More Afternoon Delights - A Wonderful Waterford Hideaway

The Book Centre Waterford and the coffee shop ceiling

In my last post about my trip to Dublin last weekend I alluded to an afternoon in the city and decided it deserved a post of its own. In fact, two afternoons in two cities in one week made for some pleasant R&R, and two separate blogposts. You can read about my day in Dublin here. 

On Tuesday last week I took a half day off from work - not a holiday, rather it was something in the public sector that may have those in the private sector grinding their teeth at the great lives we have - ergo, I had what's quaintly called time off in lieu (of payment), or TOIL. It's a rather oxymoronic acronym as it implies work, rather than the leisure it represents. I had done an evening talk to a Ladies Club recently on Women's Health and as health promotion is an integral part of the Public Health Nurse role, I always enjoy these evenings. I've done about three in the past year to different Ladies Clubs in West Waterford, and I've done them in the past for different Carers' Groups. They are one of the pleasures of my job, the informal sharing of knowledge and information that  people really value. Of course there is no payment from the community group for these talks, and I am delighted with getting a half day back within the month of the talk.

mmm, lekker cappuccino and carrot cake...

So I took a half day during half-term and took my teen queen daughter and three of her friends to Waterford City, an hour's drive from home. The main purpose of the trip was so that she could get her tongue pierced. (I know, I know, there's probably a collective gasp of blogospheric horror at  questionable parenting, but having weighed the option carefully following the tentative request a few months back, we decided to ensure it was done safely and hygienically in a reputable tattoo place rather than some back-street dive.) On foot of this, and after checking it out,  Swineline in Waterford got the gig. They use a numbing local anaesthetic spray and sterile equipment and it was all captured on phone video by one of the pals. I declined to watch, and left them to their own devices, being much relieved when I got the call saying it was done and went fine. The aftercare was well adhered to - ice cubes, Nurofen Extra, and lots of salt-water rinsing. Thankfully no complications, and it's healed by now, and doesn't cause a lisp or look awful like I'd thought it might. The local school is quite blasé about bodily embellishments and doesn't ban piercings, tattoos (tasteful) and oft-disastrous home hair-dyeing. Unlike the school in today's Irish Times - thankfully! Currently my daughter's hair is a sort of Bosco red, which is lovely when newly done but seems to fade fairly quickly. Thankfully it's home dyeing which is cheap as chips compared to salon work - and I love the way they get to experiment in a way that was totally alien to my youth!

Let's Knit! and check out their website.

Can't wait to get cracking here!

Back to my afternoon in the city - I dropped the three girls and one boy in City Square and as I am not at all a shopaholic I headed off to The Book Centre, a magnet for any self-respecting bookworm. I headed for the upstairs reading area, where there are open invitations to browse and read and relax, and then discovered there's a lovely coffee shop on the upper floor. This was too irresistible and I made for the cappuccino  and carrot cake. Before that I made a quick recce of the creative craft section and found some great books and a couple of magazines - and took them off to browse as directed. The relaxed atmosphere of The Book Centre positively encourages inertia and I was happy to oblige. I had my knitting bag with me - well, a small bag with a few things in it, like the Noro Sekku scarf I've been making for the past few weeks in between other things like frilly ruffle scarves. So I spent an entirely self-indulgent three hours on the sofa (oh, did I mention the sofas? None of your cheap plastic bum-blistering seats designed to move  you on in 15 minutes for the discerning browser!) knitting up at least a foot of scarf and browsing books I'd no notion of buying now,  but maybe at some future date, while enjoying cappuccino and carrot cake with whipped cream. I ended up with two magazines - a Burda Style full of lovely sewing patterns and other crafty stuff, which has only recently become available in English in Ireland; I used to buy them in Holland and have a  big library of them in Dutch along with other Dutch pattern magazines like Knip and Marion. Then I saw a lovely Let's Knit! which has a website full of great free patterns and is perfect for the knitting anoraks out there - you know who you are! The magazine came with balls of wool and a pattern sheet for  baby bootees and socks - delightful in pastel green and purple. I couldn't resist this lovely sock book which was the same price as some of the magazines, around a tenner, and will give  me endless pleasure experimenting with various heels on long winter evenings!

