Tsipouro! Yammas!

Mum returned from Greece with a small amount of a drink which was new to Dad, it being the local fire-water, "Tsipouro". Absolutely clear in colour this is 'pomace brandy', pomace being "the solid remains of grapes, after pressing for juice. It contains the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of the fruit". It is around 47% proof, so not quite as lethal as good old Irish over-proof Poitín (Potcheen) and, it will not surprise you to know, was first produced by some Greek Orthodox Monks (weren't all these dodgy spirits?) up a mountain. According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsipouro  ) " Depending on the time of year, tsipouro is used either as refreshment or as a hot beverage, and depending on the time of day, it replaces the drinking of coffee or wine. Tsipouro and tsikoudia, as with all alcoholic beverages in Greece, always seem to coincide with various social gatherings, as their consumption had a festive and symposium-like quality.

It is usually served in shot glasses, very cold, often with meze, walnuts, almonds, raisins, feta cheese, olives, or accompanying halva or other desserts in restaurants.

In 2006, Greece filed a request to recognise tsipouro as a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) product.

We say 'Yammas' (Cheers) to that!

Much to everyone's amazement, I reach my 6th Birthday (on Monday 17th), and so, too, do my sister, Ellie, back in Faversham, and my Brother Archie, back in Maidstone. The word is that I have matured into a very sensible, capable, well balanced dog and a good 'Auntie' to the kindergarten. Cynics say that this is because I was always wishing I was a favourite only dog and I am happier that way so that I just had to contrive to remove Megan, Haggis and Coco from any position superior to, or threatening, mine and I'd be home and dry. All I have to do now is make sure Blue, Rolo, Towser, Poppy, assorted rabbits and poultry and any other arrivals stay subservient and I should remain well adjusted to the end of my natural puff. Yammas to that, too.

Mike-the-Cows's herd have now pretty much eaten off all the grass on Vendor Anna's land and on our bits so, yesterday, were moved off to give the grass a chance to recover and for them to get some grub on less grazed turf. Dad loves that the local farming mags talk about something called the 'rate of thrive' which is basically the rate at which cows put on weight in kg per day. These are beef animals so success is all about the weight of the carcase at slaughter. The farmer either buys them in at a known weight or breeds them himself, but then has to spend x amount of money on grazing or on concentrates per day, hoping that at the end the weight will have gone up sufficiently that they have made more in carcase value (weight) than he has spent getting them to that weight. I gather it can be a bit knife-edge at the moment with a poor Summer having given them poor grass growth and a lot of them having to eat into stored silage which was meant to see them through winter. Also, says Mike, with cows being worth anything from €700 up to and over €3000, you've only got to lose one to sickness or an accident and you may have no margin left this year at all. Mike seems to be doing OK, though he'd never admit that!

Yammas!

Deefer

Every Day Country Folk

 Today my post will sing of stable doors and animals bolted, of riverside towns and expansionist chickens, of bunnies and beef. Grab a cup of coffee and a comfy chair. Sit back and enjoy and/or click past muttering "Bl***y Deefer's off on one again...."

 We had decided that what the still door-less Utility Room needed was a stable-style door in two halves, painted red to match the house front door. You can't seem to buy them anywhere except for mad money, a guy we asked to quote a price for us has joined our "choir invisible" of vanishing Irish tradesmen (I'll call you in a couple of days....), and making one from scratch is way beyond Dad’s carpentry skills and tools, with all those mortice and tenon joints etc. But then ace interweb ferretter, Mum came upon a website which advocating buying a suitable one-piece door and cutting it in half. You have to strengthen the door so that the half you cut off doesn't fall apart, of course, and you hang it first on 4 hinges to make sure it does what it's meant to, then you split it, re-hang the halves and finish with weather strips (2) and all the door furniture (bolts, handles etc). More complex than anything Dad had tried before; He’s a rustic arches and dodgy nest-boxes kinda bloke!) but hey... nothing ventured.

 So, orf to Carrick on Shannon went Dad, down the minor roads, dry stone walls, green green fields, leaving Mum with us behind as he had to bring a full sized door back in a Fiat Panda. Nice town, Carrick, all boaty, marinas and riverside pubs etc. Mum got down to some weeding in the gravel of the front terrace.

