Sailing in Montenegro

We are back from our recent sailing trip along the coast of Montenegro!

It was a fantastic trip and after flying to Dubrovnik, Croatia we made our way to Herceg Novi across the Montenegro border.

From there we travelled to Tivat in order to meet up with our crew (and our boat Rumba) and then set off stopping off at places like Risan, Rosa, Kotor, Bar, Bigova & Budva.

There was so much to see all along the spectacular coast and I was particularly impressed by the walled cities of Kotor and Budva.

In Kotor, cats are king!

Breakfast and lunch was generally had onboard with dinner on land. The seafood was great and we enjoyed tuna, seabass, seabream and delicious swordfish.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post Ciaran did a competent radio operator licence so he was on duty as we approached marinas where he notified our arrival.

One unique experience we had was that we saw submarine bunkers built by Yugoslavia in perhaps the 1950's. So hauntingly erie and very scary but also a lot like visiting a James Bond film set!

I'll probably post a few more pics and memories of this trip over the next few days but I will mention what is always a trip highlight - dolphins. And yes we did see some on what was our last day as we headed in to dock in Herceg Novi. So exciting!

All in all a great sailing trip and when we left the crew (who are staying on for another week and will possibly head to Albania) we headed back to Croatia stopping off in Cavtat before flying back to Dublin from Dubrovnik.

National Cinema Day 2023

Satuday was National Cinema Day so of course we had to join in on the fun.  It was a gloriously sunny day and I was going to do a "double header" by going to see a film in the afternoon and then on to The Equalizer for a 9pm showing.  But it was such a nice day, I felt it would be a shame to spend it indoors during the day in a dark cinema. So I went and met up with the Friends of the Grand Canal instead and picked litter. And after that I sun bathed and read in the garden.

The neighbours across the road had set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis so I also visted this and enjoyed a lovely glass of refreshing homemade lemonade and had a chat with neighbours. Such a nice thing to do in the neighbourhood and for such a worthy cause.

And then when Ciaran came home, we decided to go to Farmer Browns in Rathmines for a burger before we went to the showing of The Equalizer. 

Farmer Browns was busy but we got a lovely table half in and half outside which was just perfect. Food was great and it all felt very relaxing. We are both not drinking until our holiday so I just had a Coke Zero which Ciaran had water with our chicken burgers.

And then after dinner we walked slowly up the road to the Omniplex for the film, stopping off in the foyer to get some popcorn and a drink. I had booked the tickets a few days ago and had them on my phone - so convenient! 

The cinema was packed and I reckon that there was probably only one or two tickets not sold. 

Denzel Washington put on a great performance and I really enjoyed the film. And then to top it all off we had a lovely walk home in what was still very pleasant weather at 11pm. 

Just a perfect day I think!

Jimmy Buffett RIP - Rest in Paradise

Sad to hear that the eternal pirate Jimmy Buffett has died. I hope he is on a prorch somewhere enjoying a cheeseburger and margarita strumming his six string watching the world go by.

I've got great memories of going to see him in Dublin with my mother - you can read my Jimmy Buffett blog here.

Pictured above, is me outside the venue wearing my Margaritaville shirt waiting in line to go and see Jimmy.

Holiday prep!

We have an upcoming sailing trip so did a little bit of holiday prep over the last few weeks.  For me it was buying a new bikini in Superdry while for Ciaran it was attending a Radio Operator Course in the Irish National Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire. He attended evening classes for 4 days from 6pm to 9pm and then completed an exam at the end. After receiving notice that he had passed the exam he now awaits the arrival of his licence which is issued by the Department of Transport.

And so it looks like we are all set for our holiday!

We will fly to Dubrovnik in Croatia and then make our way across the border to Montenegro.  The day after our flight from Dublin, we will hook up with our crew in Tivat and head out sailing from there. We are onboard for 7 days with a crew change at that point. For the second week, the new crew will sail to Albania.  I'm looking forward to it - and you can look out for trip reports and pics when I blog about it here. For the meanwhile, you can also read a past trip report about our Caribbean sail

In other news, last weekend Dublin was heaving with American Football fans (40,000 to be exact!). The Aer Lingus Classic brought together the opening college game of Notre Dame and Navy. Notre Dame was the "home" team so Dame Street in Dublin was renamed Notre Dame Street and it was the scene of the biggest tail gate party Dublin has seen in the lead up to the game. It was spectacular with marching bands and Notre Dame branded posters everywhere - with the most massive one on the old Central Bank Building. I was actually in work that day but could see all the action on twitter along with Ciaran giving me a report while he wandered around the area. 

