On Saturday in Dublin I lost my Mc..

...and gained  some new friends.
We came over to Dublin to attend the launch the of the centenary celebrations of Templogue Tennis Club. I was a bit surprised to be greeted on arrival by the President of the club with "hello you must be Peter Kay, Sheila's husband" which was so welcoming that I thought it a little rude to correct her. On going to our designated table I saw that I was on the table plan as "Peter Kay"

Welcome to Templogue Tennis Club

As the evening progressed I was overwhelmed by countless friendly approaches and made to feel very welcome by Eddie, Tony, Johnny, Damien, Dorothy, Sherri, to name but a few. I started to wonder if they all thought the wonderful northern comedian Peter Kay had turned up, but since no one asked me to do a turn or tell a joke, I reckon it was just an expression of their welcoming approach.

The evening began with a very creditable performance by the Templogue Tennis Centenary Choir and proceed with a pretty decent meal and concluded with a couple of hours of dancing. The whole event was a great success and I can see the why the club attracted around 150 folk for the celebratory launch.

Sunday morning and a trip to Greystones

On the coast, south of Dublin city centre, and no more than a 25 minutes drive from Charleville Square is Greystones. This was my first visit and it is smashing and I can see it becoming a regular trip out. 

We pottered around enjoying the winter sunshine and views across the bay. Sheila tells me that it has a population of 17k. Hard to believe as you wander about the place but probably explains how a good number of trendy shops, cafes, coffee shops and the wonderful Happy Pear, all prosper. 

We scooped up some food for lunch from The Happy Pear and returned to CS via Bray. In stark contrast to Greystones, Bray looks rather down at heel and struggling. 

Flight back to Gatwick later this afternoon so that is all for now.

We have been in Ireland for two years...

...that is to say the last fours days of 2016 and the first eight days of 2017.

As Sheila reports...
And so, like all good things, it’s the end of our New Year break here in Ireland and as if it knows we are leaving, the sunny weather has gone. We are shrouded in extremely low cloud with little or no visibility and it feels like weather is hiding the magnificent scenery from us so we are not sad leaving.

Today (Friday) is a tidy and clean-up day which includes a trip to the dump recycle centre – I will be adding that onto the must do section of the travel tips for Dingle. As well as the dump trip I’ll be doing washing and ironing and clearing up after last night’s dinner party… yes only a wet week in the place and we managed to find three people to join us for dinner.

Camilla and Mike, owners of The Dingle Bookshop, and wonderfully lovely people, who along with another friend, AM experienced Peter’s version of Chicken Parmentier. We’d seen it on the Rick Stein Long Weekend (in Bordeaux) programme and thought it looks great and sure enough it turned out to be a bit of a winner – well they all ate it. Lovely evening some great chat although one slightly worrying part was how we spent over an hour talking about the Catholic Church in the UK!

Our week’s trial of working from home went reasonably well. Of the four days we had three very productive days and then Friday; the low cloud proved too much of a challenge for the satellite broadband so that we had no internet.  Himself felt adrift without the access to the wide, wide world and his office files.

We’ve joined Ceann Sibeal Golf Club, as beginners which we are of course. No playing in just paying the fee and Steve, the office manager says to use “sure off you go, you’ll be fine”.

Roll on Easter.

Peter adds...
Back in Dublin for Saturday night before flying back to Gatwick and on home on Sunday afternoon.. We treated ourselves a meal at Enigma in Rathfarnham village - just 1km from the front door. It was a mild evening so we strolled there and back and well satisifed that such a decent restaurant is so handy.

Just one of the many benefits of being in the EU, I am sure!

New Year Weekend on the Edge of Europe but still in Europe

As we’ve done for the past few years it was our plan to spend New Year on the Dingle peninsula only this time in our own place, how exciting. Packing the car on Friday morning took an hour… what do we have to take you might ask, we asked that ourselves because there was so much we could not see out the back window of the SUV.

