When was the last time you visited the library?

Are you a member of your local library?!

As a Librarian, I may be biased, but there really is something for everyone in the library!

Ireland has an excellent library service that offers loads of brilliant resources all for FREE, including:
eBooks
eAudio Books
Online Newspapers (Yup!)
eMagazines and periodicals
Events 
Online courses (including language learning)
And lots more!

Additionally you can borrow an item in any library country wide and then return it to any other library (ANYWHERE in Ireland!) - how great is that?!

Check out this video below that features real life Irish Librarians and highlights just some of the things that are available for all at the library....and if you haven't ever visited the library, do pop in and say hello to the friendly staff - we look forward to meeting you!

Edit: Since the Covid-19 outbreak Libraries Ireland are offering instant free access to online services - click here 

2020 Clear Out

2020 is our year for a big clear out.

We have a skip bag that is nearly full but I think we are getting there.

I've been clearing out the attic and also wardrobes. With every item that I clear out I consider whether it should be thrown out in the skip bag or put in to the recycling bin or otherwise it goes in a bag to be sent on to the Charity Shop (Thrift Store to my USA readers!)

At this point I have dropped about 6 big black bags to the Charity Shop but am now struggling to even fill one bag.  This means I am getting there and now I am packing up items to go back in to the attic for storage rather than getting thrown out.

I reckon I've got about a week or two more of cleaning out but then I will be fully decluttered!  

In other news, one of Ciaran's paintings sold yesterday which is all very exciting!!  
2020 is shaping up very nicely ;-)

Singing waiters!!

I've been wanting to go to an event with singing waiters for oh I don't know, probably 10 years or more, since I heard about them first.

Well what do you know, I went to a wedding on Saturday and what was part of the wedding entertainment - yes you've guessed it, Singing Waiters!!

They were incredible and added a fantastic dimension to the wedding.  I was so happy to experience them and if you are considering getting them for your wedding, just do it!

New Year clear out: Benetton Minicall

I'm doing a MASSIVE clear out of years of stuff that I have accumulated - in particular all of the boxes that have been sitting up in the attic that have never been opened in the past few years.

I took every single box down from the attic and am currently going through them all and to be honest am throwing out a lot of stuff.

One of the things I found was my first mobile phone from 2003!  

Here it is:

I loved this dinky little Nokia :-) 

So this is something that I really should be throwing out but to be honest I don't have the heart to at the moment.  I put it in a box along with another of my old mobile phones (htc) and my minicall pager (remember those?!)

You would have to wonder why I can't bin the above.....I'm not quite sure but perhaps in regards to the minicall it is due to both the age of it and also the rarity - I can't really find a whole lot of info online about the Benetton designed minicalls for Motorola but I think mine is from about 1997.  If you know anything about them, please let me know.

And now I'm going back to sorting out the massive mountain of old papers that I found in a box in the attic :-( 

Christmas in Key West

It's a wrap! 

We had a fantastic Christmas in Key West.....here's all the details

We flew with United from Dublin to Newark and then on to Key west. I rate this flight highly.  It took us about 13 hours (close to the fastest it can be done with connections etc) total to get to Key West with excellent crews on both flights along with really nice new planes.  One item I noticed was that there was no blinds on the windows in the plane. Instead there was a button below the window which allowed you dim the light and stop you seeing out (the cabin crew presumably could also control them and could open all the windows for landing). All very fancy indeed!

Below you can read all about where we stayed, where we ate out and what we got up to:

The Saint - A Marriott Autograph Hotel
What can I say about The Saint that you may not have seen in any of the reviews if you google it. Excellent staff, top notch bedroom, superb location just off Duval on Eaton, awesome bar with a brilliant happy hour along with the roof top bar Halo where we enjoyed some really nice cocktails and good entertainment. 
But my favourite thing was to chill by the pool with a glass of bubbles!
If you are looking for a cool hip hotel in Key West - look no further than The Saint.

 

 

Trolley Tour
It rained and rained for the first two days in Key West so we took in a few different things that we may not have done if the weather was better. One of the things we did was the trolley tour with Amy.  It was a bit of fun and our ticket then gave us free entry in to the Rum Distillery which was a great day out.

Amy and I were twinning in our Christmas reindeer jumpers - we had a lot of people remark on them ("Nice sweater") and then ask the usual "Are you twins?!"

"A beautiful day in the neighborhood" at the Tropic Cinema
Happy to have got to see this film as it may not come to Ireland due to it being all about "Mr Rogers" a very unique and brilliant man known by all of a particular age in the USA but perhaps not so widely known in Ireland.  Going to the Tropic Movie Theatre was a rainy day activity and I loved it!

Papa's Pilar Rum Distillery by the Hemingway Rum Company
A fun little tour with a taste of rum afterwards - sure why not?!

Sarabeths
Sunday nights mean fried chicken in Sarabeths!!  I had the Mahi Mahi which was very good too. We had a really lovely quiet night here and I had a nice glass of malbec with dinner.

Christmas Dinner in The Saint with Key Lime Martini's in Martins afterwards....

