snow pictures

P says this is the most snow he's seen since he was a little kid. It's certainly more than I have ever seen in Ireland, and I've been here for nearly 9 years... Emm is loving it!

On a not so nice note, the stomach bug that we seem to have avoided for the last two weeks seems to finally have arrived at our house, P is miserable today! Emm and I have met a lot more people just before and after they came down with it and have escaped so far, but it looks like we might all have it for christmas! For most of my friends it's been a 24 hour bug, so lets hope that's all it's going to be... I really hope that if we're going to be struck with it, Emm and I won't get it before tomorrow afternoon, as we just got tickets to see 'The Snowman' at the concert hall in the morning!  Fingers crossed...

Visit from the cousins

Emm had a great day on Tuesday when her cousins came to visit. Danny will be 4 and Megs is 8, and they all got on like a house on fire! We went to the beach and had fun building castles, collecting shells and digging Megs into the sand, making a lovely mermaid tail for her. Emm demanded 'more water!' for her castle and her big cousin obliged, carrying bucket after bucket from the shore.


Afterwards we desanded the kids as much as possible and went for a little walk, aren't they cute together? I'm so glad Emm has cousins, we always loved hanging out with our cousins when we were kids.


Back home the kids were all put into the bath and we ordered Chinese. I thought I'd managed to pay for it after a long discussion, but the SIL and BIL hid money before they left the next day! What is it about (irish?) people not being able to let anybody else pay for anything? Why does it always have to be an argument, and even if you think you've won it, they trick you afterwards! It's the same in the pub, in the restaurant, in the shop... They wouldn't even let me make them sandwiches for their trip to the zoo the next day, even though I'd already bought the bread and ham and cheese... I mean, the food in the zoo is overpriced and manky, and there are long queues for everything! Back home people, especially family, would maybe say "oh, don't go to any trouble", and then "are you sure" and then gracefully accept! How many "no really I want to"s does it take in Ireland? Five? Ten? Maybe I'm not persistent enough? Let me go watch some "Father Ted" and learn from Mrs. Doyle... But I really don't like making such a big fuss, if I offer something I mean it!

mothers' night out

We recently had one of our local mothers' nights out, as always great fun! It's amazing how having a baby changes your social life! Cut off your work mates by distance and change of schedule, the local mums replace the colleagues. They are the women who have the same problems and joys as yourself, instead of moaning about your boss you'll be moaning about your husbands (never in earnest though) and instead of lunch in town it's playdates at your neighbours'...

Recently we went out to a chinese restaurant that had a '4 courses and a bottle of wine for two' offer, which went down very well. The proprietor was happy to see a big group of lovely ladies take over the majority of his restaurant, and I could see the interest, and dollar signs in his eyes when he realised we weren't there to celebrate a birthday, or anything else for that matter, we were just there for a night out. The food was lovely, and the more energetic of us insisted we try a nightclub in the area.

The nightclub was some experience. It had recently been done up and looked promising, and we negotiated a reduced entrance fee, but once we were inside, the clientel and band slowly caught our attention! A trio of middle aged dolled up ladies were singing their hearts out on the stage, dressed in trendy sparkly dresses and leggings, hair and make up also much like you'd see at a 21st birthday party! My friend described one of them as a 'postmenopausal Pink'! Their voices were impressive, their dancing looked extremely tired and bored. Apparently they were big in the 80s, I wouldn't be surprised if their songs were recorded and just played back!


The guests were scary looking, to say the least! It felt like we'd walked into the set of 'shameless'! Hair was dyed either pitch black or snowy white (aka platinum blond taken to the extreme), emphasising the orangey brown make up (just like the band), big golden earrings were weighing down earlobes, competing for attention with clunky gold necklaces and rings. The age ranging from teenagers to pensioners (I think a birthday was being celebrated in one of the corners, that would also explain the extremely classy balloons on every table!).

