A Couple Things

Churros with Friends

IKEA Purchases

Joy the Baker Recipe Apple Crumble

A Bull in a Field

A Humungous Leaf

One Hilarious Phone Cover

Finally Finished My Room With These Funky Floral Curtains

Sadly, oh so very sadly, I got a brand new phone, and while it's processor is fast and all that, the camera is beyond terrible. Hence all the grainy pictures. I'm so very sorry.

Colour, Colour, Everywhere!

Autumn is really in full swing now. In other countries the local councils might remove the leaves that clog the gutters of housing estates and streets, but not so in Ireland. I'm grateful for it, though, because I love the burst of colour everywhere.

The last few weeks I've been occupied with the continuing saga of Learning To Drive. I must admit, every lesson is a vast improvement. I have a test date now, so I'm working towards that and praying to the gods that I'm fortunate enough to pass, I have quite a few travel plans which involve the middle of nowhere, and a car is always handy for such instances.

It's almost Halloween, and I've been making the most of the spooky season. There have been several movie nights, complete with popcorn, treats, and, in one case, Indian takeaway. After movie watching comes the ubiquitous dissection of the movie, and the reading of Wiki articles relating to them. Nothing like scaring yourself into not wanting to go to sleep, a strange quirk of our species.

On the weekend my friends and I had an old fashioned sleepover and we carved pumpkins (I saved the seeds and roasted them!), ate pizza, and gossiped.

I've also been making the most of the last few bits from the garden. I stewed a couple of different batches of apples with cinammon and I've been eating them with natural yoghurt. Unbeatable. When I have kids they're going to eat nothing but.

Here's an amalgamation of loosely connected images relevant to my life over the past few weeks. Excuse the grainy quality, I just have a Samsung Galaxy Ace, and my camera skills are thoroughly inferior to Leo's. 

HE'S SO OLD!!!

The weather has been absolutely dire the last few days. Torrential rain and strong winds mean I haven't been able to jog or cycle every day. I've been going out when there's a break in the rain, but boy, is it annoying.

I took that time to actually repaint my room. My childhood bedroom had not had a fresh coat of paint since I was about 14, and at least a month ago I ripped it apart and began the process, but never seemed to be able to motivate myself to finish it.

On Thursday I am heading to Copenhagen for a few days. Let's hope that I get my room finished before then.

Feeling Great in the Countryside

Let me just tell you, I can’t believe I’m here, last week of September, cycling at high speed down country roads with random insects hitting me in the face, sun still shining. It’s like nature is being extra kind and giving just a few more weeks of summer before it gets dark at 4pm. The leaves are starting to coat the ground and it’s been foggy, but we have had some fantastic days lately. 

Being at home in the country is fantastic, and coming to Ireland for these few weeks (maybe months, if I ever get a driving test date finalised) has, so far, been an excellent decision. I’ve been spending a lot of time on the roads because I want to get fitter to try and do a triathlon in a few months. I’ve been out walking and jogging every day.

When I was younger I hated the countryside. I thought it was so boring to be surrounded by fields and trees, I just wanted to live in a town or city and actually be able to walk to friends’ houses. I wanted to socialise and be around people, not cows. I itched to be saturated in the feelings of urban things; paper coffee cups and take-out sandwiches, department stores and cobbled streets and city buses. Then I started spending time in cities, living in apartments and taking those city buses, and let me tell you, their quality varies hugely depending on their final destination. I’d walk around the most crowded parts of cities and let the feeling of being surrounded by people wash over me. I felt at home.

In the past year, though, something changed, and now I don’t want to be in cities anymore. Fumes, traffic, crowded streets, endless shops, endless streams of people, none of these things excite me. I want to get away from people, faceless, nameless numbers. I want to work on my existing relationships and be surrounded by positivity, not sit pressed against a stranger on the Tube. I want green fields and dusk on country roads and fresh air. Maybe it’s a natural progression of growing up (finally), maybe it’s the fact that the guy I spend most of my time with is highly cynical of all things commercial. Maybe I’m just realising what’s really important in life, and it isn’t what you get in a Penneys’ bag for €3.

