what can I say? it's friday.

It's the company's Summer BBQ this evening. In honour of this today is 'Casual Day' at work. Actually, they call it 'Smart Casual Day' and there are rules & guidelines up on the intranet to stop the lads arriving in strappy fishnet tops with their belly-rings hanging out. Basically, we get to wear jeans to work, yay! Only, I'm wearing a long flowy skirt but that's my prerogative.

I toyed with the idea of attending this do tonight but have decided against it. There are a number of excuses I could give, but the main one is I Don't Wanna. Not sure why, exactly. Maybe because I don't want to end up having to pay a small fortune for taxi fare to get home in the middle of the night, after having too much to drink... in fact the too much to drink bit is a large part of it too. I'm really not enjoying drinking at the moment, I don't know why - that's just the way it is. Plus, it would mean a fair portion of the evening would be spent outdoors (being a BBQ and all) and even though it's summer here, temperatures have still been dropping to below 10 degrees at night. I don't care what anyone says - that is cold! I would much rather be curled up at home with Hubby watching a nice movie or something.

Besides, Today Could Be The Day We Get The Keys To The New House!!!!
And if that's the case, I'm gonna have to get cracking on the packing. My friend has been asking me every day for the past week, "Have you started packing yet?", to which I have replied, "Er, No."
Because I cannot lie.
However, today I can officially say "Yes, I have started packing!"
I packed the books from the bookshelf in the corner into a box. So ok, it's only one box but it's a start.
No prizes for guessing what Terri is getting up to this weekend ;)

So you guys are just gonna have to go and have an exciting and wonderful weekend on my behalf, OK?
OK.
And that means you have to tell me what you're getting up to, otherwise the plan is no good, OK?
OK.

ps I promise to make up for this boring post with a photo or 2 soon. I haven't even had my coffee yet this morning so quite honestly even typing this lot up is quite an achievement :)

great expectations

Number 1:
There is a little bird who has a nest nearby our patio. He often flies down onto the paving outside, hops around looking for bugs (I presume) and then flies off again. I sat very quietly and waited for him yesterday evening, because I wanted to take a photo when he came to visit.Can you see him? No?
That's probably because he's not in this photo.
This exercise taught me two things:
1. The little bird is camera-shy, and
2. he moves really quickly!
So, no birdie in this one. But I'm nothing if not persistent, so I will keep trying and maybe one of these days you'll see a photo of more than just the paving and weeds of our patio.

Number 2:

Don't ya just hate it when you work yourself up into battle-mode and confront someone, only for them to completely take the wind out of your sails by being entirely sweet and helpful and not rising to the bait of your ascerbic tone of voice?

Ya, me too.

It makes for an awful anti-climax. And then what are you supposed to do with the acid adrenaline pumping through your veins? I suppose I could always take it out on my co-workers, but that seems a little unfair, really. And since I like to believe I'm actually a nice person at heart, that doesn't really sit well with me.

The alternative?

Why, write all about it on my blog and gain sympathy from you lot, hahaha!

Number 3:
Ehm.... acutally there isn't a number 3.
Which just goes to prove my point: Life seldom lives up to peoples' expectations.

Nothing says "I'm Sorry" like flowers.

So these are for you...


... to make up for my lack of attention lately. I've been a very bad blogger, I know. Mind you, Blogger hasn't exactly been helpful this week. Leaving comments has proved amazingly difficult this week. Anyway, enough excuses. You got the flowers, let's leave it at that ;-)

FYI, I know them as Inca Lilies and they're probably my 2nd-favourite flower, right after the Frangipani, which has to win not only on beauty but also on scent. Inca Lilies don't have a scent... but they do last a really long time in a vase of water.
Sheesh, after a week of silence I'm just rambling along, aren't I?!

But I was thinking of you guys, I swear. In fact, I took this photo on Thursday morning before work with the specific intention of posting it on my blog.

