Such a great day. Started off with me winning the toss and therefore being 'good cop' for a change.
Himself: BOYS, boys, go in and say goodbye to Rex and Max. They're going I'm sick of feeding and looking after them
Me i.e. Good Cop: Ah, don't be like that, they'll look after them, won't you lads?
Lads: tearfully . . nodding. . . yes.
Himself: No. I don't believe them. They're going. The reptiles!!! Not you (to the now weeping boys).
Me: No. They're not going. The boys know that they have to look after them . . or else, don't you?
Lads: tearfully . . nodding. . . yes.
Yup, it's nice to not be the bad guy for a change. Then we dropped everyone at school and went to meet our best man (once upon a time), Garry, and I LOVE HIM. I laughed and laughed. Solidly for an hour. That's all we had. One hour. One hour to catch up on two years of news. Face to face that is. We have the phone and the Internet but it's not the same as sitting across the kitchen table and bantering backwards and forwards. He's back in New York now with his wife and boys and I miss him. It was only an hour. It was enough but I would've liked more. He's one of those mates (Himselfs mate to be honest) who you immediately pick up on the last conversation with. We talked about being a hearse driver and the music you could/would play. How when the kids say they want to leave home you can scare the shite out of them by offering to pack their bags (only works when your kids are as small as his and ours are). How music is shite now. And how, on the radio, they talk shite more than play music. How he's a narrow-back (Irish man living in America) as opposed to a Donkey (Irish American or is that American Irish). We talked as hard and as fast we could in the hour we had. We laughed a lot too. When I was leaving I said it was a shame I had laughed so much as the day would go downhill, laugherwise, from there. I was wrong. In ended on a high laughter note too.
Then I met some friends for coffee (I know!!! Next time I whine about being overworked and overtired you won't believe me) and had another giggle there. Giggled over how two of the women there had once watched the Life Boat Rescue 'Copter haul someone out of the estuary only to drop them again, and again.. Laughed because the same thing had happened to me when I worked in Dun Laoghaire and had a great view over the bay. We all watched agog as they raised a body out the sea only to drop the poor fecker. It was only when they dropped the 'poor fecker' several times we realised that it was a training exercise! Doh!!
Got kids, got all their news. And their jokes. # 2 refused to eat his lunch in school because there was meat in it. Didn't we know it was a holy day of obligation? he asked. We did, we said. Well? He said. Very complicated when you send your kids to a Catholic School and don't believe in a lot of the nonsense that goes with it. Pah, how can you explain to a child that the reason Lent really happened was to do with the real olden days (not when myself and Himself were young) when food was scarce as the new crops hadn't kicked in yet etc. Nothing to do with Jesus.
Jesus!!
Then I found the egg man. Yayayayaya. I found the egg man (cue lots of I am the walrus singing in our house) and got beautiful eggs at a great price.
Then G.A. arrived. G.A. is a cake maker and a very talented one. I've mentioned her before. We met on a cake making blind date type thing and became firm friends. She has to make some wedding figures out of fimo for next week and was panicking that she couldn't do it. Of course she can do it. She's bloody talented. But. . . she offered to teach me how to make Converse Booties if I'd show her how not to be afraid of fimo clay. Deal!! So, she came over and she brought me tulips. I love tulips. We played and made the brides. We had one each to do you see. Yeah, we made our brides, chatted and the kids joined in with the chatting. # 2 offered lots of advice on the size of the figurines heads and how best to make the arms stick on. Then # 3 came over to tell G.A. about his go-gos. "Here's froggy, aleee, catty, mousey . . ." G,A, was very nice and took this all in her stride. Which was more than my bride did. She toppled over in the oven and broke her hair. Thank God new hair can be made and she can be recooked.
As everyone in my house was having chicken kiev and I hate chicken kiev (oh, interesting fact about chickens nowadays. Chicken is no longer a low fat meat. At least, it's not if you're not buying free range birds. If you're just buying normal supermarket-cheap-as-chips-chicken it's a factory bird that has spent it's life sitting down and therefore, as well as being denied all the lovely things about living, is a fat bird). But I digress, as everyone in my house was having chicken kiev and I hate chicken kiev so we went to cafe provence in the village. I had fish and chips and she had the black linguine. 'Cept it wasn't black?! Of course, being Irish we said nothing. Just muttered at each other. Then THEN G. bought dinner. We had a mini argument about this but as long as I'm allowed to pay next time etc. etc. so G. paid. As we left the Cafe it suddenly dawned on me. G. had bought me flowers and dinner!!!! Seriously. Funniest thing ever. Long time since anyone gave me flowers and then took me out to dinner. What a shame we're both disgustingly straight and married. We're obviously soul mates, just not each other's type.
And we can read each other's minds. I said "Have you seen this hairdry . . . " and she said "I have one!!! Big hair". Now, how cool is that.
So. I started the day giggling. Had a midday giggle with more friends and ended it cackling with G.
Life is very wonderful right now. Best thing about the wonderfulness of it all is that I'm aware it's wonderful. It's nice to actually see the happy as it's happening.
Happy dayx.