Yesterday I was cycling around the block, and it was a gorgeous day, and I just felt so, alive, you know? One of those rare moments when you know you feel so good that you know it’s special, and won’t come again for a time. Everything was perfect. It was about 15 degrees, no wind, I was cycling downhill, 5.30pm and the sun was just setting off towards the western corner of the sky. I saw a group of pheasants rushing down a field lane, flocks of birds hovering above a freshly ploughed field, cut grass smell, country manure smell, cabbages and potatoes and rows of green fields. I saw horses, cows, neighbourhood dogs in varying sizes and temperaments, mostly verging on cranky and territorial.

It was fantastic, and I’m so lucky to be here, living at all. There’s been a bit of bad news in the last couple of weeks, and maybe I’m just sentimental because of it, but I really feel so glad to be here. In a world that is so random and, at times, just so senselessly cruel, that I am here, with so many good things, well I just feel very lucky indeed.

I have no nice pictures today, just plenty of good wishes. Slán go fóill!

Learning to Drive

My mission during my time in Ireland is simple: I Must Learn To Drive.

Even if, for whatever reason, passing my test is impossible, I want to leave Ireland with the intention of passing it in the near future, and at the very least having the skills to competently drive.

Learning to drive at the age of 24, when your mind is already perfectly settled into its ways, I thought, would be tricky. But I've been really impressed at how my brain is retaining all the tricky information and sequences in which you're supposed to do everything.

I have a really great instructor who is also hilarious and I'm really enjoying driving around with him intermittently shouting 'handbraaaake' at me. I've asked him to be extra harsh on me and in the first few lessons I really think that helped me progress.

Tomorrow will be hour six of my lessons, and from then on it will be test preparation. I still forget my mirror/signal order sometimes, don't use my mirrors enough, and need a lot of prompting for my handbrake, but gear changes are going swimmingly and I actually have good control over the clutch/gas.

It's a shame there's no car for me to practice in at home, I think getting comfortable on the road is the main thing I need help with, rather than technique, but so it goes.

I don't have a test date yet, I cancelled my October 2^nd date after a depressingly poor 4^th lesson, so I have to wait to hear back, but I hope it'll be by November and I have some work to do to tide me over during the longer wait in Ireland.

I never thought I'd actually enjoy driving, in my late teens I shunned getting a provisional license and when I finally got one never took learning any further. I can't wait to get my license, rent a car and drive around Scandinavia. I want to go on a roadtrip to Lithuania to visit a friend too.

I cannot wait :)

(Toot toot)

 The need to drive a tractor somewhere in my future is what forced me to get myself together and just do it already.

I absolutely want one of these bad boys eventually, in whatever delicious pastel shade is most readily available to me.

Abroad Thoughts from Home

This image is from a series on the Maptia website, based on a book about langauge called Through the Language Glass. As far as I'm aware, these are original drawings done by some on the Maptia website,although whom the credit is due to I cannot be sure.

This little explanation on the website was quite nice, though.

The idea that words cannot always say everything has been written about extensively - as Friedrich Nietzsche said, 'Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon the absolute truth.' No doubt the best book we've read that covers the subject is 'Through The Language Glass' by Guy Deutscher, which goes a long way to explaining and understanding these loopholes, the gaps which mean there are leftover words without translations, concepts that cannot be properly explained across cultures.

I'm in Ireland now for a few weeks, I have a serious task at hand; learn how to drive. I intend to also pass my driving test, but I accept this might not happen the first time round, so I'm willing to make a compromise; if I can simply know how to drive competently, for now that's enough.

I have a wonderful almost-Autumn cold; groggy, sore head, tight throat, insatiable appetite. Bring it on, body, I'm ready.

Almost At the End of Now

It's the night before I do my carpentry exam for the basic level course. Everything is finished, all the screws and nails are in place, and my project board is sitting next to my piece. After Friday, when we go in to DEMOLISH all our hard work with crow bars (I cannot wait), I'll be free. Free of obligation, of commitment, of a lot of things. I'll write a little entry about my project itself in a bit, but I just want to talk about the general implications of being finished, and what I plan on doing with, well, the rest of my life.

