Family Sit Down Meals Have Gone to the Dogs

We have had a number of special visitors to the farm recently. It means we all get together and of course do what we do best....eat.
It’s a bit like a very amiable mafia meeting, the family I have married into is definitely a clan not infiltrated easily.
There are seven offspring and their partners and children.
I already knew some of the clan before Darling Husband and I started going out but I still had many surprises when first meeting with them on their own territory and long after moving here too.
The 'family' have developed their own language of sorts and have such a great sense of humour. But more importantly there is an impressive talent they have perfected, to be able to judge the volume of your voice so perfectly that only your mother cannot hear your comments at the table, and they’ve certainly managed it, not only that, but knowing how their good-natured, God fearing Mother would be horrified if she heard half the funny things they said, they are able to maintain straight faces throughout almost anything. A number of times I’ve almost choked on my meal, my Mother-in- Law looking at me disapprovingly because whatever I’ve found funny is obviously abhorrent to everyone else.

The first time I went to ‘the house’ for dinner is an occasion never to be forgotten. The farmhouse kitchen was full of wonderful food smells and cheerful chatter. It's a very traditional farmhouse kitchen with meat hooks in the ceiling and there's a long wooden bench on one side of the table with huge gouges in it. It's called a pig bench and yes, years ago, is was what the pigs were chopped up, on.
On one side of the kitchen is a sofa, there’s a big rectangular table in the middle, a round table in the corner and there were two Rayburn cookers, one was in use but very old and one was waiting to be installed but in the meantime was there with a television on the top.
The television was on showing a programme about Gypsy life. We all sat down and mother started slicing bread and flicking down the table with the knife. The bread was expertly caught and although I was a bit surprised, no-one else raised an eyebrow, so this was obviously how it was done in this house, probably the quickest way to serve it up when you have seven children and excellent for eye-hand co-ordination, of course. We started eating and one of the sisters motioned towards the TV, a Gypsy man was washing his dogs. (Farm dogs are not the cleanest canines)
I’d probably better mention at this point that Darling Husband, his brothers and also some of their friends call each other 'Dick' ( no idea why).

“That’s the way to wash your dogs, Dave” said the sister.

“That’s the way to wash your dogs Dick” muttered Darling Husband, just loud enough for everyone, except his mother to hear.


The spare Rayburn has gone now and so we no longer have the pleasure of TV in the kitchen.

Speech Day

Saturday was Speech Day at No1 daughter's school.
She was very nervous but excited about her Prize for Creative Writing and insisted we got there early. The town was full of beautiful cars and smartly dressed people.
The Marquee was fabulous, as always, and the choir and speeches were truly impressive. We had to forgo a harp recital from my daughter's old harp teacher though, as she'd been asked elsewhere.
Daughter No2 was interested because she also wants to go to the school. Although she fidgeted and yawned a lot, she thought it was all rather nice, if not boring when the actual prizes were given out. I meant to tell Darling Husband to pace himself on the clapping, one should never clap heartily because stamina is needed to retain any feeling in the tarsals, but fortunately he's very tough.

Daughter No3 was intrigued by the whole thing. Why did some chairs have pink cushions? "I want to sit on a chair with pink cushions!"
"No Darling, those are for the Head and her speakers"
"That's not fair! Why do speakers need cushions? our speakers sit on the side in the kitchen!"
(sigh!)
She enjoyed standing on Darling Husband's lap and waving frantically at her big sister while grinning and giggling.
Big sister tried very hard to ignore the elevated scampster, and fortunately there were two very badly behaved boys further back who managed to annoy people far more and save us from being forcibly removed during the proceedings. I only had to take her to the loo once, so all in all I considered the morning very successful.

Canapes, wine and fruit juice were offered after the Ceremonies. Darling Husband was in a terrible hurry to get back to his cattle, but once he had a glass a of wine planted in his hand by a long standing friend, he became quite amiable and time suddenly seemed so terribly unimportant.
Daughter No3, who will normally not eat anything except Jaffa Cakes, tucked into the sausage rolls in an almost industrial manner.
I noticed a female hovering expectantly, waiting for an opportune moment to join the conversation (about Tractors) that Darling Husband and his friend were having. I quickly stuck my head in the middle of the mechanical conversation and said quietly, "I suggest you move immediately if not sooner, because you are imminently to be joined by Mrs (nameless)." I swear the two of them should enter the next Olympics, their reactions were lightening fast and we were out of there.

