Sunday 7th October 2012
Sheila's hostel was a good size, and good lay out, but the bathrooms were filthy. There were stains dripping down the walls/tiles which were still there on the third day. The showers had no temp control, just one button which gave uke warm water and timed out after 30 seconds.... When we arranged to meet Tall one's sister Emily and new husband Gregg (who Tall one had missed the wedding for back in June), his sister told him they were staying at 'The Ambassador Hotel', which sounded a little more upmarket than 'Sheila's Cork Hostel'. We went down for breakfast and by reception was a tble of cereals, toast, tea/coffee and juice. We presumed it was complimentary as there was no sign or anything, but after we started dishing it up the little woman in the cafe window behind us called out she wanted to see our tickets. We had to buy a 3 euro ticket which was fine and she then put out the sign to say “this isn't free”. We sat down toe at and realized sat behind us was the bearded young fella with his girlfriend who'd taken our photo that night, they must be staying in the hostel too.
Met Emily that morning and we took the bus out to Blarney, with an absolutely miserable bus driver. Emily being a nurse gave Tall one soe tips for his swollen ankle and small one tips for his throat which was at him again (being a bit rough on and off since March this year).
Walked to Blarney Castle, it was quiet enough that morning, though not as sunny as yesterday. Got down on all fours and the three of us crawled into some bizarre cave underneath the castle. We then followed some Amercians to the top of the Castle, but they couldn't find the narrow staircase so we managed to over take. We were then helped by two miserable Irish Men to lean backwards and kiss the Blarney Stone, which didn't seem to be getting any wash between kisses. As we walked around the large woodland grounds afterwards we realized that walking in front of us was the young bearded fella and his girlfriend again, we seemed to be stalking them or visa versa.
Back in Cork we met up with Gregg and his mother. They had come to Cork as she was a big fan of John Edwards the American Psychic, and this wad the first time he was in Europe. She brought along with her various bits of dead friends and relatives jewelry in case he picked up on anyone dead that she knew in the audience. Had a drink in a pub, but again tall one and small one only had orange juice (Still a bit rough from the other night). Gregg's mum tried her hardest to get everyone to drink with her as she was on the gin, Gregg was downing his Guinness like a true Irishman. We then went to the outside Market stalls and brought some lunch, and happpened to bump into that young fella with the beard and girlfriend one last time.
We then left them and took the train down to Cobh (pronounced 'Cove') 20 minutes journey down to Cork Harbour. It was a lovely colourful, seaside town, with an enourmous Cathedral toweing above it on the hill, and a Titanic Museum as this was the last land stop for it's voyage 100 years ago. Small one was delighted to see a Supermacs and had his final Curry Chip and Cheese. That evening we met back up with the sister, Gregg and the mother int he LV pub, to save Tall one walking far on his foot. We had a nice pie and jacket potatoe dinner. There was a Cork fella playing music, and small one requested Nancy Spain, the fella had to go to the trouble of digging out his song book to play it, and once he started small one's mobile phone went and he had to go outside to take the call. By the time the others turned up we moved to the back of the busy pub. We had one bottle, but Gregg's mother didn't want to drink. After half an hour a noisy table behind us of three rough, drunk Irishmen leant over and were asking Gregg to go and buy them drinks and the barman wouldn't serve them. Small one over heard Gregg responding politely in his English accent that he was afraid he couldn't do that, and was afraid we'd be killed, so butted in and said he would get them. He took their money then told the bar man what had happened, who said they'd be asked to leave soon anyway, so small one gave them their money back and said the bar man knew what he was doing – we all drank up and left quickly after.
Sheila's hostel was a good size, and good lay out, but the bathrooms were filthy. There were stains dripping down the walls/tiles which were still there on the third day. The showers had no temp control, just one button which gave uke warm water and timed out after 30 seconds.... When we arranged to meet Tall one's sister Emily and new husband Gregg (who Tall one had missed the wedding for back in June), his sister told him they were staying at 'The Ambassador Hotel', which sounded a little more upmarket than 'Sheila's Cork Hostel'. We went down for breakfast and by reception was a tble of cereals, toast, tea/coffee and juice. We presumed it was complimentary as there was no sign or anything, but after we started dishing it up the little woman in the cafe window behind us called out she wanted to see our tickets. We had to buy a 3 euro ticket which was fine and she then put out the sign to say “this isn't free”. We sat down toe at and realized sat behind us was the bearded young fella with his girlfriend who'd taken our photo that night, they must be staying in the hostel too.
Met Emily that morning and we took the bus out to Blarney, with an absolutely miserable bus driver. Emily being a nurse gave Tall one soe tips for his swollen ankle and small one tips for his throat which was at him again (being a bit rough on and off since March this year).
Walked to Blarney Castle, it was quiet enough that morning, though not as sunny as yesterday. Got down on all fours and the three of us crawled into some bizarre cave underneath the castle. We then followed some Amercians to the top of the Castle, but they couldn't find the narrow staircase so we managed to over take. We were then helped by two miserable Irish Men to lean backwards and kiss the Blarney Stone, which didn't seem to be getting any wash between kisses. As we walked around the large woodland grounds afterwards we realized that walking in front of us was the young bearded fella and his girlfriend again, we seemed to be stalking them or visa versa.
Back in Cork we met up with Gregg and his mother. They had come to Cork as she was a big fan of John Edwards the American Psychic, and this wad the first time he was in Europe. She brought along with her various bits of dead friends and relatives jewelry in case he picked up on anyone dead that she knew in the audience. Had a drink in a pub, but again tall one and small one only had orange juice (Still a bit rough from the other night). Gregg's mum tried her hardest to get everyone to drink with her as she was on the gin, Gregg was downing his Guinness like a true Irishman. We then went to the outside Market stalls and brought some lunch, and happpened to bump into that young fella with the beard and girlfriend one last time.
We then left them and took the train down to Cobh (pronounced 'Cove') 20 minutes journey down to Cork Harbour. It was a lovely colourful, seaside town, with an enourmous Cathedral toweing above it on the hill, and a Titanic Museum as this was the last land stop for it's voyage 100 years ago. Small one was delighted to see a Supermacs and had his final Curry Chip and Cheese. That evening we met back up with the sister, Gregg and the mother int he LV pub, to save Tall one walking far on his foot. We had a nice pie and jacket potatoe dinner. There was a Cork fella playing music, and small one requested Nancy Spain, the fella had to go to the trouble of digging out his song book to play it, and once he started small one's mobile phone went and he had to go outside to take the call. By the time the others turned up we moved to the back of the busy pub. We had one bottle, but Gregg's mother didn't want to drink. After half an hour a noisy table behind us of three rough, drunk Irishmen leant over and were asking Gregg to go and buy them drinks and the barman wouldn't serve them. Small one over heard Gregg responding politely in his English accent that he was afraid he couldn't do that, and was afraid we'd be killed, so butted in and said he would get them. He took their money then told the bar man what had happened, who said they'd be asked to leave soon anyway, so small one gave them their money back and said the bar man knew what he was doing – we all drank up and left quickly after.
