chocolate eggs and a snotty nose

Tags

chocolate, chocolate egg, chocolate eggs, christian holiday, christianity, cocoa butter, cooking, Easter, easter eggs, eggs, food, holiday, miscellaneous, painted eggs, photography, photos, random, skype, snotty nose

I awoke this morning to a skype-session with my year-and-a-half year old chocolate covered nephew and a snotty nose. His parents had forced him to say thank you for the egg-shaped Irish treats I had sent him and we spend a few minutes stuffing our faces (him), blowing our noses (me) and singing “itsy bitsy spider” (both of us).

Since Easter is probably the most important christian holiday around it does always surprise me how few people really know what is celebrated. So instead of thinking about Jesus dying for or sins and then rising from the dead to save us all,  most people spend their time devouring one chocolate egg after another thanking the Easter Bunny.

It really is surprising that the reason eggs dominate Easter goes back to the fact that the church didn’t allow eggs to be eaten in the week (Holy Week) leading up to Easter Sunday. To not waste the eggs laid in Holy Week they were painted and given to the children on Easter Sunday as gifts.

The Victorians  (1820-1900) then came up with the idea of making satin covered cardboard eggs and filled them with little gifts. This idea prompted craftsmen to start making eggs out of porcelain and later silver and gold. The ultimate Easter Eggs of the 19th Century were of course Fabergé’s creations that he made for Tzar Alexanders wife Marie.

But trust the Germans and French to come up with a more edible idea. In the early 19th century they made the very first chocolate eggs. Sadly they were a little bitter and hard but over time, as chocolate became softer and easier to mould, they perfected the know commonly known hollow variety.

However it was Cadburys introduction of pure cocoa in 1966 , combined with the Dutch invention of a press that separated the cocoa butter from the bean (1982), that allowed the mass production of Easter Eggs as we know them today.

So whether the fox (some parts of southern Germany) , the cuckoo (Switzerland) or the Easter Bunny left you a chocolaty treat today maybe spend a minute thanking the industrial revolution for the chocolaty goodness melting in your mouth. And while you nibble, chew and smile say a grateful prayer, celebrating the true meaning of Easter.

Some hand painted eggs in my window

losing time and water

Tags

Dublin, Dublin City Council, hot water bottle, inner clock, miscellaneous, photo, poet w h auden, quotes, random, summer mode, summer-time, thoughts, W.H.Auden, water

Tonight the clocks are jumping forward and we are all losing an hour of precious time.  And while I know we will get it back in October I do wonder where the hour goes in the meantime.

Does it take a break and relax for half a year or does it wander around the equator wondering what do to with its time? Or maybe this lost hour hoovers near us and makes things we don’t like seem longer. But where ever it goes I know I’ll be missing it tomorrow when I have an hour less sleep and a week ahead of me trying to get my inner clock adjust to the one on my wall.

But at the very least our time will be in summer mode unlike our weather that has decided to stay wintery for a little while longer. But the promise of our clocks will hopefully soon be fulfilled and the sun will be shining down on us in full force.

The other thing that I have been losing over the past few nights is water. While we have had lots of rain, sleet and even some smatterings of snow Dublin’s water reserves seem to be at an all time low. To counteract this issue Dublin City Council has been turning the water off over night, leaving me standing  in front of empty taps and waterless kettles.

Why DCC has decided to limit the flow of water over Easter is beyond me but every night at 10pm my tap runs dry and my hot water bottle stays cold and leaving my glass more tan half empty.  So tonight I will try and stay on top of my watery needs and fill a bowl or two. After all as the wonderful poet  W.H.Auden  once said:

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water

My tap is still lowing over … for now

attempting almond milk

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almond milk, breakfast, cooking, food, ground almonds, health, healthy-living, milk products, miscellaneous, random

A friend of mine recently went of gluten and most milk products. And when I saw her eyes sparkle and face light up when she talked about how good she felt I decided to give at least the almond milk a go. I had tried the gluten thing in the past and it made no difference what so ever, but almond milk sounded delicious.

Like all good housewives of today I ‘googled’ almond milk and how to make it. So I soaked my ground almonds in water for two days and because the recipe told me I could flavor it I added some vanilla. After about 48 hours I blended the whole lot and then it was done.

Now I have to admit that I wasn’t impress, my porridge didn’t taste great, quite watery and the milk didn’t work in my tea at all. So after a few days of attempting almond milk I switched back to the mundane ones from cows.

However now I am stunned at why so many rave about almond milk, and I was even more perplex when I saw that a liter of almond milk costs  €2.30.  Maybe I didn’t do it right, maybe I got it wrong somehow. So puzzled and willing to give it a second chance I am asking can someone tell me how to do it better?

new baby

Tags

gadgets, Mac Book Pro, miscellaneous, quotes, random, technology, writing

NO I haven’t been hiding a pregnancy from you, nor have I accrued a child any other way (pram stealing or buggy napping) but my big Mac (pun intended) has now  a little sister.

