Kim Kardashian and Kanye honeymoon in Ireland

Have you heard the latest on KK and K?  Apparently they are currently honeymooning in Ireland!

Article in one of our national newspapers.

Here in Ireland we pride ourselves on having a bit of fun and our sense of humour.  

We also like gently ribbing or "slagging" other people, and I did laugh when I saw a joke newspaper (a bit like The Onion) and the joke article they ran about Kim sightseeing in a famous cave: read it here

Rockin' Road festival 2014

Enid and I were at a great festival yesterday selling a few bits and pieces - teeshirts, wallhangings and bric brac or as we were calling it "tat" :-)

We made sure we brought the essentials with us - big flask  of boiling water and tea and coffee!

I hung my wall-hangings from the gazebo and I think they looked pretty good.  

But sadly I made no sales...  I think they may have been priced higher than people expected to pay at a music festival. Ah well!

Here is Enid in our stall.  I think we had it laid out nicely.

Enid's t-shirts were a big seller on the day.

They have a picture of an old fashioned motorbike on them and say "I'm not old, I'm vintage" on the front.

I think they would make a good gift for Father's Day. 

If you are interested in one for your dad why not mail Enid eniddublin@hotmail.com €12.50/$15 +postage!  (no postage if in Ireland)

30 minute walk along the Royal Canal

I haven't been sleeping great lately :-( so have been trying different things to help me.  .  So this evening I planned on getting off the train one station early and walking home.  It's not a long walk but it is just so boring of a walk!

When it came to the early station I sooooooo did not want to do it.  Even though it was a lovely sunny evening I really had to force myself to get off that train.

Anyway, off I set out of the station when I noticed a sign for a walkway along the canal. 

I had never seen this sign before - how silly is that!

It was a much nicer walk than my usual route - and really quiet with just the sounds of birds chirping.

The path was crossed with tree roots and rocks so it also was challenging on the mind as you had to watch where you walked.  I enjoyed that.

Some great views!

And then I arrived to my estate.  

I took a photo of the entrance because it is just so nice to see it in sunshine for a change.

I live here!

Drogheda restaurant

Yesterday, I was at an event in the lovely Scholars hotel and restaurant in Drogheda.

It's a lovely old building with fantastic wood  pannelled wall covering - it was originally the Christian brothers's convent. 

We were situated in private room off the dining room, with two of the above long tables.

Look how they folded the napkin! Like a little dinner/tuxedo jacket.  

So cute. I'd love to learn how to do this.

My starter - mussels in garlic and white wine cream sauce.  Nice big fat juicy mussels - some of the best flavour mussels I've tasted in a long time.

For main I had chicken supreme, and then for dessert I had chocolate eclairs mmm!  

Nice wine, two little vodkas, I was set up :-) and really enjoyed it,

Time to talk

From the Green Ribbon website:
See Change, the National Stigma Reduction Partnership and our 90 partner organisations are rolling out a month long national Green Ribbon Campaign to get people talking openly about mental health problems in May 2014.
More than 300,000 green ribbons will be distributed nationwide free of charge to spark a national conversation about mental health in boardrooms, break-rooms, chat rooms, clubhouses, arts venues, college campuses and around kitchen tables throughout Ireland. Our aim is to make the month of May every year synonymous with promoting open conversation of mental health and challenging the stigma of mental health problems.
Just like the pink ribbon has become a powerful symbol for breast cancer awareness, this lime green ribbon has been established in the US and beyond as the international symbol for challenging the stigma of mental health problems.

See Change is a growing partnership of 90 Irish organisations, volunteers and ambassadors working together to change attitudes and behaviours to mental health problems and end stigma.

From me:
Today is #timetotalk day when all are being encouraged to talk to someone about mental health.  To talk in general, in order to break down stigmas or to specifically someone about their mental health.  Or even just to listen.

Green Ribbon on facebook - go on, give 'em a like :-)

Toothpowder!

 Anyone ever tried toothpowder?  It is supposed to be great for getting coffee, cigarettes (although I do NOT smoke!) and wine stains off your teeth. 

