The day has finally arrived, its the first semi final and the first time to really make out what Europe thinks of our turkey. The reaction has been positive in press conferences and the likes, but the only real judge will be the public tonight. Russia are tipped to win it with their ballad on rollerblades. I’m not making this stuff up I have managed to persuade the workmates to come out for eurovision cocktails, I think it was the cocktail part that enticed them not the eurovision part. I got an early night last night to prepare myself for the big evening. I was wrecked anyway from the weekend and last week. It always takes a lot out of me emotionally. I’m just glad its over and there weren’t too many battle scars.

The weekend was filled with the in-laws again! Its becoming a common occurence. It was Mammy2’s god daughter’s first communion and a family affair. We were out in Raheny at the church for 10.45. The service was lovely, the kids were well trained by the 3 teachers. Then it was back to the house and the bouncy castle. Lots of food, wine and catchups. It was only the second or third time I have been around the extended family, both on Mammy2’s sister’s side and the hubby’s side. I was enveloped in a bear hug by some small lady who said she was delighted to meet Mammy2’s better half. She was Mammy2’s mammy’s sister. The difference in how Mammy2’s Mam takes things is amazing, I mean a few years I would have been hidden in the closet or the broom cupboard But now she’s introducing me to everyone and anyone. Perhap she has realised that if I make Mammy2 happy then I can’t be all bad.
I did have a classic embarressing moment though. As the hubby’s family were leaving, his mother went to kiss people goodbye, me being unfamilar with which cheek to offer ended up kissing the poor woman on the lips. Scarleh. Of course, Mammy2’s brother and wife caught the whole thing and are now calling me Hot Lips Farrell. I’ll never live it down. At least I see the woman very rarely. Thank god.

This week is another manaic one, I’m noticing a trend here. Its eurovision week, there’s a spud meet on Sat as well as the heineken cup final with Munster and Toulouse. Its all fun and games. I wanted to catch up with the the kid at the bank holiday weekend but its herself and the boyf’s anniversary, a year I think, so they are thinking of heading away for the weekend. Cute. I think she has mentioned Tramore. We had a lovely holiday there the last family holiday we went on with Mam and herself. She was at that awkard age of 13 and didn’t know what was wrong with her. She’s turning 19 next month. I feel so old :O

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 9:29 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The kid and Mam

The Titches, you can see how proud she is with the way she’s rolling her eyes

When she was younger and one of the many suitors

My graduation

Mam with the kid

Check out the look

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 12:49 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

This thought struck me this morning as I spotted a young seagull doing his best to get 4 squares of a choclate bar into his mouth. I mean, do they have teeth? I’ve never gotten up close to one to check. In the event of them having teeth do they worry about plaque? Do seagulls floss? If they don’t have teeth, how the feck does the chocolate get down there? They sit around waiting for it to melt? And what about diet? Will we suddenly be overrun with obese seagulls. Its something we should be aware of.

I’m on a half day today, as we are travelling down home for the mass. I don’t like that its on a different day as its extending the whole thing when all I want is for it to be over. The kid was supposed to be heading by train, but as it turns out the train as per usual isn’t providing a decent service. The last train leaves Athlone at 8.05. when you consider the mass is at 7.30, we’d never have her and her
man back in on time, so as it happens, its just her coming down with us. The boyf gets car sick and with the hot weather I reckon he would be an unwell bunny. She’s none to happy about it but there’s not much that can be done. I am meeting her in town, home to the apartment to change and then we travel out to Lucan to meet Mammy2 and head down from there. Mammy2 was lucky to get the few hours off. Apparently her boss said because it wasn’t a family member he really didn’t think he needed to approve it. The word arsehole doesn’t begin to cover this guy. However Mammy2 stood up to him and told him she wouldn’t be in work so he could just approve it, or words to that affect. I can’t wait to see what happens she puts in for a week off. I wonder will his head rotate?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 8:47 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

I survived a weekend with the inlaws. Well,it wasn’t exactly a whole weekend in their company. As the sister-in-law and her kids were heading down as well, we had the fun of booking a B&B in Swinford. We found a place with one B, a bed and sure that was all we needed really. Little did we know how basic it was. It was located above a pub, and when I checked out their ‘website’ to see where it was located, the live music listing send off warning bells in my head. Room above pub and live music do not equal sleep. I guess they assume if you are staying there then you will be joining in the ‘craic’ like. Not us. As far away from that sort of ‘craic’ as we can get. We arrived down in Mayo in good time, just after 9.30 after I waited the best part a half hour to get the bus to Lucan where I was meeting Mammy2. It would save time on traffic. When we went into the pub to check in, 3 fellas moulded to the bar, moved the only part of them that wasn’t stuck, their heads to assess us. We asked about our booking. The barman retrieved our key from a jar under the skin containing all the keys. The smell of smoke was horrible, thankfully our room was on the top floor. High enough to get away from the smell of smoke but not high enough to drown out the ‘entertainment’.

Apart from the fun and frolics that the B threw our way, it was a great weekend. Lots of family time, the kids are warming to me a bit more. I think they have difficulty with the fact that I don’t do baby talk. I talk as if talking to an adult. The girls are at an age where they are happy to talk away. The boys just run around and play football. I managed to get quite a few photos of them, none of all of them though, the minute you’d get the 5 lined up, S, the rogue one among them would run off just as I would ask them to smile. They can be impossible at times.