Some of the older women looked like the kind that would be the boss in her prison common room, stocky, at first glance mistaken for a man, wearing leather blazers or checked shirts, and heavy work boots. Some of the young ones were sporting belly tops (showing off a post baby belly) and low slung jeans. We soon decided to try and avoid eye contact in case we'd provoke a fight, so I can't remember what the guys looked like!

After a few drinks however, we relaxed and had a great time, some of us even hitting the dance floor! Everybody in the place was just there to have a good time, scary outfits or not! I wonder if we looked pretentios to the other guests!

a perfect sunday afternoon

After an already great Saturday with cycling (with Emm and my friend Deb) and lunch (where P joined us), today turned out to be lovely too! I finally mowed the lawn (as the ground isn't like a sponge anymore, yay!), in the meantime Emm crawled around the rest of the garden, which resulted in her first set of clothes doing the rounds in the washing mashine by half twelve.

Then we headed out for a surprisingly good value lunch in 'Seasons', to the pound shop for a bucket and spade, and then to the beach, where Emm had an absolute ball, as did her parents. She was so content, she loved everything, the sand, the seaweed, all the stones and shells, paddling in one of the low tide puddles... She conked on the way home in the car and was transferred to her bed without even blinking an eyelid. Which gave us time to mess around in the garden a little more. In the evening we just picked up some pizzas, as we were all drunk on sunlight and fresh air.

We'll have to be good for the rest of the week and bring packed lunches and no more ordering out, the quota for eating out and lazy food is definitely used up already! Thankfully I have a stew ready to be finished tomorrow and fridge and pantry are stocked well.

Such a treat, a whole sunny weekend! My freckles have come out, my toenails are painted, I daresay, summer is here! Hopefully it'll be a good one for a change!

We need to talk about Kiev...

...is the title of this Irish Times article by Domini Kemp, on Chicken Kiev!

I made both the Kievs and the salad with mustard dressing today, yum yum!

Emm loved the salad! I gave her the crunchy bits of the cos leaves, and some of the dressing as a dip, and she ate it all! I made the dressing with lemon juice, instead of vinegar, and as I'm not keen on graininess of our wholegrain mustard, i whizzed the dressing up with the liquidiser, causing the cream to start looking whipped! The finished product looked a lot like thin mayonnaise, but mmmh, so much more delicious! I substituted fresh tarragon with dried, and added more lemon juice at the end.

I had to make the Kievs without the pine nuts, as I wasn't going to spend 6 quid on rancid looking kernels in the supermarket (they'd gone brown at the tip, that's not normal, is it? (Don't get me started on the yoghurt I accidentally bought, not looking at the best before date, it's only just 4 weeks and 2 days out of date! I wonder do they not check the dairy shelves at all, ever, or are they deliberately trying to sell it anyways? Grocery Customer Services weren't even apologetic or surprised when I called them afterwards! They just said, 'Ah, yes, come in with your receipt and we'll refund you.')).

The Chicken Kievs were quite work intensive to make, But I now have some lovely homemade garlic butter in the freezer, and 2 more chicken kievs and 2 'chicken tenders', which is nice to know. The kievs turned out lovely, really moist, with a crispy coating. The cooking time in the recipe didn't work for us at all though, it said to bake them for ten minutes, after frying golden on both sides, but it took nearly 20 minutes and we lost some precious garlic butter in the process of checking if they were done.

The recipe said to just serve the chicken and salad, but in keeping with German and Irish tradition I made some potatoes too, which by the way were great with the dressing!