Saturday 6th October 2012
Very tired, very groggy, stonking headaches. Not a good morning for travelling. Said goodbye to the two boys who were alseep on the sofa, Small one said his farewells to Padraig up in bed. Goodbye to Daddy Hegarty and poor Mummy Hegarty who couldn't stop crying. Abba came and picked us up to take us to the train station to get the 10am train. He'd hurt hsi neck and was on medication so did not come to the party last night. When he saw how rough we were feeling, he suggested we brought a couple of cans to drink on the train.
Train left Athlone at 10am, then we had to change at Portarlington and Portlaoise. While waiting for the train two guests from the party arrived and we had to stand and chat to them for half hour, which feeling so rough with our dizzy heads and sour throats wasn't easy. The lady thought she'd forgotten her mobile phone and would have to go back for it before the train came, then found it tuck inside her bra. Then we boarded and found our online reserved seating, to find we were right next to two of small one;s old friends, who by chance had reserved the seats next to us. They were a lovely couple, but we were still struggling with chatting whilst feeling so rough. At Portarlington some confused cross eyed woman asked small one directions and he sent her the complete opposite directionw ithotu realizing. Then aftr she boarded the bus, another passenger had to help her understand how to get into the automated toilet door, but unfortunatley did not show her how to lock the door, so some poor lad opened it to see her sat on the loo and turned away blushing while she shrieked. Glad we took the train and not the bus, as we stretched out and dozed for the final 2 hour leg down to Cork eating crisps and sandwhiches from the train's cafe.
Checked into “Sheila's Cork Hostel” a big building int he centre of town, we were exhaustingly on the 3rd floor. Small ne had a snooze, then we went for a wonder after 5pm. Within yards of the hostel Tall one stopped to take a photo of a chimney but tripped on a step and did something to his ankle. Small one thought he was exaggerating but then it swelled up like a tennis ball, then turned blue and yellow like a dead man's foot. Still managed to limp around the City for a while, it was lovely and sunny. Stopped for dinner in the LV pub near the hostel, th bar staff were pretty rude. Ordered soup and a toasty, the soup arrived cold and when we asked for cutrley the fella brought us a fork and knife (no soup spoon). Strangely you paid everything at the end and when you went ot the bar and asked to pay, they had no records and just asked “what did you have?”, when small oen told them they then asked “how much was that?”....
At around 8pm we met Noreen who we had knew previously from the Corkman Pub in Melbourne. She had been thinking of all the pubs to show us that night in her home City of Cork, only to turn up and find Tall one limping and small one asking for just a coffee and a orange juice. Went just round the corner to the Shelbourne, Noreen was the only one to drink an we ordered in pizza. Next to us was a young couple, a young fella with a beard and his girlfriend. We got them to take our photo for us. Then when we went to leave the whole front of the pub had filled up with a large group of deaf people. It was quite eery edging our way through a crowd of people to the doors, who stood all in silence as they were waving their hands in various gestures.
Friday 5th October 2012
Small one and Tall one drove up to Dublin airport early to collect Padriag and his girlfriend Lesley, flying over from New York for the retirement party that night. Young Jordan came with us, but mostly for a day off school than to see his uncle. Waited in the airport a fair while as Lesley had to go through immigration for ages, but we waited with a breakfast roll at least. Were also joined by Scottish relatives who'd flown in from th UK the night before, so had a full car driving back to Athlone.
It was a busy day ahead arranging various things for the party. We were also busy trying to finish packing and cleaning the room before we left, wiping the dead mosquitoes off the ceiling and walls, and doing a heap of laundry. Daddy Hegarty then found the Communion photos from the 1980s he wanted hung above the chimney, which was to be Tall one's last job for the house. Turned out to be a long job as the nails and hooks we had were inadequate and took half the wall off. Brought some from the Spar which also failed, then from Co-Op over the road, which also did not go into the wall, then had to drive across town to a hardware store until we finally got the right nails to hang these pictures, took us about an hour in the end. We all sat down to have some of Mummy Hegarty's homemade stew, then headed back out to hang up some pictures int eh Shamrock Lodge Party room for that night.
The Party went well. Starting with music we had downloaded from Daddy Hegarty's past – which had been suggested by his brothers and sisters. The first track was 'Wild Thing' which seemed to come on four times that day in the room. Daddy Hegarty and Padraig had chosen the main band, who were a Northern Irish band they'd seen play in New York on Paddy's Day. After them we had local singer Shamus. It was a night of lots of singing, lots of dancing (Small one managed to head butt his mother whilst dancing to 'Rock the Boat'), lots of drinking and lots of crying. Mummy Hegarty's student, Joseph went wearing bright red trousers, the alternative being a full tuxedo he'd flown out with, which the household laughed at when he put it on, so the red trousers were a compromise. We also met Small one's cousin's boyfriend who'd come over from New York, and seemed to be Padraig's double – except that he was wearing a jumper. Little Richard made 60 euros that night apparently, walking round the tables asking everyone one for 1 euro. There was a big cake wheeled out for Daddy Hegarty celebrating his 65th Birthday and Retirement of over 40 years. Small one and Tall one gradually made there way around all the tables and groups of friends and family to say goodbye to, as they were leaving at 10am train the next day. By 4am Small one had Uncle Sean and his sister Orla in tears, and many others. Many Guinness and bottles of Bud later, small one and tall one went back to the house to try and get the little sleep they could. It was a mighty night.
Thursday 4th October 2012
A frantic day, the day before the party and the last full free day for small one and tall one to pack. Small one and Daddy Hegarty were out in the garden killing weeds, hanging baskets, scrubbing patio slabs, hoovering cars out. Mummy Hegarty was cleaning the house but was interrupted (as usual) by a visitor. An old lady neighbour came round, she brought her a bottle of red wine and stayed chatting for over an hour. Mummy Hegarty doesn't drink, but everyone seems to bring her bottles of wine, and so she put this one with the bottle she got from the French student a couple of days before.
A couple of days ago some new frames were brought and all of Aidan (Junior) and Rosanne's wedding photos were put up. Small one missed the wedding as he was in the Blue Mountains, Australia with Tall One back in 2009. his meant that all the photos of Mummy, Daddy, sister Orla and brothers Aidan and Padraig were missing small one, but they planned on getting some family photos done the day of the party as Padraig would also be back. Daddy rushed off from the gardening this morning saying there were some photos he wanted to get done up, and came back a while later to show us two photos he got printed up in the same new frames; both photos were of Padraig and his partner. So there was still no picture of small one on the wall. Small one borrowed Mummy's car and said he'd go out and get his own photo printed, which he did.
That evening Small one and Tall one headed back out in the car to do some last farewell's to people who may not be at the party tomorrow night. First stop was Eddie and Elena back from their Honeymoon. Elena (being a nurse) signed the Police Check application form for tall one, being a more important person than Eddie to do so. After a cup of tea then headed over to Aunt Joan's house, and sat and chatted with her and her 2 students. Then went over to Abba's house, as he had hurt his neck and may not be at the party. Only we couldn't remember which house was his and small one is too cheap to top up his phone credit. We knocked on two doors to have two scared strangers answer and ask what we wanted. We gave up on Abba and headed over to the Hospital to see the Grandad. He was in mighty form, after small one introduced himself he remembered he was back from Australia and that he was leaving again tomorrow. Last stop was over at Auntie Agnes, who is still in the middle of her chemotherapy. Had a cup of tea and a good chat, then headed back home to finish laundry, pack the bags and hang another picture.