Sunday we headed to the Longford for the opening game of the championships. Westmeath against the old rivals Longford. We met up with the brother and his gf and as the pitch was next door to the aunt and uncle, we popped in there for a cuppa beforehand. The game was great, we were all over them and 7 points clear heading into the last 15 minutes. Then Longford got a goal back and a point and suddenly it was starting to look like a repeat of last year. I was biting other peoples nails I was so nervous. I was hoarse from roaring at the lads, and trying to drown out the larger contingent of Longford supporters. I love GAA matches for the banter. If I had a cent for every time someone shouted Ah Ref, I’d be rich. At one stage, it did look like a lot of descisions were going out way . We got a free, near the 45 lines. An irate Longford supporter bellowed at the ref “Ah sure why don’t you take it yourself Ref!” We won by 3 points in the end and its off to Tullamore on the 7th of June for a game against Offaly. I hope we can beat them, they’re always a dodgy team for us. We headed into one of the bars in town then to have a pint, only one comment on our westmeathness was when some ould fella standing outside the bar said we should take ourselves to the nearest corner. I assume he was joking. He’d better have been.

Mammy2 got a fierce slagging from her family for wearing a Westmeath jersey. They couldn’t understand how she could. I suppose they’d be fine with me wearing a Dubs one. Its always the same, if we’re not playing each other obviously. When we’re playing each other, its pratically divorce If we beat Offaly and assuming Dublin beat Louth, oh my sides, we’re through to meet the Dubs in Croker for a Leinster semi final towards the end of June. What a game that would be. But we won’t look that far ahead. It was interesting to see the new talent come through though as well as some of the 2004 squad still performing well. Flangan and O’Donohue were inspirational at midfield. They were winning all of the balls coming in and Dessie and Glennon up front were on fire, Dessie thankfully not looking any the worse for wear after the hamstring injury.

This week is looking a tad busy, tomorrow we travel down home for the mass. And meet up with the aunts and uncles. Without the sister K to distract them, they will probably latch onto us. Although with the whole gay thing, they usually give us a wide berth. Its contagious in case you hadn’t heard I’m on a half day so I have to meet the kid and her man in town and give them money to get the train. I had sortof offered a few weeks ago not thinking she’d take me up on it, I should know better really shouldn’t I? As her man gets car sick, they are getting the train and then meeting us in Athlone. We are heading down early so we can grab a bite to each with the brother and his gf before the mass as we have to head straight back to Dublin then. It will be strange not having it on the actual anniversary and also not having the sister K around. We’re usually all together on the day, but I suppose with the day itself being the Thursday then its just as well. I didn’t put in for Thursday off. I think work might be a distraction.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The last few evenings I have taken to walking home, part perparing for the marathon in a month and partly due to the gorgues weather. I don’t usually walk it because I am a culchie and a complete scaredy cat when it comes to certain areas of Dublin. The Strand scares me. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but of course I am from ballygobackwards and so certain areas of Dublin inspire new hair styles. But so far so good. And yesterday I wore by Westmeath hat to keep off the sun, and in the morning the rain and I didn’t get any hassle. That said I avoided Sean MacDermott street with its Dubs flags flying proudly from every telegraph pole. I don’t think they’d appreciate my support of the lakesiders espeically. Yesterday whilst heading past the five lamps and trying to navigate the traffic, who should I pass but the fair Juliet herself. I nearly fell over. She looked like any other person coming from college. Rucksack on back, chattering on the phone. So I didn’t get the chance to stop and drool. I’m sure she would have been mightly impressed with this 5ft nothing laserbeam waxing lyrical about her music and how fab she was. Although perhaps she has had stranger things happen to her. Can’t wait to see her next Friday, she has a gig at Draiocht in Blanchardstown. I have never been to this venue, so looking forward to it. She’ll be performing songs from her forthcoming new album, and they are rumoured to be less acerbic then her previous ones. Should be a good gig.

The week has been relatively uneventful, the sunshine making everything seem great. Trained on Wedensday and its the first time somone has asked me to be their partner! I was chuffed. I had visions of the instructor squaring up to me or working the bag and was Wedensday was so hot the bag would have killed me. Really good class and my kicks have improved a good bit. I’ll miss tomorrow’s class because I’ll be in the wilds of Mayo but am hoping to get Monday’s class. The t-shirt saga continues. I brought back the one I got by mistake, and asked them for the girls one. As they are kids t-shirts, the small is tiny and the medium isn’t much better. The instuctor tried to persuade me to get the medium. I perfer clothing to be loose so I opted to wait for the large. They reckon it will be in next week. All this to support the club. I could buy t-shirts elsewhere but I think its important to put money back into the place.

I passed the newly openeing Lighthouse Cinema on the way to class. It looks very swish, am looking forward to checking out some movies there. No excues for not having the energy to go uptown. I think they will be in competition with the IFI, which is good. The IFI does tend to have a monopoly on arty/world films so we shall see if this puts a dent in their sales.

The weekend will be spent in a b&b in Swinford. We are heading down to spend time with the brother in law as we are heading the same weekend as the sister-in-law and her 3 young whippersnappers, there won’t be room for all of us so we opted for the B&B option. We got a guesthouse in town so we can walk from there out to the brothers. Weather permitting. The west is always a few temperatures below the rest of the country. Should be a good weekend, lots of in-law time. I shall hide behind the camera as per and try out the various settings on Juno. Although the kids are way more savvy these days with regards taking their picture so its becoming increasingly difficult to get them to pose. I’ve become like a wildlife photographer, crawling across couches and under mats, so that my subject doesn’t notice me and take flight.Its a challenge but a good test of my skills or lack there of.

On the way back from Mayo, its stop off time at Ireland’s most racist county, Longford for the local derby of Westmeath v Longford in the first match of the Bank of ireland Championship. They knocked us out last year so we are looking for revenge. The brother bought tickets so we are heading with him and his gf and hopefully the uncle, who’s a Longfordian. God help them. A busy but fun weekend ahead. Good to take my mind off next week. Before I forget, check out this baby squirrel

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.