The view from my laptop - thoughts from the kitchen table

I was inspired for this short post by Lynda who posted a lovely photo of the view from her desk. She mentions the banana trees on her wonderful African horizon, something that I miss since we left Tanzania over 14 years ago, yet which is still as fresh in my memory as if it were only last week. To bring touches of the tropics into our lives in an Ireland that seems to be in a constant rainy season (to paraphrase Aslan on Narnia - here it's always raining but never summer ) we have some banana trees in our garden and another banana plant in our sunroom. As I use the kitchen table as my desk, this is the view from my laptop. It is incredibly calming to look up and see an enormous banana tree with two suckers, both sprouted since we got the plant about 2 years ago, and we delight in seeing the speed at which it grows. It has nearly reached the vaulted ceiling in the sunroom now, and I am curious to see if it will grow much taller or actually produce a flower and fruit! I know if it flowers that is the end of that plant, so in a way I hope it doesn't until the suckers are much bigger.
The first two photos show the view - standing and sitting - from my laptop

In the garden we have a number of tropical plants in a bed near the patio, just outside the back door from the sunroom. There's a hardy banana tree, again with two suckers, a plant that dies off at the first frost and starts to grow anew every summer. This year we couldn't tell if it had survived the frost and snow of the winter, as it had completely died off, so we were very pleased to see it putting up green shoots around May. The speed at which it grows thereafter is very impressive, and we live in hope of a nice purple flower and a bunch of bananas sometime in the future.

We have two palm trees in the garden and two more in pots. Even though they are hardy, we bring them indoors for the winter, as they are nice fan palms and brighten up the place. We also have various bamboo in the garden, all near the patio and house, and a row of lavender brings a bit of Provence into our lives. It might seem a bit sad and silly to try to recapture our years in Africa and Asia through the plants in the house and garden, it is a very effective way to bring back happy memories and instantly transport us to our bush shamba in Rukwa, and to the banana and coffee shambas of Kagera, near Uganda.

Indoor banana tree, grown an extra leaf in the past week; garden banana - taken today and exactly one month ago - how much it's grown! ...and spot the bamboos
To recapture another aspect of our African lives, strangely enough the Ikea bentwood chairs in the sunroom evoke our early years there just as much as do the banana plants. I wrote about our Ikea - Africa connection in my post here - quite rational, in case you might think all those years in the tropical sun has somehow fried my brain.

The beautiful capiz shell hanging lamp you see in the corner is from the Philippines, where hubby lived before we met. It had been waiting for a home for nearly 30 years before it found its niche among our jungle greenery. At night the light reflected in the glass casts a warm glow over the entire area.

From my laptop vantage point I can see our shelf of African and Asian memorabilia, each piece carrying a store of memories and places, including the Tinga-Tinga paintings which Lynda will know all about - she has even blogged on that particularly Tanzanian art form. We have many more artefacts that have no display space, and I will have to work out some kind of museum-like rotation to do justice to the Ethiopian icon paintings and Bangladeshi brassware and Lao silk wall-hangings that have yet to see daylight in this house.

Perhaps another extension is the answer as the sunroom is maxed out on memorabilia - the struggle goes on as we strive to balance desirable minimalism with an acceptable level of clutter. I hope the photos give a sense of my lovely vantage point as I write this post and browse the web.

Ethnic artefacts - paintings from Tanzania: Tinga-Tinga poster and paintings, village scene and Kilimanjaro/elephant market paintings; batik of Ugandan musical instruments; Lao pan pipes and flute, African mbira (thumb piano) and Rwandan banjo.

Thoughts on summer sun holidays - and the Irish "summer"

In July I went to Spain with teenage daughter for a short break, as our eldest son has lived north of Barcelona in a seaside resort town for the past eight years. We have been there almost every year, and we only go because he's there, resort towns and package holidays generally not being my thing. However it is a great place to just chillax and unwind after the stresses and strains of the Irish "summer", which we look forward to throughout the bleak winter months, only to be disappointed yet again.

What I left behind....at home....


...and from the plane in Shannon....

No wonder we can't muster enthusiasm for the killjoy environmentalists who go on bemoaning global warming, as we'd love some to have some here, thanks very much, during what laughably passes for our summer months. We have had virtually non-stop rain since the end of June, after about two nice weeks in the middle of June. July was the wettest on record, and August looks equally dismal. So we have little to look forward to for the rest of the so-called summer.

Kids are bored, teenagers mutinous, and parents driven to distraction trying to keep sane during the school holidays. Newspapers are full of tips on how to keep the kids entertained during the Irish three-month long school holiday, which must be the longest in the world. (No wonder Irish teachers say when asked what they like about their job - June, July and August!). Irish kids are probably no different to kids everywhere in the Western world, spoilt by a plethora of Playstation and Wii and Nintendo DS game consoles, and go into terminal catatonia at parental suggestions that they go for a nice walk/cycle/read a book or something equally improving that doesn't involve MSN-ing, Facebook-ing or Bebo-ing each other. (Come to think of it, in this house those are mostly parental activities so maybe I can't afford to preach!)

....and what I saw on arrival!

Back to sun holidays - I only ever went on one package holiday to the sun; that was to Tenerife when I was 22, and it was my first time ever flying, so it was a first in many ways! I was with a group of 9 or 10 other midwives, we had just finished our training and were ready to party. I had a ball but even then was a free spirit who wasn't quite ready to be regimented in the package holiday modus operandi. I had been round Europe a few years earlier Inter-Railing and that was one of the best holidays ever, and I would love to do it again now that the age limit is gone. Time was you had to be under-21, then 26, and now with life-long learning the norm, they seem to have acknowledged that we can be perpetual students!

