Bank St Photos

Ok because I've been slack and haven't taken any more photos recently (keep remembering the camera as soon as we get somewhere) I thought I'd put up a couple of photos I found from the day I left my old house in Bank St in Oz. He he aren't we silly!

On the Galway front, yesterday my first pay cheque went through and so we now have both been paid and have lots of money in our account! Yay! So we celebrated by going out for dinner - after wandering round town looking at restaurants for a couple of hours, and a contemplative beer in the sun by the harbour with the swans, we decided on an Indian place which was soooooo yummy and we both ate ourselves stupid! It's funny when you're cheap and don't go out to eat much, it's a huge treat when you finally do! Although we're still cheap at heart and didn't bring much money with us, so didn't have a naan bread so we'd have enough money to share a pint afterwards!! Because we ate soooooo much we waddled around for the rest of the night and even though we found a pub with fun dancey music, and people sitting in a corner playing Irish stuff (and girls doing Irish dancing in very short skirts with very nice bottoms that Scott was trying his hardest not to stare at), we couldn't dance because we were too full! And on the way home we gave our last 50c to some buskers, about 10 of them all playing drums and bells and shakers that had a huge crowd all dancing - we jiggled around a bit but still couldn't dance, most unusual for us! Going out tonight again because after that Scott will be flat out working with the Race week etc. So we need to get our quota of Guinness. It's growing on me, I can almost finish a pint now!

Galway Photos

Ooooo just wait! I did actually take a couple of pictures of Galway - this is one of the crazy crowd watching some gig in the streets, and one of the silly fly fishermen who stand in the middle of the river near us. I think they're great! I haven't seen one ever catch a fish yet though....

Quick update - my boss came back and I had some big chats to him so I'm a leetle more confident in what I'm doing now - updating the website, making new contacts, creating a newsletter, researching some articles on eco-innovation - its all quite fun, basically I just tell him what I think I should do and he gives suggestions on it! We have broadband at home now - and cable tv god so many channels it's too scary you just give up - it was funny though because we live in this old house, and the broadband guy couldn't drill through the walls they were too thick! No wonder we get crap mobile reception. But it was all good once he went off to get a bigger drill and we stayed respectfully out of his way - the man had a big drill after all!

The heat wave is over but has provided a topic of conversation for many weeks. And our cat still hasn't come back after about 2 weeks - Scott suspects me but I actually had nothing to do with it. We told Clara it's gone to live somewhere else for a while.... I'm being good tonight and resisting all housemate attempts to make me go out - we went out the last two nights in a row because Scott had them off work, so I need a bit of a break! Plenty of emailing to catch up on I've been a bit slack. And hundreds of tv channels to watch!!!!!

Connemara Trip

Yay! I finally have photos, and broadband at home so more people than just Roch and I will visit this page! I haven't taken many photos yet but here are some from the trip we went on last Sunday - we made the stupid error of believing everyone who said we should take a bus tour out to the Connemara region nearby, as we wanted to go there but it's hard when you don't have a car. So we took this day trip, which went through some really gorgeous scenery (well I thought so but I am weird and like rocks and bogs and swamps) but it did involve about 5 hours on a bus altogether, and we're not used to being tour-bus-tourists herded around! Some people should not be given a microphone (i.e. the bus driver) when you can't get away from them. We did end up having quite a lot of fun though, because they stopped for a long 2-hour break at this Abbey you have to pay to get into, with nothing else around. We protested at this forced tourism and struck off down the road to see what we oculd find. We had lunch in the middle of a bog, then wandered off and found a little path by the edge of a stream. We followed it and eventually came out onto a path - which turned out to be in a forbidden nun-only part of the Abbey! We escaped into the Abbey grounds feeling very naughty, but at least we got in without paying! The pictures are of me spoiling some nice scenery, Scott eating the Abbey, Scott eating lunch on the bog, and us on a fake donkey we found when we were supposed to be looking at some historic house. Next trip we're doing by ourselves!

Phew! It's so hot here! Didn't think I'd be saying that about Ireland, but we seem to be having a heatwave here - it's humid and sweltering and everyone is falling about cause they aren't used to it! I've discovered there are some bad things about working in a building that overlooks the sea - you get to watch everyone down at the beach swimming while you sit inside working and feeling sticky! No one wants to waste it though because they know it'll be raining again in a week - half of my office just left at 2pm to go to the beach!

They really take advantage of this summer daylight thing - for the next two weeks there are two festivals on - a proper Arts Festival and then a kind of renegade alternative one because they think there aren't enough local acts in the proper one, and too expensive for most people, which is true. So we're supporting the cheap fun local one - there's just millions of mad things happening everywhere all the time, mostly free! The other day I got delayed for two hours and a pint of cider because I was walking through town and there was a full big Swing/Jazz band playing in the streets, chcok-a-block with people watching, and they were followed by a kind of folk/rock/irish band who were great to dance to! So I made friends with a few fellow watchers and had a drink. It's so much fun, although tiring to try and work and see lots of things! I think we came here at the right time - from what the locals say, the other 9 months of the year are pretty dismal.

Ok, back to work and wishing I were at the beach! Have taken some photos so I will put them up next time! Missing everyone back in Oz :)

Ok no photos yet because I keep forgetting to take any, but I'm at work and can't go outside for lunch because it's raining ('tis Ireland you know) so after peering out at the stormy seas from my work window I thought I should update this site. Soon I'll actually tell people it exists, once I can get onto hotmail! It's slightly weird working here because Eco-innovation, the company I work for, hires a large room as an office in a building which is actually otherwise an English language school. So I feel right at home after working at ICTE for 3 years, and keep seeing all these things like reminders to put timesheets in, that make me feel like I'm in some sort of warped parallel universe.