Later that night Daddy Hegarty pulled small one and tall one aside, and pointed to Padraigs two framed certs on the centre wall over the fireplace. He said he wanted us to move them as he had some nice other photos to put up there, but could we suggest it to Mummy Hegarty as he didn't want the suggestion to come from him. He even suggested that we wait for her to go to bed and start hammering nails into the wall then so she won't know. We said fine and took the certs down, Mummy Hegarty saw what we were doing and small one said “Daddy wants these moved to the other wall as he's got some photos to go up here, but don't tell him”... Mummy went upstairs whilst we were hammering the nails in to re-hang the certs, she past Daddy on the stairs who said to her, “what's the noise down there, i don't know what those two are at”.... Poor Daddy, he's not fooling anyone.
Wednesday 3rd October 2012
Mummy Hegarty's new french student is sick as a dog, she's not been out the room all day. Tall one has also been struck down with sneezing, running eyes and nose, so all is well. Small one was now officially unemployed, and today got together with Paul and Colin from The Shack Pub and drove down to Galway hospital to visit Mandy recovering from the operation.
Saturday 29th September – Tuesday 2nd October 2012
The end of the month at last. Tall one finished his 2 month stint of reading Irish Writers, finishing on the sunday listening to the last hour of the 29 hour audio book of James Joyce's Ulysses. His MP3 was broke so had it playing out loud on his laptop, and didn't realize the last chapter consists of a Dublin prostitute talking in colourful languages about what she'd like to do with a large cock.... Tall one thought it better to put the headphones in as Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were outside the door having dinner.
Monday 1st of October, that evening we drove into town to buy Mark from the Shack Pub a voucher and thank you card for giving small one so many hours at the pub. We stopped for petrol, only got stuck waiting behind a herd of horses re-fuelling, who took over fifteen minutes, while traffic was held up behind them. Visited the Grandad on the way back and he seems to be back to the way he was before, asking who small one was he told him “Conor”, and he asked whose son he was, Conor told him “Carmel”, Grandad said “Paula” (Carmel's sister), “No, Carmel”... “Oh that's right” said Grandad, “Paula's dead”.... Poor Paula's alive and well. Meanwhile Mummy Hegarty had received a new student to look after in the house for a couple of months. This one was a pink haired, 18 year old French girl. They sat down for dinner that night and Mummy Hegarty started with the questions about the dinner, “is that okay for you now?... “are you sure?”.... “you don't have to eat anything you don't like just say”.... “you sure that's okay now?”.... “your sure?”.... “just say f it's not”.... “is it burnt, i think i burnt it?”.....
Tuesday 2nd October was small one's last day at work at The Shack. Walked him in at 10am and he did his 7 hour shift. Tall one stopped off on the way home to print some final documents from the town library, stuck sitting next to some fat little girl with breathing difficulties who was literally slobbering over a large heart shape lolly pop. Had also heard back from The Corkman in Melbourne, that Stacey had spoke to Chris the owner and was keen to sponsor Tall one to return as Hostel Manager. We emailed Chris direct for the first time and hoped to get the ball rolling. Meanwhile small one finished work at 5pm then stayed sat in the pub to watch the Celtic Champions League match, which they won 3-2, the first time they've won an away match in this Championship. Small one ran around the pub celebrating, to which Mark told him to sit down... he'd only been drinking tea as well. He then was joined by the Shack staff to celebrate his final days work. The Polish and Russian girls brought him out a huge cake theyd baked with a candle, all the locals watched to which small one assured them it wasn't his birthday. They then gave him a present, which was a large leather handbag... Colin the barman who'd been there for years (and all the locals and staff dislike) sat and joined them. He pointed to the cake and said how long he'd been there and how he wouldn't get a cake half as big as that, to which the Russian girl turned to him and said (in her accent) “that's because your a bollocks Colin”... Small one also got a goodbye card signed byt he staff, with photos of Babies on the front, this was a reference to the “Baby Bowl” mini soup special the pub does, which small one ate every morning.
Mummy Hegarty and Tall one picked him up at 10pm and drove him home claiming he wasn't drunk. At least he hadn't spent any money as all his drinks had been brought for him. Ate the dinner Mummy had prepared. Then little sweet Mummy Hegarty who tutted at the plumbers swearing the other day put on her favourite sitcom, “Mr Brown's Boys”.... she told tall one that he may not like it as she's awful vulgar sometimes, Mrs Brown then started swearing, talking about “penis', cum, fuck, shit, bollocks...” and little dear Mummy Hegarty had tears rolling down her face with laughter.... At one point Mrs Brown came out the toilet with her knickers round her knees and Mummy got embarrassed watching it and changed the channel abruptly to something random, then turned it back 20 seconds later, only to still see the knickers round the ankles, so changed it over again.... Tall one went to the bedroom with his cup of tea, and small one was asleep within minutes, ready to wake up complaining about his hang over.
Friday 28th September 2012
Daddy Hegarty's first full day after retirement. Had arranged for us to go for a meal out at The Shack Pub as small one had the day off. Small and Tall one gave him his gift – which was a long handled pair of clippers to cut the edge of the lawn. That morning the shower manufacture came round and fixed the downstairs shower, after not being able to use the ensuite for 3 months, it was finally fixed a week before we were leaving. The plumber said that the one who installed it (Daddy's cousin) didn't know what he was doing, and kindly did not charge us for the call out. After the shower was fixed small and tall one cleared out the boiler room outside, as Daddy Hegarty had said there were three old doors at the back which needed to be brought out, that he'd arranged for someone to take. We spent an hour clearing out the room, throwing away Old Garden Knomes with broken noses. Got the doors out ready, only for Daddy Hegarty to tell us to put them back in as no one was coming for them. Headed out to the Shack after everyone waiting downstairs for Daddy Hegarty to get ready. Sister Orla Hegarty brought Little Richard and Little Lily May along, but had Baby Ruby being babysitted. It was a good meal. Afterwards small one needed to stay behind for a drink though, and so him and tall one had a couple of Guinness. While they sat at the bar they were joined by Mark's Uncle and Auntie. They come in every day and get their free meal. The Auntie sat down next to tall one, like Miss Havisham from a Dickens book – all dressed eccentrically in fancy gear, huge jewellery, large sleeves and straw hat. Her husband looked like actor Robert Englund who plays Freddy Kruger. She asked Tall one's name, to which he said “Michael” “Morris?”... “No Michael”... “Matt?”, Tall one said near enough. They left shortly afterwards, got a lfit from Mummy Hegarty and Rosanne and spent ten minutes counting sheep on a painting int he front room.
Tuesday 25th – Thursday 27th September 2012
Daddy Hegarty officially retired on the Thursday. Came home midday with a smile on his face, un-sure with what to do with himself. By the afternoon him and Mummy Hegarty were arguing over the day time TV as she wanted to watch Noel Edmunds on Deal or No Deal like she did everyday. Small and Tall took some old photos up town and had them blown up ready for his retirement party next week. Used the same photoshop as last year when tall one got his passport photos done, tthankfully this time round we got out within 5 minutes and weren't stuck chatting for an hour.
