"I Can Never Leave The Past Behind"

My hair was MADE for the 80s.

2012 began with a trip to the 1980s. My friend Estelle had an 80s themed hen party in Clonakilty, West Cork. It was definitely the most fun hen party I have attended! Everyone was lovely, we played games like "make a dress out of toilet paper" and hit the various bars in Clon. I must say, it was much more fun than a night out in Cork, which is always crowded, loud and generally yucky. We accidentally wandered into a 1920s themed club, which was SO MUCH FUN!

This was my background ALL YEAR :)

Of course, next I had to claim back the limelight for my birthday party in mid-January. I was so lucky that so many of my friends traveled from the UK to come and dress up as Disney characters in this house we rented for the weekend. At the time, my ickly doggie Millie was on the cusp of death, which did rather make things more stressful for me, but I still feel so privileged that my friends came and spent the weekend with me!

It was in February that Conor and Estelle got married - what a fabulous day! There was a TONNE of music, from a long lost Baroque hymn to a metal cover band. My sister, Alison played the cello and I made the cake. I can hardly believe it's been nearly a year since the wedding! The cake took three days to make and was comprised of 120 chocolate and red velvet cupcakes, plus one giant cupcake at the top and I made myself a cupcake print dress to wear on the day. Conor and Estelle are such a lovely couple and have so many wonderful friends! A great day was had by all. 

Also in this month, Alison and I went to Cobh to enjoy a night of free dinner and free accommodation thanks to a prize Alison had won! We went to Gilberts and ate until we could eat no more before falling into bed and eating breakfast in their penthouse the following morning!

In March, the inimitable Miss Ellie Murray turned the big one-eight! For a few days, our group entered the episode of Gavin & Stacey which has, up to very recently, been Ellie's life. It was there that Ellie and I embarked upon a walk to Costa, wrote a violin part for our song about Sherlock, watched Father Ted before rocking up to a rugby club to boogie the night away for her birthday party. Pam and Mick took us out for dinner and treated me to a very British pie in a pub. It was delicious. :) 

The in the days after the party, Ellie brought us to Cheshire to a tea room that was IN a cathedral. Not in a room in a cathedral - the WHOLE cathedral was a tea room! I gasped. It was amazing and shocking!

Creepy Amy clone.

We also went to 'The Lady Lever' for tea and a cake. It was there that Kylie and I shared one of my top cakes of 2012 - a delicious carrot cake. (Ellie and Cathrin shared a "chocolate cloud cake" which was also very impressive.) It was here that I came across the painting to the right, which looks UPSETTINGLY like me as a child. I showed the picture to my dad and sister upon returning home and both are as astonished and weirded out as I am. I feel like Homer in the episode with Mr Sparkle...

Torc Waterfall, Killarney.

Martha took a short trip to Killarney in April. It was there that I went on a run that is, to this day, the most special and beautiful run I have experienced. I went just after the sun came up, it was cold, crisp and dry and I ran around a lake into Muckross grounds. There were so many trees and fields, and it was just serenely quiet. On the way back to where we were staying, I walked through the ruins of an old chapel and grave yard that was dappled in sunlight through the trees. Even though I know it was public, it felt so hidden and secret. Definitely one of my stand-out moments of 2012.

Later on that month, I began working in Bantry, West Cork. Bantry is far, far away and I taught there two days a week on top of my own teaching in Cork. It was such a strange place and so weird to go and stay in a B&B once a week but it was really fun to get to listen to podcasts and music, and to read in the time I wasn't working. I met a lot of very nice people there, too! :) When I arrived to teach piano, this sign was waiting for me! --->






In May, I was completely delighted to welcome two of my dearest friends, Kylie and Melinda to my home for a relaxing few days. We went into Cork and examined the wares for sale, drank hot chocolate and the introduced me to Spaced for the first time. I also invited them to a special tea party followed by a trip to see Avengers Assemble with Martha and Orla.

In June, so much happened! Far too much for me to recount here, but most of it occurred within one week. Bevin came from America and so we spent a week showing her some of the more more exciting parts of England - like London, Warwick Castle, London, Southend-On-Sea, London and some other places.

Emilieee ♥

Here is a picture taken directly after the moment I got a phone call saying I was being offered a place in 3rd year of a BMus performance degree programme. So glad I was with my friends when it happened! :) It was at approximately the same time that we saw the Olympic flame run past the window, too!

Ellie at Electric for a scone and a spot of knitting.

