The Winter Sun and Water

Over the last couple of days I've noticed some lovely reflections of the winter sun on still water.

Yesterday I headed down to Birr in Offaly (or Awfully as my much teased younger sister referred to it; just the once mind you!) for the day. It was a very cold day but it was nice and bright out. In the morning we had a lovely walk around the gardens of Birr Castle Demesne. The grounds are beautiful even in winter so I definitely need to see them again in Spring or Summer (do we get summer in Ireland anymore??). I even crossed the border in to Tipperary on that walk! Had a great look at the great 72 inch reflecting telescope in the grounds which was designed and constructed in the 1840's. It's amazing and what I hadn't realised is, that at one time it was the best telescope in the world! Unfortunately I hadn't brought my camera with me so no piccies to show.

After a tasty lunch we headed out to Victoria Lock for a walk. Unfortunately it was closed off as the lock is being dredged. Having said that it was definitely still worth the drive out there as the afternoon winter sun reflecting off the water further out from the lock was beautiful! Needless to say I felt a little put out with myself for not having brought my camera but I borrowed Dave's to take a few. Once I've got the photos off it I'll update this entry with one of them (assuming they turn out okay!!)

This morning I headed down to the West Pier in Dun Laoghaire to meet up with a friend who I hadn't seen yet since my return back. Again it was lovely to meet up and this time I brought my camera along. There was beautiful light in the harbour though I did have to restrain myself form taking too many photos as there were only the two of us; 'twouldn't have been fair. Anyway I think I managed to get one or two that I like.

A bit of a girly giggle

This afternoon I headed in to town again to meet up with Eims and Liz for lunch at The Farm restaurant on Dawson St. I had eaten there once before when I was home in March and it was a less than a good meal, however this time the food was much better. In fact the menu was totally different as if it was a different place but having said that I know it was named The Farm in March too so I'm a bit confused to say the least.

I arrived at 1 to find the other two settling in. We started to peruse the menus but what with all the chatting it wasn't until the third time that they came over to take our order were we actually ready to give an order! I was pretty hungry by the time that the food did arrive as it must have been a good 20 mins after ordering before we saw any food.

I tried to resist dessert... honest! In fact when the waiter came over to hand out dessert menus I handed mine back. Unfortunately he wasn't back promptly enough to take the girls' orders so I had time to peruse the menu which resulted in me ordering rhubarb crumble. It wasn't bad but I guess rhubarb isn't in season at the moment and that showed in dessert.

It was 3:45pm before we got the bill... the 3 hrs, when we weren't eating, was filled with laughter discussing Mamma Mia (it's so bad it's brilliant), Liz's upcoming visit to NZ in April, cameras, Eim's cat Kamikaze (he's appropriately named I believe) to name just a few things. I'm afraid that we probably weren't the quietest people in the restaurant but hey, it was all in good fun :)

To Eims and Liz... thanks, I had a lovely lovely afternoon!

It's cold... and being tired of Dublin City Centre!

I'm not sure that I've been in to town so often in such a short period of time as I have been in the last few days (except of course when I'm working!). In a sense it's been interesting observing the crowds... and trying to decipher how people can shop in those crowds. I guess if I'd been in shopping mode I might have actually got some bargains but I'm afraid that I don't do crowds and post Christmas sale shopping is not me!

So, yesterday we decided that enough's enough with regards to town and we headed out to Glendalough for a short stroll and to see the old monastic ruins in the Monastic City there. It's been bitterly cold the last few days (I thought that I'd never warm up on Monday... not even in The Market Bar on Mon evening did I remove any additional outer layers other than my coat!) and Tuesday was freezing again (actually it was about 5 degrees). I've been out to Glendalough many times in the past but it's always been to park in the upper car park before heading off on a hike (that's a one day tramp to any kiwi readers) but I've never really taken the time to stroll up from the lower car park to the upper and to just just look at what's in between. There were plenty of photo opportunities but my hands got colder and colder each time I had to take my gloves off so by the end I was being very choosy on what I photographed :)

Below is a photo of the Monastic City from a distance...

The food plan didn't work quite as expected. We headed to Avoca in Kilmacanogue for lunch at around 3pm following Glendalough. Yup this place is always busy but at 3pm I reckoned we'd just be hitting the tea/coffee and dessert group. Actually if anything, what I was wondering about was whether or not there'd be much left in the way of tasty salads and scones! Instead we walked in and were hit by a huge queue... which didn't move. Turned out there were no tables and so they'd stopped serving at the counters! These two hungry people definitely couldn't wait so we headed to Bray (Cafe Bar Deli have opened there). Admittedly a bit of a hassle on the parking front but we got there in the end :) And below is a photo of Bray, or at least Bray Head (it's not necessarily that scenic when you're in Bray itself :) )
'

The Many Faces of Megan

My Mum's dog, Megan, certainly likes her comfort. When in the house she likes to lounge in her basket...

or across my brothers lap.

She's also well capable of the haughty lady muck look as well when out on a walk (she loves walking on walls too!)