Conor had done some extra hours at the Shack Pub, as Mandy in the Galway Hospital had had some internal bleeding. After another operation, she should hopefully be better, but the next week will be critical. Small one's looking forward to leaving next week, he's no longer used to living with the family. Daddy Hegarty asked him to book flights for next month for Celtic Match, but gave him the wrong dates. Mummy Hegarty brought a lamp into our room and asked if we could work out why it was not working.... small one pointed out that there was no bulb in it. On another occasion we brought our washing in, dry off the line from outside. Mummy Hegarty suggested we might want to put it into the tumble dryer to 'air out'. Surely she has this backwards, thought Tall one – you hang things outside to 'air out' you don't put them in a dryer.
Tall one walked in to town to meet small one, and along the river Shannon he came across a very very short old woman (must have been about 4ft tall) wearing a black skirt and black hood standing with her back to him, just starting silently out into the water. He approached slowly as he remembered the movie Don't Look Now, where a dwarf woman in a hood was murdering people along the Venice canals. Just as he was walking past, it turned around and it wasn't a golbin at all, but a smiling, Harry Potter glasses wearing, dwarf Priest. Complete with the Vicar's dog collar, he was stood there in his black skirt and hood on a sunny day, staring out into the water... He smiled at Tall one and walked past, only to stop shortly afterwards and go back to staring out into the Shannons dark water.
Monday 24th September 2012
Today was the day trip up to Dublin. Alarm went off for 4am, to shower dress and walk up to the bus station in the cold and dark. Brought a coffee on the way which was freezing. Got on the 7.15am bus, and watched as a husband in very short blue shorts (in very cold weather?) came on the bus to carry his wife's bags on and help her get her child on. He was on their less than a minute and the driver was yelling at him to hurry up and get off as other passengers were waiting (2 passengers waiting). Don't think the driver would have been quite so rude had the family been white.... Further on the trip when the Mullingar-Dublin bus sent some of it's passengers to fill up our bus (as it was a direct bus), the driver started yelling at the mother again, to move the child off the other seat to make room.... !!
Got in to Dublin about 9am, had a Supermacs roll. It was absolutely pissing out with rain and did not stop all day. Small one and Tall one at least had a flimsy, 1 Euro umbrella each.... Our first stop was up to the Easter 1916 memorial behind the prison, where the likes of Padraig Pearse and James Connolly were buried in a mass grave following their execution. We walked about their in the rain a while and watched a ginger cat mewing down at us from on top of the ten foot wall surrounding the grounds. Then walked north through the streets from James Joyce's (long long) book Ulysses. Stopped off to see Irish Writer, Sean O Casey's house – where a drunk man was waving at us from one of the windows. Did a fair bit of walking, and saw statues along the canal of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavangh, then through Trinity College – more statues for Thomas Moore and Oliver Goldsmith. Then there was the very camp statue of a green suited Oscar Wilde sprawled over a huge rock in Merrion Square. By the time we were on Baggot Street we were both starving and also soaked to the skin. Our shoes were soaked through, with our feet squelching in wet socks. Had a soup and toasted sandwhich for 6.50 euros in Wellington Pub, then up to Grafton Street. Here we stopped in the Porterhosue Brewery, one of the few places you can still buy the old stout of 'Plain Porter', which small one thought smelt just like Bruce's homemade booze from St Johns. Also stopped in McDaids pub on Harry Street, a very small pub, but quite nice. Supposedly a previous haunt for Christy Moore, Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and Flann O Brien.
We then did some shopping on Grafton Street for small one. As we fumbled p the street in the rain, small one's umbrella was half collapsed, and tall one's suddenly broke in half. The top of the umbrella blew away leaving him stood holding a handle only, he turned around just in time to see the top of the umbrella hit some poor lady in the face with a wet slap. Small one did a fair bit of shopping in Dunnes, finding some 12 year olds shirts that fit, and buying a lifetime supply of socks. We then headed up to Dave's pub, Lotts, where we had previously spent an afternoon with Daddy Hegarty waiting for the Christy Moore gig.
In Lott's at 4pm we met little Paddy and his 'Scottish' girlfriend.... who small one endeared himself to after introducing her as 'also from England'. We sat round a table and small one handed out a pair of new Dunnes Stores socks to everyone. Paddy, Tall one and Small one all took their sodden socks off and hung them on the chairs to dry whilst they put on the new ones. We were then joined by Dave, as well as Andy (previously the chef at Searsons who we'd met last year in July). At 7pm we were hungry and small one reading the menu said he fancied the Iirsh Fry up, but it had stopped at 5pm. Dave didn't mind and got the kitchen making us 4 huge fry ups at 7pm, they were fantastic. After about 4 pints of Guinness Small one being very sensible said we should leave now at 7.30pm to get the 8pm bus. Said good bye to all, and hoped to see Paddy and girlfriend in New Zealand. Caught the 8pm direct bus in plenty of time. Small one was alseep within 5 minutes of getting on the bus, whilst tall one sat there awake for the 2 hour trip, waking up small one just before we pulled into Athlone station. Small one waking up and seeing where we were said “that was quick”. We then stood out in the cold and waited for Daddy Hegarty to be late, who was collecting us free of charge in his taxi.
Saturday 22nd – Sunday 23rd September 2012
Good news is that the two Hegarty patients of recent months are steadily improving. Grandad Ryan in the hospital is back to the way he was before, talking fine now. Even Mummy Hegarty on her visit how he wasn't going to bed yet as it was far too early, and then another day getting small one to give his back a good scratching... Little Polar the dog is also much better now, happily eating her pills each morning wrapped in delux ham or chicken, no longer panting and struggling like she was.
The en-suite shower in tall one and small one's room is still broken. This was after Daddy Hegarty's cousin came out and fixed it back in July and made it so it only came out with cold water, opposed to how it formerly only came out with boiling hot. So he came back and 'fixed' it again a week later, and from then on the temp was fine, but there was not enough water pressure to even wet your fringe. So on Saturday Mummy Hegarty phoned someone else who came out, and basically said she should be contacting the manufacture to get it fixed for free instead of spending more money on plumbers. He then had a look at the hot water system and suggested a service he can offer to flush the pipes out. He showed her some black stuff that was clogging the system and kept on and on saying that “this is the 'shit' that's in the system.... the service will clean out this 'shit'.... it's this 'shit' that's the problem”. I think Mummy Hegarty only agreed to the service to stop him swearing at her, once he was out the door she turned to tall one and said how much he was cussing.
Saturday night went into Shines next door, as Small one's asian (Second?) cousin Andrew was playing Piano and singing with his boyfriend. We sat with their mum (Small one's cousin) for a couple of hours drinking. They also played the violin on a few songs which was very good. At the end of the night small one's cousin was going to get a taxi home, small one suggested his dad might ake her as he was out on taxi tonight, but then suggested that he might charge her. He re-counted the story to her how when we got back from Canada, that Daddy Hegarty had given them the number of a good local taximan, as he didn't want to be lumbered ferrying us around for free.
On the Sunday Tall one walked Small one into work. Tall one's canvas coloured jacket (which he'd had since 2010 in Australia) had seen better days, huge tears appearing in the sleeves – so without having time to sew these fresh ones that morning, he used cellotape on the inside of the jacket to hold it together. Noticed on route how a string of shops and houses had all been painted the same shade of peach. It was quite hideous and bland. Small one theorized that it was probably the same owner of all half a dozen buildings who wanted to show they were all his.... tall one suggested this was the same as a dog pissing everywhere to mark it's territory. Dropped small one into the Shack, who was pleased to hear that Mandy (Mark's mum who runs the Shack) seemed to be a lot better following the operation to remove her stomach cancer. She was currently down in Galway Hospital.
