Monday 30 May 2016

The Irish connection

On this fine bank holiday weekend my sister and I took a little jaunt over to Dublin to see our brother and his missus. We headed out on Friday night and had two whole days of fun and games ahead of us!
We arrived pretty late so our first night was spent just relaxing and having a laugh. Phil appreciated my brickless shawl, but I'm not sure he was wearing it right.


Then the next morning I was receruited to repair a beloved Spot the Dog whose front paw was heading in the direction of falling off... I'm surprised I wasn't presented with some missing buttons and a hem or two while I was there. It was ok though, in return I got an awesome fry up breakfast with all the trimmings. So on day 1 we headed into Dublin to do the tourist thing, it's only a short DART ride away from where they live. We wandered around the shops for a bit, found the creepiest street performers ever! Too scary to take a photo... Trust me. Then took a bus tour up to the Guiness factory, on the way we passed the handiwork of students? Drunken revellers? Who cares, it's awesome!!


Ha ha.... Fairy liquid + fountain = amusement.

We then spent the rest of the day in the Guiness factory (tip... It's worth getting a deal on the tour busses to be able to skip the massive que), I don't even like Guiness but this was awesome.


This place is huge, and even the bricks and mortar of the building are amazing to see (see right hand pic), there was the history of, the making of, the advertising of (tick followed tock followed tick), and a free pint at the end in the sky bar. Now I mentioned I didn't like the stuff... But my brother really does, and it's worth getting there just for the view... Of the WHOLE of Dublin!

Cue the messing about photos...
Just some messing around on the advertising floor (there was a photo booth where you could put your face into the old adverts).

It was my Belcarra blouse that day for me-made May... Just sayin

There may have also been some messing around outside while waiting for the bus to take us back into town.

Well we were quite worn out after all of those shenanigans so headed out to an awesome restaurant that evening and just sat drinking wine... Good times.

On day 2 the sister in law had the idea to head up into the countryside... It was an awesome sunny day for it. They took us to a country house called Powerforce house in Co. Wicklow... Let me tell you, this place took my breath away..

Non-filtered or edited picture... It really looked like that!

And the gardens were just huge

With beautiful details and rhododendrons all over the place, I loved everything! We stopped in the cafe for a cheeky glass of prosecco just to bask in the sunshine, it was blissful. That night Maeve had decided it was just perfect weather for a barbecue... Trouble was they didn't have a barbecue... So we went out to a cheapish shop nearby and bought one. Cue me and the boy trying to put together a million piece barbecue before the other guests arrived... It was stressful... But guess what...


We are awesome! (Also Plantain t-shirt for me-made that day)
So next morning it was time for our flight home... A very short trip... But stuffed full of awesome... Thank you Maeve and Phil for having us xx

And I know what you're all thinking... But what knitting went with you?! Well as I had just recently finished my Brickless shawl (more on that soon), I jumped straight in and began another shawl...

 
This one is the Heaven and Space pattern (found on Ravelry) in baby Merino, a beautiful cloud grey. It's a good knit as it's just difficult enough to keep it interesting, but you can easily memorise it and don't need to check the pattern every two minutes. And I already love it.

So anyway, long post, but I hope it was interesting (there were at least some pretty pictures)








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