Last Monday my good friend April turned 39. She has this way of talking right when I'm about to take a picture because she thinks that the talking face looks better than her picture smile. Whatever - this is actually a picture from Dublin, but here is April.
To celebrate, she invited a lot of friends to go spend a few hours in the Savernake Forest, just south of Marlborough. (Greg – April’s husband – can give you an essay about the history and Henry the 8th connection – I won’t). It is about 20 minutes from my house. There was a good bunch of us – and the weather was just good enough for a short walk. Some kids biked – to prove her youth (or something) April road her 4-year-old daughter’s bike for a while. The mere thought is painful. There was a huge tree on its side that we all climbed on for a photo from a passerby (who happened to have 3 black labs – 2 of them played just like Pip and Pulse – it was bittersweet for me). 
On the walk we also saw a 4 month chocolate lab – just a brown version of Pip when I got him. So cute. After the “hike” we ate at ASK in Marlborough. It is very similar to Pizza Express, but I think better. I was on my 11-day diet thingy – so I had a dry green salad and ate the cashews that I brought with me. I was still happy with my food. After the lunch (which lasted 3+ hours) I stole April for some brief shopping at the Outlets before going back to her place. This allowed Greg to get the cake over to a Cherie and Jared’s place where we got together with them (the Whitehouses) and the Carmichaels (Gresha & Jake) and played Five Crowns and ate cake (well, I watched the cake eating). It was a fun day. I got to my house after 11 and just climbed into bed. My house was freezing, because I hadn’t been there to turn the heat on during the day. I thought it wouldn’t be worth it. Boy was I wrong. I laid in bed for 3 hours ½ asleep. I was just too cold to settle in. I finally got up at 2:30 and put on a sweatshirt and socks. Then I was warm enough to sleep.Tuesday through Friday was mostly spent doing fire-drill type work. The good news is that I thrive on that kind of work. I won’t bore you with details.
On Friday night I went out with some women from work. I spent 2 hours at a bar that was serving 2 for 1 cocktails. I am constantly awed by the drinking culture here. Maybe I am just blind to it in the US, but I really don’t think that going out for several hours to several establishments to drink a LOT of alcohol is a weekly (or more) event in Portland. I had to abandon the group at 10:30 so I could get some sleep for Saturday, but even that 2 hours was long for me. Fun, but loud and crowded. My diet cokes were good, but not spectacular.
I had to get some sleep because on Saturday I took April to Dublin for her birthday. I spent the night at April’s. She has a lush guest room – including a bathroom with a shaver only plug outlet.
(I want to write another blog just about the ridiculousness of the English law that prohibits having outlets in bathrooms – it is so inconvenient.) We woke up early and left her house at 5:15 to drive to the Bristol Airport. Later Greg called and asked why we left so early. I had us arrive 90 minutes before our flight. Apparently that is too early. I still stand by it. I like to have enough time to get through security and buy a diet pepsi and water without feeling stressed. We also bought a “skinny” lemon poppy seed muffin from Starbucks to share while we waited.The flight was another RyanAir experience – but not much to report there. Just a short flight. The Dublin Airport took a while – immigration was quite interested in all of the Non-EU travelers, so it took a while. We took a bus into Dublin that took about 40 minutes and dropped us basically at Temple Bar (a trendy district in Dublin). Most of our day would be spent on Grafton Street – the shopping “high” street in Dublin right at Temple Bar’s edge. But first we started with Crepe #1.
April and Greg have been to Dublin a few times, and their favorite thing there are Lemon crepes. Lemon is the name of the creperie.
They make savory and sweet crepes and they are yummy. April had a ham and cheese crepe for “breakfast” (it was 10am) and I had egg, cheese, mushroom and onion. 
YUM-O! Then we walked to the tourist information center (which is housed in a beautiful old church) to see what they had to tell us. 
We debated on a bus tour – but it was raining and we decided against it. We went across the street to Trinity College and went to the Old Library to see the Book of Kells. 
