bookshoplaura

I used to be a regular blogger but some how when I fell down the worm hole that is social care work, my opportunities and desire to write have started to ebb away. It is not really that I have lost interest in writing because I haven't but the agency work I have been doing means long and unpredictable hours so my social life has fallen by the wayside plus when I do actually get out I am tired and cranky from working nights and the like so I generally don't have the brain power to put my experiences into words. Last night was one of my rare and fabled outings. I had been doing a lot of work outside Waterford  and I got home from my day shift at around 8.30. I had already told my other half that I would be coming to the gig but by the time I got home all I wanted to do was lie down. As you might have guessed I did not succumb to these urges and instead threw on my glad rags and headed down to Central Hall with the promise of a couch and some good music. The main act playing w...

You may have seen my previous blog posts on traumatic experiences in French Restaurants. Okay maybe no traumatic per se but revolving around me paying a ludicrous amount of money for the only vegetarian option available and then finding it to be a lot less than delicious. Before you pull up a chair and think that you are about to see me eat my own hat ,figuratively speaking, I am not. I still believe the majority of French restaurants are not particularly vegetarian friendly but it is unfair to lump them in together. One exception to this rule is L'Atmosphere on Henrietta Street in Waterford. Now chances are they are not the only restaurant that happens to both cater to vegetarians and also not spit in my food simply because I enquired about vegetarian options but in my dining experience thus far they are the first that I can come away and say positive things about. It was one of those places I found somewhat intimidating and so had never so much as peeped inside the doo...

I grew up in a house on the outskirts of Clonmel, up a slip road. It was just far enough out to give you a taste of serenity without complete isolation. This is a house I have a lot of fond memories of, I did spent most of my life there but in a few months time it will belong to someone else. It's not a shock to know the house is being sold because my parents have been trying to sell it a long time now but it is most upsetting to those of us who can no longer lay claim to the place. My parents have had the place to themselves for almost a decade so its not exactly fair for myself or any of my siblings to demand they stay put so that we don't have to endure strangers trampling on our childhood memories. Much as I do love the house, I did have to admit that if it was financially viable for me (which it very much is not ) that I wouldn't buy the place because its too cold and damp and little bit creaky as old houses can be. So with that in mind I can only hold back a tear ...

Today I am moving around like a very old woman, every movement practised and painful. I have not somehow become Benjamin Button but I did find the courage to get my lazy ass back into the gym this week and my body doesn't know what hit it. Muscle groups that had grown cobwebs have been awoken and when I am not hurting all over, it feels great. I never would have imagined weight lifting as something I would do. In fact when it was first suggested to me that I learn Olympic lifting as technique, I was a little taken a back. As terrible as it sounds I had always thought weightlifting was for men and very strong women. Much as I was learning to master kettlebells and moving on to heavier weights over time, I still saw the barbel as out of my reach. It was something I would watch other women do and just be impressed. Ah if only I could be so strong. I am never going to be the strongest or the fastest in any room but that's okay because as it turns out I am not all that...

Back in the long long ago when working in a bookshop was just a pipe dream ( and I hadn't ruined said dream by actually working in a bookshop yet) , I used to read everything I could. I took whatever the library could give me, anything a charity shop would sell me and a whole lot of whatever my mum and sister had just finished reading. Then I got a job in a bookshop that allowed me to read anything I liked and I refined my reading tastes. I became picky but I was able to read the new releases the day they arrived and it was great and then I lived happily ever after. Oh no wait, wrong story, I loved being in book nirvana but the job itself bored me and I was miserable in it so I got out. Now I work mad hours in a job I love but no longer have an endless supply of books. Luckily for me my sister still reads like there's prize being given for it and was happy to weigh me down with books on my last visit home. Once I dug my way out of said mountain of books I noticed a common t...

Parlez vous vegetarian?  (Do you speak vegetarian ?) This weekend just gone I was out for a meal with my significant other and a few of his friends. Our plans to go to Dublin for the weekend had been thwarted as work wouldn't give me the time off off and it was decided instead we would have dinner in a French restaurant that my boyfriend liked. I was somewhat dubious about the prospect given that we had eaten there before and I found the menu to be less than accommodating. As a vegetarian, I find that French restaurants don't generally open up the welcome wagon upon news of your arrival but I haven't eaten in enough of them to make anything other than broad generalisations on the matter. Last year when we had the very expensive meal out ( as a fussy eater I need to be absolutely blown away to not begrudgingly pay the bill for my dinner while muttering that I could have just eaten at home) I gave two of my courses to himself. I didn't like the starter and esta...

I really wanted to get myself a smoothie maker a while back but I ended up talking myself out of it because I wanted something that would blend vegetables too and everyone kept recommending ones that cost over €100. I tend to be impulsive with my health kicks so I got bored of the idea once I realised it would involve me saving some money first. Then last week my sister was down for a visit and started telling me about the super cheap one she had gotten in Argos and the amazing smoothies she was making with it. I got very excited but I was also in the middle of all my night shifts so I had to keep reminding myself to go look for it as soon as we were done having coffee. I was in the kind of head space where I was liable to forget my own name if someone didn't remind me (the joys of back to back night shifts).I wanted to get in there while I was still excited about the idea, the one she told me about was only €23 and came with 4 cups, and actually remembered what I was looking for...

This morning I was in a hotel leisure centre changing room putting on my new swimsuit when I happened to think it didn't look too bad on me so I snapped a quick photo and sent it to my boyfriend which probably says more about the world we are now living in than anything else. The thing is I didn't just send the photo as is, first I cropped out most of my fat arms and applied a filter that was a little more flattering because God forbid I send a photo of what I really look like. If I had been so inclined I wouldn't have to stop there, my phone has features to widen my eyes and smooth out all my blemishes until the finished photo looks fantastic but also nothing like me in daylight.  The duplicity doesn't end there. It begins with the swimsuit itself which comes with ultra flattering padding on the boobs both lifting them and hiding my awful secret that like most women I come equipped with nipples which are visible when I'm cold and my favourite feature of all,...