A bird, or a sandwich, in the hand.

This regal looking fella has been a regular visitor to next doors roof this summer.  I wasn't quite sure if he was a heron or not so I looked him, and his habits, up.  He's a heron alright, and he likes to hang around ponds.

Hmmm...

I've had a look over the fence, but my neighbour hasn't had a pond installed.  Neither has the next house along. Or the one after that.  He drives Rusty mad, because he stands very still and doesn't fly away in terror like the other birds that risk flying over the garden.

This heron is not normally on his own, no, he's usually holding court with a flock of gulls.  Very large gulls.  None of these, the heron or the gulls, have bothered me all summer (I use the term 'summer' in the loosest sense of the word, as we have had a very poor attempt at it this year), until this week.

I listen to the radio while I'm working, and for the past few days I have been listening to tales of aggressive gulls stealing food out of the mouths of babes.  People have been calling in from all over the country.  One man in Abbey Street (Dublin) had his burger snatched out of his hand.  A lady in Galway had her very expensive M&S sandwich taken while she sat in Eyre Square.  That particular gull got his picture taken by onlookers and a round of applause.  Another caller told us how a gull just swooped down and took the chicken out of her salad and left the onions.  I didn't really blame him, I don't like onions in my salad either.  They are also waking the people in the coastal town of Skerries very early in the morning with their noisy antics.  There were also worrying reports of them stealing sweets from children in school yards.

I did laugh!

But then the conversation took a sinister turn.  A farmer from Kerry called in to the station and told how he had to beat gulls off two of his sheep.  Despite his best efforts, the sheep later died.  I had stopped laughing by then...

One of our Senators also called the radio station and told how he has, as a resident of the inner city, experienced the problem and raised the issue in the Oireachtas, but was met with ridicule!  How could they laugh??

All joking aside, something is going to have to be done about problem and Dublin in particular will have to come up with some sort of seagull policy similar to the ones adopted in other cities like Boston and Barcelona.  I think they destroy the eggs in the nests, which helps with the problem.

A very intense guy from an animal rights association also called into the station and said we will all have to change our eating habits and stop walking around the city with ice-cream and sandwiches and kebabs in our hands.  Food for though I suppose... 

In the meantime, I'll be keeping a close eye on the flock on next doors roof.  I won't be culling (sorry!) Rusty's barking, he can bark all he likes at them.  And I'll also be keeping my sandwiches undercover when eating outside!

I'm also checking the telephone directory under the letter 'H' for Hitchcock...


PS..  That still doesn't explain the lone heron?

A grand day out!

Earlier in the year one of my friends had one of those birthdays that has a zero at the end of it.  I won't reveal any names or ages, but he big party that Joan had earlier in the year with all the balloons with 50 on them, and a the great band that had us all dancing, and of course, the cake, might give the game away.

So, you can't have a birthday without getting a present, but what do you give the girl that has everything?  A lilac cardigan and a set of pearls as her 'old lady' uniform?  No, that would never do!

I racked my brains, and eventually remembered something that another friend had told me about and highly recommended.  And the best thing about this present was that I go to go to!

After a three month wait for a booking, and then a very disappointing postponement, our day out eventually arrived.  We got a 'very early for a Saturday' bus into town, grabbed a quick coffee and a little walk down memory lane for Joan in Kylemore Cafe (she used to work in the building), then took our places at the appointed meeting place of the Spire in O'Connell Street.

It wasn't long before our guide arrived.  A very pretty little French girl called Ketty, who was going to take us on a walking tour of Dublin.  I know, I initially thought it was a bit odd too, getting up ridiculously early on a Saturday morning to walk around my own city with a French girl.  But I should have mentioned that the tour was called 'French Foodie in Dublin'.

We were going to eat our way round our home town!

After a brief history of food and Irish eating habits over the centuries we were off to our first port of call.

A pub!

Well, it's a pub at night, but during the day, it's a coffee bar.  We were very pleased, as the coffee we had grabbed earlier was horrible!  We are both coffee drinkers and don't drink instant coffee, but even we were impressed by the science behind the coffee we got to taste.  I didn't know there was a ratio between the coffee and the liquid, and that the temperature and brewing time were so precise.  It was almost as technical as baking a cake.  And the brewer had the best coffee maker that I have ever seen:

It looks like something you would see in an Opium den (not that I have ever been in one of those!) but it was actually very simple to use, and even tho all of the coffee was not to my taste, it did make very smooth coffee.  It was like sampling wine, as he explained the different 'notes' and flavors that you could find in each cup that he brewed.  