Unfortunately the weather was atrocious for the game with a lot of heavy rain. I had to get off the train at the stadium entrance and a lot of fans were soaking wet before they even got to their seats. I was wet myself but I did have waterproof trousers on. Among the busyness of the the stadium fans, I heard my name being called out as I walked against the traffic. Surprizingly it was a former colleague of mine who I had bumped in to the year previously when I was actually at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic of Nebraska v. Northwestern. What are the chances of meeting the same guy in the same place a year later!

I had heard there was going to be a Navy flyover just before the game, and at about 7.20pm we heard the loudest noise over our house. I ran to the door and saw 3 Ospreys fly over the house. Very exciting!

In upcoming cinema news, it is National Cinema Day this Saturday with all cinema tickets being just 4 euro. I've booked tix for The Equalizer 3 in Rathmines Omniplex but with Ciaran working all day, I may go and see an earlier showing of Barbie or Openheimer.  I went to see the new Mission Impossible movie about 2 weeks ago which was very good but I feel like Openheimer is probably the one that I most want to watch again. I'll let you know if I do end up going to one of them again......

Recyling!

We have three bins that are collected by City Bin - a black bin for general waste, green bin for material that can be recycled and then a brown bin for compostable materials.  Each of the bins are collected every two weeks, however I generally only put out my black waste bin out for collection about every 6 weeks as I fill it very slowly with most of my rubbish going in to the recyling bin.

So then it comes to glass containers which are not collected in the green bin as part of the recyleables.  

What I have been doing for the past while is collecting all of my glass bottles and jars in two large Ikea boxes that I stored out in the small yard to the back of my house.  Then when the boxes were full we rented a Go Car and brought all of the bottles to the glass recycling collection point at Tesco in Rathmines.

However, there is a new service offering in my area so I no longer have to go to the hassle of renting a car in order to recycle my glass.  

A leaflet came in my letterbox with details of a company called GlassBottleBin.ie and they offer kerb pick up of glass.  

I signed up immediatly!

It took about a week for my new bin to be delivered and I promptly filled it up with all of the bottles that were in my back yard. I'm now looking forward to my first bin pick up. What a relief not to have to go through all of the palaver of renting a car and taking them all to the bottle bank.

There is a another service offering in Dublin that provides "bottle bags" instead of bins but I felt that a bin and how the service was arranged was more convenient with this bin company.  As someone who doesn't have a car I think this service will work well for me and will probably cost about the same or less than paying for a Go Car every time I visited the Bottle Bank (however, I did tend to double job with maybe doing a clothes drop off to the charity shop).

I'm all for any service that can cut out hassles in busy lives so hopefully this will work out well for me. It already has smartened up my back yard as I have thrown out the probably 10 year old Ikea boxes that I previously used for recycling. 

Watch this space!

Seamus Heaney Exhibition in Dublin City

In the heart of Dublin City in the Bank of Ireland building at College Green, there is the most amazing Seamus Heaney exhibition.

Ciaran was at the opening night of the exhibtion and had visited it twice since then.  However, I had never been to it.

But yesterday on my day off work we were in town (I was buying a bikini for upcoming sailing trip) and as we passed the Bank of Ireland, I said "let's go in".  And how happy was I that we did - it's excellent, I highly recommend!

Here's the details of the exhibition - see here

I've written about Seamus Heaney on my blog before and you can read that post here

Heaney's "Mid-Term Break" brings me to tears every time I think of the line "A four-foot box, a foot for every year"

Pictured above is Ciaran sitting taking in the exhibition 

Let me know if you know of Seamus Heaney and his work and also let me know if you get to visit this exhibition!