Off to Bogland tomorrow...

another knitting lunch break, and pancakes

As the weather was so nice Emm and I went to the seaside again, after a not so exciting trip to B&Q to get sealant for the leaking toilet (blurgh). Emm fell asleep on the way there so I got an hours knitting on her "little sister's dress", while looking out at the sea and sky and passersby. And eating mini chocolate rice cakes. after that we went for a walk, and to discover that the shoe shop that used to do the 'startrite' kids shoes, doesn't do any childrens shoes any more! And that the special offer of 1€ Johnson&Johnson wipes in the local shop excluded the unperfumed ones. Coming to terms with the fact that this just wasn't going to be a fun shopping day we went to the play ground, where Emm had lots of fun on the swings, and she walked all the way back to the car, still mostly insisting on two hands (my back is sore, I hope she'll get a little braver soon, we're practising lots so fingers crossed).

I'm so grateful to have my own car, it's such a treat!

Oh, yes, Pancake Tuesday, we had german style pancakes (big thin ones), with a creamed spinach filling (bacon, garlic, chili, spinach, cream, nutmeg, and some leftover grated mozarella). No photos unfortunately, and for dessert we had the leftover pancakes with real maple syrup! the shop assistant was trying to get me to buy the cheaper syrup, he felt guilty for the price difference, not realising that the cheaper one wasn't maple syrup at all, but golden syrup with maple flavouring! I try and stay away from artificial flavours as much as I can! I'd rather buy the real stuff, once a year, than have the cheap one all year round! Emm quite liked the spinach pancakes, we rolled them up for her, but she preferred the maple syrup ones!

So weird, Pancake Tuesday, I know a good few people here, that eat pancakes only on Pancake Tuesday! In Germany there's no such thing, everybody is either tired out from karneval, or still celebrating Fasnacht/Fasching! When I was a kid, we had pancakes about twice a week, and now my mum still makes some at least once a week, more often if her grandkids are over. She serves them with molasses or jam, as a special treat we sometimes got fried banana with them, but in the days before non stick pans it was a lot of extra cleaning up!

In the area I come from there's also buckwheat pancakes, a very savoury affair, quite bitter! They are made with coffee, water, eggs and the buckwheat flour (and salt if you're not using bacon), and fried in lard or oil, with  tiny pieces of bacon thrown in. They are very thin and crispy, and we had them regularly when my granny was still doing the cooking.

The savoury pancakes came into the picture in college, spinach soon becoming my favourite. They were such a quick and easy dinner to make, not too expensive, and getting some protein and other useful things into me, and using up lots of veg from the fridge.

And tonight, we had shredded duck and pancakes, the chinese kind! You know, the really thin little pancakes, spread with hoi sin sauce, thin slivers of cucumber and spring onion, then rolled up with the duck meat? So yummie, a bit naughty, but we had some steamed broccoli, too, to balance it all out!

Great sunshiny day

We had a great sunshiny day today! I decided to drop a book back to the library and take Emm for a walk by the sea, she fell asleep on the way so I decided to have a little knitting lunch break for myself! Listening to classical music on the radio and looking out at this...

Seaside lunch break
Originally uploaded by tulpenpink

When she woke up we went for a walk, it was quite windy so we went into the town for some lunch, just us two girls! We sat outside a cafe in the sun and had gorgeous fish pie, chatting to the ladies at the other table who were besotted with my little girl. Everybody was so friendly, a sunny day does that to people over here! I had a nice coffee, Emm and I shared a macaroon, yum, yum! And then we had to get some foodshopping done.


Thinking what a great day we'd had, I arrived at home, only to see my friend Cate pulling up outside, I hadn't seen her in over a week so we had tea, banana bread and a good chat in the house and Emm was over the moon, as always when she sees Cate (who's a primary teacher and brilliant with kids). Then we all went across to my Neighbour V, where we got more tea, and biscuits, and the kids had a ball.


M had no trouble going to sleep tonight and my beloved brought home some really good chips after football, and we had them with spicy chicken wings that I'd put in the oven earlier, mmmh! So good, so bad and so easy!