What a great way to start the tour, we were certainly on a high, even if it was caffeine induced one, when we left there.  

Our next stop was an 'arty' cafe, where we had brunch of the poshest scrambled eggs on sour dough bread that I have ever eaten.   After that it was along the street to a little bakery where we ate freshly baked scones with home made jam, that was spooned out of the pot still warm.  

I suppose I should tell you that we didn't just eat, we did get a bit of the history behind each place that we visited.  All the brewers/bakers and chefs we have met so far, have all left boring jobs in the Finance (or similar) industry to follow their dream of slaving over a stove to make food for the likes of me and Joan.  I can only speak for my self when I say that I am very glad that they did!  Although I do think Joan would agree with me.

Our next stop was the farmers market in Temple Bar, where I sampled a very tasty olive, then on to our next stop.  

An ice-cream bar!  And it's even called after Joan!

We had a very generous host at this location, where we sampled ice-cream made from milk from the Kerry cows.  Apparently these cows are rarer than Giant Pandas!  Some people would say anything to sell ice-cream.  

I did like the caramelized brown bread flavor, but my favorite sample was the gin flavored one,...

By now we were beginning to feel a bit stuffed and we were only half way through the tour.  All the time we were eating, we were also getting more information about the culinary explosion that is going on in Dublin at the moment.  It's a great place to eat at the moment, but I wasn't sure I could eat anything else.   What's that?  Did somebody mentioned a chocolate shop... 

Chestnut honey and strawberry and basil were the samples offered in the chocolate shop.  I still can't decide if I liked the chestnut honey chocolate, but it was chocolate, so it would have been rude to leave it behind.  The strawberry and basil, which are not two ingredients that I would put together, was like heaven in a little square!  There were also macaroons in this shop, but we didn't get to sample those, as they were imported from France, and we were there to sample all things Irish!  

I was ready to go home.  (Or fall into a food induced coma!)  There was no way she, our tour guide, could possibly surpass the chocolate experience.  

Unless your next stop is the best fish and chip shop in town!  

Just as well we were walking between eating sessions.  We did protest, but our cries of fullness soon faded when presented with perfectly battered fish pieces and beautifully fried chips.  We also got a brief history of how fish and chips became so popular in Ireland.  I'm not going to tell you, you will have to do the tour to find out!

And then, there was more.

Next stop was one specially on the menu for Joan.  A cheese maker!  I didn't know how I was going to fit anything else in!  I was sorry I hadn't worn my elastic waist-ed pants!  Just as well the samples provided were very small.  And very tasty.  

At this stage we were on the other side of town to where we had started.  I had reached my limit.  I couldn't eat another thing.  

But we had one more stop.  

Whiskey tasting!  Well, you couldn't have an Irish tour without Whiskey, could you?  This French girl certainly know how to do a finale!

Not being a whiskey drinker, this one was a bit wasted on me.  But Joan really enjoyed this bit.  She's not really a whiskey drinker either, but was able to appreciate it better then I did.  We did taste one brand that was made in Connemara, and we could actually taste and smell the bog.  Drinking it was like sitting in a old farmhouse with a turf fire crackling in the corner throwing smoke out and covering everybody in ash.  Seriously, we could taste all that in the liquid!  

Our tour was finished.  All the people we met along the way were very knowledgeable and interested in their chosen food/drink.  I wish I was a passionate about preparing food, and not just eating it, as they all were.  I know I speak for the two of us when I say we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  

So, after all that walking, and eating, we had to sit down for a minute and have a drink...

And look!  For the day that was in it, they even put a blackberry in my drink!  I didn't eat it tho', I was too full....

First time for everything.

So, how's your week been?

Well, mine has been a week of 'firsts'!

This week was the first time that I've had my eyelid turned inside out!
Yes, that did happen.  The doctor did it with a cotton bud, very adeptly too.  Not a pleasant experience, but it proved to him that there was nothing lodged in my eye, and instead I must be suffering from some mystery infection.  That was the good news!  The bad news meant putting some horrible ointment in my eye twice a day until whatever infection was in it cleared up.

