Book Review: "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton

Book Recomendation - "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton

On my recent trip from Ireland to visit my sister in the USA, she recommended a book to me called "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brookes-Dalton. My sister had discovered the book by attending an author event in Books & Books in Key West.  Books & Books store founder Judy Blume (yes!!) was in attendance and gave glowing praise for the book, saying she doesn't normally read post apocalyptical novels but that she really enjoyed this book.

When I had finished reading the book my sister mentioned it being a read for young adults, this was not something I picked up on at the time of reading. But looking back now, it is probably a book that would interest older young adults, perhaps 15 years plus.  In my opinion, while an easy read, the subject matter could be too harrowing for younger people.

So that brings me to the subject matter, which is in essence, what happens when the power goes out. Specifically in Florida where the central character is based. The protagonist and central character being Wanda who was born in the middle of a hurricane and is named after said hurricane. 

As we know Florida has always experienced huge weather events and now sea levels are beginning to rise. Brooks-Dalton writes about a family and how they are torn apart by these weather events and the effect the weather has on all of those who live in the areas that experience the catastrophic weather events. It is not just Florida with hurricanes but California with rising temperatures which leads to fires and other catastrophies. It should be noted that me calling this "weather events" somewhat minimises what is going on, and also possibly casts mankind as victims in these natural occurences - please be aware that I don't believe that they are natural events and unfortunately they are our doing with our over reliance and use of non-renewable energy and our abuse of natural resources. Humans through our excessive behaviours have caused climate warming and global changes and these are the results. We are no innocent victims in this scenario.

Ultimately, the book maps out terrifying scenarios where homes and towns are devastated and people lose their loved ones to tragedies and have to move away from everything they know to find safe areas to live. It is a deeply sad story in parts but yet there is some hope.  The resiliance of humans is shown and that is something that we will always have.

It's a beautifully written story and very gripping. I read it on a Florida beach while sunbathing (how apt!) and with only two chapters to go I had to leave the beach as I had got too much sun. However, I stopped at a small pocket park close to the beach and sat under the shade of a tree in order to finish the book - it's that good!!

If you are looking for a good read by, I have no doubt, an upcoming and soon to be successful author, do yourself a favour and buy a copy of The Light Pirate from your local bookstore, or borrow from the library.  And hey if your local library doesn't have it in stock, make sure you make a suggestion for purchase!

An unexpected flying, fleeting, visit to Key West

Unexpectedly I arranged a trip to Key West (at very short notice) to visit with my sister.

It was a week long holiday that I packed loads in to and had a great time with Amy. Having found brilliant flights with United (Dublin-Newark-Key West) for a reasonable cost, it was a no brainer to go, once I had secured the annual leave approval from work.

As usual, the very first thing that I do on Key West trips is head to Cuban Coffee Queen for my first coffee on the island. Excellent as usual and I love the vibe of the coffee hangout - so I visited between 7am and 8am every day for the rest of the week.

Roosters and coffee always put a smile on my face!

Some of things I got up to on the visit included catching crab with Amy on her boat. Her and her husband had baited them and laid them out the week before so we just had to pull them in and take the claw off any crabs that were big enough. When we got home we then were able to enjoy the fruits of our labour and ate crab claws with prosecco along with a delicious lime mustard sauce made by Amy.

Is that one of the biggest crab claws you have ever seen?! And tasted so good!

The weather was changeable but I did get to spend a day at the beach - but more importantly I got out fishing on The Salty Goat with Captain Dan and First Mate Greg. It was a great day - we went to the Gulf of Mexico and we were on the fish!! 

Later that evening Amy cooked up the fish with 2 different seasonings. Seriously there is nothing better than eating the fish that you just caught that day. It's one of my favourite things in life.

It was lucky that I went fishing on the day that I did as there was no fishing the next day due to the weather.

Other things we got up to included, enjoying happy hour eats and other great food, including of course Key Lime Pie. We did happy hour in Aonzo's Half Shell Raw Bar and Martins, along with having sushi at Thai Island. I also stopped in for a drink (and the atmosphere) in Green Parrot Bar (my fave!) and First Flight (the former Kelly's).

My last full day was cooler so what did I do, only visit firstly the Tennesee Williams Museum and then the awesome Tropic Movie Theatre on Eaton Street

Tennessee Williams lived in Key West from the 1950's to about the 1980's and it was fun to see his Key West Library card!

On my last evening, we stopped at Dairy Queen which was fun. The DQ is in a historic 1950's building - too cute.

With my flight going at lunchtime it was great to squeeze in one last thing on my final day (Saturday) with Amy and I stopping off at a yard sale on the way home from Cuban Coffee Queen, what fun!

All in all a really super time in Key West with quality time spent with my twin sister (and her model cat, Buddy!). 

