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!
After a slow start to last Sunday, we headed in to Dublin City on our bikes. After locking them up near Starbucks on College Green, we took a stroll around the area. I had a plan!
I wanted to see the newly renovated Central Bank Plaza, take a wander around Temple Bar and.......eat a Krispy Kreme donut!
Wow, seriously delicious. I had only a traditional glazed Krispy Kreme on a visit to the States so when I went to select my donut I chose some kind of chocolatey one with chocolate frosting and some kind of fudgey tasting filling. So good......we were very abstemious though and shared one donut rather than getting one each.
It was nice to have a chilled out Sunday as we have been incredibly busy for the last while with PIGSY art with lots of art openings and events. You can read all about them over on PIGSY's art blog.
Yesterday evening we went to a fun event after I finished work. It was the Critical Mass / I Bike Dublin cycle around Dublin city. You can see a video of the event here - great sounds and fun being cheered along by lots of people all over the streets of Dublin.
And then today we have a biggie! College Football is coming to Dublin and we will go see Nebraska vs. Northwestern in Aviva Stadium. I'm seriously excited about this one and know it will be a great day out. Kick off is 5.30pm and the Aviva is close enough to us to walk or cycle.
Oh here's something else - check out the cutest little Coach Coin Purse that I received as a wedding anniversary gift. Thanks Mom!
So I'm back on keto for awhile now and am always looking out for new tasty snacks.
Today in Supervalu while getting some strawberries and cream, I spotted these "Cheese Os"
I snapped up a packet and tasted them at home.
My verdict is that they are pretty good. Extremely cheesey and very moreish. They taste like Cheese Whisps which I had on a recent trip to the States to visit my sister.
All in all a tasty snack and that's low carb and could make a keto snack depending on your metrics. Interestingly they are Irish made and I am noticing more Irish low carb products coming to market (Hello, Scratch my pork) which is great to see.
Hope you enjoy them too!
Ingredients: Cheddar Cheese
Nice and fatty with low carb
Available in lots of different flavours - see the Cheese O Website
I only planted a small border but they are wild and bushy and are filling my fence line. There are blue flowers that seem to be big attractants for bumble bees along with white flowers and yellow and orange buds too. All in all it is brightening up my garden and attracting bees and butterflies which was my aim when I decided to plant flower seeds. You can look back at past blogs to see what the garden looked like before the flowers grew.
A few months ago I was excited to hear that Baz Luhrman was directing a new Elvis movie. I've always been a fan of his over the top stylised film making (Romeo + Juliet with Claire Danes and Leonardo Di Caprio being one of my favourites) with mix up of moderns soundtracks with classic stories making for a massive cinematic experience. I was nervous though that an Elvis film by Baz may turn in to a parody of the greatest performer in the world.
I need not have been nervous. In actual fact I think Baz may have toned down his style or perhaps it was naturally overshadowed by Elvis Presley's showmanship and style.
*Spoilers Alert*
Read no further if you haven't seen the film and you don't want to know anything about it (of course, we all know how this story sadly ends) but in my opinion, Luhrman made the film about one of the oldest storylines - good vs. evil. Elvis being the good of course while his manager was cast as the villain in this story. The evil of Colonel Parker was to be proven after the death of Elvis Presley through the courts where it showed that he took advantage of Elvis and mismanaged his affairs.
Austin Butler
The star of the show was Austin Butler who plays Elvis from his late teens to his death age 42. How this is achieved is through costume, make up and acting of the highest calibre. Butler exudes charisma and he develops effortlessly in to "The King". His singing performances are electric and capture the energy of an Elvis show on the big screen.
In comparison, Tom Hanks' Colonel Parker is portrayed as an unlikeable manipulative character who abused his power and position and coerced Elvis in to particular contracts and ultimately brought about the death of Elvis through overwork and keeping him drugged up through the shady "Dr Nick". Through the film you can see the manipulation by Parker as he plays on Elvis's fear of not being able to take care of his mother and father and the rest of his family in Graceland.
Director Baz Luhrman
I tried to just go along with the movie and not to analyse it too much, however, I did notice certain elements that I think Luhrman took artistic licence in these parts. For example, I think he put the song "Trouble" in too early in Elvis's career as I am sure that the first time this song was sang was in the film "King Creole" which was probably after his army career......but maybe it was put in to this film in an earlier sequence in order to facilitate a particular storyline. Anyway, I may be wrong but it was just something that jarred with me when I was watching the film. It was also news to me that Elvis's mother Gladys had a drinking problem, but it was something that was played up in this film so presumably it is something that is true.
