When in Rome...

... do as the Romans do.  Or so the saying goes.

Except I'm not in Rome, I'm in Vienna. So what do you do when you're in Vienna?  Well, go to the Opera of course!


But we hadn't booked tickets and you can't go to the Opera without a ticket, can you?

Well actually you can, if you're prepared to sit on a hard granite seat, outside the beautifully ornate Opera house, on a slightly cool evening, with your neck craned to watch the big screen, along with all the other tourists that didn't have tickets either.

So we did!

Not a bad view. Pity we hadn't a clue what was going on, but as you can see, it was all very dramatic. We spotted a young guy in front of us with the words to one of the songs on his phone, but we couldn't read them over his shoulder, as they were in Italian!  So, not to be outdone, we did some googling ourselves, and discovered it was actually a comedy we were watching!  

It was so exciting that the man in the hat just couldn't contain himself.

Well normally when you're at the Opera it's not over till the fat lady sings, but the man in the hat insisted that we stay until these two were finished...

After all that drama, some refreshments were required. And if there's one thing the Austrians do better than Opera, it's cake!!

Jeez! That's just too much drama for one night....

One for the heart... One for the feet...

I'm just about over Leonard Cohens passing, and now George Michael.  Just as well 2016 is nearly over.

Here's one for the heart:

https://youtu.be/SqWCCgvLLWE

I'm too sad to play one for the feet...

#shouldertoshoulder

This was my view for the afternoon:

And what a view! And what a game!

It was quite chilly up there, but I had my woolly hat and a fleecy blanket, provided by my very thoughtful rugby going buddy, to keep me warm! We also had a pint and some good friendly banter with the two Australian supporters who had the misfortune to sit beside us.

Then we had two very tense, watching through gloved covered fingers, last minutes to endure when the game could have gone either way, before the final whistle was blown and we could celebrate.

And celebrate we did, in fine style, in a greasy spoon, with fish and chips.

Sure what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Love itself has gone...

A terrible ending to a terrible week.

2016 has done it again.

I'm crying again today, not with despair this time, but with genuine sadness at hearing of the death of Mr LC.

I'm sure there will be millions of tributes from all over the world today from people with better words than I could every write, and I'm sure they will include a quote or two of many of his poetic lines and verses.

Well the first one that came to mind for me this morning, when I brought the dog around the park and walked through all the leaves, was:

"your life is a leaf that the season tear off and condemn"

And another one that comes to mind for the week that's in it is:

"there is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light get's in"

So lets hope that between the cracks that are, not just in the USA as we've seen this week, but all over the world, that a little light can get in for everybody.,,,



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhXtM7Js_X8

Flower Power!

Despite the fact that it's August but the weather thinks it's November, myself and a friend decided to take a trip to the annual flower/plant/shrub sale at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park. 

After a wander round and a purchase or two (of course we bought something, it would have been rude not to!) Marian spotted a flower arranging demonstration.  A skill that's way out of my league and comfort zone.  Well at least that's what I thought...

We sat down and were treated to an hour of amusing tales of flower shows gone by, up coming flower shows and pieces to be created for exams while at the same time, the very clever gentleman was putting together amazing creations with flowers and foliage before our very 'dazzled with colour' eyes!

Of course I've forgotten all the names and species that he described as he was going along, with the exception of the carnations.  I knew those.  And I was surprised to see him using these humble ordinary run of the mill flowers in his remarkable creations.  But while I was surprised, Marian was outraged!!  Imagine!  Carnations??  Seriously!!

When he was finished his demonstration, he very kindly raffled all the arrangements he had made.  I, of course, won nothing.  Marian had better luck.  She won the one with the carnations!!

And here it is in all its glory:

OK, I know  there's no carnations in that arrangement.  That's because Marian came home promptly removed them and replaced them with those beautiful red Dahlias from an abundance of them she has growing in her garden.  I didn't really understand why she didn't like the carnations, until she replaced them.  Then I got it!  That's art for ya! 

And being the artist that she is, our lesson in flower arranging inspired her to make something of her own.  And here she is being creative, surrounded by clippings from her very well established garden and a few we brought home with us from the flower sellers.  

I thought I would be able to stand back and watch the artist at work.  But oh no, there was no way I was escaping.  Despite my cries of not being in any way artistic, not having any idea what to do or even a clue where to start, I was given all the tools, some basic instruction, (as in here's the clippers if you need it), and told to get on with it.

So, here's one I prepared earlier!!

Not bad for a first attempt.  I even managed to use my favourite colour flowers. Obviously a basic attempt compared to the expert's, and best of all, no carnations.  That's because there wasn't one to be found anywhere in Marian's garden!!

Here's her finished product.  A bit of a 'wow factor' going on there.

Imagine having all those different varieties of flowers and foliage in your garden.  Amazing.

Anyway, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to go out now and dig up all the carnations that are growing in my garden...

Pretty in Purple?

We haven't been having a very good summer here in little ole Ireland, have we?  In fact, it was so cold during the week that one of my friends thought about putting up her Christmas Tree!

Anyway....

Even tho' I haven't been getting much use out of my garden furniture, and even tho' it's nearly the end of the summer, I though I should do something about the state that my poor table and chairs are in.