I have to admit that I was teary at the airport as I turned to go through security. I was sad to be leaving but hopefully I will get back soon. This was a bonus trip that I never expected so I have to be glad about that. It has set me up for January 2023 and I only have to work a week before I am off for the new St Brigid's bank holiday next weekend.

Thanks Amy for a great time and brilliant memories. Til next time.....

Butter gone viral

Have you seen Twitter lately?

Of all the things that are going viral, one of them is butter. Yes butter!

Well not quite just butter, more specifically Irish butter and even more specifically, Kerrygold Butter. 

It all started with a tweet by @afrosabi (see below) and as things go on Twitter it spread quickly (excuse the pun!)

I'm not surprised by this at all as I have been extolling the virtues of Irish butter for years here on my blog. But it is not just Kerrygold that is great, most all Irish butters are really good as generally (like Kerrygold is) it is made from grassfed milk. This means that the cows eat grass outside for most of the year except for maybe a small amount of time if there is bad weather. It leads to the most gorgeous tasty yellow butter that has a high fat content up at about 80%.

Kerrygold is a very well know brand of butter here in Ireland but there are others including Avonmore Butter, Connaught Gold, Glenstal Creamery Butter and Ór Real Irish Butter (interesting fact the word Ór means gold in the Irish language). To be honest though the supermarket brand butters are really good here in Ireland and tend to have the same fat content as Kerrygold. I've tasted the Supervalu and Dunnes Stores own brand and they are delicious.  Irish butter is also avaiable in Lidl and Aldi. I've tasted the Aldi store brand (Kilkeely) and it's great and I regularly buy the Lidl store brand which is Dairy Manor.

So if you've not tasted Irish butter why not try it - I think you will notice a big difference to the butter that you normally eat (let me know!). 

I know that Kerrygold is the one that is widely available throughout the world but it can be expensive. So if you've now got an Irish butter addiction, here's a tip to save money - freeze your butter. Yes butter can freeze, so if you see butter on sale at a good price, buy a few and put them in the freezer to keep longer. But in fairness, butter lasts a good while, so you may not even need to freeze it.

My mantra is that everything is better with butter.  Let me know if you agree!

Just a perfect day!

Yesterday was great. Just one of those perfect days.

For some reason I bounced out of the bed at 6.30am which is very unlike me as I normally sleep til about 8am on the weekend. Anyway I got up and enjoyed the solitude in the house and had a chilled out cup of coffee with Bones asleep on the couch beside me and Ciaran still asleep upstairs.

And then Ciaran got up and got ready to go to Galway. He was picked up by his friend at 8.30am and I set off walking with the slow, old dog that is Bones. We walked to Nick's coffee where I discovered that it opens at 7am on a Sunday morning!!  I got there about 9am and it was literally the only place open in Ranelagh. There was a bit of a buzz in Nick's with a steady flow of people at the hatch in their window getting their coffee fix on. I enjoyed my coffee inside the shop, standing at the back counter with Bones (Yes, they are dog friendly!) and browsed instagram while I was there.

When I got home, I set about making Keto bread. I haven't made it in awhile and I was pleasantly reminded how easy it is to make - and how tasty it is (of course, I have to give a big nod to Irish butter - a slice of this bread toasted with a lump of Kerrygold is the best)!

I noticed that I lost an earring on the way back from Nick's but I didn't even let that ruin my perfect day! They were sent to me from USA by Amy. She is going to send me a new pair to replace - they were from Banana Republic which we don't have here in Ireland.

And then when Ciaran came home from Galway we went to the movies to see "A man called Otto" starring Tom Hanks. It's been about 2 months since I was last in the the cinema so it felt good to watch a fim on the big screen at the Ranelagh Omniplex. And what a film. So great, but utterly heartbreaking in parts. So so good.

All in all a perfect Sunday before I went back to work today. Very relaxed, very chill.....as the song goes, easy like a Sunday morning!

Saturday Night - Keto Pizza in Ranelagh

 We are expecting cold weather here in Ireland, with the arrival of what is being called an "arctic snap". For the past few days it has been fairly windy and stormy, and cycling home from work yesterday evening was one of the worst - no rain, but bitterly cold. Luckily its a short 10 min cycle from the train station.

When I did eventually get home and got in and got warm, I set about making dinner of Keto pizza. As per usual for this time of year, I am back on low carb along with Intermittent Fasting. The IF is working really well and to be honest I don't miss breakfast or lunch and generally only eat in the evening time.

The pizza turned out great - I covered the top with cheese but be assured, it is loaded with pepperoni under all of that cheese. If you want to make Keto Pizza the recipe is linked here on my blog.

As well as making the pizza I filled bowls full of slow cooker bone broth and popped them in the freezer when cooled. Again with the cold weather, I will be glad of the broth, over the next few days and will probably make some hearty soups with the bone broth as a base.

