New Hair Cut

This time, I went to the Toni and Guy Academy. It took nearly 3 hours, with the supervisor keeping a very close eye on the student's work. The student, Philip from the Czech Republic, seemed to be very capable. He always made sure he understood the supervisor's instructions before he took the scissors to my hair! I was charged 25 Euro, which surprised me a bit. When I had gone in the last time as a model for a trainee in one of their salons, it was free. But it was worth it (when I think that I was charged 63 Euro at my hairdresser in December, and I wasn't happy with the cut!). I'm happy with the look. It's a little bit more layered than I expected, and I'll have trouble getting it right when I blow-dry it, but I think it looks nice, and, at that price, I'll go again.

Just ignore the roots - I'll update the colour at the weekend! (For those of you who thought I was a natural red-head, just go through a few of the pictures from previous posts, and you'll notice the varying shades!

(Check out the last Hair Cut post)

Next Step

The next step in my project, which has been moving at a swift pace over the last few days, was to trace the picture - I'm not proud + I've already done a freehand drawing of it, so I see nothing wrong with tracing!

To do this, I decided to use the Wacom tablet that PC Medic purchased last year, rather than using tracing paper. After a little bit of fiddling around to adjust the screen vs tablet settings, it was very easy to use. I spent a good bit of time on Friday and Saturday trying out all sorts of techniques with different types of paint brushes, oils, pastels, crayons, etc.... all available with the bundled software. As I love experimenting with new media, this was the perfect excuse for me to spend hours doodling without really thinking about the end result! I will show you some of the resulting pictures in future posts.

Next project - Poppy

I've already started work on the next watercolour project - working from one of the pictures of poppies Brendan took in Airfield last year.
I love the bright red of the petals, and the textured centre of the flower, with its dark purple core and the shiny green of the poppy head, which looks like a juicy apple.

This is a picture I've been thinking of for a long time, but that I've been afraid to tackle. It's so rich and bright, I wasn't sure if watercolours were the right tool for it. But, since reading the book by Shirley Trevena, "taking risks with watercolour", I feel there are so many options I had not considered before - watercolour doesn't have to be pale and soft! I'm going to try out a variety of techniques, and maybe different media before I actually get to try watercolour. But I feel that watercolour will work, maybe not on my first attempt, but I'm prepared to have a few goes at it.

The first step I've taken is to do a drawing of it, to figure out the darks and lights, and the proportions of the various elements

Ballynahinch Sunset

Well, it took a long time in the making, but I've finally finished painting my Ballynahinch Sunset!

As you know, my first attempt wasn't entirely satisfactory. But I learned from my mistakes, and I am now happy to show the end result. It's still not perfect, but I'm not going to do another one. At this stage, I've had enough of that picture. Actually, I've already started work on the next project. But more about that later...


I'm very happy with the washes done with my Utrecht Squirrel brush. The paint was gliding onto the paper, creating a lovely smooth finish, with no blotches.


In terms of overall composition, the first attempt was actually nicer, with busy elements keeping the eye on the painting. This one is almost too smooth, and I find that the eye goes from the bottom left to the top right of the painting without stopping anywhere else - that's because the band of pale yellow in the diagonal attracts the eye, and there is nothing in these two corners to stop it. I could crop the picture to address that, but, for now, I'll leave well enough alone.

I've also included two details from the final product. Click on each picture to see it full size. I think the colours are glorious. Better than the actual painting!

Happy Birthday, Brendan

Wishing you a very happy birthday.

Here is one of my special creations.

Response-O-Matic

It's not very often that I write about technical subjects. I leave that to PC Medic. I have been investigating how you could put in a form into a blog so that you could ask other people to submit information to you without having to give them your email address.

A lot of digging around and a search in Blogger help pointed to Response-O-Matic, a website where you can create a form to your specification, then incorporate it into your website or blog. The information submitted into the form is sent to your via email, but the email address is not visible to the people who fill in the form.

