would look like if I was (were?) an ogre; not much difference with the real me, then.

C'est La Vie! (That's Life)

Making strawberry jelly at 9:00am and hurrying to iron clothes while wearing a T-shirt that says C'est la vie, thinking of writing a blog post and if I'm very lucky I'll have time to vacuum the house and mop the floors before it's time to pick up my youngest daughter from school (I will have to go back later for the eldest because the school system in this country is completely out of tune with parents who want to get a job but cannot because of a stupid school schedule), that sums it all up.

This is what my life has come to, and to top it all up, the Soccer (Football?) World cup is starting today, meaning that there will be nothing decent on TV for a whole month. At least I will be able to catch up with the Graham Norton Show episodes that I have missed this season, even though I am in Ireland and cannot access the BBC iPlayer so I will have to find them on YouTube (thank you, YouTube) for my oh so necessary dose of laughter.

Even though I will be 37 this month I don't feel old (in my brain I am something like 27) except when my kids say that I am a lady, not a girl (but they also say this about their teachers, even though one of them doesn't look one day older than 18) and also when my almost 6 year-old says that my skin looks lumpy because I am a bit old (I think she was trying to be nice!)

So off I go, with my wrinkles and my lumpy skin, maybe I'll check out that Avon catalogue I've got stashed in a corner on my bedroom floor (I need some shelves in my bedroom) to see if it has any magic pore-reducing cream or foundation, but why bother? I might as well try and look my age even though I have never got around to getting the Mammy look, I am just too comfortable in my jeans and T-shirts and anyway I don't have the time or money to go shopping for a new look.

That's it for today's rant, which will probably not make sense to most of my readers (do I even have any?). I guess I'd better see to that vacuuming or else it might not get done until Monday. Cest la vie!

Eurovision Song Contest: Is Germany The Only Country That Gets It?

The Eurovision song contest was on last night. Every year, I say to myself: "No way I'm watching it!" and like every year, I end up watching bits of the Eurovision song context.

I knew Ireland did not have a chance to win: they sent a real bore of a song which, to tell the truth, I could not stand listening to until the end, and the fact that they sent a previous Eurovision winner made them look way to desperate to win the contest. No surprise that they did not win. At least they did not send a song that sounded like it had been fished out of an 80's Top of the Pop chart like Great Britain and end up last. Niamh Kavanagh may be an excellent singer, but that song would make anyone cringe!

Another country I was curious to see was France, because that is where I come from. But what was that? A song that sounded like it was written by La Compagnie Creole (don't worry if you have never heard of them, believe me, you don't want to!) and that was trying to force us to have a good time: "Allez, allez, il faut danser!" meaning: "Go on, go on, you have to dance!". Coming from the country of Jacques Brel, really, they have no excuse!
Click here for the French entry (but I wouldn't if I were you!).

Anyway, I must admit there were a few songs in there that were not too bad, and for once, it looks like the best one won, even though I am not sure about the lyrics (see Germany here). So I am sorry for those who say that the Eurovision song contest is not fair because the public just votes for their neighbour countries (by the way, you did not say that on the 5 years in the row when Ireland won), but if we keep sending out crap, we will keep getting crappy votes!

If you want my advice, here is what to do next year: get a good Irish singer (we have plenty of those), get a good song (we have excellent songwriters too, the thing is just to write a good song, just don't try and write FOR the Eurovision), get a few Irish dancers to perform, make it look a bit like Riverdance, but with only 5 dancers, since the maximum number of people on the stage is 6. If that is not a winning formula, I don't know what is!

First Day At The Beach

We have had hot weather for the last few days, at least by our standards, I know that 25 degrees celsius is a bit of a joke for most normal people out there, but we, in Ireland are all stripping off at the lightest ray of sun because we are used to getting crappy weather for most of the summer by now, so it is in our interest to make the most of the good weather when we get it.

I have always liked swimming but don't get to do it anymore because when we get anywhere near water I am just so afraid my kids might drown that I spend all the time watching them, and as I my legs were not beach-proofed (read not properly shaved enough to be fully exposed to the public), it suited me just fine to just sit and look after the kids from a distance.

We went to a lake as that was probably not very clean (even though it has got a blue flag); the place where my kids were splashing about was not deep enough to swim in so I was not too worried that they would get into trouble even though I kept telling them to stay on the less deep end. I suited me that it was not deep enough to swim because after I spotted that dog poo on the edge on the lake, I really did not want to get in there (the kids had a bath after we came home).

It was a nice way to spend the day, especially since it was a lake, there was less sand messing up everything, but now I am almost hoping for a not too good summer so that my kids do not beg me to bring them back to swim in that dog-poo infested water again.

