Guess Who's coming to Dinner?

 

It’s highly unusual, in our house, for His Nibs to walk into the kitchen and find me up to my elbows in hot soapy water, washing the teapot and sugar bowl and jug.  And, of course, the cups and saucers.  He knew there was something going on as soon as he saw me. 

“Is someone coming?”

No, I lied.  Nobody was coming.  I told him that I was just being an excellent housewife and dusting and cleaning my Saturday afternoon away. 

He decided to make coffee and watch.  Fair enough, I suppose, as my Granny used to say, what's rare is wonderful. 
When he opened the fridge to get the milk, though, and saw the enormous raw chicken, and the bag of baby potatoes, my dishonesty was revealed.

“Cop on now” he told me.  “You must think I’m a fool.  You’re washing the teapot, and there’s actual food in the fridge.  Someone’s coming, who is it?”

Happily, our Saturday night visitor was someone we’re both very fond of.  There was no reason for me to lie. 
But when I make the effort to dust and polish, I don’t want him immediately assuming it’s because there’s someone coming to our house.  Even though that’s invariably the reason.

I assume that every kitchen is like ours?  By that I mean dotted with lovely things that never ever get used, unless there’s a visitor.

We’re the type of people that make cups of tea by flinging a teabag in a mug and then leaving the teabags in a damp pyramid until they threaten to topple over.  In our defence, we do have the special little teabag dish for the purpose, we don’t just throw them on the counter top.

It’s a shame, really, because we have at least three nice teapots.  But most of the time they sit unmolested, free to get dusty and manky looking, until a kind friend agrees to come and chance eating with us, giving the pottery a little moment in the sun, all shiny and posh, for just one evening.

There’s also the linen placemats.  Last Saturday could be the first time they were used, actually, even though I’ve owned them for at least five years.  They're an effort to wash and iron, so I don’t usually bother.  Please don’t ask why I ever bought them, because honestly, I have no clue.

The napkin holder was also dusted off and given a moment of glory.  It had to be, once we discovered that although I have bought napkin rings in the past, I haven’t gotten around to getting actual proper napkins yet, so the paper ones had to do.

And I remembered to put the only three matching plates we own on top of the pile, so that when I took them out it looked like we eat off matching crockery all the time.  And I used the grown up, matching cutlery, that doesn’t bend when you look at it, as if Uri Gellar was the dinner guest.

I forgot to whip out the carving cutlery, though.  A lovely Newbridge carving knife and fork set we got as a wedding present.  It has its own little wooden box, which must have been opened at least four times by now.

Happily, I remembered to do the pre-visitor check list.

Have I hidden the ironing basket?

Have I closed the doors of all messy rooms, and possibly locked them if things are particularly bad in there?

Have I done the spot check in the bathrooms, even though I'd just cleaned them an hour before, just to be sure?

Had I threatened His Nibs and the dogs to be good and sociable at al costs, even though the payback is to let him have full control of the telly for hours of GAA the following day?  There was no need for this one, actually.  Not when his Nibs likes the visitor.  Still, it's better to be safe.

The last time my friend came to eat with us, she was unceremoniously handed a Chinese takeaway menu at the front door, and told to make her decision fast, as His Nibs wanted to go and collect the food and be back in time for some film that was about to start.

She must have been surprised and, I like to think, impressed, when she saw a large chicken, roasted and ready to be served.  I’d say she nearly took a weakness when she saw me putting potatoes on to cook.

The fact that I had cooked chicken and potatoes was enough, I thought.

The vegetables were pre-washed, pre-peeled, and pre-sliced.  All I had to do was fling them in the oven to roast.  They even came with a little yoke of dressing to be put on once they were cooked.  Dressing for cooked vegetables, what the hell happened to us?

I decided not to make stuffing.  Mainly because I have absolutely no idea how.  Apparently it’s very easy.  All you need, I’m told, is breadcrumbs, onion, sage and something else.  Butter maybe? 

By the time I bought all those things and learned how to put them together to make them edible, it wouldn’t be worth it.  Especially when you can buy it ready made in Marks & Spencers and fling it in the oven.  And while I was putting the stuffing on anyway, sure I might as well throw in a little box of those roast potatoes M&S also do.

So basically, all I cooked was chicken and baby potatoes, and the rest was ready made.  And yet it looked (I hope) like I made a dinner.

