A week of windows

I can't believe a week has gone by already!

We managed to get to see the Thundercats race on sunday. The boys were more interested in the funfair and eating sausages and chips on the beach (there is nothing like sandy chips!). The weather was perfect which was a relief. Liam's first week off school was a rainy one but he has settled into the holiday now. The two boys get on so well that I am starting to feel redundant at home!

This week is the week of the windows. The individual pieces for the boxes and sashes were delivered by horse box! A couple of boxes had been assembled already but the rest of the week was spent putting the remainder together. It took about 1.5 hours to make the box. They are huge and once painted they are going to look fabulous. All the boxes were completed by early today.

Emmet has been helping Daithi get to grips with them. They moved onto the sashes then but found that the first sash, made by Daithi and his workmate Dave in the workshop, had been assembled incorrectly. Daithi turned pale at the thought of all the others cuts of wood being incorrect but thankfully only one side was the problem; the groove for the seal was facing the wrong way and was easily solved with a bit of cutting and re-gluing. Phew!!!

Rosa and Paul came over after dinner and the painting began!. We had a great production line set up: Daithi, Paul and Emmet sanded; I blew away the dust with the compressor and wiped the wood down with cellulose and then Rosa painted with aluminium primer. We primed7 windows by 10pm. The kids mainly entertained themselves and got on really well thankfully. More tomorrow....

Rain, Rain and more Rain

The one day that you wouldn't want it to rain and be misty in Youghal is today!
The whole town has been gearing up to a weekend of festivities for the European Beach Challenge. Last night was supposedly fantastic and the fireworks looked spectacular from here. But today has been mist, fog and heavy rain. The organisers managed to get in 3 races between 2 and 3pm in during a break in the weather but none of the other events could go on. What a disappointment for the town!

Liam collected his prize for his art today. I still haven't seen his picture! He really loves his trophy and it is proudly on display above the fireplace. Mrs Breslin was there and gave him 2 euro for doing so well. He spent it on some Lego. The prize giving was on when the power boat races were taking place so we didn't see any of the races.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for the races....

School's out for summer

Where has this school year gone!

I can't belive Liam has finished his first year at school and will be a senior infant when he returns at the end of August. What a transformation in him too! He has gone from a "Don't leave me mummy!" boy to a "See you at 2 o'clock then" child. I wonder how he will cope with just his brother and mum at home. We will have to set up lots of play dates to stop us from going stir crazy I think.


Conor went to his last Tweenies session too. He will be at playschool on tuesdays and fridays next year so won't be able to go to this great toddler group. They had a fantastic balloon artist for the summer party. Of course Conor asked him to make a tractor for him, which Viktor the Balloon Man duly obliged. It took him about 10 minutes but what a beauty! I love the farmer! Conor was completely entranced!


This week has been a winning week for us: I won 50 euro in the Silver Circle draw (school fundraising thing) and Liam won 2nd prize in the regional arts competiton! He has to go into Youghal to collect his prize tomorrow at 2.30pm. He is so excited about getting his photo in the paper but we have no idea what the prize is. I haven't even seen the picture he did. All I know is that it is a picture of a pirate ship in pastels and it is titled "The Jolly Roger". Better check the lotto numbers!


It is a big weekend in Youghal. The Visual Arts Festival is on (hence the schools art competition) and the Thundercats (a type of power boat) are racing too. The weather is supposed to be awful but apparently the worse the weather the more exciting the races are. I am waiting for the fireworks to start - we have such a good view of Youghal bay from here that it should be an impressive site. The only problem is that it doesn't start until 10.30pm because it doesn't get dark until then! Hope I can stay awake!

Daithi is at the house again. Cian has just arrived and gone up to help. I think they are putting in more insulation. Daithi went to see a form of plastering which is a DIY system. It means that we can finish the house room by room and not have to rely on very unreliable plasterers! But when he got there they were closed (typical!). We were supposed to be getting the windows transported from the workshop today too but the guy let us down. Next week I shall be busy painting them. Great stuff!

Late nights

Now the deadline of moving out of our rented house is looming near Daithi is out every evening doing work on the house. It is still fairly light down here and it is almost 10.30pm and the weather has been dry so it is busy busy busy.

The windows are being assembled this week although the horns haven't been finished (!) and those that were complete were wrong, but can be adjusted to fit. I think the guy has gone back to do the others but Daithi and his woodworking buddy, Dave were not impressed!

Emmet is still here helping out providing manual labour. The boys love having him about. Conor is constantly saying "No! Emmet do it!". Poor Em has had to dress, cleen teeth, take to the toilet amongst other things. Will he come back?

I have fed him well since he has been here so maybe...

Too busy!

I've been so busy I haven't had time to post at all!
Our good friend Rosa O'Connell is in RTE's Super Garden TV programme tomorrow night 8.30. Daithi did a lot of the work on the transformed garden for her. It is so exciting. The finished garden is superb but we have to wait until the show on July 15th to see if she won the competition. I have been busy making a website for her - http://www.rosaoconnell.ie/. My first freelance web design experience! It has taken ages because all the photo's had that horrible red date in the corner that I had to remove! Still I only had a week or so to do it so am quite proud!

Daithi has moved on to fitting the insulation in the house. It is dusty work. Brother-in-law Emmet will be back tomorrow to help out. The august move in date is still on and I am now starting to believe it. The sash windows are almost done. We had to send away for the horns to be made because Daithi doesn't have a bandsaw (about the only thing he doesn't have!) to do the job. Plenty to be getting on with in the mean time.

Back to editing the photos.....