On Tuesday I bought a Mac Book Pro, something I have been longing for and  do need for my teaching job. Finally I had saved up enough and splurged on my new silver baby. The timing was crucial as it needed to be during the semester to still get a slight lecturers discount and before my trip to Berlin.

Now I can play with my new technical toy and enjoy being able to carry a mini office around with me. Thankfully Easter is giving me a few extra days to install all  things I need and spend time getting use to the smaller screen.

The only tiny problem I have with my beautiful new laptop is the fact that the charger for the battery is so big, and quite bulky. But then I’ll just take this opportunity to buy a little pretty bag to stow the cable in and which women doesn’t enjoy shopping for bags?

But for now I am just happy to look at my new baby and I can’t wait what magical things will appear on the screen, what enchanting words I’ll discover in the keyboard and what hidden treasures are just a mouse click a way.

And while I will refrain from taking it to bed with me to night or nibbling at it’s gorgeous exterior I can’t help but agree with the wonderful Steve Jobs:

We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them

snowy start

Tags

ideas, miscellaneous, quotes, random, vladimir nabokov, weather, winter, writer vladimir nabokov

Like the most of Europe Ireland has been dipped into quite an extensive cold spell. However unlike lots of other places Dublin hasn’t really had any snow, sadly. Of course there has been a few flakes every now and then and even a few mornings coated in a thin layer of white, but overall snow has stayed away.

As a snow-lover I have watched enviously as Northern Ireland has had snow alerts, Germany has been covered in layers and layers of fluffy white. But this morning I awoke to a  grey clouded sky filled with snowy promise. And my heart sang as I watched a few flakes drift down and land, then  a few more, yet before they could cover up the grey of the early morning, the snow-flakes turned into hail and then a sleety rain.

And as I watched the empty promise of a wintery white day melt and disappear I realised how like snow ideas are. Those hints of thoughts, that flutter of a concept, a flicker of something tickling the mind, wanting to come out and play. But like snow if the temperature isn’t right, or the ground not cold enough for it to settle, ideas melt and disappear before they turn into something real and beautiful. However like a tiny flake, an idea can grow, combine with others, turn from a dusting to a coat and sometimes even become a force of nature like an avalanche.

So my aim for today is to prepare some ground for ideas to fall, give them a chance to grow and not just turn into a cold puddle of slushy, grey water. Or with the words of the brilliant writer Vladimir Nabokov:

Genius is an African who dreams up snow

ignored idioms

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Audrey Hepburn, Berlin, blog, miscellaneous, quote, quotes, random, summer, writing

I have been neglecting my blog, ignored my idioms and many other things of late as I have been spending my time, thinking, planning and trying to figure out a few things. But today I came across a quote by Audrey Hepburn that made me smile and I decided that maybe I should start doing instead of thinking.

So I booked myself  a ticket to  Berlin and will stay in Germany’s largest city for the whole month of July this year. I have no idea where I can rest my head and leave my suitcase nor do I know how I’ll finance this adventure yet but I live in hope that I will find both bed and money,

So here is the quote that inspired me to reconnect with my blog, find my words again and do instead of think:

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!

goodbye green

Tags

colours, Dublin, green, Ireland, St Patrick's Day, Trinity College

Saint Patrick day is well and truly over. Thankfully in my case as the disruption of everyday life did get in my way. Students didn’t show up for classes, tourists clogged up the streets and traffic was diverted. And green, everywhere was green. Cheap plasticy hats, bow ties and head poppers wandering around the city, touristy t-shirts, socks and even bibs declaring their Irishness, need kissing or that the leprechauns did it on buses, the Luas and in every pub.

Thankfully with the dawn of Tuesday morning the fay have been put back into the box and normality has returned to Dublin. And while the world is saying goodbye to green I am enjoying the fresh green peaking out from my window box.

I love the colour green, all hues from lime all the way up to a deep forest. it’s a colour that most people associate with nature, health and relaxation. But of course there is the other side to green: envy, immaturity, illness and even deterioration.

But with a nod to spring and a sigh of relief that Paddy’s Day has passed I will wear green today maybe because everyone else has said Goodbye.

Trinity College Dublin, St. Patrick’s Day 2013

mattress mambo

Tags

home, mattress, miscellaneous, quote, random, thoughts, WC Field

I slept really well last night and it is all down to my new mattress. It was delivered yesterday and I have to admit I was really excited to say good bye to my tired old box-springs and welcome a new plain of pleasurable sleep into my home.