I'm in a weird position. Over-educated with only admin experience, 24 with two degrees in the social sciences, super mobile and with no particular roots, my family and most of my dearest friends are in Ireland, some other close friends are in London, Poland, and further afield. My boyfriend has bagged himself an immense job with Dankse Bank and gotten a delicious apartment in the trendiest part of Copenhagen.

But what exactly am I going to do with myself?

Well, I'm going to begin by learning how to drive because, I have a confession to make, I cannot drive. So I plan to go back to Ireland, take a ton of lessons, and do my test as soon as I can. And maybe I might even pass first time around. Aside from that, I'm going to see Cats the Musical (the last time I went I was a baby of less than one with no self awareness), I'm going to Tipperary to visit an organic ecovillage, and I'm going to Austria for the first time to stay in the mountains with my parents and my Swiss-living brother and his fam.

Other than that, who knows.

What I do know is that I handed in my notice at the restaurant I work at, and then I shall not waitress again. And that is that.

I have a lot of plans, a lot of maybes, but even more unanswered questions about myself, what I want, and what I'm capable of doing with my time. The carpentry course has taught me that I love working with my hands, and life has taught me that I don't want to sit in an office grinding the cogs of the machine. I'd like to do charity or NGO work but I need to get paid something. I have quite a few courses to apply for, from policy stuff to decidedly outdoorsy stuff, and I am going to do some work away stuff, hopefully in a little old country in the north where there's lots of rocks.

So, there you have it. I am 24, I am not exactly poor but I certainly don't have any expendable income. My boyfriend is a banker but neither of us really support capitalism. I have my good health, a lot of ideas and hopes for the future, and I have ambition. And right now, that's enough.

'Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist'- George Carlin; don't want this to be me, though.

The Future's Looking Bright Tonight

The Boyne Valley and Knowth, Co. Meath

When Leo came to visit my home, I took the opportunity to show him all the places in Meath that I'm proud of, you know, showcase the best my county has to offer.

And it turns out that Meath is beautiful. On the sunniest days we've had in years, everything looked fantastic. The fields were overflowing with ripe crops, the sun was in the sky, the horses and cows looked their best, and, of course, the neolithic tombs we have littered around the area were looking their very best. Not to brag, but Meath is fantastic.

We arrived too late in the day for a trip to Newgrange tomb, so we went to Nowth, the lesser known of the three sites, the third being Dowth.

The visitors centre may be great for the economy of the area, with Americans and Europeans flocking by the tour bus, but for those favouring a more authentic experience, the obligatory shuttle bus and guided tour of the sites is tiresome.

Newgrange

Passage in Knowth

After our visit to Knowth, we visited the site of the Battle of the Boyne, where in 1690 some colonisers fought for their right to Irish land. Can you smell the cynicism? I'm not a fan of these stories of colonial muscle flexing, the site of cannons and reconstructions of battle scenes do not excite me, they make me slightly angry. The less said about the political side the better, but the lush fields are definitely a must-see if in the area, and the tea gardens are gorgeous.

Painting of the battle by Jan Wyck c. 1693

Knowth and Newgrange are UNESCO world heritage sites, older than both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids. 

Wikipedia entry on Knowth
The official page of Knowth
Battle of the Boyne information page

There's a lot more to Ireland than Dublin, Galway and the Ring of Kerry, you know ;)

Still Here!

It's so frustratrating having no access to the internet, I've taken on a new lease of life in regards applying for courses, work and more qualifications that will one day enable me to have a successful job where I earn money. I've found a few courses that look exactly what I want (I'll stay mum for now), which don't start until Autumn 2013 unfortunately, but that gives me a lot of time to earn money and get my head in order, right?

I went for a 4k job yesterday, which may not sound like a lot, but I don't have a high level of cardiovascular fitness (I can cycle for days, but that doesn't mean I am 'fit'), but for me to be able to finish it feeling good, not giving in half way through with a pain in my throat, but actually sprinting the last 1/2k back to my house, was an amazing achievement. I'm really happy with my progress, and can't wait to get back to it today. My legs are aching, obviously, but it's worth it.

