saturday: spring, mendl's pastry boxes & black forest

On Saturday, I started the day by making a bottle of lemonwater for the week. I get a bit lazy with these things so making a bottle keeps me on track as I know that the benefits of drinking a glass of lemon water first thing in the morning, are numerous and valuable (excuse the mess by the way, I was in the middle of cleaning candle jars as I want to make some homemade spring scented candles). 

Pictured: Zara White Jasmine Perfume - Wet'n'wild H20 Proof Eyeliner in Ultra Black - Topshop Neon Rose Blush - Essence Black is Back Nail Polish - Sally Hansen Mega Shine Top Coat - Real Techniques Stippling Brush - Real Techniques Brow Brush - H&M Eyelash Curlers - Maybelline 24H Color Tattoo in On and On Bronze - Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal in Bright Blue - Bourjois Healthy Mix Concealer 51 - L'Oréal False Lash Telescopic Waterproof - Maybelline Colorsensational Shine Gloss in Cashmere Rose

I then got ready to get out. Lately, I've been enjoying putting blue in my waterline, I think I've been inspired by my trip in Lisbon and all the blue tiles (azulejos) there, as before, electric blue didn't really appeal to me. I'm looking for a blue varnish (something like Nails Inc's Baker Street maybe) but I haven't found anything I liked so far on the highstreet. Do you have any recs?

Just checking that Spring is here :)

Smithfield's Market Place under the glorious blue sky. It felt almost a shame to go to the cinema on such a beautiful day...

Almost! As I couldn't have been more excited that day to watch the new Wes Anderson's release: The Grand Budapest Hotel! (it was sooo good).

After the film, I had a mosey around the Light House Cinema to look at the aftermath of the previous night's party, themed after Wes Anderson's characters. There was a tent in the middle of the room just like in The Royal Tenenbaums and a wall full of drawings of Margot.

We then made our way to the cinema's café as something quite magical was set up at the back of it. Two glass displays holding some real props from The Grand Budapest Hotel!

Turns out that the film's lead designer is Annie Atkins a Welsh graphic designer based in Dublin. She worked on the look of all the paper-related items in the film (passports, labels, letters, correspondence, etc..) and she kindly loaned all her copies to the cinema. It was a truly amazing experience to stand a few inches away from all the beautiful objects she created and that contributed to make Grand Budapest so special.

If you want to see more pictures of the exhibition, hop over to my travel blog, I dedicated a whole post to it.

I then crossed back to the city centre to take the bus to Magda's. It was nice to see daffodils everywhere on my way and I also spotted that interesting sign on Capel Street. Might have bothered with the theory test if the signs were all looking as pretty.

Magda greeted me with a scrumptious looking black forest. Food blogger friends are awesome, don't you think?

  I was experiencing major cat withdrawals after babysitting her cats for 3 weeks last month so it was nice to see their little whiskers again.

  We sat down and chatted about finding your passion, boyfriends vs. tidiness & the Polish bra revolution.

  It was then time for me to go home and crash into bed in a cake-induced coma. Though not before quickly framing my new postcard!

Trim Castle

A couple of week-ends ago, I went on a little secret adventure with Emily from From China Village and Julie from Half a Dream Away. One of our destinations was Trim, a town located a mere 45 minute car journey from Dublin. Trim is mostly known for its very imposing castle, which gained some international fame after being the shooting location for Braveheart.

But, it is also the largest Norman castle in Ireland, it was built in the 12th century (say what?!) and served as a bastion during their invasion of Ireland.

Pretty impressive stuff, right? The town next to the castle is also worth a wander, if only for its charming quaintness, the pastel façades and the flowery pubs.

Oh and don't forget to visit the donkeys on your way out! You won't have trouble finding them, just follow the heehaws.

in London: our surroundings

Some people are living for the weekend, me, I sometimes feel like I'm living for the few days a year I spent in London. I always look forward to a city break there, planning and plotting and day-dreaming. It finally happened a couple of weeks ago!

