The Newbrowne Blog: new.browne to new.born

Pre-holiday haircut*

2009-07-03T22:28:00.009Z

Why does the camera battery always run out when I manage to bake something elaborate AND visually attractive? Now the world will never see my blueberry & mascarpone merengue roulade. It was awesome, and gone in about 7 minutes.

Ok, if you really really want to know what it looked like, it was exactly like this but with blueberries. Yes, just like that one. Except that mine probably tasted nicer, because that one has dessicated coconut, the ingredient of evil.

We're going to Finland this Sunday, so there might be some kind of change in the posting frequency - not that I'm expecting all my 3 followers to hold their breath between my posts.

Hopefully it will be sunny and I won't have to resort to my emergency plan of watching the 2nd season of Chuck which I'm bringing with me, just in case.

Also hopefully I won't wake up with mastitis tomorrow, but that seems very unlikely at this stage. However, if I do wake up in the middle of the night, shivering under two blankets despite the heat and with a depression the size of Ronaldo's ego, there's very little I can do about it. I just hope that it passes by Sunday, before I have to make the Camino de Ryanair pilgrimage walk to the furthermost terminal at Dublin airport with two kids and all that goes with it.

*No, I didn't get a haircut before my holidays. (God knows I wanted to. I have grey hairs and I had a near-death experience when I discovered them.) The title is a reference to the blogging term, of which this particular post is a prime example of. My sincere apologies.

Scone grumbles

2009-06-30T18:10:00.000Z

Along with cupcakes, scones have always been one of the great weaknesses in my baking repertoire. I will never forget the drunken scone appraisal speech I got from a Swedish former colleague of mine. According to her, the ingredients are so basic you will always find them in your store cupboard, and making them is so simple you can whip up a batch of them in no time, even when you crawl home in a horrific state of drunkenness after a night of mayhem.

The first time I even tried to make scones, I had her speech resonating in my head. I was not drunk (perhaps slightly hanging though) and did not have all the ingredients in the cupboard but had to go to the shop for butter, cream and self-raising flour.

In fact, the entire concept of self-raising flour was completely new to me as they don't sell it in Finland, and it still puzzles me. Any recipe I've ever seen that has self-raising flour, still contains baking powder. Why not just add some extra baking powder and use plain flour?

Anyhow, the first batch of scones didn't rise properly. Boo hoo. Since I'm not a big fan of scones anyway, I wasn't in a hurry to repeat this embarrassing experience. However, encouraged by my recent success in making cupcakes, I decided I'd give it another go. I had also discovered the savoury scones they do in Avoca, and thought they'd be handy for picnics and quick lunches.

I took the two recipes, for both the savoury semi-sundried tomato and cheese scones as well as the plain scones (traditionally served with jam and clotted cream) from the Avoca cook books.

I used my self-raising flour where indicated, followed the instructions carefully, and whaddaya know! They came out just fine. Funnily enough, the savoury scones (which use 450g plain flour and 1.5 tsp of baking powder) seemed to raise better than the plain ones (with 450g self-raising flour and 1 tsp of baking powder). No need to race to the shop the next time I'm out of self-raising, so!

The Swedish girl was right: making them really is easy, in the sense that you don't need to knead or whisk the dough for ages. All you do is mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. However, the consistency of the dough seems to be crucial. If the dough is too wet, the scones won't rise; if it's too dry, the dough won't hold together and instead of a scones you'll have very tasty crumbles.

I found that the Avoca recipe tells you to put in way too much milk. It says 200 ml in the recipe, but I only ended up using less than 100 ml. They do state that the dough should be "not too moist" or "relatively dry", but how are you supposed to know what that means, if you've never seen anyone make scones before? Or even better, if you've never eaten a ready one?

I the more I cook and bake, the more I have come to realise that this is just something you have to accept if you're cooking something entirely new to yourself. The first attempt might fail, and you might have to scoop it all in the bin and start over. I have also come to appreciate the kind of recipe writers that try and pre-empt those easy-to-make mistakes; Nigella, Rachel Allen and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are my favourite examples of considerate food writers. They hold nothing back and share their knowledge generously.

Unfortunately, the Avoca books are one of the worst examples of assuming that people already know the methods. They give only very general instructions even for challenging recipes, where a more detailed explainations would be more appropriate. Maybe they are not meant for beginners, but with the rate they have been selling, I'd say there are a few novices cooking out of them too.

The really unfortunate thing about this is, that some beginners might be disheartened by their initial failures and never try again. This could be easily avoided with a little bit more thought, and there could be a lot more accomplished, happy foodies in this world.

Our new summer lounge

2009-06-28T21:26:00.010Z

As I hinted in my Twitter/Facebook updates, I recently pimped up our balcony with some new furniture and potted plants. I'll be adding pictures to the post soon!

The balcony makeover was actually my father's day surprise to Ronan. He is more of a sitting-out-in-the-garden -kind of person than me; I have just been thankful that I don't have any grass to cut or flower beds to weed. To be perfectly honest, I'm struggling even with keeping the indoor spaces! I have nothing against gardening in theory, but I just don't think I'm there yet with my life.

So, as a kind of compromise, I thought I'd turn our south-facing balcony into something of a gardenesque extension of the living room with some new garden furniture and plants.

After discovering two lovely, good quality wooden fold-up chairs in TK Maxx, I spent hours online trying to source a good value garden bench. I even looked into making one ourselves with these great instructions from Lowes Creative Ideas. Unfortunately, it turns out that none of our local DIY stores sell hardwood or polyurethane foam, so that plan had to be abandoned.

Just as I was ready to resign to the fact that there just isn't such thing as good value garden furniture (unless you're willing to wait till the end-of-season sales), I wandered into B&Q on a particularly rainy day, and spotted a lovely wooden garden bench for €42.

I also picked up some cushions that were not particularly inexpensive, but lovely all the same. I just was not willing to look for another bargain, only to find one after the summer was already over. (I'm pretty sure this is why garden stuff is so pricey in the first place. Time is money when it comes to enjoying the odd sunny day in this country.)

I bought some summer flowers and a couple of small trees (half price or less from the local Tesco's flower cemetery!), got some pots off a friend and bought a few more. We also made a trip to the local garden centre and got a few fancier things that had taken my fancy - like the bronze-coloured firecracker thingy and the silvery lavenders that are my favourites.

I tried to keep the colour scheme purple and white, with some pink and bronze splashed in, and I'm quite happy with the result. It looks nice and sophisticated - I just hope it lasts!

I combined the summer flowers into a few different mix & match pots without any kind of knowledge or sense about what plants require similar conditions to grow well - I was only concerned with the aesthetic aspect of things.

After one week, where we had a couple of unusually sunny days, and a night of the torrential rain that is more typical to Ireland, the garden seems to be doing fine. On the hottest days I watered all the pots generously every day, but once the hot spell was over it seems that once every two days is enough. I bought a little box of plant food that I use a couple of times a week, and a separate fertilizer for the tomatoes to get them to bear fruit.

