bookshoplaura

So it's officially Halloween and I survived another kids event. The good news is my face is no longer green and from what I could tell the kids at the party had a good time but I am sure if I am still the witch in residence come next Halloween, I will do one or two things differently. I am not going to go into the minutiae of my day leading up to the party for two reasons. One it would be really boring but also I might accidentally give away some sort of trade secrets and get myself into lots of trouble. I will give you some idea of why I was almost a bald witch by the time the party got going. So because of my weekend off falling on a bank holiday and then being very close to my holidays this weekend, I only ended working two days this week. Seeing as I am not back in work till Tuesday next week, I had a whole lot of work to do as well as all the party stuff. It made for a very stressful morning. I did get almost all of it done and then manage to go out and buy party sw...

I am sure I have mentioned many times that I am off Halloween weekend because of my first anniversary with the boyfriend and because we're going away. Now technically we'll still be around on Halloween night itself but while we were making plans, I didn't fancy being stuck in work until 9.30 that night. This is all well and good and I'm sure we'll have a great time but one knock on effect of this weekend away is that for the second year in a row, I won't be in work on Halloween and not to sell myself a cornerstone to the store but in my absence, the children's section can get a little messy and of course no Halloween party gets thrown. Mostly this is good as Halloween parties in a bookshop can get a little manic at best. However I then feel bad for not celebrating it particularly when you have parents asking what's planned in the shop and my eyes dart around nervously as I look for something pressing that needs doing while I mutter nothing and promptly...

So some of you might know that Stephen and I will be together a year this weekend. We decided to mark this event by going away for the weekend. As I am already broker than a joke your dad would tell, I decided we'll exchange cards only and that way we wont have to spend a weekend in Cork in a hotel room wishing we had money left to spend. Now in theory going away for the weekend is a lovely idea but then you factor in the chances that in November we'll be facing into some fairly miserable weather and we don't exactly have buckets of money to throw around and suddenly it all becomes a bit more challenging. Now we have been to Cork a  few times. I like Cork, it's a nice city but usually when we're down we go through our routine of lunch at Milanos (nom nom pizza) and a walk around the city maybe stopping in H&M, Tk maxx, m&s food hall and any health food shop I happen to pass. Then we'll finish it off by seeing a movie in Triskel arts centre. This week...

Having been terribly boring Saturday night and staying in only to fall asleep at a ridiculously early time, we decided that Sunday we were going out. Lucky for us Central Arts had a gig on, a chap called Jinx Lennon who was described as a satirical punk poet. Now if you are anything like me, you will have no idea what you're walking into with a description like that but with  the promise of comfy seating and a sense of adventure we said we would pop down for a look anyway. I know I have previously confessed my interest in poetry, although I am not sure confessed is the right word, it's hardly a shameful secret. I will say that the mention of poetry in an event usually piques my interest particularly if it's not your run of the mill poetry reading. A poetry reading is all very well and good if you actually like the poems being read, otherwise it can prove to be a real snooze-fest. After my recent night at a spoken word event, I am eager to go to more and when I heard abo...

On Wednesday evening just gone, myself and the boyfriend found ourselves with quite the interesting dilemma, we had to choose what to go see from a list of many. Now I used to  be the first to complain about the lack of things to do in Waterford but will admit that things seem to be changing and that complaint is becoming less and less valid. Particularly given the rise of organisations like central arts who bringing all sorts of cool and interesting things to the city. If they ever added art-house/world cinema to their bowstring then I would probably just tape a reserved for Laura sign on their squashiest couch and just move in. Of course were in the middle of the imagine arts festival right now so its less a case is there anything on and more which thing shall we pick. We eventually settled on either a gig in central hall or a play in a nearby theatre. Now I knew very little about either option so I left the choosing up to himself who after much hawing and hemming sa...

I feel I have reached a point where I owe my body an apology. Truth be told I haven't always treated it with kindness. This shell in which inhabit has not always had the easiest of times. As a kid I refused to eat so many things and then made up for it in my teens and twenties by doing all of the eating. The woeful hangovers, the reluctance to exercise, the slow and silent abuse of my youthfulness. The not appreciating what I had when I had it and not looking after myself as well as I could. Those who know me or who have dipped in and out of my blog since its inception ,about a year and a half ago, will know I have made some major diet and lifestyle changes from when I was forced to give up wheat and cut out fast food and soft drinks and found CrossFit. All good things that were a long time coming. I have also quit sugar so many times ( and inevitably fallen off the wagon ), at this stage I can no longer count. All of this was done in an effort to feel better and obviously ...

You could say many things about me but you cannot say I don't have a varied Cv. Among the many areas I have dabbled in there has been a lot retail and call centre related work. If you haven't worked in retail there are some things you will never understand like the extent to which it upsets staff when you come in shortly before closing and then linger like a bad smell in the shop while we're all dying to go home or how much it irks us when you or your offspring scatter stock about the shop with the happy assumption that someone is being paid to take care of it and most of all what Christmas is really like. Trust me it's not all sleigh bells and singing. I always like to get out and see new things and I have been clutching my copy of the imagine arts festival brochure since the launch night. It's creased and marked with the things I'm hoping to get to. High on that list was Katie O'Kelly's one woman show 'Counter Cultur€' I like seeing new plays...