We had an awesome table in The Saint for Christmas dinner and really enjoyed the set menu with some great wine and company!

We followed up with an after dinner cocktail in Martins - altogether a lot of fun.

Fishing on the Gulfstream
Look at the haul!
We had a super day on the water with Amy's other half Patrick and caught enough for Amy and Patrick to put some fish in their freezer for a fish dinner or two.
It was a little choppy at times so I had a little moment down the back of the boat at one point, but I got through it and went straight back fishing afterwards!

Santiago's Bodega
This is a spot that we ALWAYS go to in Key West. The food is always excellent and it was no different this time.....the service was a little disinterested on this visit and I missed seeing some of the old staff that used to work in Santiago's.

First Flight 
Amy and I dropped in to what will always be Kelly's to us(!) on Whitehead Street. Home of the first Pan Am office in the USA it is also home to fresh lime margaritas and great food bites at the bar.  We love it - and it was also good to have a natter and great catch up with Amy.

Sunset on the Ingham
Oh my what a stunning sunset on our last night in KW. It was also a lot of fun meeting up with friends on the Ingham Coast Guard ship - great to see them all and hopefully see them again very soon.

Origami
Our last night was spent in Origami which is our favourite sushi restaurant in Key West.  We got a spot at the bar and didn't even look at the menu and instead we just asked the chef to make us some different selections and keep them coming!  Such a great night and really excellent sushi.  

Phew!  I think I've got it all in there!

Another great trip to Key West and I can't wait to return hopefully very soon.

Happy New Year - here's to 2020!

With the impending new year I got to thinking about past new year celebrations along with past memories.  For 2020, I am planning a more simple life and because of that I thought back to times in my life when I didn't have as much as I do now and was living a very different life.

One old memory is when I was travelling around Australia on a year out, 21 years ago.  We spent 6 months in Sydney where Ciaran worked in an architectural practise in the city and I worked at a few odd jobs here and there.  After this time, we bought a camper van and set off travelling around Australia and did farm work along the way to make a bit of money to carry on with our travels.  One place that we visited was Kununurra in Western Australia where we got work packing sweet corn and melon in a production plant. We had got the job by going to a garage on a Monday morning and managers from local farms and factories would go along and pick people out of the group to work for them.  Once you were picked you would be taken on a bus every day to the farm.  It was the case that if you were picked on the first day, you were then employed by the farm until you quit or they didn't need you and let you go.  

We had planned to work for about 6 weeks in this town and were booked in to the caravan park for this time.  So every day we were up about 4.30am and headed to the garage to get on the bus and start work at 6amam.  The work was tough but we got fed by the farm - let's just say we ate a lot of corn and melon!

Did I mention at this time we were fairly broke and we were saving all the money that we made, after we paid for the caravan park and bought dinner for the evening.  Beyond that we didn't spend a whole lot and as far as I can remember we worked 6 days a week.

Everyday when we would arrive at the garage to meet up with the other workers we would see some of them getting breakfast in the garage.  We had already eaten breakfast back at the camp site - we made a big pot of porridge because it was cheap and filling. And although we were not hungry we looked on with envy at the backpackers who bought their breakfast in the garage. What we yearned for most was a cheese and ham toastie and a chocolate milk but it would have blown our budget if we were to buy one every day. One of the mornings we made a plan that on our last day of work we would buy breakfast in the garage to end the block of work on a high.

The six weeks passed quickly, we made great friends on the packing line and had great chats and conversations over lunch with backpackers from all over the world.  And then on our last day we went to the garage and we ate a cheese and ham toastie with a chocolate milk. What bliss!  I can't say it was the best food but the experience was unforgettable. The value we placed on that treat that we worked so hard to experience was immense - so immense that I am blogging about it over 20 years later.  It's the little things that come by with difficulty that provide the best experiences, in comparison to things that come by easy, these days.

For 2020 I want to go back to a simpler time when small things provided the greatest pleasure.

I have a plan in motion......watch this space!

Weekend fun in Dublin

With Storm Atiyah approaching on Sunday, it was good to get out and about on Saturday. After taking Bones for a walk, I got on my bike and cycled to the RDS to visit Gifted Craft Fair. 

                          

I had got two free tickets from a colleague in work and outside the venue I heard a lady with a child ask someone do you have to buy a ticket to go inside. As I was passing by, I offered her my spare one which she happily accepted.

Inside at the fair there was loads to see and I spent a good length of time browsing all of the stands.

I tasted lots of samples of cheese, chutneys and different food items including the Dream Cake by Nostimo Heavenly Food which are based in Mullingar. It was so good and could be described as mousse like but also chocolate fondant like.

                                      

Afterwards I went to Tesco to get some Cranberry sauces - I need to have 75 of them to donate to Basket Brigade next week ('m nearly there - I have 60 jars of sauce).

And later on I took Bones for another walk in the evening and looked at all of the Christmas trees, lights and wreaths on doors in my neighbourhood. What a fun thing to do!

Sunday morning was stormy so I chilled in bed with coffee and a book and a little hairy companion.