I also took a few cuttings from the communal gardens, which I planted in small pots and hoped them to start rooting, but unfortunately the heat seems to have killed even the strongest ones. I did think that it was a little bit advanced for a beginner gardener like myself, but since plants are ridiculously expensive, I thought I'd give it a go. I might try again after the summer, do some more reading on the subject and possibly even boost the experiment with some rooting hormone. Any experiences and tips are welcome, especially advice on which plants are easy to start with!

The balcony is nearly complete, now that we finally got a barbeque there as well! Now all we need is a bigger table, and we're all set for a summer of sunbathing, al fresco brunches and lazy afternoon barbeques! Just as I'm about to head over to Finland for a month.

The best fathers' day so far

2009-06-22T09:16:00.003Z

Happy Fathers' Day, Daddy Boo. You're ace.

(And ace is also the fact that I finally made a batch of cupcakes that didn't come out shaped like various European countries - and Cyprus.)

Foodie confessions meme

2009-06-22T08:38:00.012Z

After visiting the Look & Taste website, I spent the week typing up a little meme in an attemp to come up with an innovative viral promo as my entry for their Le Creuset competition. I am completely and utterly impressed with the concept they have going, so my earlier plans of writing an introductory post about the site had to be cancelled - the draft I had been working on took a slight overenthusiastic turn. Instead, I thought I'd create a meme and incorporate them in somehow. And yes, I am aware that memes are so 2005, but that's just where I am at the moment with this blogging stuff.

Sadly, I couldn't come up with a quiz that would actually keep a link to their page as it travels through the cyberspace, so it stopped being only about the competition, really. I'm going to enter it into their draw anyway, but I'm also looking forward to people's answers for my own personal kitchen inspiration! I've also posted it into my Facebook and tagged my foodie friends that probably don't read the blog.

---

The Foodie Confessions Meme

IN THE KITCHEN

1. My trademark recipe: Cambodian beef stew

2. Kitchen gadget or accessory I couldn't live without: Electrical mixer/food processor

3. Biggest kitchen handicap: I’ve never made a Sunday roast.

4. Dish/technique that I want to learn: I would love to be better a cutting meats and preparing fish.

5. My top cooking tip: You can grate garlic with the peel still on the clove; the peel will not go through the grater. Rachel Allen told me this last week, in person! This is particularly handy if you don't like chopping garlic, or if you don't own a garlic press.

INSPIRATION

6. Favourite cuisine/food style: Mediterranean

7. Favourite cook book: At the moment, Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros and Flavour by Vicky Bhogal

8. Favourite chef: Rachel Allen

9. Favourite food programme: River Cottage & Saturday Kitchen

10. Favourite food magazine: BBC's Good Food Magazine

11. Favourite local restaurant: Vie de Chateaux

INTERNET FOR FOODIES

12. Favourite foodie website: Look & Taste – great video tips and recipes

13. Favourite recipe search: Twecipe – simply lovely!

14. Online recipe binder: Recipezaar

15. Favourite food blog: Delicious Days - so beautiful.

FAVOURITE RECIPES

16. Main course: Barbequed chicken satay skewers

17. Quickie: Chilli prawn pasta with peppers

18. Soup/salad: Pear & blue cheese salad

19. Baked treat or dessert: Finnish mixed berry pie

20. Self-invented (or adapted): The oatmeal banoffee pie (see picture)

I hereby tag the newly-wed Katherine (congrats!), Made Marian (even if she didn't post it in her crafty blog), Aoife of icanhascook, whenever she's recovered from her big trip, the Italian Foodies (that I have been stalking since Maz first brought them to my attention) and Look & Taste, of course!

Of course, anyone is welcome to complete and repost this! If you do, please leave a message in the comments so I can come an check you out. And if you don't have your own blog, just post your answers in full as a comment.

Fathers' day gift ideas

2009-06-15T21:40:00.007Z

With Father's Day just around the corner, I know this comes a bit late for ordering anything online, but I thought I'd share my gift ideas with you anyway.

Fathers are notoriously difficult creatures to buy presents for, although the summery timing of Father's Day around here does make it a lot easier to come up with reasonably thoughtful presents.

For some reason, it seems that there aren't many wintery things to do that are dad-specific, so most dads probably end up getting warm woolly socks, after shaves and sports biographies for Christmas.

In the summer, however, there are lots of things that grown-up men like to do. They are out cutting the grass, barbequeing, road-tripping, flying kites, having cold beers al fresco, kicking the ball or throwing a frisbee (and calling it "ultimate"), going to the beach and carrying a surf board around - you catch my drift.

So here are a few suggestion for all budgets:

Under €5

King's Choice Mug from dotcomgiftshop - A lovely (if a slightly British) design for the head of the house, and affordable even for the kids.

Skrub's potato gloves from Lakeland - I don't know who washes (or peels) potatoes in your family, but someone has to. And someone will definitely appreciate this fantastic innovation.

Boiling potatoes with skins on preserves the vitamins, but if you must peel, you should do it with proper tools, such as the OXO Good Grips® Potato Peeler, also under from Lakeland.

Around €10

Continuing the Lakeland/kitchen theme for a bit, here's another innovation men could possibly find interesting this summer: Quarter-Pounder Burger Press will make your home-made burgers look as good as they taste. (Watch this space for my perfect burger recipe!)

A summer read is always appreciated, and Eason are doing some good paperback offers at the moment. After glancing over a few reviews, I wouldn't recommend the Ian Rush bio for a dad who appreciates good writing - not even if he was a Liverpool fan. For a reader with more acquired taste, the best your tenner will get you is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow of the Wind, also available at Eason's.

Also, New Look have a good selection of reasonably-priced, reasonably attractive men's shorts for dads of all ages. Just make sure you double-check their size before shopping.

Around €20

A game of cricket might be a bore to watch, but a cricket set (from Next Directory) could be a brilliant idea for something fun to do together with the kids - or a great excuse to get the lads together in the park on a sunny afternoon, possibly with some cold refreshments.

Some TK Maxx stores stock products from Built NY. We managed to grab one of their Six-pack tote can/bottler cooler bags last year for less than a tenner, actually. They might have gone up so filing this closer to the €20 mark, but they would still be worth the money. So cool - quite literally too. Haha.

For the grooming, travel-orientated dad, this handy (!) travel manicure set from my favourite Irish gift site gifts giftslikethese.com.

Actually, I'd like to recommend their VIP Very Intelligent Pockets for anyone and everyone, but I'm just not sure if dads would appreciate these. Would men even know what they are meant to be useful for? Hm, this might be one for Mothers' Day instead.

Around €30

A mobile barbeque that folds flat - need I say more? So sleek, so handy and so affordable at €31.90 from Campingworld.co.uk.

