New Shoes & Flowery Cakes

Trip to town. Got new shoes for Líadán, lovely lovely new Doc Martins!! I love them. And seeing as how they are so nice and good for her feet, we bought two pair.

It should have been a fun trip to town, buy I had a teenager with me. So it involved a lot of sighing, tutting, and looking bored. But I tried not to do that too much !!

We did venture into Eason on O'connell street, and up to the first floor, for notebooks, but the queue !! My god has everyone in Dublin decided that Monday 27th of August was stationary buying day?

I took them home again. Well you have to really.

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Remembered that I had made two small cakes on Saturday. So decided to play with the new cutters. Ok so they are supposted to be used for making roses. But I had some coloured sugarpaste and a few minutes on my hands so....

Then I figured I would try a black and white version....

This should have been easy peasy lemon squeezy. but it took so much paste to make the black that the icing was sticky. Stuck to my hands, to the roller, to the worktop, to blooming everything. So its quite plain. But effective. Will give the black & white another shot some day.

So what did we do today.....

Well what did we do today?

Great plan. So of course if we had a great plan what could go wrong, well this is us we are talking about. So naturaly our plan went a bit wrong. We borrowed the strimmer from Mum, and even went so far as going over to Woodies to buy extra wire for it. Got new wire for our own petrol strimmer too.

Picked up a new light bulb for my oven while we were there. Now you would think that would be a simple straight forward purchase. But its the wrong size, looks great in the oven , you can see all the dirt now - but I knew it was there anyway. But the cover does not fit over it. So its back to the drawing board with that one.

Where was I ? Oh yea. Buying cord/wire (what is that called anyway) for the strimmer. Standing beside Desmond (you can tell he is in trouble when he gets his full name) reminding him that its a flymo. Which would explain why he bought the boshe one.

We loaded up the car this morning with two girls, two strimmers, picnic basket, two fold up chairs, two patio chairs, yard brush and away with us to Cavan. Did quite well arriving there at 12 noon.

Unload car, persuade Roisin that its ok to get out of car, that there is not an army of spiders awaiting her. Open windows in house, put on radio. Find extenstion lead for electric strimmer. And guess what .....

The bloody thing ran out of cable/coil/wire and it was time to put in a new one. But what a suprise. It was the wrong one!!!!!

So I had to hop into the car, drive the eleven miles back to the nearest woodies, via a blooming diversion to boot. Liadan decided to come with me. So all the way there I got

Her "I'm bored, will you buy me a magazine when we get there"...
Me "We are going to woodies they dont sell magazines"
her "I'm bored, will you buy me an ice pop when we get there ...."
Me "We are going to woodies they dont sell icepops....."

And so on and so on.

She managed to wangle a new pencil pearer out of me....all the same. Persistance.

Drive back to the house, and by now its 1pm. So its lunch time. Not going good so far. Lunch was fine.

Except for the spider attack on Roisin.

We decide its best not to tell her that the baby spider did not in fact fall off into the grass - and did in fact fall down her top..... probably a good idea.

Des & I then spent four hours strimming the grass. But its looks great now. Me arms are killing me now. I fully expect to have the shakes all tommorow. It was worth it.

Finished up the afternoon by strolling down the road picking blackberries. They are just coming out now, managed to collect some nice ones. Hopefully we got enough to make some muffins tommorow.

Going to finish up the day now with a glass or three of red wine. May just have the first of them in a nice warm bath.

Diet starts tommorow. Not even going to weigh myself till next tuesday week at WW ... have been that bad I am afraid

Free Friday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another free morning. Still strange. What to do what to do what to do..... and all day to do it too!

Now of course I could do the ironing, clean the house, tidy up everywhere, make beds, clean bathroom, wash floors, mend clothes. I could do all these things. Will I - well the short answer is probably not. I will potter around on the pc for a while longer. Read this and that and the other. All vitally important to my day. Stuff i really really need to know.

I will spend some time awakening the teenagers. I will put on a wash or two. Then I shall find something more interesting to do. Involving cutting up bits of paper or making a mess with sugar and stuff.

Yes that is what I shall do.

So what do I need .....well the photo says it all really!!! I know what I will be doing now.

Thursday now. No littlest one for a few days. Its a strange morning here without her.

