A blog by an Irishwoman, written in both English and Swedish, depending on what humour is on me....
En blogg av en irländska, skriven på svenska och engelska.
Just scroll down to find the English bits among the Swedish, or vice versa.

Ta Gaeilge agam freisin, más é an rud é go bhfuil éinne eile le Gaeilge ag léamh mo bhlagsa.

Ich verstehe auch ein bisschen Deutsch, je parle un petit peu francais och klarar av lite norska med.

Wondering about the background of the blog? They're the Cliffs of Moher, in the neighbouring county, County Clare, 8km long, 700m high, and magnificent. Well worth a visit if anyone is around the West of Ireland



Monday, April 16, 2012

end of the holidays...

...and so tomorrow, it's back to school and routine again.
I'm sitting here getting my final paperwork sorted for the week, I probably should have done it during the 2 weeks off, but who is going to waste a lovely bright fresh day by sitting down at a computer with bundles of schoolbooks....
anyway I work best with a deadline,ie tonight, gulp.....

We are all dazed and very shocked and saddened at a very tragic car accident in the nearest village, suffice to say, I will be driving slowly in built-up areas and keeping my eyes wide open for pedestrians. Expect the unexpected, especially from chilren. Life can change in a split second, for the worse...
Back to the books now, planning for upcoming week and writing a report for last month.
Thing is I can hardly remember last time I was in school, it was more than 2 weeks ago!

There are 7 weeks left in school for the 2 big girls in this house, and 11 weeks for the rest of us. In the next week we will find out if dear daughter #2 gets a place in Transition Year next year, fingers crossed that she does. Then in the following weeks we will find out which subjects DD#1 will get in her subject choice for the Leaving Certificate (State school-leaving exam here in Ireland) in 2 years time. Interesting days ahead...

All well here otherwise, thankfully.

Best of luck to all who are returning to school or Uni tomorrow.

ps Wish me luck next Saturday, my van goes for it's State car test, the NCT. It has already failed, but I hope the work done this weekend will suffice to have it pass next time.
and next Sunday if there are no matches, I will hopefully go to a Craft Brunch in a cafe in town, for 2 hours, oh how yummy! wheel and spindle and needles and yarn and fleece ooooooo....

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Fracture Clinic

Today was the day I had to go back to the fracture clinic with my 15yr old daughter(middle daughter), to have her temporary cast removed and replaced by a firmer cast which she will wear for the next 6 weeks or so.
The clinic waiting room was full of people, however the wait went much quicker than I expected. (This may have been because I happened to meet a nurse at the reception desk who recognised me as being from the same area as herself! Not that I asked or anything, but a wait of only 15 minutes to be called is unheard of.... Just sayin'...)

Daughter got a bright pink cast and we left the hospital within an hour. Daughter is not very impressed with the need to wear a cast, but it is indeed a necessary fact of life that when you crack your radius, you need to wear a cast. Daughter has a State exam coming up in June, the Junior Certificate exams. She cannot write at the moment, so I just have to write a letter to the school next week explaining the situation and hope that daughter gets something out of the school day, even if she cannot write. I may not like the situatiion, but there really is nothing I can do to change things so we just have to accept things and battle on.

The weather in Ireland is real April weather, showery, a bit cold, bright sun, followed by huge dark clouds and showers of biting rain, or hail.

Son loves his new red and black bike, and is cycling it like a pro, using no stabilisers. He had a great birthday, even if I say so myself.

Eldest daughter earned a Special Merit in the Texaco Art competition for children. She will not be able to attend the awards ceremony, unfortunately, as it clashes with her Transition year Graduation Evening in school.

Third daughter will have her confirmation at the end of May. So food will have to be ordered and clothes bought. Hopefully we will have a good day, both weather-wise and fun-wise!

