Odd Day in the Czech Republic

May 19, 2014May 19, 2014 | Mairead

19 05a

(Building on our street, in Prague)

I did something in public yesterday that I’ve never done before. Crochet. Yes, I had been telling you how I will be working away on the train to Krakow but there was every chance I wouldn’t even get it out of the bag. We went to a cafe for lunch. It turns out there’s lots of them in walking distance – thank you, Yelp.com! We picked one (according to the reviews) that didn’t mind the customers taking their time and having a little read or write as they ate. It was packed but we found a table near the door and I had a very lovely smoked salmon, spinach and yogurt sandwich.

19 05b

(St. James’ church)

When I was finished I considered taking out my crochet but took out a pen instead and found something very interesting to write on the back of my crochet pattern. Denis was meanwhile reading away happily, unaware of my reticence. Soon I had filled all the blank spaces on the pattern so it was time to… ask for the wi-fi code. Ok got the code and looked up some interesting facts about tipping etiquette in Prague, very good. Then I check out Twitter, yes of course, very important. There were lots of people in Ireland saying how summer has arrived. Humph.

19 05c

(Inside St. James’ church)

Then I opened my rucksack and checked to see if I’d brought the crochet. I had. It was time. I pulled the needle out first and had a good look at it. Yes the metal seemed intact. Then I reached back in to pull out the little quilt I’m working on. It no longer seemed so little. It took ages to extract (in a covert way) but eventually everything was sitting on my knee for all the world to see. So I took a quick look around at all the world. Well, surprise, surprise, they were busy with their own concerns, eating taking and writing. No one was taking a blind bit of notice of me. I can do this.

19 05e

(Statue of a martyr in the Old Town Square)

So I began and it was fine, actually it was good, maybe even very good. And relaxing. It’s funny that sometimes when I think my stuff would seem odd to the people around me I don’t share it with them. They might think I’m odd. And of course I am odd but isn’t everyone? Isn’t everyone odd? Or trying not to be? Maybe it’s more relaxing to stop trying and just be odd?

19 05f

(Lots of cobblestone, everywhere)

Embrace your odd, Mairead.

P.S. Hang on, maybe it is just me… probably shouldn’t post this one…

The Love of My Life in the Grand Cafe Orient

May 18, 2014May 18, 2014 | Mairead

18 05d

(Wenceslas Square from the National Museum)

Yesterday we went to the shopping center, it’s near the old walls of Prague and they have been able to incorporate bits of wall into the decor of a cafe. We didn’t go to see the wall. While planning this holiday I calculated the potential increase in temperature in the area as a direct ratio to its distance from Ireland, I was wrong, there was no increase in temperature… (and thank you for all the beautiful weather reports from Ireland!) I am embarrassed to say that due to this mistake I have been sporting my entire clothing repertoire for the past five (5) days. People are beginning to move away from me in the metro. So it was time to go shopping.

18 05a

(Entrance to Grand Orient Cafe)

During our free tour of Prague on Wednesday, Adam pointed to the modern shopping center near the Powder Gate, I didn’t think we’d be visiting. Needs must and we found ourselves in Dundrum (shopping center in Dublin.) There’s Starbucks and Costa (ok no Costa in Dundrum) and Marks and Spencer’s. So I got some things that will keep me warm. And then I realised there was something extra special in the basement…. a wool shop! Not just wool, cotton too and needles and tapestry and buttons!

18 05b

(The menu)

You might remember my plan to crochet on the train to Krakow? Well now I won’t be in danger of using all my yarn and having to rip my creation and start again (difficult situations often require difficult solutions) I bought Czech cotton and buttons. I’m going to make Denis a scarf! I created the design while we were dodging the rain in the Grand Cafe Orient. Everything in this cafe reflects cubist art, the building, the furniture, the wallpaper, the cups. It was built in 1910 ish but closed ten years later and remained closed for 80 years. It reopened in 2001 looking exactly the same as it did in the twenties.

18 05c

(The tea-cup)

So you’re probably thinking the scarf will be cubist inspired? Triangles and mixed up patterns? Not exactly. We’d been there more than an hour, sipping beer and tea. Me the tea, Denis the beer. I was writing in my new notebook (thank you, Cathy) when I lifted my head and noticed a man walk in. He looked like a drenched cat but he had a lovely scarf. So I’m going to make a scarf like his. I didn’t take a picture of the man and his scarf but funnily enough I won’t need a picture as his scarf looks exactly like the crochet pattern I’m working on at the moment.

18 05e

(My Czech cotton and buttons)

Isn’t it amazing that surrounded by all those beautiful shapes and patterns I was able to pick out something familiar, something I loved? Like a new mother identifying the particular cry of her baby, I spotted the particular pattern of my beloved crochet… sigh.

The love of your life is everywhere, look! Mairead.