Burda Style - with its maze of patterns!

The piece-de-resistance of The Book Centre though has to  be the ceiling of the coffee shop - it's entirely papered in sheets of old newspaper, which must have been a labour of love and begs a stepladder to do a Michaelangelo and read the ceiling. I discovered later on why the shop is so quirky in layout, as it's a veritable Hogwarts of labyrinthine proportions with tiers of floors at all odd angles, and Escher-like optical-illusionary steps and stairs going in all directions. The building was an old cinema - which perfectly explains the stepped layers to the top and the sloping ceiling of the upper coffee-shop level. It's the most atmospheric bookshop I've ever been in and this was my first time absorbing it. I was at a whole other level of relaxation when the teens summoned me to meet them as Penneys was closing, and I was in a Zen-like state all the way home, unperturbed by the booming bass of their high-decibel music played on my car radio from their phones via my knock-off wannabe iTrip.

Spring has sprung - Road Art Spotted around Co. Waterford

Golden Harvest by Colm Brennan - Kilmac bypass, N25

Today was one of those glorious spring days that started off with a sharp hoar frost whitening everything and a dense fog that  took a few hours to clear and led to a few pile-ups on the motorways up the country. No-one hurt but lots of inconvenienced motorists and closed lanes. The sun shone through around mid-morning and some things just begged to be photographed - like this shot of the sun glistening on the sea off Helvick Head in Ring, and the view from Helvick across to Mine Head.

Golden Harvest, N25 on Kilmacthomas Bypass

Falla na Sioga by Alan Counihan, Windgap,Dungarvan-N25

 I feel really lucky to work in a job that involves driving around the beautiful scenic south coast of Co. Waterford, and quickly forget the days of winter ice and snow and dark dense fog that never clears and totally disorientates even the most seasoned drivers, particularly around Old Parish, which is an upland area near the coast that often seems to be the only foggy part of the county!

Falla na Sioga detail-Alan Counihan,Windgap,Dungarvan-N25

Falla na Sioga (Fairy's Wall) Alan Counihan,N25 Windgap

 The election posters are nearly all gone- tomorrow's the deadline after which there'll be hell (and fines) to pay, so every candidate's making trojan efforts to get rid of them. I took this last billboard standing of Ciara and Eamon Gilmore today near Ring Cross on the N25, with nicely bilingual Thank You stickers attached.

Falla na Sioga by Alan Counihan, Windgap,Dungarvan-N25

Falla na Sioga -detail of inscription-Windgap,Dungarvan-N25

Last Billboard Standing in West Waterford! N25 Ring Cross

Sun over Atlantic Ocean from Helvick Head today

Then this evening I was checking my phone in a lay-by near The Sweep on the same N25 up near Windgap, when I thought to photograph this piece of road art in the lay-by. The funny thing is that the gap in the wall is art which I erroneously attributed to a botched County Council repair job, until I realised it had a name - Falla na Síoga (Wall of the Fairies) and an inscription - and what's even more bizarre, I'd met the sculptor (Alan Counihan) and his partner Gypsy Ray (to whom it's dedicated) a number of years ago in Lismore at travel writer Dervla Murphy's house. He is also an actor who played in a stage production of Yasmina Reza's The Unexpected Man in Lismore some years ago, which I really enjoyed. On the Co.Council's website photo they only show the doughnut and not the inscribed wall.

There's a fascinating piece of well-known road art on the N25 at the Kilmacthomas Bypass - Golden Harvest by Colm Brennan - which represents sheaves of waving corn. It's a lovely prominent piece of sculpture which always gladdens my heart on the road to Waterford - especially if it's for some interminable meeting.

Panoramic vista from Helvick Head to Mine Head today

So I hope you like the first days of spring which seems to have sprung in West Waterford- we can live with the cold frosty nights as long as the days are warm and sunny - and nothing like the stretch in the evenings with the setting sun blinding me on the drive home every evening. Another three weeks or so and the clocks go forward. "Spring Forward, Fall Back" is my mnemonic for Daylight Saving - I hate it when the clocks go back in October and love it when they go forward in March - even if I lose an hour's sleep!