He's off to the pub with his football mates now, so I'm enjoying some online time and some more knitting! Life is good!

peaceful lunchbreak

as we are getting our attic converted m and i were escaping so she could have a sleep, not possible in the house, where the builders were making noise right above her head. i got myself a coffee, sandwich and cupcake (eek 10 quid! not going to be doing that every day!!), parked up at the sea side and listened to lyric fm while having my lunch. m slept for about an hour, then i wrapped her up warm and we went for a long walk, taking a break to have a cuddle and for her to have a feed. i still enjoy feeding her so much, but am getting more and more comments "you're STILL feeding her?" and "WHEN are you going to stop". Well it's national breastfeeding week here, this week, and while i didn't make it to a special coffee morning (apparently there was one in IKEA) i did nurse her on a bench, in the sun, overlooking the sea, and maybe somebody walked by and thought how happy the two of us looked, and considers breastfeeding their next baby, or encourages their wife to feed. only 55% of women in ireland attempt to breastfeed, but even this small number drops significantly as there is no sufficient support available, and family, partner and friends often aren't supportive, either... here a few links of organisations that are trying to change this and make it easier to have a good breastfeeding experience in ireland:

http://www.breastfeeding.ie/
http://friendsofbreastfeeding.wordpress.com/
http://www.lalecheleagueireland.com/
http://www.cuidiu-ict.ie/

and these are some great sites for general breastfeeding support

http://www.drjacknewman.com/
http://www.kellymom.com/

indian summer!

we've been granted another few days of summer, what a treat! we went to skerries, where the husband watched a football match while m and i went for a lovely walk.
there was a swimming competition on, i had contemplated a little dip myself, but then chickened out!

p joined us after the match (they lost) and we had another walk as the sun was setting, and then went for some pasta. m got little bits off our plates, she loved the tagliatelle and the peas. she's really good at sucking the tagliatelle in, it looks so cute... she behaved quite well, despite being a little noisy at times, but that's just her lively self! she always gets a very lively when she gets tired.


i had great hopes for this photo, the little flags were really brightly lit up by the sun, but i didn't catch it right.

baby going exploring

we went to the local soccer club's family fun day, a great way to enjoy the rare sunshine! my brave little baby went off exploring, without a look back! this is how far she got before she slowed down and then turned around...

at home

It's strange being at home, it's hard settling in, with being a mother, but at the same time being my parents' daughter, fitting into their routine. I'm missing the husband, and of course Emm is missing her dada. It's strange being in my home country, in the lush country side, everything so green, I think it's greener than Ireland at the moment! I chose to live in Ireland, and not at home, for good reasons, but on a nice day, a leisurely day, it seems mad. There's such a strong network here, of neighbours and friends and family, I know it's partly why I moved away, I felt suffocated and fenced in, but at the same time, I miss it when I'm in Ireland.



Everything here seems so nice and well looked after, I missed several turns when driving around town, because many streets don't look like streets any more, no tarmac and sidewalks but everything paved or cobble locked, with flower beds and potted trees to calm traffic. I kept thinking it's somebody's driveway! But of course on a weekday I see the price that's payed for having everything picture perfect, an awful lot of work and money goes into keeping everything looking so tidy. I was talking to my brother about herbs I have in my garden. He asked
'Herbs? What for?'
'Cooking of course, it's much cheaper and fresher to grow them, rather than buy them'
'But all the sachets and jars already have herbs in them already!'
'Oh, do you use them often?'
'Yeah, of course, do you think we want to spend half an hour every day cooking, and chopping herbs and mixing it up ourselves?'
' - '
'We wouldn't have the time!'

I was really surprised. His wife is a stay at home mum of two little boys, and I thought she'd have lots of time. But that's the thing, healthy food, or 'slow food' is just not a priority for them. Food is made quickly and eaten quickly. It takes a lot of time to keep the house clean and super tidy, and the garden, too, and she does a lot of DIY home decorating projects. So different to us, we try to keep on top of the house, and do the projects that need doing, but we spend lots of time on cooking and eating, and we buy good quality unprocessed food wherever we can. And I'm glad we are able to live our lives that way, making time for meals and getting some time to ourselves rather than 'trying to keep up with the Joneses' when it comes to garden ornaments and polished windows.

