Friday...

Hurray...it's Friday and I'm "working" from home!! It's a lovely day here and tomorrow we are promised great weather too (that means sunny and 19 degrees...perfect for me!). This is very exciting considering all summer we have been having cold (I'm talking 12-14 degrees C), grey days with the odd beautiful day thrown in to tease us and remind us that it is actually summer. Of course, I firmly believe that our summer will arrive as soon as we hit Connemara in September!

Anyway, the main reason for this post is to tell you that I just discovered the new IKEA catalogue online!!! Here is the link to it...I haven't even looked yet but am looking forward to spending the next hour doing so (it's lunchtime right!).

Am looking forward to a great weekend...we have a big night out with friends tomorrow night, celebrating a birthday and welcoming home some friends from the US of A :)

Have a great weekend!

Random brekkie photo...crispbread from IKEA...coincidence :)

The weekend...

Oh, oh...we met friends we hadn't seen in a long time for lunch on Saturday. We had delicious pizza and I indulged in two glasses of Pinot Blush - bad move. I went to do a few small errands afterwards and happened to pop into Brown Thomas where I happened to notice that the Orla Kiely new AW11 collection was on display and I happened to fall in love with this baby...arrggghh...hummed and hawed and eventually bought it justifying it by the fact that I am due back some cash at work for out of pocket expenses that I let build up over 5 months and which should be hitting my account shortly...to be promptly wiped out by this indulgent purchase! But that's it now...no more shopping for me. Lesson: Never drink and shop :)

Hope you are having a good week :)

Inspiration...

Source: thedesignfiles.net via Six Black Dots on Pinterest

I LOVE everything about this image.

As I have said lots of times before, I really want to change things up a bit in my home. I would love a new table and chairs, new shelving in the alcoves of my living room, a new sofa...etc etc!!

This image best sums up the look/style/theme I really like right now. It's dark wood (old/worn but not completely battered!), white walls with a little bit of retro industrial thrown in. But then I have to allow space for a bit mid-century modern and scandi...bloody hell, I get so confused about what I want...I am overloaded with ideas/images but the REALLY difficult thing is how I can pull it all together...oh, it wearies me!!

Love these subway tiles by the way- we bought these back in January along with black floor tiles for our bathroom - they are still sitting on the floor in the back bedroom..sigh!). I intend to use them in our tiny kitchen also (when I get around to changing the work tops and putting in some open shelving..again, sigh..will I ever do this stuff??).

Orla...again (!)...

A little corner of Orla Kiely's home in Clapham, South London (I used to live there!)..really love this colourful collection..



PS..the sun is shining here...(for the past 4 hours at least - let's see how long it lasts!

Dreaming...

Now that it's only 8 weeks to our holiday in Connemara, I am allowing myself to get excited and to start to really look forward to it! I know we go there every year, twice or three times, but I will never tire of it...I will always be enamoured and enchanted by its wild beauty - it really is my favourite place on earth (and my husband's too...which helps!). Also, as we stay in the cottage, we can bring the doggies and it doesn't cost a fortune :) I was looking through photos of our trip there last year and came over all goose pimply! Photo-heavy post..sorry! Click on pictures to see larger size.

Pinterest...

Oh dear! Well, a few months ago, I thought I would sign up for Pinterest. I was a little bemused by the fact that I had to "request an invite". Then when I received an email later to say "my application was being considered"...well, not really..but more or less, I thought hmmm...not so sure I am into all this mularkey...I'm supposed to be grateful that I am allowed join the community??

So, I ignored it but then recently I decided to give it a go and registered but didn't really have time to do anything with it..until last night and, guess what? I'm kind of hooked. It's perfect for me...I have bizillions of links in my bookmarks to images I like and now I can just PIN them..hurrah! The only thing is, I also keep loads of images in iPhoto that I would love to pop up on Pinterest but I never bothered with the sources as they were for my use only. Never mind!

I have my little Pinterest button installed over there to the right so if you want to have a snoop, go right ahead!

Posting has been very light lately...have been very busy and still catching up on stuff since my week in Berlin. Hoping things will get back to normal this weekend :)

Berlin...

....really, was I in Berlin?? I spent last week in Berlin with work and sadly, didn't get to see much at all - very disappointing indeed!

However the little I did see would definitely entice me to go back for a long weekend. The only evidence that I was there at all...we went on a Trabi Safari...such fun. We all got a model Trabi and a Trabi driving license!

Hope you have a good week :)