I was so happy in July because Ellie-Murray came to stay with me for four days! We sat down, we ate yoghurts, we went to see Dark Knight Rises, we went shopping, to Blarney Castle, we drank tea. It was a jolly lovely holiday. We even went to the Cork Food Festival and toured the food, eating our way around Cork, essentially, and basking in the evening sun.

At the end of July (the 31st, to be specific!) Lucy, Mel, Emilie and I went to Leavesden Studios for Harry's birthday. It was lovely, we got to see all the beautiful props from the films and it was awe-inspiring to see even that small portion of all the work that went into the films. At the same time, Lucy and I shot a video for LeakyCon 2012 which meant that by the time the tour was over, we really NEEDED to go to TGI Friday for a cocktail. ;) Emilie kindly invited me to stay with her while in London, and I got to experience London during the Olympics (It was weird and quiet!)

Post launch party, the support team has a breather.

Immediately after our Harry Potter adventure (in August,) I took a train to Macclesfield to stay with Laura and Cathrin for their birthdays. They were also releasing their first Goodnight Astor album. We had a lovely few days of watching Gavin and Stacy and listening to the musical hits of the 80s, 90s and 00s before their show.









Apart from going back to college, September was an important month for me and a few of my friends, as we were fortunate enough to go to the launch of The Casual Vacancy. After an interview and Q&A, the occupants of the Southbank Centre were able to meet J.K. Rowling to have their books signed. Here is the seemingly rather innocuous of the very thing occurring...




October was a whirlwind of college work and teaching. I joined the 21st century and bought an iPhone.

On the 30th of November to the 2nd of December my friends and I travelled to Edinburgh for the Snow Ball and Lucy's 30th birthday. We dressed up as action heroes and villains for Lucy's birthday.

The next day, we went to the Snow Ball. Laura, Cathrin and I were performing with Harry and the Potters, Riddle TM and the Pumpkin Pasties.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your year was fabulous and you're all ready for 2013! I'm going to have to go off and think about my new year's resolutions! One will definitely be to blog more! :)

x

A Ripping Yarn!

Every night before I go to bed, I'm writing down everything I've done in bullet-points. I want to look back and not wonder what I did for the whole of June.

The thing is, I've been a bit under the weather for about a week now, so most of what's up there is:

• Poirot.
• Crocheted a snowflake.
• Made brownies.

It's not quite as productive as I'd hoped! I also have a code. If I had a singing lesson: (Y) If I did singing practice: (X) and if I went for a 30 minute run ( ✔). I'm also trying to do a plank every day and build up my time. I have practically no core strength! I hit 60 seconds this week and was SO HAPPY!

Considering I can't do a lot of running around at the moment, I've been doing a lot of knitting and learning to crochet!  Here are a few of the things I've been making!

Add caption

I love this headband! I made it in a really nice earthy green aran yarn (which was on sale!!)

Such is my amazing talent at crochet that I can follow the same pattern and come up with two completely different snowflakes. That's talent, right? Oh... you mean that's NOT mean to happen?!

Again, I followed the same crochet pattern and came up with different sizes of jumpers. The teaspoon is for scale. Aren't they sweet? They're a present for a local bar/restaurant in Cork. :)

This was to show the difference between using usual acrylic yarn and using proper cotton thread. The yarn looks nicer with this pattern, I think. 

I've been making this quilt for about four years. I'm nowhere near done! Maybe this will be the year that it finally gets done? It seems that a patchwork quilt is a massive undertaking. I wish I'd known this four years earlier... It's pretty, though. And I've learned to follow patterns and to make new stitches through making this. Following a varying pattern is way more fun that plain garter stitch.

Hopefully I'll recover in the next few days, and I can post all about my adventured with avocado chocolate mousse... :D x

Le Petit Chat Noir Vintage Fair

The greeting-ladies set the tone for the event with
 their fabulous hair and make-up..

On Sunday, Cork saw it's only proper vintage fair arrive at the Flying Enterprise complete with victory rolls and bunting. I have several friends in the UK who craft and sell at vintage fairs and I wonder all the time why we don't have more of them here. It seems that (in Cork, at least) there is quite a strong interest in the vintage and classic.

Just inside the door I found Aoife from Potty But Posh. Aoife makes beautiful hats, as I learned at the wedding of a mutual friend in February. (I'd meandered over to the table she was sitting at because all the ladies had such  amazing headwear!)