The other thing we did was that we went on around to the front of the building where we visited the House of Lords chamber which is a room off the working bank.  You can read all about the House of Lords here 

This is worth a visit too and it is literally steps away from the Seamus Heaney exhibition.

Strawberry, cookies & cream icebox cake

So I made my first "Icebox Cake".....

I offered to bring dessert on Saturday night to friends who were kindly hosting us for dinner so I had a look online to see what I could make and bring.

I settled on making an icebox cake which was a new concept to me, as it is not something that is common in Ireland.

I decided I would make a mish mash of recipes and settled on the following layers which I created in my springform cake tin

Layer 1 - broken meringue

Layer 2 - Sponge covered in strawberry sauce/puree - I made the sauce by mashing up strawberries and sugar with lemon juice and lemon zest

Layer 3 - Whipped cream and vanilla essence

Layer 4 - Oreos (firstly dipped in cold milky coffee)

Layer 5 -  More cream

Layer 6 - more coffee dunked Oreos

Layer 7 - More Cream

Layer 8 - Chocolate ganache

Then on the final layer, I made a circle of mini meringues around the top with half an oreo between each one (I used some chocolate mousse to fix the meringues in place. 

And finally I filled the space in the centre with lots of strawberries which I topped with white chocolate chunks and crumbled oreos.

This was the result!

I made the cake early in the morning so it had a few hours to set up before I actually put the last layer of meringue and strawberries on top (just before I took it to the house we were visiting).

All in all I thought it looked good and tasted great so was happy with it and I will make it again for sure!

Barbenheimer: Cinema is back!

Barbie V. Oppenheimer

So as you know I used to be an avid cinema goer before the pandemic but then found it hard to get back in to a routine again after. It just seemed like it was a better option to stay at home and watch movies in the comfort off my home

However, slowly I started going back to the cinema seeing the odd film here and there.

But it was "Oppenheimer" that I was most eagerly anticipating with it being marketed for months as the big block buster of Summer 2023. I've probably been planning since January to go and see this film.

However...... didn't Warner Brothers go and open "Barbie" on the same weekend as "Oppenheimer" so  they ended up going head to head. And this lead to a huge worldwide cinema experience of "Barbenheimer" where cinema goers all over the world went to both of the films back to back.

For me, I went to see Barbie firstly on opening weekend and then I went to Oppenheimer yesterday evening.

So.....which one was the winner for me?! Well read below to see.....

Barbie at the Savoy

With sold out shows in most of the Dublin cinemas, my friend booked our tickets on Tuesday, for a 6pm Saturday showing of Barbie in the Savoy. However, the gods were against us, with our train to the city from Dun Laoghaire experiencing a big delay. It was also bucketing rain so we eventually arrived to the cinema, 20 minutes late for the film and soaking wet! 

We changed our tickets for a Sunday afternoon showing and then went and dried off over cocktails in the hotel next to the cinema. Not a bad thing to do of a Saturday after a day in work!

And then it was take 2 when we met up again the next day to see Barbie at a 1.40pm showing - again it was raining heavily so I was glad to be in the theatre for the afternoon. 

However, perhaps I had been hyped up by rave reviews of Barbie, and the let down of not getting to see it on Saturday, but overall I didn't think it lived up to my expectations. That's not to say that I didn't think it was good, and that I found it entertaining.  There were certain parts and characters that were really great (Hello Ken, loving your Kenergy!) but in a lot of ways I felt it was just an average film aside from some standout moments in it. It's been received well with big audience figures so perhaps it just wasn't to my taste which is not to say that it won't be yours! With that in mind, I wouldn't say not to see it as generally movie taste is highly subjective and personal to each viewer.

Oppenheimer at the Omniplex

For Oppenheimer, we went yesterday evening, having booked our tickets on Friday for a Saturday 7.40pm showing in the Omniplex Rathmines. With this "Maxx" screening nearly sold out, we ended up with seats in second row, towards the middle.  

I thought Oppenheimer was excellent - great pace to it, brilliant cinematography and all in all everything that you would expect in a big blockbuster movie.

And although Barbie was the winner in the opening weekend viewer results, Oppenheimer was the winner for me.

After the movie which finished close to 11pm, we cycled home (it's all downhill) which is always a good ending to any night out at the cinema!