Wednesday 6 August 2014
Tuesday 5 August 2014
I bought a lovely picture of Hemingway house in the airport on the way home from Key West. It is a print of a painting by a local artist. And it was only about $7....seriously cheap imo.
So today I got around to getting a frame for the picture - in Ikea!
The frame cost €4.50
A little bit of paradise at home in Dublin. I love it.
Now I just need to pick a nice place to hang it.
Monday 28 July 2014
Enid and I went to the closing night of Dirty Dancing last week and it was a really great night.
First we went to Tribeca in Ranelagh.
We love this place.
A glass of Malbec and a hamburger - I have never ordered anything different here!!!!! Even though everything else smells so nice and looks so good I just can't resist the hamburgers. They are the best hamburgers I have ever eaten - and that includes America.
Dirty Dancing
Overall I really really enjoyed the whole night and the production as a whole.
Was it the best musical I have ever seen? No, but as I said overall I really enjoyed the night.
The pros!
The DANCING!!!! The dancing was incredible.
Johnny Castle! The guy who played Johnny was very hawt :-)
Johnny Castle's muscles! The guy who played Johnny had awesome arm muscles
The feel - I really think they captured the conservative feel of an exclusive summer resort in the 60's. I felt like I was THERE.
I liked the additional scenes which were different to the film - the folks singing We Shall Overcome around the campfire.
The theme of standing up and fighting for what you feel and believe, I think came through even stronger than the film.
The chalet/bedroom scenes between Baby and John were very evocative
The cons!
I found the acting - especially Baby :-( - to be a little bit screechy. But I don't know if that is just theatre and we were right up the back so maybe they just need to overact to get the message up to us all up in the Gods.
The costumes - I loved the WINE coloured Kellerman t-shirts the men staff wore, but I don't know why the girls staff then wore RED skirts. Note to production: this is not England/they were not redcoats, should've gone for wine in my opinion.
A lot of the jokes fell flat. Maybe shouldn't have gone down the comedic route at all??
So, I say again I had a great night but have to admit that I wouldn't be rushing to see it again. BUT it did whet my appetite for ROCK OF AGES which I am going to see (again) at the end of September. I cannot wait!
Sunday 20 July 2014
David and I went for a nice breakfast in the The Twelfth Lock this morning.
It is a cute little building situated on the banks of the Royal Canal (at the twelfth lock!!) and it was particularly picturesque in today's summer sun.
David had the mini breakfast - one of everything - sausage, rasher, tomato, black and white pudding, and tea and toast. I got two poached eggs and rashers plus a coffee and toast.
It was all very nice and this is probably the best value breakfast I have ever had in Dublin:
Tuesday 15 July 2014
Sunday 13 July 2014
I was at my friends Caitriona and Stephen's wedding yesteday. It was a lovely relaxed day and evening - a very cool wedding held in the beautiful settings of Horetown House..
Unfortunately my phone (i.e. my camera is still out of action) so I don't have photos of all the nice touches at this wedding that I would like to show you :-(
So this is me all dressed up for the wedding. You can't really see it in this pic but my hair was styled very 60/70's a la Sharon Stone in Casino.
I wore my own wedding shoes and purse. I've used the little clutch before, but this was the first time in 6/7 years that I've worn the shoes. They were actually very comfortable!
So here's some of those little touches I mentioned!
The dressing on the tables was so nice and rustic and very herb inspired!
At either side of the big plant pot there were vintage teacups with flowers and plants in them.
Tucked into our napkins was the most divine smelling sprig of rosemary. I kept fingering and smelling it throughout the evening, and I noticed around the room, I was not the only person doing this.
What an adorable dessert table! Notice the lavender in the mugs - there was a lot of lavender in the church also, plus the little flower girl had a wreath of lavender in her hair.
The cakes and macaroons were home made by a relative of the grooms.
Fun with dressing up!
In one of the drawing rooms Caitriona had set up a chest of dressing up props. Plus there was a polaroid camera (with tons and tons of boxes of polaroid film!) and a wedding album.
