Week Sixteen

Lads, I'm after gettin a dose of the guilts after going off on one about BBB last week. Let me assure you all that he is a lovely man and that all is well in the woodshed. When he is not advising me about coats he is telling me how wonderful I am. Why wouldn't he be like - I am fairly wonderful alright.

Monday 18th Jan

Well the inevitable happened. After a week of ever building inner rage and frustration, I let it all hang out! The trigger was a pan of crispy pancakes.

"Are they ready yet?" says I.

"Sure you have them down on 4, of course they're not!" says he.

"Cooking them for longer on 4 makes them golden and crispy on the outside and liquidy and delicious on the inside, rather than cooking them on 6 which makes them black and carbony on the outside and a frozen lump on the inside."

Well at least that was what I wanted to say. What I really said was:

"Oh fuck off! Just fuck right off!"

and I stomped down the hall back to the room, where I am embarrassed to say, I stood with my arms folded, and lip pouting.

Next thing he come down the hall with the pan in his hand.

"What happened?"

"I'm sorry BBB, I didn't mean it, I'm just pissed off".

"Pissed off with me or pissed off in general?" he says.

And then the floodgates opened. And it all came out, without me even realising it needed to.

"Why is this so hard? Why is this so fucking hard? WAAAAAAAAAAAH! etc."

Because it is hard lads. We are from two different planets like. He is the loveliest, most wonderfullest fella ever, but when things happen - like Coatgate for example, they just serve to highlight the ginormous cultural differences between us. Things that he thinks are alright to say are just not alright with me. And the way I think about some things is just not alright with him. So we had a big heart to heart and now everything is back to rainbows and butterflies and princesses with pointy hats running through meadows. I still have my beady eye on that scarf though.

Tuesday 19th Jan

Now lads, I feel I should just mention at least a little something about my crazed stalker. Cos I am fairly buzzin off it like. The nutbag in question is the person who posts the comments under "Anonymous". They are basically all from the same person because it's that same IP address. Anyway this person insists that I am vulgar and disgusting.

Vulgar, moi? What they need now is a nice big cock inside 'em! A good belt of the relic never did anyone any harm!

Last week this person claimed to be 50 years old. If this is true I think I should be terrified. What 50 year old sits around obsessively reading blogs of people half their age and leaving comment after comment? I mean if it was just someone that hated me when we were in school or something then it's just funny, but some 50 year old? I mean that is less funny and more weird and creepy.

With these facts in mind I have chosen to believe that it is just some lurkbag I went to school with or somesuch. This allows me to fully appreciate the delicious irony of their comments; they are insisting that I am giving Waterford women a bad name. As opposed to the lovely image they are projecting of Waterfordians (I know they are from Waterford because they come onto my blog from upthedeise.ie). And shur I could hardly leave out 'May God bless each and every one of your misguided souls'. Oh lads, a little bit of wee came out when I read that bit. I think we are alright for a blessing from your God, Anonymous. Which is probably an elaborate papier mache puppet with marbles for eyes and bits of my hair stuck on it in the back of your hall press. I think we are better off being vulgar and disgusting than bitter and hateful.

I just thought that Anonymous deserved at least a few paragraphs in my blog after so many weeks of dedicated blog following. Thanks Anonymous - keep 'em coming!

Wednesday 20th Jan

Today my little Godson/Nephew of the Year 2010 Jack is one. I have a little mope mope here and a mope mope there cos I am missing his special day.

And for Rosie's benefit - today BBB said he was sorry about Coatgate and offered to buy me a new coat.

Thursday 21st Jan

Today as I was leaving for work, I casually took The Scarf off the peg and started putting it around my neck. Ooooh it is so soft and wonderful, such craftsmanship. Next thing:

"Don't you be robbing that scarf on me".

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I turned around:

"Shur I may as well wear it seeing as you never do."

"Don't take it on me, I wanted to wear that out tonight."

"I'll be back before you go."

"Alright then."

That night, as he was puttin on the scarf he said:

"All my friends are sick of me going on about this scarf."

Then, he looked at it and he said:

"Jesus, I can't believe you made this."

My mind wandered back to my broken hearted ranting about the scarf on last week's blog. A trickle of guilt-induced cold sweat slithered down my back. How could I have been so wrong?