Teaching my Kid to Ride a Bicycle

Sometimes I wish I had bought a tricycle for my eldest daughter when she was little. Her Dad did buy her a bicycle with training wheels when she was about 3 but it was a bicycle that would have suited a 5 year-old better (I must ask him if I can get it for my nearly 6 year-old).

Anyway, to get back on the subject to teaching my kid how to ride her bicycle, she has no experience of pedalling and she must learn to keep her balance on 2 wheels so it is tricky (and painful for my back too). Since I have a small yard and another younger daughter that I can't leave at home on her own, if you see a wobbly pink bicycle on a big footpath with a woman taking turns holding the seat and picking up the kid followed by a smaller kid flying in front of us on her scooter, that's us!

Yesterday we went to a sportsground nearby to have more space to practice as well as softer landings and so far so good, I managed to let her go and she didn't fall straightaway; I am also more confident in letting her go as I know the grass won't hurt her as much as a hard ground - sometimes I wonder which one of us needs training the most but that's mothers for you!

My daughter is so proud of herself when she manages to cycle for a short while on her own that she doesn't even seem to mind falling down. There has been lots of falling and laughing and her (our?) confidence is building. It should not take her too long now to learn but I am wondering what I signed up for when I let her her have a bicycle because I really don't want to see her riding on the roads yet as there are no bicycle lanes around here. Hopefully she will be happy enough staying on the footpaths around our house until she gets a little older but even then, I will be a nervous wreck when the time comes to let her go.

I thought things would get much easier after both my kids were toilet trained but it turns out it's just one thing after another and life is only getting more stressful as children grow. Sometimes I wish they could just both get back inside my tummy but that would not be very practical. Ah well, it won't be long now before they have their own lives and they throw me into an old folks home, no more worries for me then!

Gerry Ryan R.I.P., But Enough With The Tributes Programmes!

It has possibly been the biggest and saddest news in Ireland for 2010, even though this year is not over yet: Gerry Ryan, one of the most (if not THE most) famous radio broadcaster in Ireland, died at the age of 54.

I understand that all of Friday's and Saturday's radio and television programmes talked about and gave tribute to Gerry Ryan but when I switched on 2FM this morning and the radio presenter was still paying tribute to him, I said enough!

First of all, I want to say that my radio station of choice is not 2FM (which was Gerry Ryan's primary place of work) but TodayFM; I only listen to 2FM when Today FM has a sports or boring business programme on because for me, radio is about music and entertainment and I am just addicted to the two Rays (D'arcy and Foley), so I never used to listen to the Gerry Ryan show (which was on at the same time as the Ray D'Arcy Show).

So not being a fan of Gerry Ryan (I didn't say I didn't like him, I just did not know him that well) when the whole country is suddenly paying tributes to him, I suddenly feel very alone: am I the only person in Ireland who has had enough of everyone talking about him like he was their best friend even though they only knew him from a few television and radio programmes? Am I the only person around here who remembers the national uproar when he would not take a paycut? I clearly remember some people calling him a sleazebag back then but now that he is dead, suddenly he is a Saint?

As a reminder, here are a few hate links with comments of people who did not seem to have the slightest ounce of respect for the late Gerry Ryan (these do not reflect my own opinions, as I am not qualified enough to have one):
http://bocktherobber.com/2009/03/facebook-group-removed-gerry-ryan-is-a-complete-and-utter-wanker
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/how-gerry-ryan-turned-into-mr-smug-1499629.html
http://twentymajor.net/2008/01/07/operation-transformation

I would like to say that I did not know the guy enough to say whether I liked him or not so don't misunderstand this post as another "I hate Gerry Ryan even though I don't even know the f***er" article, this post is just to say that 2 whole days of Gerry Ryan tributes are more than enough and it is way past time to get over this and get on with our lives!

P.S. I wonder who will replace Gerry Ryan on 2Fm though.

Oh Oh Oh, I've Bought A Bucket...

I am pretty proud of my new bucket, 2 people already asked me about it even though I don't usually speak with many people in general, but I must say that my bucket is very special indeed, it is actually an ash bucket with a lid, something I had been looking for in the shops for a long time.

You see, I have a fireplace at home, and I like to light a fire now and then, especially now that I don't really need to have the heat on in the whole house and it's nice to have a cosy night in front of the TV with a nice warm fire. My only problem, up until now, was cleaning the ashes the morning after the night before; of course it's always going to be a pain to clean the ashes but now that I've got a new metal bucket WITH A LID, I can wait until it's full before I empty the cold ashes in the bin and since there is a lid, I don't care about having ashes in my sitting room, since nobody can see them. Also having a lid on my ash bucket means that I can now walk all the way to the back kitchen (where I will pour the cold ashes in a plastic bag before heading for the wheelie bin) without fear of spilling any of these dirty ashes.

