My Garden

I thought I would start sharing some pictures from my garden every now and then. Here are some from this past summer.

52 Weeks of Memories - Week 17 - Fun

So board games are a huge thing in our house. We love playing them and regularly host board game events amongst friends.

Our latest purchase was Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries.

I've been wanting this for so long as I think it's so pretty! Ticket to Ride is an amazing game that is really easy to pick up. We have quite a few expansions now...

Travel Tuesday - Ireland - Ardmore

When we went to Ireland, we weren't expecting to go to so many round towers. But after we went to Glendalough we looked up to see what other ones there were around Ireland as we liked it so much.

Ardmore is a small seaside village further South from Waterford. The old monastery sits up on a hill overlooking the village and a beautiful golden sandy beach. It was established by St Declan and has his tomb in the complex (though it got pillaged throughout the ages). It also had some Ogham stones which I was very excited about (one of the oldest alphabets in the world - look it up!).

Ogham stone

Ogham stone

Inside the Cathedral

St Declan's tomb

A random castle further along from the Monastery

Down at the water's edge there are these random fake cottages

St Declan's stone

Random dude who started playing really cool music on the banjo

52 Weeks of Memories - Week 16 - Important

I found this quite hard as I couldn't think of something that was especially important to take a picture of. Then I looked down at my right hand and saw my two rings. They represent each of my Grandmothers. The blue one was my Paternal Nana's engagement ring and the Claddagh ring is a replacement ring of one that was given to me by my Maternal Nana (the original got stolen).
They represent both sides of my family and family is the most important thing to me.

Travel Tuesday - Ireland - Waterford Crystal Factory

OMG, I loved the Waterford Crystal Factory. And it's shop. It was one of the places that I definitely wanted to go to when we were planning our trip. AJ was a bit hesitant but admitted afterwards that he really enjoyed it. I highly recommend making the trip to Waterford and going on a tour of the factory. It is fantastic.

Me next to the largest champagne flute I've ever seen.

One of their oldest pieces. 

What they use to mould the shape of some items.

Shaping the crystal.

Blowing the crystal.

Putting the pattern on the glass.

 A recently cut crystal plate before it got polished.

This guy was awesome. He's cutting a vase here and saw that AJ was taking photos so invited him to stand behind him to get a different perspective.

And then the same guy insisted that I hold onto it. I was so scared I was going drop it (I hate to think how much it was worth). It was also really slippery!

A piece recently finished.

For 9/11

The only thing we could afford from the shop. So I now have one of these :D

The following were a couple of my favourite items in the shop:

My Tea Collection - Teapots and other accessories

This post will just have some pictures of my teapots and tea accessories.



Tea infusers and filters:

My tea duck! It floats on top with the tea soaking underneath :D

A very dusty leaf catcher thing (for use with a teapot)

My first tea soaker thing. It's a bit munched and I only use it in emergencies

This sits in the mug and soaks the tea. The best of the ones that I have.

The Tea-tanic :P

Teapots:

This is an heirloom teapot that was my Great-Grandmothers. It's supposed the be silver but I need to polish it.

This teapot is part of a set that was given to me by my Nana. It's got roses, pink and polka dots on it :D

52 Weeks of Memories - Week 15 - Colour

I got so sick and tired of being cooped up in the house that I decided to go for a drive and came across Duder Regional Park.

The trail marker was colourful...