bigfoodiemama

My blog is 10 years old since the 29th of October !!! I am amazed, delighted and surprised....and I am back !!! Yes, I have been absent but am back at a beautiful new writing desk, which I hope will inspire many blogs to come. Sooooo, what have I been up to ? Just in case you think I have failed you as readers with my infrequent posts, I thought I might return by giving you a flavour of what the past 2 months alone have involved and maybe, just maybe you might forgive me for my being AWOL. Earlier this year, I happily volunteered to be on the organising committee of my professions ( not what you might think !) national conference. I put November 8th and 9th in my diary, happy there was no conflict in my schedule.In the summer The Mad One asked if I would join my old Strictly buddies in a nearby GAA clubs Oscars event. I immediately agreed as the football season would be coming to an end so my taxi duties would ease and I love a bit of fun. The night of November 9th was the red carpet n...

So the PTA asked for volunteers to clean the church today, it having recently been painted and the Holy Communion and Confirmation looming. As I have a child in both ceremonies, I thought I should offer an hour of my time, so after a morning watching Under 10 Gaelic and Soccer, I left the boys with GASP and headed up to the church. Only Mother Mary was present so I asked what she wanted me to do and she suggested I start with the windows. Thankfully she volunteered to take the stained glass while I took the clear panes of the entrances and Crying Room. Very soon The Galway Girl and Manolo Blahnik arrived and commenced the harder job of polishing the pews and hoovering underneath them. We got the chance to chat away and I asked then not to tell GASP that I had been spotted cleaning windows as I refused point blank to do so at home. I then went on to suggest that cleaning the church might be a form of confession in itself absolving one from one's previous sins. " Great" sa...

So....The Mad One phoned and asked " Are you in ????" The nature of our longstanding relationship is that you automatically say yes to questions posed in this way so I immediately replied " YES !" "Great" she replied " that's sorted".....I waited to allow her to enjoy her moment of suspense and then enquired as to what exactly I had said yes to. She excitedly informed me that we were now entrants in the Lip Sync Battle being hosted by a local GA club at the end of September. I greeted this with delight as I love a bit of fun and then she advised me that she had already chosen the song and choreographed dance and I was to look up the video of Beyonce singing " If ya like it and ya want it, put a ring on it..." I put down the phone went into u-tube and looked up the video and found this image Now The Mad One has always had an image of herself as a sex siren and I welcomed the fact that she felt the need to tar me with the same b...

Thursday night was the last official night of GAA training at the local pitch and, in droves, the under 6's, 8's, 10's and 12's arrived, with rumour rife among them that there was to be PIZZA ! On a cool but dry evening the community was abuzz with excited children, cheerful coaches, much relieved mentors and busy club committee members. Hubby and I traveled up together to support and cheer and catch up on some chat with the other parents, membership of your local GAA club being the key to feeling part of it all and accepted when you swoop in from a foreign parish. As GASP strolled over to some of the fathers I chatted happily to The Ban Garda , Cowgirl Caitriona and the Sheep Yeaner . " Training " commenced, but on this special night, was basically fun filled kicking around with the children competing against both their own age group, but also their coaches. Next thing, I know, like the trailer for the Magnificent Seven, GASP sauntered past gesturing to The ...

Please cast your eye over the GAA jerseys above. Today in Croke Park aka GAA HQ, these, in their thousands, were the fashion items of the day.These jerseys are shiny and meant for sport so one would think that those choosing to wear them would consider this in advance of buying one....but no !Croke park was full of pudgy men and women in football jerseys....appalling !The shiny material just clings to spare tyres and adds inches to already wide hips. Do these people look in the mirror before leaving the house ? Those of us who are aware of our size would not be caught dead in a GAA jersey. Consider the fact that the camera adds ten pounds, and then consider just how large you would look on the big screen in front of 45,000 fans and you are in my headspace ! Fashion aside, today Meath played Louth in the Leinster ( provincial) final. Having waited 50 years for this opportunity Louth were ( against all predictions) the better team on the day but ,as can be the case in a game where one ma...

So it has now been decided that the neighbouring counties of Meath and Louth will meet in the Leinster Final of the 2010 GAA championship. This is monumental as it is 50 years since Louth were in a Leinster Final and now it is against their greatest rivals. July 11th promises to be a great day but there is a clash of events. Yes, the "blessing of the graves" aka "cemetery Sunday" is on the same day. Now this is truly a clash of two religions, one Catholic, one sport. The interesting and fortunate thing is that the local parish priest is a major football fan, so the feeling locally is that he might have some of the blessings earlier in the morning or even the night before. I am somewhat disappointed as I find the blessing of the graves one of the most interesting days of the year. Whereas in some countries they have biggest vegetables competition, or the best Victoria sandwich or the best knitted jumper, the blessing of the graves is the " I can dress smarter th...