Flying visit to The Hague

My sister lives in The Hague and I got to visit her for the past few days. It was great to see her and she is a brilliant host - I packed in loads while I was there.

On Thursday I arrived at about 12.30pm and Lydia met me at the airport. We dropped my bags at her apartment and later that day we visited the Maritshuis Museum and got to see Vermeer's "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" - how cool!

I had booked tickets online which was probably unnecessary but very convenient. 

The Girl with the Pearl Earring painting is not that big but I really appreciated it more seeing it in the flesh. For example, I never realised that it is a drop pearl earring in the picture and also that it is massively oversized.

The next day Lydia and I went off on the tram and visited Delft. I really enjoyed this place, it's very quaint and very traditional. We wandered around the streets, climbed to the top of the tower of the church (my legs are still sore 2 days later!!) and we also sampled cheese in the Kaas Winkel. We tasted so many different cheeses and I have to admit I had a little stroop waffel taste too.  All so good.

Lydia had been interested in doing a tour of the Peace Palace for awhile so when she told me there was a tour on the Saturday morning I immediately booked it for her and myself and also our mother once Lydia confirmed that Mam wanted to go on the tour too.

The Peace Palace was conceived in the very late 1800's and Andrew Carnegie funded it on the condition that it had a public library.  The building is stunning and the inside is even more incredible than the outside. The Library has outgrown the building and has the largest collection of legal documents and books in the world - there is now a new library building on the grounds.

It was a flying visit - I left to go to the airport at 3pm for the train to Amsterdam Airport for a 5pm flight to Dublin.

I look forward to getting back to Den Haag someday soon!

Put my tree up!

I returned from The Hague yesterday after a really nice visit to see Lydia (blog to follow) and had made a decision that I was going to put my tree up today if I was not too busy.

I know it's fairly early to put up a tree (it's not even December yet) but sure what the heck, I like having a tree up and I want to enjoy it for a while before I take it down.  I also generally don't like to keep it up longer than after 1st of Jan so I might as well get it up early!

So here it is.......only took me about 3 hours and I threw out a few bags of old decorations that I was sick of.  In total I've got 7 sets of lights on the tree and it is rather bright - I love it!!

 Here's a pic of the tree with the lights off

 And this one is the lights on

 Barbie sits atop!

I love this decoration - it's a pic of my twin sister and I when we were very young at Christmas in front of the tree in our Nana's house

Here's the bags of old decorations ready to go to the local charity shop

As you can see I like an eclectic mix of decorations on my tree and I have built up a collection over years.

However, if I was ever to go in a different direction, my dream tree would be the Modern Christmas Tree by Matt Bliss. It's a stunning design - it looks amazing and I think it would probably store away way more easily than my current big green artificial tree. The story of how it was created is brilliant (check it out on the modern tree website) and it is a true piece of art!

Check my past Christmas tree blogs to see the different places that I positioned my tree and how it looked:

2014

2015

2016

2017

In 2018 I didn't put up a tree(!!!) but you can read about Christmas Day here.

And here's a few pics of my favourite decorations this year - I always buy a few new ones each year which is why my collection is now MASSIVE and in all honestly can be a bit overwhelming as I am adding every decoration to the tree.......after about an hour I always have to recruit Ciarán to help in order to not lose the will to stop!

I love the rainbow heart in the top left - the colours complement my eclectic mix of decorations.  However, it is the message that I love the most "Love is Love".  This decoration makes me so happy that I live in Ireland, a place that offers equality to all and respects everyone in their choice of who they love. The decoration also brings me back to the time that I got out and canvassed for the marriage referendum back in 2015 (read about it here). It was my first experience of canvassing and it made me so happy to be part of a huge change in Ireland. It then led me on to canvassing for the later referendum to appeal the 8th amendment. Read here about my feelings when it passed.  
Thank you Lydia for this special decoration.

You can see a turtle in the top right hand corner of the pic. This is also a new decoration for this year and once again I love it because of the memories it sparks. This little ornament brings me right back to my sailing trip in the Caribbean where we experienced swimming with turtles in the wild. We had moored in Tobago Cay and got in to the dinghy to head over to explore the sand bar.  The others went back on the dinghy to the boat but Ciaran and I said we would swim over as it was not far and we had flippers and snorkel gear on. Well the next things is that I saw a star fish on the bottom of the sea floor as I swam along,....and then another one, and then another one.  Then Ciarán, called out "Turtle" and what do you know a turtle swam by!!  So so incredible!

The final decorations - the parrots, flamingos and Margaritaville all remind me of time spent in Key West and where I will be very soon again!!

Tell me about your favourite decoration and what feelings it sparks for you - I read all comments left below :-) 

Friday Funday!

Friday was a fun day and it also followed a fun Thursday night where I met up with my bestie Alice where we toasted our missing gang member Amy of Dublinia blog fame.

After wings in Elephant & Castle we then went on to the Omniplex in Rathmines and watched, as part of the "Bring it Back" series, my favourite film.....yes you guessed it....."A Star is Born" (which I may or may not have seen in the cinema a total of 4 times!).

Alice had never seen the film, and safe to say, she LOVED it!! But I do hope she was able to drive home safely and was not too teary eyed ;-)  

Friday was my day off so my mother called over and helped me clear out my wardrobe. 3 big black bags (these will go to St Vincents shop in Rathmines) later we were ready for brunch!!

I had made a booking at Layla's in The Devlin Hotel which is a short stroll away.

It was my mam's first time in The Devlin and she really liked it. I've been a few times and generally order a steak but on this occasion I ordered mussels - which were amazing!!

And then it was nearly 3pm......wow time flies when you are having fun!  And it was time for me to pick up Bones from the groomer where he had spent the day.

An awesome day in all, and made up for having to work today!