Planning a trip to Ireland? Some useful vocabulary

Bad dream - what can it mean?

Not being 'in love with my job' shall we say, is causing sleepless nights, with Sundays particularly likely to see me bug-eyed and wide-awake into the small hours. An unusually early start today combined with a dose of liver salts aimed at righting an upset stomach added to the problem. So much so that I seemed to spend half the night having an unsettling and incomprehensible dream.

In a nutshell, we were driving up a really steep hill when the car started slipping backwards - rather embarrassingly, this is a real fear of mine. Somehow - and I don't remember the details - I managed to get out of the car. As did him indoors. Next thing we were walking towards a really beautiful, stark white house, of three or four storeys. I knew we were in Ireland, without knowing how I knew. We were in the countryside, there were trees and sheep around. Despite the beauty of the house, when I walked behind it was a very plain, red brick building - industrial in style. Oddly the shape of the back of the building didn't correspond with the front. For some reason I thought it was an asylum or something of that ilk.

Perhaps it's as well I woke up when I did. But what in god's name did that all mean?

Neil Hannon sings 'The Word Up'

Neil Hannon - what a hero. Found this during my Sunday online meanderings - a thing of absolute joy. 

Shamrock in Surrey ...

Had possibly my least Irish St Patrick's Day ever - but lo and behold, shamrock on sale in Dorking station. There's hope for Surrey yet!

The power of coincidence

I was trudging home from the station this evening - remember, first day back at work after a fortnight off - listening to Van Morrison singing "Cleaning Windows", when I saw ... the local window cleaner.

And, searching vainly for the song on YouTube, I came across a cover of Morrison's 'Into the mystic', by Jen Chapin, who I saw live, completely by coincidence, in Chicago last year.

So there, I'm feeling more cheerful already. Although my secret confession about Jen Chapin is that her small son was making so much noise (sitting in front of me) during the gig that I bailed out before it finished. Jen, hope this will make it up to you ...

Beethoven as a migraine cure

Have been a bit blog-idle this week, but am hoping to make amends over the weekend. A combination of a migraine, hot weather and too much work knocked me for six, but you can imagine my delight at discovering that Migraleve mixed with loud Beethoven seems to cure even the worst headache.

Last night saw my Cadogan Hall debut - in the audience, I hasten to add - for an Oxford Philomusica and London Symphony Chorus gig. The opening piece, 'The Big Bang and Creation of the Universe' by the either improbably or utterly appropriately named Nimrod Borenstein was rather beautiful. I'm not a fan of modern classical music (having once attended a prom where the main piece sounding like rain coming through a leaky roof), but I liked this - particularly the oboe solos and the use of pizzicato.

The main piece was Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, the Choral symphony. As a lapsed horn player, I loved the horn parts. It was a 5-man section, and they had their work cut out for them. Being right at the front in the cheap seats meant that although we probably had an accoustically warped experience overall, we were all but sitting in the horn section, with all the old South Ulster Youth Orchestra (dear god, they didn't have Myspace in my day)memories that evoked.

My concert friend was unburdened by misty-eyed memories of Saturday mornings spent butchering the classical repertoire. His verdict on the Beethoven? "It's odd that we were most moved by the slow movement. The outer movements were dross." Also sprach Zarathustra .....

A double whammy last night - a Christy Moore gig at the Royal Festival Hall (one of my two favourite buildings in London, the other being Battersea Power Station). He's a fantastic singer, with one of those voices that, if you're Irish, you'll know straight away. He sounds like no other. And not many singers have the luxury of being accompanied by Declan Sinnott of Horslips.

A great set - some brilliant songs, listened to as much for the lyrics as the music. There was a Joni Mitchell one about the Magdalen Laundries - given the news coming out of Ireland these days, those lyrics made you sit up in your seat. And, being from Norn Iron, my night was made by a quick blast of 'I'll tell me ma'. But for me, the song that made the heart skip a beat was 'The well below the valley', with Moore accompanying himself on the bodhran.

There's no denying the quality of the music. My only quibble, ironically, would be the venue - Irish music doesn't lend itself to sitting down. Let's see them at the Roundhouse next time.

Lasagne followed by apple crumble

We have a friend from home staying tonight, and I am breaking with tradition by actually cooking. I will have to warn him that tonight's dinner represents my entire culinary repertoire (apart from soup). Rather embarrassingly, I have every cookbook under the sun, but I really just like looking at the pictures.

Tonight's recipes come from two of my favourites. The apple crumble recipe comes from The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. This has special memories - published in the sixties, it was the mainstay of my mother's cooking when we were growing up. She gave her copy to my sister (she's the domesticated one), who in turn bought me a copy when we were browsing in a sadly shortlived second hand book shop in Stromness (in the Orkneys).

The lasagne recipe comes from Eating to Win - a collection of favourite recipes donated by leading Irish rugby players of a couple of years ago. Thank-you Kevin Maggs! It's a great book - not least for the photos - but you can tell a lot about the players by the recipes they've suggested. Some of them are obviously from swanky restaurants, while others were clearly supplied by their mammies. Aw, bless!