Put a little Joux in your life!

Introducing "Joux"

This is my sister Lydia's cat.  He lives in The Netherlands after travelling from Muscat, Oman with Lydia in the cabin with Turkish Airlines.

He is an indoors cat and never ventures out.  His only experience of the outside is looking out Lydia's apartment window and chattering at birds. He is quite adorable and makes the funniest little sound when looking at the birds. 

Other than that he sleeps.....a lot......and then wakes up and begs for treats and food.

Quite the indulged little guy but an absolute gorgeous fur ball and great company.

Weekends are for Takeaway!

Since all of our favourite restaurants have closed we have been eating at home every evening. I've been cooking simple items like meatballs, chicken, baked broccoli and cauliflower cheese. I generally have cooked one night and then eaten the same meal over two nights. It makes sense to do this when cooking only for two and it saves on the clean up.

Here's some of the items I cooked......and I also bought some L'Or coffee for my coffee maker - I'm saving a fortune by not buying takeaway coffees!

The below are puff pastry with cream cheese, tomato puree and chorizo. Delish!

However, when the weekend came it was time for a takeaway!  We got Rasoi last weekend which is an Indian takeaway restaurant in Ranelagh and it does amazing food. So tasty and travels well in comparison to some takeaway food.  I had biryani for the first time and it was delicious - I'll definitely order it again.

This weekend we plan to order from Dillingers which is were we would generally be found of a Friday night.  So if we can't go to Dillingers it will come to us!

Working from Home

When this Covid-19 pandemic ends, it is going to be a changed world. 

Never could I imagine a few months ago that I would be in a position where I would be working from home. Starting out working in libraries over 20 yrs ago, I generally saw myself  as working in Librarian positions that meant I would be based in a Library branch . However, over the years I moved around and worked in different areas of library services that meant being based in Library HQ and not just branches. The roles were varied and I always thought that there were elements that could be done remotely. My current role is very much desk based in Library HQ and so with the spread of the Covid19 virus and the shutdown of the country I found myself today in the situation where I worked remotely from home for the first time.

I'm sure many companies have found themselves suddenly in the position where they may not have been set up for remote working but they quite quickly had to get set up. It's heartening to see and it is great to see technology being embraced and utilised to allow this to happen. It means that industy can continue while workers are kept safe and hopefully will lead to a flattening of the curve.  Ireland is still a few weeks away from the peak of this so time will tell whether all of our efforts will work.  And when this is all over, we will probably have a changed work landscape and some may not return to the traditional work office setting......time will tell on this one also.

Here's a few pics of my desk set up at home

This was where I set up my desk firstly but then moved to the other side of the room to give me a better view facing out to the stairs

First task of the day was to make a cup of coffee!

 

Working girl!

My view from the studio

For posterity - my sisters  in their homes in The Hague Netherlands, Galway Ireland and me in Dublin 31/03/2020

A fun fact about the picture of the 4 of us - we are all twins!!
Guess which twin goes with which twin!

Group meetups online

All across the world, people are still managing meeting while at the same time distancing themselves physically.  

How this is possible is by using meeting apps like Zoom or group What's app video chats.

I've had lots of meet ups with both friends as well as my sisters who are living in different countries and also in Galway in Ireland.

They are sure are fun (especially if the gathering is over a glass of wine or two) and they definitely keep the spirits up while preventing social isolation.

Another thing that is happening is that choirs and orchestras are putting on amazing performances from their own homes. This is one of my favourites.....Enjoy!

Sunday: Deserted Ranelagh

We walked to Ranelagh this morning in order to give the dog exercise and in order for us to pick up some groceries for the week.

The clocks went forward last night so although we were out walking at 10am it technically was 9am - so perhaps this meant that the village was sleepier than usual Sunday mornings.

There were very few people out on the streets with no traffic.

I went to Supervalu where it seemed like the shop was ticking over with people shopping but with no queue outside.  Ciaran went to Lidl where he found very few people to be in the shop.  Both shops had fully stocked shelves with plenty of food. It looks like there is no need to stock up or panic buy - however it is probably wise to buy enough food for a week or two so as to cut down on the amount of visits you have to make to the shops which should cut down the risk of exposure to the virus.

