Quick catch-up in photos

Running out of time and haven't had much to blog this week at all so thought I'd at least just post a few photos that I have taken during the week. I had a good week and have still been feeling bad. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up a stomach bug or else I ate something bad at the barbeque I was at yesterday so I spent a goodly portion of the night draped over the toilet and, well, although I did make it out to go walking with friends this morning, let's just say that fasting today was not at all difficult to do. Even though it wasn't actually a planned fast day. But c'est la vie.

A lot of my time this week was taken up with knitting a present for a friend. Short notice invite to a party after contacting a friend to say happy 40th even though we've lost touch over the last five years or so. At any rate, I had been wanting to try out this stormy weather shawl pattern that I saw on mortgagefreeinthree (I've been working my way through the archives over the last while and it's just one of those blogs that makes everything seem so simple even I can give it a go).

I had the blue and the half ball of green already in my stash and used a voucher to pay for most of the three new balls. I also had another slightly less bright ball of blue, which is the one I ended up using. The colours aren't quite right in this picture but you get the idea.

My other crafty activity this week was making a paper chain. Each ring on this chain represents twenty euro and the whole lot is how much I will need to enable me to take a month off work in November. So, now I'll have a visual reminder hanging in my living room every day. And the satisfaction of seeing it get shorter and shorter.

I started the shawl on Wednesday evening and spent perhaps three hours on it. Then the same again on Thursday and up early on Friday to spend an hour on it before work. Another couple of hours on Friday evening before I literally ran out of time. And also wool. Although it wasn't perfect, it came out pretty well. I did my best to block it although probably could have done with another day to block it again, stretching it out a bit more. 

I don't really know how to crochet properly so didn't do the fancy scallop edge from the pattern and just finished it with another line of plain in the last of the yellow. The sharp-eyed among you might notice that I actually ended up using the yellow to finish off the last of the last line of blue - that block is an entire 100g of wool. 

I made a tomato tart to bring to the party with me, as well. Shortcrust pastry spread with mustard, topped with grated cheese, sliced, seeded tomatoes and topped with slices of mozzarella (since it was a special occasion) and plenty of oregano. 

Just for my own information this one. Smaller shop this week but included a couple of tins for the storecupboard, too. 11.75 this time.

At various points in the forest I went for a walk in today, there are signs showing various exercises to do or things like this to do exercises on. These are bars to use to do push-ups on. I can't even do one fake girly push-up but I gave it a go anyway. Using the higher one I did five - but barely managed to move down or up more than about an inch. So, something to work on there. There was also a pile of logs at this station, which you put on your shoulders to swing from side to side (you can see the shadow of my friend doing that in the back left of the photo.

So that's that. And now I'm off to bed. Hoping that by tomorrow morning I'll be feeling much more like a real, live, human being. :)

Here's the actual photo

As I may have mentioned, still trying to figure out this whole smartphone thing!

Visual journal - 16th October 2014

Second attempt to post this. Have installed a different app since it seems blogspot won't let me switch between accounts. Or at least I can't figure out how to. Still getting used to having a smartphone.
Anyway, l have a week off now to study for my exam, which is next Wednesday. I spent yesterday mostly in bed, trying to shake the cold that started last Thursday as well as recover from a very late night after the football on Tuesday.
This morning I was up early for a therapy appointment and then went straight into town to get a few things done. So, not much studying done yet but I did get to snap this nice picture of the Rathaus (the town hall) along with the statue of good old Jan Wellem.

The Chimneys

While I was in Dublin I stayed in a hotel not far from where I grew up and right on the sea. I took masses of photos, mostly of the same thing, hoping one might be good enough to get printed out in large and hang somewhere. I kind of have an idea of doing the same thing with a few different landmarks over the next few trips back there so that I can someday have one section of a room showing some of the best of my hometown. Or perhaps just have the different pictures dotted throughout the house. When you can see things all the time and then all of a sudden they're not in your background anymore, you do sometimes feel the lack somehow.

