Nappies, naps and living with cats

So it's been about a year. I do hope no one was holding their breath... My condolences to their nearest and dearest if so. And congratulations, that must have been some sort of record?!

Many and much has happened since last we spoke... We've got a new car, I've brewed some beer and, oh yes! Had a baby and moved to Kilkenny.

So far, I love being a dad. When we found out we were pregnant, I was - like I'm sure a lot of new dad's - shocked, amazed, terrified, elated, nervous... You get the idea. Since then, we've run the emotional roller-coaster of pregnancy, moved out of Dublin to Kilkenny (by way of the metropolis that is Thurles), started a new job (or two) and been there to witness a tiny little man burst forth from my wife in magical and icky fashion.

I'm not the first of my friends to have a child, although this is the first grandchild on my parents side, so there's a lot of extra excitement. I have to say that I've always found new parents pretty annoying - their child is of course the best the most advanced, the cutest. Theirs is the one with the worst colic, theirs sleeps either the most or the least. Theirs is the only thing they can talk about and while it means the world to them, eventually it becomes a little annoying to everyone else. I really don't want to become one of those parents. I will fight it with all I have!

Because we were pregnant, we decided to leave Dublin - great as it is - and move down to Kilkenny... Not as easy as it first seemed as places to rent in Kilkenny are as rare as hens* teeth, but through Jo's remarkable perseverance and a fever stroke of luck, we got a flat in a cool development that looks like a cross between a Spanish holiday village and Moon Base Alpha.

Kilkenny is cool. A castle with beautiful grounds, a picturesque river, the best hurling in the world just next door**, more pubs than the average liver can handle, and a Michelin starred restaurant on our doorstep. We might not get to eat there that much because, you know, baby. He ain't cheap. And shouty little lads aren't most desirable patrons in a classy joint like that, but they've welcomed us with open arms when we've dared to go (or be taken... Thanks parents!). There's a lot to like here, and we're finding more of it all the time.

All of this has meant a massive change of pace. No more all night benders, no more A-list parties, no more spur of the moment holidays to the Maldives, no more making up lies about the sort of life I lead (I found the last one too difficult to give up, apparently).

It has also meant looking at something so small and fragile and perfect and wondering how on earth I am supposed to keep it safe and happy. Learning how to pick up and carry a squirming sack of cuteness, how to change a nappy, to set up a pram one handed, to tip toe around the place as if there's a noise sensitive claymore just 3ft away.... It is a roller-coaster of a journey, one you can ride with a third of the sleep you're used to and that you know will last for the next 18 to 30 years, depending on how things go...

But it's worth it. He's hilarious** and awesome, and I would recommend having a kid, provided they're a good as ours. Which they won't be, because he's the best in the world and no one has ever seen a baby as cool or fun or clever or cute as mine and... Oh right, yeah...

*heroin addict

**up the cats!

***that might be the sleep deprivation, what with him not talking or anything yet

Small World

This is something I am fascinated by. The fact that wherever you go, whatever you're doing - you can almost guarantee that the further from home you trek, the more likely you are to bump into your next-door neighbour...

There are countless examples across the internet, and I like to think that most of you will have one or two of your own too - my favourite happened a few years ago... 

As many of you know, I used to work in retail for a mobile phone operator in the UK and one of my colleagues was a great fun Greek chap who I shall call Dolphus*. 

Now after a year or two of working together, Dolphus had married a very nice Irish lady (he was something of a trendsetter it seems), and eventually moved to Ireland to settle down - raising potatoes, growing children and generally getting all Zeus-y on the locals**, and of course we pretty much lost touch aside from the occasional electronic sheep thrown at one another***.

Some time later, I too met a nice Irish lady all of my very own and decided to go and visit her in Dublin, but soon discovered that for at least some of the time she would have to work, leaving me to my own devices in a strange city - which let me do one of my favourite activities: getting completely lost (seriously - I don't mean I just couldn't find my way around, I mean it is a lot of fun when somewhere new and interesting to just go for a walk, see what you can find, then try to make your way back to somewhere you know. Try it for yourselves****). I spent a happy couple of hours wandering around strange suburbs of Dublin, popping into shops and seeing where my feet would take me.

As I wondered the streets, looking at ducks on the canal, people on the streets and nerry a potato in sight, it suddenly occurred to me that Dolphus had moved to Ireland, and the fact that Dublin is by far the biggest city here there was a good chance that this is where he lives! I looked through my phone to see if I had a number and by some small miracle, I did.

It was his old UK number, now long discarded (I said it was a small miracle)

I sent him a message on faceache, but noticed at the time he still hadn't replied to being defenestrated by me over a year beforehand, so probably wasn't using myface that much.