I'm waiting with baited breath for my provisional license so I can get on with fiiiiinally learning to drive. What a long road it has been. No pun intended. I just want to get on with it because I have a lot of plans for next year, and they mainly involve farms, Iceland, and being able to drive. 

I've gotten back into cross-stitching, and that is all I shall say on that for now.

Have a good weekend!

p.s. my cats are starting to scare me with the amount of attention they're giving me. I keep waking up to soundless kitties staring at me in the dark, or sleepy purring things on my pillow. It's endearing, but I'm keeping alert.

The Ceide Fields, County Mayo

On our second day in County Sligo we took to the road for what turned out to be a very long car ride to The Ceide Fields.The journey across Sligo and into Mayo was beautiful, as we entered Ballina the river Moy was on our right, the golden sands on the beaches of the Atlantic were glimmer like they never seem to in Sligo, and it was one of those 'wow' moments.

As we entered the Mayo countryside on the other side of Ballina we were surrounded by rural farms on either side, tiny villages with old stone houses, and finally breathtaking cliffs with the Atlantic ocean crashing dramatically below. It's almost ridiculous to think that this natural beauty exists in my very own country.

I'm talking something like this:

Image found here

Our first stop was the Ceide Fields Interprative Centre.

Here's a snippet I extracted completely from their website:

One of the dramatic exhibits that confronts visitors on entering the centre is this 4,000 year old pine tree that was unearthed from nearby bogland.
Todays centre and its interior constructed from natural materials – sandstone, oak and glass – was a combination of local work and resources spearheaded by a local man Dr Seamus Caulfield and the Office of Public Works which is based in Dublin.
The result – the Ceide Fields Interpretative Centre, which received the Gold Medal Award from the RIAI and now attracts visitors from all over the world.

The Centre’s day to day running is in the capable hands of archaeological specialist Gretta Byrne who was part of Dr Caulfields original team.
The architectural and design response to this beautiful and sensitive environment was the use of a simple strong form often seen in lighthouses and martello towers which are a common feature on many coastlines. The resulting pyramid shape reflects the surrounding landscape – and in particular the Stags of Broadhaven which can be seen on the horizon.

We wandered around the informative exhibition and had a quick nibble and cup of tea in the café (tea must be taken at every potential opportunity in Ireland) , and then Leo and I headed outside to look around the fields.

Two archeologists were in the fields checking the soil for signs of activity buried below the peat, and that was really interesting to see. There were all sorts of unique flowers growing in the area, too.

Across the road is an observation point where you have a great view of the goats grazing in the next field and the big sea pillar.

Well worth the visit, even if you are far away. It's one of those rare, truly unique places.

For more information on the history of the fields, here the Wikipedia article.

The fields are located at  

The Ceide Fields Centre
Ballycastle
County Mayo
Ireland

Enniscrone, County Sligo

My mother's home is in county Sligo, in the countryside near the seaside town of Enniscrone. She grew up on a farm, and her father was also the local undertaker (how cool is that!). She now owns the family home and a bit of land around it, and I joined her for a visit there. Leo is also from Sligo, but the other end of the county, and it was his first real venture into Enniscrone, which, he argues, is basically Mayo.

We came across a mother and foal on a walk to Pullaheeny Harbour. I spent ages trying to get them to ear from my hand. Foals have the best legs, so unsteady and spindly.

Pulaheeny Harbour is an actively used harbour and stoney beach near Rathlee in Sligo. It's about two miles from our house. 

We saw some trawlers out fishing, and came upon a thoroughly unpleasant discovery of abandoned fish which had turned rancid in a disused vat. So awful.

 The tide was coming in, and we stayed for too long staring at the tiny pebbles get submerged under the water. The Atlantic is beautiful.

Credit

 
A relaxing time submerged in memories of my childhood. Sometimes it's nice to go home, even if it's to someone else's idea of home. See things how they see it.