Graduation Day - in a Historic and Literary Dublin Landmark

At last - a proud moment!

Martin with his proud parents!

Yesterday we went to Dublin for middle son Martin's Graduation - he has just finished his Master's Degree in Professional Design Practice in DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) which is a follow on from his BA in Graphic Design in Cork. This was his third grad conferral after two BAs in CIT (Cork Institute of Technology) - Ordinary after 3 years and then the Honours one a year later. We were saying he could become a serial graduate and go on for a few more or at least a PhD! I don't think that's on the cards for the present.

Ghosts of the past in DIT Aungier St.

It's our second Graduation in two months - our youngest son William graduated from the University of Limerick in August with a BA in Phys. Education and Geography teaching and that didn't get a blogpost simply because we came straight home and went to Saffron in Lismore for a nice Indian meal to mark the occasion. UL is a modern campus without much historic interest and certainly the venue didn't excite me as much as the Dublin one did - and we didn't take in the delights of Limerick on the day either! He's in some photos here too.

This ceremony took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral in the heart of old Viking Dublin. The church dates back to St. Patrick but the building dates back to 1192. DIT use it as a venue for their graduation ceremonies which makes sense as they don't have a single campus - rather they are scattered around the city with their different faculties in the old Technology Colleges - Bolton Street was Martin's college for the MA year, and that was the old Bolton St. Tech.

The Cathedral was packed with the graduates from a number of courses and their families and it was a majestic setting for such a traditional and ancient ceremony. The only downside compared to more conventional venues like the University of Limerick Concert Hall where we had youngest son's Conferral in August is that the view isn't the best. Like any church, depending on where you're seated, the view can be good or mediocre - or downright bad if it's obstructed. We were not too bad but the dim light made photos quite a challenge and we got none of the actual parchment ceremony - and could only see it on the TV screens strategically placed around the Cathedral.

DIT Aungier St./Old Jacob's Factory

Walking through the Cathedral afterwards gave us a chance to play tourist for a bit - I am a tad embarrassed that I have never visited the place despite living in the city for all my student years and intermittently over the following 20+ years. So I got quite a buzz seeing the ancient monuments and the links with the great and the good of Dublin - Jonathan Swift of Gulliver's Travels fame is its most famous incumbent - as Dean of St. Patrick's he achieved fame when he wrote that great satire about a traveller in the land of  tiny Lilliputians and gigantic Brobdingnagians that is still popular today.

Seasonal Pumpkin Soup

Douglas Hyde is commemorated in a plaque - first President of Ireland whose funeral was held in the Cathedral. It's ironic that most of his government were barred from going to his funeral service as Catholics were forbidden to attend Protestant services until the 1960s! Erskine Childers, the fourth President of Ireland  (I used my vote first time ever to vote for him!) also had his funeral here and his daughter Nessa Childers is a Labour MEP.

Prawn Sandwich with Chips

I was delighted to see there was a Lismore link too - the huge Boyle Monument was erected by Lismore Castle's erstwhile owner, Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, as a tribute and memorial to his wife and 15 children. He bought Lismore Castle from Sir Walter Raleigh when the latter was in prison for high treason. He was the father of Robert Boyle, the scientist of "Boyle's Law" fame,  who was born in the Castle. I'll pass on the aesthetics of the monument - suffice to say it probably reflects the man's ego and ye olde Englishe certainly poses a challenge and makes you wonder about languages' evolution.

Martin and his classmates before the graduation

Yesterday's post-graduation reception was held in Augier Street at their campus in the old Jacob's Biscuit factory - famed for its role in the 1916 Easter Rising - and it was nice to see the name etched in a low wall to commemorate its earlier incarnation. It's a lovely building with a touch of the biscuit barrel on the facade from the courtyard - hardly surprising given its provenance as the home of our favourite biccies. Nostalgia emanated from every corner and I could nearly taste the Fig Rolls, Cream Crackers and the holy trinity of Kimberley, Mikado and Coconut Cream. These all whisk me back to childhood memories with their radio and black-and-white TV ads etched forever on my brain.