We arrived in Adare, just two hours from Dublin at 11am and were shocked to find that our normal stopping off bar, in the Dunraven Arms doesn’t open until noon. The upside is that we had a super breakfast, albeit unbelievably healthy across the road in The Good Room. We’d normally have a classic Irish lunch of soup and toasted sandwiches.

Arriving in Ballyferriter mid-afternoon and in time to see a wonderful sunset. We’ve found out that Dingle is 44 minutes behind GMT, makes an interesting difference in the mornings when it’s dark until about 8.45am but longer evening. An evening meal with friends celebrating her son’s engagement was a lovely way to end the week.

Up bright and early, although some people don’t call 9am early to discover that himself has a dreadful cold, a real McKay cold so he does very little for the day in an attempt to be able to stay awake for midnight. Whereas I take up an opportunity to use my Christmas present and head out n the golf course with some friends. We play 9 holes and it’s hugely enjoyable.

New Year is rung in at The Bothar pub http://www.botharpub.com/ with a few people known for singing and having a good time.

By New Year Day’s its evident that despite my best efforts to avoid the McKay cold I have caught it. However, it is an glorious day albeit -6degrees. We head for a walk on the beach nearest to us, Beal Ban. It’s impossible to describe how cold it was so you can imagine our surprise when we saw two people going for a swim. To be fair though the man ran out of the sand dunes to the waters edges, paddled in for oh all of 3 seconds before running back up the beach to get dressed. Whereas the woman, got down into the water. Does this make women hardier or madder creatures I wonder?

It’s still a slightly surreal situation here, on one hand it feels very like Marsilly, the house is similar, we have the same furniture but then you look out the window and the scene is dramatically different. We step outside the door and we can talk to everyone, well most of the people.

And we’ve joined the golf club. Due to the colds we decided not to play in the captains play in, but we dropped by to get our applications forms filled in and say hi to the few people we know there, including our neighbour. Maireada. She also happens to the President, so handy person to keep in with.

All in all a brilliant start to the year and we are here for the week, “working from home”. During my lunch hour I popped into Dingle and decided because the weather was so good to take the drive back along the Slea Head Drive and this is the view. 

Dublin and Dingle 2016

Its Tuesday 27^th December and having had a lovely Christmas we head for Ireland and a two-centred holiday. Gatwick is eerily quiet, as is the flight and Dublin airport. Apparently, according to the Eurocar rental bus driver it was “bedlam in Dublin Airport the previous day”. Peter, being the chatty person that he is, asks the driver so was the people coming or going? Ah no says the driver, that was people leaving and arriving… we put it down to a misunderstanding of accents, Peter’s that is.

Yet again we had another “little incident” with car hire. This one did not involve hitting a wall or barrier in the airport but rather a mistake in the booking. Himself takes on the task of booking the car hire making this reservation back in October. Then a few weeks back after much discussion lasting days – you know how it is when one of you will not make the decision – we decide to upgrade and get a vehicle that we could use to transport a TV unit + coffee table and other pieces of furniture between 188 and Carrigeen.

So on the morning of our flight on the 27^th, I turn to himself and say right have you got the upgraded documents for the car hire, I’ll put them with the air tickets. Oh sure says he, let me get them. I don’t need to make this into a tense Agatha Christie drama but many minutes later and many comments such as “I definitely did the upgrade booking”, “they must be here somewhere” it turns out that it had not happened. Thankfully Eurocar have a car that we can upgrade to and off we head to 188 and a peaceful evening.

The main task of Wednesday 28^th was for Peter to get my Christmas present. The present is a Powercaddy what every high society gal should not be without. After hours of research and viewing in the UK we’ve narrowed it down to two and both American Golf and McGuirks have them in stock. Both have showrooms about 10 minutes away so off we head on our shopping expedition.

We choose American Golf because that’s on the main road with easy parking while McGuirks is situated within Dundrum shopping centre which is the mecca shopping for South Dublin girls so much so the traffic jams regularly featuring on the news. The sales person spots us immediately and is over to help. The first decision appears to be whether I’d like an 18 or 36 hole battery. After much chat about how it knows how long one takes to play 18 holes I understand the concept of how the batteries work. And also the sales guy now has an understanding of how my mind works and looks at Peter with sympathy.

