Dublin time lapse video

Here's a really cool video that shows some of the better side of my home town. 

Dublin time lapse in black and white

Food

Still not weight-watchering but trying to make more of an effort to eat properly again.  I cooked the chickpeas on Sunday so that I could make this chickpea salad, forgetting that I had no parsley or lemons and then realising that the few tomatoes I had were nearly too far gone to be very appetising.  So I cooked the tomatoes with some onions on Monday evening, threw in a small tin of duck rillettes (that I bought at a christmas market in France in December) to be fancy and had that with some pasta instead.  Heated up most of the rest of it for dinner on Tuesday as well and then yesterday took a slightly longer lunch so that I could make it to the market and back.  So with tomatoes and parsley now on board, I finally did get to have my chickpea salad yesterday evening for dinner.  And today for lunch.  With just enough left over for a good lunch tomorrow too.  I really love this recipe.  The first few times I made it I wasn't fussy about adding parsley, which I think tends to be over-used and over-rated but it actually does make a nice difference in this dish.

So today, I had a nice bowl of porridge for breakfast (the summer has disappeared again and we're back to mid-teen temperatures).  Then chickpea salad for lunch.  I've taken some beef out of the freezer to cook in a tomato sauce when I get back home and I will have some of that with a bread roll for dinner.  And some salad if I decide I feel like washing it.

I have had an unplanned Snickers bar in the internet cafe but all in all I'm not unhappy with how the day has gone.  How much easier these things are when you don't have to fit work in around them.  It's a bank holiday here today.  I've gotten just enough housework done to make me feel like I may make some progress at the weekend.  I bought five punnets of strawberries (€8) at the market as well and want to make some fruit leathers.  I have some things to take care of outside the house on Saturday morning but once I'm home all I need to do is hoover the floors and I will be free to spend some time in the kitchen.

Sunday

I really didn't want to do anything at all today.  Could have quite happily spent the entire day in bed.  I had a full day choir rehearsal in a nearby town yesterday which was quite exhausting but I felt okay.  This morning I felt like I was starting to come down with a cold again.  I will be very, very annoyed if that happens.  It probably didn't help that after a lovely sunny day yesterday (most of which I spent inside looking out at), today is grey, drizzly and cold enough to require going back to heavier trousers, socks and a jacket.  I did finally manage to drag myself out of bed, did some washing up, put the chickpeas on to cook (so happy that I remembered to leave them soaking last night) and spent some time on the phone to my sister in Oz. 

A friend had a stall for her clothes shop (lovely stuff, anyone in Dusseldorf and with money to spend on clothes, I highly recommend checking out Bittersüß) at a larger event today and I had promised to make an appearance at some stage.  That forced me to drag myself out and it was probably good that I did, even though I really didn't want to.  Before I left though I cleaned the grill from my barbeque, which we used for our annual barbeque last weekend.  All the people from my building were invited to an evening barbeque in the inner courtyard - unfortunately only three people who actually live there turned up but with the ten or so people working in or otherwise connected to the three businesses that are in the ground floor of the building, it was a nice group and a fun evening.  But although I did manage to schlep the barbeque back down to the cellar the following day, the grill had been hanging around my bathroom waiting to be cleaned (kitchen sink isn't big enough so it has to be done in the bath.  So pleased to have done it now.  And I even brought it straight back down to the cellar as well as two boxes I needed to get out of the sitting room as well.  It's not much in terms of what I should have gotten done today but it's a couple of niggly things that could easily have taken me months more to get to so it's all good.