We all had fun taking photos and gluing them into an album and writing a message.
It was a really great day. Horetown House is a very nice big old country estate house. The drinks reception (champers and divine hors d'oeuvres) was held in two big adjoining drawing/sitting rooms. We then moved into a great big marquee (rustic white sheeting and lovely whitewashed wooden floor) for the meal and dancing. And then at about 2am a lot of the wedding party headed down into the cellar to the bar for some music and singing - both families are verrrrrry musical.
Thank you to Caitriona and Stephen for a beautiful day.
Ps. It is really unfortunate I have no more photos, I have a feeling you would all LOVE to see the bride, her dress was like something out of Downton Abbey, and the bridesmaids, oh my gosh, divine 1950's dusky pink brocade dresses.
Wednesday 9 July 2014
I did something really really stupid and left my iPad on the train on Monday morning.
How the hell did I do that?!!!! Well let me explain.
In Dublin we have this free newspaper (the Metro) which I was reading on the train. I had my iPad on the table also and when I finished the newspaper I put it on top of the iPad. I then dozed off for a few minutes...I sometimes do this on the train :-) And while I was starting to doze off, I actually remember thinking, now that is a really silly place for your iPad, you're going to forget it because you can't see it. And what did I do? Exactly that!
So when I realised I had left it *umm which was only about 4 hours later (embarrassed face)*, I got straight onto Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail) and talked to some very helpful people who set about trying to help me. It had not been handed in to Lost Property at this point...which was not good news.
By 6pm that evening I really had given up hope. But (co-incidentally enough) while I was on the train home Irish Rail rang me to say that it had been handed in. They sounded very surprised - but happy for me.
So the next morning I collected it in the main Dublin station on my way into work. The phone number of the guy who had handed it in was there as well. I texted him to tell him how grateful I was. Plus I asked for his address as I wanted to send him something small. He replied saying my text was enough as he is just glad it is back with the owner, plus he hoped somebody would do the same for him some day. I am sure Karma will be good to him in the future...
I really was so lucky to get it back.
I like to think that my "One Human Family" sticker on the iPad cover had something to do with it coming back to me! :-)
How the hell did I do that?!!!! Well let me explain.
In Dublin we have this free newspaper (the Metro) which I was reading on the train. I had my iPad on the table also and when I finished the newspaper I put it on top of the iPad. I then dozed off for a few minutes...I sometimes do this on the train :-) And while I was starting to doze off, I actually remember thinking, now that is a really silly place for your iPad, you're going to forget it because you can't see it. And what did I do? Exactly that!
So when I realised I had left it *umm which was only about 4 hours later (embarrassed face)*, I got straight onto Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail) and talked to some very helpful people who set about trying to help me. It had not been handed in to Lost Property at this point...which was not good news.
By 6pm that evening I really had given up hope. But (co-incidentally enough) while I was on the train home Irish Rail rang me to say that it had been handed in. They sounded very surprised - but happy for me.
So the next morning I collected it in the main Dublin station on my way into work. The phone number of the guy who had handed it in was there as well. I texted him to tell him how grateful I was. Plus I asked for his address as I wanted to send him something small. He replied saying my text was enough as he is just glad it is back with the owner, plus he hoped somebody would do the same for him some day. I am sure Karma will be good to him in the future...
I really was so lucky to get it back.
I like to think that my "One Human Family" sticker on the iPad cover had something to do with it coming back to me! :-)
Wednesday 2 July 2014
Well hello there!
I have not blogged for a while for a combination of reasons.
Firstly I was on holidays in Key West, Florida so I always I would do less blogging than usual over the last two weeks. However I could not connect my laptop to the wifi so unfortunately there was literally no blogging whatsoever.
Secondly, the night before I was flying out my phone, which I use for taking photos and immediate uploading died a death*.
So I took a lot of photographs with dad's camera, and I now have them loaded on the laptop, but now I need to arrange uploading them and doing blog posts about my trip.