For a teenager's dad and/or a foodie dad, we recommend a delightful Applecrumble and Fish tee (available in various colours) from Meatandcheese. They are going for £18 but the final price is probably closer t0 €30 with p&p. For unbearably cool dads (do such things exist??), see what Threadless has to offer.

TK Maxx is also an old favourite for men's clothing. We ventured to their Blanchardstown shop this week and one of the best & coolest items we found there this time were Ed Hardy's tattoo-style boxer shorts for 25 euro.

Around €50

Who wouldn't have a soft spot for lovely, yet manly retro radios? The fierce Philips AE 2730 Portable Radio from pixmania.ie comes with a handy handle and is all yours for €51 plus p&p.

The idea of relaxing in the garden on a sunny Sunday with a newspaper might be an optimistic one, but for all those idealists out there I present a surprisingly good value hardwood garden recliner from Woodies - only €49.90! There must be an IKEA opening soon somewhere nearby...

If you have more than €50 to invest in your present I'm sure that you won't have problem finding a cool gift for your dad, so I'll almost stop here. The last suggestion, and my personal favourite is a canvas print of a moment that is memorable and important to the dad in question.

Canvas prints are always impressive and can be a very thoughtful gift to anyone. The trick here, however, is not to pick your own favourite shot, but one that the recipient loves. Thecanvasworks.ie offer a straightforward enough service, and their prices seem to be competitive, if not the best going.

Needless to say, I now have to come up with something to get for the resident daddy-of-two - something that is NOT on the list, so that the surprise is not spoiled. Although I think he wouldn't mind knowing what he was getting, as long as it was that retro radio...

The little ones

2009-06-12T14:31:00.004Z

Since writing stuff has proved a lot more time-consuming than I remembered (and mostly because I'm using all my spare time for tweaking the new layout), here's a little something to keep you entertained. I love them so much!

I'm off to have some tea (and hopefully cakes!) with the ladies. We're heading out to Dublin tomorrow for the Taste of Dublin. I've been looking forward to this since I missed the one last year, and Ronan managed to get us some fancy-ass VIP tickets through work, so I'm hoping it will be awesome. (Not as awesome as Niall & Aoife's Oz trip though!)

Steady now

2009-06-09T07:42:00.003Z

After slowly getting back to twittering, I've finally decided to give blogging another go. Wohoo!

Before you all get too excited now, I have to say that the constant updates of the antics of the Small People will no resume - at least not as they used to be. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since I first started sharing things online, and I no longer have the need to share as much as I used to - mainly because I recognise that a lot more people read blogs than in 2005. I'm still planning to write about our family life and other personal stuff, but I'd love to write about stuff that would be useful and interesting to people who don't know us, too.

I've re-organised the categories in the blog, which should give you some indication on the subjects I'll be writing about. I'll be concentrating on life with kids in our local Kildare, cooking and stuff I come across online. (I really wish I could also add a craft element to this blog, but since all the crafts I'm doing at the moment are with Lukas, they probably won't need a category of their own!)

I'm also working on a new template for the blog, but you'll have to wait for that for a while yet. Also, the blog roll will have to be updated... Oh the things that are involved in getting back to blogging! Who would've thought? But I'm willing to do it all, just for you - and possibly a little bit for me too.

Lukas 8th-10th Jan 2009

2009-01-12T13:28:00.009Z

Nobody get all excited now, we haven't decided to go back to blogging yet - we're still considering our options. But this kind of artwork needs to be exhibited in a venue more public than our fridge door, so here goes:

Incy Wincy Spider

A cow (with udders)

Three pirates in a pirate ship on the sea

Sweet scent of scandal

2008-05-15T19:05:00.012Z

There has been yet another media storm brewing in Finland this week: to the shock and horror of the nation, it was revealed that Finnish MP's are failing to declare the origins of their campaign contributions (which is deemed illegal by the Finnish law, yet the violation of this law carries no sanctions).

The man in the eye of the storm is Timo Kalli of the Centre Party, but it's not an isolated case - apparently the MPs are protecting the anonymity of their contributors left, right and centre. Obviously, mostly on the right though: a headline from Helsingin Sanomat (link article in Finnish) confirms that "the large bourgeous parties" have the most non-disclosed contributors.

In the past few years, Finland has come out on the top-end in the world-wide (anti?-)corruption survey orchestrated by Transparency International, 'the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption' as their website informs us.

It would probably take several decades, if not centuries for the the level of corruption in Finland to catch up with the culture of corruption in the poverty-ridden countries of the third world, our faithful Eastern neighbour Russia, or even in my current home country of Ireland, Finland has started a slow slide down a slippery slope on this one.

A story from Helsingin Sanomat from September 2007 points out the following:

Although Finland was again deemed to be one of the least-corrupt countries, Transparency International said that the country’s record has been somewhat blemished as a consequence of some bribery scandals that have surfaced in recent years.
Actually, publicity can have an effect on the results, as perceived corruption levels are assessed primarily by business executives in the countries concerned. The interviewees themselves do not necessarily have any experience of their own with respect to bribery.

In the light of the above quote, I wonder if the week's 'revelations' are just a prelude to exhaustive journalistic investigations, where journalists will trawl through endless piles of the parliament voting records and suchlike to discover the faintest sign of an MP taking a stance that could be seen favouring the very contributors they tried to keep in the shadows.

The good news is that if a Finnish politician would ever be even publically suspected of taking bribes, they would probably not make it back to the parliament on the next round. To semi-quote my old Italian friend Davide, "In Ireland...? This would neevver haaaappen." Irish voters are like lovesick girls with their politicians, just can't kick the pricks out in the hope that they will make up for all their bad deeds, and love and look after them forever.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about the Irish politics and am just repeating what I have heard being said. The allegory is my own though, but not a very original at that.

The evening-edition tabloids and party-biased local papers have of course always existed in the Finnish media, but in general the Finnish journos seem to congratulate themselves for practising good journalist ethics and being generally less trashy than their Central European and British counterparts. However, reading the Helsingin Sanomat recently, the sweet scent of scandal

I'm all for this kind of increase in international media attention. What happens in Finland doesn't necessarily stay in Finland anymore, which in turn increases transparency. Media might scandalise these things to some extent, I'm sure the politicians will try and play the whole thing down, and the critical media reader will be able to find a comfortable middle ground. No-one wants their news ready-chewed, and the educated receiver has to accept partial responsibility of the message.

I'll be following the story from the sidelines, and half-hoping it will plunge out some dirt that will end up on Guardian Online or even the RTE website. I don't even care if the bad news don't travel that far - I have Transparent International on speed dial anyways. seems to creep also on the pages of the high-brown HS, where it is likely to catch the eye of the international media vultures.

Toddlers' story time in Naas Library

2008-05-14T08:51:00.007Z

Although Kildare can be a wonderful place to live with kids, what with the dozens of kids' soft play centres, the countryside and all sorts of clubs and activities around, you usually have to have at least a fiver in your pocket and a set of wheels beneath you to enjoy most of these. Not anymore!

