My life Lately in photos:)

Some days are filled with waiting

Sunny afternoon reading

This is the face I make when I’m trying to photograph roses.

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Moroccan crafts, recipes, desserts, dinners and drinks and inspiration for you:)

Moroccan Crafts

• Hurricane Lamp
• Glass Jars
• candle holders

Moroccan Meals

• 1.Grilled sardines
• 2. Moroccan chicken stew with lemon and olives
• 3. Moroccan merguez ragout with poached eggs
• 4. Moroccan vegetable tagine

Moroccan Desserts and sweets

• 1. Almond butter crescents
• 2. Moroccan spiced dark chocolate truffles
• 3.Salty sweet sublime bisteeya
• 4.Ghoriba Moroccon style cookies for holi

Moroccan Drinks

• 1. Jen Altman’s Morocco
• 2.Banana Milk Drink
• 3. Moroccan Mint Tea
• 4. Apple milk drink sharbat

Morocco Etsy Treasury

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 Quadrophenia and More

Africkenmazing! I saw Quadrophenia and More yesterday in The 02 Dublin. It was the most amazing concert I have ever been too! The whole show was spectacular with a fabulous atmosphere from the crowd.

It would be a difficult job for any act to open for The Who but Vintage Trouble were the perfect choice.  They got the whole audience on their feet and the lead vocalist Ty Taylor was charismatic and confident. He LEAPT off stage and performed standing on the chairs in the crowd to huge applause.

And then THE WHO!

A message was put up before it started:

“Roger is allergic to smoke and would greatly appreciate if you would stick to brownies ”.

Good advice for the very emotional and swaying young men who really liked the lighting. One man behind us cried through most of the concert and gave a single person standing ovation whenever Keith Moon’s picture would appear on-screen. “Stand up for Keith Moon!” he kept shouting hoarsely. “Stand up for Keith Moon!” And damn straight, we did.

The played the entire Quadrophenia album then followed up with old favourites including Baba O’Riley, Behind Blue Eyes and Who are you. Pure Rock Ecstasy.  Baba o’Riley is my all-time favourite song. If my life was a movie that would be my happy ending song.   If you are a fan and they are playing anywhere near you I urge you to go!  All in all it was a fantastic night and one I will never forget:)

 For your listening pleasure: Vintage Trouble

Concert Playlist on Spotify

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• Flash Fiction competition: You can read the 22 varied and beautiful flash fictions on writer Carmel Harringtons Blog.  Take a break and have a cup of tea and read through the entries:)

• Here you can find the Facebook heart of the Irish bloggers.  Take a look here and explore

• June deadlines for writing competitions if you want a challenge — found on the Anna Livia Review blog.

• Check out this amazing wedding photography by Quinn Miller Photography!
• Beautiful vintage styling in this photo shoot for Irish Fashion label Charlotte + Jane

• Found on The Rock&Roll Tea Party Facebook page.  Follow them for gorgeous vintage clothes and style ideas and you can buy your Pin Up outfits from them.  I’m currently drooling over this:

Lovely vintage Pin up dress

• Follow this Facebook page and you’ll be full of the giggles    The whimsical and bizarre accompanying explanations from Chris(Simpsons artist) are the best part.  Read them.  Do it.

Crazy LOLZ from this new Facebook artist

Before I go here is a little Haiku I wrote dedicated to summer:

Summer

The daylight stretches

like a satisfied cat:

Time to shave my legs.

Follow me on Twitter for random nonsense from me:)

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Groove Festival

Groove Festival is a new and exciting music festival taking place here in little old Bray which I am ridiculously excited about. It’s held in the gorgeous grounds of Kilruddery house and includes Music, a market, food and much more. It takes place on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th of July. Headliners are James Morrison and the wonderful Imelda May and they are supported by Damien dempsey, Bray Gospel Choir and Ham Sandwich. The organisers say the music is Soul, Funk, Roots, R&B and Rock & Roll and there will be over 30 acts over the weekend. Groove is a kid friendly festival; there is a working farm for the kids to see as well as a climbing wall for kidults and a chill out area called the soul circle.

They will have a market with food( including a hog roast and tapas bar), Art and Crafts and records and vintage clothing.

It takes place from 2pm to 10.30pm on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th July and has a capacity of under 5,000.
It should be amazing!