This weekend I will hopefully get a few posts up about wonderful Key West.
*"Died a death" - a unique Irish way of saying something methinks :-)
I have not blogged for a while for a combination of reasons.
Firstly I was on holidays in Key West, Florida so I always I would do less blogging than usual over the last two weeks. However I could not connect my laptop to the wifi so unfortunately there was literally no blogging whatsoever.
Secondly, the night before I was flying out my phone, which I use for taking photos and immediate uploading died a death*.
So I took a lot of photographs with dad's camera, and I now have them loaded on the laptop, but now I need to arrange uploading them and doing blog posts about my trip.
This weekend I will hopefully get a few posts up about wonderful Key West.
*"Died a death" - a unique Irish way of saying something methinks :-)
Sunday 8 June 2014
Enid (of renovating lpa) and I arranged to meet our friend Alice for brunch in The Gibson Hotel this morning.
We had a good old catch up :-)
And the food wasn't half bad either!
First up a little amuse bouche
Strawberry yoghurt smoothie and little fruit and custard pastry.
These were a really cute teeny tiny size. I put my ring on the plate to show the scale - the first photo I took made them look huge.
Starter
We ordered some salmon and tuna sashimi to share. Alice noted that some ginger would have finished the plate off. Plus we all agreed that the tuna was not rare enough.
Mains
I got the Gibson full fry - great flavours...a little cold though!
Enid and Alice both got the Eggs Royale - Eggs Benedict but with salmon instead of ham. Enid got her hollandaise sauce on the side.
They both really enjoyed it - in particular the English muffin which Enid figured were freshly baked.
Two vodka and diet cokes (sure Enid and I weren't driving!)
Orange Juice
A tea and two coffees
€64 before tip.
Oh! And let's not forget the nice little jazz quartet playing in the corner. All in all quite nice.
3.5/5...mainly because my fry was on the cold side.
Saturday 7 June 2014
We had a nice night out on "the southside" last night. Myself, Enid, David and Ciaran ate out in Roly's Bistro in Ballsbridge - the cafe part.
I have eaten in Roly's a few times, a long time ago...must be about 8 years ago...and was interested to see that they have added a cafe and bakery to their stable. We chose the cafe as our venue as we were looking for somewhere a little more casual then the (beautiful) restaurant.
The menu is extremely good value. €23.95 for a 3 course meal. You cannot go wrong as they say :-)
STARTERS
Starters were very nice. David ordered thai fish cakes which came out as fat little balls. They were very tasty and a good amount of fish in them - sometimes I find fish cakes low on fish and high on filler/potato. Enid and I ordered two starters and then split them between us - crab claws (mmmm!!!) and smoked salmon and brown bread. It was a good choice!
Ciaran ordered duck spring rolls and he really enjoyed them.
MAINS
Amy - fish pie - FABULOUS!
David - thai red curry - he went all out on the thai theme :-) and he said the curry was very good indeed.
Enid & Ciaran - beef - a nice piece of meat but disappointingly not cooked to their liking. They both ordered them rare and when they came out Enid's was medium to well, and Ciaran's was well done. I would say. I think you can see in the photo above how over cooked they both were. They both agreed lovely piece of meat all the same (which saved it for them) but as I said disappointing.
Also, we had to ask for steak knives as well which I felt was a bit lax of the staff.
I did like the way the chips were served though - in a cute little "newspaper" cone with an article about Roly's on it :-)
DESSERTS
I really like the way they serve their desserts. Desserts are mini and you get to choose two!
Enid and I both took the Bailey's cheesecake - she also got the Banoffi and I the Tiramisiu.
We both enjoyed the Bailey's, both agreeing it was very sweet. My tiramisiu was very flavourful. Enid's banoffi was "ok", she has eaten better.
David got the mini strawberry pavlova which he enjoyed, plus the banoffi - and he agreed with Enid that he has eaten better banoffi.
Nice bottle of malbec (Dona Paula) rounded out the evening.
