The obligatory Autumn post

I love autumn, I really do. It is the best season. I’m not a heat person – thankfully I’m Irish so don’t have to deal with that very much – and I’m not a freezing cold person either. What I love is the short window of time in the year when you can still get away with wearing your light summer coat (again, I’m Irish, you HAVE to wear a coat during summer as you never know when it’ll decide to piss down on you)
I especially love the leaves as they change colour, float down from the trees and lie on the ground so I can walk through dozens of them and listen to the crisp sound they make as the crunch beneath my feet. Oh it is heaven!

Yesterday I had to go for an appointment with the laser eye people, see how my sight is going (A OK so far *smiles*) It’s in a suburb of Dublin called Ballsbridge and has some quite fancy, smancy houses. You know the type: large and old and probably haunted. The main road they are on is basically an avenue in the fact that it’s lined up and down with beautiful trees, trees currently all the shades of autumn *sigh*
Sadly I think the majority of the houses are used for offices, rather than family homes, but you still get to see the odd person out front raking up the leaves. It’s just like being back in Canada when I see that. And I always have to resist the urge to go like a child through the pile of leaves – in other words, run, jump and do a leaves angel.

For my non-Irish friends I don’t think you can understand the weather here. By this stage of the year, I can’t listen to the crisp crunch of leaves beneath my feet as the leaves are generally soaked and stuck to the ground by the rain. It also does be cold and to go jacket-less would mean a touch of an illness soon afterwards. Not yesterday. Yesterday was glorious!
A smell of cut grass, the sound of crunch, crunch, crunch and myself walking around with no coat as the sun shined down his happy little face. I was only pissed I walked off without two things: a pair of sunglasses and a book to read. Otherwise I would have taken myself off to the nearest park and read as I took in, probably, the last of the warm sun for this year.

 

Another addition

Finally *she says exasperated* I got the chair from my room. And no, I didn’t go buy more crap I couldn’t afford, or can’t fit into my already overcrowded room.

It belonged to my brother but they didn’t want it over there so he asked if I was interested. It’s not a huge armchair or anything, just a smallish leather armchair. And despite my sister thinking it too big for my room I managed to get it in and re-arrange my room slightly to get it looking half way decent.

I am in love it with!

It sits neatly in the corner, which by the way I’ve never been positioned in before. It makes for a quite unusual sense of ‘where the fuck am I’, and looks the biz. It’s not one of those large comfortable, flower patterned chairs that I would like – when I get a bigger room, that is – but it makes me want to write a masterpiece as I elegantly puff on a cigarette and basically look like Holly Go-Lightly, but with talent.

Too bad I’m a totally anti-smoker and can’t write to save my life. Oh well, that is a minor draw back. I will use it instead for attempted writing and listening to classical music, and general chilling out.

 

“Green sky at night?” “Neighbour take flight?”

So I missed the meteor shower the other night. By all accounts it was a wonder to behold. By all accounts of people who weren’t in the Swords area of Dublin, that is. It was by far too cloudy to see anything. I think the kids these days would refer to that as a FAIL.

So since I missed it Thursday I decided to try again on a clearer night, which turned out to be Saturday. I’ve not star gazed since a kid and I had forgotten how much I loved it. Peaceful and relaxing just sitting out the back garden listening to the wondrous Natasha Khan sing about hands belonging to watchmen in the nights skies…about a boy named Daniel…and about travelling women who shouldn’t sacrifice their plans.

It was just a shame the glorious moon we had hung too low for me to see. Driving home I caught a glimpse of it hanging slightly over the darkened trees. It did look stunning! If you had seen it in a photography you’d be forgiven for thinking it photo shopped in.

One thing that made me wonder though: Why so few stars?
As I’ve said it has been awhile since I looked up. Being lost in my thoughts as I gaze to the heavens above as a little girl I always felt so overwhelmed by the sheer number of stars, they were uncountable. Saturday night – I could easily count the stars in the patch of sky I focused on. It has me worried. Is it my sight? Did somehow the laser treatment effect it? I know my night vision has been effected. I could see great in the dark (glasses on, obviously) when I was pre-op. Now, not so much. Glare effects me a lot more now too.
Could the lack of stars be attribute to my operation too? Or could be just be that since I last noticed the stars a lot more buildings have sprung up in my area?
We’re no longer Dublin city verging on country anymore. Where we had fields and cows we have houses, some half built, some half empty due to the downturn in the economy, and a very large and luminous IKEA sign – whose light I’m sure can be seen from space.

 

My feet are sore. It was worth it though.

I’ve finally got off my ass and stated walking again. Today for the first time in years I went with my eldest sister to Malahide Park. I do believe I am in love!

I forgot how gorgeous that place is. To be honest, the way we went today I don’t remember seeing. I think before we just stuck to the grass part and didn’t going walking around the pathways through the trees. For shame!

I knew about the castle, the coffee shop (especially the coffee shop ) but the old ruins of the church took me by surprise and my sister, god love her, just couldn’t understand why I got so excited.
Even the coffee shop was exciting because I kept getting this feeling of things being familiar. I love that feeling. It’s happening a lot to me lately. Like I’m remembering dreams from childhood or something.

