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So, Mister and Missus have become house sitters. Today we moved into somebody elses house to look after somebody else’s cats. Somebody else’s we barely know and met, really, just the one time. To some, it may seem like an odd thing to do, but when we were asked by a mutual friend whether we’d be interested I discovered the whole thing wasn’t as foreign as I’d imagined. In fact, there’s a whole industry out there bringing home owners and potential sitters together, particularly when it comes to the minding of pets. And that part I can understand, as I couldn’t imagine putting Miss Tilly into a doggy hotel no matter how convincing their sales pitch. She wouldn’t speak to me again, I’m sure of it.
Anyway, back to us. For the next month we’re sleeping in someone elses bed, showering in their…well, shower, and watching their pay tv. And guess what? There’s a whole channel dedicated to foodie type programming! I’m set then, so. Poor Mister Emmet.
I’m interested in the type of people who partake in this house sitting business. For us, this is a whole new experience. I’m already longing for our own home as I look around at things I would change or move around, but haven’t the power to. I don’t think I could do it as a long term thing, and moving from place to place, with no control over your immediate surrounds, well, I reckon that would drive me batty. But people do. They travel from place to place on the basis of where a home needs to be sat, work locally and then move on to the next place. Some are young, and apparently many are grey nomads. Hmmmm. Anyway, it’s all new to me, but something I might look into.
Oh, and there’s a cat on the pay tv box blocking the receiver…looks like we’re stuck on the food channel then. Bugger.
Chicken Paprikash – Paprikas Csirke
2 large onions – sliced
3 banana paprika – roughly chopped
2 large tomatoes – roughly chopped
1 cup mushrooms – sliced
12 chicken drumsticks (or 8-10 if large)
2 tbls vegetable oil
2 cups hot water
1 teaspoon salt – to season
1 carton sour cream
Heat oil in a pot. Add onions and sweat until just translucent.
Add drumsticks, paprika and tomatoes. Add about a teaspoon of salt and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring so as not to burn.
Add about 2 cups of hot water, bring to a simmer and leave until chicken is cooked through (this may take an hour, if not more).
Remove the drumsticks and set aside to cool slightly. Pour the remaining broth and vegetables into a strainer.
Place the broth back into the pot and place back on the stove. Add in the mushrooms and cover.
Press the vegetables through the strainer to create a puree. They should be soft and malleable, with only the tougher skin remaining in the sieve after puree-ing.
Add the puree to the broth and mushrooms. Remove the chicken meat from the bone (optional) and add back into the pot. Add sour cream a tablespoon at a time and mix in until you’re happy with the consistency – I’d add around 3/4 to 1 whole carton to this amount of paprikash.
NB: If the sauce is not thick enough for your liking, you can add 2 teaspoons of corn flour to some water and add that in as a thickening agent.
Nokedli
2 large or 3 small eggs
400g plain flour
1 pinch salt
water
pot of boiling salted water
Mix flour, eggs, pinch of salt together in a large bowl. Slowly add up to 1 cup of water to reach a sticky doughy consistency.
Place the mixture into a nokedli maker (if you’re lucky enough to have one), and drip into a pot of boiling salted water.
The nokedli doesn’t take long at all – and is ready when it floats to the top of the boiling water.
Serving is easy – place nokedli on a plate and place chicken and sauce either beside or on top – it all needs to be mixed together to eat anyway! Jo etvagyat!
…see you in Aus!
….cont.
