Month: December 2016

Goodbye 2016, Welcome 2017

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I love to stay at home on New Year’s Eve. For me, it’s perfect to have some nice delicious food, watch some nice shows on TV and drink some sparkling wine at midnight and feel that I am loved, happy and enjoying the moment when looking forward to the New Year to come and surprise me.

newyeareve_dinnerThis year we planned to do it quite the same way – we cooked our NewYear’s dinner, ok, Sean cooked, I just stayed there beside and enjoyed it. This time we had a duck with vegetables and of course, some snacks before and also during the night. I have cooked lots of New Year’s dinners on my own, and also lots of Christmas dinners – all the time when there were just me and my children and sometimes my neighbours, and now, when my children are grown up and having their own Christmas in different parts of the world (who could imagine that years ago), I am just happy to enjoy, that someone is doing that for me and my part is just to be there and enjoy it.

After the dinner, we went to see the Sky Dance – the next show that was taking place at the Custom House. We were well prepared, booked the FREE tickets online and printed them out and took a walk down to the river. It was good that we noticed that the free tickets had to be printed out to get to see the show.

The Sky Dance was very different from anything I had seen before – the dancers were up in the sky, hanging from the tall cranes over the river, on the top of the Custom House and climbing on the walls of the building. that was an amazing way to end the year, with all these flying angels, drummers and girls with floating dresses above your head.

After that, we headed back home to watch Dawn French show and enjoy the Old Tallinn Irish Coffee – a delicious mix of Estonia and Ireland that probably no-one else in Ireland had for their New Year’s Eve 🙂 Ok, there’s not such a secret, you just have to use Old Tallin liqueur instead of Baileys but of course you have to have some Old Tallinn to do that.

And then the New Year Came, 2 hours later than in Estonia 🙂 and we opened our sparkling wine. I hope that all my wishes that I sent to the Place Where the Wishes are Created to Reality are gaining their strength to come back to the real life during this year.

Luminosity Festival 2016

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This year the Luminosity Festival had moved by the river side and the show was displayed on Dublin’s Custom House. The first year in 2014 it was on the Trinity Colledge and the last year on the house near St Stephen’s Green, which we, unfortunately, missed because we didn’t find any info and supposed that it still had to be on Trinity’s wall.

This year we were well prepared and went to see it a day before the New Year’s Eve, just in case. It was the first day after the flu when I felt that I wanted to go out and so it was a nice walk from home. Even the weather was nice.

The location of the show was perfect, probably the best of all these three because it was also possible to watch it from the other side of the river and there wasn’t too much traffic in front of the Custom House. But I have to say that I liked the Trinity College Light show the best, maybe because that was my first one. We watched it from the Custom House side at first, then walked over the bridge and watched it once more from the other side.

Christmas 2016

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It’s not the best thing to get the flu at Christmas time but this year I was so unlucky to have it. It wasn’t the worst type of flu, not a high temperature which would have kept me in bed but just an annoying and long-lasting bad feeling, headache and cold and so I couldn’t enjoy the Christmas parties as much I would have wanted to. And as it didn’t start with a high temperature I supposed that it would pass with some pills and didn’t pay enough attention at first but unfortunately, it didn’t and so I had to keep myself going with taking pills and suffering from a headache the whole Christmas days.

But anyway, there was a lot of nice things too, like the presents and loads of good food that I didn’t have to cook but only enjoy, nice wine, nice people around me and fun and joy. And I must say that I still enjoy these Christmas Crackers with the stupid jokes that nobody understands, ok they do and I also do but sometimes I have to read them twice to get the fun out of it. This year I got to know that besides these jokes there are also some Charade things written on the paper clips and we had a lot of fun with all that. When we got done with the Crackers but still didn’t feel that we are really done, one of the girls showed us an app game, which was quite a similar. for example, you had to guess the names of the Christmas Carols or other Christmassy things, just by watching the others acting them out. Not so easy as it sounds, especially if you don’t have the same background and language 🙂 Try to guess the word “cupcake” just by some movement if you even don’t exactly know the word. But I am very proud that I guessed “The Winter Wonderland” and the whole line of Jingle Bells, which was “the one-horse open sleigh”. And not to mention that I still had my flu.

A lot of photos were taken as well, and I am still hopeful to get some one day but as I didn’t feel well, I was not very eager to take any on my own. Here is just one of our Christmas table before we started to eat.

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Belvedere College Annual Sleepout

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Belvedere College Annual Sleepout is an old tradition and it means that a group of Belvedere College past and present students spend two nights sleeping out on the streets of Dublin and collecting money for the charity, especially for the homeless. With sleeping on the street, the students experience how does it feel if you really have to spend your nights outside but at the same time with the help of the public they also raise money for those people who are homeless.

