Deck the halls...

a festive filled weekend! Took a half day from work on Friday and went for lunch in the city with the Mister. We then took a stroll around the shops, which he wasn't impressed with and then over to the Christmas markets on Grand Parade. They had some lovely stuff over there, unique even. Couldn't get any pictures as it was pishing rain but we did get some adorable cupcakes which were devoured when I got home by everyone else but me!! :/ Saturday was spent putting up the tree and decorating the house for the festive season, I've mulled wine scented candles all over the place!! Myself and the Mister then decided to go for ONE early festive drink in a local bar at about 5pm...that turned into us falling out of the pub at half 9 a bit tipsy! We then took a drunken stroll to Supermacs and Xtra Vision where I attempted to argue with the guy for selling us a dvd at a higher cost than what it was advertised for, bloody cheek!! All in the name of festive fun though!

The Christmas Fairy

Santas Grotto..kinda!

Kellys Bar,perfect for a Christmas tipple

The famous Tree!

One of many mulled wine scented candles!

On a not so happy note though, I was helping the guards with the search for young guy missing form the Cork area on Friday night. I was called into the office to give them access to them CCTV for them to see the last few images of the guy. There was lots of people out searching and have been all weekend. Although it involved a Garda escort through the city (and me thinking I might not arrive at my destination in one piece), which everyone wants to try sometime, it was all in very sad circumstances. Last update I heard was he hasn't been found so if anyone has any info on the where abouts of Caolan Mulrooney please Contact Angelsea Street garda station on 021 4522000. Lets hope hes found soon and safe and my thoughts are with his family.x

The Tale of a few Cars

When it comes to driving and bumps and scrape related incidences, well they seem to follow me everywhere with every car I've ever owned..

Peg

My first car, Peg (Peugoet 106) died an awful death when she was written off on my way home from work in the airport in 2006, somehow I managed to flip the car off the dual carriageway and hit a wall, thankfully I survived, obviously and escaped with a fractured spine and a few war wounds..last thing I remembered was driving through a puddle and then bam..she ended up looking like that ^^^

Celine

Then there was Celine (Honda Civic), oh I loved her! As soon as I saw her being driven to the courtyard of the garage in Bishopstown I knew I wanted that car, obviously the sales guy saw it too an overcharged, but hey you learn from your mistakes! She had to endure crazy dogs bouncing off the bumper and leaving a crack, accidentally rearing ending a car, driving over a footpath and scraping the bumper and hitting the drivers side off the gate at home not once, not twice but THREE times!! She was a beauty though!

Cindy

Cindy here, (Honda Civic Coupe) is most definitely my favorite of the bunch! She lasted me just over 3 years until September this year. She was old though, 1995 and it was going to cost me too much to put her through  the NCT. However in those 3 years I had ended up paying about €2500 euros to fix her up a few more rear ending incidents, the day after the picture was taken it cost me €1500 to fix after an accident on the way to work- new bumper, bonnet, headlight etc! Not to mention a mere 8 months later someone drove into me and it was another €900 to fix the front again, they paid this time not me! She was one of those noisy girl racer cars but I loved her and was quite upset when she was replaced a couple of months ago..but not without one last bump where yet again the bumper and bonnet were smashed the day before I bought the new car..one last bash for the road! 

Charlotte (Charlie)

And now there is Charlotte (Honda Civic Coupe), can you tell I like Civic's?!! She has been great so far, just 1 or 2 little things that had to be done from wear and tear but so far so good!! 

Well until this morning that was, my whole reason for a car elated post today - some guy came up East Hill way too fast and then smashed my wing mirror, but he then had the cheek to turn around and follow me along town until I stopped outside the Mister's flat and proceed to attempt to blame me for his mirror that was now hanging off but no interest in my smashed one!! Grrr!! I will admit most of the time its my fault, I can be quite a hasty driver but I know this morning it wasn't! To be honest I think he just thought he could intimidate a girl driver and that I would be a push over even though it was his fault...he wasn't long storming off when he realised I wasn't on my own when the Mister got into the car! Because of the kind of cars I drive I do seem to attract some hostility as most people think I'm a boy/girl racer..just because I drive a done up car doesn't mean I drive like most of the owners of those types of cars...jeez give a girl a break like!! (Rant over!!) Despite all my bad luck I still love cars particularly the Civic's and I've learned a few lessons along the way when it comes to buying them and selling them and maintaining them...and you cant beat the smell of burnt rubber from a bit of driftng, although I'm a spectator not a participator!! 

A little Christmas treat

I've had a fairly tame but busy weekend so far. I'm actually doing my bit of volunteer work right now but phones are quiet so have time for a quick blog post!!
Me and Katie (the youngest of my 3 nieces) spent the day orgainising furniture,moving stuff to the attic and getting the Christmas decorations down and ready for next weeks work. We sorted out the final few bits and pieces in my room and the whole house was back in an orderly fashion after 3 weeks of chaos!! For a small 9 year old shes a great little worker!
We also decided to make some Christmas fairy cakes, just to get everyone else to join in our festive mood ( We also have our advent calendars lined up ready for us to attack come December 1st!)
So anyway me and my litle helper started off with the one recipe I know off by heart from making it with the mothership since as long as I can remember: 6, 6, 6, and 3!