Also, my family here hardly ever go out just the two of them, or my brother with just his family, all the leisure time goes on outings with 'the circle of friends' and the football club, and the neighbourhood, and the extended family (or getting the house ready to receive same). So much more couple and family time for P and me...

Being an expat is great in a way, I don't take anything for granted or feel I have to do something because 'it's the done thing', I always have the other perspective and can pick and choose from two cultures!

lunchtime walk

and a little break in a field




on days like this i'm so glad we moved here, and not into some run down estate to be closer to the city! actually, even on rainy days i'm happy out here!

Plans for the bedroom

After buying something purple for the first time in years I've chickened out of the plan for a soft purple feature wall, I am too scared of purple!! Instead I will go for a (maybe even scarier) purple and green combination! The cushions might lighten up a little if i wash them a few times and should nearly match the curtains then. The material for the throw has flecks for purple in it, and I love the fact that it will be handwoven in Ireland. It's a bit of an investment piece but I think it's timeless, and such good quality, for the same price as most synthetic bedspreads! Unfortunately the weaver can only do 140cm width on his loom, but he will make it 220cm long, so it'll cover the width of our king size (153cm) bed nicely. It'll be a few weeks before it's going to be finished, so I have time to look for a nice watercolour or painting of lupins or other purple flowers, which should pull the colours together nicely.

I don't know what it is with me and purple but there are VERY FEW shades of purple that I like in the first place, (it has to be warm and muted, not too pale, not too pink, not too blue...) and I got quite excited when i got the curtains. But I've had the tester tin of paint for the feature wall sitting on my chest of drawers for ages and I just couldn't bring myself to paint the test patch! i think any more than one shade of purple wuld be too much for me!

lemon cup cakes for stitch'n'bitch

yumm...
we sat outside until half eight or so, then it got too cold! it's such a pity, the minute the sun has disappeared behind the house it got chilly. It's something I've noticed in Ireland, even in the middle of a hot day, it's always cold in the shade, it's not like that in Germany, as far as I remember. I wonder is it latitude, or the fact that it's an island, or is it like that at any coast?

the swing seat, our favourite place at the moment

a few days of sunshine

this place is like a different country! everybody's in a great mood and determined to make the most of the time, i think the day after tomorrow the rain will be back... we went to 2 BBQs at the weekend, had one at home and had another evening of al fresco dining. it's nearly like summer at home!

slings, christening and baby weight

it's from www.gorgeousbaby.ca, and i'm very happy with it! lovely soft fabric, good fit (i measured according to the website), and m seems to like it, too!

it's great for breastfeeding, i'm planning to go to the parent and baby cinema on tuesday, i think i'll bring it for that, it gives good support.





i made a pouch sling for p, too, it's nowhere near as nice as, and much simpler than the bought one, i sewed it this evening and can't wait to try it out! a reinforced curved seam is quite hard to do,, especially when the curve already looks a bit wobbly! but i used nice westfalen-fabric, so it's definitely man-friendly, and all cotton. unfortunately i can't remember if i pre washed the fabric, i kind of think i mightn't have... must remember to only wash it cold or it won't fit!!

we had the christening last week, a mad day, 23 adults and 9 children in the tiny house! a bit of a squeeze but all had fun, and the food went down well, my mum and i cooked all day saturday, and my neighbour made lovely desserts. anybody in north dublin, get your desserts from her! her cakes are divine! there was a merengue roll, a swiss roll with mandarins, a cheese cake and a banoffi, yum!

