Olive fields by Noreen

Olive fields by Noreen
Mysterious, primordial world

Tuesday 18 September 2018

A WORKING TRIP TO IRELAND

Dear diary!  This feels like a diary now. I still haven't advertised my blog so there are very few comments to date. So if you are reading this. I'd love to know how you found me and what you think of the blog.  I write and take photos mostly for my own record,  maybe one day my descendants may be curious to read what my life was like from my 60's onwards?
We are still living here in Turkey on the Bodrum peninsula. We travelled to Ireland at the end of May. My first cousin Diane who lives in Canada hadn't been to Ireland since the mid 70's. We were excited about the meet up in Dublin. She arrived with her husband Bill, son Andrew and daughter in law Heidi. Just as they arrived the weather really improved. The sun shone for the 2 weeks they spent touring Ireland. We had a wonderful time with them in Dublin and we were sad to see Diane and Bill leave for their flight to Canada. Andrew (their son) and Heidi (their daughter in law) have taken a year off work and they continued on to tour Europe. They spent a lot of the summer sailing. 
They are still travelling and having a wonderful time seeing so many places and making new friends.
When we returned to our own house in Cork there was a lot of work to be done. Everything seemed to be broken or need replacement. We had a lot to do before we returned to Turkey. We knew the water tank in the attic was there since the house was built and we started with that. We managed to get a plumber to replace it.  We are hoarders! There were some bags of clothes in the attic which I'd forgotten about, 2 big suitcases, 2 duvets. We gave these away for recycling.   Our daughters toys,  but I have left them there. Just couldn't part with them!

Our kitchen was also very old and we did have savings put aside for a new one plus new flooring.  Replacing the kitchen also meant replacing electrics and  this stretched our budget right to the limit.  
However the new kitchen is user-friendly, it's amazing and I love it.


  Every bit of space is usable.  There is plenty of storage and I have large drawers in the base units which is so much easier on our backs!  

No more kneeling down to pull pots out from the bottom shelves!
 The large oven is at waste level and I have a lovely ceramic hob on the worktop.  I am delighted with the new sink, its made from crushed eggshells!
There are lights in the cabinets with the glass doors and under those, there are lights which light up the worktop at night.  This will make the kitchen nice and bright during the long winter evenings.

I have looked at so many kitchens on the internet over the last year. There is such variety and style and some are huge.  Mine is quite small but yet big enough for two people.  Most of the time it's just one of us at a time in the kitchen. We eat breakfast at different times.  I usually am up early so my breakfast and lunch are early. I cook dinner around 5pm and then we eat between 5.30 and 6pm.
I love kitchen photos.  They show so much of our personality. My sister, my nephew and friends brought me plants so now my windowsill is full.
  What is your kitchen like? do you like dark wood or light colours? I'd love to see some photos. Please feel free to post some with your comments.