Drving round Ireland

So then we set off, in Paddy our lovely irish hire car, for 5 days of exploration...... We saw some beautiful irish countryside and tried a few last Guinnesses... Me holding Paddy!
Some scary triatheletes we saw and clapped in awe - then went off and had a pint!
Silly musical statues and silly dancing girl
Scott caught me peeing....
Paddy again - such a small car!

Last night in Galway!

Ok, I haven't been able to update this for a while so I thought I'd do a few update posts again - these are some photos from a raucous and fun last night we had in Galway, I think it was September 7th, with our flatmates Melissa and Shane. It turned into drinking games and then dressing up games and then a silly photo session, and we were up until the wee hours - lots of fun but we didn't have such a fun time on our bus trip the next day! It was sad to see Galway go even though we're excited about travelling, because we had a lot of fun there and met lots of lovely people. C'est la vie....

Aran Islands Part 3 - last one!!!

Sorry about the multitude of posts on this topic, it will only let me put 5 photos up in each post. Plus, this is the most exciting thing we've done and I have loads of photos! This is the last one, I promise. So Anyway, after a hard day's cycling we got dressed up, had some wine and played cards at our hostelly place (Scott, the sweetie, had smuggled my black dress along without me knowing so we could go out for a posh dinner because I'd been complaining i never got the chance to wear my black dress. being a boy, this didn't extend to shoes or stockings, so I was a wee bit cold and wearing my walking shoes, but I was happy!)All posh dressed up Scott by the harbour. We went to watch the sunset before dinner. Ain't he gorgeous? The town's ok too.

Me by the harbour too. Purty clouds. Lucky it was such a lovely day the first day because it completely pissed down the next day, and we just lazed around then caught the ferry back to the mainland! But the first day was gorgeous - i even got sunburnt!

Some birds on a wire we found along the way and took great delight in scaring - they would all fly away if you jumped up and down waving and yelling boo! Tn they'd all fly back and you could do it again! Distracted us for a while - see, you can put a girl in a black dress but you can't stop her jumping around like an idiot!

Thought we'd try to work out my camera's auto-function, hoping it wouldn't fall in the water, and took a couple of pretty photos in front of the harbour at sunset, before going off to eat our terribly decadent 3-course meal! It was gorgeous, never had such a fancy meal! It was Scott's brithday, I think he had a pretty good day all up! He got breakfast in bed and juggling clubs and a whole day of fun and a luxurious evening and everything!

Oh, just a really disgustingly soppy photo to end with - not my fault, he kissed me just as the timer was about to go off! Looks sweet though :)

Aran Islands Part 2

So, more photos! We hired bikes at the harbour and spent the day cycling round the island. My bum was so sore afterwards - I haven't cycled for ages! It was great fun though, and the island was the prettiest place we've been to so far, loads of fields and stone walls and forts everywhere! Some of the cycle paths were pretty bumpy though, rocks and grass everywhere!

A cycle break! With the island in the background. Lovely stones, what?

Scott adding about 10 years to my life by sitting on top of a reeeeeeallly high cliff! Open this picture up in full and zoom in, it's really scary! He seemed happy though. This cliff was part of an old stone fort, maybe 2000 years old

Silly Scotty pretending to do god knows what...... Nice old stone thingy in the background.... We didn't really know, we were just cycling around going 'oooooo!'

Standing on top of a big round old stone fort - they did have a lot of rock on that island... Looking pensive and not posed at all....

Same fort, other side, with the lighthouse in the background - "When are you going to take that photo, I feel silly standing here with my back to you.....oh, oops sorry!"

Aran Islands Part 1

Sorry, was blogged out from my last posts, but actually the most exciting thing we've done recently is visit the Aran Islands! yay! Well only one of them, but it was still great. It was Scott's birthday last Tuesday so we went over to this island about an hour boat ride from Galway to celebrate his oldness! Some pictures follow - this may take a few posts cause there's lots!Scott on the boat looking windswept and interesting

While Shelley feels slightly seasick and tries to look ok

Yay, back on land again!

Start of our bike trip - Scott cycles off into the distance! Note all the stone walls - we reckon they get really bored on the island, and there's a heap of stone around, so what else to do?