Friday 22nd Jan

Today one of my clients gave me a recipe for an Italian torta and also for gnocchi. I am extremely excited. And I mean extremely.

Saturday 23rd Jan

Got up at the crack of dawn to meet Laura and go shopping for ingredients for our cookfest today. This is: a) a fun activity and b) an ingenious way to distract myself from the fact that today I am missing baby Jack's pirate themed first birthday party.

Came home and made the gnocchi, which, much to my delight, was unreal. Proudly served it up to BBB and his friend and nearly exploded with delight when the friend asked for seconds. Yes, boy! Success!

The cake, however, was another story. As there is no oven on our floor, I went first to the kitchen downstairs to check out the oven, which fell short of my high standards, so I went to the upstairs one to preheat it. Now lads, can someone tell me what kind of retard designs an electric oven that has no temperature knob on it? Instead of temperatures, it says 1-11. Which makes perfect sense like. Oh no wait, it doesn't - it's actually a load of bollox. I took a wild guess and cranked it up to 7 and went downstairs to make the batter.

Now I have to say lads, myself and Laura made ourselves a masterpiece. The batter was so light and fluffy it was like a vanilla cloud. Into the oven anyway and we said we'd check it in 10 minutes to see how it was going. When the 10 minutes were up we were going up the stairs and I goes:

"What would you do now if we opened the kitchen door and there were flames all over the gaff?"

"Haha", Laura replied.

"Yes, haha," I said.

We wouldn't be laughing for long.

I opened the kitchen door to an unbelievable smell of burn.

"Oh shit fuck bollix!" says I as I opened the oven and thick black smoke poured out. The two tops of the cakes were as black as a black man's cape and inside they were obviously still raw.

So you know on any normal day this would have been just another culinary disaster to be laughed off, but not today, oh no. Not after I wowed the crowd with the amazing gnocchi and promised to follow it up with an amazing torta.

"No problem," says I, "we'll just put them back in the oven and leave them bake through and then we can cut the tops off and cover them in chocolate. "

When they were done, we covered them in a tea towel and a t shirt lest anyone witness the abominations that they were as we were coming down the stairs. We snuck into the room with the stealth of two ninjas and fecked them on the table and threw on our coats and pegged it out the door and down to the supermarket as fast as our floury legs could carry us. Two jars of Nutella later, we have two lovely chocolate covered cakes, and a bin full of the charcoal we scraped of the top of them.

Were they a success, I hear you asking? Well BBB said "You know Love, this cake isn't terrible."

This is the equivalent of a cake Oscar.

Sunday 24th Jan

Am on a total downer today. Interweb is down in the whole building and anyway BBB is using his laptop for study so I can't blog it up a notch. I decide to dedicate 25 solid minutes to feeling sorry for myself over the laptop thing. Because that is how long it takes for my cordon bleu to cook. There is no feeling sorry for yourself once you have a cordon bleu in front of you.

Anyway back to the sulking. The next few months of trying to save up are going to be hard, seeing as I need a laptop to work, but if I don't work then I can't afford a new laptop. Oh life is hard, woe is me and all that. About 7 minutes into the sulking session, the phone rings. It's Mammy.

"Hello love listen I am going to buy you a new laptop and send it over with Siobhan next week so you just pick out the right one and tell your father."

I nearly dropped the phone. I couldn't believe it. Immediately I got a huge lump in my throat and no matter how normal I tried to sound, everything came out like a deaf person was saying it. Straight away I started thinking of ways to repay her, or ways to show her it was worth the investment like. I just came to the conclusion I always come to when I think of ways to repay my parents: I'll do my best. That's the best way to say thanks to your parents I think. I remember last summer when I rang my father to tell him I got this bursary. I was walking down Nassau Street and my hand was shaking dialling his number because I had just found out I got chosen and shur he didn't know what I was talking about.

"Oh yeah that's nice", he was saying.

It was only when I got to the free rent and food bit that he copped on. Next thing:

"WooHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" came down the phone. I nearly balled there and then. I have to say now lads that at the best of times we give each other ire, my parents and myself, but still my favourite thing in life is making them proud.