You can find out more here

Also please check out the wonderful Carmel Harringtons blog where she is running a flash fiction competition. Read the entries and enter yourself too:) If you want to read it my entry is here

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Visiting Marrakech

Marrakech is a sensory riot:  the tang of spices, the warm desert air against your face, music , food and dancing monkeys.  One must not forget the dancing monkeys.  And the blue! I have never seen blue like that.  Blue in the sky and blue in the paint of the gardens. Twilight is beautiful.  Daylight falls from the square and lamp by lamp it becomes another world.

I wandered through it alone with my camera and my curiosity.  Being a woman alone I was called in by the female stall sellers more often. I had my hand painted in henna; beautiful intricate spirals. A group of Berber tribeswomen wearing veils called mandeels pulled me over and sat me down on a plastic stool.  One all in black proceeded to read my palm.  She didn’t speak English, so when she proclaimed what she saw another tribeswoman translated it into French, then another into broken faltering English: a game of Moroccan whispers.

“Two years- you will be married”, one said.  “Three kids. Very happy.”

They all nodded at me smiling. It was just like a visit to see my older female relatives.  I love seeing the relationships of women in Muslim countries.  So often when I’m travelling they are hidden from tourist areas where it’s mostly men walking around and working in the shops and hotels there. They stay in groups, like these Berber tribes women.  And although they are dressed differently than what I’m used to they are always still essentially Woman. We gossip, we talk. We communicate. We have our own language: the practical womanhood, talk of private family matters, talk of friends, matters of life and matters of death, of marriage and babies. Advice, arguments, common sense -the conversation of women.

These women were out earning money for their families.  They read palms and tarot cards and paint henna on tourists’ hands and walk in blistering sun and desert winds but they are still the same.  Women.

And behind it all- paused- was The Conversation.  And it is the same conversation the world over. The clothes don’t matter, the language doesn’t matter; wherever or whoever you are, The Conversation is always the same.

And don’t forget the blue…

I will be doing a round-up of Morocco themed crafts so check back soon:)

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Travel Love: Paris

The summer has arrived and I am dreaming of travel.

Panoramic view from the Eiffel Tower by Armin Hornung

As soon as I sense even a hint of sunlight I start dreaming of holidays and travel.  I spent one summer travelling around Europe by train with my friends.  In the middle of summer, in the midst of a heat wave, I found myself high up at the top of the Eiffel tower.  It was so hot the Paris authorities put out big chunks of ice 5 by 5 feet and blew gigantic fans on them and onto the crowds waiting to buy tickets. An ice-cold wind and a heat wave, all in the time it took for the fan to spin.

Me on the first observation deck on the Eiffel tower

 The Eiffel tower is big. Veeerrry biiig.  I had seen photos and films of it but it is staggering in person.  It’s four giant metal feet were so far apart from each other that the two back  legs faded into the distance. To get to the top one must first ride in a terrifying metal steampunk elevator cage.  It juddered and clanked and fought noisily against the ascent.  I’m terrified of heights and so was one of my friends.  She kept her eyes closed and wedged herself against the bars.  I kept my eyes open: I like to pay attention in terrifying moments – so as to know when it is the right time to begin screaming and/or run for my life.

It takes three separate leviathan lifts to get to the very top with stops at each of the three floors . I walked out on the platform and all of Paris lay like a map below me, impossibly far down. 

It’s like Paris was designed to be seen from above.

On land the streets wind into each other, arrondissement  after arrondissementspiralling aroundParis with the Bastille in the heart. An impossible to navigate elegance of tall buildings and tree-lined streets, the city view from the Eiffel tower is breath-taking. And terrifying for some.  My friend had pressed herself against the centre refusing to go near the edge.  Another girl, a stranger, was deep in the middle of a massive anxiety attack and was being comforted by her boyfriend and the staff.  

I was ok, surprisingly for me, considering that I am liable to panic on escalators and two foot heights.  The metal looked…vintage.  And it’s not a good feeling when the only thing between you and a 915  ft. drop is some century old metal. I looked through the walkways to the ground below my feet feeling a swooping giddiness.  I spent a second on the edge of the first deck to have a photo taken then ducked quickly away.

When we returned to the ground we retreated to the benches with cold drinks and stared up at the tower.  It still looked impossibly big.  I prefer the view looking up than looking down: the anxious optimist’s view.

The view looking up

 Where do you dream of?

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Cupcake, mug, art and paintbrush, kite and hanger graphics.

Including washi tape, scrolls, sewing and art and craft images all in high quality .png format and compressed into a zip file. Each image is separate and has a transparent background.  Download it here.   Use it in your projects and enjoy:)

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