Right now

Oscar is at a computer class.  Harry is chatting to some mate online whilst he plays Fifa 13 and Arthur is hoping around the kitchen playing Toy Story something on the Kinnect.  I was going to moan about the fact that none of them are interacting with anyone human when I realised I'm doing the same.  Dammit.  Hard to be all moralistic about computer usage when I've spent the last 24 days uploading photos or chatting to you lot.  

And another thing, I know I've been calling everyone by their given names but I kind've miss the 'Himself, meself, him and him and him and billy the dog and boy".  Plus Ger is getting a bit antsy about being er, referred to so often.  Jesus, the things I could tell you that the woman says.  Last night we did our bizarre 'omg, sigh' porn conversation again.  This time though we were talking about the gorgeous film that is 'Miss Pettigrew lives for a day'. If you haven't seen it, go get it out.  It's gorgeous.  It's funny and wonderful and just absolutely perfect.  I had to stay up last night to watch it as the UPC box refused to record it, I really miss Sky.  So, yeah, stayed up watched beautiful, funny movie, Ger watched it too, and then we oohed and ahhhed over the following line: " . . .  no, (I'm not looking for a Social Secretary), I'm looking for you.  I've been looking for you all my life".  Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. 

Thank you Colette for telling me about that movie years ago.  I still love it.  Still  not 100% sure about 'Next Stop Wonderland' though. x

p.s Dear UPC, Seriously???  I really, really dislike the way you have to practically leave the room before the box will record two programmes.  Why can't you record two things and watch something you have pre-recorded?  Huh??  Our box here is so miserable we have to turn off the tv too and slink out of the room before it will oblige us by recording anything.  ANYTHING!!!!

OOOoer Missus

Last night I was on the phone to Ger and we had the following conversation:

Me: Oh.  My God.

Ger: It's so good.

Me:  I feel so inadequate here . . .

Ger: Me too, I feel like I'm a complete faker.

Me. Oh Gooooooooooooooooooooodd!  

Ger: Sigh.

Me. I want this so badly.

Ger: One day, Niamh, one day.

Cackle, it sounded like er, something far more interesting that what it was.  If you know what I mean.  We were talking about our new Cake Hero.  Emma Jayne (Cake Design), God, but she's brilliant.  Sigh.  Check her out. 

Fabulous Dahling

All the cakes are gone.  I should be getting Christmasy with the house but I've missed you and wanted to check in.  

So?  Fabulous?  Yup, I am now fabulously forty.  Fuck, I'm 40.  Can't quite work out how that happened but happen it did and here I am, looking fabulous.  I was meant to be 'not fat at forty' but hey, I'm fabulous instead.

Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you?  I did, this year.  By Himself.  Fecking hell it's like walking in on your own funeral.  In a good way.  Poor Himself, he was in an awful state.  I'd done a market that day and It.  Had.  Bombed.  I was like an Antichrist.  Tired and dirty and bleugh.  I told Himself to ring A and make something up, I wasn't going out.  He said 'go to bed, have a lie down and see how you feel'.  He told me later that, in his head, he was screaming 'Fuck!!!!!!!  What am I going to do????????????'  Poor bugger ended up with an awful headache due to the stress I was causing him.  

Hahah, what I didn't know was, while I was napping and diffusing, he was in Shinners house trying to untangle balloons and convince no. 3 not to say anything about just bumping into the youngest Spain.  No. 3 is like me, he can't keep his yap shut, funny.

Anyway, so I was collected by the lovely Ad and we then collected A and we went into Malahide for a quick one before heading to Bon Appetit for dinner with Paula and Claire.  Hello Tequila coctails.  Whoopwhoop.  Then A's phone rang and she started grumbling something about her hubby forgetting his bank card or something.  We finished our drinks and strolled around to Gibneys.  She ran in and myself and Ad followed her at a slower pace.  When she never came out we went in after her.  

SURPRISE!!!!!!!

I nearly peed.  All I could see were faces I knew, but they weren't in the right place, if you know what I mean.  They were here.  In north county Dublin.  In my local.  

Like I said, it was like walking into your own funeral.  Everyone laughing and talking about you in a nice way.

All you can hear, er, here, is me going 'Oh!!!  Cackle, cackle, cackle, it's you!" over and over again.  It was brilliant, I loved it.  I never realised I had so many friends.  I never knew they liked me enough to brave nosebleeds and come over to da northside.  But they did.  And I love them.

