back in Belfast

Tags

Belfast, northern ireland, photography, photos, travel

A few weeks ago my mother came for a visit and we took a trip up to Belfast. Sadly the weather wasn’t great (wet and windy all day Saturday) and a little to cold for my mums liking. But all in all it was a lovely trip filled with interesting sights.

graphic door

a slender pub

inside City Hall, the decor was the inspiration for the Titanic

the wonderful St George Market

Queens University

Botanic Gardens in belfast

the Grand Opera is much smaller than the name lets one believe

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sunny Sunday afternoon

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Clontarf, coffee and pastry, Dublin, Fairview, front door, home, perfect day, sunny Sunday

The arrival of summer time  was accompanied by a beautiful sunny day. The sky was blue, cloudless, and while it may have looked a little warmer from inside the house than the strong wind let it actually be, it was still a perfect spring day.

Because I didn’t want to waste it by staying indoors I got on my bike and went for a cycle to Clontarf. And I wasn’t the only one!

As I rode through Fairview park multitudes were playing football and even more were populating the playgrounds. Mums and Dads sat on benches and blankets, some with picnics others with bags of deliciously smelling chips.  On the promenade the picture didn’t change, it just got a little busier.

Bikes, prams, in-liners, scooters, tricycles and pedestrians – with and without dogs of all shapes and sizes – made their way along the seafront, chatter and laughter, some shouts and barks filling the air with life.

I had thought I’d find a spot in one of the beachfront cafes to enjoy the sun and a cup of coffee while I read but if the promenade was busy the eateries were bursting. So instead of stopping and sitting for a while I decided to make my way back home and sit outside my own front door. Enjoying the wind in my back and the sun on my face I took a quick pit-stop in a local shop (some yogurt, bread and milk for my breakfast was required) and bought myself a small pastry for less than half what it would have cost at a cafe.

Once perched on my bench, a book in my hand I couldn’t help but think that I had made the right decision. After all sometimes you find happiness right on your doorstep!

my Sunday treat: a freshly brewed double espresso and an apple pastry

weather talks

Tags

Dublin, Ireland, photo photography, rain, strangers, talk, weather

After more than 24 hours of rain, wet socks, frizzy hair, and damp clothes it’s great to see a little bit of blue poking out between the clouds. Especially since the last two nights have been long and sleepless as the tattoo of heavy rain beating against my window has kept me awake for most of the night.

But no matter how miserable the weather proves to be the thing I enjoy most is the amount of strangers who strike up conversations by stating this obvious fact. On both bus rides to and fro from work – I declined to walk as the weather was just too wet – my seat companion told me in no uncertain terms that we were having  ‘shocking weather’ while their umbrellas dripped puddles onto my already wet shoes. Knowing the rules of the game I, of course,  answered the only way one can: with a pinched smile, a nod, a sigh, and a ‘I know, isn’t awful!’

Our shared commiseration about something we cannot change opened up the floodgates (couldn’t resist the pun) to stories of a few strangers lives. I heard all about the disasters of the paper shopping bags Pennys uses ‘sure they just rip, now me shopping is drowned’  and the splashing cars, bikes and buses soaking ‘me legs’.

While I nodded along to the lamentations I remembered a statistic I read a good while ago. It it it said that Irish people, on average, talk about the weather at least twice a day and 25% of the population even go so far as to talk about the sun and rain four times daily.

I suppose this means that with the ever changing of weather in Ireland at least no one will ever be stumped for conversation and weather talks will stay an easy way to connect.

leaf puddle in my backyard

 

It’s not this time of the year without

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Dublin, It’s not this time of the year without, lights, photography, photos, Weekly Photo Challenge, WPC: It’s not this time of the year without

‘Tis the season to be jolly, but for me ’tis also the season of lights. So while the days grew shorter and the darkness settles in earlier and earlier lights light up the city and turns it into a magical place.