Before Dad started the carpentry Mum and Dad decided to move rabbit run en bloc down the western field to give bunnies a new bite of longer grass. Not a bother except this seems to unleash in the me, a new enthusiasm for biting through the chicken wire. On this occasion, unknown to Mum and Dad, I must have made a hole too small for a Westie but big enough for an escapist rabbit, but more of that later. They next closed off the gates at either end of the cattle race and open "Chicken-Gate" (which sounds like some dodgy American scandal inquiry) to give the chooks extra territory and a million worms and grubs unwise enough to live in the thin carpet of earth and grass over the concrete of the race. No escape downwards, guys! We expect very proteiny eggs tomorrow, Ladies.

And so to door wrangling, which goes OK and Dad is quite proud of the results. He finishes carpentering and sands off the door halves, passing them to Mum who is our proud, no-runs, gloss painter. She sits out in the yard on a stool in the sunshine with the door halves propped in front of herself on the big terracotta tubs, looking for all the world like a Parisian painter at her easel. Dad thinks “Ahhhhh sigh...Why do I love her at these moments?” Soppy git!

While she's a-painting, Dad grabs the shovel and barrow and moves a bit more soil from round the horse-drawn-hay-rake-in-a-hedge (hdhriah) to fill the two newest raised beds. It's hot. he finishes and grabs a cool Guinness on the front terrace. Coco, joins him. I am pre-occupied elsewhere so I don’t know this is happening. They sit and watch Ginny, the grey and white rabbit lollop past them down the drive towards the road. ARGHHHH! Dad jumps up, shouting to Mum to help and sprints across lawn to road in time to see Ginny crouch and freeze on the grass verge as a tractor/trailer thunders by inches away. She's untouched (thank God she froze) but a bit shocked. Dad manages to grab her but she comes to, screams and kicks out. (Ouch! cheers Ginny). Dad returns her to the run and they've found the hole, fixed it, settled her and returned to the front terrace, when we all hear noises of cattle being moved down the lane towards us. Mum jumps up and races to stand at (lack of) front gate to stop ingress of beef animals and to stop us shouty dogs from scattering the cows. Spoilsport!

The relaxing life of everyday country folk....

Deefs

Just the Three of Us

A quick shot to show the three of us in recent pictures. Bottom is myself, Deefer, of course, now 5 years old, middle is the H-Man (Haggis) at 15 and still going strong if a little confused at times and top picture is Coco, our newest recruit aged just 2. He was actually 2 on Paddy's Day evening so, sorry, Coco, we missed it! Many Happy Returns.

Deefs

Sweetie time

In the first pic here, we dogs are clamouring for sweeties offered by Mrs Silverwood. She would like to point out that the only dog actually sitting obediently in the photo is here own 'baby' Maxwell. All the rest of us are milling around trying to be at the front of the queue. In the second Max is looking in through the kitchen window at Silverwood so either he's grown very long legs in the night and can now see in, or he's hopped onto the kennel roof to get a better view. Finally one of myself and Coco mooching around the doorway of one of the Roscommon outbuildings, the one we call the Tigin Beag (wee housey).

Deefs

New Bed, New Year

A couple of pictures for the New Year. This is me trying to sit in Coco's new bed, even though Coco and his bed are quite a bit smaller than me, so I don't really fit. The other is of the table laid at Silverwood's for the New Year's Day feast. The menu was for Foie Gras followed by pea and ham soup, with roast lamb for mains and Eton Mess for pud. Dad is reckoned to be the roast potato expert round here and little R Silverwood (4) would eat just roast potatoes (or chips, wedges etc; any form of fried spuds)given a free choice, so he's asked to do enough roasties for the 8 humans, plus enough for another 8 to satisfy R! The 'Eton Mess' here takes the form of the usual meringue and cream plus a sharpish mix of currants and berries. The whole is washed down with a good red wine and followed by Calvados. Our menu was the local variant of dried dog food but with chopped up lamb, juices from the roast and even some jelly from below the duck-fat. This is going to be a good year!

Mum has the lurgy, a cold and sniffles which render her all "moopy" so that the last thing she wants to do today is bash houses in cold damp Roscommon and we decide to take the day off and stay the extra day in Silverwood's. It's a good decision in fact - the skies clear and the temperature plummets. There is black ice all over the pavements and freezing rain falling. Any plans we might have had to take the bikes out again are shelved. We opt for a stay at home day taking turns to mind small children while the grown ups slope off one by one for lie downs and rest / recuperation. Time enough for house wrangling tomorrow.

