Yesterday

I was having a bad day.  Hence the 'I love my rotten ungrateful children' remark.  But they were doing my bloody head in.  I'd woken up bright and early and raring to go (after a night out with the school mammies and several glasses of wine) and Himself was good to go so we said 'Right, let's go somewhere lovely because it's er, lovely out'.  

Half nine I got up at.  HALF NINE!!!  The bastards (all four of them) didn't come down til 11, ELEVEN, a.m.  By which time I am positively fuming and screeching about how I'm trying to do something nice with them and WHY WON'T YOU ALL (in my head: FUCKING) MOVE??? So, we set off to have a lovely day with two of us in tears.  Me and no. 1.  

I'd received a call from the hospital on Friday saying 'we'd like to you see you in a week' which is a whole month earlier than they were meant to be seeing me.  So I immediatley went into 'oh jesus, I'm actually dying' mode.  So, instead of being all 'Terms of Endearment' and loving to my family I screeched at them that they were a hopeless fecking bunch of feckers.  Feckers who were ungrateful to boot.  

Feck.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm perfectly perfect and fine but I would like to know for definite.  May ring hospital tomorrow to ask if they had a cancellation or whether I'm er, in trouble.  Even though I'm sure I'm not.  

Feck.

Right, so we went to Howth.  Not the zoo as planned as we had Billy with us and you can't take dogs into the zoo because they might panic the monkeys.  Personally I'd like to see Billy panicked by one of the big tigers.  That would put the yappy little shit into his place.  But I digress.  Again.  

We went to Howth and took one of the high paths to walk on as we were afraid the Head would be so mushy and slippery after the rain we might fall into the sea.  Plus, the cliff walk is over 10km and the last time we did it no. 3 cried for 7 of those 10km.  It was lovely, as planned, and wetter than we'd thought it would be.  

Billy has a fear of his reflection.  Seriously!!  The dog goes bloody mental if he sees another dog staring up at him from a puddle.  I always wonder if it's ever crossed his mind why/how the dog in the puddle, who is also going ape shit mental, is doing it so quietly??

Somehow we ended up nearly back in the village and had to head back up the summit on the road.  God but there are some beautiful houses there.  Houses I want to own.  Like, REALLY, want to own.

One day.

Having crawled back up to the top of Howth Head we abandoned Himself to go the last 500m, we sat on someone's garden wall,  and collect the car so we could drive back down to the village to get chips.  

Poor no. 3.  All he wanted was a battered sausage from Beshoffs. Nothing more, nothing less.  Just one battered sausage.  He sat down on the wall to eat it and . .  it rolled out of the box and into the grass.  We recited the three second rule* and no. 1 whipped it up and gave back it no. 3.  

But then the fecking thing fell off the wall again!  Only this time it went onto the path, er, slightly longer  than 3 seconds but, again, it was whipped up and put into the box whereupon no. 3 picked up the box and made to hurl it at Himself's head in temper.  Himself, jaysus, picked off the bits of gravel and said ". . . 5 second rule????  Go on no. 3, it's alright".  

He stopped crying and wiped his eyes and nose and started eating it only to have Billy lep (like 'leap' only er, like Dubs say it)up and grab the sausage from the other end and gobble it down.  Jesus, no. 3 nearly lost his reason (I took photos of course) and myself and Himself nearly peed ourselves laughing.  No. 1 took him back to Beshoffs where they bought one more sausage.  In hindsight I'm relieved Billy ate the sausage as while no. 3 was getting a new one several dogs pissed on that exact spot where he'd dropped it the second time.  No 5 second rule (1 second rule even) is going to negate that germ-y mess.