Oscars Wild!

The whole country has gone oscars wild today after Irish film 'Once' winning Best Original Song. It was written by the two main actors in the film, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irlglová. Myself and Eric were really delighted for them because they are both hard-working artists. Markéta Irlgová also gave a great speech about how independent musicians and artists should always dream and never give up hope (music to our ears as we head off to Berlin for our creative break, and also on my recent blog theme of hope).

For those of you who haven't seen the film - go see it! It's a real gem of a film about the relationship between an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant in Dublin city (the photo above was shot on Killiney Hill, just up the road from where we live). It was done on a shoe string using real musicians, and on top of that it is a great story. I cried sporadically throughout the film (tears of joy!) and would definitely said it was one of my top films of 2007.

Below is a clip of their performance of 'Falling Slowly' at the Oscars, which I have been humming all day. A great day for indie musicians everywhere.

Peter's Welcome Party

Yesterday was baby Peter Seán Heffernan's welcome party. It was a lovely ceremony, which our good friends Dee and Richie spent ages preparing for. It was in the community centre by their house, which was a perfect venue for the 40 odd people that were there.

Eric opened up the proceedings with the song 'Beautiful Boy' by John Lennon. Then there was a Powerpoint presentation of photos of Peter from womb (lots of pics of Dee with bump) to present-time. Daithí and Bridget, who are Peter's god-parents read pieces that they wrote especially for Peter. Below is a pic of Daithí with his god-son.

Members of both Richie and Dee's family then read out blessings for Peter. Followed by myself and Dee's older brother Jimmy who read out two poems and then whole thing ended with Dee's younger brother, Shaun singing 'Imagine' with the rest of us chiming in. Really lovely. I am posting my chosen poem, by poet Sheenagh Pugh, below.

I chose it with Peter in mind, but also thinking of Dee and Richie. For those of you who don't know them, Dee and Richie are some of the most thoughtful, optimistic and hopeful people I know. Precious traits that I know will be passed down to Peter too. A wise man (Billy Bragg I think) once said that the enemy of humanity is cynicism and I think he is dead right.

So this is for Dee and Richie who, just in their hopefulness, fight the good fight. I also thought you lot out there might like it too.

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

Happy Birthday Paddy!

I am on a bit of a blog-roll at the moment so I'm just going with it. Today we were at our good friends Bridget and Daithí's apartment, celebrating their son, Paddy's birthday. He is now two and is just the cutest little fella. His full name is Pádraic but his shortened name Paddy just suits him to a tee. Actually the birthday cake that Bridget made (see above) in his image pretty much sums him up - blonde curls and a huge smile.

It was a lovely afternoon, with a gathering of Daithi and Bridget's family and friends and lots of food. Paddy seemed to enjoy the lighting, and blowing out, of the birthday cake.

And, he also seemed to enjoy the most important part of his birthday cake...the eating of it.

Myself and Eric have really enjoyed getting to know him over these last couple of years and hope to celebrate many more birthdays with him. This one is for you Paddy - Happy Birthday!

The Many Faces of Eric

Ah, the fun you can have with a camera, a razor, some card, a marker and a husband who's up for anything (having no television also helps)! Eric finally shaved the beard that he had been cultivating over the last month :) It's actually amazing how different he looks depending on what part of the beard is there, so we decided to chronicle this metamorphasis for your viewing pleasure.

Below is his militia-style handlebar moustache

And my favourite - Tom Selleck eat your heart out!

And last, is the clean-cut Eric that you all know and love. We call this the Baby-face, as it is the expression on practically every baby photo of Eric.

The Future of Eckamura?

Eric reckons this is a look into the future at what one of our kids might be like, what with my dominant genes and Eric's passion for the Beatles.

I'm really not into making kids perform (this is from first-hand experience of being forced into poetry and piano recitals - to this day The Owl and the Pussy-cat gives me the shivers). However, I have to say that I do think this is very cute. I particularly like the yell at the end.

And if this doesn't play for you here's the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqXYwNDrU8k

My Dental Nightmare

Warning: this blog is not for the faint-hearted.

As some of know already, this month has been a particularly painful month, with three visits to the dentist and another one to go. For some unknown it seems that some of my teeth have decided to pack it in and have generally been giving me a hard time.

For my American relatives, I know the concept of experiencing pain at the dentist is a completely alien notion. However, if you are Irish it is a pretty common experience. I am not sure whether it's because the drugs are stronger in America or whether our dentists are just sadists but I swear I could fill a book with all the dentist horror stories I have heard since my experience.

Anway, I have decided not to go into too much detail about the whole thing, other than to say, that on the pain scale my last filling was at the Interrogate-the-Terrorist end. Tortuous pretty much covers it, as the dentist ended up hitting the nerve while he was drilling down.

I think the reason Mother Nature or God or whoever decided to cover the tooth nerve with hard enamel was because it is not meant to be touched!!! It was as if someone hooked me up to an electric generator and threw the switch. Basically I jumped out the seat and the nurse screamed. It was all very dramatic and I was sick for about two weeks after. It has now way surpassed The Owl and the Pussycat as the Number One thing to make me shiver when I think about it.

So I have decided to be constructive and have used my experience to compile my top five dentist tips below. Please feel free to add any comments people.

1. Discuss with the dentist what they are going to do before they numb your whole mouth with novacaine.
2. Get them to walk through the procedure as they are doing it.
3. Never trust an Irish dentist when they say it isn't going to hurt.
4. Never trust an Irish dentist when they say it is only going to hurt a little bit.
5. When the dental nurse starts to scream, run.

2nd Anniversary!

Oh how time has flown by! I can't believe that myself and Eric have been two years married already. It seems just like yesterday when I fell head over heels and ruthlessly pursued the man of my dreams until he finally relented. It really was quite the whirlwind romance.

Now two years along I'm probably more excited than ever about the life myself and Eric are creating for ourselves. I have to say that marriage wasn't something that I ever had in mind for myself, so our relationship is something I am really proud of. And definitely something to be celebrated.

Which is why this year we decided to treat ourselves to a nice few days away in Wicklow. We stayed two nights at the lovely Druid's Glen hotel. Our stay consisted of eating, drinking, sleeping, roasting ourselves in the steam room, cooling off in the pool and generally having a grand old time.

The hotel decor was very modern Celtic. It is quite the popular golf resort and is aimed at the American market. We were happy to see that the groundskeeper kept with the Celtic theme on the outside (we thought that Steve would particularly like this photo).

Eric, inspired by Bridget, completely embraced the whole rest and relaxation atmosphere of the hotel...

All in all it was a tremendous success. And in between the lots of doing nothing and waiting for our skin to de-wrinkle from the pool, we also got to give a little cheers to our two years together.

Introducing...Peter

This photo is long overdue, apologies people.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the Mulrooney-Heffernan family, Peter.

Just to let you know that those cheeks are doubly kissable in real life.