We've started the World of Stories weekly story time in the Naas Community Library. The story sessions run every Tuesday from 10.30 to 11.30, incorporating stories, books, songs and crafts suitable for kids (and adults!) of all ages.

We are also looking for people who would be interested in joining the group of ladies - us, that is - that are organising the storytelling events. You can participate in storytelling, or in organising the crafts activities for the children. If you are interested, please get in touch at storytimenaas-at-gmail.com.

Weekends away

2007-11-21T22:01:00.001Z

Right, it's about time I squeezed out a little update on our lives, even if there isn't many people following this blog anymore...

At the moment our weeks are a mundane mix of work and play. Having said that, there are a few things that give the dreary autumn days a bit of a perk. One of our favourite things every week is definitely the weekly coffee mornings (or the mother-toddler group, if you will) at the Sallins Parish Centre. The group runs during school term, every Monday from 10am to 12am, and we've been going there since September.

The weather here has been absolutely abysmal for the last couple of weeks, but the last two days we've seen a bit of sunshine. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but it certainly has improved my mood. Playing outside on the yard with Lukas has become a bit difficult, as he keeps running out of the estate, probably in the hope of trainspotting. We've started walking to the "nearby" playground, but since it's a bit of a trek there, it requires careful planning everytime we go, and if there's dark clouds in the horizon we're guaranteed to get pissed on somewhere along the way.

Today I felt charitable and picked up all the litter left behind by the builders - and I don't mean building waste, but sandwich wrappers, plastic bottles and other lunch hour remains. They had been annoying me for weeks, and I'm glad that it's done, even if no-one else will notice.

My mother bought Lukas a little doll buggy for his night-weaning present, and he absolutely loves the thing. He has a special little panda friend called Biibi (or Be-Be, how ever you want to transliterate the name Lukas himself has given him) whom he pushes around in the buggy like a proud parent. He also frequently changes Biibi's nappy and gives him milk and other foods. He won't go to bed without Biibi and a couple of books, and if we're going away for the weekend, he won't step out the door without knowing Biibi is coming too.

Did I say "if we're going away for the weekend"? Surely I meant "when we are going away for the weekend"! Our weekends have been so busy recently I can't even remember when we spent a weekend at home last, just the three of us. There was the birthday trip to Norn Iron & Giant's Causeway, the Bank Holiday weekend in Clare, the Christening in Limerick, then we had a visit from my brother Antti and finally last weekend we drove out to see Ronan's friend Darren, Edel and his family in Monaghan. Great fun, and we even got to go out for a dinner and a dance last weekend!

This weekend we're staying home, but I'm actually getting to go to theatre for the first time in over 2 years (I think). Nothing too fancy, we're going to see the the Last Days of the Celtic Tiger, the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly play featuring the lovely Miss Lisa Lambe. It's nice to get out, and hopefully the show will be at least somewhat funny. After reading all the books it's hard to imagine someone portraying the character just like I've imagined him, but maybe it's possible to get over that.

There are some photos in Flickr again, have a look! And don't panic about the missing photos, our pro account just ran up and I didn't bother renewing it because I'm sure you've all seen the older photos and we don't add them that much anymore.

Fast-forward Finnish Summer

2007-07-31T06:41:00.001Z

We're freshly back from our first trip to Finland this summer. This year, actually, although it's hard to believe.

I flew over last week with Lukas and we stayed a night in Tampere with one of the nearest and dearest of friends of mine that I see way too seldom. After a romantic ride into town in an orange genuine 60's Beetle, some frantic shoe-shopping and a lengthy play at the legendary Pikku Kakkosen Puisto playground, we took the train to Jyvaskyla to join my dear childhood friend Anna's hen party.

It was lovely to see "the girls", ie. the few best friends I had in school, and we even managed to catch up again during the week, just the four of us. We couldn't help noticing there was someone missing from the crowd but I guess that's what sometimes happens - people drift apart, against their will or intentionally. It would be nice to get back in touch with other important people from the past too, but where to start and how?

The first few days in Jyvaskyla were somewhat hectic with Lukas and my sister's kids Sara and Sofia ruling the roost. We managed to cart them to the summer house, load them onto the boat and do a little spin on the lake. Lukas and Sara (who were born only a month apart) soon drifted off to the sweet humming of the motor. After we got back on the shore, they were splashing away in the lukewarm water, Lukas acting the Vesipeto (Water Monster) that he is and trying to actually swim, dive and whatnot.

One thing I miss about Finland (that never thought I would) are the 'Markets. It's not strictly a Finnish institution to build massive hypermarkets outside the city centre, but Jyvaskyla has definitely more than its fair share of those. The attraction for me is that the markets are packed with all things Finnish, and if I got my way, I would air lift all 6 of the 'markets to the field next to our house.

I thought I had managed to avoid going crazy when it comes to shopping, but still Lukas got a full set of Rukka raingear (including dungarees, rain coat and waterproof gloves), authentic Nokian Footwear wellies, Finnish editions of Bob the Builder (Puuha-Pete) and Teletubbies (Teletapit) DVD's. We also managed to cart over a children's table on a Ryanair flight without any extra charge, which I consider our biggest achievement of the week.

The week literally rushed past, and before I knew it, it was Friday afternoon and time to pick up Ronan from the train after he flew into Tampere and made his way to Central Finland. Because his visit was such a short one, it was one packed full with action. My brother collected him from the station and we drove to our summerhouse and headed out on the boat with a couple of his friends. The lads did some wakeboarding while I tried to keep Lukas at bay in the cabin, and after the water sports we drove to Katja's summer house for some sauna, swimming and a dish of excellent quasi-Philipino grub, enjoyed al fresco by the lake, in good company.

On Saturday we had a chance to have a sneak peak of the prospective wedding venue in Uurainen which was very exciting! I was mildly disappointed to see that there was still lots to be done, but overall the place was a positive surprise. The setting is beautiful and I'm sure it will be stunning once the renovations are completed.

The real reason why we were in Uurainen was the cousins' meet-up, which was definitely my highlight of the summer so far. It was great to see all the cousins I grew up with and that are still so close to me. The night was over too quickly, even though Jane, Tarzan and Cheetah (ie. myself and the two cousins closest to me in age) managed to stretch the night far into the following morning. Lots of Mother's Conciliatory Punch was had and lots of karaoke sung, we of course watched the statutory nostalgic slideshow of chilhood photos, performed a play (albeit a little less improvised than in the olden days) and had a post-dusk BBQ.

It was both nice and sad to return home. Lukas and his Mummu are both already missing each other, but luckily they will see each other soon again. I miss everyone too, and I miss how happy we always are in Finland. Luckily we're very happy in Ireland too! I can't wait to go to the summer house in Clare tomorrow, now that the sun is finally out.

Bow-wow of a weather

2007-07-18T22:59:00.000Z

Ok, it's about time I made my comeback to the blogging world. No explanations on the silence this time, apart from that I've been busy with my little house-wifey chores...

