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.

Update

How was it possible I didn't post anything throughout the entire months of May and June? Let me catch up on a few things. My last post in April finished with a dramatic cliffhanger. It was about Old Anna, our neighbour. She had been away for so long that we almost forgot about her. And then came the message about her departure from this world. We visited her grave some time later, a very picturesque graveyard with a view. 

On 14/04 died Frania, another of my parents' cats. Young, black, lovely. Fuck you, feline leukemia! And one more death in the middle of June -- stinky Max is no more :(

Both our girls were spayed at the end of April. It was a stressful time, but we got through it. By now the bald patches on their sides have almost disappeared.

One weekend in May we headed up to Dublin for Melissa Hamilton’s Ballet Star Gala at the Bord Gáis Theatre. It was a very nice experience, we also made good use of our time before the concert -- we stopped in at Flower & Bean on Cork St.

In the meantime we bought tickets to spend some time in July at my family home. We also bought a new fridge -- tiny in comparison with the trendy ones, a little black midget. We'd love to have a fridge without a freezer but it's not so easy to find a suitable one. It was necessary to buy it now, as during our holidays we'll have a pet sitter looking after the house.

Since the last post, I've finished reading ca. fifteen books, one of the best of them was Zyta Rudzka's Krótka wymiana ognia. So far only one book by Rudzka has been translated into English, Dr Josef's Little Beauty (I have it as an audiobook and plan to listen to it after our holidays).

June was taken over by builders. Several contractors are working on our little house. The heating system was modernized (we use a heat pump now), the windows and front door were replaced and they are still working on the insulation. Most of the time it's been a nightmare, they have already destroyed parts of our garden, and some eejits cut down the lavender that was growing close to the walls (I complained officially).

Anything else? ... Stay tuned ...

Not set in stone

A lot has happened since the last post. 

The Saturday before last, we went to a concert at the National Concert Hall. It was called Viva Verdi, Viva Wagner; a very nice evening for us both. And this is an unexpected piece of art I created on the way back home, at 22:36 (I think, I was trying to take a photo of the moon hiding in the woods):

On Monday, I became my own boss. I signed a new contract this week (Thursday, to be exact), not very exciting, but it was what was offered, and I took it. Once again in my life, I feel I can change my mind at any time. It's not set in stone, and I like it that way.

Our little ones are bigger and bigger. That same Monday afternoon, we went to the vet for a check-up. Little Mary is 2.5 kg now, and Bron just a bit less, 2.3 kg. Nothing has changed with Little Mary's peeing issue. We'll have to come to terms with it, I suppose.

Then on Wednesday, my husband had his post-CT scan visit with his oncologist. It's always been fine, fine for the past eight years. But this time was a bit different. They've found a tiny nodule in his lungs, too tiny to biopsy or remove in any other way. And that means only one thing: waiting. Fred's doctor was optimistic, he told my husband that the nodule had already been there in the previous scan, back at the beginning of the year, and they've spotted it only now. According to the doctor, it hasn't grown in the last six months. We shouldn't worry. We try not to worry. Waiting is a cruel game.
That day, the sea was quiet.

I came across an old piece about Eileen in the Irish Times. I liked it.

One life

I'm a bit worried about the situation in Poland, though I'm not sure there's actually anything to worry about. Russians, these belligerent, booze-soaked neighbours, have plenty of its own problems, the ongoing war in Ukraine is bleeding their country dry, more and more each year. 

If people truly understood how precious their one and only life is, we wouldn't have wars anymore: no one would dream of being a soldier, it would be too absurd.

On a brighter note (?), just one day to go, and I'll be my own boss.

Oh, and we were there last Saturday evening.