Becoming my ma

I BLOGGED before about the psychic moments between Nanny and me during her stay with me. But I am slowly and surely coming to the realisation that I am becoming my Ma.

The psychic moments are coming fast and furious now, I wouldn’t be able to mention them all here, but they range from me thinking ‘I’ll phone home’ then Nanny calls me to asking about random people only to have Nanny look at me strangely saying ‘get out of my head’.

Speaking of phone calls I phoned home the other evening and due to some technical clitch I couldn’t hear anything at the other end. So I repeated ‘hello’ and my Mum said ‘hello’ back. I then said ‘hiya hows it going’ and strangely Nanny said exactly the same thing back to me. I was somewhat confused for a spilt second before I realised that I had that echo thing going on with the line and I was actually only hearing myself. I am my Mum’s voice doppelganger.

The other evening some nifty music came on the telly and I realised that both Nanny and I were shimmying our shoulders in time, I quickly stopped. I am my Ma – it would appear the metamorphism is complete.

And of course at times I find myself repeating the things she said to me when I was a kid, ‘do as I say not as I do’ or ‘EXCUSE me’ when the Young Wan is being cheeky. The ‘excuse me’ is more about the tone than the words, there are more but I am just drawing a blank right now trying to remember them.

So while all this was more than a little unsettling I thought about it some more. My Ma is gorgeous and looks brilliant for nearly being a pensioner (in-joke), she is a good looking woman who regularly gets chatted up. I can only hope that when I am nearly a pensioner I look half as good or indeed have half as much energy and joie de vivre as her.

In addition I hope that I will inherit her sense of and ability to have fun. I also hope that at her age I would think nothing of moving to another country and culture. When I am her age I also hope she will still be able to cut my hair. Having a hairdresser in the family spoils you for coiffing. The fact that she is a brilliant hairdresser also has something to do with it.

This is something the Young Wan will have to deal with in time. While I am turning into my Ma, she will turn into me… And will probably make for a better likeness considering we are both redheads and my Ma (Nanny to you) is a blonde. So if you are heading to the Irish Blog Awards on Saturday evening you may find it hard to tell us all apart.

Anyway Happy Mothers’ Day Mum and all other mothers out there and Young Wan you better be getting us both something lovely, a cup of tea in bed won’t cut it this year ;)

EDIT: February 29th to enter Eamon's competition at Flowers Made Easy.

Is that a didgeridoo?

I HAVE been discovering a lot of old pics I had completely forgotten about, not to mention cameras, since the move including a lomo which I will haul out shortly, possibly for the photo-meet fancy coming? I collected them, mostly polaroids, while at college.

One picture I found is a 20x16 fibre-paper image of the Young Wan at about five years old on Belfast's Springfield Road with a Peace Line behind her. She is standing on a bollard with her arms outstretched and her head slightly tilted singing. I love the pic. And following on from what I was saying before one of the buttons on her wee skirt is undone, typical.

The print is black and white and I tinted it sepia-toned. While I cut off the top of one of her hands, as many of you know you can't get kids to pose exactly the way you want particularly when you want them to be spontaneous, I still love the pic. The abandonment on her face is so endearing. I won't talk about how I am looking at the photo thinking 'I burnt that in very badly' - it still is a wonderful reminder of how free and unrestricted about joy the Young Wan was.

Which brings me back to the title of this post, I was admiring the beauty of fibre paper which is a high quality photographic paper used for exhibitions and archiving. You can not only see the higher quality but you can also feel it in your fingers.

So I was demonstrating this to Nanny but holding the photo in my two hands and flipping it up and down making a very satisfying clipped boing sound. And I said 'do you hear that, when you do that with a normal print it doesn't sound like...

I didn't have time to finish before Nanny said 'a didgeridoo?

'Ehm no, it doesn't sound like this (fanning the print again)!

Jeez.