Lovely people in Prague

May 16, 2014May 16, 2014 | Mairead

16 05a

(Passed lovely old buildings on route)

Yesterday we started late. The tap-tapping has moved a little down the street but outside our house they have introduced the big hammer. The big hammer is louder and pounds more bricks. It is very effective – the path looks completely even.The big hammer begins earlier… So we went back to sleep once it had completed it’s section and now the tap-tap doesn’t seem so bad. In fact it’s beginning to sound like a lullaby.

16 05b

(Don’t know what this building is but that looks like a spiral staircase under the clock)

Anyway, we started late. We were going to the art gallery, called Veletržní Palace and on the way we needed to book our onward transport to Krakow. We are travelling by overnight sleeper train and are very excited as we’ve never travelled that way before. We decided to walk to the train station as Prague is very manageable by foot. But, you know how some places don’t expect people to walk to them? So they make the footpaths nearby very (very) narrow? Ensuring that cars rush by millimetres from your elbow? This was one of those places and I promised my inner child we would be taking the metro out of the train station. We did arrive safely into a very modern concourse and proceeded to the international ticket desk. There we met a lovely lady who spoke English (I think everyone here does) and she did her very best to find us a sleeper to Krakow but they were all gone 😦

16 05c

(There were beautiful art deco houses near the art gallery)

Yes we were momentarily sad…. but when the lovely lady found us a day train with reserved seats we thought of lots of reasons why we wanted to go on the day train…. em, I brought my crochet and now I will have an opportunity to use it; we will see the countryside; we will have opportunities for adventure and peril as we negotiate changing trains, twice; we might meet interesting people and hear interesting stories. So all good. Forget everything I said about the night train – we are now taking the day train to Krakow.

16 05d

(Our tram)

We had to have a green tea and a toasted roll after that. Then we proceeded to the art gallery. It is on the other side of the river and still within walking distance but remembering my promise to my inner child, we took the metro. By now we were off the grid on our city map so we had to revert to the compass app again. Before long we needed human help and asked a couple of women chatting outside a house for directions to the Veletržní Palace. Well we though we were saying Veletržní Palace… “art gallery?” brought smiles and a very enthusiastic reaction to our being able to walk there. We were very pleased with ourselves, we must look like seasoned walkers. Fifteen minutes later we were beginning to understand their reaction. Eventually with some more human help we arrived at the gallery.

16 05e

(This is the Charles bridge, I hope to get more pictures of it later in the week, it’s always crowded)

It was well worth the walk. They have a beautiful art collection and a fantastic glass lift to bring you to the top of the gallery. There are lots of interesting Czech artists but also lots of international art too. They have Rodin, Monet, Cézanne, Surat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, Klimt, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, lots of Picasso. There are five floors so we needed coffee and a biscuit afterwards. That’s where we met a very friendly girl who gave us walking directions back to Old Prague. She suggested we take the tram… we did.

We’re going to take a bus tour tomorrow, Mairead.

A Free Walking Tour of Prague with Nobleman Adam

May 15, 2014May 14, 2014 | Mairead

14 05ff

(Exceedingly steep escalator in the metro)

We’re just back from the free walking tour of Prague, three hours of information, pictures and craning our necks to look at beautiful buildings. It was excellent. I’ve forgotten a lot of the information. Here’s what I remember…

14 05bb

(Powder Gate – old city wall gate, also used to store munitions)

Czechs invented sugar cubes! Yes, the story goes that all sugar came in sugar loaves (the Sugar Loaf mountain in Wicklow – it’s what sugar looked like…) and one day the wife of the sugar factory owner was cutting up the loaf of sugar and cut her hand. She was very annoyed and told her husband that he must do something about this problem. He loved his wife dearly and wanted to please her so he invented the sugar cube for her, and shared the idea with the rest of the world. They also invented Semtex – a plastic explosive…

14 05dd

(The Astronomical Clock – it’s very very old and still working. It measures lots of things related to time including how many hours since the last sunset, you might be able to see above, 19 hours since sunset last night)

There have been lots of wars and protests and executions in Prague and in the Czech Republic. The first time a Republic was declared was after the first World War (I think it included Slovakia at the time) then there was a little problem with Hitler. Then the Russians (and Americans) saved them from the problem with Hitler and they were very grateful and were persuaded by the attractiveness of Communism. Thus ended the first republic. Then there was a student of philosophy, Jan Palach, in 1968 who protested against the lack of Czech protest against Communism and burned himself in Wenceslas Square. Then in 1989 they had the Velvet Revolution (named because the change was so smooth) when they split from Communism and the Velvet Divorce when they split from Slovakia. Before all that there was a long war between the Protestants and the Catholics, our guide, Adam, is related to one of the noblemen who were beheaded by the Catholics in 1620. He says he has blue blood but we were unable to verify this…

14 05ee

(The old Jewish Cemetery, very crowded and the inspiration for the holocaust memorial in Berlin)

And almost finally, the Czech Good King Wenceslas was not a king but a Duke who was murdered by his brother (BAD King Wenceslas?) but he did become a saint after that. And, when Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were landing on the moon in 1969 they were playing the music of Antonín Dvorák – he’s Czech.