Their website claims that the "form wizard will have you up and running in about 8 minutes". Well, it's true. The steps were quite easy to follow and there was a lot of flexibility in the form design elements you can choose from - standard fields, text fields, radio buttons, tick boxes, etc...

I needed a bit of extra help from them, when the form I had created was displaying too low in my post, with a lot of blank lines in front of it. I couldn't figure out why, so I contacted their support team. I got a reply that evening, pointing me to a setting in Blogger that was causing extra blank lines. So, after that extra tweak, it worked beautifully.

All of that for free! I was thrilled with the product and with the service.

Here is the result: MHBD Scratchpad

All without any programming, just a bit of HTML copy and paste, and using Blogger's new design elements to make it look nice. (And a lot of searching around the web to actually find this tool!).

Art Talk

A few months ago, I got my hands on a magazine called "Irish Arts Review". Plenty of beautiful pictures of gorgeous paintings, but who writes the articles?

One of the articles I read was about an artist who lives and works on the Beara Peninsula, Sarah Walker.
Another article was about Tim Hawkesworth, an artist born in Ireland, who now lives in the US, I think.

Both artists, as you'll see from their websites, who produce beautiful works of art.

Now, I would find it very hard to describe their work. I just don't have the vocabulary to describe what I see and what I feel when I look at their paintings. But the Irish Arts Review writers are certainly not lost for words. Too many big words in my opinion!

Here is an extract from the article about Sarah Walker: "This dichotomy between abstract patternage and organic structure as a visual conceit seems to thread its way through her process. This dialectical element of her work seeks to disengage the viewer from simplistic visual metaphors whether they are signalled by the title of the work, or more obviously apparent in naturalistic pattern, notionally referring to landscape."

Now, I think I understand the first bit - the paintings in the magazine at first look like abstract lines and shapes, but, when you look closer, you see the leaves, flowers and blades of grass that inspired the painting. But I have no idea what the 2nd sentence means. And the article goes on and on (and on) in the same vein.

Would you like to read the first paragraph in the article about Tim Hawkesworth, called "Activating the Canvas"? Here it goes: "There is something profound about coming across authentic painting. The eye races around the canvas, being passed from one brushstroke to another in an exhilarating optical dance" (so far so good, but wait for the next bit) "There is a glut of information, a greased communication, where gesture, colour, form and image all jostle for attention. The mind elbows itself into this fray offering meanings to the experience - interpretation best left for afterwards, for quiet recollection" (and maybe for mature recollection too!)

You can decide for yourself, but my mind doesn't elbow itself into anything when I look at these paintings. I just let my eyes and my feelings do the work, just enjoying the shapes and colours, without trying to read anything into it. Maybe I'm not intellectual enough to understand these paintings.

For me, it's the same with music - I don't necessarily understand musical structure, but it doesn't stop me enjoying Mozart. Maybe that's why I don't particularly like Mahler (not that I've tried much!) - but in my simplistic view, if art - visual or musical - doesn't appeal to my senses, what's the point?

So, go to their websites and decide if you like what you see.

PS: Picture posted here was taken from the LittleJohn Gallery website, as there were copy restrictions on the Tim Hawkesworth website.

Books I've been reading

I've read a few books over the last 3-4 weeks. That's the nice thing about having to take it easy!

I read On Beauty, by Zadie Smith. I had read her first book, White Teeth, a few years ago and enjoyed it immensely. I have mixed feelings about On Beauty. There are some scenes in it that are priceless, and some of the female characters are full of life. But I found it hard to feel for the male characters - I just didn't find them interesting enough. Some of them were not supposed to be nice characters, so, I didn't expect to like them, but I felt I didn't care what happened to them. So, a bit disappointed, as I had read plenty of good reviews about it.

Then I read The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan: The Magicians' Guild, The Novice, and The High Lord. These were easy reads, but thoroughly enjoyable. I couldn't put them down. They are probably geared at teenage readers, but that didn't stop me. The 3 books are just a very good story, and I wanted to keep on reading to find out what was going to happen next.

And I've discovered that Trudi Canavan is also a painter and graphic artist. Have a look at her website for her designs and paintings. Some of her designs even include maps for schoolbooks!

