Stuff including ice cream and octopusses ( not octopi as some would have you believe )

Kids are on their midterm, they need it, honestly, they only went back to school mid Jan.????  Hello??????????  So I am surrounded by demanding small children.  Not right now obviously, as they are in bed.  But during the day I am and it't tiring.  I keep looking at them and wondering where my lovely, polite, obedient kids went and how I ended up with these gits who try and find ways to defy me at every turn.  Silly things like sneaking food into their bedrooms etc.  Fucking annoying though.

Today myself and Carol took our respective car load of children (plus Ben) to the sealife centre in Bray, Wicklow, Ireland, The World, The Universe etc. etc. to quote both Arthur and Oscar these days. They had a blast.  It was cold but sunny and it felt like heaven to be beside the sea ( cue song ).  Was very strange, our kids have known each other since birth yet today they were like strangers until an hour or so in and then they played happily for about four hours before acting like strangers again.  Managed to not lose Arthur today but that's only because he has a wretched cough and barks like a seal.  Bloody expensive day out too, sealife centre (with two free kids) €31.  Food for five €24.98.  Icecream for five €10.  Not including petrol and toll charges.  I like taking the boys out and am determined that filling the car with diesel is my luxury but frickin' hell that;s a lot of money for a day out.  Still, I saw the octopus (3 hears and blue blood) and Carol got to rescue a fish that got stuck in a branch thing in his aquarium.  I also got to give Eoghan a bit of a fright which I like doing every now and then as he takes it so seriously.  Harry got to buy another rock, Ben bought a shark and the other littler ones whinged cos we wouldn't let them buy anything cos they'd be buying it with our money.   Also.  ALSO!!!  Got to hold starfish, which me and Carol kept calling Seahorses? and to brush our fingers past anenomes which was really cool 'cos they felt 'sticky', they were trying to grab hold of us to eat with their teeny tenacles.  Fascinating stuff.  Starfish, because they have no brains, when they lose an arm sometimes to grow two to replace it as they have no brains.  Therefore they can't count.  They also feed by chucking their stomach onto their food and eating it there and then.  Huh, you learn something new every day.

Home, am Special-ed out now, tine for a new cd, to find the house spotless as D hadn't been gone nearly as long as I thought he'd be. 

Rightio, time for bed, Ian McNabb and dreams of risotto.  I'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow come hell or high water.  Oooh, made ketchup.  It's very delicious indeed.  Harry, the one who wanted it made, doesn't like it at all and wants us to make something different???  Suggestions. . . .