We stayed in the East End with my friend's Mom who was the best host one could hope for. She just opened an Etsy shop, where she sells her patchwork creations. At the moment, she has beautiful pot holders and pin cushions, but she plans to put up some cushion covers in the near future. Her shop is called PatchworkThings, do check it out if you're looking for pretty presents for your friends or family or even for yourself (UK deliveries only).

As we were all broke, we mostly stuck to the area, but it was not a problem, there are so many things to do in East London. Although many hours were spent being indoors knocked down by the heat wave or recuperating from the previous night's activities and generally chilling; so not the most productive city-break, but here's what we got up to in between!

We stayed just next to London Fields which was just perfect as I've been dying to explore the neighbourhood. You may remember last year, I ended up just sitting in the park as I didn't have any precise directions for the places I actually wanted to check out there. It turns out it is much easier when you're hanging out with locals. I finally got to go to Broadway Market (which is just East of the park if you're wondering) and checked Susie Bubble's bookshop recommendations (Artwords Bookshop and Broadway Bookshop which were both amazing!).

There are many places in Hackney where it feels good walking around when the weather is glorious. 

We strolled along the Regent's canal which was so pleasant and when we got tired, we hopped over in Victoria Park and sat in the shade to take a breather.

Summers in London are magical, and just wandering on its streets looking for watermelons and figs felt pretty special already. 

We visited some cool places, but I'll need to make a few more posts dedicated to them, so I hope y'all can bear with me. 

a little update of sorts

I just spent a week or so at my friend's (she has a yummy food blog, check it out!). She needed someone to baby-sit her two little kittens while she was away on holidays and being the animal-obsessive I am (I'm the mad person who points out at e-ver-y dogs on the street and then squeal), I was super happy to oblige.

It actually felt a bit like holidays for me too, it was dead nice to enjoy her balcony during the short-lived Irish Summer. Also, she lives in a very different area from where I reside and it was very refreshing to see and experience Dublin from another angle.

I jumped on the opportunity to explore my new surroundings and upon Magda's recommendations my first port of call was the Merchants Market, the biggest indoor market in Dublin. I was pleasantly surprised, it is actually brilliant. Loads and loads of second-hand furniture, bric-à-brac, clothes and cheap fruits and vegs. I'll definitely come back! I got some lucky finds too (see picture below): a couple of books and the prettiest tray (remember my obsession for beauty trays?!) for a mere fiver... Bargain!

I know things got a bit quiet around here, but my head was all over the place the past weeks (hell the past year) and after months of running in hopeless circles, I feel like I found the energy and faith to settle down on a project. I'm not going into specifics yet but I'll be sure to let you know when things are up and running. In the meantime, forgive me if I accidently disappear again but I need to focus on that other thing for a little while. I'm going to do my best to be more regular here though and buy a weekly planner because I do have many posts in my draft section, I think I need some structure and organisation.

Also, I'd like to remind all you Google Friends Connect followers that GFC is going to shut down in less than two weeks so if you still want to follow this blog, make sure to make the switch to a new reader (I can heartily recommend Bloglovin but you can find out about alternatives here)

le temps des tulipes

I hope it doesn't get too ridiculously repetitive around here but I went to the National Botanic Gardens for the third time, a couple of weeks ago. I took my Mum, who was visiting for a few days. It was uncharacteristically sunny and the tulips, magnolias, bluebells and azaleas were out. It made for a delightful, colourful walk!

my visit to the Dublin Botanic Gardens in 2011 | in 2012

Something I didn't know prior to this visit is that this place is linked with one of the darkest period in Irish history. It was here that the infection responsible for the dreadful potato famine was indentified and research labs were laid on the very same ground.

Also, I found out that some of the glasshouses were built with some extra ironwork coming from one of my favourite places in London, the Kew Gardens. I think I may be even more in love with the National Botanic Gardens now!

Check out those crazy-looking flowers! They're called Protea Eximia and are from South Africa.

On a unrelated note, I got sucked in by the new flickr look as well as the free Terabyte (!) available and just opened a flickr account. Are any of yous on it?