Monday 19 April 2010: I’m woken by Emmet reacting to a dream. It’s an abrupt awakening, but after a satisfying nights sleep I’m not fussed. Outside is the hum of people biking and boating their way to work. The clothes I washed in the hotel sink the night before have dried on the radiator. Emmet and I pack the bag before deciding to stay another night in our hotel. We’ve learnt from experience that we’re unlikely to be able to book any mode of transport out of the city for the same day, so plan on another night of comfort before we’re back sleeping in our seats. We trek back to the library but not before stopping off to have a pancake and omelette for breakfast. At the library I spend time Googling transport options while Emmet emails all and sundry to let them know we’re stuck but okay. I manage to coordinate three buses, one from Amsterdam to Brussels through the Dutch Eurolines website, one from Brussels to London through the Belgian Eurolines website, and the final leg from London to ol’ Dublin town through the UK version of the Eurolines website. With no direct route available, this was our only option. Emmet handed over his credit card as his is in Euros, mine is in Aussie dollars, and I made the bookings. Emmet runs back and forth between me, the printer, and the print voucher machine until we have all of our tickets in our hot little hands. It takes a few hours to coordinate, but when we’re done we can spend the afternoon relaxing in Amsterdam.
We walk down some shopping streets as Emmet has wrecked his jeans around the ankles. He wears jeans almost every day so it’s no wonder they die quite horrific deaths. He tries on a pair and we take them. He also has a look for some shoes but the prices are quite high and we can’t seem to find anything decent on sale. Never mind. We stop in at a Waterstones and pick up some reading material for the onward journey. I get a colourful magazine as I can’t read on buses without getting a headache. Emmet gets something far more intellectual. We both get a left over Easter egg on sale at the counter. We wander through the streets and along the canals until we’re back at the hotel. We prepare ourselves an in-room picnic and eat sandwiches, cheese and salad. Emmet drinks a beer he has been lusting after for some time. It tastes like chocolate. We check the news and hear that airports may begin opening from tomorrow. I hear the sound of what might be a plane and Emmet opens the window. The plane! At least another three follow it before we fall asleep.
Tuesday 20 April 2010: Back in our travel outfits – trackies, t-shirts, cardigans and coats – we load up the backpack with supplies and head on over to Amsterdam Amstel for our 12.30pm bus to Brussels. The woman at the desk tells us there’s an earlier bus and offers us a seat, which we take. She also informs us that she had a number of spaces on a bus to London this morning. Bugger! When we arrived in Amsterdam there was quite a crowd, and anticipating the same today we had opted for booking online rather than just arriving at the ticket office to see what services were going in our direction. Never mind. We get on the bus and leave Amsterdam behind us. There’s a fellow on the bus who seems to be stoned. He’s making nervous movements that are making me a little nervous too. He keeps taking to the driver and seems to have trouble operating the toilet door. Soon he relaxes into his seat and we’re half way to where we need to be. The driver has his own issues going on as he follows the GPS a little too faithfully and takes us to a pedestrian street with an overpass his bus is too big to pass under. He puts the bus into reverse and sends a passenger out to make sure the road is clear. It’s anything but. We have to negotiate trams, bikes and less than impressed Mercedes drivers, none of whom care to be inconvenienced for the few minutes it would take our driver to turn around. Eventually he’s out of the tight squeeze and we’re off again.
We arrive in Brussels and check with the Eurolines desk to see if there is an earlier bus to London. Ours is scheduled to leave at 10.45pm. It’s around 4pm when we arrive in Brussels. It appears not. We walk into town and grab a bite to eat in a shopping mall. Brussels is not my favourite place, although Emmet has a soft spot for it. We buy the newspaper and read up on all we have been missing without access to English news. Emmet buys some comfy, and less smelly, shoes and I consider purchasing a radio for the next leg but opt not to.
Emmet calls home from the train station before we head back to the Eurolines waiting room. It begins to fill with people and we’re glad we have a ticket. There’s a rush to join the queue when it hits 9.30pm. A young lass has an epileptic episode and is taken away in an ambulance. Fortunately she makes it back in time to take her bus home. We are checked on bus number 12, which is one of the latter buses to leave even though it was the first to be allocated. We get seats together and the journey continues, but not before some hiccups with passengers leaving their luggage on the footpath expecting someone to place it in the hold rather than doing it themselves! Six or seven buses left Brussels bound for London that evening. All full.
