Greetings!
Huge apologies to the three people that read this blog for the exceptionally overdue update! I’m trying to fool you into thinking that I have a mad busy life, which is just a cover for the fact that I am unbelievably, incomprehensibly and completely lazy. But there is good news – I bought a laptop so now I have no reason to not update more frequently. Woo-hoo!
So this laptop – I’m not going to even go into the details of it since the computer nuts out there would just vomit on their top-of-the-line, super-duper, ultra-nifty little machines. Basically it’s a dell that I got online for 300 bucks and its doing the job. There’s no floppy drive, writeable CD drive and only 1 usb port, but its serving my needs so its all good.
So since January, what’s been the story? Since my last update we’ve gotten snow again on the 18 of March. And then on the 19th. But backtrack a little to one of the most important days of the Irish calendar. I am of course referring to March 17th – the day folks round the world dig up their roots to the emerald isle, no matter how remote. “I had a housekeeper whose cat ate a mouse that sipped out of my cousin’s glass of Jameson (Irish whiskey)”. I headed up to Dublin to take in the parade with my friend and roomie, Claire. We were too late for the parade unfortunately (it starts at noon but by about 10 its 8 people deep and we could only see anything in the reflection of the windows in buildings.) Needless to say that was short lived and we legged it into a pub to watch the rugby match. (Beware – language may offend)
Okay, a little background is needed so you can fully appreciate this. Rugby is a pretty big sport over here. There are a whole bunch of teams at the national level around the world (apparently Canada has one. Anybody know about them? Are they any good?). There is a tournament known as the 6 Nations that happens here between England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy and France. The six teams all play against eachother and the winner rocks. There is also a smaller tournament withing the 6 Nations called the Triple Crown that is just between Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Well, we won the Triple Crown and were close behind France for the 6 Nations title. The final 3 games were played on St. Patrick’s Day (a note to the wanna-be-Irish peoples: folks over here dislike it being referred to as Paddy’s Day. It was all over the radio and everything. You’ll sound more authentic if you call it its proper name since it really is a Feast day. Just my little tip 4 ya) and the tension was high. There’s a picture of me in my fabulous Irish rugby jersey. Aren’t I cute?? So yeah, had to get into a pub to watch the match (the best atmosphere is in a pub. No better place!) and we won our game against Italy by a huge margin but the bastards came back and scored a last minute try (which is like a touchdown in American Football). Unfortunately one of our boys, O’Gara (the real reason I watch rugby) missed 4 of his conversions which would have meant another 8 points for us. But we were still optimistic. We could still win the 6 Nations if Scotland managed to keep France in check. The games were really good and my voice was gone (although all the Guinness I was drinking helped) and it looked like we were going to win the tourney. Until the bloody French pulled an Italy and scored a last minute try. And then the conversion. Which means that they got an extra 7 points. SO – to sum it up – if we’d gotten our 4 conversions (which he NEVER misses) or if France and/or Italy hadn’t gotten their last minute tries WE WOULD HAVE ONE!!! The Wankers!
Okay – now the inappropriate language section of this blog report has been completed. Back to nice talk. So St. Patrick’s Day was great craic and I got snow the next day. Fabulousness.
Since then there has been a good bit going on. A good friend of mine from work, Paul, was singing backup for a fella in Newbridge. That turned from going to a gig to heading out for a few jars after to a house party involving 5am rugby. It was such a fun night. And he was great to listen to. I’d love to see him playing his own gig. I would go see him cause he’s really good. So the night after a group of girls and I headed down to Carlow. One of our friends from work is headed to Australia to do some traveling and since she’s from Carlow we went down to have a night out with her. We were hanging from the night before but still managed to dance the night away before coming back for karaoke. The next day we were even more destroyed but made ourselves head to the carnival in town before coming back to Naas. Myself and Aisling went on all of the rides. Even the mad ones where we spun around like mad and hung suspended upsidedown. There was something wrong with me cause I would never do that normally! But it was bril. So that was that weekend.
It was another heavy couple of days last weekend with a leaving do for our Australia-bound Claire on Friday and a night of wine, dancing and Borat in Ann Maries on Saturday. We are mad.
On the work front things have been really busy lately. With my new role in the lab (which is a new role company-wide so its not really defined yet) I’m getting tons of training in lots of different areas which is great, but comes with the mixed blessing that people expect me to put the training into practice. But I got to do something really cool this week – Occupational First Aid. It was 3 days of training and it was really great. I love feeling like I can actually help in a situation, espically if its someone I care about. I did a one day course back home ages ago but I didn’t feel nearly as prepared as I do now, which is great.
So yeah, that’s the rundown with me. Oh and thanks to everyone who kept my friends mom in your prayers. If you missed it, she was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer. They’ve been treating it pretty aggressively and today she got very positive news that her body has responded in a near miraculous fashion. Such great news! She is the second person I have known who prayers have helped with a very severe form of cancer. Prayers are oh so powerful!! So thanks for sending them but keep them up.
I’m heading down to Cork for the Easter weekend. My Irish Daddy’s mother (I call her Granny) is turning 90 on Easter Sunday so it will be a great reunion. I will post some pics and a bit of a run-down of what went on next week.
Oh – and my mom sold our house. Its really sad actually – some other kids will be having hot tub parties in my backyard. Oh the memories.
Anyway, Lost is over (anyone else watching it? Its getting really good, eh?) so I’m going to bed. I’ll say more later!Peace!!! J

WE HAVE SNOW!