After dinner, I watched possibly the last of the Hallmark Christmas movies until next Christmas. It was called "Haul out the Holly" and in fairness it was funny and gave me a good giggle in parts. On Friday I noticed a tree still up and lit in the neighbourhood which was nice to see. So nice that I took a pic!

I'm sad to see the end of Christmas really and thinking about it as I was prepping this blog, got me thinking that I really didn't listen to enough Christmas songs over the season.

So I pulled up The Pogues on Youtube and had a listen to "Fairytale in New York". This of course took me down a youtube rabbit hole. After seeing Matt Dillon in the opening scenes, I then went on to look at him and Annabella Sciorra in Mr Wonderful and then went and looked at her in the Sopranos.......and so on - that's what happens with youtube, isn't it?!

Anyway here's Fairytale in New York for you to enjoy now!

Record this: An upcycled gift!

Check this out!

Ciaran was away for the weeked and brought me back the cutest little gift on his return.

He said he saw it in a little Irish gift store, Forest & Flock in Bantry, County Cork and liked the look of it along with the concept of reusing vinyl records to create original jewellery. He also thought that I would like the upcycled/recycled aspect.

Well he was right about that. I love it!

How cute is it? A fun little necklace with a story to tell.

You can check out further vinyl creations by Dana on there website here.

Goodbye Christmas.....but not quite yet!

 Traditionally Christmas trees are taken down on 6th of January here in Ireland on what is known as "Little Christmas" or "Nollaig na Bán" (Women's Christmas).  However, I'm not ready to see the back of my tree or lights just yet so still have mine up.  It's Sunday the 8th today and am considering taking it down this afternoon - will see!

In this blog I will show you 3 new Christmas ornaments that I added to my tree this year.  All 3 were thoughtful gifts and so appreciated by me.

The first one is this oh so cute wooden ornament that was given to me as part of a larger gift from my sister who had travelled from The Netherlands with her baby for the New Year (having had to cancel Christmas travel arrangements due to Covid).  This ornament means so much to me being a regular cyclist but I love how it connects my sister and I - her living in such a cycling centric country while I cycle in the beginning to change Ireland with a push towards active travel.  As I hang it on my tree in future years, I'll also always have the memory of meeting my sister, her baby and her husband for the first time (again Covid being the reason why we never met before with travel being off the cards for so long and all of the hassle that it entailed when it started again). The baby was a little ball of fun and energy and had us all captivated. I look forward to seeing her again!

The next new Christmas ornament is this sweet crafty one, gifted to me by a colleague. How cute is it?! It's a knitted Frida Kahlo! It's made by "Knitivity" who you can find on Instagram and Etsy. It made a great addition to my tree and encompasses a lot of what I love - including my love of art and handicrafts, As you probably know from having seen past tree blogs, my Christmas tree is full of a brightly coloured eclectic mix of decorations (some might say a little kitsch) so this one fits in perfectly.

And then the next new Christmas ornament is an interesting one. It's a glass boot and there is an interesting back story to it.

This one was also gifted to me by a colleague and I love everything both about it and all that I got involved in through it.

This boot part of the Tyler Hynes Boot Shot Tradition. Tyler Hynes is an actor that has started an annual boot shot event with his fans. It involved a facebook live event where he chatted to fans and answered questions and then everyone joined him in taking a shot of whatever they fancied - he took Whiskey I went with champagne because that was was what I was drinking. It was on the 23rd of Dec and for me it felt like the real start to Christmas as I had just finished work that day and had my Christmas Eve lunch event planned for the next day.

At the time of taking the shot, all participants took a selfie of themselves and then uploaded it to a Tyler Hynes fan page. I was wearing my Key West "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere" Christmas Santa hat for fun!

I loved being part of this event as I love being involved with things like this that connect people all across the globe, with a common interest, through the use of technology (a bit like my sister's "Christmas Portraits" project).

Here's the photo of me just before I did the boot shot. 

Christmas to me is all about traditions, memories and the feelings that are evoked throughout the season. Hanging particular ornaments on my tree always reminds of different things such as travel or people - if you search back on my blog you will see lots of blogs on this subject matter.

Thinking back to my childhood I remember when we were putting up the tree there was always a big clamber to see who would get to hang the favourite decoration which was the "granny on the swing" - my older sister Faith tended to get the honour. The granny on the swing, as far as I can remember, was a not very Christmassy ornament of a plastic white swing with a little old lady sitting on it (again she was plastic).  I must ask my mother about this and see if she can remember the granny on the swing and where it came from!

Hope you had a lovely Christmas where ever you are reading this blog from. Let me know in the comments below and let me know if or when you will take your tree down.