I am so proud of my new bucket that I even made up a song about it (I don't get out much): I stole the tune of I've Got a Rocket by Goldfrapp, which is a pretty catchy tune; here it goes:
Oh oh oh, I've bought a bucket,
Oh oh oh, you're going in it,
Oh oh oh, you're never coming out!

I am sorry, but I have had this tune in my head for weeks (not that I'm complaining, I like the song, I always sing it in the car, very out of tune, to annoy the kids!) and, like I said, my bucket is very special, I just couldn't help it!

When Is This Going To Stop?

I am stuck at home most days at the moment, when I am not running to the doctor's as my two daughters and me seem to be taking turns at being sick.

I guess I am lucky that I don't have an employer to answer to because, even to me, this looks suspicious: it started a few weeks ago when I had herpes in my eye; I could not do anything (I am just lucky my kids are able to operate the toaster, and very thankful to a freezer well stocked with oven chips and chicken nuggets). Then, the day after I started feeling better, No.2 had an upset stomach, so had to stay home from school (it had to be on a Monday); I think that the rest of the week was uneventful until last Thursday when No.1 and No.2 complained about their stomachs; No.1 turned out to be fine later on so she went to school on Friday but No.1 had a very bad case of diarrhea; she wasn't able to make it on time to the toilet so after having thrown one pair of knickers in the bin and washed another 2 pairs, along with 3 pairs of pyjama bottoms, I had to give her some of my sanitary towels, which I was grateful for as she is too big for nappies. On Saturday I felt lousy all day, feeling nauseous but unable to get sick: I must have caught No.2's virus (even though I had been washing my hands and disinfecting like I have never done before because I didn't want the rest of us to catch that nasty bug), fortunately I had no need for nappies but had to lie down between bursts of cleaning the house up. Then to top it all, on Saturday evening No.1 started complaining about a pain in her eye: I couldn't see anything in it so I had to call the out of hours doctor service and even though it was past the kids' bedtime and I still didn't feel too good I had to pack the kids into the car for a late appointment in a nearby town. Today No.2 is at school but No.1 had to stay home because her eye is still feeling a bit sore (the doctor gave her antibiotic eye drops) and now she is starting to complain about her stomach as well!

If I had a job, I would have had to take so many sick days that I probably would have got fired by now; my kids have been reasonably healthy up to now (they used to get medals in their old school for good attendance) but this year they just seem to be catching every bug that's going around. Luckily there isn't anything seriously wrong with them but it's just so frustrating not to be able to do the things that need to be done around the house and having all those articles I want to write piling up while I'm going to and fro the doctor's and staying home to look after sick people.

I should be visiting garden centres right now to get something to keep my neighours' dogs out of my garden and also, the kids are on their Easter holidays from Friday, so what happens if they don't both go to school for at least one day this week: what am I supposed to do about the Easter Bunny?

No Sick Pay For Me!

I just got over a bad case of herpes in the eye; not that it's an excuse for not posting, but this is just to say that while I was busy trying to get to my doctor's and (the next day, because obviously the eye drops my doctor gave me weren't doing any good) the hospital's emergency department, I would have been better off just sleeping it off.

So while I was recovering last week, I was also busy organising my kid's birthday party as well as wasting time online trying to find cures for eye herpes, which apparently there aren't.

I have also rejoined my favorite online forum, Morachat, because I missed it and the extra money comes in handy: after seeing my last credit card bill I realised that I needed to get back into blogging and writing articles big time and spend less time hanging out and wasting time on websites that don't pay.

Thank You...

Thank you to the little son of a b%&ch who wrote rude words on the side of my car!

I had realised that my car was very dirty (it comes from living near a dusty road) and that it really did need a wash but I couldn't be bothered doing it: I was l aways telling myself : "what's the point? It going to be just as dirty a few days later anyway!"

However, coming back to my car with my grocery shopping bags this morning and spotting the words "s€x s€x" spelled in the dirt prompted me to wash the whole car asap because I can't go around promoting something I haven't had in the last 4 years, that would just have been a lie!

I also noticed after washing the car that it is true that exercising gives you energy: I spent a good half hour energetically carrying buckets of water and sponging off dirt outside and when it was time to walk to school to pick up my daughter I couldn't believe how energised I felt as I almost felt like running (only I wasn't wearing the right shoes).

So thank you to the a$$hole who "vandalised" my car: now I feel good AND my car shines like new!

Stuff That Scares Me: The Ice-Cream Van!

It's almost funny sometimes when I think of things that scare me but really shouldn't.

Take the ice-cream van for example: the first time I heard it I wasn't sure what it was (I grew up in France) so I looked out my window and I saw it: two waves of kids first running into their houses, probably to ask for money so they could buy an ice-cream, the second wave made up of the same children spilling out of their houses and running towards the ice-cream van.

I thought it was kind of cute, in an old-fashioned way at first, but then that damn ice-cream van started coming every day and there was no way I would allow my kids to go and buy an ice-cream every single day, not even if I could afford it!