Nanny broke the internet and other stories

IT APPEARS that Nanny's techno skills have once again outshone themselves. First there was the switching of language to Russian on the telly, then somehow Nanny managed to wipe the internet 3g mobile broadband yoke off my laptop, don't ask me how but it is still not working despite numerous calls to both vodafone and apple as well as the fiddlings of someone who knows what they are doing, and multiple reinstalling of the software, thank God I get broadband connected up this week or next week.

Now Nanny has broken the NTL recorder machine. I don't know how, it may have something to do with panicking over the recording of America's Next Top Model which resulted in four empty things in the recorded section. Now nothing is recording at all, it is there on the list but when the time comes up nothing happens. That recorder has been a godsend since Nanny broke the internet.

Big sigh.

Experiencing g-force

DURING her extended stay with us in Dublin Nanny has been taking advantage of all sorts of things in our new neighbourhood as well as one or two things in our old area.

She has been doing computer classes, mosaic-making and beauty classes, and now she has turned her attention towards the special deal in the local Chartbusters who are advertising their new amazing ‘machine that exercises you as you do nothing’ vibrating yoke.

Explaining it all she said apparently Madonna uses it among others, so off Nanny went to give it a try in the nearby Chartbusters store.

She boarded the machine and got herself into the position which was supposed to work toning up her arms, abs, torso, all sorts of things. Bending over slightly she turned on the machine and all of a sudden was vibrating like she was re-entering orbit.

Her cheeks were going mad, her head was shaking, in fact even her eyes were vibrating on this machine. She couldn’t get off it quick enough. We laughed our heads off last night listening to her recount how the machine worked on her as she was bent over with ass in the air.

Then we had the image of poor Nanny being vibrated within an inch of her life in the middle of the store, where people perusing Casino Royale with Nanny being shaken not stirred beside them.

Thankfully those brave enough to experience g-force have their own wee private booths. I’m not sure if Nanny will be back, I think she found the vibrating eyeballs a little more than disturbing. Can't say I blame her.

Not sure

NANNY has been sorting out my herbs and spices and I had a little chuckle when I saw this label.

No matter what age you are

YOU are always your Mammy's baby. (BTW this was my Mum's/Nanny's doing for me.)

Psychic moments

NANNY and I are having a lot of psychic moments lately. Te kind where one of us is thinking something random and the other will randomly ask about it. This is normally met with retorts of ‘get out of my head you’ and the like.

I put this down to me and my little known amazing psychic abilities. I once lived with a pal and the same thing would happen. The mother daughter link probably has a lot to do with all these goings-on at the minute. It was always something I remember growing up. If I did something wrong I would be sitting at home willing her subconsciously ‘don’t ask about (fill in as appropriate)’ and you could bet nine times out of 10 she would ask.

We had a funny one last night.

Nanny says pointing at a punnet of strawberries ‘put away those….(as she searched for the word strawberries)

Red Mum thinks ‘mushrooms’

Nanny says: ‘put away those... mushrooms’.

So it would appear my psychic powers are becoming stronger and I am learning how to influence others. That could come in handy, the only question is do I use my powers for good or evil?

Classic Nanny Moment

THERE'S been some funny moments at home over Christmas with Nanny. Nanny will be watching something on the telly and I come in and sit down to watch. Then Nanny will ask me a question about what is happening or going on in the movie.

During The Day After tomorrow, she asked me 'is that Denzil Washington? about an actor Adrian Lester and 'is that Katy Holmes? about the lead female Emmy Rossum. I have provided links just so you can see the ahem uncanny resemblance...

Nanny then surpassed herself the other night, it was a classic Nanny moment and all said with more than a small sense of urgency.

She said: "How can I get bluetooth?

I was about to try and answer her when she said: "What is bluetooth? It's where you point about like a wee gun?

I decided to leave her to her thoughts on that one.

Never let Nanny near the remote

The green writing on the pic apparently says volume...



Never let Nanny near the remote. Nuff said.

She is so grounded....

Mmmmh she said she would be home by 11pm.

And she isn't, though she phoned to say she might be staying late.

It's now 2.12am and she still isn't home yet.

She is so grounded that Nanny one...

A new visitor - Say hiya to Nanny everyone

I HAVE recently had a new visitor here, someone who I have told to stop by long before now but who never did until recently.