 

Apparently it is so strong that you should only use it twice a week.

 

 

I am going to try it this evening for the first time.  Let's see how I get on. 

I am back...but not on a permanent basis

My laptop has been broken for a week or two so I have not been blogging.

It is in for repair and it seems to be more serious then originally thought :-(  So I am waiting to see when I will get it back...plus how much it will cost.

I am in the country (Co.  Limerick) in my mother in laws house and I am using her latop so I will try squeeze a few blogs out nice and quick.

It was quite stormy all night, and then this morning I was woken by a cow mooing.  Funny.  You don't get that in Dublin!

New (and some old) tv unit from Table Lighting Chair, Dublin

 Friday was an exciting day because  the final component of my new room décor arrived  -the new tv unit.

 

I finally settled on getting a piece custom made from Table Lighting Chair in Dublin and it is divine!!!! 

But I am getting ahead of  myself - let me go right back to the start of the story and how I ended up with the piece I ended up with.

 

So!  As you know I am a big Ikea fan. 

The vibe  (mid 20th century) design for my front room (see here for pics of my front room - click on the link in the post) stemmed from the Stockholm range in Ikea. 

My settee is from the Stockholm range and also one of the very first things I saw and liked, in the Stockholm range was their tv bench:

 

 

Unfortunately, the unit was simply never ever in stock. I asked in-store regularly, checked online etc and it just was never there, plus with no indication of a date of when it would be in.  Apparently there were supplier problems.

 

So I started looking around at different options and this is how we arrived at Table Lighting Chair. Initially I was keen on having a vintage sideboard as the tv unit.  Something like this or this here:

 

 

 

 

However, sideboards are not designed as tv units, and technically tv units should be lowish to the ground so in reality sideboards aren't possibly the best.....hmm I am not convinced...I think it would have been fab!

*(Interestingly enough the above sideboard is actually quite low - lower than usual sideboards - so it would actually work as a tv unit in my opinion.  It is in Table Lighting Chair at the moment)

 

Table Lighting Chair (or as I like to call them TLC) source vintage furniture and restore them (lovingly with TLC, as I like to think!) to their former glory.  They have fantastic stuff ranging from cool G plan tables to really interesting outdoor wire furniture.  They are based in a laneway in Rutledge Terrace, Donore Avenue in Dublin 8.  It is a quirky little workshop packed to the rafters with cool stuff, if you are interested in vintage furniture you should check it out.

 

Once it was decided that the sideboard was not going to work for us :-( Robbie from TLC suggested that instead they could make me a piece exactly to my specifications :-)

This was exciting to hear!!

 

So taking inspiration from the sleekness of the ikea tv bench but with beautiful wood (russian birch ply finished in American walnut) and with some quirky additions from original pieces (the legs are from a 1960's display cabinet and the handles were salvaged from a vintage Danish sideboard that was sadly beyond repair) this is what I got!

 

  How incredible is this?! 

 

My dad  went out to collect it on Friday. Dad who would be into woodwork etc thought it was made lovely. 

This photograph does not do it justice at all and you cannot see all the detail - for example the frame around the cabinet part has lovely pale and dark "striped" wood detail.

I will take better pictures soon I hope.

 

Here are some pics of it in situ. 

 

All in  all I am so happy with it. 

No disrespect to Ikea but I think you simply cannot compare a mass made tv unit to my one off handmade piece.

 

And while it ended up costing just under twice the price of the Ikea unit I think that ultimately my TLC one is actually worth so so much more than that - I can really see this piece becoming a kind of family heirloom that is passed to the next generation.

 

 

As I said I will post more photos soon (I will add them to this post here).

I also thought that it looks a bit plain in the alcove so I added a wall-hanging above the tv.  I am now looking for a statement vase or sculpture to sit on the unit beside the tv.

 

 

  

 

 

Links for you to check out:

TLC blogpage

TLC facebook page

Wall-hangings (TART: T-shirts & Art)

 

Soooo, what do you think?!