Oh the excitement!! I woke up this morning and my window was all white. Now since I've got the optical range of an anglerfish I did a double take with my specs and guess what!?!? That's right - IT SNOWED! In IRELAND! Is this place nearly perfect or what!?!?!?! Its 8:30 and half my shift hasn't arrived yet since the Irish don't drive in the snow (we're supposed to start at 8). Nifty.
Just thought I'd share. YAY!!!

Belated Update!

Greetings all! Sorry its been so long since an update - its been a little mad. Okay, since my last post I have done a good bit of schtuff - headed off to Madrid for a weekend (which was pretty cool), was mad busy at work, got to a couple of Christmas parties (still a bit shakey when the w.i.n.e. word is used) and headed back to the good ol' north strong and free for Christmas with the family. Phew. No wonder I was so tired!
Madrid was a really neat city. I headed over with 5 friends and we just went to town. There wasn't really a lot to see, but I think that was kinda because I was expecting it to be as cool as Rome and that's not really possible. We went to the zoo (which has the cousins of all the 'real' animals like instead of seeing the African elephant we saw the smaller Indian version. We saw the Dromedary, which is a one-humped camel instead of the typical 2-humped version. That sorta stuff. OH- and a Canadian black bear. Who was very grumpy), hit the museum of Natural Science (pretty cool) and a really neat market that sold absolutely everything from people's rusty old sliver tea sets to paintings to winter jackets to jewelry to multicoloured socks to knitwear to purses that looked like a box of corn flakes with handles ... everything you could think of it was there. Absolutely brilliant. We also hit a few drinking holes, our favorite being Moore's. And yes, it was an Irish pub. We met a fella from Sligo who was serving pints so he could give us suggestions on where to go and what to see.
The on to the Christmas parties - we had 2 and they were great nights. The first was in time: venue which was voted nightclub of the year for 2005, so its pretty cool. The upper 80's bar was reserved for us so the music was great and the atmosphere was buzzing. Then we had the dinner dance. Oh what a blast that was! Our table was cracking! We were constantly laughing at eachother, dancing and drinking a lot of wine! There are a few pics of the night for your perusal.
Well its time to head home (I can only do this from work since I STILL don't have a computer yet) so I'll bring pictures of going home into my next post next week. Be prepared! And be good

For Adam

...and anyone else not exceptionally fond of the Calgary Flames: http://www.flamessuck.com/