Despite calling my Mum or Nanny, a techno-techno-technophobe, not only has she been stopping by but she managed to comment here on my video of the doggie. Nanny's legs feature near the end of the video as she was the one giving the doggie treats to get her to roll over, obviously the doggie rolls over not Nanny. Ach watch the video on the link and find out for yourself.

So everyone wave hello to Nanny. Hiya Nanny. You know you have a category here all your own, though I think they mostly involve the tidying of the room for your arrival

Mmhh maybe like Ellybabes I can encourage Nanny to blog, the Young Wan has one half-started and exams and the ehm non-studying aside, I'd love her to continue. When it is up and running I'll let you all know.

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Nannys gone home - the official end of Christmas

NEVER mind Nollaig na mBhan, the official end to Christmas in my household after the taking down of the tree is when Nanny goes back home.

She left this morning. I came home from work and the flat was cold and untidy. There was no fire lit, no dinner waiting. The doggie has pestered me to play since I came home before running off with one of my socks which she trailed off my foot. Seems everyone in the house misses Nanny.

On the flipside the Young Wan gets her bed and chair back.

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The contents of my freezer

TO SAY it has been busy over the last week would be a massive understatement. The weekend before last was spent getting the flat ready for not only Nanny but also a glut of visitors who were coming the weekend before last. Well not exactly a glut but more than enough to spur house-keeping action on a wide range of all sorts of things in the flat.

But that is a post for another day, last weekend alone will be blogged but I am still so tired and so worn out by all the shenanigans that I haven’t been able to start. Thinking about it alone leaves me wanting to get out the foot spa.

As per usual I am digressing, what I was posting about was the fact that at one point this evening my Mum/Nanny began to defrost the literal icebox that is my freezer.

It turned bad about six weeks to two months ago and I haven’t had the energy, inclination, willpower anything to sort it out. I did it two months ago and it started to freeze over practically straight away.

I have already decided that in the January sales I am buying a new fridge freezer, this one is too much work.

And back to what I had originally started posted about which is Nanny tackling the freezer.

Thank God for that.

Nanny’s comments were funny so I started to jot them down. This is a rendition of the list she realmed off as she hauled things out of the freezer with my explanations where necessary in brackets.

• Potato bread
• Sausages
• Steak
• More potato bread - (I’m not even a mad fan of potato bread, it is soda bread all the way which probably explains why there is so many)
• Some kind of tomato sauce - (my own home made stuff)
• Pepper Sauce - (in an iced over jar, I made too much)
• Donegal Catch - (half a packet)
• Meatballs - (my own home made ones)
• Lamb chops
• Mince steak
• Half a loaf - oh its ciabatta!
• Don’t know what that is - (in relation to something wrapped in tinfoil)
• Croquette potatoes
• More potato bread - (as I said I prefer soda bread)
• Breadcrumbs
• Burger baps
• beef burgers
• Something wrapped in tinfoil - (which turned out to be stuffing from when I made too much one Sunday)
• Pancetta ham
• Coffee
• More mince steak
• Sausage meat - (for homemade stuffing)
• More burger baps

At this stage the Young Wan came in and saw me writing what Nanny was saying and was wondering what on earth I was doing.

‘Is this for the blog,’ she said.

Nanny replied: ‘I’m not doing it for the blog. I’m just trying to clean the freezer’. Nuff said and back to the contents.

• Tuna steaks
• Mince steak
• Smoked salmon
• Rosemary
• Soup Vegetables
• More coffee
  
• More soup vegetables
• Packet of puff pastry
• What’s this? Oh a square of puff pastry
• Tortillas
• Don’t know what this is, I think it’s some kind of chicken - (you know the kind, the chickeny sort)
• What’s this? - (I couldn’t shed any light on this package at all)
• More soup vegetables
• Yet more mince steak

Considering the size of my small freezer it is mad to think I have been able to put all this into it. So we will be having some strange dinners I reckon over the next week or two in a bid to clear out the freezer ready to start again.

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