In the afternoon I indulged myself in some TV..The Importance of Being Earnest was on. Myself and three girls snuggled up on our enormous sofa and laughed at the most brilliant Oscar Wilde Play ever.

Our evening was then another extreme dimension altogether.
We were going to the Theatre with friends...perfectly civilised you may think, but we were going to Ebbw Vale Leisure Centre...a bit of a culture shock after our formal morning.
Ebbw Vale has the most beautiful stark landscape surrounding it, the wastelands of the steel years. The sky was black and threatening a storm and the sun was just going down, it was a very dramatic scene.
We waited in line outside the 'theatre' while the actors warmed up.
It was bloody freezing and we were sorely tempted to go and join them, but we weren't allowed in until they'd finished.
We were going to see "Blackwatch".
No-one was allowed in or out while the performance was going on and we were reminded over the tannoy, to use the toilet before the performance started.
The toilets were scary. Once I had scaled three flights of stairs, and gone through two doors and along a corridor I discovered there was one ladies toilet. Presumably most people gave up long before they got there, so there was really only need for the one. It had a huge dent in the wall and a little graffiti. The taps were reluctant to work and the hand towels were very strange.
I worried I would never see Darling Husband again if I couldn't remember the maze of old fire doors and twisty steps.

The play itself was the hardest play I've ever had to watch. I felt uncomfortable, like I shouldn't be privy to much of the content. It was the most brilliant piece of theatre. There was much bad language, violence and vulgarity, but all put into the context of a regiment and they're experience of Iraq, it worked without question. I sincerely advise anyone to see it, but it's gritty stuff.

After the play we were all exhausted emotionally and none of us wanted to finish the evening on such a sombre note, so we adjourned to an Indian restaurant and ate far more spicy food than can be safe or legal.
The restaurant has been refurbished beautifully, not one dodgy print on the wall, no flock wallpaper and the menu was all spelled correctly, it was almost a let down.
Our friend ordered the set meal for four, my husband ordered the same.

The waiter was obviously having trouble, he managed to stamp on Darling Husbands foot each time he approached the table.

We have yet to go out with our friends and not have something daft happen.

Darling Husband has found a stone in his food, he's been served what looked like road kill and declared to the waiter that it's the best meal he'd ever had in that place (with a straight face, and able to ignore the rest of us crying with laughter), he's had to march into the kitchen demanding to know where our vegetables are, and even had mint sauce served with his pudding.
But best of all, and it must be because he's so gorgeous, he's been kissed on the top of his head by a waitress!

Hilarity

This is without question the funniest thing I've read for a while.

Fruitcake - please see the Post Below

I feel the need to show you how lovely my small dog, Fruitcake, is.
See the post below to see why.

Never Work with Animals

First I would like to say a huge Thank you to Andy (also known as "Oy, you in the bushes") and Ken for staying up until 5.30 this morning working on my laptop to make it better.

My wonderful lady who 'does' for me left me a note saying:
"The vacuum cleaner's not sucking"........... ?!##!
I had to do a double take, I thought she'd really lost it this time and hadn't even bothered to finish the sentence. You see she hates our vacuum cleaner, with a passion. Darling Husband loves it, not that he uses it very often, come to mention it, neither do I.

Darling Husband was required to take it apart and sort it out, which he did with style and panache, if not a distinct odour of cattle.

We have had a love-hate relationship with the vacuum. When Fruitcake (my dog) first arrived she took a liking to the flex and chewed it into tiny pieces. I was furious, my 'lady' was delighted and brought her own hoover.
I picked up the iron to iron my daughters' school shirt. Fruitcake had chewed the flex into tiny pieces. I was furious, so was daughter number one. She had to go to school with her jumper on so no-one would see the creases and it was a very hot day.