Oh, big and exciting news is that Scott got a job! Yay! He's working as a waiter in a posh-ish restaurant in the centre of town, so now he won't complain about being bored anymore! It sounds like a nice place, and even though he was put on to work during the World Cup Final (outrage!), there was no one in the place (like you would have dinner then!) so they let him off to come watch the second half. I think the fact that he was getting update texts from me every 5 minutes in the first half, and passing the information on to the other staff and customers, probably made them realise he wouldn't mind being sent home early. The only bad thing is that he'll be working all nights now, but my job is flexible and so I can work at home sometimes, and work some nights too.

Other news at the moment is that the recent glut of sport is over, after a great win by my mum's hero Federer and an annoying win by the bloody diving Italians yesterday. My French workmates are rather subdued today and we've had some passionate conversations about Zidane's bizarre headbutt. I personally think he's just getting old and forgot that he was supposed to head the ball, not the opposition. So anyway, now we have to think of other ways to amuse ourselves, such as hanging out with the crazy Irish hippies we seem to be meeting, going to see Pirates of the Caribbean once we work out where the cinema is, and rushing out to see some of the countryside in the pauses between the rain. Our flatmate Melissa and her boyfriend Shane are going to the European juggling championships this week, which would be awesome to see and worth going to even if just to make Sean jealous, but we both have to work and it's well expensive. Ah well, it's fun just hanging out in the main square of town watching people juggle and play games and lie around, and a lot cheaper too!

Oh and in other news they have chocolate buttons here, which were my favourite sweets when I was a kid in England, so I'm having to exercise extreme will power to not buy 3 packets a day. It's very exciting though! It would have been amusing to see Scott and I go shopping the other day too - the local supermarket is a 20 minute walk away, so we both put on our big backpacks and then struggled home with all our shopping complaining madly all the way! I think I was spoilt having Coles just down the road in West End - and having a car was handy too - we're getting a lot of exercise!

Yay!

Techno-whiz shell finally works out how to use this thing! Photos ad complicated things will come soon but I just wanted to let you all know what I've been up to over in sunny Galway. I'm now a full-time worker, which is a bit of a shock to the system! The job is awesome though, and after a few problems because my boss had set my laptop on french keyboard, so I couldn't login, I've worked it all out and am happily pottering away doing networking and communication things like working on the company logo and doing journal article searches and contacting similar organisations. Not quite sure what I'm doing yet but it's fun! Yes I have my own laptop, she's an Apple and she's called Fuji. You'll be proud of me Roch, I'm learning to operate a Mac without hitting it (much).

The people I work with are all lovely - my boss is actually away for 2 weeks at the moment but I met him when I first got here - he showed us his veggie patch that he's so proud of! There's 5 others in the office and 4 are French and the other guy speaks French, so it's just continuous French back and forth all the time! I'm in heaven! Took me a day or two to admit I spoke French to them (for some reason I'm really shy about it....) and I'm starting to talk back in it a bit too. In two month's time I should be excellent! We went out last night to watch the France-Portugal semi-final with a couple of them, and Caroline in particular was very stressed ad couldn't watch at some points!

T'was a excellent day for sport yesterday - I dragged Scott along to watch State of Origin at 11am in a pub I'd sussed out a few days before - we got into trouble at one point for shouting too loudly though! A NSW supporter wandered in half-way through so we had someone to abuse. What a game! Go Lockyer! I have to say though, lucky we won or I would have had you all as my hit-squad to go after the video ref. I wore my origin t-shirt around all day and had to give multiple explanations of why I was so happy to all my workmates.

Anyway, so I'm in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, and it's a beautiful city! Well, town. Loads going on here with people juggling and street performing and occupying the many many many pubs.... I have officially had Guiness (well shared a pint with Scott) and I like it! Pretty strong though, I'm more chuffed with the Bulmer's cider on tap which seems to be the town drink, along with "Buckfast" (he he) which is like a cross between port and wine. You have to buy it from behind the counter, so you feel particularly dodgy, and then everyone goes down beside the harbour and drinks it out of bottles in paper bags. It's light till about 11pm so everyone stays outside heaps! Actually, contrary to expectation it's been mostly sunny, and I even got sunburnt one day! I'm getting better with understanding Irish accents and not laughing at them too much. Will put up some pictures of the town soon so you can see.

We're living with two women, Melissa and Anne-Marie, and melissa's 8 year old daughter Clara, who is a cheeky little thing and acts like an adult but is lovely and helps me cook. There's also a cat called Kitty who gets in trouble for peeing in the hallway and who doesn't seem to mind when you throw her across the room. Still prefer dogs but I'm coping. She is pretty cute. Our house has a nice feel to it and we're meeting some of the housemates' friends too. Met a guy called Paddy! Yay! Our electricity is ru by putting 50p pieces into the metre - we discovered when we had a blackout the other day!

It's soooooooo good to see Scott again and even though it was weird for the first day or so, we're completely back into being together all the day and loving it! I think we're becoming sillier if possible, and are trying to convert everyone we meet to silliness too. Scott's a bit bummed cause he's having issues finding work still - everyone seems to have just hired people here! So looks like I'm the sugar mama ;) Other than that everything is going lovely and it feels like we've been here for ages!

Hope winter in Oz is going good and you all watched the Origin and are happy and having fun! Love to everyone and I promise to update this regularly now I've worked out how to use it!

Love Shell :)