We've enjoyed life this summer despite the rain levels, unfortunately without wellies since they seem to be unobtainable in the entire Kildare area. What's wrong with all those shoe shop keepers? Lukas got a special present of a gorgeous little Wendy house (leikkimokki in Finnish), which would be perfect for keeping rain - if only he wasn't been banned from going there when it's lashing rain after he was caught drinking rain water from the pretend flower boxes under the windows.

At the start of the month we finally made our way to Edinburgh where we saw the gorgeous Heidi Mae and Oscar, the future heart-breaker. It was really good to be back in the area where we used to live and it all made me miss our life there a little bit. Mainly for the people though, the weather was as crap as here! On the one day it didn't rain we made it to the Gorgie City Farm, where Lukas saw a few sheep and a couple of goats. To our disappointment the place was closing when we arrived and we weren't allowed in the petting zoo, but Lukas seemed happy enough conversing with the sheep and got a bit thoughtful watching a sheep getting sheared.

The thing of the summer for Lukas is definitely the bow-wow. Bow-wow can mean any animal from flies to elephants, and anything in between. The best bow-wows are birds, cats and small birds. Bigger bow-wows that we encounter on daily basis (such as cows and horses) here in the countryside have little effect on him, probably because they're usually so far and somewhat flegmatic. Flies, spiders and other small things are bit scary in real life because they can unexpectedly come very near and even touch him. If any bow-wows (even cats) touch Lukas without his consent, he screams and makes this little barking noise (Ach!), not unlike to the tone we use when telling him off when he's doing something dangerous. I wish I could describe his love of bow-wow more accurately, but you just have to see it live. It's priceless.

The flavour of the week has been the arrival of his first molar teeth in the bottom row. As this coincided with the first week I spent alone at home with Lukas after Ronan started his new job, for a while I though I'd lost my touch and become a bad mother. This morning I was somewhat relieved to notice that it was the teething that had kept him grumpy all week and not his boooring mother.

He's also picked up a few new words lately. For a couple of months now, his vocabulary has consisted of mamm, anna, aiti, dada and night-night (forgive me if I forgot words, we can add them in later). In the last couple of weeks he has also started saying there, out, vaippa/nappy, shoes (or shhhs), puuro/porridge (brrr-oo), bye-bye, apina (monkey) and a couple of other useful words that I just can't think of now.

I would be inclined to say that the fantastic Fisher-Price ABC Zoo game that we play online has helped him to start imitating our words. For about month now he has been imitating the animal sounds and has reached a stage where he can do the right sounds even before they come up on the computer. He definitely knows the sounds monkeys, seals, elephants, tigers/lions, dolphins, camels, yaks/cows, iguanas and rhinos make.

There would be so much to tell but it's too much to try and catch up a month's silence in one post. I'll try and get in a post a week at least now that I have more time in my hands that Ronan's not in the house all the time.

Telegraph Magazine article

2007-06-09T12:41:00.001Z

I finally had a few spare minutes yesterday to scan the Telegraph Magazine article, so here's a link to the scanned version:

Talking Point - Do babies really need to eat baby food, asks Christina Hopkinson (Telegraph Magazine Sat 2nd June 2008)

Click the image to enlarge the image so that the text is readable.

It's been very sunny here in Ireland for the last couple of days, and I've been doing my best with the translation projects but there is still a good bit to go on the current project. I'm already looking forward to my friend Tuuli and her family coming over on Monday the 18th and I booked flights to go and visit Kerry, Keiron and their brand new princess in Edinburgh at the start of July!

We're just about to leave the house to meet Denis and Marian for lunch, but that's about all the plans we have for the day. We crashed Stephen and Sorcha's BBQ last night and Lukas had most of the potato wedges they had made for 4 people to share. He loves kicking the ball in their back garden, and always tries to make a run for his freedom down the alleyway on the side of their house.

Lukas got a new red bike from his granny and grandad last week, and we have some video footage of his first rides on it. We need to upload it soon but it's way too sunny to do any more nerdy stuff today than I already have.

Hope you are all well and once again apologies for my absence from the blogging scene! I'll be back as soon as I regain control of my own life again...

Baby-led weaning thoughts

2007-06-06T00:36:00.000Z

A couple of months back I was contacted by freelance writer Christina Hopkinson, who wanted to interview me for the Telegraph Magazine about baby-led weaning. Her article was published in last Saturday's issue of the magazine, and I was very pleased with what she had written both generally on the subject and based on our telephone conversation. I couldn't find the article (not a major piece, just 1-page column) on the Telegraph website, so I'm going to scan it or type it for you to read once I get the paper from Marian.

I never asked her how she found me, but I presume that she had come across the extremely uneventful BLWbaby blog I created last year when we started to wean Lukas onto solids. I was a big fan of baby-led weaning (and still am), and at the time there was very little information about the method. I wanted to put together a resource pack for other mothers like me, looking information about baby-led weaning or BLW. Good intentions and all that, my enthusiasm didn't last too long, because I only had a limited amount of time, I was working hard last summer and I wanted to dedicate my free time for this blog.

For those who have never heard the expression, baby-led weaning means skipping the purees and starting the weaning process with soft finger foods that the babies can manage to chew with their gums. Our experience started off extremely positive, but my arising post-natal depression prompted the healt visitor to advise us to quit BLW and start spooning it in, in order to reduce breastfeeding. Feeling a bit vulnerable, I took her advice but we were adamant that we'd still keep it baby-led and not force the food in.

After a couple of weeks of roughly-mushed dinners and a lot of tears (mostly mine), we decided to go back to the baby-led approach, and things immediately improved. Lukas preferred taking his time and choosing his bits, and I didn't need to worry about him eating enough or finishing his plate. He went back to his normal 3 dirty nappies a day, instead of the incredible 8-a-day routine he slipped into during spoon-feeding.

Anyway, ever since the short spout of spoon-feeding, baby food has not been an issue in our house, so there's very little to write about and that's probably why I haven't gotten round updating the blog. Also, Lukas was also such an easy child to feed that I wasn't sure if I wanted to 'brag' about how well he's eating, because some mothers might not have it so easy.

He's grown up (if you can say that of a 17-month old) to be an athletic, robust and beaming smiling boy. Dinner times are rarely a struggle, and I think we've found a good balance between healthy food and sneaky treats. He can have the occasional sip of juice and the odd chip of chocolate or ice cream (that's when I pretend I'm not looking), but generally he only eats "real" home-cooked food, 3-4 meals plus 2-3 fresh fruit and bread stick snacks a day.

I am convinced that Lukas' diet is in good balance and in line with the food pyramid recommendations. Ok, he's maybe getting slightly more dairy than his fair share, but I believe that cottage cheese and natural yoghurt are better options that having cow's milk straight in the glass.