all the work cleaning, tidying, cooking, and 8 visitors from home shifted the last 2 kilos of the baby weight that were still hanging on! considering that i don't diet and eat whatever i like, including chocolate, that's not bad! i can't say my figure is the same as before, there's definitely a bit of soft belly jelly that seems to be here to stay, but at least most of my jeans and all of my tops fit again. oh, did i mention i'm loosing my hair! the post pregnancy molting has definitely started :-( and i have so little to start with...

i'm getting used to motherhood and am enjoying myself here, while i'm off work there's lots of time for cuddles and giggles with my little angel, and while i'm not doing half the things i thought i might be doing on maternity leave, i'm enjoying pottering around, and finally having a car so i can go for walks on the beach and for trips to the shopping centre for a browse and a latte, and to buy 'exotic' vegetables like fennel, which i couldn't get here in the village... i kind of expected to be really bored and dieing to get back to work, but that's not the case at all! it'll be hard to go back in autumn!

Another day out with visitors!

We went to the usual close by attractions, if we get many more visitors this year we'll have to think of some new places to go, so we don't get bored!!





Skerries Harbour was lovely and busy, everybody making the most of the warm day, knowing well it might be the last for the year!






the sun going down always makes for a nice photo opportunity, these are all taken with my old, clumsy, slow, noisy, annoying olympus x715 camera... ach, it's nowhere near as nice to handle as the benq... it'll do for blog photos, but i really hope i can get the other one fixed... and maybe get a more advanced one, for when the baby needs lots of photographing, all going well... (still scared of jinxing it if i assume all will go well...)

day out with the visitors

we had a fun day yesterday, well, fun for most of us, it started quite rough i imagine for my husband, who woke up with the mother of all hangovers.... and staying in bed wasn't an option because there was still more tidying and cleaning to be done than i could manage before the visitors arrived! my baby belly had calmed down considerably, which was good news because i don't know how i'd have managed showing them around otherwise!

we picked my parents and their friends up from the station and had coffee and biscuits here, and they had a little look around the garden and house (with the usual comments from the guys about how much less sturdy and 'proper' houses in ireland are built... they were knocking on the plasterboard walls and comparing the window frames and width of the stairs to home. i'm starting to feel like we live in a cardboard house!). Then we headed to Skerries for a 'walk around the head' and a drink. then we went to the Mills to have a look at the Farmers Market and for some coffee and cake/their homemade soda bread, then on to Ardgillan Castle. The ladies loved it, the guys are way unfit and not used to walking... my mum was telling me when they went around dublin the women were mostly walking ahead, leasurely, chatting, and every now and then stopping to see could they still see the guys in the distance, and then letting them catch up! we left them behind as we explored the walled gardens, they are always a big hit with my female realitves, who get excited to see plants they have at home all labeled and categorised, and to see some of them grow to twice the size, and others that they keep indoors grow happily outside.

We had dinner in the stoop, which everybody loved, and we all got to chat and rest some more (outings with 'older' people involve an awful lot of breaks and sitting down and stopping...). eventually we dropped them back to the train station and they all got on the train, it's kind of cute watching your parents on public transport if they drive everywhere at home, we could tell they were excited and nervous, making sure it's the right train twice, then all heading off down the compartment looking for seats together... i'm glad they get to travel like this is in a foreign country, i know it gave me lots of confidence, travelling and realising i could do it. who knows they might take another trip abroad, go to paris or prague for a long weekend, now that they know they can manage!

P and I were completely exhausted by the time we got home! especially P with the remnants of his hangover...

annions

sorry, is it just me or is rachel allen pronouncing onions in the most peculiar way? we were just watching her make roast chicken and were nearly on the floor laughing, especially as she said it so often, we didn't count but it went 'then i take the annion and i peel the annion, then i put the annion into the saucepan..." anybody know where she's from?
the other thing that cracks me up is that she often looks like she hates the food she's tasting, while saying 'i lav the flavour, mmh, it's delicious' and it often looks like she hates touching produce, too!
enough bitching, i have to say i love her clothes, make up and jewellery, and the actual food looks yummie!