Sushi weekend - 22 Nov 2009

After having started a new job which I currently enjoy very much, there was no much time and less energy to do something nice the last few weekends. (Not to forget that I was helping out on a shoot last weekend, but whatever...).

This weekend I decided to make some Sushi, finally. After having past a Sushi-training-course it was about time! So, I met with Helen in town and we went shopping the local Asia market to get a rice mat, rice, sea weed and fish... Making the rice correctly is daunting and we didn't do it right, but who cares? Our sushi were very nice and delicious!

Today, I did the rest. Here they are: tuna and salmon sushi with avocado... Hmmmmm!

On mice and men

Well, normally, mice can be regarded as cute, but at the moment they turn up at your house, you feel like screaming and jumping up on chairs. It is that easy.
Fortunately, I wasn't the first to spot our first mouse. I even couldn't get the fear of the girls when they told me they had contacted pest control. (Of course, the guy showed up, set some traps with and without poison and disappeared charging EUR 280! Something we could have done easily ourselves, he only confirmed that we had not to deal with rats, but with mice...). Of course, we couldn't find the mouse later, and the traps didn't work. Then, when Helena came over to visit me, the sitting room was smelling really awfully, and now, several weeks later, we know that the mouse had babies...
Then, days later I was sitting in the living room, enjoying a movie and reading, when I noticed something big running and hiding under the chair, a fat dark-grey mouse. I just packed my stuff and went upstairs, closing the door firmly behind me. There I was, anxious that the mouse shall never go into my room. And freaked out a little myself, now being a testimony!
And then, one morning I spotted a mouse in my room. I left the door open, hoping it would disappear, and couldn't find it later anymore... But then, I found a dead baby-mouse in the hallway, and later on, when I returned tired to my room, there it was... Sitting on MY BED! - I cannot repeat it often enough, sitting on my bed and looking at me, as if to say, well, here I am, it's my room too. I left. We decided to put a box over the mouse, together with a trap. Denise helped me with it! But then, when they were talking about leaving the mouse traped under the box and leaving the room, I intervened. We took the top of my shoe box and put it underneath the plastic box (as if you would pick up a spider from a wall) and carried it outside, popping the baby mouse in the bin. Now, weeks later, I can laugh about it, how we were standing there, sweating and terrified to remove the mouse from my room, but at that time it really was horrible...
Denise bought stronger traps, and we killed two baby mice in our bathroom and another one upstairs. I strongly believe - and I do want to believe it! - that they are now all gone or dead.
Finally, the house is ours again!

Helena in Dublin -- October 25th 2009

On Sunday we decided on a sightseeing walk through Dublin. We started from Pearse Station, passed Trinity College and just entered Grafton Street as it started raining, so we went for a coffee. Having enjoyed muffins and cake, we took off for a walk over Grafton Street, admiring St Stephen Green's shopping center. From there we walk to St George's Arcades to St Patrick's Church, visited Audeon's Church, passed Christ Church and strolled through Temple Bar.

We crossed the Liffey over the Ha'Penny Bridge (of course) and then took the Luas to Heuston Station from where we walked through the park of the Museum of Modern Art to Kilmainham Goal.

Feed hurting, we returned back to Grafton Street and rewarded ourselves with a delicious meal and hot chocolate with marshmellows at Bewley's coffee shop, before returning home...

Helena in Dublin -- October 24th 2009

As there is not so much to see in Dublin, we decided to make a trip into the green. We took the Dart to Bray and from there a bus to Powerscourt Gardens. The weather was just magnificient, exactly how you would wish for when having visitors.
We strolled through the gardens, enjoyed the grotto and the Japanese Garden and spent a significant amount of time with watching, photographing and smelling the rose bushes.
Hungry, after so much activity, we had lunch at the Avoca restaurant. Delicious, as usual! We took our leave to Enniskerry town from where the bus was supposed to start every 20 min. We had to wait an hour, but were finally picked up and transported back to Bray. The sun were hiding behind clouds now and after a only short walk along the beach, we decided to return to town to reward ourselves with going to the cinema. A wonderful lazy day!

Shopping in Belfast - September 20th 2009

After a while shopping in Dublin can be extremely annoying and even frustrating. All shops offer practially the same (all trowsers too short, all shirts too wide or to small and too colourful), no healthy variation at all. I was disgusted and therefore, in order to find myself anything worth to wear, decided to do a weekend shopping trip to Belfast.

I was lucky the next day with wonderful weather, so I left the hotel eagerly to stroll through the city...

Once more -- Howth in September

Whoever said the summer is over, was wrong. I thought, after enough weekends of being at home or out of town, it was about time to return to Howth. I expected it to be windy and a little chilly, but it was warm and sunny. And it was extremely busy out there!

Instead of being covered in yellow, the mountains were violet...

Cavan --- again! September 2009

This time not on my own... Wood Warrior and Boxing Bonnie spent a lot of their time between the different saunas and the swimming pool (especially the outdoor pool). They ventured for a short trip through the forests, almost crawled back through the mud and met the cattle in the field...