The Wildlife of South Dublin - Continued

Remember Derrick Mooney's blue tits? We watched them grow on RTE's website last summer. Well, as you know, we live on the same housing estate as Derrick, and lately, we have been noticing a few blue tits on the trees in the back of our garden. This morning, a beautiful sunny day, they are hopping from tree to tree and singing their hearts out.

If you missed the RTE program last year, RTE still have it on their website. Here is the link to it.

I think, and hope, that they are too fast for Willow.

(PS: picture is from RTE's website)

Birthdays this month

Only one birthday this month: Brendan, on 8 February!

Progress report

I'm making some progress with my pink/purple lake. I have completed one version of it that has some good aspects to it. I'm particularly happy with how I handled the dark reflection of the trees in the water. I mixed a good dollop of sepia paint in with the dark water wash I had used for the bottom part of the picture. I then used a stick to draw the paint across, creating a fuzzy effect, which I think works well.

The colours I chose work together, and I managed to blend them with enough subtlety to give a good impression of the pink clouds reflecting in the water. But the darker water in the bottom right of the picture gave me some trouble: as I was working wet-into-wet, there was a lot of water on the paper, and some of it ran back from the bottom of the paper, producing heavy backruns.

Not good enough to show here, but there is enough that I'm happy with to have another go! The pictures here are cut-outs from this first attempt, with the bits I like and the bits that are not so good.

So, I've started a second attempt at it. My first wash was the best wash I've ever done, thanks to a lovely big squirrel brush I bought in the Utrecht art shop in New York (heaven for art supplies lovers like me!). It holds so much paint that it glides over the paper and there is still plenty of paint in the brush by the time you get to the end of the line. It has a distinctive smell. I'm not sure if that's how squirrels smell, but it reminds me of the smell of old fur coats in my Mother's wardrobe! I think it's going to become one of my favourite brushes!

Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them in a larger format. They look better on screen than the overall picture looks in reality, but, hey, that's the beauty of online art!

Roundstone

When we went to Connemara a few weeks ago, we went into Roundstone for lunch one day. Our experience last summer had been pretty awful. We had had a bowl of seafood chowder in a hotel on the main street, and it was vile - a watery, milky soup with thin burnt brown bread. And the waiter just didn't know what to do when we complained. He actually offered to give us another slice of the burnt bread! It was such a disappointment - we just could not find a decent place to eat at lunchtime anywhere in Connemara - food was of poor quality, and expensive, where-ever we went. We felt really ripped off. That no place could be bothered to make decent, simple, good-value food for tourists was such a disappointment. And such a reflection on the rip-off culture in Ireland!

So, this time, we made sure we did our homework before we headed off - 2 people recommended we try O'Dowd's. And we were not disappointed. We stopped in the bar for lunch - Brendan had a vegetable soup, I had a seafood chowder, and we shared a plate of squid. It was all delicious, homemade, and good value, and we were given 2 portions of homemade brown bread. The squid was perfectly cooked - not rubbery

It restored our faith in the Irish tourism industry.

Pictures are winter and summer views across the bay from Roundstone towards the Twelve Bens.

Yoga

This week, I was finally feeling better and started going to the gym again, and went to my yoga class on Tuesday evening. I took it easy, but I felt much better after it.

The class is taught by Patricia Murphy in Airfield. I've been going to her classes for years, and I only ever miss a class if I'm really sick. She is a great teacher - she always seems to be able to bring a new angle to each class to keep us motivated and interested. No esoteric or mystic talks - but a good overall yoga practise. She's into other aspects of health and fitness, and she is always sharing her other experiences with the class - she's got big into running in the last couple of years, and she often has great stories to tell us.
It's not just a physical practise, though: she introduces all elements of yoga, including relaxation, meditation and chakras, but she doesn't push anything that she feels would alienate those in the class who only want a good stretch. She is full of energy and really down to earth, and I always feel good after the class.

Have a look at her blog if you want to find out more.

Bon anniversaire, Françoise

La carte est postée!

