Arctics winds

After a long, lovely period of mild weather, it's turned cold. Not nasty cold, because it's actually a very sunny day, but definitely time to root out the winter boots, gloves and coats and absolutely time to break into a hot port and brandy! The old-style bars about town have lit their fires, and there's a real feeling of winter in the air, even though it's not quite Hallow'een.

Anyways, somehow this colder weather makes me feel more like doing and thinking about serious things, so I've decided to splash out on a couple of tickets to see an Ibsen show at the Abbey theatre. I've never seen anything by Ibsen before although it's one of those names you hear a lot of, and although I spent 5 years studying literature. So it's definitely time to go.

On the homefront, I've been practising my traditional Irish fall recipes. Calcannon (spelling?) is a wonderful thing. Somehow you combine potatoes, dark cabbage and a few other ingredients and you get something wonderful. I'm not that fond of cabbage as a rule but I can make a big exception in this case. My local greengrocer told me that, at Hallow'een, the traditional thing is to hide money in the food for the children to find!