Husbands, bless 'em

So Geoff says to me he's been eating the ice cream in the freezer, which seems ok, despite being "way past its sell-by date". Which was strange, I thought, as I only bought it a few weeks ago and ice cream surely lasts for ages and ages. Whatever, I thought, and didn't bother to follow it up. Today, while getting tube shaped ice out for the girls' water bottles, I moved the ice cream and noticed the sell-by date on the top - June 07. I hardly have the heart to tell him that means June 2007, not the 7th of June. (But I'm heartless enough to blog it to the whole world, of course!)

(Insert clever Dylan reference here)

You'd think that, with the millionty-seven songs Bob Dylan has written, I'd be able to think of a song lyric to make a good title for this blog entry, but...

Spent this past weekend in Ireland visiting Cathi and going to see Dylan at the Source Festival in Kilkenny. I worked out that I haven't seen Dylan play in 15 years and he'd been around forever even then - that's one way to make a person feel old. :)

It was a good show, though - not great, but good and he did some songs I really like, including Highway 61 and All Along the Watchtower. He played Absolutely Sweet Marie, which was slightly surprising, but nice and Ballad of a Thin Man, which of course I love. And some other stuff. (OK, I admit it, I did write them all down as he played them, but I'm trying to seem nonchalant rather than obsessive - those of you who have known me for a long time probably see right through that anyway)

In addition to the show, got to visit with Cathi - oh, and did I mention, no kids came with me? 48+ hours with no kids - or at least, without the ones that I have to deal with when they get stroppy! When I got home late Sunday night, there was a "Welcome Home Mum" sign hanging in the hallway - isn't that sweet?

A Boy Named Sue... A Cat Named Dave...

So our new neighbours have a cat. You can probably guess its name. It's a nice cat, very friendly, the kids are very excited. The cat was over in our garden this afternoon, down on the lawn. Alex says "I love that cat". He takes a few steps towards the cat. The cat takes a few steps towards him. He runs back to me, screaming. I say "I thought you said you loved that cat, honey." He says, "I love that cat down there." There's three year olds for you.

Oh, and did I mention, the cat is a girl? We probably don't any of us want to know that story...

Veggies coming out of our ears...

The pick-your-own fruit and veg season is now in full swing, and I'm trying to take advantage of it while it last - love the taste of fresh picked stuff even mor than normal veg. Problem is, I don't really have a big enough freezer to store much. So we're eating a lot of veggie-centric meals (which is fine). Had fresh broad beans for lunch, warm, with some olive oil and really nice feta cheese - gorgeous. Had freshly picked carrots & swiss chard for dinner with some Jersey Royals and a bit of gammon steak. Tomorrow we're having a Chinese stir-fry dish, with sugar-snap peas I picked myself. What a life! :)

Seaside visit (not quite)

Olivia has a seaside project for school - as she's in Year 1, which is all 5 & 6 year olds, it's not necessarily a sophisticated project, but she wanted to build a model of the seaside, so that's what we've been doing to - with waves, rocks (& rockpools), dunes, real sand, and so on. We may still add a few more fish, and some stones, but I think it's looking really nice. It's not due until the 10th of July, so we have so time to think what else we might do.

How to keep your viewing audience...

Just watched the season finale to ER (we are probably a week or two behind the US) - I knew something big was going to have to happen, even in addition to the death last week, because things were way too smooth and easy in everyone's lives lately, but it exceeded my expectations - truly astonishing how a show can keep going for so long and still be so gripping - it's the constant character turnover that does it, of course - and good writing, but the fact that it has such a strong ensemble cast and almost always has (a few seasons in the middle were a bit dodgy - anyone remember that whole Mare Winningham Psycho Doctor bit? Gimme a break) is what makes the show. Wish I didn't have to wait until next year to find out what happens...

Garden in early June

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Because frankly, it's the closest we're going to get to a summer's day for a while... Tried to update the blog last night after a lovely, sunny, warm (even "hot") day, and a great barbecue, but of course as luck will have it, the one time I feel inspired to blog, I couldn't get blogger to work properly. My luck.

Still, after weeks of dire weather, we have finally got some warmth and sunshine, so we spent yesterday doing some gardening tasks and lazing in the sunshine. Alex went to a birthday party in the afternoon, the girls went to the park with Grandma and then we topped it all off with a barbecue - sausages, a bit of steak, some prawns and of course, vegetable kebabs. The only thing missing was the Pimms, but you can't have everything...