When Philip Met Isabella

I'm currently agonising about my next watercolour. I want to do a view of the still water on the lake at the back of Ballynahinch Castle Hotel, from a picture we took last summer. It's all delicate colours subtly blending into each other, with very little movement. I still don't know how I'm going to do this, so I'm finding any possible excuse to delay the moment when I put paintbrush to paper.

One of the books Brendan gave me for Christmas is "taking risks with watercolour" by Shirley Trevena. Her watercolours are nothing like what you'd expect watercolours to be - they are a vibrant riot of colours blending and merging together with little regard for the standard "rules". One of the pieces of advice she gives to fight off the fear of the white page is to do an abstract painting, using all the colours you plan to use for your "proper" painting, and letting loose on the page. A great excuse for me to splatter paint all over the page, and a great way to enjoy putting colours together, without fear of getting it wrong!

Well, thank you Shirley - I did this last night and had a great time with beautiful, vibrant colours. It looks nothing like what my lake painting will eventually look like, but I've put together a lively painting which I'm very happy with. A painting which reminds me of a Philip Treacy hat, hence the title...

More pictures...

I'm still not 100% recovered from my throat and chest infection, so I'm taking it easy. I've worked through the week, but at a slower pace. Around 4 yesterday, I just had to put my feet up and take it easy for the evening - I was feeling very low on energy. After a good night's sleep (no coughing - a minor miracle!), I feel pretty good, but I won't be up to much today. Just getting laundry organised has got me feeling like I need a little rest.

The weather outside has just turned from bright blue skies to dark clouds, high winds and heavy rain. The perfect reason to stay in, pick up my book and relax for the rest of the day.

The picture below looks more like the Wild West than Connemara. I love the dark blue in the shadow of the mountain.


Bon Anniversaire, MaLouise

More pictures ....

A picture a day keeps the blogger away...

More pictures from Connemara

Busy busy run run, so not much time to write today. I prepared a few pictures yesterday, so I can present them on days I don't have time to write. This one is a view looking out from Killary Fjord. We were standing more or less across the road from the Killary Adventure Centre. A beautiful spot, right bang in the middle of nowhere.


Compare this picture to the one taken from the same spot last summer: Click on this link.

Les lacs du Connemara - pictures

Here is a picture taken last week on the main road that goes from Galway to Clifden. This is around Recess, as far as I remember. It's probably one of the most photographed spots in Connemara - Big mountains, blue lake, small island with photogenic trees, and also telegraph poles and cables!

How good resolutions take a backseat...

I was serious about going to the gym, and about drawing and painting, but I haven't done anything in the last week. Of course, I have very good excuses for this, which I'm going to go through now.

Last Sunday, we drove to Connemara (yes, I can hear the tune in my head ... "Terre brûlée au vent, Des landes de pierre..." - every time!) for a minibreak. We had decided that, after a busy family-oriented Christmas and New Year, we wanted a bit of time for ourselves. So we booked a 3-night stay in the Ballynahinch Castle Hotel in Recess. We had liked it so much in the summer, that we decided it was the perfect location for a winter minibreak.
While the weather wasn't perfect - this is the West of Ireland in the winter after all - we had enough dry weather to enjoy a walk on the beach at Dogs Bay and Gurteen Bay, near Roundstone (pictures in a previous post). And of course, the weather was glorious on the day we were heading back to Dublin. We saw some dramatic scenery in various weather conditions - mountains emerging out of the clouds for a brief moment, before disappearing again, perfect blue skies that bring out the orange colour on the ground, purple mountains in the dying light, waves on the lakes. Scenery that's not as easy to photograph as perfect blue skies of summer, unfortunately, but we took plenty of pictures all the same.

And of course the hotel was perfect. We had a river-view room. More modern than the room we had in the summer - Lovely bathroom, with a walk-through wardrobe and dressing area (with double doors leading through each - very Hollywood!); Nice big bed; Good central heating.

