Better late

Image courtesy of Eoin.

Fleadh Ceoil

A memory: A 65 plus man walking towards me pushing a buggy, pint of bulmers in hand, with the words "wanna fiddle with me?" scrawled across his t-shirt.

Only in Tullamore.

A is for Avoca

Come mingle with 40 year old rich bohemians draped head to toe in vintage lace and floral prints.

A salad will set you back 20 euro and they give you miniature jars of ketchup instead of packets.

Born to Run

I never watch sports-and rarely participate in them, but I've found myself strangely drawn to the Olympics. It only really occurred to me what was happening the other day when I realised I'd spent over 25 minutes watching people kayaking down a man made river, open mouthed in awe. I had absolutely no idea what way they were meant to be going around the various poles, but it didn't seem to matter-I was transfixed.
When the Irish guy didn't get a medal I felt genuine loss-to the point of welling up-and then it occured to me. I'm never going to win a medal at the Olympics either.
I described this to people last night and was told it was a case of "Olympic Depression."The point you realise that you're too old and too fat to ever make it as a professional athlete. It begins mid-event. Adrenaline courses through your veins and you start to imagine yourself there, going for gold-10,000 metre run-I can do that, fast walking-I can do that, the cheers, the tears, the finish line- You're there! Then its all over and your left on your couch-eating crisps and changing the channel with your medalless hands.
Maybe in 2012.

Breaking the Ice

I decided yesterday to finally set this up. It turns out its not as easy as it looks... My first foray into blogging involved me sitting in front of the laptop for 2 hours staring blankly at the screen desperately thinking of what to write. 5 drafts later and I was beginning to question whether English was actually my first language.
I ventured to the kitchen in the hopes that some wine and baked potatoes might make it all a bit more fluid. It didn't, and it turns out that lightning can indeed strike twice-the tea towel I was using to take the tray out of the oven, landed in the boiling oil, then onto my finger and then onto the same finger again 20 minutes later when I was repeating the process.
I headed to bed slightly drunk and blistered and reassured myself that as long as this wasn't the type of shit I tried to blog about, then things might turn out alright.