Monday 10th – Friday 21st September 2012
The count down is going well.... not long left now.... with the help of God.
Which reminds me, just yesterday God was called upon to help change the TV channel, “you can change the channel now if you like... with the help of God” (or with the help of a remote control). Even little Richard has started to pick up on some of Mummy Hegarty's sayings. Someone surprised him coming down the stairs quickly and he exclaimed “oh me heart!”. We then had the event over the weekend in which a bird left a three foot long, white splash of faeces down the front glass door to the house. Mummy Hegarty said to leave it there for it was good luck for the lotto that night. Won nothing on the Lotto and a week later the door is still covered with bird shit.
Little Richard has stayed over a few nights this week, but has been told to not be eating sweets as he'd had some work done on his teeth. Sure enough, at 2am when small one got home from work, there was mummy Hegarty running around with Little Richard in her arms as he was throwing his little guts up everywhere. All of the walls and the floors, donm't know how he managed to get it spread so far.... Small one asked what was making him sick and Little Richard and Mummy Hegarty said they thought it was the BBQ food that small one gave him earlier in the day (despite the fact that tall and small one were fine). Of course this wasn't true, as tall one had come out earlier to make a cup of tea to see Little Richard eating a huge cereal bowl full of Skittle sweets which Mummy Hegarty had brought him. He tried to hide them from tall one but was too slow, and then a few hours later was throwing up rainbows.
Anyway, small one still working hard at the shack. Tall one having cooked three fried breakfasts in a row for him to keep him fuelled. Tall one walked in to meet him oneday and sat at the bar with a coffee. The bar maid Lindsay introduced herself to him, despite the fact he'd met her only a couple of weeks ago. Tall one still at home getting through his second month reading dead Irish writers, though he's finishing these last couple of weeks reading three living ones... which is a relief as reading the words of so many dead people gets a little depressing. Tall one had a parcel arrive, a small parcel of books – which the postman delivered in this enormous canvas Royal Mail bag, with plastic tags hanging off it, he delivered it to the door holding it at arms length like a bomb and Mummy Hegarty didn't know what to expect....
These last few weeks have also been back in contact with the old Canadian Couple Stuart and Joy who we first met in Feb 2011 on our Tasmania Trip (where we have fond memories of her hitting small one in the face with her walking stick and of Stuart asking Joy to later check his arsehole for leeches...). Back in December in Toronto we had been in contact as Joy was visiting to Toronto herself (they lived over near Vancouver) and wanted to meet up. Though she was very awkward about it, not wanting to meet us in the City Centre, but out in some suburb (two trains away) and only if we went to dinner with her and her 80 year old Aunt?). This was at the time of Small One's 30th Birthday and it didn't sound much of a treat, so after numerous emails we said that Tall one's manager had broken a leg and he had to go in and cover for her.... we never heard back from her. We past through Vancouver a few months later, looking over our shoulders to make sure we didn't bump into this friendly couple. Now almost a ear since we last heard from them, she's emailed to say they are in Ireland on a tour for a few weeks and could we meet them. As before a lot of emails back and fourth trying to figure out what they are doing. Finally she told us their trip schedule (on a bus tour), and it's a nightmare tour to try and find an open window to meet them. Only being in Galway for an hour before they head to Belfast?! She also asked how Limerick would be for us as they are there for a few hours – well Limerick is a few hours drive each way, so no it's not very good for us. So, again in the end we made our excuses, and hopefully that's that.... Though I think she may have mentioned a possible trip to New Zealand.... God help us, we'll start working on that excuse now.
Thursday 13th Small one had a day off (his only day off that week). Walked into town and went to the cinema and saw Lawless. Outside the cinema we saw one of the many stray dogs we seem to keep seeing round town. Strangely they all seem to have collars, but are always walking themselves merrily through town. This one was a Labrador and we'd seen it a few times in the housing estates or outside the new Shopping Mall, this time it was outside the cinema chewing on a baguette??! After the cinema popped round to see Auntie Joanne. She greeted tall one by saying “Hello Michael” and then introduced him to her 12 year old student as “this is David”. We sat and had a coffee with her and the 12 year old from Spain who had these large, green framed, Elton John glasses. Before heading home we went to Sean's Bar for a Guinness. Sat at the bar and ordered off this somewhat new bar man. He took our order and gave us the drinks then walked off not asking for any money. We noticed a couple of other punters being given their drinks and then standing there with their money out and no one to take it. We then ordered another 2 and again he didn't ask fro any money, or even put anything in the till, we wondered how he'd keep up with all these orders? Then two middle aged American tourists came in and sat next to us at the bar taking photos with their impressive camera. We started chatting to them, they were nurses from San Francisco area. They told us stories about 9/11, when one of their daughters being a stewardess was in the air that day, and when her plane was grounded she was not aloud to make any contact with anyone for 2 days.... so they didn't know if it was one of her planes or not until 2 days later. They were chatty enough and sat drinking their spirits, refusing the Guinness. They asked if there were any 'Castles' nearby they could book into, they said they had a budget up to 250 euros per night??! We suggested they tried Buckingham Palace then. We had another 2 Guinness and a new bar man was now on, we were honest at least and told him we'd had 4 before these two and paid – where as the American women only paid for their last 2 drinks and not the first 2. Small one went home warm and happy with a bit of Guinness inside him.
Tuesday 18th was another day off for small one. Orla was around with all four kids today, and so the house was pandemonium. Tall one tried to keep the baby Ruby and young Lily May entertained in the bedroom with bubble mix small one had got from work. Only in the excitement of the bubbles, little Ruby bounced off the bed and landed on her head. She wouldn't stop crying and Tall one's babysitting days were over. We then spent the evening sanding and painting the bathroom ceiling.
Thursday 20th and small one had his second day off this week. Mummy Hegarty drove us out to Auntie Veronica's house in Mullingar, where we'd been to a family party last year. It was fairly quiet this time round, out at their nice country house int he middle of the countryside. We went for a short drive around the area with Mummy Hegarty driving and Veronica giving directions. We got to a junction and Veronica was telling Mummy Hegarty to stop here.... she kept driving though, “stop!” she told her, and by then she had driven on anyway... She had driven out onto the main road without stopping to check for other traffic instead of topping to yield. We rove on up to a Church where tjey had a forest walk called the Way of the Cross. You followed a windy path through the woodland and scattered about was various blue life size statues of the different stages of Crucifixion of Christ. It was somewhat haunting wandering in the woods with these blue figures standing motionless about with crucifixes, some were missing fingers from the age of the statues. We had a look at the stain glass windows then back to Veronicas for some amazing homemade Vegetable soup and homemade Pavlova. Back to reality at Orwell Grove and young 12 year old Jordan had gone out playing football with hsi friends. Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were carrying on like he'd been kidnapped when he wasn't answering his phone.... he's just a young teenager who doesn't want to be taking calls from his Mother or Grandparents when he's with his mates... this didn't stop them driving out scow-ring the streets to look for him. He was back within the hour and the panicking was over.