Wednesday 21 April 2010: It’s dark and I’m tired. There’s not much to be seen on the way to the ferry in Calais other than other buses and trucks passing us by in the same direction. Emmet is watching, excited and curious as to whether we’ll be taking a ferry or going via the Channel Tunnel. We’re headed for the ferry. We get off the bus briefly for a passport check by both French and UK authorities. The French guards are a little intimidating. I’m shaking like a leaf from the cold hoping it doesn’t make me look too suspicious in from of the man holding my passport. The British lady on the other side was much more upbeat for someone working at 1 in the morning. We board the ferry and have to stay awake for the duration of sail. Tea is welcomed, as are some Lindt chocolates Emmet had picked up in Brussels. The sea is dark. There’s nothing to see. We get back on the bus and drive along the Dover coast until we pick up the road into London.
The stop-start of London’s ample red lights wakes us both. A wave of joy passes over me, quickly followed by the dread of having to wait 12 hours for our connecting bus to Dublin. I’m too tired for anymore of this. The five hours to Brussels, the five hours waiting time and the seven hours to London have taken it out of me and I get the shakes from exhaustion. When we arrive at London the bus station is full of lost souls. It’s difficult to tell the difference between stranded travellers and the homeless. The toilets are locked, which does not please me as I’ve been holding it for quite some time. We arrive ten minutes ahead of the scheduled check-in time for the next bus to Dublin, leaving at 6am. We wait. Emmet jumps in the line and hands over his ticket to the lady, who subsequently hands him our boarding cards. I’m pleased and have a new-found burst of adrenalin keeping me upright. Emmet worries that the Eurolines lady hasn’t read his ticket properly and not seen that it’s actually for the 6pm bus. He rejoins the queue to make sure we’re not taking the place of someone else on the bus. We’re not, so we take our seats and wait to depart. The driver allows eight additional passengers to board. They’ve been in the bus station a while now waiting as stand-by passengers. I’m glad to see them join the bus. Within twenty minutes of boarding we’re bound for Dublin and I am happy that our homeward journey is now some 12 hours from coming to an end.
I’m not envious of the couple in front of us having a blue. They’re going to be spending the next 12 hours together and she’s totally ignoring his pleas. A random Irish lass boards the bus and begs the girl in front for a sip of her water. She’s perished, apparently. She remains obnoxious for the remainder of the journey. Thankfully Emmet and I are far enough away from her to listen in without having to enter into any direct contact. Somewhere along the way she mentions how lucky we are to have been trapped in such ‘civilised’ countries. I’m not sure what she means by that but feel I should be either ashamed or embarrassed on behalf of someone. This journey’s discomfort is also physical. It’s the tightest of all the buses so far. It’s also the coldest. A woman in front of us complains to the driver who turns up the air conditioning after a short pit stop. We’re in Watford. I think. It’s soon too hot on the bus as the sun beats down through clear skies and the massive bus windows. The whole journey there has been nothing but sunshine and I wonder how far up this ash cloud is supposed to be if there’s absolutely no sign of it from the ground. My suspicions are confirmed as my Irish companions begin to melt…the Irish don’t cope well with heat. The same woman who asked for the temperature to be raised asks for it to be turned back down again. The air conditioning is stuck. The driver can’t pull over as the bus too is stuck, in traffic. There’s only just enough time to get to the ferry before it leaves so we make do with random bursts of cool air and slowly warming bottles of water.
The English countryside is glorious in the sunshine. The contrasting green fields and blue sky are stunning. Wales too. Especially around the coastline. Spring is truly in the air, with the leaves of the trees breaking through and flowers blooming. I entertain my inner child and announce ‘sheeps’ and ‘cows’ as we travel along. There are youngsters and mothers hanging out in every species. Soon enough we’re an hour from the ferry’s scheduled departure time. 40kms to go. Wait, no, it’s 40 miles! Damn it, there’s no town nor port in sight! It’s a photo finish but we make it in time to be waved on board, minutes before the ferry pulls away. We’re so close!
The inscription on my wedding ring reads ‘…and yes I said yes I will Yes’, quoting Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Emmet’s has it too. And that day, Wednesday 21 April 2010, the Ulysses brought us home to Dublin.