The choice is between a Powercaddy FW7 at 759Euros or a shop display caddy from Motocaddy with a lot less features at 430Euros. Features on the FW7 include a calorie counter, why? And a feature that tells you how far you’ve hit the ball. To be fair sometimes I can work that out for myself since its only gone a yard. But still the FW7 is looking the favourite particularly after himself says buy the one that will do you years, since you’ll not be buying another for a while. What he really means is you are not getting another from me!

The shop assistant at this stage senses the sale if he can close it out. But we are still humming and hawing about it all. Peter says well I am off to look around while you think about it – in other words can you not make up your mind. So I do what any savvy shopper does and check the McGuirk website to see how much they are selling it for. 629Euros no less!

Wondering back to the till the sharp sales guy is now in for the kill by offering me the 36 hole battery for no extra charge. So I says to him, well that’s not going to swing it for me as I’ll never play two rounds in one day and in one fell swoop dismiss his strategy. To give him is due, he keeps going and say well there could be some movement on the price creating an opening an elephant could walk through and allowing me to say the winning sentence “well McGuirks are selling this very powercaddy for 629Euros” to which he says ok we’ll match that. 3 minutes later the Powercaddy is in the car boot.

And I think how lucky Peter is to be married to someone who negotiates the price on her Christmas present. 

Other Voices weekend in Ballyferriter.

Apologies that this rather long blog is coming two weeks after we did a quick weekend jaunt to Carrigeen but I forgot to write it up – short term memory loss or else the weekend was so fabulous that I did not have time. I am going for the fabulous weekend option. But I did want to record the highlights of the weekend so here goes.

It was our first “proper” weekend to the house and we’d chosen the weekend to coincide with the music festival in Dingle called Other Voices. Other Voices most famous claim to fame was an amazing session in the church by Amy Winehouse. For those of you who may have missed it, click here to see the set:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aatZ9VSF7Mc – there are more videos but this is incredible.

Other Voices itself has been going ten years and is a showcase of the best up and coming music around, not only Irish but worldwide. Over three days, there are normally 3 sessions taking place at any one time, in pubs, churches, museums & the courthouse. The sessions last about 30 minutes and are free to attend. Beginning at 11am each day and ending sometime after 1am, you could pack a lot of music in if you had the stamina – which we do not. An incredibly bad web site tell you a little about the weekend: http://www.othervoices.ie/

Anyway back to our weekend, flying from Stansted to Kerry on a full flight we arrived on time. Himself sprinted across the carpark to the car hire office and within 10 minutes we were zooming through the Kerry countryside although not without having a little “incident” in the carpark... what is it with hired vehicles and airport carparks? Thankfully this time it was not me and so far we think the rental company has not noticed that himself rubbed the alloy wheels alongside the ticket barrier…. Because Dingle is nearly 25 minutes behind GMT – only time wise of course we were able to make the journey all the way in daylight.

A quick at Garvey’s Supermarket – yup we have a loyalty card – to pick up the makings of a meal for Friday night. It is basically the last shop for us before we arrive at the house – so a stop is vital. Although breaking news, we heard a shop might have opened in Ballyferriter..

The house was fine on our arrival and the key task of the evening was to assemble the spare bed as we had a guest arriving about 11pm. AE was attending after an event locally which might have involved a glass of wine and did not want to drive back home so bedding down in Carrigeen made sense.  It did mean that it was about 2am when we all hit the sack = wiped for Saturday night.

Saturday

Up bright and early with a cooked breakfast of local sausages, rashers, black/white pudding and we were set for the day. Hands up who knows what a rasher is… himself is now calling them that.

Despite the late night, Saturday turned out to be a fantastically productive day.  Bookcases were assembled, boxes were unpacked,

shelves were erected and generally a major organisation project was completed. The place was beginning to look ok.