In my personal life, I have tried to hold back when talking about baby-led weaning. I am worried I might come across too preaching, and besides, I hate when I feel people don't listen to me. Feeding purees to babies is just something too familiar, it's something more than the norm - for my generation of mothers, it's very close to the only option. To me personally BLW makes sense, but I know I don't have the power to convince anyone otherwise, if they don't see the issue in the same light.

I often think how can the same parents be happily feeding their kids baby rice or other starchy food at the tender age of 4 months, not really worried about the long-term damage it might cause to their little tummies, and yet be terrified when someone introduces the idea of giving 7-month-old babies soft-boiled vegetables cut in snack-sized pieces. Having said that, I'd have to concede that I'm the most incoherent of mothers and have nothing against others like me, but in terms of rhetorics I find that sort of argument a bit contradictory. I'm not a very good in voicing my opinions in a neutral way, and looks like my powers don't extend to converting people from purees to BLW, so I'll have to stick to spreading the gospel of breastfeeding.

Speaking of which, I'm breastfeeding Lukas who is now nearly 18 months. The feeding hasn't been dark and depressing for over a year for us, and as of yet we haven't set any definite weaning targets. Lukas gets milk when he indicates he would like some, although if we're out or if I'm doing something else, or if I'm just wearing clothes not very suitable for feeding, I may sometimes direct him to something else equally interesting.

He usually only nurses when he's going "night-night" or when he's terribly, utterly upset like for example after falling on his face, bumping his head or when stuck in heavy traffic for 2 hours, hungry, sweaty and bored. The falling asleep -feeds are only short and last around 10 minutes, the 1-2 night-time feeds usually last less than 2 minutes each, the same as the feeds prompted by something awful. The morning feed is usually the longest, around 20 minutes on-off nursing, depending on his level of alertness and his father's willingness to get up and play with him.

Speed-sightseeing

2007-06-05T23:20:00.000Z

We're back again from a long weekend in Clare, or actually, we've been there on two separate occasions since I last had time to write. I have to apologise once again for the quietness of the blog, we're simply too busy to contribute regularly at the moment! There has been more active times and more quiet times in this blog throughout its existence, so trust me - this is just a phase. I've missed the blogging circles a little lately, but at the same time it feels good to focus on work for a change. The best thing about our situation is that Ronan's still looking for his dream job, and he's able to entertain Lukas while I'm lost in translations.

Last week by brother Antti and his girlfriend Katja flew over to see us and Ireland, and we spent a magnificent 5 days with them. After venturing to the local pubs on the first night (Friday) and discovering that the "dodgy" pub in the village was disappointingly non-rough and full of friendly people, we decided to spend their short time here economically and head to Spanish Point for two nights. On Saturday the weather was not great, but we managed to go for a little walk on the beach, then cooked together and had a lovely night in front of the fire.

On Saturday we saw the cliffs of Moher and went surfer-spotting in Lahinch, Ronan and Katja went for a swim at the White Strand. In the late afternoon we wandered down to the Armada Hotel for some of the awesome pint-drinking views you'll ever come across. Lukas was happy playing on the green with Ronan, while Katja, Antti and I met some Finnish people. There were 40 of them on a tour trip, and I think I can safely say that was the most Finnish people there have ever been in one given time. After another wonderful meal - featuring possibly the most expensive pack noodles in the West of Ireland - we stayed up late talking like teenagers, which was very refreshing for me.

The next day we drove home via Limerick, did some compulsory tourist-shopping in Penneys and arrived in Kildare just in time for Denis' trademark chicken balti dinner. We had a really nice, relaxed night with Ronan's parents, including an electronic trad session and some low-key hurling in the back garden. Once we got home, the urge to heal the world got the better of us and we stayed up till dawn, which made our speed-tourist trip to Dublin the next day somewhat painful.

We took off to Dublin around 3 hours late of schedule, but managed to visit the Kilmanham Jail and saw the Grafton Street, a genuine Eddie Rocket's, some tourist shops, Trinity College, O'Connell Bridge, GPO, Ha'Penny Bridge, Temple Bar, South William Street and the St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre. We missed the Guinness Storehouse by 20 minutes which was a bit disappointing, but not really because it means that now they're going to have to grace us with their visit another time.

There are some photos from our grande tour in Flickr, most of them are snatched from Katja's camera so don't steal them! Most of the people pics are classed as family/friends only, so log onto your account to see them (make sure I've added you as in my contacts first!). If you don't have a Flickr account and don't want to create one, just send me an email and I'll email you with login details. I'll try to write soon about our most recent adventures in the next couple of days. The wedding plans are going well and you'll hear more about them soon enough. But now, I've got some Family Guy to watch.

A quick breather

2007-05-21T13:53:00.001Z

I'm emerging on the surface for a few days between translations, but it won't last for long. I'm working on a big project that should be done by the end of the month, but unfortunately this means that I'm not out enjoying the spring sun. I was so busy working last week that I actually, literally didn't go out for 5 days apart from one quick car trip to the shop. Sad, I know, but I managed to make up for it on Saturday when we had sneaky pre-summer garden bash, coinciding conveniently with the FA Cup final.

Yesterday we went to Ronan's parents house for our traditional Sunday dinner, where we were joined by Marian's poet friend. She had recently been to Barcelona for some sort of poets' conference, and there she had recorded two Finnish poets Merja Virolainen and Jouni Inkala reciting a traditional Finnish poem If the One I Know Came Now as well as Nocturne by Eino Leino. It was like hearing a message from someone I knew, and what made the message even more special was that they dedicated it "to Lukas Aidan Browne". Precious.

Lukas had grown so much since we moved here. His favourite things at the moment are climbing and standing on high things, bubbles, water (in any form, internally or externally), cottage cheese, orange juice, football, legos, reading books, sleeping in his car seat, breastmilk, his new summer shoes, a doll called Friend/Kaveri, blowing his own nose, wendy houses, trikes and playing outdoors.

So, it looks like I'll be working hard this week too, and on Friday we might be heading to the west coast once again with my brother and his girlfriend, who are flying over for a short break before he has to go back to work after having an operation on his shoulder. I'm looking forward to seeing them for the first time since Christmas, and showing them around on their first trip to Ireland. I've also uploaded some photos in Flickr, taken from around the lovely Kildare, in the hope that they would lure even more visitors our way. Also, almost all of our photos from Spain and the wedding are now up, go and have a look!

Life after Nueva Andalucia

2007-05-08T22:40:00.000Z

After not-terribly-sunny Spain, we're back in not-terribly-sunny Ireland! I have been awfully busy for the last couple of days with translations and photoshoots* and whatnot, and it's not going to get any easier tomorrow when my parents arrive.

I'm slowly putting the holiday photos up in Flickr, there's a few there already but still lots to come so keep an eye on the account! I wrote a few posts during the week but didn't get to put them up because we only noticed on the last day that there was a free Wi-Fi place in the Marina Banus shopping centre where we ended up on most days!