Needless to say, dessert was very much along the same lines.  And our generous friend brought a supply of fancy desserts as well.

We had a lovely time. I was very grateful to my friend for coming, as it goes.  It takes a certain amount of courage to come to dinner in Chez His Nibs and me.  You never know what you’re going to get to eat.  Or, in fact, if you’re going to get anything. 

On Sunday morning, standing in my clean kitchen, I was pleased to note that there was more than enough leftovers to feed us Sunday lunch as well.

For a moment I considered embracing cooking as a possible future habit.  But feck it, it wasn't that nice.

 

Dear Car

I’ve had just about enough of your nonsense for now, thank you.  Kindly stop causing trouble and expense, and do what you’re supposed to do.  Just take me where I want to go, cost me a fortune in petrol and road tax and insurance as agreed, and behave yourself.

I don’t know why I’m so attached to you, you little fecker.  Maybe it’s the same sort of mental hiccup that causes people to stay together for years, well after they’ve lost their looks and become cranky and shouty and difficult. 
I’m assuming, for example, that when His Nibs looks at me, he sees me as I was at nineteen, when he first met me.  I hope he doesn’t notice the stones of extra weight, the grey hair, the lines and wrinkles that now adorn me.

In the same way, when I look at you, car, I don’t see the scrapes and bumps and I don’t hear your rather persistent cough when I drive you.  In my head, you’re still the same sleek and shiny model you were when I bought you, when you were just a year and a half old.

You’re making it difficult now though.  It hasn’t been a great few months for you, has it?  First of all, at the end of May, we had that bit of trouble that resulted in your whole back door having to be replaced.  The less said about that, the better.

When you went to have your NCT, still with your back door in flitters, we discovered that you needed a new pigging steering rack.  I was not impressed with that little development.  Especially not at the same time as the door had to be replaced.

When His Nibs was kind enough to go out last week to change the oil filter and plugs, I expected no trouble.  I wasn’t pleased to hear that your bonnet no longer opened.  What the feck would cause such a thing?  I’ve never even heard of that happening to a car before.

Once again I took you to the very nice and reasonable, (and quite attractive) mechanic that His Nibs uses.  If this caper doesn’t stop he’s going to think I fancy him, I’m at his gate so often.  (This possibility is only scary because it’s true, I kind of do fancy him.)

You’re a pain in the arse, you really are. 

His Nibs, having more common sense than me, had suggested that I get the plugs and oil filter and so on sorted out while you were in the garage anyway, and I agreed.

It was just another disappointment, when I collected you this evening, when you started jumping around the road after a mile or so, and a new and unknown yellow light presented itself on the dashboard.

I had to U-turn, and go back to the mechanic again. And not in an approved u-turn space, as it happens.  His Nibs would have had a fit. 

I didn’t want to do it, at seven in the evening, the man has a life and a family, and probably wanted to go inside and stop having to deal with gobshites.

And that’s mostly my problem with you.  That you make me feel and sound like such a complete gom.

When I’d collected the car, I’d done so in more or less silence. Or at least what passes for silence for me.

“Hiya.  I’m here for the Nissan.  Is everything ok with it?”

“Yeah, it’s all sorted out, I fixed the bonnet, and changed the oil, and the filter and the plugs, it’s ready to go.”
“Thanks a million, here’s your money.  Bye now.”

All very simple.  Even though it’s no secret that I’m a person who likes to talk, I try not to blather incessantly in situations where I won’t know what I’m talking about.  Because I always end up sounding like a complete twit.  So our transaction was completed in a dignified and swift manner.

But when the light came on, and stayed on (I could have ignored just an odd flashing light) and the car started sounding like it had emphysema, I got a bit panicky.

I don’t like those dashboard lights.  I always assume that their illumination in the first in a two step process.  And that the second step is the engine blowing up.

So back I went.

“Hiya.  Sorry for coming back.  (Why was I sorry?  Why?  The light wasn’t there when I gave him the car, surely it was his problem to sort out?)  There’s a light on the dashboard.”

“All right.  Which light?”

“The yellow one.”

“But which one?  What does it look like?”

“The one above the oil light.  The yellow one.”

Now this is what I mean.  I own you, and have done so for years.  Being asked what light has come on and only being able to respond “the yellow one” makes me look like a fool.

The mechanic sighed, and stopped what he was doing, and fetched a little machine yoke, and came over to the car.

“Has this light been on before?”