€137 before tip, for four, that is seriously good value.
Overall a very nice evening - good company, good wine, nice atmosphere in the restaurant, good food (apart from the steak blips!). I'd give Roly's a 3.75/5.
Sunday 1 June 2014
This weekend is a long weekend in Ireland which means no work on Monday, hooray! Friends of ours hosted a festival in their holiday home beside the beach in County Wexford.
All the essentials, car packed up and ready to go.
The theme of the festival was "Tedfest" which is a celebration of the tv comedy show Father Ted so we all dressed up as different characters from the program.
Myself and Aileen were "lovely girls" and Sue was a nun...who also was a lovely girl :-)
Here's some more of the great costumes/people in character - as you can see there was great effort made with the costumes and the decorations.
The full group posed for a photo before it got dark.
Note the prop/lecturn in the middle of the photo.
Plus the fabulous view of the sea in the background on the left.
I think these pics capture the great "mini-festival" feel :-)
Teapots??? Tea?? you ask..
Tea plays a big part in Father Ted as well you know so it was only right that it played a part in our festival, but eh ahem, there was something stronger than tea being served in these teapots! :-)
The pineapple in this photo served as a label that there were cocktails in the teapots
As it got dark (and cold!!!!) a fire was lit. We really needed it....it was quite cold even though it had been a nice sunny day. So for the night we all sat around the fire drinking, chatting and listening to music.
One really important thing that I need to mention (and sadly that I have NO photos of!!!!) is the FOOD.
Our host Andy, slowcooked the most amazing, amazing, AMAZING pulled brisket and pulled pork. The texture and flavour of it was incredible. Thank you Andy.
In addition we all threw normal bbq food on the barbie throughout the night so we were well fed.
Next morning!
David and I went for a walk on the beach where David caught found a fish. We brought it back up the house and Andy had a bit of craic with it waking people up in their tents and campervans with a fish in their face. Nice!
We then set about having breakfast -bbq'd food again, nyom.
And then over the morning/early afternoon people started packing up and leaving.
The great thing about this incredible place/house:
As I said above, we were all packing up etc - very slowly.
So we were all making tracks to get on the road back to Dublin - very slowly - when someone mentioned "maybe just checking out the path to the beach" which had been damaged in a storm recently. So a few of us pottered off "to see the path" and sure what would you know, suddenly there we were, way passed the path all down on the lovely beach again.
It's just that kind of place! Time has no meaning.
It's hard to put into words how special Saleen - the house and land is - so I took some photos to try capture it's charm:
It's an old house that has been in the McVey family for three generations - our friends' grandparents bought this house back in the 1950's I believe.
I also took some photos of a very special "document" in the house.
They have a visitors's book which was started in 1961! Isn't that great?
And it's not just me who thinks it's special, so does Pierce Brosnan :-)
And then on the way home I got a huge ice-cream *big happy smug face*
A great night!
Until next year for the next festival :-)
Thank you Richie, Sue and Andy!
Monday 26 May 2014
Have you heard the latest on KK and K? Apparently they are currently honeymooning in Ireland!
Here in Ireland we pride ourselves on having a bit of fun and our sense of humour.
We also like gently ribbing or "slagging" other people, and I did laugh when I saw a joke newspaper (a bit like The Onion) and the joke article they ran about Kim sightseeing in a famous cave: read it here
Enid and I were at a great festival yesterday selling a few bits and pieces - teeshirts, wallhangings and bric brac or as we were calling it "tat" :-)
We made sure we brought the essentials with us - big flask of boiling water and tea and coffee!
I hung my wall-hangings from the gazebo and I think they looked pretty good.
But sadly I made no sales... I think they may have been priced higher than people expected to pay at a music festival. Ah well!
Here is Enid in our stall. I think we had it laid out nicely.
Enid's t-shirts were a big seller on the day.
They have a picture of an old fashioned motorbike on them and say "I'm not old, I'm vintage" on the front.