While I wrestled the old mattress down my tight u-shaped stairs I couldn’t wait for the delivery guys to come with my new promise of comfortable sleep. I sat around quite restless and full of anticipatory excitement. When they finally arrived it was all I could do to keep my happy-dance from exploding in front of them. After all it is not a sight I wanted to traumatise them with.

But once they had left I shimmied, twirled and mamboed my new mattress up the stairs. As soon as it was slotted onto my bed and new sheets decorated it’s virgin body I could hardly wait for night to fall allowing me to snuggle into it.

And yes, when I woke up this morning, less tense and more relaxed, I have to admit I should have invested into a new mattress a while ago. After all when you are a poor sleeper like I am you can only hold on to what comedian W. C. Fields once said, and my new mattress will definitely help with it:

The best cure for insomnia is to get  a lot of sleep

my p-problem

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miscellaneous, procrastination, psychology, quotes, random, Rita Mae Brown, thoughts, writing

After a week away it is now time to get back to work. With my corrections sill not quite done and my deadline an hour away I feel a little bit under pressure. However it really is my own fault, I had a plan and didn’t stick to it leaving me slightly breathless and with red ink stains on my hands.

My problem is procrastination, I seem to spend so much time on thinking on how I am going to do something instead of actually doing it. I know many people “suffer” from this time-consuming condition but only few seem to be able to conquer it on  along term basis.

So to try and understand a little bit more about my p-problem I decided to take a closer look at what it is that keeps me doing the task at hand. (And yes, in true procrastinator fashion it distracted me from my real work).

While most of us believe procrastination is a part of our inner makeup it actually isn’t, it’s learned behaviour making it  possible to change, even if it does take a considerable amount of willpower. I also discovered that most of us aren’t TRUE procrastinators. While we think we are our real problem is time-management, we can’t seem to estimate the correct time we need to do certain things nor do we keep a manageable  to-do-list.

According to a list done up by the De Paul University in Chicago there are five little lies a true procrastinator tells themselves, believing them, unable to ignore that powerful inner voice:

1. Working when you don’t feel like it doesn’t give you good results
2. If you don’t feel like doing something you won’t be able to do it
3. Motivation is something you will feel tomorrow, or the next day or the day after
4. You need a lot less time then you do to do something (underestimate)
5. You have lots of time left to do something (overestimate)

And while these lies seem quite flimsy they are very successful from keeping someone from doing something they need to be doing and they also cover up the real reason procrastinators distract themselves. Most procrastinators have an inner most fear of failure and somehow they believe by not doing something they can’t fail, and when they do something rushed they know why it had to fail, diverting the fault away from themselves and really a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The only way to solve this problem is hard work, realistic expectations and a willingness to change. Of course being honest is key, honest with ourselves, with our time, our capabilities and goals.
So if I am honest, I am working on a last minute deadline but then like American author Rita Mae Brown once so aptly put it:

If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done

bad horse day

Tags

Celtic Tiger, Dublin, Dublin City Council, Dublin restorations, Ireland, photography, photos, Richard Burton, Smithfield, Smithfield Horse Fair, travellers

Smithfield is one of the oldest market squares in Dublin City Centre. Situated on the north side of the Liffey it even featured in the film The Spy who came in from the Cold, starring Richard Burton, as the home of Checkpoint Charlie. Sadly the once vibrant town square lost most of it’s charm during the Celtic Tiger restorations.

For centuries it was the home of the loud and somewhat smelly Dublin Horse Fair. On the first Sunday of every month traveller families would migrate to the big open space and buy and sell horses. Often this would lead to loud arguments and shouting but overall it was a colourful day filled with neighing and neighbours, horses and hay.

However the City Council always saw it a little bit differently and when they “rejuvenated” Smithfield into a place where lawyers, bankers and other successful Celtic Tigers lived, they tried to move the old horse market, the last surviving open trading in the square. Luckily for them in 2011 a feud between two traveller families resulted in shoots being fired, leaving three people wounded and finally giving the Dublin City Council enough reason to close the fair down on the 6th March.

Since then the Horse Market in Smithfield has been a topic of debate. Of course no one condones shootings, however with traditions being eroded from Dublin life it seemed important to try and save some of what is left. So yesterday for the first time in nearly two years the Horse Market in Smithfield reopened.

And although the Arts Council advertised the event, the national news even featured it as a main story, the whole day was very lackluster. The promised exhibition was a library-bus showing a few slides and displaying six black and white print-outs, the live-music was kept separate and the policing was very severe. Dublin City Council had managed to convert a lively, bustling family day-out into a clinical event with no charm, atmosphere and very few horses.

It’s a pity, but the reopened Smithfield Horse Fair is a little like the square itself: the facelift changing it’s image too much, the restrictions choking out its life and the atmosphere evaporating like the residents 4X4s exhausts.

One of the few brightly printed carts

A horse for sale

A tassel on a wedding carriage

some tack for sale

beautified for a good sale