I telephoned the local electrical appliance establishment and had a difficult conversation with a gentleman who was obviously a little hard of hearing.
"No, ROW-EN-TA, TA , yes"

He told me the parts would be in on Friday, OK, I worked out a system with my mother-in-law whereby I could use her iron for the school clothes, we’d manage just fine. Friday arrived and the telephone rang:
"I'm sorry but we are unable to locate any model iron made by the Heinz Baked Bean company, or indeed a Magimix Vacuum Cleaner and we're not clear what parts you need anyway". (grr!)
I politely, but, through gritted teeth explained the make and model vacuum I had, and the Iron I had, and that I needed electrical cables for both of them. The lady said she would put the order in and it would take another week. I wasn’t happy,why hadn’t they phoned me days before?
I suggested it would be more helpful if they employed some-one who wasn’t so hard of hearing to answer the phone.
She said:”he’s profoundly deaf”
I said: " well why is he answering the phone then?"
The sales lady curtly replied ”he is a member of staff and we cannot discriminate”.
My 'does' lady commented that it's lucky we only wanted the parts, the shop probably had a blind man doing repairs as well!

The following week I telephoned the shop, and yes, my parts had arrived and I said I would be in to collect them that afternoon. I walked into the shop and over to the customer service desk. The lady was chatting to some-one on the telephone, it sounded like a social call.
I waited patiently for a few minutes.
The lady didn’t look up or acknowledge my presence in any way.
I started feeling cross.
Two more customers arrived and stood behind me.
They too started getting cross.
The phone call ended and I explained I had come to collect the two flexes.
The lady said she would look in her book to find it.
She flicked through every page in a duplicate receipt book, licking her finger before turning every page.
“It’s not in this book, have we phoned you to say it’s here?”.
“ Yes” I said,” it’s just two flexes, surely some-one knows where they are? I did call to say I would be in this afternoon”.
“No, no, you don’t understand” she said, “if it’s here, it will say in the book. I’ll have to look in the book and see where it is and if it’s here, if it is here, it will be in the book” AGGGH!
She was saying 'book' so often, she started sounding like a chicken.

More page turning and finger licking, her chipped nail varnish was turning my stomach and I felt the urge to throttle her and then record it in the book.
She then picked up another book and turned every page in that one, the queue was getting very tetchy.
“Oh, here it is” , ahhh, a sigh of relief could be heard, almost felt.
She then stood up reached her arm out to the top of the filing cabinet next to her and picked up my electrical cables!!

I was speechless, all that fuss and self important bureaucracy and it was on the bloody filing cabinet next to her!

The second time Fruitcake ate the iron flex we went to a different shop in another town, but they lost the iron!
We now order the parts online and Darling Husband repairs the items just perfectly.(sigh!)

A Grand Day Out

We've had a day at the beach, me, my three girls, my Scottish friend and her two boys.
We were terribly eco-friendly, taking just our 7-seater Volvo, instead of spreading over two vehicles.
Daughter number one refused to go because the sea air makes vampires very huffy "and Mummy you really won't like if if I'm very angry"
Daughters two and three had busy making models and were still plastered in clay when they announced they were ready to go.
The milkman arrived, looking somewhat haggard and in need of strong coffee. I left him struggling to make coherent conversation with Darling Husband and went outside to find the inside of the car. I was amazed to find carpets on the floor and leather on the seats!! My goodness, it turned out to be blue as well! I was sure I would have enough rubbish to fill a dozen skips, yuck!
Our friends arrived all ready for a day trip. Daughter number one forgot she was in a strop and got in the car with everyone else.
We were off!
After 7 or 8 miles there was an expression of interest in throwing up from the very back. This meant a seat changeover, a sturdy plastic bag and a morale boosting chat with the other passengers that there were only a few more miles to go, well, not quite sixty miles actually.
We were off!
There was a quiet anticipation of vomit in the car and it was very pleasantly free of moaning. My friend and I sat happily in the front, enjoying the bright sunshine.
We reached roadworks on the M4, nightmare!
"Are we there yet?".....



On reaching our destination, all stomach contents intact, smiling faces, shouts of "I can see the sea!", the sun went in and it started to rain. Not to be deterred by the grim weather, the children quickly disembarked and grabbed a bag/basket each and tore down to the sand. I put on two jumpers and a jacket, bought 7 polystyrene cups of Hot Chocolates and followed suit.

The light was dramatic and beautiful, the rain stopped, the children dug holes and paddled in the rock pools. They built a huge sandcastle and got soaking wet. The tide suddenly seemed to be very close so everybody grabbed something and ran for the pebbly bits where the tide doesn't reach. "Has everybody got everything?" , we glanced around, confident we had all our belongings and legged it.

