Smells like Grandma's fridge

Hello lovelies!

It's been a while, and I've been ... busy. This is good. I've arranged large international money transfers to pay for the upcoming degree, turned down invitations to weddings in Beirut, Waterford and Denver, planned for one in Engerland, booked a trip to Germany where I haven't been in 15 years, and introduced myself to a Croat, some Italians, an Argentine and a good many more. Pictures are courtesy of a different Dublin weekend, but a weekend that did its job admirably.

Last night, we had an epic Sri Lankan feast, a labour of love by the Bearded One. There was spicy sweet chicken, creamy baby brinjalinis, aromatic mounds of rice, and sambols a-go-go.

'Falling apart,' he said with a kitchen-sweaty smile as he lifted hunks of chicken out of the pot. It was a good thing. Miniature aubergines held their shape and colour and sat fatly in pink onions. He worked for five hours. Grandma would have been proud. I planted things in the garden and redid the gd devoured windowboxes. Let's just say that the nasturtiums were a far cry from this when I ripped them out in disgust and started again with primroses. 

Bastard blackfly.

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At the end, I pitched in for the terrifying vadai-frying experience, lentilly doughnuts bobbing happily in the Boiling Oil of Death, and stripped balls of curd from cheesecloth sieves for the treacley dessert. 

We're sending the extra curry leaves to Cork, as you do.

I've got the movers in

It's true. After a whirlwind couple of weeks, the Bearded One has begun his new job Liffeyside today, the movers left this afternoon, the website goes live tomorrow, the ad goes into the trade rag on Friday and the business launches sooner than expected. All is - dare I say it - going to be ok. Leaving my job went well, in that people were really lovely, full of great suggestions and absurdly generous with the gifts, oi oi oi. I will be the best-outfitted impoverished translator in town. Enough to make you snivel into your cupcake, so I won't dwell - though I've learned an enormous amount, made great friends and had a good enough introduction to publishing to know what I want to do, careerwise, some, erm, obstacles notwithstanding.

Because that wasn't enough to do and because you really want a mini-break in the middle of your move, (gift donkeys, I know) I went to Marrakesh with the Production Diva.

And this was no ordinary trip to Morocco, no no - we travel in style around here, dontcha know. All expenses paid, five-star with beauty treatments style, Cointreau and tonic (try it) by the pool style. In all seriousness, this trip is the most generous gift I've ever received, with the exception of my education (€11,000 per annum for a four-year degree is nothing to sneeze at, and all thanks to being a Yank).

So, despite a 3am start and EasyJet *shudder*, we landed in Marrakesh in a spookily empty and spotless new airport and were whisked away to the Kasbah Agafay. Alarmingly, there are no suburbs in Marrakesh; you go straight from pristine-if-parched avenues with roses and posters of their fearless leader to the most grinding poverty with none of the typical frightening urban set-up of southern Europe; no HLMs, no estates - just rubble. Rubble and nothingness as far as the eye can see, punctuated by the odd cactus, goatherd or robed gent or lady carrying a small child - from where? To where? It's like an extreme and depressing version of the West of Ireland; you pass a farmhouse in the middle of the fields and see no other signs of life for twenty miles, until you spot an octagenarian on a bicycle. Hrm.

From there, we swerve off the road past a huddle of intinerant day labourers and into an olive grove, where we come upon enormous dantean gates and into the most spectacular gardens around a big red fort, all overlooking the foothills of the Atlas.

What followed was a completely surreal two days and two nights eating off of starched linens in olive groves, lounging by the pool, and enjoying watching a bunch of English people squirm at the thought of getting their kit off for the hammam ladies to scrub them with clay - as one of the ladies said to me in broken French, 'Don't they like to be clean in England?'


It was a good group, all of us quite up for the gorgeous food, lounging by the pool, and buffing and fluffing on offer, understandably enough, and that's exactly what we did. Pleasingly, there were Very Important Bods in the world of audiobooks (errrr?), consultants, people with 'people' and some mere publishing plebs like myself with saucer-eyed partners or friends in tow. There were also some minor celebrities, including a TV survivalist (although as his people were eager to explain, that's not really the image they're going for) and one of the actors from The Archers, whose Venn diagram of life does not overlap mine in the slightest, needless to say. The former was more fun than the latter, mainly because I knew something about him and his schtick - and, that in a laconic anitpodean kind of way, was up for a laugh.

