Friday 25 July 2008

Ikea Roadtrip.

What a long day. 14 hours on the road.

What did we buy ....

A full kitchen, complete with worktops, taps, sink, base and wall units, and even with the carosol yoke for in the corner press (which saves you climbing into the blooming press to get stuff out....can see that coming in very handy)

A sofa bed and a spare cover for same.

A coffee table

A side table

A hall unit for Cavan

A new duvet

Floor covering for Liadan's attic "den"

A nightlight for Liadan - looks like a wee ghost - mega cool.

An alarm clock

A vegetable peeler

A colandar

A dish drainer

Two anti stick mats

A hall unit for Dublin

Two new tressle legs for my desk in Dublin

A shelf

Kitchen rail - goes on the wall and you hang stuff off

Spice rack

Three kitchen storage tubs

And six large wine glasses

And we spent one thousand eight hundred euro.

Not too bad really.

What did we forget to get - - well there was bound to be something .....all we forgot was the handles for the kitchen presses - yay what a result.

Monday 21 July 2008

Bloody 'Ell.......

One Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty Five Euro.

Blooming heck.


Just to fix a car .... ah well. Guess the tiles will have to wait.

Sunday 20 July 2008

Car Crash

Well not exactly a crash but it was dramatic.

Coming out of the house in Cavan Des decided to turn left for a change, but it was a kinda last minute decision. And we ended up with the front side wheel down a ditch.

It seemed funny enough till he turned and asked me to get into the back... when I got out of the car and looked at the back left hand wheel about a foot and a half in the air !!

Yippes ....

Me and Liadan sitting over one side of the back did not work. So we took her out for a start. Then we tried Des sitting in the back, then Des jumping up and down on the back of the car.

Then he got around in front of the car, I had it in reverse, revved the fcuk out of it while he pushed. For a little guy I have to say he is fierce strong ... he pushed the car out of the ditch. (ok I know the engine helped ... but he really did do it...!)

Only thing is .... we think the power steering is gone wonky, the car was handling oddly all the way home. It was making a strange noise to start with too, but thats gone now.

I think its because we were talking about how we had some money left over from the house renovations - we spoke about it IN THE CAR. So the blooming thing heard us. And now we have to spend some of it on THE CAR.

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Made stuff .....

I have a back log of kits from the scrap-room.com - ten full ones to be exact. They are great kits and I have to say I love them. LOVE getting nice big dileverys once a month too!!

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Copied this double page lay out from their recipie cards ... its our holiday photos. I found this great to do and funnily enough very calming ... looking at all our lovely photos from the holiday chased away any lingering bad feelings left hanging around.

I encorporated my wee felt birdies while I had the chance...

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Then still using the same kit .... and that lovely wide felt ribbon I got in france...

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Sean at only aged 2 and 3 months. I remeber that day we took this photo as it was the day after we took Roisin home from hospital...

Monday 14 July 2008

One week later....

Well that it then the holiday is well and trully over ... the weather put a full stop on it if nothing else anyway.

Its been a busy enough week. Tuesday was wash day - the place looked like a chinese laundry. Wednesday we took ourselves and Liadan up to Cavan for a spot or two of painting ...

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I honestly think she got more on herself than she got on the walls, it was like having ...I dont know how to describe this ... some sort of disneyfied leprecaun beside you ... she just get bursting into fits of giggles. I guess you have to be nine to really enjoy painting!!

We got the sitting room and bedroom painted. Well the first coat anyway.

Took the two girls off into town on Thursday - Roisin was due her birthday pressie. She choose to go and spend it all in Hickeys...bought two paper patterns, various lenghts of material and came away a happy bunny!!

Thursday evening I got across to another great workshop run by Annamarie. And more importantly lovely company, and pavlova made for us ..yummy. A perfect tonic.

Friday I got to Lesleys. We are pondering the idea of a weekend away together. Which would be nice, just have to figure out where now.

Nothing much happened over the weekend, went window shopping for beds, and shot a few arrows. I nearly lost one .... Des nearly lost one ... and then while we were out Sean did lose one.

But we found it today .... so alls well that ends well... :-)

Thursday 10 July 2008

Week two....

So we moved from Reinne up to Dol de Britania... to Domaine Des Ormes.

We had a good week there, did even more traveling around ... its a good central spot for traveling around northern Britanny. Our favourite place of all had to have been Mont St. Michel, which was well worth going to see. Its extreemly touristy, but worth it all the same...

Photobucketview from the car park...

And the main street ....
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looks and feels like something from harry potter!! its full of shops that are selling the usual sort of stuff at about three times the cost, we had a lovely lunch there which felt like eating on the side of a mountain.