From now on, when I hear the music of the ice cream van playing in my street, all I can think of is the horde of overweight children galloping towards one of their daily sugar fixes and inevitably succombing to heart disease.

Don't get me wrong: I think an ice-cream treat is fine from time to time, just no every single day; I love ice-cream too (mmm, yummy mint ice-cream with chocolate chips!). Anyway, would those kids ask for ice-cream every time they passed a shop that sells ice-cream? Probably not. Do the ice-creams that come out of a musical van taste better than shop-bought ones? Probably not either. It's an evil mind that hides behind the friendly face of the ice-cream van driver our children love. Not that they intentionally set out to give our children heart disease; just like drug dealers, ice-cream van drivers can't see past money.

So maybe my irrational fear of the ice-cream van music is not so irrational after all.

Road Rage Rant: By French Woman Driver In Ireland

The joys of driving in Ireland: talk about women drivers! I don't know what it's like driving in any other country (having moved here too soon after getting my driver's licence to have had a chance of enjoying French Road Rage - even though, if I remember correctly the words of outrage uttered by my Dad while driving, it's not uneventful) but Ireland has to be the worst. Here's an outlook of what I had to endure this week, and I don't even take the car every day (imagine what it must be like to someone working in town and having to do this every day of the week!):

Monday: walked everywhere, trying to be environment-friendly, health-conscious and all that crap. It helped that we had one of the rare dry days of the year in Ireland.

Tuesday: decided to go to town (Galway to be exact, we have a brand-new motorway, it would be a shame not to use - and abuse, to see the way some people behave on it - it).

Tuesday incident no.1: asshole gets in the wrong lane at a roundabound and beeps the horn when a car rightfully gets on the roundabound, thinking the 1st guy is getting off at the next exit (like he should have been, since he chose the lane he chose, and also the fact that he "forgot" his indicator). Get a clue, jerk!

Tuesday incident no.2: Asshole behind me beeps the horn because I'm letting a car change lanes in front of me. I hope he gets wherever he's going really late
and
a) if it was work he was heading to, he got fired;
b) if he was meeting a girlfriend, he got dumped.

Everytime I get on a road with more than one lane: assholes who stay on the overtaking lane forever, even when there's nothing to overtake and don't even drive at the maximum speed limit, making it impossible to overtake them.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday... Dumbasses who don't use their indicators. I can't even keep track of this in a single day, that's how often it happens.

Every day of the week: Assholes picking up their kids from school who can't be bothered to park in a space even though there are loads available, preventing me to spot my own daughter coming out of the school gates while also causing a mini-traffic-jam.

Today (Friday): Typical dumb lady in a small black car who wanted to get into the shopping centre while I was driving out. Not only she put on her indicator to turn AFTER she had started to do so, but even though I was well inside my own lane and she had lots of space to turn in, for some reason she wanted to wait till I had driven out (traffic behind her had to stop). I tried to make her understand that she had lots of space by making a sign with my hand and saying "why don't you turn in?" but she couldn't hear me. It's people like that who give women drivers a bad name.

Tomorrow: I'm getting a bumper-sticker but I have trouble deciding what it should read. Maybe:
Don't be a jerk: use your indicator!
Or:
Don't be a jerk, get in the correct lane!
No, not really. I think this one will have to do:

(WO)MAN DRIVER: KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!

My Strange Kids

"I'm not eating sweeties ever again because I want to get energy!". This, coming from my five-year-old, the same one who screamed at me for 2 hours yesterday (it may have been only ten minutes but it felt like two hours, she has very powerful lungs, that one) because I would not give her a "sweetie" before her dinner, sounds very strange.

I give her about two hours before she comes to me saying something along the lines of "I am tired of having energy so now I want a sweetie".

Kids can be funny sometimes, or maybe it's just mine, like take my 7 (almost 8) years-old. When she's in school she's a model student, her teacher told me she's very shy, she'd put up her hand to answer a question but apart from that she hardly talks in class. This sounds almost perfect except that as soon as she comes home she drives me around the bend running and shouting, talking back, making fun of her sister and it's a nightmare to bring them both to any shop or other place where there's a waiting room involved. Why can't she just release more of her energy in school so she's tired when she comes home?

And what about my five year-old who comes to talk to me sometimes, whether it's about something she did in school or something she's just seen on TV, it's really funny the way she starts skipping sideways around the kitchen table, as if she can't have a conversation sitting down or standing; the other day I decided to follow her around the kitchen table (I was walking because I'm too old to skip) but I had to stop because I started feeling dizzy.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how weird or naughty my kids can get, when I creep into their room at night to make sure their blankets are still on top of them and the little one is not about to fall out of her bed, they both look like angels and any bad earlier behaviour from them just becomes a distant memory.