We opened our picnic, I had to confiscate the butter knife from my friend as it soon became very clear she was incapable in the spreading department, and we were soon all chomping happily on sandy sandwiches with added cheese and ham, hard boiled eggs and crisps.

We were happily munching, watching the tides swirling round the rocks we had just been sat on when daughter no. 1 shouted "Look, it's Jazzies boot!!"
There was one of her beautiful pink suede boots, floating on the incoming tide. Jazz was devastated that her boot was wet, and then even more so when she realised that she didn't have the other one. Daughter no. 1 rescued the boot, laughing at how daft her sister was. She looked around for her own boots, "OHMYGOD!! Mummy, where are my Converses??"
Another panic, we were now three items of footwear down, and had two very stroppy, upset girls on our hands demanding we left the beach immediately to buy new shoes.

I suggested we all calm down, and finish our picnic. Well what do you know, there was another pink boot floating in towards us HURRAY!! One daughter was restored to being perfect, the other now had smoke pouring from her ears and was about to spontaneously combust. The boys had wandered off along the beach in order to avoid the tantrums, the youngest one suddenly started screaming and yelling..oh, what now?? He'd found one Converse along the beach and he could see the other one trying to attach itself to a mans' foot. Brilliant!

We thought it best to leave immediately if not sooner, before any other calamity could come our way. Humour well restored and ice creams in hand we drove off, having thoroughly enjoyed our day. The journey home was speedy and stress-free, we just had to stop and fill up with Diesel on our return to Monmouth. (Have you seen how much it is??)

There is only one petrol station in Monmouth, it was packed with vehicles spilling out onto the road and there was a definite amount of stress building up because of the waiting, amongst the drivers.
The gentleman (I use that term very loosely) in front of us was in a 4x4.
He filled up with Diesel.
The car in front of him drove away leaving a nice big space (without Diesel on the pump).
We waited patiently.
The gentleman (again, loosely) locked his petrol cap (no-one does that anymore, come on!), rooted around in his vehicle for a while and then produced a petrol can.
He filled that up with Petrol.
We waited patiently.
He put the can back in his car and started to walk to pay for his fuel...I beep the horn and when he turned said, could you move up a bit so I fill up p...
"HAVE SOME PATIENCE!!" he yelled, dragged his door open and lurched his vehicle forwards.
I smiled and said "Thankyou", now I had a landrover and horse box behind me the queues were seriously building up.
I tried to put Diesel in my car, but it wouldn't work because Mr Happy had used the pump twice and they can't let you have any if two amounts are owning on one pump.
We waited patiently.
As soon as he'd started to pay I was able to start filling my car, the gentleman stamped out of the shoppy bit and shouted "See! You didn't get it any faster did you? AND, YOU could have pulled in front of me!!"
"There's no Diesel on that pump" I replied, "Dickhead!".
The man drove off, I pulled forwards out of courtesy for the next vehicle and paid for the outrageously expensive fuel politely and with terribly good humour.We laughed all the way home.
What a Grand Day out!

I've been very remiss and not thanked Elsie Button for my award, don't know why she thinks I'm funny..ppffftt!
It's the second one I've had from her, Thank you Elsie!


I've also been tagged (in a ladylike manner) by Dulwich Mum:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Now DM wrote something quite risque and I felt somewhat shocked, I must say.
I picked up the nearest book thinking how boring mine would be in comparison, but, hey, I'm not so sure.

"This was a very impressive demonstration of raw power back in the early 1900s.
Pictured is Russell, a Giant being demonstrated with a bottom.
This bottom was lifted and dropped by the strong muscles of the two men riding."

Oh, hang on, I've noticed a few typo's, here we are, this is the quote...awfully sorry, innocent mistake to make...

"This was a very impressive demonstration of raw power back in the early 1900s.
Pictured is a Russell Giant kerosene-burning tractor being demonstrated with a 10-bottom John Deere plow.
This plow's 5 two-bottom units were lifted and dropped into the ground by the strong muscles of the two men riding the plow."

This quote is taken from "Genuine Value, The John Deere Journey" given to Darling Husband for his fortieth Birthday by our wonderful friend Vince Musi

I tag Elsie Button, Omega Mum, Sparx lets see how you do...