I have been rather lax in blogging over the last few days and I have no real explanation other than the fact that I have been lazy and otherwise occupied. October is a big cultural month in my calendar because there is plenty of stuff on and I will be going to lots of things. On Thursday night I was at an art exhibition and was left less baffled than my experience with modern but was still ready to leave after about five minutes. Stephen had asked me to join him but I hadn't factored in how tired I would be after doing my first two crossfit classes in about two weeks (given that I spent the time in between classes mostly eating sugary things and being lazy , you can guess it took a lot out of me) so I was only delightful company. We stayed longer than five minutes to witness the exhibition opening and toured the paintings many times while waiting for the speakers. During which time I was able to surmise that I liked the paintings of natural scenes more than I liked the ones of ha...

It's a Tuesday and its been two whole weeks since the last cult classics cinema so it's that time again. The movie of choice was The breakfast club and my boyfriend had already declared he would not be going as he did not enjoy movies about teenagers.I was pretty disappointed but then we had no plans on a Tuesday night so I used my womanly wiles to persuade him. By that I mean I texted him while he was on his way to my place and asked if he would reconsider giving the movie a go and seeing as he was feeling particularly sound, he agreed. My memories of The Breakfast Club are somewhat hazy given that I was 8 when the 80s came to an end and had only watched the film once in a fit of old movie nostalgia as opposed to reliving my youth. I had my fashion highs in the 90s wearing such gems as a rather flash shell  Suit and other items I'd care not to mention but you don't see anyone digging out 90s fashion With the same level of zeal.  So we sat In the back of th...

October is a great month really if you don't think about the darker nights and the colder weather. Mostly it's just great because this October I am not working a full weekend at all. I have one Saturday and one Sunday but not together so this leaves me free for much gallivanting. This weekend just gone we had no real plans, they were all weather dependent and mostly just lets not drink all of the alcohol or coffee late at night. Then I spotted online that there was a food festival in Kinsale on Saturday and thought sure that could make for a nice day out.  I haven't actually been to Kinsale in years and it was going to be my first time driving there but I was picturing a picturesque seaside down and lots of food stalls and thought if we could pass a few hours there then it would be worth the drive.It took us just over two hours to get there which in case you are wondering is just enough time for Laura to get hangry. It also involved some terrifying driving on the outski...

I could challenge you to find movies that are better than the book they were based on but you would be hard pushed ( 0r wrong). At best you may put together a short list of movies that have done their book counter parts justice and that leaves all the other books that have been torn asunder by the big screen. When you pick up a book and delve into the life of its fictional characters, you can often find yourself immersed in their world. Sometimes when it's particularly well written you take a bit of that world away with you. You have ideas about how the characters looks and sometimes might have actually seen their story play out in your mind. At times it can almost be devastating to see that made into a movie and have the whole thing fall apart in front of an audience of thousands. Last night I went to see Gone Girl in the cinema. I will warn you at this point that I had previously read the book so there may be spoilers ahead. If you have not yet familiarised yourself with...

Saturday just gone, I went to see the Riptide Movement play in Vicar Street, Dublin. Perhaps you don't know of them, in which case you have probably been living somewhere very remote where music is forbidden ( like the town in Footloose) and if that's the case then please accept my commiserations. They are an up and coming rock band from Lucan, Dublin and they are headed for great things. The funny thing is this time last year I had never heard of them. I do enjoy going to gigs but up until the last few months, I didn't do it very often so you could say I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed going on fancy holidays and designer make up (vicariously through others ). Then last December my boyfriend asked me to accompany him a freezer sessions free gig in the Forum. Naturally I said yes but I asked around to see if anyone knew much about the band. Everyone had good things to say and seen them play at least once so it seems I was the only person around saying the Riptide who...

I have been preparing for this weekends trip to Dublin, much more so than the many other trips I have made up to the big smoke. I have been going up to Dublin every since I was old enough to remember, first to visit family or at Christmas to see the Arnott's toy display and the city all lit up like some sort of magical wonderland. When I hit my teens I would make regular trips to Dublin for concerts or a shopping trip. The thing is when you get used to a city, you stop actually seeing it and you just go where you know you like to eat and shop in the shops you've always gone to. Back then I would have been eating in O'briens sandwich bar and shopping in Topshop or Miss Selfridge and now I am more likely to eat in Milanos and shop in Zara or H&M.  This weekend however is going to be different. I am not going to stay with friends or family and I wont be shopping up there. We are heading up to see The Riptide Movement play Vicar Street but we have decided to make a w...

D Tonight myself and the boyfriend went to see Ghostbusters in the Theatre Royal as part of the twice monthly cult classics cinema. If you don't know it, it's run by a chap called Dennis ( who works for the theatre ) and some of his friends help out with photography , special effects and lighting and so on. The movies are chosen by the public on the cult classics cinema Facebook page but there is also voting on the night so this week we got to vote on the next one. The breakfast club won but I had been hoping on Team America. Sadly that didn't even make the top three so it wont get carried over to the next vote. I guess I'll just have to watch it at home but it wont be the same.  Tonight's performance was different to the other shows I've been to in that there was a lot more small people present. Most of them looked a little young for the movie. The last performance had been Mrs Doubtfire, the first child friendly movie to be shown and I think Ghostbus...