misty misty

Haven't had a chance to post for a while. I have actually been doing some work! It has been nice to get my brain cells back into gear again. Ryan's website was finished a while ago (www.ryanmorgan.ie), which he loves and I hope that he gets some good bookings from it, and now two other people have approached me to do their websites too. My spare time in the evenings will now be no longer!

The final window was installed over the weekend. At last! They will need touching up but I won't do that until the rendering outside and the plastering inside is done. Part of the front lawn was dug up with a mini digger at the weekend. Conor and Liam really enjoyed driving the digger in the rain. They were filthy at the end of it. Conor has been instructing me since on the levers and which lever does what etc. The result is a ready made vegetable patch and yesterday was spent planting our potatoes: British Queens, Home Guard and Golden Wonders. We should have potatoes for the rest of the year and perhaps early next year too. I have to prepare the other half of the patch to plant the rest of our veg. Maybe Liam will start eating more veg if we grow it ourselves.

The kitchen design is still on going. I gave up with 4Homes. Despite me contacting them several times they never came back with a price for their design. I called in a local firm, Cronin Furniture instead and they came to the house and measured up last week. On thursday I will go and see their design. I am really looking forward to seeing thier ideas.

What a week!

This week has completely flown past!

St Patrick's Day was beautiful. The sun shone and everyone seemed in a really happy mood. I went out and took photos of all the different varieties of daffodils in the garden (I counted 7). They are gorgeous but have been planted in the oddest positions. I'm not sure when the best time to move them is. I suppose it is when the flowers have dies down a bit.






As I was photographing, a large hunting party trotted past the lane with their dogs for their annual hunt, shamrock pinned to their outfits - I hope the fox had a bit of luck: I wouldn't like to be a fox up against them. After they had gone, Daithi climbed the tall tree which had been blocking our broadband signal and chopped it down. It took quite a while to get it done even using a chainsaw, but the result is strong broadband! Yippee...!

We managed to get to Youghal for the annual St Patrick's parade. We just caught the end of it last year but were there in plenty of time this year. Lots of children from Liam's school were in the parade this year so we were waving and calling out names most of the time. Liam was wearing the hat he made at school and when anyone who knew him saw him they waved and called out his name. After the parade we all had the biggest ice-cream 99 cones I have ever seen. I can't believe that the boys managed to finish theirs.

Today Ireland managed to win the Six Nations Grand Slam by beating Wales. It took over 60 years to achieve it and boy what a match! I couldn't watch the last 10 minutes and hid in the kitchen until it was over. It is fantastic for the country! It is about time they lived up to their potential.

Conor is 4 at last

After the excitement of Liam's 6th birthday poor Conor has had to wait 2 1/2 weeks for his 4th birthday to come along. And what a sight to greet him on the morning of his birthday... Snow! It reminded me of the day he was born. We had about 3 inches of snow during the night and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get to the hospital. Thankfully I did and by the time Conor was born the snow had almost gone. We had a snowball fight with Liam's class when we dropped Liam at school which started the day off nicely.

Conor didn't have a party, but we did have a few visits from friends and their children which made things special for him. And his birthday cake was yummy too. The day after, Daddy was back from his travels and we had a family outing to the cinema to see Bolt (Conor's idea). It was a great trip and Conor kept turning to Daithi to tell him "I love you!" during the film so I could tell that it was really a special moment for him. The film was great although had to endure lots of barking the next morning with the boys impersonating Bolt's sonic bark.

The house has been having a face lift the last couple of weeks. The jackhammering has ceased and the house looks completely transformed now that the loose render has been removed. It is a shame that we have to cover all the beautiful stone up again but we have had to do so many touches with blocks and bricks that it wouldn't look coherent if we left it bare. We did discover 2 holes at the front of the house that don't go all the way through the wall, which have been bricked up with 4 red bricks. Cian had the idea that they may have been used for flag poles - the house was supposedly an RIC barracks in the past, although I haven't researched this further. It would explain the holes.

Cian was down for the weekend. We haven't seen him for ages and I can't blame him really - he must hate getting up so early by the boys in the morning (the spare room in the mobile is right next to the lounge area and all the noise!). Daithi and Cian have built a fantastic shelter using the containers as walls, which will house the large industrial machines that take up so much space in the house. The house has had a bit of a clean inside too - the dust, sawdust and general mess has gone. Almost ready for plastering now....