Christmas is over for another year

That's a wrap, Christmas is over! 

Sorry to see the end of Christmas but I am well back in work and it's time for everything to get back to normal. While Ciaran played padel, I started taking down the tree and decorations.

Here they are all are nicely boxed and bagged up.

These boxes are for all my tree decorations. They have a box within the box to make two layers with grids for each little decoration.

I pack away my Christmas jumpers with my decorations.

Here's the bare spot where the tree was. Tomorrow, Ciaran will bring the long cushion for this spot down from upstairs and will put it back in position.

Also, Ciaran will move all of the boxes to the storage area in the floor of the hallway. When we rebuilding the house he designed a hatch in the hallway that opens up to a "crawl space" that we can use for storage. It's a very convenient spot for the decorations.

Sad to see all the decorations down but I will leave the lights up in the garden for a few more days. It's fierce cold at the moment so I think the lights brighten the area and make it feel less Wintery.

So that's it for another year!

Another day, another cup of coffee to start the day!

Espresso Cup Collection

So when I was unpacking my Christmas decorations a few weeks ago, I strangely found my espresso cups all packed away among my decorations. 

It was timely to find them all and I decided to use a different one each day for a little cup of espresso to start my day over the Christmas holidays (little things like this give me so much pleasure). Here's a few pics of some of the cups. I have to say it brightened my day to drink out of the little Key West Cup and it brought memories to the forefront of Christmases past that I spent in Key West - the most being two years ago where we stayed in the incredible The Saint Hotel. Good times!

Miley Cyrus: It should have been me

Miley Cyrus - I'm a new fan!

I've never really seen what the big deal is about Miley Cyrus. However, about a week ago I saw her live on Jimmy Fallon. Wow! What a performance. She totally owns the stage and I was gripped. It's a clever, humorous and charismatic performance. and it has stayed with me for days.

I'm a fan for sure now.

It should have been me

Here's the song (It should have been me) she performed on Jimmy Fallon. Let me know what you think!

Christmas: the day after

Christmas Day - the day after

"Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house, Enid was stirring as quiet as a mouse.........

After a lovely few days over Christmas, I'm enjoying a strong coffee after a somewhat early night and an 8 hr sleep. I'm fresh and rejuvenated and have lovely memories of the loveliest Christmas. 

It's been a busy few days with an early start to buy the Christmas day food before work on Wednesday. Then it was a dash from work on Thursday to get my booster covid shot (hallelujah) and then on to the hairdresser. The next day was Christmas Eve where we had a Christmas lunch with friends which we started with a pre-lunch cocktail in our house before heading over to the club across the road. 

Christmas Day

Christmas Day started with a glass of champagne in hand while we opened presents with a cheesy Christmas movie playing in the background. We followed this by watching Casablanca for the first time - wow what a great movie. 

Christmas Dinner

Dinner on Christmas was a wonderful affair. Ciaran had selected a boned and rolled Turkey and Ham from James Whelan Butcher. The meat was stuffed but I made additional stuffing too (you can never have enough stuffing in my opinion!) and we had lots of sides including roast potatoes, cabbage, brussels sprouts, cheesy cauliflower along with a carrot & parsnip mash mix. Along with a bottle or red wine we had a very tranquil and quiet dinner. Music was played on Ciaran's new wireless speaker (Santa was good to him) and all in all it was just perfect. 

The aftermath...

And so after a Christmas dinner and a small pre-lunch cocktail with friends on Christmas Eve, here's the extent of the recycling. Can't say it's too bad - we were fairly restrained this year ;-) 

But there's still a few days of celebration left so watch this space!

And what's next on my agenda you ask.......well it is to enjoy some homemade pate (thanks Gerry!) on crackers with a glass of prosecco......well it is still Christmas after all!

Booster news

Blog written 21st Dec - posted 25th Dec

Dublin in December

Omicron has taken hold in Ireland. It's expected that there will be 4th wave with a peak in January. For the moment there is a drive to get everyone boosted while new restrictions have been introduced with restaurants and pubs closing at 8pm every evening until January and a vaccination cert needed to enter certain places such as gyms. 

