summer's on its way...

The clocks went forward an hour today. Which means that we have more sunshine at night, but also less sleep this morning. On my way to church my car said it was 14.5 degrees, and when I got out of church it said 17.5 and slowly crept up to 19 degrees! Barry, Harpinder, Jimmy, Fionnuala and I spent a good while sitting out in the sun today. Its so weird how a little bit of sun can lift your spirits.

Karl was away in England this weekend, catching up with Simon. And i think he felt that guilty about leaving me at home, that he paid for a horse trek for me yesterday afternoon. Sinead is taking lessons and goes once a week, and the riding school had a special on, so we went for an afternoon of trekking which was so much fun. My legs are so sore from gripping the horse so tightly in order to stay on. I think I'm going to sign up for lessons come May. 

on our way to the country for the trek

a quick lesson

After some food I came back home and spent the evening with Barry, Harps and the inlaws. 

Got up super-early this morning. Because the time was changing (we are now an hour behind SA), I changed the time on my phone. Little did I know that my phone updates itself! SO when my alarm went off at 8am this morning, it was actually 7am!

After ironing Karls shirts and making some chicken parcels for the week, I headed back out to Sinead and we walked about 8kms around Cushendun. The weather was amazing, and it was super-busy. Everyone out with their babies and dogs, even the ice-cream van was at the beach front. Hope this summer lasts for a while yet.

4 lambs - very unusual!

walking along the river

short sleeves!!!

check out how sunny it is!

yes, that is a REAL goat (the white one)

can you spot the ice-cream van?

finished off our walk with a walk on the beach

Had a nice weekend, despite the fact that I was husbandless. Looking forward to pizza and an early night. Last week of work this week until May. *HUGE GRIN*

sofa woes..

We bought this AMAZING sofa a few weeks back. Its the one I have always wanted, but it was superduper expensive, so we got our corner sofa set instead. And then its was on sale for half price!! So my dear husband ordered it for me :) It arrived last week, and we tried to put it into the house on Sunday...

It doesn't fit!!! Its too BIG! It doesn't fit through the doors of our house or my in-laws house. Unless we take out a window, its gonna have to stay all wrapped up until we build our house (with wide-ass doors!). It doesn't look that big, but its massive, its taller than Karl! So lesson for today: use a freaking measuring tape!!!

St Paddys day

We started the celebrations a bit early, and I made a batch of green cocktails on friday night, and we took them over to Sinead and Hugh's for dinner and a dvd. 

Sinead and I finished the cocktail mix and moved on to wine I think? I woke up on St Paddy's day with no hangover! To be honest I wanted to climb Slemish for my first St Patricks day in Ireland. The problem with that plan is that so does the rest of Ireland!! Apparently it gets so crazy that you have to park miles away and have to queue for hours to get up there. So instead I made more green cocktails and we went over to Willie and Joanne's for dinner and drinks on Sat eve.

yummy chocolate wine that we got FREE with our Indian takeaway!

digging in

defo hometime!

So I walked up slemish on Monday instead and it was dead quiet and so mucky, i slipped a few times, but at least I can say that I did it!

Slemish

it was freezing up there!

Also went to my very first spin class, and it actually wasn't THAT bad! Will defo be going back!


Counting down the days till Mel arrives!
xx

The Artist

Karl was supposed to go to Poland yesterday for work. So he packed his bags and I packed mine so that I could stay over at Barry and Harps' place in Belfast while he was away. On the way to work yesterday, my car broke down on the busiest highway in Northern Ireland :( Luckily Karl was still with me. Long story short, Karl had to get to the office ASAP to sort out stuff before his flight to Poland, but his father sent someone to take me back to the Glens with the car on his trailor.I had a quick cup of tea and then took Karl's car and drove back into Belfast to come to work. As soon as I got to the office (at 1pm), Karl called to say that his trip to Poland was cancelled! Can someone say SHORT NOTICE! Well, our bags were packed anyway, so we decided to stay up here. 

The 4 of u had dinner at Pizza Hut in the Odyssey Arena,  followed by the Oscar winning,  romantic comedy drama in the style of a black-and-white silent film, The Artist. If you havent watched this movie yet, do yourself a favour and go watch it, its on at Nouveau. In the begining I was like huh? This sucks, but as you get into it, you learn to appreciate it, as well as what it was like to watch movies back in the 'good ole days'.

I'm sitting at my desk absolutely exhausted this morning. Because Barry and Harps were only expecting me, they made up the single bed in the spare room. So Karl and I shared a single bed last night.... Not an ideal situation. *yawn*

Birthday weekend part 1

Wow, what a weekend! I’m exhausted and at work and wish I was in bed. Friday night turned into Saturday morning. We went to pick up Sinead and Hugh, and then went over to the boy’s boss’s boss’s house for a pizza before our night out. After pizza we headed out to Belfast, to The Duke of York. Its a really big pub, and is very unusual.

The party was called a 70^th, because Hugh turned 30 and his colleague turned 40, so they just decided to have one big party.