The other two - being teenagers - are of course comatose in the beds. My normal summer routine has been... Get out of the bed around 8.50 and stumble into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and bring it back to bed with my book.

Then shortly after that the little whirlwind that is Líadán charges from her room straight into my bed. She then leaps on you - from the edge of the bed...screaming "Snuggle Time!!!!!!!!!"

Its the best ten minutes of the day.

And I can highly recommend starting your morning that way. It does mean you almost always have to drink cold tea, and hardly ever get all the way into a chapter without being interupted, but its worth it.

Now this morning - my tea was hot - and four chapters read with ease. Have gotten up and had another cup of tea and bread with no other company but the radio.

You would think this could be bliss..........but for such a small person she leaves a big hole!!

I am reliably informed by the teenagers that there is nothing to eat in this house. Translated it means there is nothing they will eat in the house. But you know its bad when Seán wont eat any of the breakfast cereals of choice in the house, and there are usually at least four different types, not counting my porridge.

Get this - he wants me to wake him up early today - one to get back into some sort of routine before school restarts and two to come and help me with the food shopping. This from the boy who got up at 5.40 - in the afternoon - the other day. And the boy who I had to bully out of the bed by three every other day this week.

It scares me when he says sensible stuff too...

Also means if he comes food shopping with me I can easily add on another fifty euro !! The last time he went to Tesco with me he had the mohawk in his hair, and the stares he got. It amazed me... you could see people stoping and staring at him all around the shop. Just for his hair. I was speachless - of course he was not. Teenagers ... big big kids is all they are.

Well made the car all right.... it still looks bockety to me!! But its much of a muchness now, Dad was putting in a new loo. Why he decided to do this the day after the new bathroom tiles were down is anybodys guess.

So of course there was a leak of water. So now he has had to lift six of the new tiles. Dry out the floor.

Repair the loo.

Redo the tiles.

So.... the same day the gas company has dug up the side of their house...and all of this on the day that Líadán and Tara were to go over to stay with them for a few days...

So Des had changed around his week so that he could take tommorow off work, we were going to head up to Cavan, actually get some work done with out Líadán with us, so we would not have to worry about her chest.....

And I had planned to bring over the cake, and the card I made him, the kids could then all sing happy birthday grandad, and we could all make a big big fuss over him. Which was the point of making the cake.

After all with my mother thinking she is diabetic (she is not?!) she wont eat cake...

So whats happening now.

Lesley is coming over here today, she had planned on fitting in a trip to the centre on way to the Maters, and she will take Líadán back to hers. She was to take the cake too, then the folks will head out to hers tommorow, pick up the girls there and bring them back to their place.

But I think I will hang on to the cake, and stick to the plan to bring it to him, except do it on Saturday when we collect the girls instead....

Yep better plan....

Thats that sorted now. The best laid plans of mice and men (or me and Des anyroad) never go easy.

this is the car. I am not a bit happy. Not feeling too good this past few weeks and its beginning to show in my work. I know Dad will love it... he always loves when you go to any sort of effort for him. But I dont like it. Des says its good. And I know the photos does not do it justice. Its actualy much redder !!

These are the two small cakes I made today. Tommorow I intend to turn these into a car!!

They are to be for my dad's birthday cake, so its going to be a red ford escort - to celebrate him getting his favourite car back!!

This is my darling son, and my almost equally darling nephew. Anyone who knows me knows I worship my son, he is an amazement to me. That out of woman came this boy, rapidly growing into a man!! He is currently 5ft 11inches to my 5ft 2inches, and it is his hope to reach 6ft.

The little guy is so like him, they are both funny guys, love to laugh and to make others laugh. Despite the many times you feel like tearing your hair out, or running to the chocolate jar becasue of them, you have to love love love them....

Still trying to figure this out. I think some photos would be nice.

I will have to find out how to post photos onto it.

Hi di hi away we go to find out.

Sunday 19th August

Well now I have a blog.

So what next. .. .. who knows I guess these are like online diaries. So perhaps that is the way to go.

What have I been doing lately. Scrapbooking ... this has become my latest obsession. I thought I was doing ok till I went to a crop last week, and discovered just what can be done.

In order to hopefully improve and progress I have joined a circle journal. So I should be able to learn from others that way.