6oz of Self Raisng Flour
6oz of Caster Sugar
6oz of Margarine
3 eggs
1 teaspoon of Vanilla Essence
Food coluring of your choice
12 cherries
Icing Sugar

Mix the caster sugar and margarine first, in the motherships very fancy new food processor I might add! Then add in 1 egg and a the flour bit by bit follwed by the remaining 2 eggs. When its all mixed together add in the vanilla essence. We then just seperated the mixture into 2 bowls and put red colouring in one and green in another. We had lots of messy fun putting the mixture into the Christmas cake cases! We then left them for about 20mins to cook, maybe a bit more I wasnt keeping track. I had the oven a bit lower than usual, gas mark 4 instead of 5. We then left them to cool on the wire rack while we cleaned up the kitchen and cut the cherries and got the icing ready. Another bit of messy fun with the icing and our Christmas fairy cakes were ready to go!! I made coffee for me and the sister while the little miss had Ribena and we munched on ur cakes. The kiddies thought the red and green inside the cakes were just great, really impressed them!!  (the idea for the coloured cakes came from a fellow bloggers post I saw a while back and had to try them)

Early Morning Start

It was rather cold this morning, coldest its been all week!! It was so hard to get out of my new cosy warm double bed but thankfully I'd managed a good 8 hours sleep last night so I only snoozed my alarm for 10minutes. I have the same routine almost every morning during the week - alarm goes off, snooze, get up, brush hair, make coffee, get dressed, do make up, brush teeth and out the door! Generally I'm tight on time so just hop straight into the car to start my day by joining the rest of the 9 - 5er's in the traffic queues to the city. Its actually not too bad, at least I don't have to go through the tunnel, that would be soul destroying altogether to face that every morning. I now have the added pleasure of the Mister joining me on my journey as I drop him off at his course on the way! Anyway, I've got a nice view from my house and this morning it looked quite nice because it was still a bit dark but light was breaking through and it gave a nice reddish glow to the sky.

You can see a graveyard right across form my house, my bedroom window in fact!! It's so old they don't even bury people in there any more...because it's too full or something!! Daddykins and my Uncle used to scare me when I was a kid and tell me that a headless man used to come up out of his grave, drag himself across the road and stand in front of my window every night...its no wonder I slept with my light on until I was 14!!

One of those days...

I feel a little lost today, not sure why. Even though I have plans in place and am working towards something and all is kinda great at the moment, y'know floating along nicely, but today is just a "Blah, what am I even doing??!" day if you get me! I'm most definitely not in the mood for work, mainly due to the banger of a headache I have at the moment and of course no Paracetamol anywhere in the office :( 
When it comes to change I tend not to take to it as quickly as most people, I like things the way they are in the present, when something comes along and upsets my routine or plans or certain ways, it makes me uneasy..the adjustment process is quite a long one! But then sometimes I freak out inside a little bit that things will never change and they will stay the same way forever and I wont have got a chance to do all the things I want to do...anyone else ever feel like this?! Even when changes that I've made myself happen, I take a while to get my head around them while they are actually happening! Like I'm planning to take off to Australia again next year, June hopefully but already I'm freaking out a little bit about the huge change its going to be. Mainly because last time I went I was so super homesick and sad that I vowed never to leave home again!! But I know this time is different, it will most definitely be a positive experience, I'll be going with someone different and well y'know, I'm older I should be well able to take on the world and all it has to offer me!! 
While I'm one of the lucky ones who has found the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, (took me 10 years to realise it but hey I got there in the end!) sometimes that panics me even though I wouldn't change my mister for the world and he feels the same and when that feeling is reciprocated as much as you feel it, there's a certain amount of pressure from no one but myself not to let that person down. Someone (not so wise but happened to be bit wise on this occasion) once told me I was my own worst enemy because I thought too much...about everything!! So in recent times, the last year especially I have learnt to relax a bit more and go with the flow as some would say and learn to appreciate any surprises that life may throw my way. But still I have a few crazy days!! :S 
I think I need to go home, get under my duvet in my cosy pj's and watch The Crow because its my favorite film ever and then watch Dirty Dancing because its my second favorite film ever!! Oh and drink lots of tea :)


"A building gets torched, all that is left is ashes. I used to think that was true about everything, families, friends, feelings. But now I know that sometimes if love proves real, two people who are meant to be together, nothing can keep them apart."


"If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever."


"Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."

Dozy Chocolate

Ok so for a while I wasn't able to sleep as well as Id used to and having to get up at 7am 5 days of the week 3 or 4 hours a night just wasn't working out for me so the mothership decided we should try something called "Dozy Chocolate" which she'd come across recently:

100grams 70% cocoa dark chocolate
50 drops of Valerium Tincture
6 drops of Lavendar
1 tbsp of ground flax seed

Melt chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. When the chocolate has melted add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Place the mixture in a mould or line a container with greaseproof paper and allow for the mixture to set.
As you can see in the picture below we just broke it up into pieces after it was set.

I can say that these little bites most definitely work! Although at first they can be a bit hard to swallow, I just washed it down with a swig of hot chocolate. I did find they were of a less intense taste if eaten straight out of the fridge. I no longer had my head on the pillow and I was driftng off into a nice calm sleep. 

Next up, we're gonna try the Dozy Bars...I'll post the results of that one too! :-)