After meeting everyone, Sinead and I headed up stairs for a bit of dancing and then joined the rest of them a bit late. We even had springboks .

 So anyway, after an awesome night out, we finally arrived home at 4am! Yes, 4am. I slept for 4 hours and got up at 8am to start a crazy day of baking. By Saturday evening, I was fed up! Harpinder was a great help and tidied up behind me and just generally kept me sane. The cake did turn out really good, despite some technical difficulties and the fact that the top 2 layers were too heavy for the light chocolate sponge at the bottom, did my best to cover it up with decor though!

Had to make a small cake for Christina, who is gluten-intolerant.

We had quite a spread: scones, quiche, cake, cupcakes, cheese and crackers etc.

I thought I had made too much food, but after the 20 or so people spend yesterday afternoon grazing, there really wasn’t much left. I invited everyone over fo tea and cake at about 3pm yesterday, an the last of them left at around 8pm.

opening gifts

 Got some really cool gifts, including these beautiful tulips!

I had a quick bath and got things ready for today, and then we headed down the road with Harps and Barry to have dinner and watch our Sunday night South African show, Wild at Heart. Been awake since 4am, probably a sugar high!

Really had a good weekend!

xx

weekend activities

Spent the morning cleaning the house. We have another busy weekend, but its my birthday weekend, so I am looking forward to it! Waiting for a friend, Sinead, to arrive for lunch. Made some pasta, YUM!
Then tonight we are going out in Belfast for Sinead's husband's birthday party. He works with Karl. We are going to the Duke of York.

Tomorrow I am baking. Gonna try a 3-tiered topsy-turvy cake and it might be a bit of a technical challenge, will post pics. 1 tier is choc fudge, another one is lemon and the last one is coffee and walnut. Everyone is coming over for cake on Sunday afternoon, so gonna be spending all of tomorrow baking: cake, cupcakes, scones and maybe some bread...

Also found these in our front garden

I wonder what they are....

and more cake!

On the way home from work today, my husband remembers that he has to take cake to work tomorrow to celebrate the end of his probation period! So as soon as we got home, I put him to work making dinner, and I made his cake. Luckily I had everything in my cupboards. Only just climbed into bed, and my feet hurt from wearing heels all day. Defo wearing my flat boots tomorrow for my first bit of fieldwork. And yes, the cake tastes as good as it looks ;)

Gluten-free weekend

Mark called us on Friday evening wanting to know what we were doing for dinner. I didn't even realise that they were coming to us on Friday eve, and panicked to get their cake done in time. Luckily it was ready when they arrived. We basically spent Friday evening in front of the fire, watching tv. On Saturday morning, Moira taught Christina and I how to make the St Brigid's cross.

Barry and Harpinder only arrived at around 6pm last night and then we had to get ready for the dinner. The ladies had pre-dinner cocktails :)

We arrived at the restaurant just after 8pm, and did the whole family photo thing

The waiter took his own sweet time to show us the specials menu, so Barry got up to give us the low down!

The in-laws are going on a cruise for Moira's 60th in May. They bought a package, all inclusive except for lunches and drinks, so we all put some cash together as a gift.

Add caption

 

We headed off to Johnny Joe's for a few drinks and some music. The music wasn't that great, so Harps took things into her own hands...

Christina HATES photographs! She's always trying to block my shot of her. This one came out pretty well though

I think we got home shortly after midnight. I attempted to take off my boots and failed! I had on a pair of socks, a pair of tights AND a large pair of woolly fleece socks on and shoved my feet into my boots, not thinking about how to take them off later. This is Karl trying to take them off for me..

Then came the cake-cutting ceremony practice round (Mark & Chris are getting married this New Years Eve)

Christina seriously at 6 slices of this cake last night. Since she can't eat gluten, its not that often she gets to eat cake, so she had more than her fair share of cake last night (and this morning for breakfast!)

Mark does this funny thing (if you beg him enough!) that he saw in Lethal Weapon. White bread brown bread in a South African accent. It was soooo funny that I dropped the camera (oops!) in this clip.

We all ended up sleeping at the in-laws last night. And needless to say we all slept quite late this morning. The rest of the day was spent sitting around, chatting, reading newspapers and watching Modern Family episodes. That was until Christina decided it was time to bake some more gluten free stuff! Christina made traditional Irish soda bread, which is delicious with butter and jam, especially when its hot off the gridle. 

And I tried these marble mini muffins out, also gluten free.  

Karl's granny is with us for the afternoon, and my mom-in-law jumped at the opportunity for another family pic (I look really fat in this photo because I'm squatting in a very uncomfortable position, and my shoulders are hunched so it looks like I have no neck. Well, thats my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it!)

Everyone has left now, and we are still at the in-laws place (its nice and warm). Sunday evening pizza is a bit of a tradition in this house. So after our pizza, we will head up the road to our own wee house. I need to gather all my things for my first day at my new job in the BIG CITY :)