Despite the fact that I have oiled them regularly as described in the very detailed instructions that they came with, they really are looking a bit sorry and rather the 'worse for wear':

What to do with them is the question?  Throw them out and get new one's?  That seems like a waste, but I'm not going to try oiling them again, that too is just a waste, of my time.  So, the decision is made, it's going to be a paint job.

After endless hours in Woodies wandering round the paint section and mulling over what colour to use, I finally decided on Purple Berry, which won't blend in with anything in my garden, but that colour paint was on sale, and it really is quite a nice colour, I think...

To get the best finish possible, I thought I better sand the table and chairs before I did any painting. And of course, as I never have any proper tools to do any jobs around the house, I had to pay a visit to the man who has them all.  Dad!  I only went looking for a sheet of sand paper, but I came home armed with enough sand paper to make a beach, and this fantastic gadget which would save me endless hours of scrubbing and scraping, and best of all not leave me ending up with an aching elbow!  I do love a good gadget.

After brushing away the cobwebs and evicting all the spiders that were living underneath the table, I was dying to get going with my new toy.  But, not being happy just to do one job at a time, I decided, (having being sent a new recipe which included lentils) to cook the dinner at the same time.

So I put some lentils on to boil.  Then I went outside to sand the table.

Yes, you've guessed it, I got so carried away with the sander, which by the way did exactly as it says on the tin and left a lovely finish for me to paint, that I forgot all about the lentils.  So all the time and elbow grease I saved with the sander, was spent trying to clean the pot after the lentils boiled over.  I never learn, and ended up with the aching elbow that I was trying to avoid in the first place, from scrubbing the burnt pot.

And of course, the minute, no, the second I put the brush in the paint tin, it started to rain!!  Is nothing going to go right for me??

Luckily the rain didn't last long and I got to work and spent the next few hours painting and singing along to the radio.

I'm sure you're dying to see the finished result?  Well here it is, looking just like a photo I saw in the Woodies catalogue:

Good enough to eat your dinner off I'd say!  That's if you hadn't burnt the dinner earlier!

I am loving the finished result.  And even tho' I have, not literally but actually, painted over the cracks, I think it will do me now for another couple of years.  But I'm no so sure that Kevin likes it.  He came home from work, looked out the kitchen window and exclaimed in a highly indignant voice "For God's sake, why is the garden furniture purple!?"

I don't know where I went wrong...

PS.  Trisha, if you're reading this, it was Ronseal paint that I used! Ha!!

The great compost mystery.

As you know, I love pottering around in my garden. 

Although the very small patches that I own front and back are not really grand or big enough to be given the title 'garden', but nevertheless I still enjoy planting things and watching them grow.

I don't enjoy the weeding tho.

With the annoying weeds that seem to grow everywhere in mind, I decided to get my flower beds covered with stones to keep the weeds down.  So before the gardener came to sort out my unruly beds, I thought I should put some compost down to feed the ground.  And where better to get that from then my compost bin.

The compost bin is always a bit of a mystery to me.  No matter how much 'stuff' you put into it, it never seems to be full.  The worms in my garden must be very hungry, and/or very efficient!  Anyway, my compost bin hasn't been emptied since 2010, so I was a bit wary about opening the little hatch at the bottom and seeing what was behind it.  

When I opened it first all I could see were egg shells!  I was a bit bemused by this and had to Google it to see why after six years they were still relatively intact when everything else is mush.  Apparently, they take hundreds of years to decompose, so in future I have to crush them before I put them into the compost.  But either way, they are brilliant for the ground.  So happy days, I'll have well fertilized soil.  

Eventually, after much digging and scrapping, I got a big bucket of very healthy looking compost out of the bin.

But that wasn't all I got out of the bin.  Also hidden among the lovely fresh fertilizer, I found several items of interest.

A vegetable peeler, a wristband from a Bon Jovi concert and a bracket from a garden light.

I can understand how the vegetable peeler got in, no mystery there, as no doubt it got thrown in with the peelings.  But I have no idea how the Bon Jovi wristband got in to the bin.  Kevin thought it was very funny when he saw it, and he said it was from a concert we went to in 2006.  2006?  Well how come it wasn't discovered when the bin was opened in 2010.  Unless of course it went in after that, but it's still a mystery as to why it's in there.  And as for the bracket from the garden light?  It's a hundred years since those lights were on the wall in the garden, and even more worrying, how did it get into the bin?  Those worms must be more efficient than I originally thought. They must also be good with a screwdriver, as I'm sure the last time I saw that bracket it was screwed to a wall.

I also found, at the very bottom of the bin, this:

A perfectly formed (but rather dirty) grape!  

Seriously, what on earth?  How long has that been in there?  And why is it not wine at this stage??  I put grapes into the fridge and after two days they go off, so how come this one lasted six years at the bottom of the compost??  And, why was an obviously good and not rotten grape put into the bin in the first place?  

So many unanswered questions....

Anyway, I couldn't spend too much time pondering these mysteries as I had to get the compost spread on the flower beds before the gardener could get to work.  And what a nice job he did too.  I'm very pleased with the results.

But I've learned a lesson, I'll have to be more careful in future what goes into my compost bin.  But for now I'll just have to wait and see what lovely flowers grows from this batch of compost. I'm also secretly hoping that I'll come out some morning and find a grape vine, or maybe even Jon Bon Jovi, has grown in my garden.  

Although, knowing my luck, there will probably be several chickens...