And the new office for ORMA was set up in the most westerly part of Europe but not too close to America.

But that’s enough DIY, what about the music we said. With Roisin O 

playing at 5pm in town we headed in to meet the gang and hear her sing. We’d not see her live before and oh wow what a voice. This was her first gig at Other Voices and the packed marquee at An Chonair pub had a fantastic session with her.

Coming from such a talented music family, her mammy is Mark Black and her aunt is Frances Black and her brother is Danny O’Reilly – no relation sadly – but lead singer with The Coronas she was very comfortable with the audience, played several instruments and belted out the songs brilliantly.

For those of you who want to listen to her, click here http://roisino.com/ 

Sunday

However the night before & the day all caught up with us, so no more music but an early night. The upside of an early night is that one wakes up bright and energised the downside it that it is 6am. But with jobs still to be done we had plenty to keep us occupied.  

 Including the erection of a new house sign, to complement the letterbox.  I am told it’s not quite straight but I didn’t go out to look at is. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the locals spot the sign. It’s just as well yer man has a surname with a mc in it, sounds Irish enough that locals might assume he is Irish.

With the Other Voices coming to an end there was nothing for it but to hop into town and catch a few more sessions before the Christmas lights were turned on by Walking on Cars. Never heard of them? Shame on you, they are Dingle’s latest band and a lovely bunch of lads – particularly if you are under 15 http://www.walkingoncars.com/

The turning on of the lights was preceded by the most wonderful and sweet lantern parade. Hundreds of children turned up with lanterns of every shape and size made from milk bottle, cola bottles, you name it, it was made into a lantern. Honestly though, we’d not seen so many under 7’s in one small town for many years, as himself said, it’s a long winter, dark nights and not a lot else to do!

The highlight of the lantern parade for us was meeting our neighbour, the ban garda. In case you

don’t know what a ban garda is, that’s the local police in this case a woman and what a wonderful person she is. Really very friendly and chatty, great to have on your side and plays a mean game of golf.

Monday

We were meeting our surveyor to talk through the work we want done on the house. Having established the list of things with him and his mate Derek we headed off for Tralee and the local Currys/PC world – well who wouldn’t. We were in search of a cheap 50cm free standing cooker. What we can now tell you is that it is not possible to buy such an item that gets any okish reviews, never mind good ones. So it looks like there is nothing else for it but to thoroughly clean the current cooker and make do.

It was a fifteen minute hop from Tralee to the airport, an on time flight with Ryanair and before we knew we were back on the Stansted Express hurdling towards London.

__________________________________________________________________________

The last day

Made it to the last day. Somehow I slept very well even though I did fall asleep wondering if I'd be woken by a tiler at 7am. But no, they drifted in at a leisurely 8.30am.

It was a little like a bus station all morning, with the comings and goings. Since they all need to buzz for access to the development and then the apartment block, which I need to action I was up and down all morning like nobodies business. Despite the shower room being one of the smallest room in Dublin two of them managed to work away, plumbing and tiling, so close in fact I think they are now in a relationship.

Then DHL arrived with the TV cabinet which I unpacked and assembled all by myself.

I sent himself a photo and then received instructions as to where it should be place! I ask you.

It arrived the same day that the refund for its non delivery appeared on the credit card but rest assured we rang the manufacturers and told them it had arrived. We are honest like that.

3pm and the plumber, Eddie, finished up. He was quite nice and helpful and I think did a good job. How do you know until you've used all the facilities for a little while. Since I am only staying until tomorrow and have the use of two showers + a bath it is unlikely I'll test everything. Or I could return to the UK the cleanest person ever.

Having said that the choice is so great that I am unsure whether to have a bath or a shower tonight. Life is like that, I cannot have either in the gaff for a week or more, than a choice and I cannot make up my mind.

It was 6.50pm before the last of them left, took a little longer in the end but they made it. They cleaned up very well after themselves, although I have been sorting out everything and that's taken me till 8.30pm.

