It never rains but it snows…

We never really get snow here in Northern Ireland, and around 1/2 cm is likely to bring the whole country to a skidding (literally) halt. We’ve had a bit of snow here in the past few days. Not enough for a snow man, but enough for me not to drive anywhere because the roads are too dangerous. Northern Ireland’s mighty army of approximately one gritting lorry has been constantly on the go for days, but let’s face it, he’s only one man!! 😀 He’s doing his wee best. Only kidding, but not too much- we just aren’t equipped to deal. Why would they bother spending money on more resources for snow, when we get maybe 3-5 days of snow every year?

The snow has coincided with Ricky’s school holidays and I am home with both kids for the holidays for the first time. Snow’s obviously great with small kids, but mine are still a little too small to really get much benefit from it- they just freeze too quickly no matter how much you layer them up.

Also, Ballygowan is a small village with few local resources and, despite them installing a new playground which is surprisingly brilliant, there’s only so long you can spend there, and from my point of view, it’s mind numbing. I prefer to go for a walk and do something that will stimulate me as well as them, but what you gonna do!

There’s been a lot of lounging around in jammies in our house these past few days. Ricky’s obsession with playing Lego StarWars on the Wii is getting totally out of hand. We’re going to have to introduce an egg timer of some kind, I think.

Worst of all, Ricky has now got a dodgy stomach and can not be trusted any further than 10 feet from the toilet, so our ability to leave the house is now fully compromised.

So, I guess we should just baton down the hatches and do nothing!

That said, there’s only so much children’s television I can take. One more episode of “Big Cook, Little Cook”, possibly the campest tv show ever invented, and it might just tip me over the edge of reason.

Thank goodness for adult intervention in the form of a dinner invitation to my dear friend Heather’s house tonight. Her sister Emer is in town, and ever time she’s home it is customary for us to treat her like visiting Royalty, mainly by meeting up and (me) getting paralytically drunk. I’ll take some pics, but they’ll be early in the evening before my eye make up has spread itself too far down my face and I am still capable of clicking the “take photo” button instead of the “on/off” button. Tomorrow, with luck, you may laugh at my increasingly dodgy hair do, which without the aid of hair straightners looks like some kind of Granny ‘Fro, and even with straightners, looks awful. Part of the process I guess…

Weird stuff

OK, I still have a temperature, but lay low today and actually feel OK if I have pain killers, so things are, I hope, improving, despite my “woe is me” posts of the last few days. Sorry about that! 😀

Can you tell that mentally, I feel a bit better too? I never was good at keeping these things to myself!

Couple of silly things tonight, apart from my complete u-turn on my “I feel like shit and want to pass my misery on to AAAAALLLL of you” post of yesterday!

Firstly, can I thank my Dad for calling at the house today with a spectacular and very delicious homemade spinach and cheese lasagne for me. He’d heard that spinach was a great anti cancer food, and hand picked his own home grown veggies before cooking it for me. Believe me when I say that fathers DO NOT get any better than my Dad. He is the best person I know- always there when I need him, with love and support, kindness and wisdom, willing to overlook my foul temper and forgive my many shortcomings. Plus he’s a killer cook, great company, whisky connoisseur, and outstanding person in every way. Love you, dad. The lasagne is, in the words of Robbie, DEEEEEEE-di-dous. 😀

Next- my cat is making me very jumpy. Those of you who are regular readers will be familiar with the fact that my cat Max is huge, ginger and white, and as lacking in brainpower as he is lacking in nastiness. He’s scared of Robbie, who persecutes him relentlessly, but he never retaliates, and acts in a very sweet and self sacrificing manner with the kids at all times. Max is not a particularly demonstrative cat when it comes to me. He’s very big, and I am not. Therefore, he finds sitting on my knee normally to be an uncomfortable experience which is best avoided. In his 8 years, he’s maybe sat on my knee three times, for a period of about 30 seconds at a go. Now- the past three days, Max has been on my knee ALL THE TIME. Plus, I’ve not been well, so have been in bed most of the time, and he’s been constantly at my side. Florence Nightingcat. What the hell is the deal? Cats are meant to have ESP- does he know something I don’t??? It’s making me TWITCHY!!!! If I find out at my next scan that there is a spread of this bloody thing that they hadn’t found before, I’ll bloody well know that HE knew first!!!

Lastly, the weather. We have very temperate weather here- it doesn’t get very hot, it doesn’t get very cold. Pretty much the same shit all year round. It rarely snows.

Well, this is the scene from Ricky’s bedroom window yesterday afternoon. It’s not the best picture in the world, but it was snowing pretty good, and although it didn’t really lie, I thought it was blog worthy just because it’s October, and when I was a kid, we regularly went into the sea in Donegal at Halloween!! Crazy for this time of year!

Anyhow- hopefully I won’t whine too much for the next few days. I’m going to try and work tomorrow…

Now- off to reply to all your many comments, which I have been neglecting! 🙂