I decided not to drink long drinks as I kept losing them . . you know how when you are a bride, or at a surprise party hosted in your honour, you have to keep circulating and cackling at people and laughing and saying stuff like 'did you have to get your passport stamped' - to the southsiders and 'thank you' and all that stuff, well, when you are doing all that you tend to put your drink down and lose it.  So I decided to drink tequila shots.  The downside of this is you keep losing your glasses as they shoot off your head.  The upside is . .  NO HANGOVER!!!  I think it's the mixer that causes dehydration and hangover.  Defo not the tequila.  So, I drank tequila and er, had the odd sneaky, and odd, ciggie with my good mate Gertrude.  

The Cakers were there, the uncle and cousins, the sister and hubby, Himself, neighbours, in-laws and school friends.  Old friends and more recently acquired ones.

I cackled and drank and was helpfully stripped out of my 'control garment' lent to me by Fiona.  I looked slinky in my dress and the slip would have been fine if I had've been going for dinner but it wasn't fine for sitting in a pub in and jumping up and down in and cackling and drinking in and . . other stuff. C. got me out of it.  In the loo.  She didn't judge me for my mismatched undies either.  Or not being skinny at 40, like I swore I would be all those years ago.  She agreed, I was fabulous and fun and that is much better.

The funniest thing about the night was, I just kept telling everyone "I'm hungry, I thought I was going to swanky Bon Appetit".  Still, a packet of king crisps and a slice of buttered bread at 3 in the morning was like manna from heaven.

Oh, oh, and the cake.  The cake was even more wonderful than me. It was made by er, Gertrude.   Who is one of my caking heroes.

Thank you Gertrude and thank you Darren a.k.a. Himself.  You blew me away and I'm so sorry for the headache.

Are you always honest?

"telling the truth isn’t always good,but lying isn’t always bad.if telling the truth make someone feels bad,lying can be good.good things can come from lying,bad things from the truth. although sometimes telling part of the truth is the same thing as telling a lie"

Anna Foster - Chasing Liberty

No. 2 tries hard not to be sometimes but you can see it eating him up, e.g. "Do these trousers suit me?"  Him:  "Yes . . . . do you like them?.... no, not really.  Sorry".

There are a few people in the world I cannot lie to.  Most people I can lie to without so much as blinking and it's really starting to bother me that there are those in my life whom I have to be completely honest with.  I mean, the lies I tell are little ones.  Can't be doing with the big ones, too hard to keep straight.  But the little ones are alright, aren't they??

One of my, consciences (for want of a better word), believes that any kind of lying is bad no matter how big or small the lie.  I disagree.

It's not so much lying, I think, as getting yourself out of a poxy situation.  Like, when I accidentally walked off with someones keys.  God, was mortified.  More mortified when, having told her all the places she should look(whilst a county away), I put my hand into my bag and . .  found her keys!!  You know, I even considered binning the bloody things rather than ring and say I have them?!?!  She told me if I had've binned them I would have eventually told her and she would be furious with me.  Thing is, if I had've binned them I wouldn't have told her because  it would have gone from 'lie' to 'secret'.  

Bollix anyway,

What happened was, she rang, I said no, don't have them and continued merrily on my way.  On way to collecting my car an hour later I put my hand into my bag and pulled our her keys.  Puce!!!

Panicked (why I don't know, I mean, what did I do in a past life that I am so afraid of saying 'hey, found your keys'??) and decided that when I got home, and if I convinced myself not to bin them, I would ring her and say 'found your keys'.  Which is exactly I did.  She was delighted to have her keys back and thrilled they were in my house and safe.  Also thrilled as it meant she didn't have to get every lock in the house changed.

So, why oh bloody why, did I have to tell her I knew I had them an hour before I told her I had them??  What was to be gained?  It's not the worse thing I've ever done . . . really?!  

She was thrilled to have her keys back, why the fuck did I have to go 'well, you know how I found your keys when I got home . . . . ?" two nights later? 

Yup, this woman is one of a handful of people who can read me so well I'm afraid to lie.  There's another one, a cake maker, who made a model and I said "love it" and, in my head went "fuck, it's  got wonky feet".  Is that lying?  Or being nice?  Either way, when she mentioned the cack feet herself I said/shouted "yes, yes, it's got brutal feet, what were you thinking???" 

