This blog was originally started to track our progress as we regenerated a derelict Victorian house in Dublin. We turned an old crumbling ruin in to our dream house! If you wish to read through the trials and tribulations of the house build it is best to start at the oldest blog post and read in date order. The blog then evolved in to being all about my life in Dublin, Ireland and then life in Malaga, Spain with artist "PIGSY" and now back in Dublin I hope you enjoy reading it!
Saturday, 10 October 2020
Every day is a school day!
Wednesday, 7 October 2020
Everything is going swimmingly....
PIGSY Art Merch is now available!
The area that we swam in was just in front of the upmarket Gran Hotel Miramar. To me the view of the hotel from the beach is very LA with the palm trees and the stylish looking hotel.
Take a look over on the Pigsy website at the "merch" and let me know what you think. Also if you have a favourite Pigsy artwork that you would be interested in buying as a printed t-shirt version, drop a line to pigsy.art@gmail.com and if the demand is there we can introduce it to this new "Art Wear" range!
Tuesday, 29 September 2020
10 reasons why your own home cinema rocks!
Easy social distancing with an outdoor home cinema
We have set up a projector on our balcony to screen films on at night time. You can read all about how easy it is to set up your own outdoor home cinema over on Ciaran's blog - click here.
Here's my top 10 reasons why a home cinema is awesome:
- You get to choose what to watch and not have to pick from whatever is showing in the local cinemaplex
- You can eat whatever snacks you want!
- You can talk during the movie :-)
- You can have an adult beverage
- You can switch off and watch something different if you don't like the film
- You can watch the film under a blanket to get all cozy
- Your dog can watch the film too - yes Bones likes to do this!
- You can enjoy looking up at the stars if the film is boring
- You can binge watch a whole series on Netflix
- You can press pause when you go visit the bathroom!
Can you think of any other reasons why a home cinema rocks?! Leave a comment below
Wednesday, 23 September 2020
What I've been working on: PIGSY website
PIGSY Art Website
The big project that I'm currently working on is PIGSY's website. Ciaran gave it a major overhaul and design upgrade when Ireland went in to lockdown at the start of the pandemic.
The piece of work that I am now doing on it is I am going back over all of the content and optimizing it for search engines (SEO). Along with all of this I am amending and adding to current content. I recently added a new page which shows PIGSY artworks on walls in homes. This is a really great way to showcase the artwork and it also emphasizes how contemporary they are and what a feature they become when hung in a space.
Importantly the website is both desktop and mobile friendly. From looking at stats I can see that more people visit the website using a mobile device than on a desktop computer. Sign of the times and this really doesn't surprise me. I'm open to suggestions or critique on the website so get in contact with me if you can offer any advice for improvements - particularly if you excel at SEO as I am a newbie to it!
Additionally I would like more backlinks to the PIGSY website so that's probably the next stage of this project. Get in contact with me if you have any helpful suggestions on how this can be done.Monday, 21 September 2020
The most beautiful bookshop I've ever visited...
Mapas y Compañia
Calle Compañía, 33, 29008 Málaga
I've visited lots of nice bookstores on my travels.... but I think this one is the nicest!
I was planning on visiting a second hand shop on the same street but it did not open at 5pm as was indicated on the internet. I sat outside the shop for a couple of minutes to see if they were opening a little late but there was no signs of life within so I left.As this was an impromptu visit, I did not stay too long - but I plan to visit again soon to enjoy it's charms. I may also buy a Tintin book in Spanish as it may help with my language study as I can follow along with the story using both the pictures and the text.
Wednesday, 16 September 2020
Sea glass
Collecting Sea Glass
One of the things I have been enjoying lately is looking for sea glass after my daily swim. I spend a couple of minutes when I get out of the water taking a wander a long the shore and pick up a few pieces if there is any to be found (sometimes the waves are very close to the shore and they pull all the stones back to sea so there is no chance of finding any glass.)
Generally I only find orange, white and green glass but I was hoping to find a blue piece. Well guess what?!
Today's the day - I found a blue piece!
Here's the blue piece that I found today (see below). It's a gorgeous colour.Tuesday, 15 September 2020
Coffee time in Malaga
Tassimo Coffee Machine
As I wrote before, we have got in to a nice routine of going for a swim every morning and then going for coffee and a little breakfast (pitufo). I was enjoying this except for the fact that we had difficulty finding somewhere that served good coffee. The first few times I ordered a Cafe con Leche and I ended up with a short coffee (which seemed hopeful) with lots of milk. I was hopeful about it as it was short so I reckoned it might taste strong, but unfortunately it just tasted like warm milk with a barely there taste of coffee. I then moved on to ordering a Cortado which was better but still not great in some places.
So after a lot of mulling it over I decided to get a coffee machine for here in the apartment. I've always had Nespresso machines at home in Ireland but after talking to a few people and getting recommendations I decided to order a Tassimo machine as they have a much broader range of coffees - for example you can buy pods to make cafe au laits and machiattos and even chai lattes and hot chocolates!
And here it is our shiny new Tassimo Suny
With our breakfast we had a L'Or Espresso which we both really enjoyed. Short, strong coffee - just perfect.