Leafing through colour

Until I find my little camera cord, recent photos remain held hostage. Baby steps...

In the interim: a short, delightful film on bookstore happenings after the lights go out.

Wooly antics

Happy yawwwwn... and a happy new year to all. Thus far, this year is pretty fab.

Today I've been playing with some hand-dyed wool, which gradually formed into a Children of Lir kinda thing... there's plenty more final touches & twiddling to do,  but it made for a charming morning (while Miss Marple solved a mystery in the background) :-)  This Season was filled with oodles of conversation, and those Lir swan-siblings were one of the many captivating subjects.

(PS: thanks to my little black cat for her patience while I was playing with the wool. She teetered over the strands, holding herself back, with the odd little whimper. Such fortitude...  And thanks to Sandra & the sheep of Inis beg for the wool!)

Well, it's almost certainly nap o'clock, on the last day of my Christmas holidays. Busy busy!

Marrakech photos

Post-hols, post-deluge, the normal rhythms of life are gradually reasserting themselves.

Some photos from Marrakech are online: over here on facebook. It was a wonderful experience, with much art and conversation and chilling and exploring. And chameleons :-)

Oodles of wonder-filled moments, but lying under the canopy of stars in the Sahara, talking about life matters, that was probably my highlight. Extraordinary.

Thanks to Sara for being a fab travelling companion.
And for not selling me :-)

Orlaith in Marrakech

Ah, we have arrived...  quick post from our hotel, post-swim and nap :-)

Marrakech keeps unfolding delight after delight: the medina with its snake charmers and healers and craftsfolk and henna artists and ten zillion salesmen. We made our way through herbs and spices and apocatheries... past ceramic shops, metalworking studios, wool dying workshops... everyone eager to talk, to sell. One man looks at us, declares 'Fish and Chips'.
No, we say, not English.
Another seller joins in, 'Australian'.
Nope. We move along, and keep walking as the avenue of sellers shout after us: 'German. French. Polish. American...'
We cave in with one man, and say that we're Irish.
'Ah,' he nods. 'Roy Keane.'

Today's super-treat was going to Yves Saint Laurent's garden, which was actually established by a painter called Majorelle in the 1920s, but YSL saved it after Majorelle's death. And treasured it, clearly.

Such colours and light and life. A place that manages to be serene and vibrantly life-affirming at the same time; a truly romantic setting.
Alrightey, out into the evening for us :-)

Cafe in the Medina

Wool dying

"It is so lovely with your eyes..." the salesman insists :-)

Off to visit Saint Laurent's garden

Garden Majorelle - designed in the 1920s

Lovin' that blue

water lillies and turtles and frogs oh my...

Blue + blonde

Blue + pomegranates

Momentum

The last week has been a whirlwind, and with this weekend shaping up to be an Annual-Report-a-thon, I am grabbing the spare moment while I can!

A friend asked today how my weekend had been.

Me: "Good. Yeah, busy, but good. I learned to woodwork. Made a coffee table. Drove to West Cork to help a friend emigrate. Got shortlisted for a great Vodafone thing, and had to prep a presentation, which was kinda major. Little sleep. Anyhoo, we drove up, made it to the interview in time; he left for a teeny bit of French territory beside Canada this morning..."

Friend: "I knew you wouldn't let me down. I'm off to my office now to think about what I did this weekend. I'll let you know later."

:-)

For those who asked, my little whittled-with-love coffee table looks like this:

I *loved* the wood course - easy-paced learning in an idyllic sunshiney wood, with a young horse called Summer looking on with interest. At lunch we talked pre-Columbian artefacts and I think I actually heard my mind stretch a little :-) *And* while chatting with the other person on the course, I realised that his father happened to be up in Dublin, on my street, working on the cottage opposite mine.

Small world.

The weekend's keywords were emigration and Presentation Prep -- thanks for all who helped, with ideas and care and support and photos and deeeeelicious lemon meringue cake and a variety of coffees. So busy that I didn't even make it to the shore to look for mermaid's tears... And yet, Baltimore cannot but delight: there was a sublime birthday party to share in, and brief-but-lovely catch-up with friends, and a friend's art to explore, and some stretchy yoga to the sound of a beautiful heavy rain shower.

And then we whirled on, to Dublin and interview and Job the First and Job the Second.

I'm tired just typing that!! Time for candles and curling up :-)

Doorway

My walk home from town sometimes takes me past this door. From a distance it looks like a blur of white graffiti. It takes me a second for her form to appear...

I love her pose, folding forward... a graceful presence in an ordinary side road.

What lies beneath

This was top of my list for Bridge Photos: I noticed it first on Fr Mathew Bridge, but I think it repeats on a few :-)

Crossing to Job the First of a morning, with the river at an ebb, the thought of a troll hunched under stone and metal, finding its balance on seaweedey rocks - love it!

I had to look up the name of the bridge (in my mind it's called The Bridge that goes across to Church Street). Apparently it's called Father Mathew (yes, with only the one 't') Bridge - named after a superabstemious teetotaller.

I'll raise a glass to that :-)

Cross with care

I love over-water-bridges, from a little stepping stone slab to the massive Mackinac bridge that disappears into mist before your eyes can make out the other side. Love the idea of them as things that join, that traverse... a place of boundaries over a constantly moving channel.

They're just fab.

Anyhoo, there are oodles of photos I have been meaning to take of Dublin's bridges. The following were not on the list - they came by surprise. Earlier today while I was walking home in light rain, I decided to cross at the Ha'penny Bridge. And noticed something different about it.

How intriguing is that...

And on the other side...

And when I went to cross into Temple Bar, it turned out that the enigmatic little messages weren't limited to the bridge at all:

I have no idea of the who or the why. I do love them though - little sparks of thoughtfulness and wonder in the most everyday of settings.

Storage Solutions

Over this lovely weekend, I met up with a friend I hadn't seen since Michigan days: we exchanged about two sentences before she said "Oh my God you haven't changed *at all*. Did you watch Eerie Indiana? Foreverware..."

And there we were, straight back into our regular pattern of chat. A treat.

Ah, Foreverware: "Vacuum-seal yourself for 8 hours a day and keep the wrinkles away..." Eerie Indiana was so kooky-with-gusto.

And it had Elvis in it. Can't beat that.



Meanwhile, amongst the chatting, a little girl took some pictures with my camera. There were oodles of faces (none of whom I asked permission to use their photos, so all of those omitted for now). But humans aside, I enjoyed her more random shots of life above and below and around. Nice colours & textures :-)

I'm resisting the urge to start streaming Eerie Indiana in earnest. Back to my day's To Do Guide...

Sweet thoughts

Caller: "You're the nicest person in the world. And you spell your name right."

Me: "Well, I can't really take credit for that. My parents filled out the form..."

Caller: "You're wonderful. They've done such a good job of raising you. Tell your mum and dad that when they die they'll go straight to heaven. You're the proof of the pudding."

(And quite apart from the myriad reactions to that...)

It got me thinking: if I was a pudding, what pudding would I be... 

Tough call. Something chilled certainly - unless I was a delectable profiteroles served the warmed chocolate sauce... maybe a slice of zesty key lime pie or a dish of raspberry & mango sorbet; a serving lemon cheesecake perhaps...

Hungry now. Ready for something decadently treaty!