One little funny insident that happened was as we were getting back into our car, this lovely big merc pulled in beside us and out stepped three budist monks!! complete with sun glasses and digital cameras....

What else did we do that week...? More archary - less value for money on this site, it cost us three euro each for an hour and a half on the first site, five euro each for half an hour on Des Ormes, and the equipement was sh1te here too.

Liadán got to go on a "poney" ride (their spelling on the ticket!!). It was such a waste of ten euro. The trail was not marked out properly so it was up to us to lead her around ...and we have no experience of ponys at all. So what should have been a half hour took us 15 minutes ..we arrived back at the stables when upon the animal stoped!! She loved it but we felt ripped off...
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Actually I would so not recommend that site to anyone ... there were only Irish and English on the site, so all you heard was english spoken, the bar was constantly full of kids no matter how late you went down, and they seemed to be serving all ages, with teenagers who looked to us to be only 14 getting beer and wine at sold to them.

So we ended up more off that site than on!! But it worked out ok for us. Went to a snake zoo one day, an ordinary zoo another, did a few of the markets - the one in Dol de Britania was great.

On the saturday we found a village fair on in one of the local towns ... it was cool like stepping back in time!!

The BBQ !! _ _ Photobucket - - -!

The spit .... Photobucket . . !!

And of course ...Photobucket....the band !!

There was traditional dancing, homemade cider which you drank from bowls,a blacksmith and all the time the sun splitting the sky....

So all in all we had a good holiday, it will be the last one we are bringing the teenagers with us ... Roisin was ok, but could have been at home just as happily as being away, as she was content to be brought to the odd place but spent most of the time sitting drawing inside the chalet/hotelroom/mobile... but the Boy (!) dont get me started !! Never again !!!!!!!!!

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Holiday Report (part one!!)

Back home yesterday ....

We had a great holiday, wonderfull weather up to the last four days when it was raining off and on - in between the sunshine!!

The journey over was eventfull enough, my back was killing me, so it was not an easy trip for me, the crossing was ok - but not great and we all took a little ill - unfortunately while we were sitting down to dinner (sad). So that was very much a wasted meal. We took to bed in what Irish Ferries describe as the four star cabin....which we paid the extra for as we had such a good experience on the old boat with it. It was not up to the old standard ... they describe it as having a fully stocked mini fridge, yet that appears to be two small wines, two beers, two cans of minerals, and two bottles of water. Not what I would call a fully stocked fridge for four....:(

Stoped in Quimper on the way down to Nevez. Its a lovely little town, well worth a visit if your in the area. Lots of little streets and interesting shops. We had a lovely lunch of crepes - of course!!

But the main thing was the view of the sky .....Photobucket



The first site we stayed on was Les 2 Fontaines, which turned out to be lovely, and very popular with the French themselves - which we took as a good sign. It was quiet, peachfull, and gave off an air of safety. Facilities were good, and the pool complex was great and very clean.
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We had booked a three bedroom chalet, which while small was fine. It had a lovely deck area for sitting out - paper thin walls - which if nothing else meant that when I went on into bed I could still continue a conversation with the lads in the sitting room!!

Liadan made the most of the pool ... she still fits into her wet suit from last year .. not sure we will get another year out of it but it owes us nothin!!!
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We had a great week there, got to explore the area, which is lovely ... great market in Pont Aven, lots of creative stuff as opposed to the usual market standards. Pont Aven must be a haven of creativity as the place is full of galleries.
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We tried out Archery on site too... and are now the owners of a bow and arrow!!

We took the girls off to the Aquaraum in Brest one of the days - could not get the boy out of the bed so left him behind - I would highly recommend it. We were a bit daunted at first as it was quite expensive in but as we had driven almost an hour decided to give it a try. I have been out to the one here in Bray a few times and hated it ...but we spent almost five hours in this one in Brest!! There were all sorts of things to see, the shark tank is huge. At various points you are under it, looking through it, down into it and from all sorts of angles, even at one point you take a glass lift down the middle of the tank!! They had a lot of interactive parts which help make it an interesting experience ...
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Including the part where this guy gets into the tank with some of the fish.... he had a camera on his goggles so you could see from his viewpoint. I wish our french was better as I am sure he was telling us lots of interesting facts!!

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Spent a happy week there - before having the evening the kids love - eat the fridge night!! Then spend the weekend in Reinnes in a hotel - oh the comfort of a decent bed!! Worth every penny. Reinnes has a most wonderfull flower market on the saturday morning, if you lived there you would be at it every week, we could have spend the day just smelling it!!

Thats the first week done!!