Anyway, this time round the photos are of the chimneys. These chimneys form part of the power station at Pigeon House or, as wikipedia tells me, actually Poolbeg Generating Station on Dublin Bay. It's funny how you know some stuff about your hometown but how often when you actually go looking for the facts you realise you only knew half bits and pieces of the actual information. At any rate, driving along the coast road as a child, on the way to visit my grandparents on the northside of the city, or on the way to the airport, we always looked out for the first view of the chimneys. My dad used to run a garage along Sandymount Strand, from where I took most of my photos. That was years before I was born but it did mean that he always had the answers to our questions about the area. What's that, why, when where etc., etc., etc. As an adult I used to love going to Sandymount Strand to walk along the beach or, if the tide was in, along the lovely promenade that was built. It was a lovely Sunday morning thing to do, although you had to get there fairly early or the place would be crowded. For once I was in Ireland during a heatwave so the weather was amazing and the light was incredible, although at times the sun was nearly too bright to allow really good photos. Here's one of my favourites of the chimneys though.

The chimneys, taken from Sandymount Strand

It would have been lovely to get this photo when the tide was in. Sandymount Strand is one of those where you can walk for more than half-an-hour to get to the sea when the tide is out and yet only leaves a few inches of beach visible when the tide's fully in. Here's one taken the following day but from Blackrock, which is a few miles away, when the tide was coming almost in.

The chimneys, taken from beside Blackrock DART Station

And there were lovely clouds just a small bit to the left of the chimneys in this one, which would have made it perfect. I can kind of understand why artists can end up painting multiple pictures of the same scene. So many variations.

The chimneys, taken from Sandymount Strand. That's not sea in the background though, it's mist evaporating.

I happened to land in Dublin on Saturday evening and by the time I had collected my rental car and driven over to the southside, it was dark. I had just turned on to Sandymount Strand when I noticed the moon. And it was incredible. I pulled into the first car park to get out and look at it, because I really wasn't sure I could look away and didn't want to end up crashing the car! It was gone within a few minutes but it was one of the most amazing moonscapes I have ever seen (I want to say it was one of the most amazing moons I've ever seen but it's the same moon every night, after all!). It was giant in the sky, flaming red and so low it looked like it was perched on top of Dun Laoghaire pier. Along with the smell of the sea and the sound of the waves (moon and waves, anyone?), well, I have to admit I did get a little teary-eyed. But that's not the kind of thing you can photograph and hang on your wall so I'll stick with the chimneys for now. Anyone have a favourite of the photos above?

What the actual fuck!?!

That was kind of the reaction we had this evening when we came out of the restaurant following this month's book club. We went to Okinii, a Japanese restaurant not far from the main train station. Highly overrated, by the way - food was nice but service was pretty abysmal (especially given that you order everything yourself via an iPad at your table) and quite frankly the whole thing was more expensive that I would be bothered to pay again. At any rate, we were sat way down the back and it's quite loud and we were engrossed in conversation so it wasn't until I went to the front of the restaurant to go to the toilet that I saw it was absolutely lashing rain. And I saw lightening, too so when I got back to the table I duly told the girls that it was lashing rain and storming. None of us really reacted more than to wish we'd brought umbrellas and then we got back to our discussion.

Fast forward to about another hour later, just before eleven we left the restaurant and it was still spitting rain a bit. Got to the first cross street down the road, looked to the right and saw the fire brigade with lights flashing and blocking the road. Well, to be honest it wasn't them blocking the road, it was the two or three trees and large branches that were. Seemed unusual and interesting and then we continued on. I crossed to the tram stop and then noticed there were lots of very big branches across the lines at a few places. Since it seemed likely the trams weren't running as a result I turned around to walk up the road to the nearest underground station, figuring at least the underground would be running. But it turns out, not so much. I did get to the platform just as one tram was about to arrive, which was running to one stop before mine so I hopped on that and met one of the friends I had been with and separated from when I went off to get my tram. We both decided that since it seemed all the other trams, trains and buses weren't running, we'd get taxis. But when we got out of the underground we could see even more trees down, blocking most of the taxi rank, as was the portaloo that's there for the taxi drivers. And no taxis in sight but a longish queue waiting.

