A Few Pictures that Didn't Follow a Story Line

Here are a few pictures that haven't followed one of the themes of any given post, but I'm rounding up the pictures from January and thought I'd be sure to get them in.

Here's the "Clarks" store right by our house. We can get sandwiches there and a few sundry groceries as well as wine and candy!

On Thursday afternoon the kids, each with one Euro, headed up alone to get a candy bar. Both of their schools have highlighted healthy eating to us* and said that they were allowed some kind of treat "like a bar" on Fridays. It's actually a really nice rule. At home it feels like "everyone" is "always" having candy or going to Starbucks (across the street from the kids' school) and getting some huge, expensive drink.

Of course this isn't true, but when different people have treats or go to Starbucks on different days, it feels like everyone. So the Friday-treat-day is kind of nice. Plus the kids can rely on it and don't ask for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday treat days.

Anyway, on Thursday they headed out alone. See the little road to the right of Clarks? That road leads to our house, you take your first right and we are then on the middle of the street on your right. The road seems innocuous but it is actually quite dangerous--perhaps the most dangerous part of most of our trips out and about. Our kids never get to go to a local shop by themselves with one single dollar to buy something. Maggie is notoriously bad with directions, so she never really figured out how to get to and from a similar shop back home that has now turned into a green grocer. John could do it, particularly now. They could probably make it to a french bakery that is only a few blocks away, but a Euro wouldn't buy them a visit to the toilet. So the Clarks is really fun to have.

I expected they'd be gone for an hour (the choice in candy is a difficult one that takes much perusal and deliberation, plus there's a little magazine rack rife with the equivalent of Teen Beat with photos of the members of One Direction to entice our nearly-thirteen-year-old) but they were back in a flash, panting about who beat whom.

Here are a few more random pictures that have yet to find a home! 

Johnny at the top of a double-decker.

Some cool doorway.

The little creek on the way to school.

The primary school that is MUCH closer to our house that we didn't research well enough.

Fish Market in Dalkey.

Downtown Blackrock

Cafe in Dun Laogherie

*Sheila's aunt, Carol Ann sent us this article about Irish school lunches from the Independent.