I then called a couple of mutual friends to see if they had numbers for him and again one of them did! I called but had no answer, so fired off a text and the resigned myself to the fact that it had been nothing if not a long-shot, and so called it quits on the spur of the moment reunion I had begun to plan.

And of course, it was at this moment that I wondered into another shop to find Dolphus standing behind the counter with a look of shock on his face.

Now, the reason I decided to write this was I had just seen a far better small world story happen on the internet - When the BBC inadvertently interviewed Tommy Lawrence about a derby he played in back in 1967...

For more excellent small world stories take a look at reddit.com, or just let me know your own and I'll laugh at them all for hours and hours and hours admire them wistfully...

*For no better reason than it apparently means Distinguished Wolf, which I think he'd like
**How many stupid stereotypes/vague and misguided jingoistic or racial slurs can I manage? Let's find out...
***Like I said, it was a few years ago
****I take no responsibility for anyone who goes missing or gets into trouble following the method!

Hot Water

I thought I'd write a short script to pass some time. It's not big and it's not clever.
It's probably not even all that funny.

But it is here.

 

Man is stood at the kitchen counter, stirring a pot. Gangster walks in behind him.

G: You know Chief, you’re in a spot of bother.

M: [jumps] What the?! Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my kitchen?

G: Ahh, ignorance is bliss. Remember this moment. Pretty soon you’ll look back on the here and now really quite…

Gangster picks up a knife

G: … Fondly.

Gangster moves in front of Man.

M: What is that? Why are you here? What do you want? Please let me go

G: Let you go? Why of course! What did you think I was going to do? Carve something up? Take this big, sharp knife and strip some meat from the bone? Cleave through the delicate flesh, slice up the belly? Maybe attack the leg? Get really stuck into the shin bone?

M: [whimpers]

G: You see Chief, we seem to have for ourselves here all the ingredients for something rather special. We have the meat…

Gangster points knife at Man

G: We have the vegetables…

Gangster points knife between Mans legs

G: All we need is the… key ingredient. That little something special. That je ne sais quoi…

M: I don’t know what that is!! What is it? What do you need?! Please don’t carve up my shin!

G: Keep your voice down. No… You know what I need. What we’re here for.

M: What? What do you want?

G: You know what I want, Chief. I want…

Gangster leans in very close

G: …The Boullion.

Man looks terrified. His eyes dart around. He sweats

M: Bullion?

G: Boullion.

Man slowly reaches past Gangster and picks up a tub

M: Boullion?

Gangster takes a teaspoon full and puts it in the stew

G: Lovely

Gangster walks out of the door as the pan bubbles over

M: ...?

End

Toll Trolls

First things first. This is the first post in quite some time - I know some of you have been hanging on with baited breath, and I can only apologise for the delay. I hope it hasn't cost you too much in sleepless nights, stress-related injuries and hospital stays. Hopefully my resurgence of posting will drag you out of your funk and into the light.

Hopefully.

Now, I realise that this triumphant returns... triumph... relies on a couple of things:

1 - That you enjoy the idea of trolling strangers for fun (hopefully at least half of that fun is theirs).
2 - That you have ever been bored on the motorway
3 - That you read this blog
4 - That you have no strong opinions on what the words "a couple" means

Every week or so, we go for a little drive from a place I like to call Bale Ather Clyath and head down on a trip to Tipp. This is a fairy easy couple of hours drive that takes in many wondrous sights

Motorway art is such a beautiful idea, and some of it is magnificent.

Some of it is just some sticks.

Seeing these same sticks over and over again led some of us to cook up a new way to make the journey more interesting, and where better to do it than at the magical mystery land of the M7 Toll

And so, every time we approach this majestic break in the journey, whoever is driving has to do a bit, a joke, a voice, an impression, a challenge - something that will hopefully make the attendant laugh - or at the very least make them speak to their colleagues at the end of the day about the really really odd people they saw today.

So far we've tried telling them jokes (not funny). Writing them notes (hilarious to us, bemusing to them). Asking for a burger and fries (not funny at all). Asking how they get to work, do they have a train that takes them to their booths? (no.) funny voices (always a winner). Singing at them* (not to them... That would be weird). More funny voices (still great). And always, regardless of the poor poor person in the both, driving away with a grateful "thank you! You're a very nice old man!"

*caravan of love, because why not... 

Road Tripperary

******

So the move has been made. Not just any move. The. Move. We are now in Ireland. in Éirinn... As a pat, I am now ex!

So to start things off, Jo flew over to lay the ground work and the next day, when I'd finished packing, Mark came over with his van, we loaded it up and off we went - a road trip to the Emerald Isle.

