A cúpla things

Last Friday we went to a concert at St. Peter's Church of Ireland. Swedish soprano Miah Persson was singing Mozart, Schubert and Haydn. She was accompanied by British classical pianist Joseph Middleton. It was a nice evening out, booked at the last minute. Several days earlier, it was our seventh wedding anniversary, apparently called the wool anniversary. Wool ... I should knit something nice this autumn ;)

From a cúpla things that are irritating or just plain weird:

Blogspot really pisses me off. For several days now my blog reading list (on the left) hasn't been updating, and apparently the problem is somewhere in the system, which means there's nothing I can do about it. As Google employees get on with fixing more profitable stuff, they seem to have little time for people who can still read and write longer texts. Very frustrating.

Another thing is flight ticket prices. I finally booked a Ryanair flight to Warsaw, it was ridiculously overpriced, but I wanted to get rid of the everyday worry about the trip I have planned (I bought a return ticket from Wrocław a while ago). In the second half of October we'll visit my husband's siblings and then I'll travel on my own to a different part of the country to stay with my parents for several days (Fred has to go back home to work). Our lovely neighbour has already promised to take care of our cats. I love autumn and I can’t wait for the perks of being an only child again :]

In the meantime the house next to us stays empty. Most of the maintenance work in the area has been finished, but the person who was interested in moving in still hasn’t done so. There was already some conflict between the would-be neighbour and the neighbour on the other side of the empty house. Of course, I’d be afraid to move in myself if there were some weird crowd around, but in this case the whole situation is mostly in people’s heads. Very interesting.

Memory's a weird thing

Last Thursday was the third anniversary of my grandma Mary’s passing. I forgot about it, or rather, I’d pushed it out of my mind and didn’t remember until Tuesday.

Home routine, behold!

Little Mary, this morning: I licked your face, and you smell of fish, so I love you even more.

*

Yesterday marked the anniversary of my first visit to Ireland, eight years ago. When I was thinking about migration (not that I gave it much serious thought, I was happy enough, had a decent job), my destination of choice were Canada (been there in 2011), or Sweden (still waiting on that one), or Germany (as the most logical place to relocate). I'd never have guessed, back in 2015, where I would be ten years later.

We had a Sturgeon Moon last night.
I stayed up late and read about it, but was too deep in my own world to look outside. That's what my husband's absence does to my Brain -- I drift from reality. But that's that. It was Fred's last night in town. Today we had a lovely afternoon coffee in Costa, than fed the Dog, cleaned the house, locked the door, and finito. Home routine, behold!

Below, said coffee in Costa in the evening sun.

Six years

Truly a spring day in its bloom. Fred at work, me at home; I did some laundry, went out to the back garden and while changing the water in a bowl for the birds, I decided to go for a walk. Since it was rather early, not many people were on the beach. Good. I stopped by a local coffee shop, bought a flat white, then walked as far as to the "crocodiles" (weird rock formations resembling crocodiles' backs sticking out of the sand); I was standing there, a bit lost in thoughts, sipping my coffee, when I spotted Michelle coming my way. What a lovely woman, always smiling, always with some kind words. Chatted for a few minutes about how fortunate we are to live here, in this lovely village, surrounded by such stunning landscapes. 

Today, six years ago, Fred proposed to me at King John’s Pier in Carlingford. 

Below: my coffee, and Michelle dissappearing behind the rocks.