Whilst telling the above two that I don't lie, much, I answered my phone with a "sorry, can't talk, in school collecting sick kid at the moment" whilst they just looked at each other and nodded.  Nodded in that way that friends do when you prove they are right.  Bastards.

I remember hearing of a man, either in the UK or States, who lived his life for 3 months without lying.  He was miserable.  Apparently it's amazing how many leeeetle lies we tell.  "Yeah, of course I don't mind not having sugar in my tea" - what's the point of tea without sugar??  "Your hair looks fab, don't worry" - Cackle,  you know who you are.  Er, what else?  "Love the new tattoo" - of course you hate it but they just scarred their bodies FOR LIFE with it.  "What mess?" - yeah, your house is a tip and I'm afraid to sit down. All of the above are little things that we/I lie over.  

I love the people with no sugar/crap hair/bad tattoos and slutty houses, they're my friends.  I bet they lie to me all the time.

The Lily

Myself and Ger headed over to Birmingham last week, er, the weekend before last, for the Cake International Show in Birmingham.  It was great fun.  Mainly because we were like two school kids on tour.  Up half the night giggling and rearranging furtniture etc.  (I went upstairs on the Thursday night to find Ger standing in the chaos of the attic with her aerobed standing upright saying "It's never going to fit!!"  It did.  Eventually. But only after we'd gotten the bed wedged in the doorway and after we'd dragged it out of the doorway into an upright position before clearing away lots of books, a thomas the tank engine train and lots of cds and FLUMPING it onto the floor.  Cackle, everyone was in bed on the floor underneath us, and you know how the harder you try to stay quiet the more loud you become?  We were weak with laughing and noisy as hell with it.  The more we tried to stop giggling the worse we became).

Also got to bump into lots of fellow cakers and spend money!  I Had forgotten how much I l love spending money.  LOVE IT.  Love it so much I spent about £400 and something sterling.  But it's okay, it's for my business so it's not like spending real money.  Is it?  

Bought lots of stuff that, when I got home, was only a very little pile really.  A tiny pile once you took the Moose head out.  Ah well. 

We were disgustingly giddy.  

After the Friday show N took us to Costco where we did a weird kind've trolley dash and N then took my Batman book off me so she could give it to no. 2.  Pah, he loves that book.  It should've been from me!!!!  Myself and Ger bought lots of pretzels and marshmallows.  Shame no one would play chubby bunny with me.  I had an idea Ger wouldn't as marshmallows make her hyper but N wouldn't play.  Mind you, she had seen no. 3's chubby bunny video.  Enough said really.

Anyway, after Costco we were standing outside the house and N said something about bringing Ger's car in and parking it behind hers.  That much I heard because I was standing beside N.  Unfortunately I couldn't hear Ger.  

Ger:  What've I to do with the car?

Me.  What?

Ger.  . . sigh . .. what's happening with the car?

Me.  Park it behind N's.

Ger.  But what about this one?  (Pointing to M's car).

Me.  What?

Ger.  WHAT.  AM.  I.  TO.  DO.  WITH.  MY CAR?????

Me.  Wha?  Oh, oh.  Don't worry about M's, just park your car behind N's.  

I swear to God, but she shouted at me like I was her husband or something.  The way I shout at Himself when he's not doing what I'm telling him to do and I'm nearing murdering point.  

Jesus.  We're obviously spending too much time together.

Later we were sitting, more or less, side by side on the sofa.  She was on her laptop and me on my ipad.  We were grumping about each other online to our buddies.  It was so funny.  We then got even gigglier and tried to take 'grumpy' photos of ourselves, as you do when you're on your holliers, and failed brutally.

M went upstairs to a crying child.  We'd woken the babies.  Terrible thing to do, wake babies.  To get ourselves out of the shite we dragged Lily into our photo.

I love Lily!  She was taking the piss out of us that weekend too for crying over 'Goodnight Mr. Tom'.  She is such a harsh witch when she wants to be.  Poking fun at us and calling us soft.  Hard aul' wan.

I love getting my hair cut.

Yup, nothing like a good hair cut to make you feel wonderful.  Shame Alison used a proper hairdryer (mine is older than no. 1) and a hair straighteners to achieve this lovely, glossy look.  Hair straighteners scare the shit out of me.  Hot.  Hot.  Hot.  And I'm bloody clumsy.  

Clumsy and pretty though.  Even if I do say so myself.