“No.  I’m sure it hasn’t.  Because I would have gotten panicky if it had, so I’d remember.”

More of it.  I was trying to conduct myself as though I can run a life and a job and a household, and now I sounded like I shouldn’t be left in charge of a cat.

Apparently, one of the plugs, supplied by me, was damaged.  He asked me whether there was any chance it had been dropped.

“No.  Not really.   Sure where could it be dropped from?  It’s been on the floor of the car for weeks.”

He looked at me.

“On the floor where it could have been kicked, or stepped on, or some other damage could have happened to it?”

“Oh God yes.  I’ve been stepping on the bag and everything.”

It seems that the plugs used in cars should be handled in the same way as light bulbs.  And our mechanic has quite strong feelings about it. 
It seems to bother him hugely that people don’t take this seriously, and then blame him when he puts the plugs in cars and the cars won’t work properly.

So I got into a small amount of trouble with him.  I had to promise never to mistreat a plug again.

He had to put one of the old ones back in.  So I have to go back to the auto factors next Saturday and buy another plug and torment His Nibs to change it again.

Will you please control yourself?  I have enough to be doing with a job and a house and a husband and two dogs and the rest of my life without throwing money and time at you.  That’s quite enough nonsense for this year.  Cop on.

Or I’ll sell you to a farmer to use as a henhouse.

I've Started so I'll Finish

Did you ever start something, and then go too far, and end up sorry you ever started it?

I’ve had a couple of days off work this week, and obviously, being Irish, assumed it would be lashing rain and that I should take the opportunity to sort out our box room.

His Nibs and I live in a three bedroomed house.  Happily, so far, we still sleep in the same room (keep your fingers crossed for us).  The second biggest bedroom is the guest room, referred to, like in everyone’s house, as the spare room.

It’s odd, how it’s called the spare room.  Because to be honest, it’s anything but spare.  We couldn’t do without it.  It houses the out of season clothes, the fancy weddingy type outfits that I only ever wear once and don’t have room for in my wardrobe but keep “just in case”, and my entire shoe and handbag collection, which is a bit of a feat for any wardrobe, to be honest. 

It holds some books, the director’s chairs we drag out when we have more than four people at our kitchen table, and the empty suitcases.  Now how is that spare?  If we got a lodger into that room, we’d have to build an extension just to hold all my stuff.

Anyway, because we’re very anti-social, and the box room is actually the size of a box, we decided when we moved in not to put a bed in it.  We (I) decided it should be the “book room”.  We bought  a few bookcases, and I started making free in Waterstone’s and Chapters of Parnell Street in a way I never could have when we lived in the one bedroomed flat in Dublin.

Giving a room a name like the book room is an absolute fool’s game.  I know every box room ends up containing a load of crap, but if you actually call it the book room, and the walls aren’t entirely lined with books, it’s open season on the room.  Eventually we ended up with no floor space at all.

 

About two years ago, this room was equipped with a desk and a nice leather chair.  It was now the writing room – have you ever heard anything so pretentious?

It was one of those “if I build it they will come” moments.  I thought if I had a writing room, I’d be worn out coping with all the ideas I’d have for the Great Irish Novel. 

Putting the desk against a blank wall was a terrible idea.  Sitting down, with no ideas whatsoever, and both literally and figuratively facing a blank wall is nonsense. 

So this week I decided I’d re-arrange the room, so that the desk faced the window.  In the same way as facing a blank wall left me devoid of inspiration, I assumed that facing out into the world would lead to a world of ideas and creativity.

When I decided to sort out the book room, I decided I’d allow myself a full day to get through all the books. 

I’m such a moron.  I thought once the books were re-arranged, the work would be done.  There was to be three piles of books .  Books for the charity shop, books that would stay because I love them so much I need to have them to hand, and thirdly books I love but am not going to read again soon because I have them on the Kindle, or I’ve  just read them, and that I don’t want to part with.  These books were to be put in the attic.

His Nibs thinks this is a stupid idea.  He reckons anything that goes into the attic is really in a holding area.  That everything up there is on its way to the landfill, but I haven’t made my peace with it yet. 

I begged to differ, citing the Christmas decorations as an example, but he says that doesn’t count, because anyone with a bit of sense would put the decorations in the landfill and stop trying to turn our lives into Miracle on 34^th Street for two weeks of every year.