 

Embarrassland Paris

There is no denying it, I wasted years of my life! That’s fact right there. So when I finally got my ass off the bed and started travelling I promised myself that I would go somewhere, anywhere, at least once a year. Since my summer in America last year has left me on skid row this year I couldn’t plan anything big, but I was certain I was going somewhere. But where…

A place that holds something fast enough to break the sound barrier and leave me with wild, unbrushable hair was always going to get the thumbs up from myself and SoozieB; Disneyland Paris it was to be then.

It was to be three days of fun, flocks, leaning and, of course, Desperado (it’s a must for all our continental trips having fond memories of the lethal concoction from our first trip to Paris. Ye-oh!) What it also included was a shit load of embarrassment too, starting first off in the airport itself when we walked into the men’s bathrooms. Didn’t even cop it because we were so angry to see it only held two cubicles. It wasn’t until the non-English speaking guy pointed to us to get the hell out of there and another one walked away from a urinal zipping up his manhood that we realised ‘shit, we’re in the men’s. Fuck!’

 

The scent of summer

I must be the only person in Dublin not happy about the weather. It’s hard to be happy when you can’t enjoy the beautiful sunshine, and probably the only sunshine we’ll get this side of August, and the fresh scent of cut grass. It’s all well and good if you’re one of those people who can sit in the sun for hours, topping up a tan.

I’m not, I’m more a feel the grass beneath your toes while taking a scroll, kind of girl. And add it to the fact that sitting out on a very hot day makes for one hell of an uncomfortable cast experience.

Still, the smell of the breeze cheered me up until the feel of metal in my leg brought me back down to earth with a bang. I really don’t know what to think. Surely I shouldn’t be feeling it? Shouldn’t be feeling like its protruding from my ankle? Perhaps I should ring the hospital on Tuesday, I wouldn’t even know where to ask to be put through to.

I’m far to tired for this shite!

 

The funniest thing

I’m not one for graffiti. In my area its usually the same old shite anyway ‘anto waz here’. Or the even less creative one ‘fuck the garda’. I’m sorry, but no. Or I will, but only if they are Ed Eastwick hot.

Imagine my surprise, and my laughter, when I saw the funniest bit of graffiti on my way up Parnell Street. A poster advertising the new U2 album, defaced with an arrow pointing to Bono, with the words ‘tax-avoiding midget’. You’ve got his number, my friend.

It was unexpected so that added to the laughter.

Oh how I did laughed.

 

Snow, it’s not!

Typical isn’t it. Here is me, nothing to do all day, nowhere to go and the snow hardly touched Ballymun compared to other areas.

My friend clocked off work at 11 o’clock last night and was left to worry all night long about the bus journey home. Since it was so bad her end of Dublin some of the bus routes were cancelled and it would only be small miracle if she managed to catch one of the final ones home. She did manage it, and had a worry filled trip on uphill roads that were covered with ice and snow.

So thankful to know she was safe.

Yet I still wanted more snow. The rain came this morning and I was really disappointed. Wet ground meant no chance of it sticking when it did start snowing again. How wrong I was.

On my way with my sister to pavilions shopping centre and what looked like blizzard weather started. We got around the corner and decided to come back home as the breaks on the car weren’t working as best they should. Fuck that shit, a new pair of runners ain’t worth dying for.

So i’m back, with nothing to do but hope for more snow as the weather itself seems quite undecided at what it wants to do. “Do I want to snow or do I want to rain? I’m no good at making decisions, or am I?” 

 

I really love how it hides the dirt!

 

Got this new tea earlier…chamomile, vanilla and honey

Ignore the title. It has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of this blog, just an inside joke. In fact I had no tea today, not chamomile and vanilla, not even Barry’s.

A beautiful storm brewing up outside. It’s another reason to enjoy unemployment. Not having anywhere to go or anything to do on days like this when the weather is as wild as Richard Hammond’s hair in the latest series.

I love just to sit and listen to the rain lash against the window and the howl of wind through the trees. Peaceful. Particularly when listening to it from a nice warm bubble bath.

As I have already said in another post I love breeze. Kinda sad to say, as I know by my saying this I am ultimately picking my own means of death. Fate is going to come back and kick me in the ass with this. I shall be either asleep/reading/watching top gear, when a tree will be blown over by a freak gust of wind, crash through the roof, thus crushing poor helpless me.

Not that I will mind, though.

 

Change of scenery

My sister is constantly referring to me as being spoilt, mainly due to the fact I had a room to myself when neither she nor our other sister had one to call their own personal one. Yes, like its my fault you both got pregnant before the age of 20 years old and moved out to start your families. What did you expect? One of the boys to move in with me just so you dont feel like I’m getting more than you ever did? It’s neither our fault that you got pregnant nor is it our fault you got pregnant by an idiot you are much better off without.

If I was as spoilt as you think I would have my wish of my parents bedroom. I am a hoarder and have collected far to much crap over my years on this planet to all fit into this little room. More than that I adore the view (well aside from the view of Sean’s place of death. Although I do find some kind of weird, solace glancing out the window towards that house) It’s not much to look at but I love the green shades of grass and evergreen, overgrown bushes. The hint of brown that protrudes from said bushes and the colour of the sky in the evenings as the sun sets. It can also be dank and dark, on those nights I love to sit out and watch the moon, if only it wasn’t so cold I would do it more often.

Today was a perfect day for that room. The wind always seems to whistle through the back and pick up more momentum than it does out front. I love to listen to that, throw the window out wide and breath in the fresh air.