The Interior DIYer
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Four days in Dubrovnik

Husband and I snuck off for four days of sun, seafood and booze for the 7 year anniversary of our first date. We’re kind of nerds when it comes to dates. It was also our 2 year engagement anniversary, and 6 month wedding anniversary. See? Nerds. 
We’re not sun people, but I cannot express how much we needed some sun this year. Spring is only just starting to make an appearance here in Ireland, about 2 months overdue at this stage, so it was a bit surreal to escape to some Croatian sun. Here’s hoping we all get a hard dose of this soon …

Mussels and monk fish. If you’re half as crazy about seafood as I am, Dubrovnik is the place for you. Not only is the seafood some of the best I’ve had, the price will have you dining out for every meal. With wine. Every meal. p.s. Please excuse my messy plate. All table manners go out the window when seafood is present.

Squid ink risotto – something I’ve always wanted to try, and it was worth the wait. Just heaven. I also noticed everything I ordered matched what I wore. I’m the only person to go on holidays and wear black. 
And below, a bit of wisteria hysteria. It grew on anything and everything and poor husband had to stop every 10 paces while I took pictures of all of it. No hydrangeas, but wisteria will do.

So long, sunshine. Hubby and I are contemplating another short break this year, but somewhere closer to home. Do any of you have exciting summer holidays planned, or anywhere you could recommend? xx A
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From Russia with love

Our honeymoon was everything we thought it would be, and more. St. Petersburg gave us perfect autumn weather, ridiculous architecture, incredible colours, amazing night scenes, and a side of culture shock – in the best way possible. Nothing we couldn’t handle.

We went on our honeymoon exactly one week after our wedding, in October of 2012. Having lived in Canada, I’ve sorrily missed proper autumns. Here in Ireland they’re just not the same. We had been told that autumn had passed in St. Petersburg, so we were prepared for grey. But, as we were landing in St. Petersburg, we were elated to see autumn in full swing. I’m so glad that person was wrong.

The Church of Spilled Blood. There almost aren’t any words. 

My fascination with this place goes back about 9 years. My mom gave me an incredible water colour painting of a mysterious Russian building. I treasured it for years. Then, a couple weeks before our wedding, I picked up said painting as I was dusting, and it clicked. It was of the Church on Spilled Blood. We were going to see one of my favourite paintings in real life.

The passing of time in St. Petersburg was very unusual. Shops stayed open until 11pm, and restaurants even later. So when we sat down for dinner at our usual 6pm, we got the distinct feeling this was very early. We took to taking afternoon naps to make the day stretch, and headed out for dinner at around 21:00, one night even sitting down at 23:00. This entirely ruined our body clocks once we got home, but hey, you’re supposed to get off your face on your honeymoon. 

Borscht, white Russians, chicken Kiev and beef stroganoff were on my edible list, and we ate them all. They were all incredible. I was particularly surprised with how much I adored borscht with a massive dollop of dill and sour creme. Oh god, I could go for some right now.

A bit of history – Peter the Great who founded St. Petersburg was always portrayed as a cat in caricatures due to his distinguished moustache. St. Petersburg is chock-a-block of cat statues, memorabilia, and The Hermitage museum {pictured further below} is home to not only the worlds largest collection of art, but stray cats as well. 

The above picture was taken on our last day while on a boat tour. There was a terrible storm the night before, and blew all the autumnal colours away.
The Hermitage museum. Home to almost 3,000,000 pieces of art. We took an overwhelming 4 hour tour, and barely skimmed the top. It blew our wee minds. 

Surreal. If you take the time to familiarize yourself with the language and alphabet beforehand, it is very manageable to get around. Husband and I have a very basic knowledge of Russian, and managed to get from point A to point B. It was really like being in a dream, with the juxtaposition of incredible architecture and interesting levels of health and safety. I would go back in a second. 

And on that note, I wish you all a safe and prosperous weekend! Happy Friday 🙂 xx A

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May the 4th be with you

As is tradition with ‘Wars enthusiasts around the world on this day each year, May the 4th unites and gives a good enough excuse for all levels of Star Wars aficionados to celebrate all that happened in a galaxy far, far away.

It is my beloved fiance who is the Star Wars fan in our household, but I am happy to teeter behind the bandwagon, and buy him cute Star Wars t-shirts and underwear and sweaters and whatnot. In my defense, I’ve never actually watched all the movies in one go and had them explained to me, so I cannot call myself a fully fledged fan. I just like black and white stuff and luckily my husband is pro-empire, so that works out well adding stormtroopers and stuff to our home. I’m merely a Star Wars spectator.

In the spirit of the day, here are some pics I took while we were in Tunisia 2 years ago – I had researched that some of the original Star Wars sets still remained in the vastness of Tunisia, so I arranged for myself, fiance, and my broseph to travel there in order for my two nerf herders to fondle some of the original sets. And fondle they did. Here is the first film set, Hotel Sidi Driss, which is an existing underground hotel that I think was used as Luke’s home.

We also drove into the Sahara, quite close to Algeria, for the second set, which was purpose built, and kind of abandoned / preserved for years and years.

For those of you who  may have read my lovely layers post, this is the set where I was charged to use the facilities, merely because I was not a man. At least I got a cute ticket. I framed it good.