Deefski

More Destruction

Patience Readers! Enough of the clamouring for me to write more stuff! I've been away again from computer and from mains power for a couple of days so. we've not been able to post. Back no though and in the chair, so bringing you some more pictures of the destruction phase of this rebuild project in Roscommon. You can see that it's mainly about ceilings at the moment, all of which are a bit stained with damp, or worse, and all of which potentially cover hidden dangers lurking, like rotten joists and woodworm.

We have also picked up the Yorkie "Coco" from the Silverwoods. Coco is an 'entire' male and has been battling with similarly attired Westie Maxwell. Mum has always had a hankering for a Yorkie so it seemed the best solution to take Coco on this transfer window and try him out with us. I'm not sure I approve, and have been known to snarl and grump in the car but nobody listens to me anyway, so I suspect Coco will be staying. He got his own bed from Santa for us to take to Roscommon. The only problem is that he, a typical Yorkie, is so tiny and delicate featured that all the humans keep forgetting and calling him "she".

The jobs this week for the humans were some more ceiling wrecking - the back upstairs right hand bed room, the bathroom, the dining room and the living room. The first to were plaster board. The dining room has a bizarre combination of black painted tongue and groove board which seem to be sound and free from any rot or woodworm but this is 'skimmed' with a layer of very light 3-ply painted pale brown and now completely riddled with woodworm so that there is a complete layer of woodworm dust between it and the T+G board. The ply is cut into roughly 4 foot squares and once nailed up has had beading nailed along each of the joints, north-south and east-west. This was a dust-mask job for the workers and all the windows open.

As well as all this ceiling bashing, Mum had at some of the bathroom stuff and we pulled out the sink, pedestal, toilet bowl, cistern and the olde plastic pale blue medicine cabinet / toothbrush panel the style of which Mum can remember from when she was little and living at Steak-Lady's house. To remove the sink, Dad had to hack saw through the copper pipes but this should have been no problem - the place has been unoccupied 15 years and was disconnected from mains water according to local legend, using a Water Board JCB because the aul' fella was in dispute with them over an unpaid fee. Anyone spot where this is going yet? So, we tidied up the day's rubble and retreated to the caravan for a coffee leaving the range going like the clappers, a full load of anthracite in its fire basket.

Returning to the house after dark Dad could hear the dripping of water onto the kitchen floor. With the torch, he found this as coming through from above, the newly gutted bathroom.Mum and Dad could also hear the copper tank attached to the range boiling a bit excitedly. We'd heard odd gurglings before but had thought this was just residual water in what we imagined would be the internal spiral-pipe (inside the tank)re-adjusting. Obviously not. The boiling water was now bubbling out of the sawn pipes upstairs and dribbling through to downstairs. Thank Heavens this is all while we are gutted, so there are no ceilings to sag and collapse. Dad put the Curver bucket under the end. The bubbling copper was alarming enough to stop us wanting to eat anywhere near the tank, so we retreated to the caravan resolving to check on the boiling scenario hourly and to proceed with the put-off removal of the tank as soon as it was cold (in the morning).

We took a day off house-bashing on Thursday to deliver on an invitation to English neice, Mads to bring her down to Silverwoods for the day to meet them and to play with all the Christmas toys and games with the children. Mads (20) is doing a University course on Hotel Management at Birmingham University and as part of this, has a work placement at Dunboyne Castle where she now has 35 days or o left of the year's placement. This was a bit of a day for the driving - it's a 2 hour drive across from Roscommon to Dunboyne, then another hour down to Silverwoods in Co Laois. Same again in the evening. But Mads fell in quickly with the Silverwoods and their children and thoroughly enjoyed her day building Thomas Tank Engine railway tracks, having gun battles with big showy "Air Blaster" machine guns firing foam bullets,playing Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, Connect 4 and "Guess Who". She was also well fed and plied with wine. Silverwoods loved Mads and she loved them. Just a shame they didn't get together nearer the start of the placement year.

The copper tank was attacked Friday morning. Dad cut through the first pipe thinking this could only contain the dribble of water in the spiral pipe. Mum was there with the Curver bucket (10 litre) thinking all would be OK. In fact the water came out in a whoosh and kept on coming. Every time the bucket filled, Dad put his thumbs over the ends of the pipe to stop the flow while Mum emptied the bucket. 5, 6, 7 or more times this went on. Apparently there as no spiral pipe in the tank, and the pipes to/from the range must have had access to all the water in there, hence being able to boil it easily and cause it to bubble over upstairs. Ah well, all gone now, the tank hauled out (in the process collapsing through the woodworm infested shelf which had been (just about!)holding its corroded verdi-gris'd weight. The cupboard (hot press) is also gone and so i the last bit of plywood ceiling which had been above it.

