Skip to main content

Living life to the full

Judi Dench is positively my favorite actress.


I have seen most, if not all, of her movies. (Not being a great James Bond fan, I've only seen her final appearance as M, which I thought made the movie.) Her character in Tea with Mussolini, where she plays a gentle Englishwoman in a group of Englishwomen in Florence during World War 2, is my heroine. Gentle, kind, a bit dotty, she made a perfect foil for her good friend (on and off screen), Maggie Smith. 

 Why am I ruminating about her today? Well, apart from being my favorite actress, I also like her haircut (hahahaha). For the past 6 years I have been trying to get a hair stylist to actually make it look good on me. And yesterday I think I finally found one! 

 I couldn't resist taking two selfies--one sans make-up last night and one with war paint on today :) I feel so much younger! 



I woke up this morning and on pulling back the curtains, saw that a cruise ship had arrived in the harbour! I hurried into my clothes, grabbed Mitzi and we went down to the park to gawk at it (well I gawked, Mitzi ran around the rocks.) I looked it up and it is the Artania, a German cruise ship that has come up from Bremerhaven on a two-week cruise around England, Ireland and Scotland. As I watched from the rocks, I saw the boats ferrying passengers from the ship to the harbour where there were tour buses waiting to take them to Waterford and Kilkenny (this according to some of my friends in the park who were also watching.) She is the first of several ships that will be stopping at Dunmore East this summer. I guess the larger cruise ships don't sail all the way into Waterford. Probably something to do with the depth of the water in the passage. 


I
The day has continued to be beautiful and I have enjoyed wandering around the harbour area and the main street of the village. Loads of people out enjoying the weather, paddling in the water (dogs too!) And I just feel so joyful. We may only be here for this one summer but I am going to make it a wonderful one. I have such fun talking to the people in the village and the visitors, learning all that I can about them and about the things they do.

I popped into the library to get my new load of videos and books and say hi to Eleanor. There were ladies in Fisherman's Hall next door setting up for a bazaar tomorrow. I recognized a couple from my art class last Saturday and the art exhibit at Waterford Library on Wednesday night. I feel a part of the community now with Angie reminding me about this week's art group meeting at the GAA grounds on Wednesday. Richard encouraged me to buy some art supplies this past week so I am ready!

 They also reminded me about the watercolour show down at the Sailing Club today so I wandered down to that and chatted some more with a couple of the artists. Passed by the Adventure Center/beach on the way and stopped to watch the fun:






A quick stop at a couple of the stores on the main street of the village for things for tea and for tonight's dinner and now I am back up at the house.


 A book to finish, a scone (pronounced scOne according to my Irish friend) and tea and just a lovely day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 2024 and blogging

  I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. Partly that was due to not knowing what to write about and partly it was wondering if I wanted to put myself "out there" anymore. And in what way. I subscribe to a few blogs on Substack, which is a subscription-based blog. You can pay to have your own blog, you can pay for someone else's blog, and that means you get to write and post and get comments back from a whole lot of people. You can comment on other people's blogs--if you pay--or else you can just read the blog and not pay. Of course you might miss some of the "pay only" content--much like modern news media has teaser stuff but to read the whole article, you have to pay for a subscription. The Substack blogs cover all kinds of topics and there are a few "professional" writers--meaning they're journalists and writers who have published and been paid larger bucks than the $5 a month they get per subscription on Substack--but I think most ...
12 comments
Read more

It’s just another day

  Yesterday was the final day of my 8-day assignment in a 4th grade class; I’ve written something about that assignment in a previous post, “Revolt of the Guinea Pig,” It’s been a challenging 8 days which, as Dickens might have said, brought out the best in me and probably the worst in me as well. But yesterday morning I had that experience that every teacher dreads—shelter in place, also known as possible shooter situation. I had arrived at the school at 7:20 thinking how wonderful it was that our heat had broken a bit. The skies were overcast, we’d had rain the day before, there was a cool breeze. As I walked to my classroom (photos below of what the buildings look like), I waved to the students already gathered on the other side of the gate, who were waiting to rush in, some to the cafeteria for their breakfast, some to the playground to run and hopefully get some of that energy out before the bell rang at 7:55. I unlocked the outside door to our building, walked down the corrid...
2 comments
Read more

Journeying to Helsinki

Sheila and I got up quite early in our hotel room, were packed and ready to go by 7:30. Had some buffet breakfast (a couple of mini croissants, double Gloucester cheese, fruit and a latte), brushed teeth, out of room by 8:30 am. At train station before 9, picked up my tickets and realized I wasn’t going directly to Heathrow on the train but was going to King’s Cross first and then would have to transfer to the Tube. Ugh. Still the first class carriage York to King’s Cross was very nice. I was served a ham sandwich and a brownie. (If I had realized that would be the last food I’d get until 3:00 pm, I would have eaten the whole sandwich. This is becoming a theme with me, long waits between meals.) As first class also means free WiFi, I began to dismantle my arrangements for Edinburgh although I couldn’t fix the Ryanair part of it yet—what a surprise. I have over a week to do that, if I’m not too tired when I get to the hotel in Helsinki tonight, I will get that done. It was difficult to ...
2 comments
Read more