The food was excellent (the 3-night deal included 2 evening meals in their main Restaurant - well worth a visit). I had lobster one of the nights - I love food I can play with, and Brendan enjoys watching me wrestle with the claws. I had pan-fried scallops the other night. I can't remember what starters and soups were but all were good. Brendan enjoyed his lamb (cooked to perfection) and monkfish. And desserts, of course, were to die for - I had panacotta the first night (this is the only place I know that does panacotta - I'll have to go back to that recipe I found in the summer!). It was Baileys panacotta (but just a very subtle hint) with - wait for this - lavender coulis (well probably not a coulis - but Lavender! You would not have found this kind of food in Ireland 20 years ago!). Brendan had a simple but scrumptious flan one night and the special chocolate dessert on our last night, whereas I opted for a simpler, but nonetheless delicious, rice pudding with stewed plums.

And I had pan-fried liver for my breakfasts. I love liver, but Brendan doesn't. As he is the designated cook and I never think of asking for it, I don't get to eat liver at home! So, I enjoyed it all the more.

If you like good food, just book yourself a few days there. You won't be disappointed. Note that they are doing some refurbishment work in rooms on the 2nd floor. It's well managed and wasn't a problem while we were there. That's supposed to be finished by April I think. They're also talking about setting up a spa (though one of the duty managers said that she had been told to say "treatment rooms" rather than "spa". I guess they don't want to talk it up too much.) Well, I'll have to go back to check it out and report...

And we bumped into Alexis, who was there on her honeymoon. So I finally got to meet Pat, her husband. When I saw her first in the lounge, I just saw her in profile, and I wasn't sure it was her. But when we walked into the restaurant later that evening, I had to go over to their table and say hi (and thank God it was her).

So, I've only accounted for 3 days. What was I doing for the rest of the time? Well, I was sick. That's not very exciting so I won't go into the boring details of sitting up in bed all night to try and stop the coughing fits (and failing). Throat and chest infection - I don't know why I always think I'll be able to fight it off without antibiotics. I always end up needing antibiotics. Just as well I don't get sick very often.

I feel I have a lot of catching up to do. Plenty of things to paint and draw, and write about.

And of course, it will be back to the gym in the next few days, and back to yoga classes next Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it all (that and doing my P35s and P60s!)

PS: Pictures from Connemara to follow - I still need to sort through all the pictures we took.

Bon Anniversaire, Sander

Sander a un an! Et il marche déjà! Pour voir les images de ses premiers pas, allez faire un tour sur le site d'Yves. Vous trouverez les photos sous la rubrique "A la maison". Le site contient toutes sortes d'articles sur l'enseignement, la physique, la chimie et l'informatique. Moi, il n'y a que les photos qui m'intéressent vraiment!

Bon anniversaire, Maman

Avec un jour de retard, je te souhaite un très bon anniversaire. J'espère que la carte arrivera bientôt et que tu ne devras pas payer de supplément pour la poste!

Next projects

I'm not making much progress in painting and drawing projects these days. I'm experimenting with plenty of new techniques from a watercolour book Brendan gave me for Christmas, but I'm not actually painting anything much. I get so absorbed in the techniques that I forget about creating something. I've done some nice splatters of blues and yellows and masking fluid, and I'm experimenting with different paint qualities - transparent & opaque, staining and non-staining - all things which will come in useful when I actually apply them to a painting, but I feel I'm not very inspired these days.

I have a painting in mind, based on a picture of the still water on the lake behind Ballynahinch Castle - it's evening, and the water is perfectly calm; the low sun is reflected in the water, and the colours are subtle mauves and pale golds. The problem I have is that I have no idea how to tackle that stillness in watercolour. I should just experiment. But it's so much easier to play with new techniques rather than actually taking the risk of trying to paint this!

I've done a good few drawings over the last week. There wasn't much else to do in the few days after Christmas, and I've practiced my ellipses - very difficult to do, ellipses! I need a lot more practice! - and I've done plenty of little thumbnail sketches. Nothing worth posting, but good practice all the same.

10 years married!

OK, I'm a few weeks behind in mentioning this, but things were just too busy around Christmas, and I didn't get a chance to blog as much as I wanted to.