For me the restriction won't have much impact. On Christmas Eve, after visiting both sets of parents in the morning, we are doing a lunch in Ciaran's squash club and then we will have a quiet Christmas Day just the two of us at home. 

But in more important news - we are getting boosted this Thursday with an appointment at 4pm! I feel lucky to be able to get my booster jab, Ireland has high vaccination take up and a systematic well run government led vaccination programme. It will hopefully get us through all of this.

Tomorrow evening, we are hosting a small Christmas cocktail meetup for two friends. I'm looking forward to it and it will be casual, relaxed and safe. We have been very careful about socialising for the past while and we will continue to be careful over Christmas.

The latest government campaign is RSVP. This stands for Risk - Symptoms - Venue - People> and it is meant makes people think about what they are doing and where they are going and make an assessment 

Stay safe everyone and have a great Christmas!

Share the magic - I believe too Aoife!

Christmas TV Ads

One of my favourite things this time of year is to enjoy all of the different Christmas ads which are generally really sweet, sentimental and inspiring. In past years, I've favored the John Lewis ads (remember the fox on the trampoline!) but this year my fave is the Supervalu "Share the Magic" ad featuring Aoife and a bunch of children who believe Santa's reindeer can fly. 

Supervalu - Share the magic

The ad is charming and has an authentic feel of an Irish Christmas. Here for your enjoyment is the longer version of the Supervalu ad - let me know what you think!

A few days off work

Dublin Town

I've a few days off work this week which has been great. Unfortunately I was due to visit my sister in The Netherlands but I decided to cancel my plans with changes to travel rules by the Irish government recently. From early December, nightclubs are now closed in Ireland and no large group bookings are allowed in restaurants. Another change is that a negative PCR test is required when arriving in to Ireland. As I was going on Wednesday afternoon and returning on Friday afternoon, I decided to cancel my trip for two reasons (1) the hassle of getting tested upon my return seemed too much given that I would be there for less than 3 days in total (and I was also concerned that I might test positive and have to stay on for 10 days) and (2)presumably the Irish Government introduced the test in order to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant by only allowing those with negative tests return to the country with no further restrictions imposed on them and also to stop those travelling for non-essential reasons. I probably fall in to the second category. And while I would love to see my sister (it's been 2 years since I last saw her) it probably is best to hold off at this time. Travel is really just not on the cards at the moment.

Anyway I had a lovely time being off work for 3 days this week and got lots done!

PIGSY Art News

In PIGSY news there are now 9 PIGSY artworks being showcased in an art gallery in Florida.In other PIGSY news, we tidied up a few loose ends together in the studio yesterday and got a packaged artwork mailed to its new home in County Galway. There's always something to do in regards to his art so it sure was nice to have the time to do it.

Strolling around Dublin

We cycled in to town yesterday and had a wander around Drury Street area and Grafton Street. I'm sorry to say that I thought it was very quiet. Too quiet for 9th of December. In fairness being so quiet, it made for a pleasant afternoon for us, but you have to feel for the retailers who probably need to make bumper sales in order to get them through the whole Covid situation we have been experiencing for coming up on two years. 

While in town, we decided to get late lunch and made our way to Pitt Bros for some barbeque. It's been awhile since we were both there (I ate here about 2 months ago with one of my sisters) and it was super tasty along with good music playing and friendly staff assisting us with our order. We enjoyed it immensely and split a 3 meat combo meal between the two of us.

"And just like that......"

And after our trip in to Dublin City, I settled in for the evening to watch the reboot of "Sex and the City".  There were two back to back episodes of "And just like that....." on Sky Comedy and boy was I glad of that after the big shock ending of the first episode! At first while watching it I wasn't feeling it and I thought there was a bit too many mentions of ageing and also a very  poor writing out of Samantha. However, once that was done it was right back to business and it was as good as Sex and the City ever was. Personally I liked it but was always a fan of the original series (don't mention the movies!) and it will be a regular thing for me to watch it for the next few Thursday evenings.

You've got mail

My Christmas package to my sister arrived in the States this week and it was quickly unpacked in order for her cat to pop herself in to it. What can I say, Cats will do as Cats do!

Thanks to An Post for the prompt delivery.......but I wonder where the envelope that I sent about 10 days previously is?!