Of course, there was a little more too it than that. First off, Mark had to set the van up - he uses it for work, so it's usually not just full of electricianing tools, it's also custom fitted with some heavy duty racking, which he needed to remove to get all the boxes in. This turned out to be more than just a little job - after spending half the day taking it out, he then found it was all in one solid piece, meaning it was too big to store anywhere he had access to. Apparently he was on the verge of driving out into the country side and dumping it - hoping it would still be there when he came back!*

When he arrived, he handed me my special road trip outfit, the van got loaded up (I cannot believe we got it all in...!), we said our goodbyes to Rachel and wended our merry way out of Brighton and onto the open road.

The journey was to be a long one... We had to catch a ferry at 3am from Liverpool. My parents had told us we should set off at 3pm in order to avoid traffic and have a lovely trip with a little bit of time to spare.

So we left at about 7. My mum even called at about 7:30 to see how we were getting on... I'm not sure I've ever heard her sound so worried when I told her we were almost at Preston Circus...**

View Larger Map

But we didn't let that deter us, I mean it's only a few hours to Liverpool. Via the M25. For a ferry we couldn't afford to miss. Actually, I'll cut that story short - we had loads of time. I think we broke some sort of record for a van with a speed limiter as we had oodles of time to waste when we got there and we had time to stop for a bite to eat en route!

Then we were onto the ferry which turns out to be almost exclusively a freight route - we were one of maybe 10 cars amongst hundreds*** of lorries and containers.

This was both good and bad - bad because the entertainment and facilities on board are limited, but good because there is free food.

That's right people FREE FOOD.

AND we had a cabin. And there was a bar. And I had a pack of googly eyes to stick on various surfaces around the boat to make it look like faces everywhere (because it's fun to #vandaleyes)****

So we stuffed our faces with what I think was gammon and chips, had a couple of Guinnesseseses, then hit the hay in our surprisingly nice little cabin for a very up-and-downy night of sleep (it was like being rocked to sleep in a cradle by a careless giant who by blind luck alone was doing a wonderful job).

In the morning, the sea had gotten worse so we only managed the one plate of nearly what we ordered (I wanted hash browns, not sausages!)*****, then it was about time to head downstairs, get in the van and get lost on the way down to Tipperary!

*luckily some neighbours he'd never spoken to before were willing to put it in their garage...
**Point B on the map
***ish
****P&O, if you're reading, it wasn't me. And, err, I'm sure they peel off easily. And I've no idea what you're talking about! What are googly eyes?!
*****Actually, I quite liked the sausages
******Image shamelessly stolen from http://madebyjoel.com/

The Job Hunt (part 1)

So now that we're off to Ireland, we need to start thinking about jobs... But is it too early? We're not going to be there until March - how many employers will have vacancies now that they wont expect to be filled by the time we get there...? If we start applying now, will we be called in for an interview that would take either many days or hundreds of pounds to arrange? Somehow I don't think many employers will be that keen to cover our transport costs...

Obviously then it's too soon to apply for jobs - but that means we must sit back and watch them appear on the internet, perhaps seeing the ultimate dream job, but not be able to touch it... This is frustrating to say the least.

While I'm on the subject, another job-related question is currently at the forefront of my mind: I know that putting a picture of yourself on your CV is a ridiculous thing to do*. Any employer that bases it's impressions of an applicant on their appearance is just not somewhere I particularly want to work (unless they think I look beautiful, in which case do give me a call...) However, I have put together a new CV, which is somewhat different to the normal run of the mill resume... You might even be reading this blog based on a link in that very CV (in which case I think this question will have been resolved, otherwise I really shouldn't have sent it to you!), but its whole appearance is based on a format that has the authors picture at the top so! Should I put my picture on it and risk the wrath of employers/friends/hindsight, or should I find something else to go in its stead, something perhaps like the image above? After all, what does it matter what I look like, when what I create is so much more important? On the other hand, who could say no to these?**


*I understand it is a common practice in many parts of the world, but I agree with most of the "experts" I've found online - do not do it.
**

Notice

Now, some of you may know this already, but this week I've handed in my notice at work - because in a couple of months time, Jo and I will be moving to Ireland...

It's such a shame to leave our current jobs - we love the people we work with, and have both had a good time here (we work in the same building at the moment), it was a very hard decision to bring things to a close here after 4 or 5 years, perhaps made harder as we're not just moving to the next street or next town, but to the next country...

In fact, this is an interesting move all round... We're leaving safe, sensible jobs and moving to a country that is not at its financially healthiest, we have no jobs lined up with no flat waiting for us over there... So it'll be a bit of an adventure at the least!

But it's not all doom and gloom - we're moving for good reasons, we have a safety net in Brighton should disaster strike and we're pretty confident that we can make this work. Plus a change of career, of pace, of environment sounds pretty exhilarating to me. I think we're both ready to get stuck into a new challenge and see what we can make of things so all in all we're very excited about the next few months...