Main Altar in St. Patrick's Cathedral

We had the requisite official photos taken after the ceremony and afterwards we went for a lovely lunch to the Radisson Blu hotel in Golden Lane, around the corner from the campus. After all the queuing  for photos and the chatting and picture-taking in the courtyard of the college there wasn't a cuppa left at the reception, and it was nice to have lunch with Martin before he headed out with his friends for the evening celebrating.  For lunch I had yummy Pumpkin Soup - very seasonal for Hallowe'en weekend - and a delicious prawn sandwich on brown bread with rocket and chips/fries. I felt positively hedonistic given the doom-laden times we're in and the budget from hell looming - perhaps it's time we had a Marie Antoinette moment and indulged ourselves with treats for a lift! 

St.Patrick's Cathedral during Ceremony

Father and Son with that parchment!

With the proud parents on campus DIT

William and his proud parents in UL Aug. 2010

We left him back in Drumcondra to get ready for the night on the town. I believe they started with a 3-D football match in their local near Bolton St., the Woolshed Baa and Grill - an Aussie-themed place with a nice twist in the title!
Going home we took the new M9 to Waterford as a change from the M8 to Cork - they've just bypassed every town between Naas and Waterford and thanks to having had a Minister (Martin Cullen recently retired) from Waterford they got away with a toll-free ride all the way. There's a toll on the wonderful new bypass cable bridge over the River Suir that divides Kilkenny and Waterford - and the locals wit and hurling rivalry is reflected in the nicknames it has to date - they call it the Cat Flap in Waterford (homage to Kilkenny cats, an age-old name for the people from that county) and in Kilkenny they dub it the Liam McCarthy after the All-Ireland Hurling Cup which always bypasses Waterford on its way to Kilkenny - even though they didn't get their 5-in-a-row this year - Tipperary beat them in Croke Park last month.

Cable Bridge on River Suir in Waterford (the Cat Flap)

William's Graduation in UL August 2010

Autumn on the M9 to Waterford

There wasn't  much time-saving in the new route but the scenery was nicer - the Wicklow mountains and Mount Leinster were on our left and the autumn colours in the trees and fields were rich in the low setting sun.

Times like this and you get a respite from the relentless misery on the airwaves and celebrate the important things in life - family, children's achievements and the opportunity to spend time together while the kids are still around.

The way the country's going with no work for new grads like two of our sons, there's every chance they'll be forced into emigration - a far cry from the voluntary exile I chose in my youth when I wanted adventure in a pre-Gap Year era, combined with some saving-the-world altruism.

Fast forward a few decades and little did I know then what would be coming down the tracks  - we're very lucky in so many ways and have to keep that perspective in view - I hope we'll weather the storm and come out the other side despite the prophets of doom.

Socks on the Rocks - and the Beach - Knitting to go

Here are some of my recent knitting projects - I already told you about the gloves I made during the summer, and the kick I got out of trying something totally new. Well that's probably what inspired me to try my hand at knitting socks. I had a bit of a hang-up about these as I had some residual PTSD (Post-Traumatic Sock Disorder) from school where I remember turning heels as a particularly cruel form of nun-administered torture where ripping and restarting resulted in a grubby straggly distinctly unwearable sort-of sock.

I never looked back until now - and boy am I glad I did! I have really enjoyed the challenge of making these two great pairs of socks, and they are quick for on-the-go knitting - on the bus, train, car (as a passenger, I hasten to add!) and during your lunch break on the beach, as I did yesterday.

The mint socks you see here are a lacy pattern from Cascade Yarns which is a free download from their site here and which are also on Ravelry which I recently joined - there are so many knitting sites and wonderful projects for sharing that you need never buy a pattern again. I just love the various books and have learnt a lot of tips from them on how to perfect different techniques I thought I knew - and did, just not quite as good as I do now.