14 05aa

(Adam… and our money)

The tour also included some useful tips, like how much beer you should expect to get for 200Kč (Czech Crowns) – 7 beers and for 100Kč – 3 beers. Adam needed some Czech notes to help with this demonstration. As we are very helpful people, both Denis and I gave him the notes, thus allowing him to demonstrate another tip – don’t give your money to strangers. Adam thought that was very funny…

Time for a coffee, Mairead.

There’s a champion of button makers in Merrion Square

November 21, 2013November 20, 2013 | Mairead

2011a

(This is where my champion lives… the sign is ceramic… a sign?)

We went to Dublin on Saturday and parked in Merrion Square which is beautiful at this time of year and on a Saturday there’s usually a few parking spaces. Last Saturday there were loads of parking places when we arrived. They have new parking meters that only work with credit cards and in fact don’t work very well. There was a queue of people trying, unsuccessfully to purchase tickets so we joined the queue. Surprisingly the queue was very upbeat, probably a bit of a siege mentality, everyone working together against the common enemy. We were all throwing in our tuppence worth of advice and slowly the queue shortened.

2011aa

(Detailed drawings…. kinda)

While I was waiting I noticed the meter was right outside the offices of the Craft Council of Ireland. Their website says they are “the main champion of the craft industry in Ireland, fostering its growth and commercial strength, communicating its unique identity and stimulating quality design, innovation and competitiveness.” Well, I thought, wasn’t that synchronicity, here’s me working away on my bag of clay and here’s the offices of my champion. The right place at the right time. I think I’m okay for a champion at the moment but if I do need one…

2011cc

(Potential Bunting)

So to keep you up to date with that bag of clay, it’s slow, but it’s best if we don’t dwell on that part. The best part is working with the clay. As I was saying I started with a few buttons. There’s a few days work in any endeavour with clay no matter how little I produce. First the clay needs to be in workable form and I’m finding it too wet to work with when it comes out of the bag so on day 1 I rolled out a handful between two sheets of cling film and watched it dry… On day 2 it probably needed to dry some more but I wanted to start so I used my square cutter and cut some potential buttons… yum!

2011bb

(Buttons with maximum added holes. Slip is like glue for clay, thanks Dei for the recipe!)

On day 3 I was too busy 😦 to do anything so covered the clay with the cling film and a damp cloth. One of the absolutely amazing things about clay is it will wait for you… I mean it will stop drying. Ok not necessarily always or at every point in the damp to dry continuum but enough for me to be excited. And the reason I need it to stop drying is that there will be a point where it is too dry to work with 😦 and in order to make a potential button into an actual button I have to add some holes. Adding holes to a dry square of clay causes the potential button to loose it’s potential and turn into a broken mess. The perfect point of dryness that I’m waiting for is called leather-hard. So now we’re up to day 4 but I forgot to take off the cling film… so…

2011e

(Cute little apron)

At this point, to cut a very long and detailed story short, I have some buttons, some bunting triangles and the cutest little apron. All these are experiments as I wonder where to go next, but something unexpected has happened. You might remember I don’t like this stage where I don’t know where I’m going next? Well, yesterday as I was rushing out to an appointment, leaving my clay behind I realised that if I was lucky enough to be able to do stuff with clay everyday for the rest of my life that would be as perfect a life as I could imagine.

Of course I forgot later when I was rushing back to make dinner but I remember again now, Mairead.

Dear Sebastian

November 18, 2013November 17, 2013 | Mairead

1711d

(Up close with a rose)

I was down in the charity shop last week and I bought a few books including some hardbacks for the Kickstart your Creativity course. We use them as Life Journals and glue in attractive bits of paper. One of the books I bought is called Dear Sebastian. I was lured in by the cute picture on the front cover of a smiling boy and his Dad on a beach and that made me start reading and now I won’t be doing any sticking… Once I can get past the crying I’ll be keeping it for the quotes and inspiration.

1711a

(Playing with the colours)

It’s a true story about a man who was diagnosed with cancer while on a business trip to Australia (I know!) That was in March 2008 and he died in June 2008. He had a nine-year old son, called Sebastian and his main concern in those three months was for his son and also for his mother (he was divorced from his wife.) So he decided he wanted to write his son a letter leaving him with a message. He also wanted to ask other people to do the same and compile it all in a book.

1711c

(More roses)

Unfortunately, he didn’t get a chance to write his letter (I was ugly crying at that point) and he had only contacted a few people. But he had asked his mother, early on, to promise that she would complete his project if he didn’t get a chance. In spite of her grief she did. Lots of famous Irish people wrote letters to Sebastian and they are all in the book.

1711b

(Although this look like sweets, it’s a flower)

I’m just a quarter way through (it’s taking a long time because I have to blow my nose so much…) but already there’s been some lovely letters. Including sincere ones from some politicians… It makes me think there’s power in writing stuff down. Stuff like memories, thoughts, feelings, messages, encouragement for others, gratitude. Whether it’s to let it go or pass it on writing can be really useful.

Go on, write it down, Mairead.