All for now
Deefs

More on that build up

The observant amongst you will have noticed that we are now starting to publish a few pics of the humans involved in this saga. This with their permission of course, but mainly because all our readers have long since worked out who we were or got bored and moved on. These three pics then are of the sunset as seen from our dining room, out across the 2CV and the Fiat and through our very big mature Scots Pine trees. The second is of Dad relaxing in the caravan with both of us dogs and the third is of Dad enjoying a bit of pitch forking. The fork was among the few things of any use found in the outbuildings, most of the tools and implements having long since succumbed to woodworm so that the metal heads dropped to the ground under their own weight when lifted by the handle. So far we seem to have inherited from TK Min, just an ash tray / saucer, an enamel roasting dish in which, cleaned up, we have managed to roast a duck (see picture on previous post) very successfully in the range, and this hay fork. The handle of the fork is clean and new as if it has been nowhere near the woodworm.

Mum and Dad believe that this out building which has 2 human-sized doors and a chimney may be the original farm-house or single room cottage where the family would have lived until they moved into the 'new' house circa 1900. The chimney was clear but the hearth full of the inevitable jackdaw nest twigs and old debris, so Mum and Dad thought it would be fun to clear the area and light a fire in the hearth. This was just straw and old paper but it sent some smoke up the chimney while Mum and Dad sat back and thought that this was probably the first smoke going up that chimney for 100 years plus!

That was the plan, to do just the one full day and two nights up at Roscommon this week before retreating to Silverwood's for the 4 days of Christmas. We drove down today via the camping shop in Blessington (OK that's a bit of a diversion) where we needed a new mantle for the gas light. Those camping gas lights are very good but the mantle once burned to ash is very brittle and don't like being bashed around, so you need to keep a reserve of spare mantle cloth "tubes" available. We were welcomed 'home' by all the gang and have been fed and lubricated generously. We two westies and Coco the Yorkie have been shampooed to within an inch of our lives (and By God I needed it!).

Clean, fragrant, warm and dry!
Possibly staying clean for at least 4 days
Deefs

Shampoos all round

Major dog-wrangling last night when all three Silverwood dogs get shampoo'd to within an inch of their lives and then towelled dry before being allowed the run of the house for the evening while we all watched X Factor and X Factor USA on TV (That was a new one on Dad - never watched it before!). Here we have pics of all three enjoying the experience, especially Lily (middle pic) who looks like she has got a taste of the shampoo by mistake.

The Silverwoods have a brilliant set up for such dog-wrangling where the kitchen sink mixer-tap pulls out into a hose long enough to use as a shower on the dogs, so you can do them at standing-up height. Back in Faversham we two were always showered in the bottom of the shower with Dad kneeling down outside and reaching in to grab us.

The evening was entertaining. Max and Coco are of that age and stage where they are both trying to be alpha-male so occasional fisticuffs develop. I am, as ever, a bit precious about protecting Dad's lap from boarders so there's occasional grumblings and snarliness. Lily is young enough and silly enough to romp around through all this, regardless and oblivious to the 'politics' of the grown-up dogs. Haggis tends to try to lie there asleep and occasionally gets bounced on by assorted dogs, so he wakes up with a gruff. The humans just mooch around trying to manage all this.

We all survived. We even went for a walk - Dad, Em-J and J-M plus 5 dogs!

Deefs

More things dogs know

This living with the Silverwoods is a learning experience for us dogs. We have rediscovered the fact that small children can be generally relied on to be walking around with toast in their hands. I quite like buttered toast although Haggis prefers to put it down on the floor and lick all the butter off it. Children can also be relied upon to drop crisps and other dog-edible bits and pieces around the house. It's a good place to be. Unfortunately this means that when it comes to real supper time we do not have a lot of appetite left and Dad gets a bit concerned that we are off our food. However, it is also true that while I'm messing around um-ing and ah-ing about whether to eat my 'normal' supper from the bowl, all Dad has to do to make me suddenly interested is to let the Yorkie Coco in to the room, and suddenly I am famished and pile through it.