I also decided to put the CDs in the attic, since I only ever use the iPod.  Just so you know, CDs are ridiculously heavy and difficult to get into a tiny attic.

Now, I started off great.  I started flinging books into piles on Tuesday morning with some gusto.

The trouble is, the weather’s fabulous, and I know I won’t be getting any more days off to enjoy the sun.  So basically I’ve been running up and down the stairs and in and out of the garden caught between my conscience and my desire for a golden glow.  Usually armed with a book, allegedly so that I could decide which pile it belonged in.

So I made a bit of a production of the work.  His Nibs is an easy going soul, and doesn’t like this kind of carry on.  He just likes everything to be left alone.  Because usually, when things aren’t left alone, he’s dragged into a load of work.  Work that he doesn’t want to do, and doesn't approve of.

So he wasn’t delighted when he returned from work yesterday to find the entire floor of the spare room covered in books, bags and boxes.  And two empty bookcases on the landing.

There was a suitcase and about six bags of books in the hall, ready for their transfer to the charity shop. 

Of course it’s only when the sun goes down that I’m really able to get into the swing of the thing.  Because the garden is full of moths and loses its lustre,  and once His Nibs gets home the television moves from dreadful daytime TV to intelligent documentaries, so there’s nothing to distract me.

I got the books and the notebooks back onto their freshly dusted shelves yesterday.  I became so enthusiastic that I decided I wouldn’t be able to sleep until it was all dealt with.  At four o’clock this morning, His Nibs appeared on the landing and strongly suggested that I go to feck to bed and stop making noise.

He didn’t agree with my suggestion that now that he was up he may as well hop up into the attic there and then, to deposit the bags and boxes standing in the spare room.

I had to go into the attic myself this morning.  Well, I didn’t have to.  But sadly the enthusiasm had continued, and I was inflicted with an “I’ve started so I’ll finish” type mentality.  Anyway, I didn’t want to be tripping over the attic stuff for months while I begged (nagged) His Nibs to get on with it.

 That yellow insulation stuff is incredibly itchy and annoying.

This is exactly what I mean.  The very odd time I take a notion, I tend to throw myself into it with far too much enthusiasm. 

A quick tidy up, maybe a belt of the hoover, and a half hearted re-shuffling of the furniture would have completed the work.  But I had to go all out of course, hang new stuff on the walls, get rid of half the contents of the room, stuff ever more rubbish in the attic.
I absolutely hate the part in the middle.  You know when you think you’re doing great, then you look around and discover two rooms and the landing have been rendered unusable, and there’s absolutely no way back?  That you’ve gone too far and you have to finish the stupid dusty carry on?

I’m proud to say that I finished the job.

Fair enough, my car is currently out of bounds, there’s barely enough room for me in there.  I look forward to driving around the local towns tomorrow, looking for charity shops and deciding which is the most worthy of my fabulous donation. 

Happily, the cleaning lady is coming.  She doesn’t like working when I’m in the house.  Mainly, I suppose, because I follow her around and ask her stupid questions, and never know the answer to her more intelligent questions like “Is there any hot water?”  Also, my old trouble re-surfaces.  I can’t stop talking to her, and trying to talk her into stopping for coffee, when all she wants to do is get the whole thing over with and go home to her family.

I’ve already texted her to tell her that the impediment to cleaning the boxroom has now been removed, and to feel free to go on in and hoover and dust in there, just like every other room .  I also hinted that I’d like a bit of praise for my good work.

I’m sure she was delighted to hear from me.

For Better, For Worse

 

It’s been a very bad week for celebrity marriages.  Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones have split up, after fifteen years together.  Clint Eastwood and his wife are finished too, after seventeen years, Brian Ferry’s marriage is over after just two years, and that lovely ridey man from Miranda has split up from the woman who used to be in EastEnders, after seven years of marriage.

And yet His Nibs and I march on, despite very bad behaviour on both sides in the recent past.

Not the kind of bad behaviour that results in strangers jumping out bedroom windows in their underwear, obviously, or that means the mortgage money is gone up someone’s nose in the form of white powder, but still, not good behaviour.

There was no row or anything, not until Thursday night.  While I was smiling at His Nibs and trying to be overly nice because I was afraid he’d find out how many unpaid for beauty products were in the upstairs bathroom, little did I know that he was smiling at me and hoping I’d never find out about the mini flood.