Friday 22nd more excitement, when Small one's older brother, Aidan went missing. His wife Rosanne went home and cleaned the house first before noticing he wasn't there. She was on to Mummy Hegarty who couldn't believe they'd lost another family member in two days. They phoned around and wondered where he was for hours, until it turned out he'd just been called into work earlier than the nigth shift..... panicking was over again....
Saturday 8th – Sunday 9th September 2012
Saturday morning off, Saturday evening small one worked at a 25th birthday party at The Shack Pub. Brought home some minature bottles of Champagne filled with bubble mix.
Sunday morning off. Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were out for the day at Mass and lunch, Rosanne was left on her own in the front room watching TV. She came and found us at one point to say that she could hear a bubbling noise in the front room and what is it? We were confused and she added that the hot water tank usually makes that noise when it's on.... well it must be that Rosanne. She sat back down, and half an hour later we picked up one of the bubble mixes from the pub and blew bubbles into the front room by the door. Rosanne started exclaiming “Bubbles! Bubbles where are they coming from?!”. Tall one hid back in the kitchen whilst she went upstairs to search around the hot water tank... The parents then came home and we sat and watched three different tv channels at once, on one side a Rhino was being transported in Kenya, on another was a Gaelic Hurling match and on the third was The X Factor.... Small one insisted on flicking through each one every few minutes, so didn't know what was going on.
For the last few weeks daddy Hegarty has been asking tall one to fill in various applications for him, turning tall one into his virtual personal secretary. He wanted his Esta visa for his Paddy's Day trip to New York applied for, but tall one found his passport would have expired by then, so daddy then handed tall one the application for passport renewal and said “would you mind filling that in for me”. Tall one did so, and handed it back for various signatures, explaining he needed 2 passport photos to send with it, and one signed by the Guarda. Aidan came back today with four passport photos and 2 signed by the Guarda, tall one said he didn't need all that, and explained it says clearly on the form “only one photo to be signed..... and 2 photos to be sent in total”. Daddy Hegarty said sure he'd probably send all four anyway would he?...
Friday 7th September 2012
After about 4 hours sleep each we got up at 6am to head off for our day trip to the west coast of Ireland. Last year we'd visited Galway Bay, The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher on the west, so this year it was Connemara and the Aran Islands. With half a breakfast roll each from a petrol station we headed down the motorway in mummy Hegarty's car. Complete with jangling St Mary's statues and a bottle of Holy Water in the ashtray – it may come in handy if we ran across Vampires. Detoured off near Loch Rea and down to Thoor Ballylee – a large, square castle like home, the previous house of William Butler Yeats. It was nice enough and we headed back through the narrow farm roads, passing hares jumping into the fields. Back on to the main highway past a large sign telling drivers not to bring their horses and carts onto the M18 motorway. Through Galway City then up to the north of Connemara into Joyce's Country.
The weather was overcast, but the very misty hills, and the wet grass and spiderwebs across the landscape was still pretty nice. Turned off a brief lane down to the famous 'Quiet Man Bridge' used int he John Wayne movie. It was a good cobbled bridged, surrounded by mosquitoes though, but at least the swallows were hard at work flying over the water catching them. Back to the car then an hours drive up to the village of Leenaun, a brief row of shops where the village setting was used int he 1991 Richard Harris movie 'The Field'. Back int he car and up to Asleagh Falls (also in the movie). There a man had his waders on and was fly fishing in the river, and behind him a horse was mooching about in the tall wet grass.
We were back in the car within minutes and speeding south again. The whole tour of Connemara was pretty rushed as we were trying to get back down to the coast to get the ferry over to the Aran Islands at 1pm. So our sightseeing was the equivalent of Guerrilla warfare. We were in quick and out quick, “get the camera... shoot shoot shoot...” then “back in the car let's go, let's go”. So then we speeded down the narrow roads south to the coast, zooming past some great scenary amongst the many clouds. Sheep were loose all over the roads, and round one corner two appeared running across the road in front of the car. One made it past, the other was right in front of the bumper and we were sure we'd hit it, when at the last moment it turned back and we missed the thing by inches. Heading to Rossaveel for the ferry terminal (listening to his mother's Joe Dolan CD), there were no sign posts for it at all when coming from the north, so missed the turning and had to speed back again. At the terminal we were told the car park cost 5 euros, so there goes the 5 euros we saved on the ferry price for booking online...
We made it in time for the boat and had a boring 45 minute ferry ride over in the fog. The ferry had a lot of coach tours on and behind us a group of American's could not stop exclaiming loudly how “awesome” everything was. We docked at the village of Kilronan, on the largest of the 3 Aran Islands named Inis Mir. Our return ferry was was 5pm, and straight off the boat were two tour vans and two locals pleading for customers to take their bus tour. We opted for the first guy, who was strange to hear an Irishman speaking in broken english – as over here it's very much the second language, speaking Irish Gaelic everyday. His tour bus was filled with rotten stuffed teddy bears, and soft toy leprechauns and sesame street characters. We were joined by a pair of Korean Women and a pair of women from Peru, who despite having spent 45 minutes on a ferry with perfectly good toilets, wanted the driver to stop for them before we headed off. Also on the bus was a group of four main landers from Wicklow, who were the most miserable bunch of people you'd hope to meet. The tour started and up through the village this driver turned out to be a bit noisy and somewhat eccentric. Making strange frantic clicking noises and barking noises when we saw animals. He point at a cow in a field and say “Burger King-McDonalads-SuperMacs-Quarter Pounder-Roast Beef and if your a vegetarian i apologies!!”. Nobody knew what was going on, and when he pointed to two goats in a field and said they are tied together to stop them escaping, the two Peru women asked him what he meant and in response he just made more clicking noises and smacked his hands together. The tour of the island (13km long and 4km wide) was entertaining to say the least, and despite the poor weather it was good scenary. The local houses, some made of thatched roofs were all surrounded by many tiny little fields all separated by many many stone walls. The driver stopped to converse with locals in Gaelic on a few occasions, at one point small one said hello in Gaelic to a local man seemingly digging a grave, and he could not understand a word he said back to him, mostly due to accent more than language. The main stop was at Duin Aonghasa, a stone built area built in the bronze age. It was a half hour walk up the hill, and it was right on a very steep cliff edge which had no fence. On a clear day you could see the mainland Ireland and Cliffs of Moher, but today only fog. A blonde lady in a hi viz top was a guide up there. She mostly sat on the floor on her own away from the tourists, until we made the mistake of asking her a question and could not get away. It was a National Trust site and you were supposed to pay 3 euros for entry. Thankfully the woman asked if we were students, and we said yes but had no cards, to which she asked “you wouldn't lie would you”, we said “of course not” and paid our 1 euro each, laughing our way to the bank afterwards with the huge saving we'd lied for. Met our intrepid driver an hour and a half later by the little thatched roof shops. The Wicklow group of four had not even bothered to walk up to the ruins, not sure what else they did for the hour and a half.