I was actually quite disappointed. I am spoiled forever by the audio tour at the Bayeux Tapestry. I wanted to see more of the book – there are actually 2 books – one with most of the writing, and the other with the pictures – each was opened to 1 page. So we didn’t see much. There is a big exhibit with a lot of information – and some interesting videos on scribes, artists, pigment, binding, etc – but I wasn’t too enthralled by the poster size enlargements on display – they just were corny looking. My favorite thing at the Old Library was the library upstairs. It smelled just right. They ran out of space for books in the 1700’s and raised the roof to add more shelves, so now the inside of the building is reminiscent of a train station. We sat there for a while in the drafty moth-balled room and imagined it being quite haunted. It was somehow evocative of both Harry Potter and Ghostbusters. :)After the site seeing (yes, just the one site) we set off to shop. It was a day for April to remember life unencumbered by children and just do what she wanted.
We wandered and shopped and wandered some more. She bought a handful of shirts. It rained and the wind blew. April lost her scarf – we retraced our steps for a while – but it is lost. We ended up eating lunch (? it was nearly 3) at a fancy restaurant in Temple Bar called Fitzers. There was a performer outside with his guitar that had quite a crowd gathered. Unfortunately by the time we were finished with lunch he was finished too. But lunch was a hit. Here is a snippet from the menu. 
April had the chicken salad, I had the sweet potato & feta parcel. So good. Did I mention that after my 11-day diet (on which I lost 9 pounds) I am allowed to take up to 3 days to eat WHATEVER I WANT. I decided to take 2 days and then do 11 more days of diet – then Rachel will be arriving the next day and we’ll be off on the cruise. So – this was day 1 of eating whatever I wanted. I enjoyed all of the food immensely.
After lunch we shopped even more. I was thrilled about finding an Urban Outfitters. It was fun to browse through. The best shops of the day were Habitat (kind of like Crate & Barrel) and Avoca. 
Randomly there was also a Tower Records and a couple Quizno's in Dublin - I was shocked. After shopping we went back to the tourist center and bought some souvenirs. I bought a pint Guinness glass (it will be my pint glass to remember pubs by) – a Colcannon marble coaster, a chocolate bar for Greg and a little statue of an celtic owl design that I have almost bought several times. Luckily I had brought my M&S canvas shopper in my purse, so I unfolded it and had a nice way to bring my treasures (which also included a loaf of soda bread from Avoca) home in. We ended up going to M&S (Mark’s & Spencer’s – a big department store) to get April one for all of her shopping – she is less thrilled with the Twiggy design than I – so I bought the bag and I’ll have 2. :)
Before catching a bus back to the airport, we went back to Lemon for a sweet crepe (crepe #2). I had belgian choc and desiccated coconut (SO good) 
and April had Belgian choc and banana. I am just remembering that they were supposed to come with whipped cream – oh well, there were lush even without it. We stood waiting 15 minutes for the bus that comes every 15 minutes. A taxi stopped at the curb offering the ride for the same fare (which later ended up being less than he expected – but it worked out). So I got a healthy helping of the Dubliner accent before I left. April was glad – we had only heard snippets all day. It is a very interesting accent. Short and clipped, but heavy. Saying 13 sounds like TorTeeen with really poppy Ts (where you almost spit).We were at the airport for a long time – we wandered looking for an Irish lace scarf that mom wanted (she bought several on her trip last summer) – but they didn’t have the right ones (I think it was because all the mohair is still out since it is so cold). Our feet hurt SO bad. We were SO tired. We stopped at a bookstore and bought water and diet Pepsi and decided to get a chocolate bar to give us some energy. We each picked something we didn’t recognize (neither of us eat that many candy bars in general). The one I picked was a Cadbury Moro. It was described on the package as chocolate, caramel and biscuit. More (O) on that later.
We trekked to the gate – it was a haul – and sat down. We mostly couldn’t move, but were probably talking really loud and being obnoxious Americans – we didn’t care, we were that tired. We browsed through the few pictures we had taken during the day, gnoshed on soda bread and read OK magazine over other peoples’ shoulders. Suddenly everyone jumped up to get in the boarding line. I absolutely refused. I told April (who also didn’t want to move) that the flight wasn’t full and that it didn’t matter where we sat anyway. She totally agreed as did a couple that sat back down across from us. I felt like I improved their day just by letting them sit instead of stand for the next 50 minutes that it ended up being before we boarded.
