Good Friday Quicktakes

1. Much as I adore shooting the breeze here with you, my lovelies, today I don't have much time so I gotta be quick. To start with, the kids are all off school and are high on Easter excitement and thoughts of Easter Sunday's impending chocfest. I've discovered several of the boys just gazing at their impressive stash of eggs with a certain far away look in their eyes-clearly lost in a reverie of unadulterated gluttony. Neil Young must surely have been thinking of Lenten promises when he sang ' Good times are coming, but they're sure coming slow.'

2. Speaking of which, I've been less than exemplar in regards to my own Lenten challenges. One by one they fell by the wayside, EXCEPT my self imposed Facebook ban, which truthfully, was the toughest of the lot for a l'il ol' social network queen like myself!
What can I say? The first week was the worst - I HATED being out of the loop- I mean, I'm still on Twitter obvs, (Sure, the Pope himself is on there!), but it's just not the same. After that tricky first week though, I got used to it and I'm glad that I did it...but no, I' won't be doing an about turn, and preaching on about how I now appreciate real life conversations and the old fashioned telephone so much more, because I don't. Truth is, I probably went on Ebay a bit too much, texted friends a good bit more, and now and again, peered over Loverboy's shoulder when he was on FB, but that's about it. Yes indeed, you can all relax now, because I'll be back again on Sunday with bells on, clogging up your news feed and generally making a nuisance of myself. (I can hear your groans from here!)

3. We're off to the caravilla for the Easter break. Now, I don't know how long we'll stay (possibly only a few hours if its REALLY Baltic), but its the first trip of the season, and that means MAJOR packing. Here's what our sunroom looks like right now AND I'm only halfway through, which is precisely why I'm dilly dallying around here chatting with you.
The real bummer is that even when the car and trailer are packed to the neck, and we set off like Duffy's Circus, the work's only half done. When we arrive, there's the caravilla to be cleaned, the unloading and unpacking to be done AND it'll be feeding time at the zoo again too.
As tempting as that sounds, I've a good mind to load them all up and quietly sneak back into the house- with a bit of luck,  they won't even notice I'm missing until they're over the border and I'm half through a bottle of Oyster Bay and the second series of Dallas.... a girl can dream!

4. Assuming that won't come to pass, I'm packing plenty of books, magazines, a 1000 piece jigsaw and the entire first series of 'The Killing' to bring up with me. Oh, and of course, wine, chocolate and ...my knitting. Or more accurately, my beautiful jewel coloured, Cath Kidston wool, with the metallic red knitting needles, (who knew!), presented in a beautiful 'book' tin.  Unfortunately, there's no actual knitting in there though,'cos I can't actually work out how to 'cast on'. I tried last Saturday night (party on, dude!) and despite reading the 'Knitting for DumbAsses' booklet from cover to cover, and desperately, SOS ing  Mr Google, I simply couldn't do it.After about an hour of trying, the terrible truth dawned- my horrible HE teacher was right all those years ago -I DO have special needs. (Specifically, 'senile' was her word of choice.)
I looked so forlorn that even Loverboy felt sorry for me, so HE asked Mr Google, and even with half a bottle of Cab Sauv in him, managed to cast on and was smugly clickity clacking away within minutes. Ouch! So, last chance saloon, I'm taking it with me to the caravilla, giving it one more go and THATS IT. Maybe I'm just not a knitter? Alternatively, I may start up my own Stitch 'n' Bitch , cos even though I might not be too good at the first bit, I flippin' excel at the other...even if I do say so myself.

5. Finally petals, I just wanted to say thank you for all the votes over the last weeks in the MADS. It's all done and dusted now until the Awards in Septemeber, and don't I have a wee trip to London to look forward to now, thanks to y'all. So, win or lose, thanks to you, I'm feelin' the love.
 Oh, and a very Happy Easter too- whatever you get up to, may chocolate play a major role.(Easter wishes don't come much better than that now, do they!)

6. Finally finally, I'm renaming Luke's 'Boogie in the Car Seat' to 'Booster Seat Boogie', (on account of him reaching this vehicular milestone). Now, I know I've gone a bit 80s on you the last few weeks, and to prove  I was waaaay cooler than that, I was all set to treat you to David Guetta's 'Titanium' (which incidentally I love walking to!)... but then this came on the radio and I was lost-it used to literally gives me goose bumps back in the day. Turns out, I'm not remotely cool after all....but you knew that. Enjoy-you can thank me later. Happy Easter peeps xxx

Every Picture tells a Story!

Hello dearest peeps, and what have we here on this bright, cold November day? Well, bless my soul, it's a candid little shot of me writing a blog post, surrounded by all my dearest children, who are clearly hanging on my every word while peeking lovingly over my shoulder, just so. How touching! How heartwarming! How........... far fetched and utterly untrue! 

But hey, that's show biz for you, because this is one of the photos that Cliff, the crumpet eating Irish News photographer took when he was here nearly a month ago. Yes, you did read that right, A MONTH AGO! It's been so long now that friends and family have actually stopped asking me when I'm going to be in there, because they've obviously assumed, naturally enough, that,
a) I'm so boring that The Irish News decided AFTER interviewing me and taking photos- 'Thanks, but no thanks love', or 
 b) I'm obviously delusional and made the entire story up. (Although, in my defense, if I WERE to 
make it up,  I'd definitely have plumped for a slightly more glamorous Hello or Grazia interview instead.)

Either way though, it's a lose- lose for me, so last week, I took the bull by the horns and feeling COMPLETELY wick,  rang the number Crumpet Cliff had given me to get copies of the photos he'd taken. I spoke to the lovely man himself, and not only did he send me the photos, but he reassured me that I would indeed make it into the paper before 2012 is out. 
I asked him straight out too. 'Cliff', I said, 'I'm a big girl AND an unfit mother to boot, if it's been put into the old circular file, just tell me. I can take it!'

'Absolutely not', he insisted. Apparently, it's scheduled to be in the weekend Features section, which always has a backlog, so it's often months before an article appears. Oh my goodness! The relief that I wouldn't have to pretend that I'd dreamt the entire thing, like Pam in Dallas was huge, (HUGE, I tell you!), so I assured Cliff he was welcome here for buttered crumpets anytime. 


But back to the photo- even though it may look like a relaxed, chilled moment, nothing could be further from the truth. This was the last photo taken, so nerves were frayed, noses were running and clean clothes were steadily getting covered in jam. Poor Cliff must've taken 50 shots before he got this one- when he did eventually manage to get everyone looking at the Ipad, Rory decided it was the key moment to pick his nose, or Luke the ideal opportunity to squeal and wriggle off my knee, or Cormac, the perfect time to graciously share a 'silent but deadly' with all of us. Ah, good times....

Thank God for Mr Tumble!

So, as it was, the only way to keep Luke on my knee was to put Cbeebies on the iPad, so in the photo we're actually all deeply engrossed in Mr Tumble's cheeky antics! 


Oh, and out of interest, any idea how Cliff cleverly got the screen to light up our faces like that? Well, insider knowledge alert!!! Because there's actually another flash hidden behind the iPad and a piece of white paper on it's screen, (which unfortunately restricted Luke's full appreciation of Mr Tumble so he kept pulling it off),  but still, how cool is that!? Don't say you don't learn stuff around here!
Have a good Monday my loveliesxxx


 
I've joined up with Sarah Miles at Hello Wall today-go on over and take a peek at the rest!