Then there was the 'Mystery of the Sprained Ankle'.
A book title?   I think the chapters would all read the same.  A long drawn out description of pain.  Some pondering as to how the sprain occurred.  Some more moaning about pain,  Some more pondering, and then the build up to the final chapter where at last the pain killers are introduced!  That would be the plot for the first book, and in this case, I sincerely hope there isn't a sequel!

And following that there was the 'Night in the A&E'.
That sounds like the title to a horror movie,  And the script, if I would care to write it, would read like a script from one too.  That will be one movie I won't be buying on DVD to watch over again...

And in a further twist to the plot of mishaps, this week I had my first X-Ray, followed by my first MRI scan.

Seriously!

The X-ray was nothing, all over in 10 seconds.  Wish I could say the same for the MRI.  If any of you have every had one then you can skip this paragraph and go straight to the end.  And if any of you haven't had one, then you can stop reading and go straight to the end also.  It's not a nice experience, especially when you are being led to your fate by a very nice radiographer who claps her hands and exclaims with glee "Oh a Newbie"  when I told her that I had never had one before.

So, because of my lack of knowledge and familiarity with the process, she took great delight in explaining the process from top to bottom.  As well as all the technical stuff, she promised me nice music and a pleasant 15 minutes of peace for myself.    

I believed her, she was very convincing.

Well they put me in position, gave me the some headphones an escape button to squeeze if I felt under duress, and then sent me on my way down the tunnel.

I can't tell you what it was like inside, because I never opened my eyes.   I decided to keep them tightly shut and concentrate on the music.  When I was finally rolled into position they turned on the radio just as Michael Jackson was having a chat with some guy in the mirror.  When he was finished, Katie Melua was counting bicycles in Beijing, and after that Frankie Valley's eyes adored me, (well you couldn't really blame him as I was very fetching in my blue hospital gown).  Then just as it was all getting a bit too much for me, Labi Siffre was singing about something inside so strong...  How did he know??  I didn't hear Labi finish as the radiographer interrupted him and said she was taking me out.  BIG SIGH of relief!

The radiographer couldn't believe how still I had kept, and was delighted that she didn't have to re-do any of the scans.  Not as delighted as me!  But anybody that has spent a night in the same room as me can testify that when I sleep, I never move.  In fact, on one girly weekend away, my sister-in-law and a friend stood over me for ages willing me to move so that they could see that I was still alive.  So my ability to be very still has finally paid off by enabling me to get in and out of that horrible noisy machine, quickly.

When it was all over and I was leaving the clinic, the radiographer gave me a CD.  For a minute I thought it was a copy of the music I had been listening to as a souvenir!  In fact, it was a copy of my scans.  Kevin insisted on having a look at it when we got home, and put it into the computer, but we couldn't open any of the files.  So not to disappoint him, I'm now doing a re-enactment of the whole process using the couch as the MRI machine!

And can I just say, too, that I have the nicest friends.  They all came to visit me with flower, cake and chocolate.  I'm feeling very spoiled!  Thank you all very much.

I'm also feeling much better and my ankle is now less swollen than it was, which means that I can probably go out for a drink tomorrow night.  I might even have two drinks.

And anybody that knows me would knows that that would definitely be another first for me....

Better already!

Feeling much better, thanks to my friend and these:

Sometimes it's almost worth having a swollen ankle and conjunctivitis at the same time.

What's that you say, I never mentioned the thing with my eyes!! Oh well that's a whole new story for another day....

Thanks Trisha!

A room with a view.

Here's my view for today!

Not very pretty?  But it's a lot prettier than it was last night.

I know you're going to ask me what happened?  Well, I don't know.  One minute I was talking on the phone to my nephew about the two new, far too cute for words puppies that he bought, without my sister (who is away on a cruise) knowing.  And the next minute I had a horrible pain in my foot, and shortly after that a hugely swollen ankle.

I should really say I was in training for a marathon, or out disco dancing (does anybody still go out 'disco dancing'??) but I think I was just unlucky and put my foot down the wrong way.

I was also unlucky to have had my 'injury' when all the health clinics were closed for the night, so I had to spend the night in the A&E in Tallaght hospital.

