December in Dublin

I've been in Ireland for two weeks now, not including a three day trip to England. When I'm not out meeting in-laws and friends of Keith's I've been spending most of my time in Glengara. Glengara is the name of my sister-in-law and her partner's house, located in the Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary-- bet you wouldn't have guessed that!) section of Dublin. It's an old house with a warm kitchen and a drafty... everywhere else. In fact, as I write this Keith and Frank are frantically andsecretively caulking the windows before Catriona gets home. I'm not sure why they are afraid of her finding out, but I guess every family has its quirks. Anyway, it is a lovely and comfortable house in a good location for visiting the city and getting out to some nice walks in the countryside.

The kitchen table with a window seat that has views to the garden

Aga cookers seem to be very popular in Ireland. It's an oven that's always on, which helps warm the house and makes turning knobs and pre-heating a thing of the past! I don't really get why everyone loves them. I mean you can't set a specific temperature, so you actually have no idea how hot any of the various compartments are. I'm going to try baking a cake in it Monday, so we'll see what kind of issues I'll have then.

Puppy picture! You will be seeing a lot of these.