'Hey', says the Survivalist's partner, grabbing a leaf from the beautiful hotel herb gardens, 'can I eat this?' 'Yep,' says he in a murmur that suggests there's more to it than that. 'Jesus, Ray, that was really vile', says she.

Having managed to shake off the shady and irritating guide laid on by the hotel, the Production Diva and I demanded that a taxi pick us up later, and headed off into the souk. Amazing how much more welcoming people are when you're not in a quivering group of foreigners whose collective presence emits a 'We're White and Frightened that You'll Rob Us' vibe, innit.

We met a baboush seller and his ancient father, heard midday prayers, were made temporary perches for tiny tortoises and a chameleon and bargained like it was 1999. In short, a successful trip, and further proof that I don't quite have what it takes to live the sanitised life of five-star luxury. I would quite like a chameleon, though.


I got back on Monday, sorted out the remaining pre-move chaos and today managed to nab 12 metres' worth of parking by 10.30 am. The movers, two lovely fellas from NornIrn, have the situation entirely under control and left this afternoon with promises to appear in Dublin in under one week. The Bearded One just checked in to say that he has a Blackberry. *sigh* I will well and truly get outta here in one piece. TFFT.

Looking forward to a quiet last day visiting some places I really like in London.

Vacanze!

The time had come for a proper holiday. Of course we're blessed to be able to take weekend breaks all over the shop and have friends to stay with into the deal, but really, a full week in Italy is where it's at.

We started in Milan, late and hungry, hurtling down the motorway in a tiny car with a huge man at the wheel. Four sunny days in Milan followed, with home base in a flat along the canal and an Irish/English couple to visit. We wandered the city, not a great beauty spot as we knew, but a great visit nonetheless thanks to the touristing efforts of our lovely hosts. We ate ice cream and befriended well-dressed babies in Pavia, and avoided guided tours in the Certosa to the monks' crotchety annoyance. Sandwiches ordered from kiosks bore politicians' names (Fascist and Communist, thank you) and the aperitivi were epic.

We had Saint Patrick's Day with silly hats and bad pints, furrin' style, in a pub that thought it was Irish, but could have been anything, and ate tricolor risotto. Life was good, and we hopped the Eurostar to Rome where we'd rented a massive flat in Trastevere. It was a great way to do it, as we soon felt at home, getting to know the neighbourhood as a neighbourhood, complete with sunny morning market, playground and family bars for espresso and sticky cornetti.

Rome is a lot like Paris in early spring, and we pooked along through the Jewish Quarter, along the river, round and round the Pantheon and beyond. It was beautiful, winding and full of extremely tasty food of the fried Roman variety. We went back to Da Enzo for carciofi and fiori di zucca, and discovered Le Mani in Pasta for cacio e pepe. And when the Vatican became too big, we found the smallest hole-in-the-wall for fabulous sandwiches, a place where the wine came decanted into empty Scotch bottles. Odd little bars popped up at every turn, one with an indefatigable Joe Pesci double at the helm, pork-pie hatted and ready for a good time.

The last of the woods laid low

So where to begin. A quarter hour before my departure from the office in the chaotic and completely unmanaged handover of my boss on maternity leave, I learned that my godmother had lost out to the cancer that was diagnosed five years ago. She would have been sixty-nine next month. It felt like being crushed, slowly.

So when I hit Dublin, I went, with a kind and patient friend, to meet for a sleepy jar at the Gresham - Smithwicks, in honour of the lady herself. It was her pint of choice, to be had laughing loudly on the creaky plastic benches on the balcony of the Dalkey Island Hotel. There, I would drink Club Orange (in a bottle with a straw, please) and Scampi Fries, and bury 10p pieces in the garden for our next visit and another round of Pacman in the lobby. We'd look out at the island and pile on more jumpers, pretending it was really summer.