This year I was meeting the same friend who had done the Inter-Railing trip with me as she was in Barcelona the same time as I was visiting Spain, so we planned our reunion, and as she had her teenage girls in tow, it was a hit with my teenager as well. We had a wonderful two days in Barcelona, and she spent two days on the costa with us as well. As we caught up on the years, we both agreed Barcelona was a great place to visit and the Costa Brava a great place to spend some down time on the beach recharging the batteries for the rest of the year.

Since coming home just over a week ago it has been virtually non-stop rain and flooding, and as you can see in the photo over here when I say floods I mean monsoon-like rains! Today is the August Bank Holiday Monday and is usually associated with sun and traffic jams on the way to the beach, but alas today is par for the course and another wet day. It is also cold enough to warrant wearing jeans and a jumper (sweater) - not a tee-shirt day at all. We are debating ordering our winter heating oil in August as if this continues we will be putting on the heating pretty soon.

I met someone in the supermarket today who is just back from a sun holiday in Spain and we agreed that it didn't matter where you were, it is essential to get your sunshine fix to face down the winter here. Someone said on Niamh's post (where I was a guest blogger last Friday - take a look!) regarding Ikea and their whole concept of cheap'n'cheerful home furnishings (which I wrote about in my last post), that in Scandinavia with its long dark winters people spend more time indoors so home becomes more important and change is more common than in hot countries. Maybe there is something to that. When we lived in Africa so much of our life was spent outdoors - garden or balcony/patio - that the interior was less important than it is here. Or maybe I am not enough of a houseproud "hausfrau"!

I will post my holiday pics on a sidebar Picasa slideshow, for those remotely interested in having a look, and will blog a bit on Barcelona which was absolutely wonderful, it has to be one of Europe's best cities and I would love to spend longer there exploring and wandering. One day, maybe one day...

IKEA in Ireland - flatpack heaven at last!

Last Tuesday Ikea the Swedish home furnishings store opened its first store in Ireland, in Dublin. There is one in Belfast but this one was long awaited, and its arrival was hyped up beyond all, with newspaper articles, and TV news items flagging the opening party-like atmosphere. I was in Dublin today so it was definitely something on my to-do list, if only to say I was in my first Ikea store!

Ikea and us go back a while and have a bit of a history. For years we lived in the African bush, working in a refugee programme that was funded by (among others) the Scandinavian Lutheran churches. DanChurchAid, the Danish wing of the church, donated part of their aid as team support in the form of furnishing staff houses. The result was all the expats lived incongruously in Ikea-furnished houses, and became experts at wielding the Allen key which is integral to flatpack assembly. Every year we could peruse a new Ikea catalogue and the height of this bizarre-ness for us was when we lived in a small Swedish container house in a very remote refugee settlement in Burigi, near Lake Victoria in Tanzania, which was full of Ikea pine furniture! So we have a fondness for the flatpack ever since.

I went to the Dublin store with great anticipation and it was like a little outing - teenage daughter came along and was seriously underwhelmed and more than a tad embarassed by my enthusiasm and it became positively cringe-worthy for her when I took some photos, especially of my Ikea lunch. To be able to get a prawn and egg salad open rye sandwich for €2.75 in Ireland was something I wasn't going to let pass uncelebrated, not to mention the €1.00 tea (or coffee) with free refills. I understand the free refill is common in some countries but not this one, so hopefully Ikea will set a precedent and others will quickly follow suit. Maeve had the Swedish meatballs with potatoes for €2.00. I had a dessert to die for - a Swedishly unpronounceable slice of crunchy chocolate-topped layered cookie-style cake - for €1.00! Now in Rip-off Republic we are just not used to these prices at any level -coffee in a petrol station is nearly €3.00. Anyone from Ireland reading this will know exactly what I mean.

Back to shopping - Ikea is an institution and is not for the faint-hearted especially if you are in any hurry. Then don't go. It needs navigating and with a massive car park already conspiring to get you lost on arrival (I couldn't locate the car park, let alone the car, on my departure!) you need to take some time to follow the process as well as the arrows on the floors. You can look at lovely showrooms on the first floor and select and note your planned purchases, then go to the warehouse to pick them up yourself. For Irish people this is a first, as even in Argos the goods are delivered to you from the warehouse. It is incredibly efficiently done, as every item has a code and a collection point and off you go, even I mastered it.

I went to look at chairs and sofas - I left with two "Poang" beech bentwood chairs, some food storage containers and an Ikea shopping bag in the iconic blue and yellow. In fact the place was so awash with blue and yellow from the staff to the bags, and also the juggler on stilts at the entrance, that you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd entered a convention for the Tipperary GAA Team. There is an intriguing Swedish food hall which I didn't get to today, maybe next time. The only disappointment was that the chairs which I wanted and were on offer were out of stock, and they didn't know if they were getting more. So I paid about €20 more for the non-bargain ones, and they are lovely.

We must have walked a few miles today, as I kept getting lost between showrooms, warehouse and car park. No wonder Maeve's patience wore a bit thin! Three hours after entering the store, we were once again south-bound and a few hours later got home, where hubby assembled the chairs with all the enthusiasm flat-pack man greets every new arrival! He isn't too proud to RTFM (Read the ******* Manual) as he got the Allen key into starting position, and got the chairs finished within minutes.They are perfect in the sunroom and are light enough to be moved easily around the house.

I am already planning to go back in a few weeks when I am next in Dublin, as I want to see the things I missed today - like all the homewares I didn't know existed on the ground floor, and I would say to anyone in Dublin who hasn't been there - get on your bike, sunshine! The world just got that bit smaller this week.

Flatpack Man at work and the end result - a nice chair!