Surf's up!

God it's been a busy few weeks hasn't it my fellow blog'ees.

Let's re-cap, the last few weekends have seen me in 3 different countries.
1. Blackpool - Engurlund
2. Agistri - Greece
3. Brandon Bay - Castlegregory, Kerry, Ireland

I've been a very busy girl and haven't seemed to stop for ages! I'm soooooo looking forward to a quite couple of weekends. Doing absolutely bugger all if I can help it!

So, to re-cap. I've kept you up to date with 1&2, I've still got to tell you all about Ireland! Okay so here we go. Since the last blog......

Last Thursday
It was a late one into work this morning. I seemed to be stuck in traffic for ages with nothing moving on Essex road. After a while of sitting on the bus you start wondering 'Should I get off and walk?', but then another thought enters your mind 'If I get off, I bet the bus will zoom off down the road without me!'. So you more or less resign yourself to the fact that you'll stay sitting on the bus. And after an allotted amount of time you start thinking, 'Well, since I've already been on the bus for x minutes, I might as well ride the rest out here'.

Oh for the last of the great philosophers....

So it was into work late. Sort stuff out and have a couple of meetings and then it's off with Anna to the Bear & Staff up on Leicester Sq http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/comments.shtml/2116/, to meet with Aussie Rob, Steve & Tim for a few beers. We have a few beers, Anna shoots off home to 'wash her hair'.... hmmmm .......... and Tim & I jump in a cab up to 56 on Newington Green for a meal of Duck Foi Gras for starters & Steak for our main. I had my steak as medium with pepper corn sauce and Tim's was well-done with a horse radish sauce. Not that you probably wanted to know that,

but hey I'm the one doing the writing here!!!! It's my Blog and I'll write what I want to, write what I want too, write what I want to, you would write too if it happened to you.....

Okay, okay... enough with the song lyrics. ;-)

Friday,
Arrrggggghhhhhhh

I've got to pack! Okay, so I'm only flying out today and back Sunday - but I still haven't unpacked since Greece earlier on in the week and I'm flying round the room trying to find my passport, plane ticket etc etc. Get clean underwear, PJ's etc etc. Remember what I can and can't take on the plane as hand luggage. Grrrrrr. It's such a hassle not being able to take toiletries on board. I wish they'd sort these restrictions out.

Panic over. All done.

I head into work and am busy sorting stuff out, sorting deadlines, meetings, papers etc etc etc, have a spot of lunch munching a sandwich at my desk trying to explain to PESA branch why there's not much point in us providing them SQL script for the reports we are working on as they don't have a scooby at all on how to interpret SQL! Nor understand the multi-dimensional nature of COINS......

Anyway. Work over, I leave the office just after 1pm and jump on the District & Circle line to get to Liverpool Street. Normally this journey would have taken 20mins. However, today there are delays, after delays and I don't reach Liverpool street until 1:55pm.

Hmmmmm. Not happy.

I run.... well, not really run, you can't really run when you are recovering from an ankle sprain. My left ankle slows me down considerably! There's no 'bounding across the platform' for me! £25 later and I've got my Stanstead Express ticket and am jumping/hobbling onto the express train.

45mins later I'm in Stanstead and searching for my check-in desk. My flight isn't until 16:50pm and it's 14:40pm - over two hours till my flight. Great plenty of time to check in, relax, have a beer. Yeah. Right.

The queue is bloody huge at the check-in desk. Christ, this is the slowest moving queue I have ever been in. I finally get out of the queue at 3:15pm and low and behold, I have to join another queue to get through security. Grrrrrr. Another 20mins later I finally get through security, only to then join another queue to have my friggen shoes scanned!!

For Christsakes!!! I really, really, really do not like flying. I really, really, cannot be bothered with any of this.After all of that, I finally finally finally, get to the bar and wait for Teresa to turn up.

We board the plane and arrive in Kerry with what has to be one of the bumpiest landings I have ever had. Christ there was a lot of wind and the plane swerves side to side on the runway.

I did mention that I'm not a great fan of flying....... My god. Kerry Airport is small. Very small. Not as small as Dundee mind you, but it's small!

We get out of the airport very, very quickly and there's a bloke waiting for us for Teresa's name up on his sign. Wahey, our own taxi to the B&B. 60 euros and 40 mins later and we are at the B&B http://www.jamieknox.com/. Christ Brandon Bay is remote. We are just over 3 and half miles away from the nearest village Castlegregory....

It's run by and Englishman. Teresa isn't happy. The english are living in her country! How dare they!! It's gone 7:30, we are hungry and decide to find some food.

Now, normally this would be easy but I forget. We are in remote Ireland, and they don't have streetlights. Fantastic. Walking in the fading light down a dirt track to Spillanes http://www.spillanesbar.com/

With a gammy ankle.

Teresa had forgotten her torch. I hadn't even thought about bringing a torch with me - on the assumption that, where there's houses there would be lighting. Even in Scotland.......

We arrive there eventually, and I must say, the food was fantastic. Bloody brilliant! I had the wild Salmon, Teresa had the Hake. Huge portions and every mouthful was fantastic. Fully stuffed, we decide to leave Spillanes and try to find the other one pub on this remote island 'The Green Rooms'. It's pitch black, we've no torch, the wind is howling a gale - but will that stop us?

Nahhhhhhh.......

So off we wander, down the black dark road.