As life has it I am nearly too warm for a bath after all that cleaning...

I clearly don't want to be going back to doing any cleaning in Beckenham, so I hope yer man has kept the place clean and tidy.

It's slainte from me,  I fly back to London tomorrow and hopefully be back here within a couple of weeks - we have two sofa's being delivered. I hope I am not writing a blog about that saga.

2 days to go

The place is abuzz with activity and apologies. Thankfully I woke at 6am - I don't often say that but being up and dressed when the first workman appeared at 7am was good - for both of us. I might have a few good looks, but 7am in my PJ's is not one.

Phil who is the supervisor was here at 8am and quite shocked by the mess left by the tilers from Saturday. Robert followed shortly afterwards with words of wisdom and more apologies and a reassurance that they were back on schedule and would be finished tomorrow.

Robert says "we should finish the bathroom today". I says "share with me your vision of finish because my vision of finish is that you'll have nothing left to do". He says well "it's somewhere in between what it is now and your vision". So I says "not actually finished then" And he says "eh no, not fully finished".  When you google what does "finished" mean you get a lot of answers that involved Jesus, hopefully we are all not turning to divine inspiration to get the job finished tomorrow.

They have promised me that I could have a shower in the morning, what I am less sure of is whether they are telling me that because they view it as progress or whether it is a hint that I should shower.

On a more serious note I have run out of coffee. I appear unable to get capsules for the Nespresso machine in Rathfarnham. I feel withdrawal symptoms kicking in and a trip to the Orchard for a coffee might be the order of the day.

Midday arrives and by now the towel rail is installed but for some strange reason is boiling hot despite the heat not being on... Myself and the Lithuanian plumber stare at it as if the radiator will suddenly start speaking and give us the answer.

Keeping myself calm by playing albums from Joni Mitchell, Lisa Hannigan, Mary Black & Nina Simone.

Can't keep the excitement to myself, there is a man here clearing. I am not saying that because it is a man doing the cleaning,  I am saying it because they feel it is worth cleaning. Deep breaths.

Tomorrow should be exciting on many counts, not only is the work due to finish but the TV console table that we ordered in August is due to be delivered. Bear in mind that it left the UK on 18th October and each day last week we were told it would be delivered but DHL have managed to fail on each occasion. Seeing will really be believing on this one. Ironically we cancelled the order on Friday and have now received a full refund from the manufacturers...

You'll have to tune in to hear what happened tomorrow.

A friend is coming around tonight to "rescue" me and take me to the nearest wine bar.

And it's 350kms back from Ballyferriter

We are woken by bright sunshine and Michael asks how many times during the night did we hear rain. Personally, I slept straight through but himself and Peter compare notes – men of a certain age I think.

Peter produces an impressive full Irish breakfast which sets us up nicely for the return journey.  My turn on the drive is at the start as we cruise across the Dingle peninsula and towards the M7. The weather is brilliant and the views are breathtaking.

We repeat our pit stop at the Obama services which this time is heaving with an inordinate number of unhealthy looking people leaving Peter to compare it to a hospital canteen. We can’t help wondering if there is a correlation between the food outlets in motorway services and the unhealthy people.

We arrive back at 188 to a very disappointing scene. Somehow and we don’t know how the workmen thought we’d not be back until Monday. It could have been worst; they could have been sleeping in our bed but what we were met with was all their work tools in the very spot that the beds we brought up from Ballyf were going.

We were all pretty annoyed - well not Michael obviously. I shall be sharing my view with Robert from Odyssey who is now coming first thing Monday morning to talk it through with me. I texted him a photo and shared my thoughts with him. Major black mark for not calling me up there and then to apologize.

You'll need to tune in tomorrow to find out how the conversation went and in fact who did all the talking. Peter is putting his money on me....

In the meantime I am off to make up my bed in the spare bedroom where I'll just be sleeping tonight in the company of a hand basin, toilet (sadly not connected to anything) and numerous other bathroom fittings.