Easter Holidays are nearly done, I've still some more things to do here, car to go to mechanic, dental appointments, collecting my new glasses, getting my knitting machine serviced and finally working here at home, knitting up more of my stash, figuring out why my spinning wheel is not doing as I want it to do right now, oh and getting sorted for school next week, of course....bleurgh....
Hoppas att ni har det bra allihopa som läser detta,
hoppas att våren har kommit till er som bor i norra halvklotet,
ha det så bra allihopa!
special greetings to all who have visited from Ravelry!
liz

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Easter Saturday and spring-cleaning

Back to the old Google interface for me today,as I just can't find my way around the new interface as easily as the old.
My daughter's first cast came off her arm, when the swelling went down, I suppose. So we had to go back to the doctor and then the hospital, to have another cast put on. So that was another chunk of a day given over to hospitals etc.
It was Good Friday yesterday, Langfredag in Swedish. Years ago, when I was a kid, the shops were all closed, and it used to be a day for staying at home, eating a fish dinner, then ceremonies in the church at 3pm. Times have changed, yesterday on the way back from the hospital, we called in to a large shopping centre, and it was full of people. On the otherhand I would say that attendances at the Easter cceremonies have gone down....
Today is Easter Saturday, tomorrow Easter Sunday. You can be sure that my children are only thinking of how many Easter eggs they might get.
On Monday, it will be my son's 6th birthday! He learned to cycle his bike without stabilisers/training wheels, and he has also had a growth spurt so he may be getting a new bicycle for his birthday(!) I have cleared out his clothes and today I am giving away 4 bags of clothes he has outgrown to 4 friends. Luckily I was given a lot of clothes by friends as my son was growing up, so I feel I want to pass on the clothes to others when he is finished with them.
There is plenty more to declutter! Spring-cleaning here I come....!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

a day well spent...!

April, and Easter Holidays... a blessed 2 weeks off school, not worrying about uniforms, or hoemwork, or housework or lunches....
Today however my plans to tidy up this house came to nothing. First I had an appointment for the NCT (national car test) in Limerick city at 8.40am. Sad to say, my van failed, so I will have to take it to the mechanic and have the brakes checked. Then home to rouse the slumbering darlings.
One slumbering darling had hurt her hand last night in a Gaelic Football match and it had developed a small bump last night, plus more bruising today, so off to the doctor with her. It took 1 and a half hours to be seen at the doctor, and then, well, it was as I feared/realised, we were sent to the hospital in Limerick city for an x-ray as the doctor thought that there was a fracture.

Almost 3 hours later, after an x-ray and some waiting, we were told daughter had indeed a small fracture and they put a cast on her, and we could leave. I still had to go by a shop to get some food, no point in arriving home to 3 starving kids and having to venture out again to buy food, so we went by Lidl and bought some food.

By the time I got home at 4.30, I was wrecked tired. My (late) lunch and hot cup of tea was delicious and all I could manage. I am now propped up in bed, writing this. The weather is cold, apparently the wind is from the North. Scotland had temperatures up to 23degrees Centigrade last week and today had 18cm of snow....! Ireland had temperatures up to 20 degrees and today we have hail showers and it is blowing cold and bitter from the North.

Holidays are great, but all too short. I am cramming in appointments, such as a clinic check-up yesterday, the NCT today, an eye-test tomorrow, a service for the knitting machine on Friday morning, a dental check up for me and one daughter next week, and I have to sort hairdresser appointments also. Now I will have a visit to a Fracture clinic next Tuesday, as well.I also want to get some spring-cleaning and decluttereing done, it is impossible with 4 children and work to keep the house streamlined and spartan. I need to move on the clothes and stuff that the children have outgrown. I also need to recycle the items that require a trip to the Recycling centre. I just hope I can get it all done by 15th April!

Spinning and knitting are going well, I gave a spinning demo in the Community Centre for our local Community Expo back in February. I enjoyed it enormously, people were fascinated, I think , and the organisers were delighted. I am daft enough to have started looking for a second spinning wheel, where will I fit that, I ask myself!

I am knitting a scarf using a stitch which I read about in a Swedish craft magazine Hemslöjden, the stitch involves yarn+overs and slip stitches, and it gives a woven look, which is very suitable for the wool I am using, which has various colours in it, so the stitch brings out rows of different colours. I guess I should photograph the scarf and put it up here, later, maybe, when I get up again....

Best wishes to you all out there, thanks very much to the people who come by and visit this blog often, I appreciate seeing the visitors views increase and seeing your locations all over the world.

regards
liz
ps sorry that there are no paragraphs in this, I have no idea why the new Blogger layout does not recognise my paragraph spacing when i write a blogpost.
pps, went back to the old interface and edited this post , so now it has paragraphs!