Below are some examples of  Aoife's work. She also sells her hats and headpieces in  Miss Daisy Blue, in the English Market in Cork. Miss Daisy Blue is a vintage clothes shop and also had a stall set up at the fair.

Potty But Posh

Potty but Posh

A treasure-trove, as usual!

This was a stall by one of my favourite shops in Cork (also in the Market!) Peacock and Ruby had a selection of their fine vintage-style wears on display. I love this shop so much and always bring friends to stop in when they visit from outside of Cork.

The 'peacock' from Peacock and Ruby

A purchase! From 'The Gilded Rose'

One of my favourite stalls was this one called 'The Gilded Rose,' which was run by a very nice lady! We had a great chat about her crocheted flowers and I ended up buying the pale blue barrette you see above

Congratulations, Le Chat Noir! It was a lovely event - I hope we'll see more soon!

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I thought these hairbands were
 very cure and great value for money!

A selection of hand-crocheted soft-furnishings by 'Flour'

This was unusual! Historical coins. 

These cakes were INCREDIBLE! I had a mint grasshopper mini
cupcake. Seriously - Swell, if you're reading: can I PLEASE have
the recipe?!

Note: This is how you set out an eye-catching table! These designs are by Silkscreen Sweetie. She wins bonus points from me for having bunting... :)

International Yarn Bombing Day

 This morning my knitting group engaged in a spot of 'Yarn Bombing' in Electric. We subtly knitted bits and stuck them to things. I am responsible for the hideous tea cosy you see pictured. Liz from Reckless Knitting made the cake-stand cosy! 
The staff at Electric must have liked them, though, as they gave my my latte for free! And later they tweeted that if my knitting group knits them a jumper, we'll get a free lunch each! There are plans in motion...

Crochet, flowers and summer time!

St. Brigid Anemones

Huge weights have been lifted off my chest. Tonight I feel lighter and less restricted than I have in months. As of today I'm down to teaching one day per week until the end of June, though I'm still studying and going to lessons for various music exams and auditions coming up.

The decision to fill this summer with as few travel plans as possible came quite naturally after an intensely busy travel year last year. Since Christmas I've sorely felt the need of a nice quiet sit down on my own. There will, of course be adventures with friends in the UK, but for my health and sanity, I need a few weeks of calm, baking and crafting.

My fabulous Cork KnitUp group has begun again after a slow start to the year and I am enjoying it so much! About two weeks ago, the lovely Hilary taught me to crochet and it's really pulled me though these tough final weeks of work.
On Saturday we had our biggest turn out yet with around eight crafters coming! I'm really looking forward to the group every Saturday and it's motivating me to finish projects!

For my birthday I was given a Cath Kidston crochet cusion kit by my friend Orla so that's what I've mostly been working on for the last fortnight. I can't wait for it to be finished and on my bed. :)

Tonight after walking my dog, the neglected packets of seeds that I bought weeks ago called to me. I planted at least 48 sunflower seeds, lettuce, love-in-a-mist, cornflowers and nasturtiums as the sun went down (and the midges came out.) I'm loving the garden right now. The dozens of bulbs I planted in the spring are finally coming into bloom and it's so satisfying!! My herbs are doing really well too and all of the fruit bushes are heavy with unripe berries! 

Singing-wise, things seem to be going well. I had a lesson today,though I was quite worried about it beforehand because I didn't feel I'd done enough practice. I hate the feeling that I could have put more work in. This week was CRAZY with teaching and exams, though, so I really didn't have more time. This week I intend to put in consistent work every day. I'll need to do an hour every day of actual singing.

I find that when I'm out running, most of what I think about is singing. Posture, breathing, mouth shape, facial muscles, placement of breath, meanings of songs and ideas for compositions and concerts are all on my mind for the 50 minutes that I spend out of the house. I think that must be the reason why I'm improving despite not having enough time for long practices.

Having this week's lesson over with is contributing to my feeling of lightness. :) I am so content right now. It's late, but I don't have to be up for any particular reason in the morning, other than to run. :) Leisure!

How are your summers coming together, blog friends? Will they be chilled out, or jam-packed? (Mm...jam..)

Seriously?