The boys who stay out for the night are the senior year students. The younger ones give their part with the Christmas Carols concert in front of GPO. I was happy to enjoy their singing and the marvellous performance of their conductor for the second time already.

Winter Solstice

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7th annual City of Dublin Winter Solstice Celebration Festival took place on 21st of December. The activities started at DIT Grangegorman Campus in the evening at 6 o’clock, and it was announced that after that there will be a parade and lighting the fire. We have never taken part of the previous Festivals but it seemed interesting to go and see what is going to happen.

 

Celebrating Solstice is an old pagan tradition and quite familiar also in Estonia and why not to celebrate the coming of the winter. Of course, we both don’t like it too much but maybe it’s a good way to get a better and milder winter 🙂 The good news which is worth to celebrate is that the days are going to be longer again and we are slowly going to move towards spring again.

We didn’t manage to go so early, so we missed a lot – for example making the Solstice Lanterns, pleading the Solstice Wreaths, making the wishes for throwing them into the fire and dancing Irish Dances, which we saw a little bit and we were also not so well prepared, so we didn’t have any lanterns, decorations or costumes either.

We marched with the colourful and noisy crowd with different drums and other jingling things to the Smithfield Square and took part of the Solstice fire Ceremony.

Despite haven’t prepared our papers with wishes we didn’t let this moment pass without making any, so we had to be creative. I found a napkin from my bag, so I pulled it into two halves and we both whispered our wish into the napkin, make a knot and send it away with the fire. Sean was a bit surprised because that creativity came from my side but a woman from this Solstice team heard me explaining it and said that it’s just the right way how these things will work. Of course, they are, I am from Estonia, I know how to talk to Nature, especially with Fire 🙂 Now our wishes are sent to the place where they are going to come true and they definitely will, I know it.

Nice Little Things

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Christmas time is full of nice little things that make it real and enjoyable. You just have to notice them and that’s why I wanted to write some of them here.

file_000-1The first time in my Dublin Christmas I had an opportunity to go to the Carol Service – unbelievable, that I didn’t do it before, especially in Dublin but somehow we just have missed it. Even this time it didn’t come up as a plan but we just found it on our way to the Christmas Market when Sean took me to see the church where he had sung as a school kid. It was a nice big Cathedral, very near to us and just on our way to the Christmas Market – St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral at Marlborough Street. When we entered the Cathedral a Boys’ Choir were rehearsing for their concert and they were so cute and nice that we changed our plans and stayed for the Carol Service which was just to begin after an hour. It was the best choice because the service was so nice and it was so good to listen to a Boys’ Choir  – a real Christmas feeling with Carols. After the service, I had a chance to shake hands with the priest and say thank you. It was really one of these nice small things and I am so happy that we both enjoyed it – we both have been singing in choirs, so why not 🙂

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After the service, we went to M&S to treat ourselves with some nice posh food and bought a big jar of partridge pateé with pear chutney which I named “The Partridge on a Pear Tree”, and which was really delicious. M&S Food Shop is among My Little Nice things without any questions asked and I am looking forward what kind of delicatessen we will find for our New Years Eve.

And one more nice thing is to get Christmas Cards as a couple – probably something that you never think about if you have been a couple for a long time but still so nice to me. And actually, nowadays you don’t get too many Christmas Cards in envelopes any more.

We wish you a Merry Christmas

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That was exactly how Dublin welcomed me this time. When I stepped out from the airport exit door, a children’s’ choir with red elf hats was standing in front of me and singing Christmas Carols. I think it’s such a good idea to give the children a reason to learn the Christmas Carol,s and every visitor of Dublin a special feeling when entering the country. So I got my special feeling and afterward when I was walking in the town and doing some window shopping it really felt like Christmas. All the Christmas lights, decorations, shop windows, music, crowds of people and Christmas tree, a bit on a wrong place this time, but somehow a bit taller, or maybe it just seemed to me like that.It’s hard to describe how happy do I feel to be back again. And how much I like that I am able to feel how Christmas make me happy and light-hearted.

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12 Days till My Christmas

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As there are just 12 days left to my next trip to Dublin, this song seemed really suitable to upload. Hope that all these 12 days will bring me as much joy as for the one in the song. I can count the tickets to the Mamma Mia musical that I bought today for myself, my son and his girlfriend, as a partridge in a pear tree but taking the French teacher whom I’m going to meet tomorrow as two turtle doves can probably be much more difficult, I guess. Unless he’s going to bring me two good French wines 🙂