Ireland by night..........

Of course, once we'd left the civilised part i.e. 5 houses and walked down the road a little bit, the sky just opened up and we were treated to a blanket of stars! I saw 4 shooting stars and the milky way was just beautiful. We followed the road down to well, there was no more road. Looks like this wasn't the road to the one other pub.....

We double back, and head back towards Spillanes. Not that I minded, the sky was just amazing. Not sure of our bearings in getting back to the B&B we decide to use the old dirt track road back the way we came, bearing in mind that it's unlit and sheet darkness. Until I turn on the mobile phone and use it as a torch.

The power of technology!

We get back after about 20mins of wandering in the dark and head to bed. Knackered from the gales, sea air and getting lost!

Saturday

We wake up fully refreshed from wandering in the dark and have breakfast, before deciding what to do for lunch.

The view from our B&B window....

Just as well we talked to the owner, as it turns out there is nowhere that does food during the day. This really is bloody remote! All he can offer is some soup & bread that's being brought in from the next village 3 and half miles away.

hmmmm......

We decide to walk to the next village for lunch, bumping into the farmer on his quad bike herding his cows to the next field....

and we wander out of this little settlement in Brandon Bay......

and wander.......

and wander.....

still wandering......

and wandering....

till we finally hit civilisation in the form of Castlegregory, and find a wee cafe. It was closed earlier on as they were doing their baking for the day, but luckily for us it was open by the time we had gotten there!

ahhhh the smell of fresh bread, scones & cake!

It was a lovely wee cafe, Teresa had a tea & scone.

and I settled for a glass of cold milk.

Oh yeah. Rock and roll.

After finishing up in the cafe, we nip across the road and get some sandwiches for lunch later on and start the long trek back to Brandon Bay. All 3 and a half miles back.

So after that 7 mile round trip to the Spar for sandwiches, my feet are kinda hurting - cause you know, my left ankle is still recovering from being sprained so I was over compensating with my right leg/foot taking all the strain. God I'm limping!

I crash out at the B&B for 30mins while Teresa dons on her wet suit and starts her surfing lesson down at the beach. I slowly limp to the beach to catch up with surf and find a wee place to watch the surf and munch on my sandwiches, listening to my ipod.

the beach was gorgeous!

The swell/surf was big.

Teresa was straight into the surf, surfboard firmly attached to her leg and the 10ft waves crashing into her! There was a lot of jumping on the surfboard and being thrown off it several times! Although she did manage to almost stand up 3 or 4 times. But I think she's invented a new form of surfing - knee surfing. Brandon Bay knee surfing!!!

I even made a wee friend on the beach! I think the dog was called Karen or something like that!

2hrs later we head back to the B&B, me limping and Teresa knackered after been thrown around the sea non-stop for the last 2 hrs!

A couple of hours later we decide to head out and find the 'Green Rooms' for a quick drink before we head to Spillanes for food and so we heard, it was an 80's night as well! Bring on the cheese! Well, more like little lumps of cheese. I'm finding walking extremely difficult. Christ my right foot is agony! I limp very slowly down to the Green Rooms and even more slower to Spillanes.

Perhaps I should think about investing in one of those electric wheel chairs???

We eventually get to Spillanes and settle down to some gorgeous food! I have the steak and Teresa has the fish. Then the glitter ball comes out, and the music begins! Oh it's cheesy. It's very cheesy! The 80's have arrived. Teresa was dancing big time! Making up for my inabiliity to dance due to one gammy left ankle and one sore right foot that somehow I've manage to bruise the instep/arch of . It's that 7 mile round trip to Castlegregory and back for a friggin sandwich that's cause this!!!

It's was a fab night! We leave the pub after 1am and limp back to the B&B using the power of my mobile to guide us back through the dirt track!

Sunday

We get up for breakfast, and I'm still limping badly. In fact, I'm hurting even worse than yesterday. Christ. I can't believe I've buggered up my other foot. Friggin eejit.

Teresa wanders back down to the beach after breakfast and I retire back to the room to chill out and pack. We leave the B&B at 11am and are picked up by taxi who drives us to Kilarney - the scenic way using the high road.

78 Euros and 50mins later we are in Kilarney! We wander about, well not really wander I'm limping really, really badly so it's a case of find a cafe and sit down!! Then we try a couple of pubs as well and I load up on nurofen!!

After a while we catch a cab to Kerry airport for our flight back to Londonium. Every thing went grand, straight off the plane - hobbled to the train, hobbled to the bus, hobbled back home. God

I'm knackered.

More photo's of my Ireland trip can be found at; http://picasaweb.google.com/baskers1/SurfSUpInIreland

Sleep.

Today

Still hurting.

Still not really walking.

Load up on Nurofen.

I treat myself to a nice long hot bath to relax the muslces.

Oh yeah.

That's hitting the spot.

Teresa pops round later in the afternoon with more nurofen and pizza. Thank god! And I spend the rest of the day catching up on all my unopened mail from the last 3 weeks, sorting out bills etc all from the comfort of my bed curtousey of my lapotp!, and putting on the washing.

Felicity & Teresa have gone out tonight up to the Barfly in Camden to watch Bullets & Octane - I'm still not really up for the whole walking & standing thing. I'm hoping to go to work tomorrow - but I'll see how the foot is when I wake up! So, tonight is spent watch Spooks!

Till next time!