An example of a time I wanted to be taken seriously

I am quite confident that I don't take myself too seriously. As I go about my life I literally police myself about it. Recently though, I've worried that I try too hard not to take myself seriously. Perhaps I should start, because if I don't, who will. It's possibly a symptom of what we in Ireland consider a very Irish mentality. We don't like to make it seem like we're anything out of the ordinary. We would like to make it seem that what we do or what we have achieved is just a trifle, that it was nothing. And if anyone acts like they worked hard for what they have, we consider them to be snobs and tend to be suspicious of them.

"Ireland is a nation of begrudgers," is a phrase that is tossed around quite freely here. And it's true. And I often worry that if I were to just explode my sense of containment, to say the really arty, stupid things that come into my head, people would think that I'm assuming another personality and doing it for attention. The reason I've been thinking about it more recently is because I want to be an artist. There is, obviously, a type of artist that is very coy and cunning about everything that they say. I would at least enjoy a period of unpoliced freedom to say and create whatever I like.

I'm always drawn to song-writers who don't follow the rules. Marina and the Diamonds, Regina Spektor, Elbow, Florence and the Machine, Lily Allen. In art class at school, I used to detest when I was making something I was excited about and my teacher would tell me how to fix it and what I shouldn't do. It's that age-old argument of "What is art?" At that point I just wanted the freedom to explore my abilities and what worked and what didn't.

That's what I want now. I'm writing all these slightly absurd lyrics. (One song is actually inspired by the Absurdest play "The Sandbox" by Albee.) And songs about the change that has happened, the way I understand my brain, the people I know and how I feel about what's occurring (<---pop reference!) Even though the speed at which I'm turning out complete songs isn't what I'd hoped, I'm still getting into the lyrics which I always found the hardest part.

In the end, if I start Tweeting or blogging completely teenage things and just seeming a bit pretentious, please don't hate me. I probably won't even get past my self-preservation reflex anyway, but I thought I'd just jot it down... in case.

Bumpy Road

I am extremely unwell. All my energy today went into doing work-work. (As opposed to work.) At the moment I am going to concentrate on battling this chest, throat and sinus infection. But hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to write again. Listening to myself rasping on the last two recordings is driving me around the twist!


Naturally I'm really inspired at this time of not being able to write. ;)

I am enjoying this spoon's face.

<3

Song of the Provinces

On Wednesday (28th April) the choir I sing in, the Fleischmann Choir, opened the Cork International Choral Festival with the Cork School of Music Orchestra. Under the leadership of our conductor Dr. Geoff Spratt we performed Song of the Provinces, a piece written by Professor Aloys Fleischmann himself.

The wonderful thing about this musical work is that it requires audience participation. After the melody is taught, the audience must join in with the choir several times. It's amazing how it came together on the night. Putting it together with the frankly EPIC orchestral accompaniment in rehearsals was one thing, but to hear the audience join in for the main melody was just unbelievable. It gave me shivers and I couldn't keep the grin from my face.

I think Prof. Fleischmann was there in spirit, singing with us. He had admirable views on the importance of choirs in communities and it's undeniable that the the sense of community in the City Hall on Wednesday was at its strongest while everyone sang together.

Below is the video of the performance. Watch Geoff conduct the audience, I love that!

Turn Up The Musing

'On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

A partridge in a pear tree."

Well it's not quite the first day of Christmas, it is however the third day that I have woken up to a blanket of ice covering my car and freezing fog hanging eerily in the air. Imagine my delight when, on Friday morning, after waking up to find that my alarm had not gone off and I was late for work, I opened the door to a virtually opaque world. I had to feel my way to the car armed with jugs of water to melt the windscreen. 

Now don't get me wrong, I hate hazardous driving conditions as much as the next person. But there is something so reassuring about winter being, well, winterish. Especially living in Cork, the Wet and Warm Capital of Ireland, it's nice to see some evidence of the change in seasons. Although I'm not crazy about waking up in the dark, working through the daylight hours and driving home to see a 4pm sunset.

Some people will blame global warming for this unusually bitter weather but I must say that it brings me back to my child hood. Many happy mornings were spent crunching across the frozen grass on my way to school bundled up in hats and scarves and anoraks. Good times. Personally I'm looking forward to the opportunity to don my favourite hats and scarves again. Nothing says "WINTER!" like disappearing under a sea of mittens and socks.

So come on people! Stop complaining! Stoke up that fire, pull out your comfiest blanket and snuggle down. If we're lucky we might just get a white Christmas!

Turn to the Music:

To keep my smile warm I'm listening to "Good Morning Baltimore" from the musical Hairspray.  Listen to it first thing in the morning to keep you happy for the rest of the day.