I think they would make a good gift for Father's Day.
If you are interested in one for your dad why not mail Enid eniddublin@hotmail.com €12.50/$15 +postage! (no postage if in Ireland)
Wednesday 21 May 2014
I haven't been sleeping great lately :-( so have been trying different things to help me. David has (rightly) said that I should do more exercise. So this evening I planned on getting off the train one station early and walking home. It's not a long walk but it is just so boring of a walk!
When it came to the early station I sooooooo did not want to do it. Even though it was a lovely sunny evening I really had to force myself to get off that train.
Anyway, off I set out of the station when I noticed a sign for a walkway along the canal.
I had never seen this sign before - how silly is that!
It was a much nicer walk than my usual route - and really quiet with just the sounds of birds chirping.
The path was crossed with tree roots and rocks so it also was challenging on the mind as you had to watch where you walked. I enjoyed that.
Some great views!
And then I arrived to my estate.
I took a photo of the entrance because it is just so nice to see it in sunshine for a change.
I live here!
Saturday 17 May 2014
Yesterday, I was at an event in the lovely Scholars hotel and restaurant in Drogheda.
It's a lovely old building with fantastic wood pannelled wall covering - it was originally the Christian brothers's convent.
We were situated in private room off the dining room, with two of the above long tables.
Look how they folded the napkin! Like a little dinner/tuxedo jacket.
So cute. I'd love to learn how to do this.
My starter - mussels in garlic and white wine cream sauce. Nice big fat juicy mussels - some of the best flavour mussels I've tasted in a long time.
For main I had chicken supreme, and then for dessert I had chocolate eclairs mmm!
Nice wine, two little vodkas, I was set up :-) and really enjoyed it,
Friday 16 May 2014
From the Green Ribbon website:
See Change, the National Stigma Reduction Partnership and our 90 partner organisations are rolling out a month long national Green Ribbon Campaign to get people talking openly about mental health problems in May 2014.
More than 300,000 green ribbons will be distributed nationwide free of charge to spark a national conversation about mental health in boardrooms, break-rooms, chat rooms, clubhouses, arts venues, college campuses and around kitchen tables throughout Ireland. Our aim is to make the month of May every year synonymous with promoting open conversation of mental health and challenging the stigma of mental health problems.
Just like the pink ribbon has become a powerful symbol for breast cancer awareness, this lime green ribbon has been established in the US and beyond as the international symbol for challenging the stigma of mental health problems.
See Change is a growing partnership of 90 Irish organisations, volunteers and ambassadors working together to change attitudes and behaviours to mental health problems and end stigma.
From me:
Today is #timetotalk day when all are being encouraged to talk to someone about mental health. To talk in general, in order to break down stigmas or to specifically someone about their mental health. Or even just to listen.
Green Ribbon on facebook - go on, give 'em a like :-)
See Change, the National Stigma Reduction Partnership and our 90 partner organisations are rolling out a month long national Green Ribbon Campaign to get people talking openly about mental health problems in May 2014.
More than 300,000 green ribbons will be distributed nationwide free of charge to spark a national conversation about mental health in boardrooms, break-rooms, chat rooms, clubhouses, arts venues, college campuses and around kitchen tables throughout Ireland. Our aim is to make the month of May every year synonymous with promoting open conversation of mental health and challenging the stigma of mental health problems.
Just like the pink ribbon has become a powerful symbol for breast cancer awareness, this lime green ribbon has been established in the US and beyond as the international symbol for challenging the stigma of mental health problems.
See Change is a growing partnership of 90 Irish organisations, volunteers and ambassadors working together to change attitudes and behaviours to mental health problems and end stigma.
From me:
Today is #timetotalk day when all are being encouraged to talk to someone about mental health. To talk in general, in order to break down stigmas or to specifically someone about their mental health. Or even just to listen.
Green Ribbon on facebook - go on, give 'em a like :-)
Monday 12 May 2014
Sunday 11 May 2014
My laptop has been broken for a week or two so I have not been blogging.