Dublin by night, a rare wind still one at that

#bloggerconfl2g and goodie bags

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#bloggerconfl2g, Anne-Marie Tomchak, blogging, gift box, goodie bags, Irish Blogger conference, Johnny Ward, Mashable, Meaghers, Meaghers Pharmacy, Oonagh O'Hagen, seo, twitter

Yesterday was the Irish Blogger conference and as I sit here munching my Mars bar (courtesy of the Meaghers Pharmacy to remind us how to pronounce their name) I can’t help but contemplate all that was said.

With a long list of speakers it was clear that no everyone was going to be to my taste, especially those who spent most of their time self-promoting their wonderfulness, I was surprised how impressed I was with others.

The #TwitterForBloggers and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) masterclasses were extremely informative, helpful and well presented in easy to follow language. Even the Legal Guide for Blogging was succinct and useful.

But the two speakers that stood out for me were Oonagh O’Hagen, MD Meaghers Pharmacy, and Anne-Marie Tomchak, UK Editor Mashable. Both of these women spoke with passion and enthusiasm, were authentic and clearly are both very hard-workers. Their words were inspiring, proof that having a vision, a goal is a good thing and even if  it takes a few risks and a lot of guts, hard work will pay off. They weren’t afraid to admit to making mistakes and showed that it’s what you learn from them that makes you succeed. It was just refreshing to listen to women who ‘had made it’ in their own rights and not because they were beautiful (which they were) or because they had somehow achieved some vague celebrity for the sake of just being known, but because they believed in themselves and in what they were doing and were willing to put in the hard graft.

The biggest let down was Johnny Ward, the creator of blog OneStep4Ward. I enjoyed his unpolished presence, his enthusiastic presentation and obvious enjoyment of what he does (how can one not when traveling the world and making money doing so?). But somehow I found it distasteful the way he was just blatantly making money for the sake of making money. He said he had given up working for others, that 9-5 grind,  as he found it soul destroying and encouraged everyone to do the same, but he now owns 200 blogs and employs people to write for them. He basically has become the CEO at the top of the pyramid he claims to hate.He even admitted to breaking copy right laws in the past and didn’t seem to find it a bad thing, and now he told me he relies on ‘free stock images’.  And when I asked him if those who write for him know what they are writing about he said ‘they write what they are paid to write’ going against the grain of authenticity, personality and strong content. It just made me wonder if his success isn’t, at least partially built, on the backs of others.

However I thoroughly enjoyed the day, met wonderful people, lernt lots of things and enjoyed being in the company of so many others, who like me, enjoy the world of blogging. And when I got hope I unpacked my wonderful goodie bags (yes plural) and was thrilled with what I found inside. I was most excited about the transportable phone-charger from Snap Printing and a JustEat coupon. I even won a pretty travel electric toothbrush by Sonic Chic (courtesy of Life2good).

But it was the Meaghers Pharmacy‘s generous gift-box that was the highlight for me. Filled with beautifully wrapped goodies it was a little bit like an early birthday surprise. And while I may not be big into make-up I am really looking forwrad to trying out some of the lotions I found. Especially the Chocolate Whip body lotion looks like it is perfect for my delicate skin.

Meaghers gift-box – an unexpected and generous gift

everything wrapped with care in the Meaghers colours

handpicked goodies from Meaghers, can’t wait to try them out

Weekly Photo Challenge: tiny

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art, photography, photos, St Petersburg, TINY, travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, Weekly Photo Challenge: TINY

While traveling I often find myself looking up at windows, gutters, roofs and lights and often I find a kinds of beauty just above my gaze. On one of my trips, to St Petersburg a few years ago, I spotted these tiny musician jamming atop a light fitting. I loved the patina of the bronze miniature and only wished that I had been able to hear what tune they were playing.

tiny musicians

film review: Arrival

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aliens, Amy Adams, Arrival, Denis Villeneuv, Film Review, film review Arrival, Films, Jeremy Renner, language

The language we speak in influences the way we think – or so many hypotheses claim and/or question. After all can you think about something you have no words for, or is it the lack of vocabulary that hinders us thinking about things we can’t name? Additionally there is our culture – our habits, rites, lifestyles and traditions – that influences our language and thus possibly how we think.