We had a great time in Spain, the week went really quickly and the wedding itself was an absolute blast. Everything about the day/night/day-after was great, Marion was such a beautiful bride and her dress was stunning (of course the groom Gary looked handsome as ever too!). The little village of Benahavis was the perfect setting for the wedding and the whole night ran very smoothly indeed, thanks to the amazing staff at the hotel and their wedding planner Lorraine.

It's been a while since I stayed up partying till 5.30am but I felt so brave the next morning having stayed nearly till the end. It was great to meet all Ronan's friends, neighbours and family friends and some nice new people too. We stayed the night in the Grand Hotel Benahavis where the wedding took place, one of Ronan's friends' was kind enough to let us stay in his room while he crashed (quite literally) on the sofa.

The next morning we got up early, the boys had a little paddle in the pool and we stayed till late afternoon nursing our fragile heads by the pool. Sadly, this meant that I had to give up hope of getting that lovely white and pink Massimo Dutti maxi dress that I had had my eyes on all week (their website it really appalling so couldn't link to a picture), but I might still get it from Dundrum some day... Back in Nueva Andalucia we had our last dinner in our favourite restaurant of the trip, called Bistro the Gallery.

We didn't stay in the Centre of Puerto Banus (thankfully, as I found it a bit too poncy for my liking) but in the lovely area of Nueva Andalucia. I could go on about it but I really don't have any authority to talk so if you're interested you should check out the Nueva Andalucia Life -blog, written by a British(?) woman Jo who lives on the area.

I'm just looking through the photos I have submitted and they all seem to be a bit poor quality, I'm crap at taking pictures in the sun I guess... Need more practise :D I have to say I really fell in love with Spain and we'll be going back there again to experience all the different cultures there. Meanwhile, I'll have to settle for trying out new recipes from my new Tapas cook book.

Adios and all that

2007-04-27T22:26:00.000Z

So yes, I'm just back from one of the best baths ever known to man. I am thoroughly relaxed and ready for the big holiday, that is about to start in about 9 hours. The bags are not exactly packed, but at least all the things are on the bed next to the bags. Some of the stuff is in the bags too.

I'll be searching for wifi as soon as we get to our destination of Puerto Banus, the lovely location where Ross O'Carroll-Kelly does NOT have an apartment anymore, so that you'll hear the latest craic from the under the sun. There is no strict schedule for the week, but knowing the mother-in-law candidate there will be lots of relaxing by the pool, shopping and fine dinners on the menu.

The wedding we're attending will take place on Saturday, and we'll be arriving back on Monday. I'm hoping to write before we're back, but if I don't get a chance - adiós till then!

Ps. Apologies in advance for any strange comment - I'm leaving the blog "commando" for the week while I'm not here to moderate the comments.

Pps. I just joined Jaiku and you should too, you can find me at lauranen.jaiku.com!

Having a laff

2007-04-26T12:54:00.000Z

Since Lukas was born, we've heard endless speculation about his future profession. The current consensus is that he's going to be a builder (not an architech, a builder), while earlier this month it was "obvious" that he was going to be a musician or a dancer. Despite his young age, he has already shown signs of talent for being a chef, a gangster, a cleaner, a stylist, a banker, a delivery boy and a mechanic. I just wanted to say that all this speculation is useless, because I already know what Lukas is going to be when he grows up. He's going to be a stand-up comedian.

In the last few weeks he has started telling jokes. Doesn't that tell you something? Telling jokes is an artform, and Lukas is obviously a natural. How many 1-year-olds do you know that are able to do that? I mean, the child doesn't even talk yet, but he's not going to let that stop him - that's what I call determination! You kind of have to be there to get his jokes, but I'm going to attempt to describe some of them to you here. It's not going to be as funny as it would be if you saw it, but since it's probably a bit too early for us to start cashing in on him, we'll have to keep the little jewel to ourselves until he's a bit older and can start doing shows on Vicar Street.

My favourite joke at the moment is "the Shockface". There are a few variations of this, but basically it goes like this: Lukas does something that he presumes we're not going to be happy with (switch off/on the TV, throw something on the floor) and will then put on a shocked face, lift his hands up and gasp loudly to enhance the horrified effect. By far the funniest variation of this is "the Oops", where he makes a funny fart noise with his mouth, grabs his bum and looks disgusted. I wonder where he got that from? I hope to God he doesn't start doing the same thing with real farts.

He also masters the "knowing nod" perfectly. I've told you before that judging by the way he babbles on constantly, Lukas thinks he can talk just like the rest of us. In addition to this, he now seems to also think that he can read. He often picks up a piece of paper and starts reading out loud to us, and usually the text seems to be of a humorous sort. He has a little giggle to himself, lifts his head up from the text with a confused smile (as if to say "the writer can't be serious!") and does a very deliberate, knowing nod.

He also tells actual jokes, which I of course can't impart because they're all in babbles and we don't really get them either. We still laugh at them; some of them go on and on, he goes through various moods and tones and accompanies them with elaborate expressions. He also makes a big grinny face when it's time to laugh, possibly to help the crowd's reactions. Hecklers are killed fast but effectively - he seems so pleased with himself after he responds with a killer comeback that there is no doubt it had to be a good one.

There are worse destinies in the world than the one of a stand-up comedian. One that springs to mind is the destiny of a comedian's mother? I think I might have to either watch myself around him, or accept that I'm going to be the laughing stock of the nation. In 20 years time I might be watching a canny impression of all my neurotic habits, live from the Apollo.

It'll grow back honey

2007-04-24T15:55:00.000Z

A while ago I came to the conclusion that Lukas' long and disheveled hair was so last year andhat he needed a tidier cut for the summer. He also tends to sweat an awful lots from his head when he's asleep which made his hair look like a mop or Slash from Guns'n'Roses with his gelled locks. We had to get the job done before the holidays, and I thought I'd do it myself again since the first time was fairly successful.

My hairdresser in Edinburgh had told me earlier that if a child is too young to sit still and not move his head, it doesn't make a difference if you're a top of your game hairdresser or not - the results will be appalling anyway - so I thought I'd rather give it a go myself first than pay a tenner for someone else to ruin it for me. And how did I do? This time I remembered to take before and after photos, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Before:

After:

It's not as bad as it could've been, he literally kept shaking his head the whole time even though we were showing him his favourite video to distract him. There are a few gaps and the back and I had to tidy it up a bit more this morning, there were a few curls left that were very unsuitable for a little boy.

The weird thing is that he looks even more like me now that he has a short hair, but what's even weirder is that when I look at him I think of Graham Norton. Ronan seems to be heartbroken that the curls are gone. I'm sure it'll grow back soon but at the moment I feel like a traitor. On the upside, Lukas doesn't seem to mind his new hairstyle at all. Every time I lift Lukas up to see himself in the mirror, he points at himself and laughs.