Peter and Michael headed off for the airport with Michael taking back the van. First reports is that Hertz have not spotted the scrap over the wheel arch, but I feel with a bit of daylight to see it all more clearly they might just spot it.

Its 350Km to Ballyferriter

With most of the van packed up the previous night, we got up at a leisurely 7am to take down our bed which is going down to Ballyferriter to form a proper guest bedroom.

Within minutes we have an "oh darn" moment when we realize that we need a spanner to dismantle the bed and yup you guessed it, we didn’t have one. Within minutes the day is saved by our Moldovan tiler when he arrives at 8am and has the necessary spanner in his tool box.

Bed in the van along with half of IKEA we hit the road. 2 hours later we have a pit stop at the Barack

Obama Services on the M7. Yes, you’ve read that right.

The service station is in Moneygall, the ancestry home of Barack, who’d have guessed. 

This is a photo of himself and Michael in the Obama services with our van, clearly the side that had not been hit. 

Himself being Peter and not Barack, but you’ll spot that.

We are sharing the driving, doing an hour & half each and the roads are quiet as you can see from the photo. Michael was particularly encouraged by this as he says Ann does not like travelling on busy

motorways. Bear in mind that this is a Saturday of half term!

We arrive at the house by 2pm, unload and within moments we get visitors. AM arrives from over the hill to see how we are getting on and then the daughter of the man who built our house pops in with an apple tart to welcome us. 

We find out that the house has a name, Carrigeen. Once we know how to pronounce it properly we will use it. Until then it will be known as Ballyf.

The village of Ballyferriter is 500m from the house and home to four pubs. You might be surprised to hear that as yet we’ve not frequented the establishments. We thought there’s no better time then now to make a visit. Off to Murphys we go for a lovely evening with a warm fire, excellent ales and delicious meals.

Suffice to say that by the time we are back at the gaff we are all a little whacked but that doesn't stop the DIY from tackling a shelf system for the shower room. While I keep up to date with the New Zealand v Ireland rugby match in Chicago. A fair split of tasks I feel.

BTW for those of you who missed the news, Ireland did beat NZ.

Hire a van, what could go wrong

Michael arrives on Friday, finds his way to 188 easily. We head down to Mayfield restaurant for a breakfast/brunch, which also has the added attraction of using their toilet. In fact, the day is pretty much dominated by where we can use a toilet which means we end up going to the pub next doors several times that day to use their toilet – honestly.

The plus side is that we end the day with a working toilet but the more challenging aspect is that there is no door on the room! Michael suggests that we sing whilst on the toilet.

On Friday evening Michael & I decide to take a chance and head to the airport before Peter’s flight arrives to pick up the van. Our thinking is that we could save 20 minutes or so by doing this, then meet him at arrivals and if all goes well we’d be back at 188 by 9pm.

What could possibly go wrong… We got to the airport and headed to the Hertz depot. At the desk they advised us that no insurance had been taken out on the van.  I decided to take a chance and buy that insurance even though it was going to cost 40Euros and I was sure we already had it, but sure why take the chance.

Our van is a Ford Transit and close inspection shows there are quite a few dents and knocks on it. I opt to drive it up to the arrivals carpark.  Michael helps me maneuver it out of the space and we head up the ¼ mile to the arrivals carpark. Have you ever notice how tight the entrances and spaces are in airport carparks… ? I ask because I can now tell you that they are quite tight. This is a photo of the van before we picked it up.

We enter the car park and are not quite up to the first level of the carpark when we scrap a wall! I say we but since I was driving… Yup we didn’t even get out of the airport before that extra insurance I took out was needed. I could tell you that the first words I spoke after scraping the wall was oh golly gosh but it was more like F***, The kind of language if spoken on the TV the announcer’s apologies for.

Anyway what can you do, nothing except try and find a car space, get the van into it without hitting anything else! Peter arrives about 5 minutes after we park up and we head back to 188, load up all the stuff into the van and pour a few large drinks.