And even then she's still a bit of a twit! I'm sitting here watching The Chronicles of Narnia and I've had to put her back in to the kitchen because she keeps barking at the wolves (they work with the white witch) !!

Pre Christmas Shopping

On Tuesday I headed in to town with the purpose of, in no particular order, finishing off some shopping, experiencing Christmas feeling/atmosphere in town, buying some cheese from Sheridans, meeting up with Dave, saying hi to some friends in the Dublin office, and then meeting up with a couple of friends for dinner.

I arrived in at 1 and within an hour I was wondering if I really had the energy for this! I had had a great day, awakeness wise on Monday, but I certainly wasn't on Tuesday! After a quick bite to eat there was that panicky feeling building up in my stomach as I wandered the shops thinking "Oh God, what am I going to get Mum??!!!" However with arrangements to meet folk at 3pm I was forced to just make a decision on present, which was a good thing as otherwise I could have spent the rest of the afternoon dithering over it!

I wandered past Sheridans a couple of times and each time there was a queue inside tiny shop with about another 10 people queueing outside just to get in! The woman at the head of the queue on one of those occasions was not looking happy. I decided that I did not want to be her so I just kept on walking both times :)

It was actually nearly 5pm by the time that I got in to the office so while I saw some people it was only briefly and I had missed others as they had already left for the pub (I did end up in a pub but not everybody went to the same pub). Walking down/up Baggot St on the way to the office definitely felt a little weird but it did make realise that when I do work in Dublin I just love working in that part of town!

I met up with Maria and Veronica later and we headed to Carluccios Cafe for dinner. Interesting place... it was totally mobbed but we were only waiting 5 mins for a table. During that time we were told, somewhat abruptly (could have been interpreted as rudely), to move away from counter as we were blocking it. This resulted in us blocking the passageway that the wait staff were using. Luckily we got a table pretty quickly so we weren't blocking anybody for too long :) My Penne Giarinara was gorgeous though I couldn't eat it all. Desserts were definitely disappointing (at least mine was!) but that was okay as I guess I was pretty full anyway!

And then after all that I headed home as I was wrecked! It was lovely to meet up with folk again and being in town just before Christmas? Well it was very very very busy. I guess I expected this but when I told others they were surprised to hear this as apparently, with all the doom and gloom going on the lead up to Christmas has been pretty quiet this year. Well trust me, on Tuesday it was not quiet. At one point on Grafton St I could hardly move there were so many people! I look forward to heading back in maybe next week when it's, hopefully, still busy but not quite so grid locked!!

My Wardrobe...

Couple of weeks back it was cold in Dublin. Very cold. And it's December so I packed accordingly. Lots of icebreaker tops thrown in to the suitcase. Sure that'll keep me warm! And it would. The problem is that it's not actually that cold out there - sixteen degrees earlier! So I'm a little warm.

The other thing which I didn't think of enough when packing is that a couple of nice dresses for Christmas Eve/Day is fine but what about everything else? My choices are nice dress or jeans and icebreaker top. So for lunch today it's going to be the latter. Ideally it would just nicer trousers and nice top. I mean I could have brought lots more clothes but different clothes require different shoes and my suitcase was pretty full as it was. Men have it so easy. Not fair!!

It's winter!

Well, it was a long but relatively hassle free journey back to Ireland... we left Wellington at 10am Sat morning (kiwi time) and I arrived at my parents house here in Dublin at about 11am Sunday (Irish time, so that would be midnight Sun night kiwi time). The first leg seemed longer than the second even though it was actually the other way around. I guess that was down to being awake for the whole of the first leg and being in economy for that leg and business class for the second leg. I'm not sure what I got fed on the first leg; the first meal was definitely some of pasta thing, maybe a wholemeal pumpkin ravioli or something (with small bit of dodgy loooking sauce) but the second meal? Haven' a clue. Possibly some sort of potato thing with porridge oats on top and rather alot of glutinous sauce around it. I wasn't even going to taste the brightly orange coloured dessert!

Was seriously tired by the time we got to KL... we wandered around airport for a bit - I just followed Dave and that way no brain effort was required before heading the shower to the lounge and freshening up. I did best to sleep/rest for the second leg which is possibly why that leg seemed quicker.

We were in Schipoll airport (Amsterdam) by 6am (Dutch time) this morning. I'm so used to flying through Frankfurt (boring!!!) that even though I know that Amsterdam is more interesting airport I still didn't expect anything to be open but by the time that we'd collected our luggage and checked in for the last leg everything was open. It was great; had yummy pastry but less than excellent coffee. Yes, as soon as we were ordering I realised that I would just have to make the mental adjustment to the fact that I will not get another decent coffee until I land at Auckland airport on the 6th Jan. And I'll need to be back in Wellington before I get the really good stuff :) Did you know that the Rijks Museum have a small exhibition on at the airport? and that it opens at 7am? It was a great way to pass 15 or 20 minutes and just so different to the normal airport experience!

So my aim for today is to try to stay awake until 9:30pm tonight... I won't give you the odds on that!