Who needs a Kong when you've a perfectly good skirting board to chew?

Introducing...

Gaia - our wonderdog!

Things Gaia doesn't like to play with:

1. Her Kong toy, unless it is filled with peanut butter. Then she will play with it for five minutes until the peanut butter is gone.

2. Her rubber bone toy from Zooplus.

3. Her tennis ball with cute doggie prints on it; made especially for fetch with your pet pooch.

4. The "Dog Frisbee" we got when we realised tennis balls weren't her thing.

5. Her cute elephant rope toy for "tugging and throwing fun" from the pet shop in Swords.

Things Gaia does like to play with:

1. My socks - preferably the low cut ankle ones.  She loves ripping them to pieces.

2. The skirting boards.  The one in the kitchen is her favourite. 

3. Kieran's expensive gloves that he bought for working on site.  They are now fingerless.

4. My pink ballet style slip on shoe.  I only have the left one now.

5. The plants in the kitchen.  Nothing like a good old dig in a pot plant.

6. Bills, postcards, leaflets, parcels and/or packages that are posted through our letter box.  

7. The leftovers in the small brown bin.  She likes nothing better than tossing the contents of it around the kitchen.

All the better to chew the shit out of everything you own with, my dear.

So what have I learned?  Never buy toys for your dog as they will find plenty to play with in your house that costs nothing. (Unless you count the time spent cleaning up after your little angel)

Let them eat cake... at THE Avoca

I visited Avoca recently.  In Malahide Castle.  It really is a fabulous place.  The kind of place where I keep expecting to be tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave. Politely, of course.  It consists of a grocery, deli, home ware and clothing shop and at the back there is the famous Avoca Café.  It is yummy mummy heaven.  I hate that word but if ever there was a need to use it it's in reference to THE Avoca.  Parked at the café entrance are rows of Bug-a-Boo strollers, Silver Cross prams and Maxi Cosi travel systems.  Inside the pampered parents share gargantuan portions of Raspberry Roulade with their gal pals (Do you know how many points are in a whole one of them?!) while little Senan chews on stalks of broccoli with side dips: "Oh he just LOVES hummus!"

Let them eat Giant Almond Roulade (with berry garnish!)

Again, I am going off on a tangent...  Back to the story in hand.  I finished my (pretty crappy) cappucino and accompanying (absolutely devine) monster chocolate roulade (that I ate all by myself) and headed to the shop.  I wanted to bring home a treat for my husband and maybe even a little something more for me. I was checking out the baked cheesecakes, banana loaves and chunky rocky road squares when I noticed something written on the boxes.  I picked it up for closer inspection.  Yes, I was right.  It said "Let them eat cake."  With a picture of Marie Antoinette for good measure.  For those of you who were asleep during Junior Cert History - "Let them eat cake" is the rumoured line offered by Antoinette when told starving peasants had no bread.

Now, I know many historians will say Marie Antoinette was unfairly targeted by the French revolutionists.  She was, essentially, completely ignorant of the world around her.  She wasn't to blame for the poverty of the peasants in a country ruled by her husband.  But at the same time, it was that ignorance that led to the French Revolution.  That's how closed off the upper classes were to the working classes.  They lived in their ostentatious land of brioche, Camembert and champagne, oblivious to the suffering of the masses.  Not unlike the pretentious patronage of THE Avoca., eh?  (Joke!)

And that's why I hate them using that tag line.  That quote represents everything that is wrong with the world, then and now. And Avoca 's use of it shows a total disregard for the suffering of not only those French peasants but the suffering of others that still goes on today and tomorrow and probably forever.  

Surely I am not blaming The Avoca for world poverty?  Have I gone too far?  Wait until you see my post on Abercrombie and Fitch.