We had a whole week of beautiful weather here. Today is a bit breezy again, with the odd rainshower, but it's still warm. [Not as warm as in South Africa, apparently, where it is the middle of winter, but it's all relative.]
On Thursday when I got up it was so perfectly still outside the water was like a mirror - I just had to take a photo for you all to try and share the moment. It was around 6:45am - long before most people start moving around here - and I opened the patio door to a warm, sunny, tranquil world, where the only sounds were the meeuwing of seagulls and the faint buzz that accompanies summer. Try having your first sip of coffee of the day in that - aah, one of those perfect moments in life.

Hm, maybe it's a good thing we're moving soon - you must be sick of seeing photos of the same scene over and over again. I can't help it - it's just so pretty here! I'm really going to miss waking up to the view over the Marina.
Earlier I was sitting outside having a peaceful moment - a rare occasion when I just sat and did nothing for the hell of it - and as I mentioned, it was quite breezy today. Even with the sound of the wind whistling like a ghost through the fence and causing those long blade-like leaves on the tree outside to slap against each other and the lanyards to do their mad tinkling dance against the masts on the yachts, it was peaceful. Perhaps it was the smell of the sea carried along that made it so - I always feel as if my soul is being refilled when I can smell the ocean.

Does anyone know what I mean? Let me know in the comments what fills your soul... or alternatively if you think I've completely lost the plot and you don't know what the hell I'm talking about ;-)

sizzling summer weekend

Temperatures in Ireland were high enough to merit a 5-minute slot item on the 7pm Sky News programme this evening. That's right, Summer is here, and the mercury hit a whopping 23 degrees (73 Fahrenheit)!!! It was forecast as being a "scorcher".

Um, yeah, moving swiftly along...

Today was a Bank Holiday, making it a 3-day weekend. For once, the weather did indeed play along. I may mock the Irish idea of 'hot' days, but I gotta tellya, as miserable as this place can be in bad weather (which occurs a lot more than what we South Africans are accustomed to), on a good day Ireland is hard to beat. This is what we we awoke to on Saturday morning:


It really was a lovely day.
In fact, I had an exceptionally good weekend. On Friday evening our good friends (also South Africans) drove up from where they're now living in Cork, and they stayed the weekend, leaving after lunch today. She and I have been friends since we were about 17. He and my hubby have been friends even longer - they were at school together. I am pleased to say we introduced the two of them and they're now happily married. Just call me cupid ;)

On Saturday The Men went fishing. The only thing they caught was a Latvian (yes, someone from Latvia - something to do with crossed fishing lines) but the important thing was they had fun doing boy stuff.
The girls did the girly thing - I took her up the road to see our new house (won't be long now!) and then we went shopping. And boy, did we shop! Young Cinderella was with us and she was exhausted by the time we got home.
Tsk tsk, the girl has no stamina ;)
The reason she came along was to find her something to wear to a party on Saturday night. It was a fancy dress. She made me promise not to put pictures of her dressed up on my blog, so sorry, you'll have to make do with my description. She dressed as Barbie. This involved a LOT of glittery pink makeup, a pink hairband with hearts on it, a pink feather boa, a pink handbag and a 2-tone pink striped top. Oh, and spray-on pink stripes in her pig-tails. You'd have to know her to realise this is not really her regular look - she's quite happy in jeans and neutral-toned tops, haha! Did I mention she's almost 16, not 6?!

The guys did some more fishing on Sunday. The girls did some more shopping. This time it was homeware - I bought a set of saucepans for the new house, and some picture frames that will match perfectly with the side tables in the lounge.

So although we didn't wander too far from home, we had a really wonderful time. The shopping was great and the conversation was wonderful. I really enjoy those long chats with my friend!
The champagne wasn't bad, either ;)

This morning our little village was shrouded in mist. Apparently the rest of the city had wonderful sunshine but it remained chilly here with the wind coming off the sea, eventually blowing the mist away well after midday.

So, now you know why I've been so quiet (if you were wondering). And now it's almost time for the season finale of Smallville, so I'm outta here for now. I'll be catching up on all your blogs during the week. I hope my boss has a lot of meetings, cos I sure have a lot of catching up to do, lol!

PS Blogger won't let me upload any more photos tonight but I took quite a few this weekend so I'll put 'em up on Flickr if you're interested.