On 20 December, we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Just like our wedding day, there were no big fanfares! Actually, the day was dominated by the drama of fog in Charleroi and cancelled Ryanair flights.

But we made time for ourselves in the evening and went to Langkawi, a Malaysian restaurant on Baggot Street which has become our anniversary restaurant - we've made it a family tradition to go there on our wedding anniversary, and I wouldn't go anywhere else, even if you paid me.

Over the years, the food quality has gone up and down, and prices have definitely gone up, but I still really like going there and discovering new dishes. I definitely made the better choice for starters, with tasty and tender meatballs, while Brendan's fried chicken was a bit too crisp. It was the reverse for main courses. I can't remember what Brendan had, but he enjoyed it. I had a beef dish - the sauce had a lot of flavour, but unfortunately, the meat was tough.

One of the things I love in there is the art on the walls. They have some gorgeous big paintings, some with an Oriental theme, and others which look a bit out of place, but still somehow work: there is one of an Asian dancer - the light is captured beautifully on her face; there are also a couple of smaller square paintings of Chinese bowls - I would love to take those home - they look so simple, yet so perfect; there is one with a big dragon; and then there is one that looks like a Mediterranean wall and steps with geraniums. Langkawi is definitely worth a visit, if only for the visual joy of those paintings!

Birthdays this month

A lot of birthdays in January!
Mary - 1 January. Sorry I didn't get to call!
Maman - 7 janvier
Sander - 12 janvier
Françoise - 22 janvier
Zara - 23 January

And MaLouise was born in January too. She is dead a good few years now, but I think it's still nice to think of her on the date of her birth - 20 January

Back to the Gym

The last few weeks have been pretty bad in terms of exercise. Not only have I not gone for too many walks, but I've hardly gone to the gym either. When the alarm goes off and it's still so dark outside, we have turned around and gone back to sleep instead! Well, this morning, we have tried a new strategy: rather than try to get up at 6:15 (and fail every morning!), we set the alarm clock for 7, and we did manage to get up and go to the gym. It was lovely and quiet up there - it's an in-between time - and we enjoyed a light session to get back into the swing of things.

The gym we go to is Total Fitness Sandyford. It takes less than 10 minutes to get there - a big motivator for us. It's got good facilities overall, though I have to say that the changing rooms are not as clean as they used to be. They used to have an Eastern European girl cleaning there in the morning, and she was very efficient and thorough. Things have gone down since she has left. I have complained to the manager, but I can't say I've seen much of an improvement since I talked to him.

But overall, it's not bad, and I feel it really makes a difference for me. Who would have thought that I would become a gym goer?? If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said NO WAY!! I'm not fanatical about it - I like a gentle routine rather than a vigorous workout - but I try to get there 4 times a week. Our average in December probably got down to once or twice a week, so we have a bit of catching up to do!

So, that's my good resolution for the New Year!

Dark days of winter

After a family-oriented Christmas, we're back working today. Plenty to catch up on, plenty of broken computers that need fixing, so we've had a busy day.

I'm sure the days are getting longer already, but it's still so dark! I can't wait for the days to get longer. I normally love this time of the year, as I watch for the faintest glimmer of light in the sky! But I was in the house pretty much all day today, so I didn't really get a chance to feel the fresh breeze on my face and to see the sky, beyond the bit I can see out the window.

Tomorrow is another day, and I'll try to get out more, and get a walk in. I feel I really need to get more oxygen into my lungs. Normally, we'd go for a walk every day over the Christmas period, and get plenty of fresh air. This year, we only went for a brief walk in Bray, and a stroll over in Marlay Park. And a 10-minute walk on the waterfront in Blackrock, Co. Louth, and one walk around Black Island in Castleblayney. So, my body is screaming for fresh air!

A piece of trivia: It is in the baths in Blackrock, Co. Louth, that Brendan learned how to swim!