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

Burren Presentation

Just a brief note to say about a presentation I went to about 2 weeks ago - some of my workmates, priscille and Dorian, were presenting the results of the research they've been doing into the farming systems in the Burren, a region just south of Galway. The audience was mainly farmers who'd been involved and it was so interesting because there was hours of discussion afterwards on farming subsidies, eco-innovation and changing farming systems. The farmers accents were incredible, I had a hard time understanding! Anyway, I enjoyed it because I think that's important - the social acceptance of environmental policies and innovations, otherwise there's no point in them. You can look at our website (www.eco-innovation.net) if you're interested. (and go oooooo cause I've made a lot of the website!)Caroline and I at the presentation - we took photos and watched!

The Eco Innovation crew having dinner beforehand - the presentation was in the pub!

Fred (my boss) introducing Priscille and Dorian (on the left)

Discussions afterwards - many heated ones until late at night! I guess the future of your livelihood is a pretty important topic, especially when people are telling you that you can't just go on relying on subsidies and you have to diversify or innovate or go organic. The farmer doing the best is actually one who makes his own gourmet ice-cream from organic cows and fruit he grows, it's really yummy too! We want to go interview him soon (maybe have some tastings too...) so we can feature him on the website.

Christina's Visit

Last weekend, Christina came to visit us! Yay! She's just arrived in Ireland and is going to live with some rellies 'up North' (northern ireland) for a while and earn a bit of dosh to travel. Copycat. Anyway, it was great fun because it was only a couple of days after Scott finished work so we really wanted to go out and do things! On the Friday night we had a big dinner at our house (I've been deprived of cooking en masse for ages, I needed to!) with all the people I work with, and my bosses. It was lots of fun, although much madness cooking, luckily Christina turned up early and got roped into chopping! I drank a bit too much, which I noticed the next day when we got up early to go on a hike through the Burren (pretty region about an hour south of Galway). I complained quite a lot along the 4 hour hike, although it was gorgeous and we saw lots of fun things. We hitchhiked home (after persuading Christina we wouldn't get murdered!) and then went out to a couple of our favourite pubs that night to show her a bit of craic.

Blergh! Aren't we cute? Don't worry, the photos can only get better from here. I just thought I'd throw that one in for fun.

A castle we found on our walk, with the gals elegantly poised in front of it. We couldn't get in, damn it! There's just little castles and ruined churches everywhere here.

We found some donkeys which made me stop complaining and get excited! Scott seemed to like them too.

Scott at little old ruined church we found that had gravestones inside and all these gravestones round covered in ivy from god knows how long ago. The funny part though was walking back up the lane from this church, because a farmer decided to drive his cattle down the lane towards us at the same moment! Faced with many stampeding cows, I panicked and tried to scale the stone walls at the side of the lane, Scott thought a little more and made us hide in an alcove until they'd gone past. It was scary! The farmers thought we were a laugh.

On a rock at the top of the last hill Scott could make us climb, because he wanted to 'see the view'. This is a photo of Christina and I looking for the view. Seems like more cows and another stoney hill! Was a lovely walk though, better cause we could hitch back!

Oops I was slack!!!!!

Sorry guys, the last couple of weeks have been madness - Scott finished work so we've been going out and running round lots! So much drinking though, my liver is looking forward to a break! A plus side to all our adventuring is that i have been taking lots of photos, yay! So I thought I'd share them with the world. First I have a few random photos of our flatmates..... da da da..... which is sad cause we leave in a week! Here ya go........

Shane, Scott and Ann Marie - I live with weird people! This is in the Roisin Dubh, our favourite local pub (pronounced row-shin dub)

Scott and Ann posing for me outside our house - aw so cute!

We hang out with Ann a lot (except now she's in Turkey) - this is the three of us at a comedy night (at the Roisin Dubh again) which was well funny - the mc kept picking on Ann but she also got to lead the clapping! Scott's just happy to be able to do things at night again. I always have red eyes in photos, why why why???

Guinness is good for you - and believe me, it tastes yummy in Ireland, so different to the watery bitter crap they serve anywhere else. A happy man.

Ireland is fantaaaaaaaaaaaastic! Look, a coat in summer!