Troll in my bedroom

2007-04-23T16:00:00.000Z

My bedroom has always been messy. Ever since I had enough clothes to cover the floor with, you would think under my bed lived a 3-foot troll that came out during the night and ransacked my drawers while I was asleep. When I was a teenager, my mother took a picture of my room at the height of its messiness, and threatened to show it to my future boyfriend every time I protested about tidying it.

Since I became a Responsible Person™ (for those wondering when was it that this happened, if ever, by this I mean when I found I was going to become a parent), I started to pay more attention to tidiness of my room. Don't get me wrong, my house is always clean and I try to keep all the other rooms in relatively good shape, but somehow I just can't get myself to keep all those clothes off the floor.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason for this is a combination of two things. I believe in washing clothes only when they are dirty or smelly, and I refuse to throw a jumper of a pair of jeans into the washing basket if I have only worn them once for a couple of hours. However, I kind of think that all the clothes in my wardrobe should be clean, and as a result the bedroom floor becomes a sort of purgatory for half-clean, half-worn clothes.

Since we moved to the new house, I have let my standards drop a little bit and the clothes have somehow started to pile up at the end of the bed. Nothing like the old days when the only bit of floor you could see in my room was the path going from the door to the bed, just a few things that I had tried on and rejected in the morning.

This morning when I woke up, I was terrified and embarrassed to see that the situation had gotten completely out of hand. Terrified, because I know Ronan hates the pile-up and religiously puts all his clothes into the washing bin after one use, embarrassed because I had no idea I'd let myself slip that badly. I got up and started clearing the pile, and after a while I just couldn't remember trying any of that stuff on lately. Turns the 3-foot little creature ransacking my drawers wasn't just a figment of my imagination, only he doesn't live under the bed: he sleeps in the bed with us and takes up most of the room. He gets up early before us, makes sure that we drift off back to sleep again and gets to work.

Blogosphere, here I come

2007-04-22T10:04:00.000Z

Since we got the broadband installed, I've been trying to make up for my nearly 2-month absence from the Internet community. I've updated my blogroll, caught up with the all my regular reads, signed up to Bloglines reader (following Katherine's example), explored new blogs and even tried to leave a few comments.

I've always been of the lurky as a blog-reader, a non-commenter, and I suppose that means that I'll miss on a few readers too. However, since the blog awards and the forming of the Irish Twitter community, I have promised myself that I will make a genuine effort to keep my over-controlling self-critical blogging side-personality Miss Hyde at bay and spread commenting love wherever I go. It's nice to be nice. Everyone else seems to come out with these genious comments that are witty and sharp, cool and warm at the same time. I hope this also will come naturally to me in time - I can learn, can't I?

I guess the thing about commenting that I've been worrying most about is expressing my opinion. You know, in case I accidentally (or just in the spur of the moment) piss someone off. However, I now have a recently self-discovered super solution for this: I will express my opinion but not in a blunt way. Please note this is something quite new to me and completely against my Finnish nature, so you'll have to excuse me if my first attempts on this fail to bear fruit.

The Twitterer in me is taking over to tell you what I am doing at the moment: waiting for Kerry to go into labour while enjoying a beer and cringing at Cameron Diaz's desperate attempt of an Irish accent in Gangs of New York. So there, now you know.

Shower of bridal thoughts

2007-04-21T23:00:00.000Z

When I think about weddings, I always feel that I haven't been to enough of them to really know what they are all about. Well, obviously they're about celebration of love and witnessing the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Sounds pretty simple, but I have always thought that they follow a certain pre-set pattern. Most of the wedding-related websites I've visited appear to support my theory by waffling on and on about all the protocols and the customs. However, even though I've been to a good few wedding in the recent years, I can't seem to pinpoint too many common factors between the festivities.

One of my best friends got married in 2002, only days before I left Finland to live and work in Ireland for the first time. The wedding was very informal but yet beautiful and quite traditionally Finnish in many ways. There were many unusualities too: the bride was wearing a stunningly unusual dress, the couple were chauffeured from the church to the party venue with Igor (the Finnish adult movie/tattoo and piercing tycoon)'s long white limo, and the wedding band was one of the hottest Finnish rock bands at the time. An entire grilled pig made the dinner feel like one of the Gaulish village fiests pulled out of an Asterix story, with all the guests marinated in Getafix's cauldron of magic potion.

Against all odds, I was also invited to a wedding in Scotland in July 2004, after living there only for a few months. A friend from work had to find a "plus 1" for the wedding of his two childhood friends, and as he was too shy to ask anyone he fancied, I got to go to an authentic Highland wedding that took place in a little chapel in a mountain valley. It was all very traditional, men in kilts and the bag pipe blairing as the couple made their entrance. During the ceremony a friend of the couple, a tall African man sang a serene, breathtaking version of Amazing Grace. The newlyweds stood by a wall-sized window with the stunning backdrop of a pictoresque lake as his sweet voice flooded the room, it was definitely a moment to remember for everyone present.

In the spring of 2005 we went to a wedding in Ronan's family. For me it was a new and unique experience and I will always have warm memories of the night. It was the first wedding I attended in a Catholic church, and I was following the ceremony intently to spot the differences to the Lutheran ceremony - turns out there weren't that many. I met many of Ronan's relatives for the first time on the day, and also the evening party made compare the differences between the Irish and Finnish traditions. The wedding dinner was more formal than what I would've been used to back home, and to my surprise there weren't any games to embarrass the bridal couple - only a line of speeches, which seemed to serve a similar purpose (this I noticed also in the Scottish wedding).

Finally, last summer my sister got married in Helsinki, and Ronan and I had the honour of being the official witnesses in their straightforward but elegant civil ceremony. The other guests joined us at the reception a few hours later on an old (docked) steam boat in the Helsinki harbour. After the speeches we had a lovely buffet dinner and a few drinks. The olden (babysitting) generation eventually bid their goodbyes and us young adults moved downstairs to the nightclub, where DJs were on their positions and the punch was never too strong. At the end of the night my brother's friend took the remaining few guests for a nocturnal spin on his speedboat, which was a one of my best memories of last summer. The event was very definitely (but not exhaustively) quintessential to my sister. She had her nearest and dearest with her, there was nothing ostentatious about the day and the night floated past so smoothly and pleasantly, that I think we all felt the night was over too quickly.

Maybe I'm lucky to have been to such a mixed variety of weddings - at least I don't feel under pressure to have ours to follow a strict schedule and etiquette set by traditions. However, I am looking forward to the three weddings we've been invited to this summer. I'll have my notepad and pen handy and will shamelessly thieve all the best ideas, traditional or unique, for our big day.

Oh, and it's not just your real-life friends that inspire you for all things wedding-related - Twitter can be helpful too when looking for ideas! A while back Ellybabes twittered something using Moo cards to let people know about their wedding gift list, and after thinking about it ever since, I think we might be using Moo minicards for our Save the Dates. See, contrary to popular belief Twittering makes sense: other people's lives can inspire you in unexpected ways.