Walking it was. We set off together, as the first part of our route lay together and when we got to where I would normally have turned off the entire road was blocked with police stopping people from turning up there. Again, trees down and across the road. I asked them if the road along the river was clear and the answer was stay away from anywhere with trees (living in such a nice green city, that's pretty hard to do!) and it's all at my own risk. What a sad state of affairs the world is in when that's the first thing the police have to think of to say: at your own risk.

I kept walking along with my friend until we got to the river. Had to walk around a lot of large branches and trees blocking the way and passed one poor smashed car but luckily no injuries to be seen. There were lots of trees down all along the river, too. And glass smashed out of billboard type poster pillars with the posters also torn to shreds. My house, at least, seems to have escaped any damage but there are tiles on the pavement next door and further down the road, again, a few trees down. The big tree across from mine seems okay though. And look at this photo posted on twitter. Amazing. https://twitter.com/laaarry/status/476091835598004225/photo/1
This person must be just around the corner from me - I can also see this ERGO building from my window. There are more photos of that girl's twitter feed if you want to see the kind of thing I'm talking about. As well as lots of remarks on insurance companies getting what they deserve and irony. LOL
And this is at the side of the supermarket just down the road from me: http://twitpic.com/e5tn24
Amazing photos online of cloud formations, too, like this one from a nearby town: https://twitter.com/23af09/status/476107511318466561/photo/1


All in all, I feel a bit like in a film when some mad action is taking part outside while the oblivious in the restaurant keep eating and drinking and come out at the end of the film when the hero has saved the world and is just sitting down to relax and they're wondering why things look different!

Visual journal - 19th January 2014

Dinner - A Girl Called Jack's carrot, cumin and kidney bean balls with passata and lettuce in a wrap. Very good!

Made a giant pot of leek and potato soup - lunches taken care of for this week and a couple for the freezer

Visual journal - 18th January 2014

My favourite part of the market - potatoes! Now if they only sold roosters.

Visual journal - 17th January 2014

A glimpse at my diary (a paperblanks week at a glance one)  . Not much on this week. The numbers to the left of the day/date are where I am in my monthly cycle. When I first got my period, aged 12, my sister told me it was important that I keep track of the days and, apart from a few years when I was on the pill, I always have. Added to that in the last year or so I now also take my temperature every morning and write it on the right of the page. Very useful and interesting information to have, can highly recommend to any woman not doing this to start it.  In the space for notes, you can see my shopping list for tomorrow - just tried to cobble together a meal plan for the week and that's what I need to get. 

Visual journal - 16th January 2014

Guess where I spent an hour and a half this afternoon?

And then, since I was near home slightly earlier than usual (no way was I going back in to work the way I felt when leaving the dentist, not just for the ten minutes left of the "official" day) I stopped into a shop near me to see what their sale was like and found these. Yes, I know that especially coming home from the dentist I should be rejecting all things chocolately but it's Cadbury's Fingers! And dark chocolate ones, too. This shop is the strangest place, mostly sells clothes and household stuff but also gets in random "international" foods from time to time. 

Visual journal - 14th January 2014

As a result of the fiasco that was the privatisation of the Irish telecom company in 1999 and the subsequent sale of their mobile phone division to Vodafone, I automatically received some Vodafone shares in 2001. And since about 2002 have done absolutely nothing about that. With three house-moves since then, it's no wonder they lost track of me either. It was on the agenda for this year anyway but with the coming sale of the Verizon portion of Vodafone, I've pulled it forward and got the folder out this evening. Will be phoning tomorrow to see what they can do for me. At least I'm well-sorted enough now that I knew exactly where all this stuff was!