When I say unpaid for beauty products, I haven’t started shoplifting, although maybe I should, the way I’m carrying on, but things bought on credit cards and overdrafts that have not been paid off to the bank yet, and are therefore technically unpaid for.

I am absolutely aware that overdrafts are created for emergencies like food and petrol to get to work, when you’re waiting for payday.  They are not for spending all next month’s salary before you even get it, and therefore forcing yourself back into  the position of having to live on someone else’s money again next month.

I know that in my head, but my heart doesn’t seem to understand, and seem to labour under the misapprehension that since I turn up for work when I’m supposed to I’m entitled to every treat I see during the month.  You know the type of thing

“I don’t have the money for it.  I really shouldn’t buy it.  But feck it, I work hard, I deserve a treat.”

I always use this line, even when I’ve had a treat the day before.  Or even, on some unhappy days, in the same lunchtime.

Anyway, let’s not focus on my misdeeds.  Back to the mini flood.

Very early last Wednesday morning, His Nibs put our dogs’ water bowl on the kitchen counter, beside the sink.  Despite careful questioning, he cannot explain why he didn’t put the bowl in the sink.

His Nibs hates being late in the mornings.  I hate being early, and am not fond of being on time. 
His Nibs couldn’t find his boots, and this was tormenting him.  I had not made my appearance yet, and his boots were missing, and the clock had crept past leaving the house time without any progress being made.

So he put the bowl on the counter, turned on the tap, and obviously temporarily out of his mind, went to find his boots.

Our dogs are a terrier and a sheepdog.  They are not Irish Wolfhounds. Or elephants. They are normal sized, and have a water bowl to match.  Normal sized, not a five gallon drum.  By the time His Nibs had located his boots, shouted up the stairs at me to get a move on, and wandered back to the kitchen, the bowl had filled, and the water was flowing merrily over the counter top and onto the floor.

I hate this type of messing, and His Nibs knew perfectly well that I’d take the opportunity to mop it all up and sigh and moan and be a martyr and tell him to go on without me, I’d think of something.  Which of course he couldn't do.  If he caused a flood and then left me to clean it up and went to work without me, he'd never hear the end of it. 

No, he knew I wouldn't leave the water there, and he'd have to join in the clean up , and between the jigs and the reels we'd have been lucky to be in work by lunchtime.

Rather than suffer this delay, he reasoned that the kitchen has a tiled floor, the water wouldn’t do it any harm, and he closed the kitchen door and went to shout at me from the bottom of the stairs again.

Of course while all this was going on I was upstairs moaning and whining about the little gremlins that get into my wardrobe at night and sew up all my clothes so that they’re smaller than the last time I wore them.  This involves a lot of sighing, and flinging tops into the corner of the room, and on very bad mornings, some tears.

Eventually I came down the stairs, and headed for the kitchen, to get my handbag.

“Will you please get in the fecking car?” His Nibs yelped.  “I have your bag, here, now come on, we’re late”.

This conversation is very much routine in our house on a work day morning, and so I had no reason to be suspicious.  I got in the car.

That night I commented on how wet the floor was.  I was assured that there had been a small incident with a water bowl, I assumed this meant it had been knocked over, or kicked across the floor as usual, and His Nibs immediately fetched the mop.

What he chose not to tell me, was that the three drawers in our kitchen had also been flooded that morning. I don’t have much to do with the drawers in our kitchen, to be honest.  I didn’t find out that there was water sitting in all three of them until very late on Thursday night.

I did my best to do a preliminary clean up, and spent half my Saturday emptying out the drawers, getting rid of all the soggy takeaway menus and instruction booklets that had accumulated in there over the years, washing every bit of cutlery, the linen placemats that we’re highly unlikely ever to use, and draining the manky accumulated water from the pots in the bottom drawer.

And still we’re nice to each other.  A man who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with just closing a drawer when it becomes flooded, is capable of being perfectly nice to a woman who is in overdraft just a couple of days after her monthly pay day because she is determined to buy one of every piece of makeup in Ireland.  And she is capable of being perfectly nice to him.

In fact, they're capable of being ridiculously fond of each other.

Maybe this is why my Granny always told me to only marry a man I was good friends with. You need friendship to get through these things, chemistry just doesn't cut it when the drawers are smelly or when one party insists that the ESB and phone bills aren't as important as maintaining youthful looks.

It really makes me wonder what the feck is causing all the celebrities to break up.