I pulled out the Moro and took a bite. It was delish (which was the name of another café I saw and snapped a shot of – great name!) April had a bite. She was smitten too. We asked the couple across from us if they have them in the UK. Don’t think so. She ended up walking to the closest WHSmith (another of the shop we got the candy from). As tired as we were – that is evidence of just how good the chocolate was. She came back empty handed. “They didn’t have them – but the vending machine does…” April went the closest bar to get some change, and stood in front of the vending machine until she had bought us 10 to bring home. Smartest woman ever. We each came back with 4 regular and 1 peanut Moro. I think the peanut version is called a Starbar here, but the regular version is definitely only available in Ireland – I looked it up. And I would bet that the Starbar won’t taste the same either. Cadbury says that the Ireland recipe for their chocolate is different – and they say undesirable in England. I LOVED it! They should sell them in America. If you go to Ireland – buy a Moro – or more-o than 1.
Finally the flight boarded. This plane was still RyanAir, but it had little net seatback pockets.
Who knew? We sat next to a nice Welsh man called Graham who writes the ESL exams for the International Baccalaureate program. He splits his time between Wales and Brazil (where his wife lives). He told us that he loves Brazil but that unfortunately it is too dangerous now to really want to live there – and he recommended that we not plan a visit (not in my plans). We chatted for 80% of the flight and then both tried to read a book – but it was way too bumpy. Reading was making me sick. The landing was really sideways because of the wind – but we landed. Yay. Bristol Airport was a breeze – no immigration coming back from Ireland. We walked to the close parking spot where the car was and drove home. We had a great chat on the way home – but were really too tired. We remembered that we were going to have to set the clocks forward an hour (yes – now the difference between Pacific time and my time is 8 hours again). So I got home at 10:30 which was really 11:30 for how tired I would be waking up the next morning.I woke up early so I could get to church early so I could pick out pictures to support my sharing time plans from the scant available options in the library at church. I planned a Follow the Prophet Maze. I ended up ditching the maze part and just had the kids pick out clues to things the prophets might tell us – ways we can be happier and return to Heavenly Father. They got the clue and picked the picture and I had a non-maze version of a display where 2 primary kids got closer and closer to Heavenly Father. Overall it went well – I think. The other adults said it was great. I was so knackered by the end that I could have slept through Sacrament Meeting. Instead, I held Joseph until I lulled him to sleep. Such a cute baby. I made it through the third hour of church without dozing. Hallelujah!
I drove home and made a half recipe Tom Ka Kai for lunch and dinner. So so yummy. I ate a Moro. I was sad that Lost is on a hiatus. I watched part of Overboard on E4. I thought about taking a nap but decided it was a bad idea – I would have slept, not napped, and then the Spring Forward would have caused major jet-lag. I went to bed at 10 and woke up early for my early (8:30 – I know, my life is hard) meeting. So far I am tired today – but not crazily so.
One weird thing before I end this overlong post (imagine how long it will be with pictures) – I woke up with a pain in my head. The base of my skull is really tender. I don’t think that I slept weird. My neck isn’t really stiff – but moving it does make the pain worse. It is like I have a giant bruise on the base of my head. Is that indicative of anything – or am I just a whiner? I hope it goes away soon. I took Advil at lunch – but so far it hasn’t kicked in. I am super cute today in my brown skirt, kind of macramé ecru “sweater” over a brown shade shirt, in mile-high open-toed brown t-strap heels, topped off with my denim jacket. Just thumbing my nose at the slow start to Spring. I am a little chilly. I am back on another 11 days of not eating whatever I want - it isn't really that bad - and that just means I'll be even cuter in my Spring clothes on the cruise. Charis arrives mid 11-days, so we'll see how well I do sticking to it then.
2 comments:
please tell me more about this detox/diet! 9 pounds?! I need to try it :)
I want to hear more about the diet too!!
By the way, your haircut is adorable :)
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