After doing a separate shop we both met up outside Lidl and walked home promptly.

It was a grey morning (but seems to be brightening up a little now) and the temperature felt noticeably cooler than yesterday which was really bright and sunny.

Here's some pics I took of the streets around Appian Way and Ranelagh - for some of them I stood in the middle of the road which would be unthinkable on other days.

Hope you are doing well during this self isolating period.  Stay safe and stay home!

Covid-19: Ireland is shutdown

Hard to believe in some way, the situation the world is in, with no country being unaffected at this time from Covid-19. From a new virus being discovered in China in 2019, to its spread from China to Europe and beyond over the first months of 2020, we now find our selves in Ireland in a country that has gradually had movements restricted to the current restrictions.  At midnight last night the country was shutdown with only movement of essential workers allowed or visits to the shops within 2km of your home, with the main message being to "Stay at Home".

With over 2,000 cases in Ireland and 22 deaths RIP, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar took advice from Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan to put these restrictions in place.

This is the most sombre blog post I have ever written.....and I know there is worse to come. However, I truly believe that Ireland is in a good position in comparison to other countries. I trust those in charge, they have responded in a manner befitting of the situation and have followed all guidance from the World Health Organisation.  Schools were closed by March 13th and the majority of people have restricted their social contacts over the last few weeks with many only having contact with their close family within their houses. ICU beds have been increased, albeit from a low level with additional personal protective equipment on its way from China with the national airline Aer Lingus commissioning flights for its delivery.  We are strong, we have a decisive caretaker government in place. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Ministers Simon Coveny and Simon Harris are dedicated and experienced and are doing their very best. I am proud of them.

I fear for the UK and USA - I think they did not react quickly or correctly.

I pray Ireland will not become like Italy or Spain.

To end this post, I say that as a world wide population, we are strong, we are resilient and we will get through this.  

This will pass.

Happy St Patrick's Day to you and yours from Ireland!

I hope you are having a nice St Patrick's Day where ever you are in this crazy world we are living in.
About a week a go the government cancelled all parades here in Ireland so it's been a fairly quiet day here in Dublin. Additionally the pubs were all closed from Sunday night onward. I was particularly glad about this as I believe it would have had a very negative effect on the spread of Covid19 if the pubs had been left open on St Patricks' day.

We cancelled all planned meetups with friends and have not been going out to any restaurants and pretty much hunkering down except to take the dog for a walk or to quickly go in to the shops for essentials.

We got up today and went for a long walk around Ranelagh.  We got to Forest Avenue restaurant which was due to be selling their sour dough bread at 11am to 5pm along with other goods which in effect was turning their restaurant in to a neighbourhood market.  However when we got to the restaurant, there was a queue outside the door and someone told us the opening was delayed until 12pm. So we left and continued on walking and went in to the park to enjoy the nature. I got close to the resident heron who is quite friendly and lets you get fairly close to him before he flies away.

After our walk, we set up our speakers on our window sill and at 12pm we opened up the window and blasted "Oró sé do Bheatha Bhaile" out on to our street. 
This was a world wide online facebook initiative to get Irish people all over the Ireland out in to their garden or on to their balcony and to sing together at 12pm for St Patricks Day while in self isolation. You may have seen some of this on Facebook - let me know if you did.

I cooked up a full Irish breakfast for brunch which was tasty as ever and is a must have on St Patrick's Day - especially the Clonakilty black pudding!

And after that we both logged on to the two different Spanish language apps / online classes that we are using to learn Spanish. I am using Transparent Language Online which is available for free through Irish Libraries. Both of us did a half hour language learning session.


I'm planning on charging up my electric bike battery and taking the bike whatever the weather in order to avoid having to take public transport. Using a bike rather than getting on the bus or train is a simple thing that most people should consider to try to do and it may curb some of the spread of this virus.

Other than all of the above, we are well stocked up on food and supplies.  We didn't panic or overbuy but we have enough food for about a week's worth of dinners with food in both the fridge and the freezer along with a small amount of toilet rolls!