And a rant: The baths are no longer there now. They have been replaced by an awful apartment block, so typical of the ugly architecture in small towns all around Ireland - completely out of context with its environment.
The worst town I've seen in recent years in that regard is Clifden in Connemara. Clifden used to be a picturesque town. Not any more! A multi-story car park and apartment block was built on the edge of the town. It dominates the landscape and has ruined the view from one side of town. And there are plenty more apartment blocks going up. How did the local councillors give planning permission for such eyesores?

And in case the first picture did not reveal the horror in all its gory details, here is a close-up!

Bon anniversaire, Erika

Je te souhaite un très très bon anniversaire! Voici une reproduction de la carte que je t'ai envoyée. J'espère qu'elle te plaît. Je l'ai crée avec des aquarelles - un tracé blanc avec une gomme spéciale, un fond bleu et une note rose qui s'est mélangée avec le bleu. Je te montrerai comment faire la prochaine fois que tu viendras me voir en Irlande. Le bleu est un "bleu de Delft" et le rose est un "rouge rubis".

Gros bisous!

China Sichuan - we have more information

We were down in the China Sichuan restaurant before Christmas - we had a gorgeous meal there again, with my parents this time.

In the time-honoured Chinese restaurant tradition, we were given a calendar at the end of our meal. [Well, I'm not sure how much of a tradition it is, really, but our Chinese Take-away delivery man always gives us one! (our Chinese take-away is Yumi, on Bird Avenue in Clonskeagh, the most consistent take-away I've ever seen. I eat the same thing every Friday evening, and it's always just perfect - King Prawn Sweet and Sour, not very original, but why change if I'm happy with it?)]

And on this calendar, we found all the information we had been looking for:

1. Where is China Sichuan moving to? The Forum, Ballymoss Road, Sandyford, across from the Stillorgan Luas Stop in Sandyford. (There is even a little map on the calendar.)
   
2. When was the China Sichuan restaurant established? In 1986.
3. What is my Chinese horoscope sign? Dragon.
   
4. Well, there is one question still unanswered - When are they moving? Brendan asked Kevin and his answer was "it was supposed to be 4 months ago". So we'll have to wait a while longer to have this final question answered.

By the way, for the few of you who are stumbling upon this page when looking for the China Sichuan restaurant's & Yumi TakeAway phone numbers, here they are:

China Sichuan: 288 4817 or 288 0882
Yumi, Clonskeagh: 269 3488 or 269 2151

Met Broadcast - Rigoletto

When you're writing every day, there always seems to be something to talk about. But if you stop writing for a few days, it seems much harder to start again. I'm not sure if that's true for everybody, but it's certainly true for me. We've been busy over the last while, and I just haven't had a chance to attend to my blog. And now that I've managed to grab a few minutes for myself, I'm not sure what I want to write about.

Maybe I'll tell you about the Met Broadcasts. The Metropolitan Opera in New York have a special program through which they broadcast live performances to the world. They have this program called Sirius satellite radio. But I've found out that Lyric FM play the Met Saturday Matinée broadcasts on Saturday evenings (GMT).

I caught it for the first time last Saturday evening, as Brendan was out. I listened to Verdi's Rigoletto, and it was a real joy. This Saturday is Verdi's Don Carlo. I might not get a chance to listen to it, as it's a busy time of the year, but I'll try to catch other performances in future.

Rigoletto is one of my favourite operas. I saw it for the first time in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, a good few years ago. It was a glorious production - very simple, but very effective. I remember the scene where Rigoletto arrives home. He is on the street, then a white curtain is pulled, and he is inside his house. It was so simple, but it worked really well. And I remember the flames coming out of the stage when the lightning was striking in the big thunderstorm scene at the end of the opera, when Gilda sacrifices herself to save the Duke's life.
The music is big and gorgeous, and the story is tragic. All perfect ingredients for a good opera.

I've been to a good few operas over the years, and I've been to some really boring productions, so it's a joy when all the ingredients come together well. I've often found that for every good one I've seen at the Gaiety, there has been one bad one. On the other hand, the operas at the festival in Wexford have always been great productions.

That's all I've got time for, folks. More about my favourite operas some other time!