So what would happen when aliens arrive on Earth, how would we communicate and what have they got to say?

Arrival, the latest film by talented director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) asks exactly this question. At it’s center is Louise Banks (Amy Adams) a talented linguist who is tasked with learning how to communicate with aliens hovering in egg-like spaceships over 12 locations all around the globe.

Banks partner is theoretical physicist Dr. Ian Connelly (Jeremy Renner) and while the two of them try to decrypt the alien’s language the whole world is waiting for the Heptapods, the seven legged squid like aliens on board the eggs, to act or attack.

Slowly Banks learns to understand the Heptapods language and read their circular hieroglyphic script-like smoke signals. As she does, how she thinks changes, time folds in on itself and past, future and present become one.

Arrival is a quite film, no capitals explode or spaceships are captured the action lies in the attempt to simply understand. And while as a concept this is extremely interesting it isn’t an easy sell on film, and doesn’t always work. Adams however does a wonderful job at selling the importance of language and fills the screen with her enthusiasm, Renner on the other hand has little to do and seems to be well aware of this.

Beautifully filmed and cleverly conceived Arrival just can’t quite keep it’s promise of becoming the next Close Encounters of the Third Kind and leaves the viewer wondering if Arrival just might have been an amazing film, or maybe it just might have missed its mark.

Amy Adams as Louise Banks in Arrival by Paramount Pictures

 

no timer on timing

Tags

chance, perfect timing, photos, quote, sleep, snooze, time, timing

As I have an early class today this morning everything is down to the perfect timing. After all I didn’t want to sacrifice those precious extra minutes of snoozing in my warm cozy bed.

So yesterday as I set the alarm I worked out how many minutes I needed for the different morning activities: getting dressed, brushing my teeth, breakfast, packing my school-bag (I’ve owned a lovely leather satchel since my first year in secondary school), make tea and walk to the bus-stop.

But when I woke up this morning I realized that perfect timing is something you really just can’t work out. Life is not an egg, that you can let boil till it is exactly the way you like it, in my case the white hard the yoke soft and creamy, but life is a little bit trickier than that. After all we can’t calculate the trips and bumps that we encounter on a day-to-day basis.

But while I was contemplating the matter of timing while sipping my tea I realized that it is exactly those minutes we can’t plan that make life exciting and interesting. Bumping into that cute guy on the bus could mean meeting your future partner, or sitting in traffic may end up with you having a life-changing idea,  meeting an old friend could give you that little bit of “friendly  gossip” that makes you smile or send a much needed compliment our way, and reading “just one more blog” may just make you happy, think or even give you exactly the information you were looking for.

So with all that said time is running out for me this morning and I need to get going and hope that timing is with me today. But as you can’t set the timer on timing, and you never know what the day will bring I will follow some unknown thinkers advice:

Don’t wait for the perfect timing, take the time and make it perfect

The World Time Clock in Berlin- different places different times.

Weekly Photo Challenge : Local

Tags

Dublin, Ireland, local, north side, North Strand, photography, photos, Weekly Photo Challenge, Weekly Photo Challenge : Local

I love living where I do: the people are great, the area a bit messy but friendly and filled with creativity. The streets dirty but beautiful and the view often spectacular if very urban.

weekly photo challenge – nostalgia

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childhood, memories, nostalgia, photography, photos, Weekly Photo Challenge, weekly photo challenge – nostalgia

Red with white hearts, very seventies, there use to be three but one, the middle one, lost its handle and then its spout. They are just a couple of jugs but to me they are a little bit more. They remind me of growing up in Dublin, of red and white cherry wallpaper in the kitchen and eating porridge at the breakfast table with my sister. They remind me of afternoons in the back garden, drinking cold tea from glasses held between dirty hands. They remind me of family dinners of spaghetti and if we were lucky some wobbly jelly for desert. Two jugs that symbolize the nostalgia of my childhood.