The lavender socks are from my old reliable book How to Knit that my gloves came from. They are simply plain knitted socks which I embellished with a few daisy stitches embroidered on the side in hot pink - sadly not on these photos but they really look funky and a bit dippy-hippy. These were easy-peasy to knit, and once I mastered the heel flap turn I was delighted with myself. There are a variety of heel-turns and I've only done these two flaps so far, but there are a myriad out there for future socks - I could become a terminal bore about knitting and socks, so stop me in time - it could be catching!


There's a wonderful sandspit near my work area called the Cunnigar which is about two miles long - it stretches across most of Dungarvan Bay from Ring, where it's accessible by road, towards Abbeyside across the bay from Dungarvan, and there was talk of bridging it over a century ago as part of a relief scheme mooted by the board of Guardians of the local Workhouse, but that didn't happen. It would have destroyed what is now a virtual nature reserve, as it is a haven for birds and small wildlife, and the tides can still flow undisturbed in and out of the harbour at Dungarvan, while the shallows on the seaward side are home to numerous oyster beds of the local fishermen in Ring. At low tide there's a vast grid of oyster beds visible which vanish when the tide comes in.

Yesterday I walked about half way along the Cunnigar, and took some photos of the sea and sky, with the tractors on the sands away in the distance. I often wonder how much time they have before they have to return to safe ground and avoid being swamped. I had my lunch sitting on the wall overlooking the beach and thought how lovely to enjoy the outdoors in late September - the weather was warm and sunny and I knitted some more sock rounds.

The evening before I was at a Trade Union meeting in Waterford and as I arrived early I had something to eat in the Ramada Viking - they do lovely bar food there - and spent a quiet hour there knitting and reading after I'd enjoyed my cajun chicken wrap. So I can see myself as a latter-day Madame Defarge - albeit less ghoulish and knitting with a purpose I hope - and always have a little bag with some knitting to go with me.

My next project are legwarmers for my future D-i-L Jany - I've got this great cable pattern from Ravelry and will get started this weekend - watch this space for the end result whenever I get there.

The Photos show various stages of socks -
and the lovely views from my walk along the Cunnigar yesterday in Ring.

Apostrophe Anarchy - Grammatical Gremlins or Glitches?

I found these crimes against punctuation in the local papers this week and couldn't resist adding them to my growing collection of assaults on the English language and grammar. I have already ranted on this theme in previous posts here , here and here- and it looks like there's fodder a-plenty to fill many more posts in the future!

As I drive around in my work I am always drawn to signs on the road - often temporary - which are hilariously erroneous and always try to have the camera at the ready, that's if it's safe to stop and snap. Sadly I missed one recently about agricultural "machine's" entering and leaving a field, but don't you just love these ones here?


The rain is lashing down this weekend, and I thought it's time for a rant; the weather has been so good this summer we can't moan about it as we have done for the past number of years, and we are rapidly running out of conversation topics. As a national past-time you can't beat talking about the weather - a topic guaranteed to bring about national unity in a way that the Government can only dream about.

It never ceases to amaze that these kind of gremlins get past the editing departments of the newpapers, local or national, and I am not out to "get" them, as they perform a great service to their community. However, some judicious editing and proof-reading wouldn't go astray, as I think it's a bit OTT that there are so many glaring errors in one week between two papers.

My worst nightmare in writing this kind of post? Getting it wrong and having a "Greengrocer's Apostrophe" (or even a "Greengrocers' Apostrophe" to pluralise it!) moment myself - would serve me so right for being so sanctimonious about the hapless copywriters (copywriter's?!?) who get it so spectacularly wrong. My son (who oft berates my Eats Shoots and Leaves grammar fascism) pointed out the sponsor's one to me before I'd spotted it, and that set me on the trail of headlines - and I was pretty surprised to turn up the rest in one week's issues!

After all, their Sponsor's mightn't Get's it or wonder what kind of fishing competition can a club with only one angler host? I'm sure Cappoquin has plenty, as I am sure that there's only one crafty Paul alluded to in the article below!

I am sparing their blushes by not identifying the offending media but I am sure you can find plenty in your own locality - just be a little vigilant and keep smiling - there's plenty out there to brighten up a dull summer's day!

The burning question is - are they Glitches or Gremlins? You decide!