I'm not going to tell you how I got on there, because you would never want to read anything I write here again if I did.  But just lets say it's not something I ever want to go through again.

But, there is an up side to this.

I have to lie here on the couch all day, so that gives me plenty of time to look at all the pictures of cute puppies that my nephew is posting on Facebook.

Here's one for you too look at:

And here's another one:

And another one:

If only I didn't have this stupid bandage on my ankle then I could drive to Cork and give those two a cuddle and that would make me feel better.

Of course if anybody would like to come over with chocolate, or cake, that would make me feel a whole lot better too...

One problem to another.

The weather (my favorite subject!) has been great here for the last couple of weeks.  Lots of lovely sunshine and nice warm evenings.  I've been making the most of it and spending as much time as I can outside.

But, with the good weather, comes my least favorite subject.  The flies, the bluebottles, the wasps, and all the other flying, buzzing creatures that like to invade my house in the warm weather.

So this year, instead of spending my time sweeping them from the window ledges where they like to die, after spending hours bashing themselves against the window trying to get out, I have decided to foil them.  And not let them in in the first place.

So here's my new defense system against the tiresome bugs.

One super duper fly screen!

It was really easy to assemble and fit.  Well at least it was according to the instructions.  But they must have written them with an octopus in mind, as more than one pair of arms were necessary to keep everything in place while fitting.  Anyway, after several failed attempts to tame wayward Velcro and get it to stick where it was supposed to stick, I finally got it in place.  Not too shabby an attempt, even if I say so myself.

And, so far so good.  There hasn't been a fly, bluebottle, wasp, bee, ant, moth or anything else with wings in my house all day.  Of course, that could be due to the fact that it has been raining since yesterday and the bugs are no where to be seen.  But I'd like to thing that's it's because they in couldn't find their way through my firewall!  Now I just have to remember not to open the windows in case they get in through them!

Here's somebody else that can't find the way through.

Look at his puzzled little face.  He can't understand what on earth is going on.  He has made several attempts to get through, most of which included barking.  I did explain how it works to him, and I even gave a demonstration, (I hope none of my neighbors were watching me down on all fours with my head through the netting) but he still didn't get it.  All I got was a baffled look.  I tried putting some treats on one side, but no that didn't work either, that just started the barking all over again, and attracted some flies!

So, I've gotten rid of one problem, and given myself another...

Roll on the winter!!

One I prepared earlier.

Hello!

It's been a while....

So, what have you all been doing since I was last here?  Me?  Well I've been, eh.  Emm... One sec... Er...

I don't know what I've been doing.

Unless you count knitting.  I've been doing a bit of that.  What's that I hear?  The sound of footsteps running off into the distance?  A door slamming shut?  Wait!  Don't run away, I promise I'm not going to turn this into a knitting blog.

But I do just want to tell you this story.

A while ago I told you that my sister Deirdre was a bit of an international knitter, knitting jumpers for hens and other small things (children!) and had sent some garments to her nephew in Holland.  Do you remember?  Try to keep up!!  Well shortly after I posted that message, I got a Facebook message from my cousin in Las Vegas, (who, just to confuse things, is also called Deirdre) with a picture attached of an Aran cardigan that I had allegedly knit for her about 30 years ago.  At first I thought it was a mistake, because as you all know I'm only 25, so I couldn't possibly have knit it.

Anyway, after careful consideration, (and a quick check on my birth cert) I had to admit that I vaguely remembered knitting the sweater.  And once I remembered that one, I also remembered the others that I had done for various other people.  I had a proper little cottage industry going!!

So, here is Exhibit A now, in all it's glory!

Apparently she still wears it from time to time, but not so much now as it's very hot in Las Vegas!

Deirdre (the Las Vegas one, not my sister) has two granddaughters now.  I see some photos of them from time to time, and thought it would be nice to carry on the tradition of sending Aran sweaters to the US.

So I knit these two for her granddaughters!

So now they can be just like Grandma.   That's a good thing?  Right Deirdre??

Apparently Deirdre was having a bad headache day when the postman arrived with the sweaters.  She was so delighted when she saw what was in the envelope that she forgot all her troubles.

So, not only can I knit Aran sweaters, but I can also cure headaches!!

All that talent, and I'm still only 25!!

Imagine the things I will be able to do when I'm old...