Visual journal - 13th January 2014

Today's lunch - lettuce, leftover chicken from last night, topped with Chutney No. 2 from 2009 in a wrap - delicious

Visual journal - 12th January 2014

I didn't get moving out of the house yesterday in time to get to the market and had forgotten that one of the things I had promised myself for this week was to get some salad to go with the leftover chicken I'm planning on having in wraps for some lunches next week. So I tried to convince myself to get some in the supermarket and realised how spoiled I have become with fresh salad direct from the farmer. Oak leaf lettuce that looked nice from a distant looked horribly dry and unappealing up close. And although I looked at the bags of washed and cut stuff, bloated with whatever gas it is they use (is it CO2?) - doesn't matter that it may not be harmful, it disturbs me somehow - I just couldn't find them appetising. Then, in a second supermarket, I found this.

It's from Belgium, sold by the BelOrta co-operative and also marked Flandria (Flanders) - a quick google shows me that we're talking about just over 200km, which is about 125 miles, so even though it wouldn't fit in a local, 100-mile-diet, it's not too far off from it. It's not organic but does say "responsibly grown" on the packet and the website for the co-op auction is interesting. The packaging is that funny mix of Dutch/French/German/English that sometimes happens here with companies selling to multiple markets. The other lettuce in the second supermarket didn't look any more appealing but look at this one:

Still growing - roots still attached, with soil around them. So even though this lettuce (it's actuallt three different plants) has been grown in a pot far too small, it seems like a pretty clever way to get slightly fresher salad transported. Will be interested to see how it tastes. I really should try to grow some cut and come again lettuces in pots inside, I think. Haven't managed to grow a proper lettuce yet but it has to work sometime!

Visual journal - 11th January 2014

Things like this are the reason I have too much stuff - 4 Partylite votive candles that I set on this lovely glass saucer/candle holder, not realising that they become completely fluid when burning (they're supposed to). Managed to catch it just before it completely ruined my table but that's at least four years ago. I haven't made candles for years and although I vaguely thought I'd use these to melt down and make new ones out of, they've just been sitting in a drawer taking up space. Went to a Partylite party this afternoon and brought this along to give to the candle lady - she can use it as an example of what not to do. And now I get my nice glass saucer back to use for the type of pillar candle that doesn't become completely fluid when burning.

Visual journal - 10th January 2014

Managed to get a short walk in at lunch today so headed towards the river (that's the Rhine, for those who didn't already know). The water level is a bit high but nowhere near flooding yet, unlike some of the pictures I've seen of Dublin this week. I have seen this river with the water well up over the tarmac in the foreground and with most of the trees in the background under water, though.

Visual journal - 9th January 2014

My giant door stop for the kitchen door that won't stay open without one. If I had more doors that I wanted to keep open, I suspect I'd have a big collection of door stops by now - I've seen some really lovely ones over the last couple of years.

Visual journal - 7th January 2014

Slippers - a frivolous purchase last year, still love these slippers

Visual journal - 6th January 2014

Had a very rushed lunchbreak today so just had to very quickly snap this and had no chance for even a second try. These magnolia trees are near where I work and in the two weeks since I was last there have started budding in earnest - it has been an extraordinarily mild winter so far, with just a few freezing days.

Visual journal - 5th January 2014

Some older photos today - my very first homemade christmas cake

Ready to go into the oven

Ready-rolled marzipan ready to go

Marzipan-covered cake - instead of the traditional apricot jam glaze to stick the marzipan to the cake with, I used some of my own strawberry jam to finish up a pot I had already open

Forgot to take a photo before covering it with cling film and need lots of work on my decorating skills but I do think it looks like a real cake. Friends that I did this for are only coming home this evening so haven't heard yet whether it tastes nice or not.

Visual journal - 4th January 2014

Since the start of the break (21st December) I have been doing really well when it comes to dishes. The dishes from one meal are done at the latest when the next meal is being prepared. I need to keep this up once I'm back in work next week!

Visual journal - 3rd January 2014

This gorgeous chestnut (horse chestnut, I think, rather than sweet) tree stands nearly opposite my apartment. There's a seat around the trunk and I sat there to take this photo. I never realised how narrow that building was at the end before, it's nice to get a different viewpoint sometimes, feeling very "o, captain my captain" now.