It is in for repair and it seems to be more serious then originally thought :-( So I am waiting to see when I will get it back...plus how much it will cost.
I am in the country (Co. Limerick) in my mother in laws house and I am using her latop so I will try squeeze a few blogs out nice and quick.
It was quite stormy all night, and then this morning I was woken by a cow mooing. Funny. You don't get that in Dublin!
It is in for repair and it seems to be more serious then originally thought :-( So I am waiting to see when I will get it back...plus how much it will cost.
I am in the country (Co. Limerick) in my mother in laws house and I am using her latop so I will try squeeze a few blogs out nice and quick.
It was quite stormy all night, and then this morning I was woken by a cow mooing. Funny. You don't get that in Dublin!
Saturday 10 May 2014
Friday was an exciting day because we collected the final component of our room décor - our new tv unit.
We finally settled on getting a piece custom made from Table Lighting Chair in Dublin and it is divine!!!!
But I am getting ahead of myself - let me go right back to the start of the story and how we ended up with the piece we ended up with.
So! As you know I am a big Ikea fan.
The vibe (mid 20th century) design for my front room (see here for pics of my front room - click on the link in the post) stemmed from the Stockholm range in Ikea.
Our settee is from the Stockholm range and also one of the very first things we saw and liked, in the Stockholm range was their tv bench:
Unfortunately, the unit was simply never ever in stock. We asked in-store regularly, checked online etc and it just was never there, plus with no indication of a date of when it would be in. Apparently there were supplier problems.
So we started looking around at different options and this is how we arrived at Table Lighting Chair. Initially I was keen on having a vintage sideboard as the tv unit. Something like this or this here:
If it was just me in our home there would be a vintage piece in the front room now. But unfortunately it was just a step too far for David! Also, sideboards are not designed as tv units, and technically tv units should be lowish to the ground so in reality sideboards aren't possibly the best.....hmm I am not convinced...I think it would have been fab!
*(Interestingly enough the above sideboard is actually quite low - lower than usual sideboards - so it would actually work as a tv unit in my opinion. It is in Table Lighting Chair at the moment)
Table Lighting Chair (or as I like to call them TLC) source vintage furniture and restore them (lovingly with TLC, as I like to think!) to their former glory. They have fantastic stuff ranging from cool G plan tables to really interesting outdoor wire furniture. They are based in a laneway in Rutledge Terrace, Donore Avenue in Dublin 8. It is a quirky little workshop packed to the rafters with cool stuff, if you are interested in vintage furniture you should check it out.
Once it was decided that the sideboard was not going to work for us :-( Robbie from TLC suggested that instead they could make us a piece exactly to our specifications :-)
This was exciting to hear!!
So taking inspiration from the sleekness of the ikea tv bench but with beautiful wood (russian birch ply finished in American walnut) and with some quirky additions from original pieces (the legs are from a 1960's display cabinet and the handles were salvaged from a vintage Danish sideboard that was sadly beyond repair) this is what we got!
How incredible is this?!
My dad and David went out to collect it on Friday, and David who admittedly has been nervous about it, just could not believe it when he saw it. And dad who would be into woodwork etc thought it was made lovely.
This photograph does not do it justice at all and you cannot see all the detail - for example the frame around the cabinet part has lovely pale and dark "striped" wood detail.
I will take better pictures soon I hope.
Here are some pics of it in situ.
All in all we are so happy with it.
No disrespect to Ikea but I think you simply cannot compare a mass made tv unit to our one off handmade piece.
And while it ended up costing just under twice the price of the Ikea unit I think that ultimately our TLC one is actually worth so so much more than that - I can really see this piece becoming a kind of family heirloom that is passed to the next generation.
As I said I will post more photos soon (I will add them to this post here).
I also thought that it looks a bit plain in the alcove so I added a wall-hanging above the tv. I am now looking for a statement vase or sculpture to sit on the unit beside the tv.
Links for you to check out:
Soooo, what do you think?!
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