Omniplex Rathmines
All in all the total film is a spectacular story of the legend that is Elvis Presley and I recommend you make a night of it and head to the cinema to see this movie (we had planned to see it in the amazing Stella in Rathmines but it was all booked out so had to go to the Omniplex to see it - this worked out fine as the showing we selected was in the big Maxx screen). Both my husband and I were in agreement about the excellent perfomance of Austin Butler but we had a differing opinion on the Priscilla character. I felt she was more believable as an older Priscilla in the later years of the 60's and 70's while Ciaran thought she was more believable as the younger Priscilla. There is so much to tell of Elvis Presley that a lot had to be left out, I was surprised to see that there was no mention of his relationship with actress Ann Margaret but I guess it may not have been something that Luhrman wanted to focus on and may have taken away from the story of Elvis being a "family man". I say family man in a way to emphasise the pressures on Elvis to take care of family and friends with lots of people relying on his pay cheque to be supported. I'm not saying this in a negative way but just more as fact. Elvis liked to surround himself by particular people and presumably needed to have them work for him in order to facilitate this.
So all in all, it's a 10 out of 10 from me for Elvis - let me know if you have seen it, and what you thought of it! It's a pure delight to watch with all of the usual Baz Lurhman "spectacular spectacular" elements (a scene that stood out for me was where Elvis went to his gun store, grabbed a gun and shot up the TV in Vegas - I had heard of this happening and had seen it in the Kurt Russell Elvis biopic, but I thought it was pure "Baz" in the cinematography and making the guns appear shinier and larger than life - it was reminiscent of the way he featured guns in his Romeo + Juliet film too). In my opinion it did justice to Elvis the world's most successful performer and perhaps the biggest star I will ever see in my life time, even though he was dead by the time I was born......which is saying a lot!
Here's some of the things that I've got up to over the past two weekends.
Alice and I went to Dionne Warwick two weekends ago, which was a lot of fun. The concert in the Bord Gais Theatre was great and afterwards we got to meet up with our good friend Todd (and his fellow band member Danny) and had a few drinks in The Ferryman. Todd is a professional musician and you can follow his Tik Tok here - he does a lot of traveling and is currently in Europe touring with Dionne Warwick.
Fun fact! Alice and I turned up wearing the same outfit!!! Can you believe it?! It's a black jumpsuit from Mango - luckily in two different colours so we didn't look quite the same.
Another fun thing was that we saw the musicians walking over from their hotel in to the venue while we were having a drink before the concert. I ran over to take a pic to show to Todd. Too funny!
And then this weekend I arranged to meet Ciaran in Dublin city where we went on a "Critical Mass" cycle.......or as I joked and called it a Critical "Mess".
It was another fun event, where we got to take over the streets and cycle around the city with the music blaring.
It's held every month on the last Friday and hopefully we do it again next time.
And then on Saturday night we minded Cleo the dog!
She is such a good dog, lovely personality and easy to mind. On Sunday before she got picked up, we went for a walk in the park - but we kept her on the lead as seemingly she is prone to jumping in to the pond!!
Shoutout to Supervalu Ranelagh for the most amazing Tomahawk Steak that was our Saturday night dinner. Seriously tasty and went well with a glass of malbec along with sides of sweet potatos and onion rings. Having eaten out for the last few Saturday nights it was great to stay in and enjoy some home cooked food!
And so that was our Wild Weekends!! Hope you have been enjoying your weekends as much as we have been enjoying ours!
One of the things I really enjoyed doing every morning on my holiday in Florida was making a pot of filter coffee first thing in the morning. Filter coffee is not hugely popular here in Ireland, with many people having Nespresso or Tassimo coffee capsule machines while when growing up coffee was either instant or made in a percolater.
So when I returned from Key West, I decided to buy a filter coffee machine and ordered one last Thursday and then it arrived by courier from the UK today.
I had bought coffee in preparation for when the machine arrived. Over in the States, I had been enjoying Tim Horton's coffee which is not available in Ireland - so Starbucks and Bewleys coffee will have to do instead.
I brewed the Starbucks today but found the coffee to be a bit weak for my taste. I plan on adding more coffee tomorrow. I look forward to figuring how much coffee I should use to make the perfect cup. If you have any tips, let me know in the comments!