Next stop was the Seven Churches, at which we spent more time stroking a smelly donkey than looking round the graveyard, this time the Wicklow group did not even get off the bus, but complained that the Koreans were taking too long getting back on. Last stop was at a seal colony looking down at Grey seals int he bay. The Wicklow group again didn't budge off their seats and we wondered what the hell they had even bothered paying for this tour for. Back to the village and we caught the 5pm ferry. The journey back was a bit more bumpy than before, and everyone laughed and some poor cow who was so nervous she got the life vest out from under her seat and sat clutching it to her chest for the whole trip back.
On the mainland we headed back along the coastline, through Salt Hill and Spiddel, then on the motorway to Athlone. We got back pretty quick, then small one got us stuck at the toll bridge when he went to the credit card pay line instead of the much faster 'coin only' line – so all the cars he'd just spent half an hour overtaking now overtook us. Back at the house we exchanged cars with mummy Hegarty who headed out to a BBQ. Tall one and Small one left to their own devices decided to treat themselves to a Super Macs burger and chips up the road. They ordered and then were told they could not except credit card, but the other counter (the Super Macs is inside a petrol station/mini mart) would take it but we'd have to buy something else for 5 euro first, So after about 15 minutes of painful discussions with cashiers we paid for our burgers and left and went home and gorged ourselves on junk food.
Very tired, very groggy, stonking headaches. Not a good morning for travelling. Said goodbye to the two boys who were alseep on the sofa, Small one said his farewells to Padraig up in bed. Goodbye to Daddy Hegarty and poor Mummy Hegarty who couldn't stop crying. Abba came and picked us up to take us to the train station to get the 10am train. He'd hurt hsi neck and was on medication so did not come to the party last night. When he saw how rough we were feeling, he suggested we brought a couple of cans to drink on the train.
Train left Athlone at 10am, then we had to change at Portarlington and Portlaoise. While waiting for the train two guests from the party arrived and we had to stand and chat to them for half hour, which feeling so rough with our dizzy heads and sour throats wasn't easy. The lady thought she'd forgotten her mobile phone and would have to go back for it before the train came, then found it tuck inside her bra. Then we boarded and found our online reserved seating, to find we were right next to two of small one;s old friends, who by chance had reserved the seats next to us. They were a lovely couple, but we were still struggling with chatting whilst feeling so rough. At Portarlington some confused cross eyed woman asked small one directions and he sent her the complete opposite directionw ithotu realizing. Then aftr she boarded the bus, another passenger had to help her understand how to get into the automated toilet door, but unfortunatley did not show her how to lock the door, so some poor lad opened it to see her sat on the loo and turned away blushing while she shrieked. Glad we took the train and not the bus, as we stretched out and dozed for the final 2 hour leg down to Cork eating crisps and sandwhiches from the train's cafe.
Checked into “Sheila's Cork Hostel” a big building int he centre of town, we were exhaustingly on the 3rd floor. Small ne had a snooze, then we went for a wonder after 5pm. Within yards of the hostel Tall one stopped to take a photo of a chimney but tripped on a step and did something to his ankle. Small one thought he was exaggerating but then it swelled up like a tennis ball, then turned blue and yellow like a dead man's foot. Still managed to limp around the City for a while, it was lovely and sunny. Stopped for dinner in the LV pub near the hostel, th bar staff were pretty rude. Ordered soup and a toasty, the soup arrived cold and when we asked for cutrley the fella brought us a fork and knife (no soup spoon). Strangely you paid everything at the end and when you went ot the bar and asked to pay, they had no records and just asked “what did you have?”, when small oen told them they then asked “how much was that?”....
At around 8pm we met Noreen who we had knew previously from the Corkman Pub in Melbourne. She had been thinking of all the pubs to show us that night in her home City of Cork, only to turn up and find Tall one limping and small one asking for just a coffee and a orange juice. Went just round the corner to the Shelbourne, Noreen was the only one to drink an we ordered in pizza. Next to us was a young couple, a young fella with a beard and his girlfriend. We got them to take our photo for us. Then when we went to leave the whole front of the pub had filled up with a large group of deaf people. It was quite eery edging our way through a crowd of people to the doors, who stood all in silence as they were waving their hands in various gestures.
Friday 5th October 2012
Small one and Tall one drove up to Dublin airport early to collect Padriag and his girlfriend Lesley, flying over from New York for the retirement party that night. Young Jordan came with us, but mostly for a day off school than to see his uncle. Waited in the airport a fair while as Lesley had to go through immigration for ages, but we waited with a breakfast roll at least. Were also joined by Scottish relatives who'd flown in from th UK the night before, so had a full car driving back to Athlone.
It was a busy day ahead arranging various things for the party. We were also busy trying to finish packing and cleaning the room before we left, wiping the dead mosquitoes off the ceiling and walls, and doing a heap of laundry. Daddy Hegarty then found the Communion photos from the 1980s he wanted hung above the chimney, which was to be Tall one's last job for the house. Turned out to be a long job as the nails and hooks we had were inadequate and took half the wall off. Brought some from the Spar which also failed, then from Co-Op over the road, which also did not go into the wall, then had to drive across town to a hardware store until we finally got the right nails to hang these pictures, took us about an hour in the end. We all sat down to have some of Mummy Hegarty's homemade stew, then headed back out to hang up some pictures int eh Shamrock Lodge Party room for that night.
The Party went well. Starting with music we had downloaded from Daddy Hegarty's past – which had been suggested by his brothers and sisters. The first track was 'Wild Thing' which seemed to come on four times that day in the room. Daddy Hegarty and Padraig had chosen the main band, who were a Northern Irish band they'd seen play in New York on Paddy's Day. After them we had local singer Shamus. It was a night of lots of singing, lots of dancing (Small one managed to head butt his mother whilst dancing to 'Rock the Boat'), lots of drinking and lots of crying. Mummy Hegarty's student, Joseph went wearing bright red trousers, the alternative being a full tuxedo he'd flown out with, which the household laughed at when he put it on, so the red trousers were a compromise. We also met Small one's cousin's boyfriend who'd come over from New York, and seemed to be Padraig's double – except that he was wearing a jumper. Little Richard made 60 euros that night apparently, walking round the tables asking everyone one for 1 euro. There was a big cake wheeled out for Daddy Hegarty celebrating his 65th Birthday and Retirement of over 40 years. Small one and Tall one gradually made there way around all the tables and groups of friends and family to say goodbye to, as they were leaving at 10am train the next day. By 4am Small one had Uncle Sean and his sister Orla in tears, and many others. Many Guinness and bottles of Bud later, small one and tall one went back to the house to try and get the little sleep they could. It was a mighty night.
Thursday 4th October 2012
A frantic day, the day before the party and the last full free day for small one and tall one to pack. Small one and Daddy Hegarty were out in the garden killing weeds, hanging baskets, scrubbing patio slabs, hoovering cars out. Mummy Hegarty was cleaning the house but was interrupted (as usual) by a visitor. An old lady neighbour came round, she brought her a bottle of red wine and stayed chatting for over an hour. Mummy Hegarty doesn't drink, but everyone seems to bring her bottles of wine, and so she put this one with the bottle she got from the French student a couple of days before.
A couple of days ago some new frames were brought and all of Aidan (Junior) and Rosanne's wedding photos were put up. Small one missed the wedding as he was in the Blue Mountains, Australia with Tall One back in 2009. his meant that all the photos of Mummy, Daddy, sister Orla and brothers Aidan and Padraig were missing small one, but they planned on getting some family photos done the day of the party as Padraig would also be back. Daddy rushed off from the gardening this morning saying there were some photos he wanted to get done up, and came back a while later to show us two photos he got printed up in the same new frames; both photos were of Padraig and his partner. So there was still no picture of small one on the wall. Small one borrowed Mummy's car and said he'd go out and get his own photo printed, which he did.