Deefs

School Runs

Sorry we've done no pictures lately, but we still have a mess of 'junk' in the car and only part of the contents of the C4 are moved indoors. We are all settling into the Silverwood routine now here, with 'school mornings' filled with readying the little ones for school, getting some breakfast into them, making sure they have clothes, lunches, school bags etc. and getting them there. This will all be familiar stuff to anyone with children of their own, of course, but it's all 'different' and a bit exciting to us.

Dad is loving having something real to do after the stir-crazy inducing Pud Lady's routine and being properly helpful again. Mrs S is laid low with flu-ey symptoms, head aches and snuffling, sustained by cups of tea so she's not about to turn down the offer of taxi runs and shopping missions. Also, no-one has yet asked him to play them at Scrabble, which is a major bonus!

The local dogs are growing up fast - when Dad last saw Maxwell he was a boisterous 6 month old and Lily a tiny slip of a pup, just barely old enough to leave Mum. Coco the Yorkie was older but is very slightly built. Now Maxwell is coming up to full size, is a bit less mad but is now bigger than Coco and starting to think like the alpha-male. Their normal home is a nice comfy kennel on the decking in the back yard, around which is a wooden paling ranch fence, through which Coco can still slip if Maxwell gets a bit too much. Lily, being female does not get duffed up by Max but likes a good bark on occasions, so you generally know they are about. We've been out there a few times to say hello, but we are happy to stay 'indoor dogs'.

Ah well. Tommo the Builder is back in today laying laminate in the hall way, with his lad Owen. The two of them are chatting away in the hall among the clatter of sheets of laminate and the occasional rattle of the jig saw. Toddler R (now 4) follows Tommo round like a shadow up till the point one of the power tools start up. She doesn't like that noise so retreats to the kitchen with a pained expression till the saw stops and she can go back into admiring Tommo again.

Happy Days

Deefs

I did a Poo!

Unusually, and via the power of the internet, this post is being brought to you from Ireland, where Deefer's Dad is currently house hunting assisted by myself (Lily), and my co-workers Maxwell and Coco. That's us in the first pic - left to right Max, me and Coco. The 2nd pic might be of me trying to see how you get the dog sweets out of the jar. By the time I discovered the top was open, Mrs Silverwood (my Mum) was onto me! I (Lily) am doing this with full permission of Deefs who is taking a short break, looking after her Mum back in the UK.

Sorry about the complicated relationships but hopefully you and I can hang onto the plot. I will pass the reins back to Deefs on Friday.

So, Mrs S and Deef's Dad are off checking out some places found by Deef's Mum and Mrs S on the internet, but now they are doing it properly in the Irish rain in the company of proper Estate Agents. So far so good but I'll hold back from any detail till we know one way or the other.

Meanwhile let this image into your head. Little R Silverwood (3) is just at the potty training stage and she is getting on well and is very proud of her progress. So proud that she comes skipping into the room waving an unfamiliar yellow plastic bowl under Deef's Dad's nose, wobbling it alarmingly. Deef's Dad grabs it to steady it just in time to realise it is half full of yellow liquid, with a floater to be proud of slopping about in it. That's nothing, says Mrs S. When she was first doing them and it was all a bit sporadic R would stride into the room clutching the poo in the palm of her hand and say Look! I've done a Poo.

As is the way of these things, busy Mrs S is not always in a position to attend straight way to each insistent child and on one occasion, the Mummy.... Mummy..... MUMMY! was followed up by R thrusting the thing so far under Mummy's nose that the little brown-coated fingers went in past Mummy's lips and actually behind her teeth before Mummy realised what message was trying to come across!

Lily (for the Deefs)

Bo and Coco

Heavy rain and strong winds prevent the Panini Boys from installing our French windows (they are worried about the dust from their stone-cutter blowing everywhere and the rain getting into the sensitive parts of their electrical tools) so they are reduced to working indoors on what is now surely going to be known as "The Panini Room" , doing detailed stuff - edging around the hall floors, picture rails, the glass pane above the internal door.

Out on the Rec we meet, now almost full grown, white and black Staffie, Bo (or possibly Beau) whom we last met as a tiny floppy pup almost a year ago. We also meet new kid on the block, equally floppy but nothing like tiny pup Coco, a Dogue de Bretagne. Named after Coco Chanel, this lady is all silly and submissive, and still all pink and "new" aroiund the mouth and eyes, but already the size of a full grown boxer. Short haired and chocolate brown - she's gonna be huge!

Have a good weekend
Deefski