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Behind the scenes parkbenching in Dublin was productive, and met with old friends for pints, dinners, tea and cakes, and theatre, and new friends for chats about books and language. Shared a restaurant with Mr. Black while we ranted and rolled our tired eyes through more Trebbiano and outstayed our welcome with dessert we couldn't afford. Saw Mangan, Poe and Mahony onstage in Daniel Reardon's latest, Bleeding Poets at Dublin's New Theatre, a great space hosted by kind people, filling the gaping voide left by the closing of Andrew's Lane. Sublime, ridiculous and the beginning of a very long couple of weeks.

I was back in London for eighteen hours before taking my first flight to Norway. When I woke up the next morning in the cozy wooden house with the potbellied stove, I saw that in Trondheim, children ski to school.


When we filed out of the cathedral, the snow began to fall.

Turkish Delights

A month on, much has happened. Job happiness has been further secured, I've turned twenty-six, made a small name for myself with a great London literary agent, and most importantly, been to a new city, a new country and a new continent.

Not sure what to start with, so I'll go with Istanbul and the, er, aforementioned Turkish delights. The Bearded One has nine months of Turkish under his belt, and neither of us had the least notion how popular this would make us. Everywhere we went, we met the sweetest, most enthusiastic people I have ever come across- certainly as a tourist. I was concerned about dressing modestly and the whole routine, and found that though I was wise to watch my Ps and Qs, we were welcome everywhere we wanted to go, and met and saw a whole swathe of Turkish society. The hotel, Hotel Turkuaz , was located in southern Sultanahmet, near Kumkapi and the Marmara coast in a neighbourhood that did not look like a likely tourist spot to say the least. Alive with the sounds (and smells) of stray cats like the rest of the city, and home to a politically but not religiously right-wing community, it was extremely poor, with most of the houses subsiding into the ground at distinctly non-right angles. It was a shame to see, because the hotel (which is indeed turquoise and not pink as it appears on the website- other photos are bang on) is a gorgeous example of Ottoman architecture, and there were a few others standing proud.It looks a little bit like Louisiana to me- tall and creaky, wooden, though tongue-and-groove, not clapboard, and full of curliques. It was run by the charming Maria, a cat- and turtle-loving Romanian. Nothing was too much trouble, though at times her advice regarding boring bits like ferry schedules warranted double-checking. The resident turtles, Fatima (pictured below) and Osman (camera-shy), oversaw epic and non-varying breakfsts in the chilly courtyard: eggs any way you like 'em, gorgeous, wet feta-like cheese, dried olives in oil, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, brioche, bread, butter, more cheese and jam. And as one astute elderly frenchwoman muttered on our last morning, 'Mais ecoute: il faut manger les crudités le matin, parce qu'on n'aura pas des autres durant la journée. Eh? EHH?' I got her, alright, with her little-old-lady subtlety. She was a legend: intrepid and nothing daunted, she was eating her crudités le matin AND learning Turkish at the age of seventy-five. But I digress: seeing the sights requires all the energy provided by our brekkies, so we took plenty of pit-stops along the way.
Beyoğlu is the place to be in the evenings, and check out the little boreens at the right-hand side at the base of İstiklal Caddesi, where the old tram terminates. We found a tiny, slightly dodgy-looking cafe, where the owner happily skipped up a death-defying ladder to settle us down in a tiny, cushion-filled erzatz loft for beers and 'cigar-shaped' cheese borek. No taps, no oven- just bottled Efes and gorgeous home-made food made, I suspect, that morning by the owner's mother and heated up when orders came in. Tasty, friendly and cheap. Live music started below, and a vacated table for two opened up, so were helped back down to reality to join the 12-strong crowd. Plates appeared out of the tiny kitchen, and that one amazing night happened, the one you always have in a holiday, the one that could never be reconstructed in the cafe that could never be found again. I'll leave the sights to speak for themselves, I guess, and recommend a great website on Turkey: pretty it ain't, but yer man's info is unparalleled for its accuracy and breadth, and we can thank the Turkey Travel Planner for a lot of our planning beforehand. We'll have to go back, as we could spend a whole 'nother week on boats seeing the islands.