Wedding of the Century

And on to the wedding ...
My cousin Eleanor got married on October 27th and it was the absolute best event I've ever attended. I honestly don’t think I’ll enjoy my own wedding as much! The day started with a scramble to get all done up to the nines since its like Punchestown week when the Curran ladies get all dolled up and I didn't want to feel like a complete fuddy-duddy. Anyway, was out at Cormie and Sheila's place and we all headed into Naas together after Mary came in and salon-styled our hair. Since we were mad early we headed to Graces for a cup of coffee and a few quick pics.We headed back to the church for one and stood out in the chilly October air (but it was dry. Woo-hoo!) to mingle and wait for the bride. At a little past two (the wedding was supposed to start at 1) a horse-drawn carriage pulled into the church parking lot. Eleanor was inside, absolutely beaming. The wedding ceremony itself was just beautiful, in the stunning cathedral with music provided by a barbershop quartet (what a nice touch! They sounded oh-so-good!!). After the wedding we headed down to Tullamore in Co. Offaly for the reception in the Bridge House Hotel. It was such a beautiful place. We walked in and were greeted with glasses of champagne with strawberries in the bottom (yummy) and the supply was endless. I must have had at least 4 glasses before dinner! I'm amazed I wasn't pissed since I had only had half of the cup of coffee all day. When we got into the dining room it was lit by candlelight and there were beautiful bows on the back of all the chairs. There were little boxes full of little questions for the table to break the ice but since I was sitting with my three brothers and their fiancees and my guest (who is their cousin) we were well able to break things on our own. We were the loudest table, singing the words to the instrumental music that was there intended to be condusive to peaceful dining. Not the story when the boys got going. People kept coming over, wanting to be a part of our table since we were having such a great time. It was one of the most fun dinners I've ever had, laughing and singing and answering questions the whole time. I thought there was no possible way to improve it. Then the deserts came out. I would never have touched my dinner if they had brought that out sooner. There was a chocolate fountain (YAY!!) and literally every desert (besides cheesecake) I can think of. We had large dinner plates to go around the dessert room (they call it a buffet. I call it a room) and it was impossible to get one of everything, although there were many, many attempts. The speeches were really fantastic and when the music started it was hard to peel anyone off the dance floor. There was great oldies played, timeless classics and stuff that everyone loves (Summer of 69). After the dancing we retired to the resident's bar where Anne (my Irish Mammy) pulled out a book full of songs specific to everyone in the family. We all sang our respective songs (The River is mine. Did Garth proud) and dragged ourselves up to bed around 6am. Sheila and I had breakfast delivered to our room (mmmm but not really worth getting out of bed for. Nothing was worth getting out of bed for that morning) so we got up and munched then I went back to bed and didn't surface until 2pm. Headed down the town to meet up with them all at a pub before coming back to another wonderful dinner. There was another eventful night in the residents bar (I had to sneak away from 11pm-2am for a nap) and we headed home on Sunday afternoon after meeting Sharon's (my brother Shane's fiancee) family for lunch. Fortunately they were at a wedding the night before and were a little hanging as well. So here’s a few photos from the night. The first is me and Sheila while enjoying our coffee in Graces, then Eleanor emerging from the horse & carriage at the hotel, me and Louise (the BELL of the ball. She looked amazing), me and Laura (the prettiest bridesmaid), me and my adopted granddad Shamie and Shane and Ciaran trying out the ladies’ hairpieces. The last one is the happy couple. They were just glowing all night. The night was fantastic. Can’t beat an Irish wedding!!!

Odds and Ends

So here's some Donegal pics - the first is Aisling, Sonia, Ann-Marie and myself at the coast in Bundorran, where Sonia lives. Then an action shot of the three girls throwing themselves down to the beach (I warned them that it could be dangerous but just look at them - Ann-Marie's just flying!) and then the four I went up with during our walk at Bundorran during a very windy day (the hooded one is Pauline, one of my bosses)

So yeah, that weekend was fabulous. Absolutely great.

Destination: Donegal

Well I have been avoiding putting another post up since I haven't gotten the pictures off my camera yet (ah the tribulations of those that do not own a computer) but since its getting a bit long since my last post I figured I'd bite the bullet.
The weekend of October 6th brought with it a journey that had been planned long before the solstice. A group of girls I work with decided to head up to see the native county of one of our colleagues. Now I can honestly say that anyone I have met from Donegal has been a bit ... special. I figure it must be something in the air up there. And sure enough the entire county is a bit mad. Once you get past the accents (you know how a group of babies sitting around gurgle and murkle and totally understand what eachother is saying? That's like listening to a group of Donegal folk) and the history to the houses (I was tricked into believing that there was no shower, the toilet was outside and that there wasn't any electricity) it really is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. My favorite county (Cork) has got some serious competition! I hopped in the car with Ann-Marie and we headed up to Bundorran on Friday afternoon. We were pretty tired after getting up early and then driving the long journey (3 hrs) so instead of going out on the lash with the other girls that night we stayed in a played pictionary with one of Sonia's friends, Sean. Even though we claimed we were staying in because we were too tired for a mad night, we nicked into bed just before Sonia, Pauline and Aisling got home. On Saturday we went for a walk along the coast (pictures to follow) then headed out to Rossnowlagh and had a gorgeous dinner with Sonia's folks (Sonia is renowned for her cooking. Her mam is a wonderful chef too) before heading back to Sonia's for a few jars with her mates. We went out in Bundorran to a night club called Whiskey Jacks and danced the night away (I go a little mad when Summer of 69 comes on but what can you do??). After a lovely breakfast of rashers and scrambled eggs we wandered around the town to the amusements where Aisling cleaned up on the slots (picture to follow) and we could clear our heads in the crisp air. All in all it was a wonderful weekend and a place I definately want to see more of!!!

A Special Birthday Wish

Well folks, today celebrates the 73rd anniversary of the year that one of the most wonderful, loving, wise and genuine men I have ever met was born. Its a beautiful Irish day too - which is perfect for a true Irishman, through and through. Its funny how I am picking up little Irish-isms and am asked infrequently where I am from anymore, yet he had a thick Irish brogue after living in Canada for over 20 years. Many a time were our arms burned from a teaspoon that was just after stirring a cup of tea or giggled over how the boys were silly enough to pee on the electric fence at the farm. With him I got to see a calf being borne, skin rabbits and play with goose gizzards and feel deep comfort in the sound of his voice and the smell of his cap. Just wanted to say a special Happy Birthday to my Grandad. I love you.