Sunshiney impressions

What a sunshiney week off! Lovely mix of outdoor life and homey things. Enjoying strolling Dublin and catching up on its changing streetscapes...

And the Chester Beatty fountain is as evocative as ever.

The little cottage roof has been tended to, following a stubborn leak. The roofers have just left, which means...

Naptime :-)

Happy St Pat's

Dublin is off to a bright sunshiney start.

Gorgeous lazy morning (with much ginger honey & lemon to try to warm up and soothe my scritchey throat). Coffee gurgling to completion now; curled up reading.

Have a lovely day, all X

Living with Sleepies

Yawwwwwwwn... peaceful and quiet first day in Dublin. Halcyon moment when I sat out in the lovely sunshiney garden, surrounded by pear trees laden with fruit, watching the kitties eagerly exploring their new world.

There were a few bouts of the Sleepies, and it shall certainly be an early night. But apart from unloading/unpacking/napping, I got to catch up with family & friends, which was restorative in itself. Hopefully a good sleep will have me ready for Kidlet Duty bright and early :-)

time to refresh

Blazing sunshiney day: the miniature waterfall is gurgling into the koi pond, the kitties are napping in the cool shade, an occasional wind chime tings...

In a garden somewhere close by, a mother struggles to subdue her children's exuberance: she tries to convince them that a paddling pool filled with imaginary water will be just as much fun as one splashing with real water.

No-one believes her words, not even she :-)

Wednesday the last

Glorious day here: spent a few hours this morning test-driving the new Nosey Rosie book (so far so good!). And then it was up to the lovely Glebe, featuring the lovely Glebe ladies, for a fresh delicious breakfast.

It shall be a wrapping-up-loose-ends kinda afternoon, followed by a little hairdressing for a friend, and some wine (once the scissors have been put away).

Some pics from our impromptu Sea Safari expedition last week as we pulled in around Sherkin, with cormorants and gannets and seals and porpoises.



I didn't get any photos of the basking sharks, but others have done more, better :-)

Q&A

Life is all pixel by pixel at the moment; doing a batch of work in Photoshop. And outside in the sunny world, talk is of rugby, of tonight's impending Munster match. Come on da boys!!

It's been a gorgeously low-key week, where time seems to have blossomed to make space for everything, and the mix of the soulful and the silly has been just right.

Anyhoo, I was reading ahead in my Year with Rilke book, and was mulling over this quote:

'...bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were rooms yet to enter or books written in a foreign language. Don't dig for answers that can't be given you yet: you cannot live them now. For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer.'

Mulling is probably too strong a word - more... letting it saturate slowly, like soft rain.

Have a sunny weekend, all :-)

Minty smile

I'm watching a glorious sky, changing colour by the minute as the last of the light slips away: washes of orange fading along the horizon as above the baby blue sky turns to sapphire. What a beautiful day.

So, the weather this week has been great: summer clothes reappeared, and people in general seemed to savour the days of warmth, bathed in autumnal, almost rose-gold sunlight. But the quintessential moment was this afternoon: I was headed towards a busy Fields Supermarket, and the area is all lorries reversing in to the loading bay, and cars double parking, and piled-high trollies being heaved along... and in the midst of it all is a boy in shorts and t-shirt, intently focused on a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. He's about half-way through eating, but it's melting fast in the heat, and life as he knows it, the entire charted universe for this boy has narrowed to that cone, to the drippy green ice cream that's trying to escape his predatory attentions. And he's loving the totality of existence.

It brought a smile. And he made it safely through the trucks and cars and trollies, which was also good.

Off to watch the first stars come out. Have a fabulous weekend, all.
:-)

Weekend Round Up

Ah, what a social, sunshiney weekend. Caught up with family on their way out to the Sheep's Head (hi guys!!), a friend newly-returned from France, and fisher-folk and sailing-folk, as well as the normal weekend catch-up with friends. Phew. And visitors. And a very special birthday boy who turned five yes five. And Axl the Wonderdog.

So: coffee, pints, movies, some lovely walks, sunshiney pints (in addition to those other ones). Although today wasn't a bank holiday, it so felt like one: glorious sunshine, everyone sitting out in the square, sailing boats a'plenty (and Glenans are back in the water - a lovely sight); folk generally in great form.

As you may have guessed, my cold is receding; life returning to normal.

Piracy tonight: must off and learn some lines :-)

Spring has sprung

Stunning day here. For the last couple of weeks, everyone has been taking advantage of sunshiney moments: sitting out in the square, watching the world wake up to Springtime, catching up with those emerging from hiberation...

Apparently the cold front is approaching again, so I thought a couple of reminders might be useful: life here on a glorious afternoon...

...or the dimming of the day...