That evening Small one and Tall one headed back out in the car to do some last farewell's to people who may not be at the party tomorrow night. First stop was Eddie and Elena back from their Honeymoon. Elena (being a nurse) signed the Police Check application form for tall one, being a more important person than Eddie to do so. After a cup of tea then headed over to Aunt Joan's house, and sat and chatted with her and her 2 students. Then went over to Abba's house, as he had hurt his neck and may not be at the party. Only we couldn't remember which house was his and small one is too cheap to top up his phone credit. We knocked on two doors to have two scared strangers answer and ask what we wanted. We gave up on Abba and headed over to the Hospital to see the Grandad. He was in mighty form, after small one introduced himself he remembered he was back from Australia and that he was leaving again tomorrow. Last stop was over at Auntie Agnes, who is still in the middle of her chemotherapy. Had a cup of tea and a good chat, then headed back home to finish laundry, pack the bags and hang another picture.
Later that night Daddy Hegarty pulled small one and tall one aside, and pointed to Padraigs two framed certs on the centre wall over the fireplace. He said he wanted us to move them as he had some nice other photos to put up there, but could we suggest it to Mummy Hegarty as he didn't want the suggestion to come from him. He even suggested that we wait for her to go to bed and start hammering nails into the wall then so she won't know. We said fine and took the certs down, Mummy Hegarty saw what we were doing and small one said “Daddy wants these moved to the other wall as he's got some photos to go up here, but don't tell him”... Mummy went upstairs whilst we were hammering the nails in to re-hang the certs, she past Daddy on the stairs who said to her, “what's the noise down there, i don't know what those two are at”.... Poor Daddy, he's not fooling anyone.
Wednesday 3rd October 2012
Mummy Hegarty's new french student is sick as a dog, she's not been out the room all day. Tall one has also been struck down with sneezing, running eyes and nose, so all is well. Small one was now officially unemployed, and today got together with Paul and Colin from The Shack Pub and drove down to Galway hospital to visit Mandy recovering from the operation.
Saturday 29th September – Tuesday 2nd October 2012
The end of the month at last. Tall one finished his 2 month stint of reading Irish Writers, finishing on the sunday listening to the last hour of the 29 hour audio book of James Joyce's Ulysses. His MP3 was broke so had it playing out loud on his laptop, and didn't realize the last chapter consists of a Dublin prostitute talking in colourful languages about what she'd like to do with a large cock.... Tall one thought it better to put the headphones in as Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were outside the door having dinner.
Monday 1st of October, that evening we drove into town to buy Mark from the Shack Pub a voucher and thank you card for giving small one so many hours at the pub. We stopped for petrol, only got stuck waiting behind a herd of horses re-fuelling, who took over fifteen minutes, while traffic was held up behind them. Visited the Grandad on the way back and he seems to be back to the way he was before, asking who small one was he told him “Conor”, and he asked whose son he was, Conor told him “Carmel”, Grandad said “Paula” (Carmel's sister), “No, Carmel”... “Oh that's right” said Grandad, “Paula's dead”.... Poor Paula's alive and well. Meanwhile Mummy Hegarty had received a new student to look after in the house for a couple of months. This one was a pink haired, 18 year old French girl. They sat down for dinner that night and Mummy Hegarty started with the questions about the dinner, “is that okay for you now?... “are you sure?”.... “you don't have to eat anything you don't like just say”.... “you sure that's okay now?”.... “your sure?”.... “just say f it's not”.... “is it burnt, i think i burnt it?”.....
Tuesday 2nd October was small one's last day at work at The Shack. Walked him in at 10am and he did his 7 hour shift. Tall one stopped off on the way home to print some final documents from the town library, stuck sitting next to some fat little girl with breathing difficulties who was literally slobbering over a large heart shape lolly pop. Had also heard back from The Corkman in Melbourne, that Stacey had spoke to Chris the owner and was keen to sponsor Tall one to return as Hostel Manager. We emailed Chris direct for the first time and hoped to get the ball rolling. Meanwhile small one finished work at 5pm then stayed sat in the pub to watch the Celtic Champions League match, which they won 3-2, the first time they've won an away match in this Championship. Small one ran around the pub celebrating, to which Mark told him to sit down... he'd only been drinking tea as well. He then was joined by the Shack staff to celebrate his final days work. The Polish and Russian girls brought him out a huge cake theyd baked with a candle, all the locals watched to which small one assured them it wasn't his birthday. They then gave him a present, which was a large leather handbag... Colin the barman who'd been there for years (and all the locals and staff dislike) sat and joined them. He pointed to the cake and said how long he'd been there and how he wouldn't get a cake half as big as that, to which the Russian girl turned to him and said (in her accent) “that's because your a bollocks Colin”... Small one also got a goodbye card signed byt he staff, with photos of Babies on the front, this was a reference to the “Baby Bowl” mini soup special the pub does, which small one ate every morning.
Mummy Hegarty and Tall one picked him up at 10pm and drove him home claiming he wasn't drunk. At least he hadn't spent any money as all his drinks had been brought for him. Ate the dinner Mummy had prepared. Then little sweet Mummy Hegarty who tutted at the plumbers swearing the other day put on her favourite sitcom, “Mr Brown's Boys”.... she told tall one that he may not like it as she's awful vulgar sometimes, Mrs Brown then started swearing, talking about “penis', cum, fuck, shit, bollocks...” and little dear Mummy Hegarty had tears rolling down her face with laughter.... At one point Mrs Brown came out the toilet with her knickers round her knees and Mummy got embarrassed watching it and changed the channel abruptly to something random, then turned it back 20 seconds later, only to still see the knickers round the ankles, so changed it over again.... Tall one went to the bedroom with his cup of tea, and small one was asleep within minutes, ready to wake up complaining about his hang over.
Friday 28th September 2012
Daddy Hegarty's first full day after retirement. Had arranged for us to go for a meal out at The Shack Pub as small one had the day off. Small and Tall one gave him his gift – which was a long handled pair of clippers to cut the edge of the lawn. That morning the shower manufacture came round and fixed the downstairs shower, after not being able to use the ensuite for 3 months, it was finally fixed a week before we were leaving. The plumber said that the one who installed it (Daddy's cousin) didn't know what he was doing, and kindly did not charge us for the call out. After the shower was fixed small and tall one cleared out the boiler room outside, as Daddy Hegarty had said there were three old doors at the back which needed to be brought out, that he'd arranged for someone to take. We spent an hour clearing out the room, throwing away Old Garden Knomes with broken noses. Got the doors out ready, only for Daddy Hegarty to tell us to put them back in as no one was coming for them. Headed out to the Shack after everyone waiting downstairs for Daddy Hegarty to get ready. Sister Orla Hegarty brought Little Richard and Little Lily May along, but had Baby Ruby being babysitted. It was a good meal. Afterwards small one needed to stay behind for a drink though, and so him and tall one had a couple of Guinness. While they sat at the bar they were joined by Mark's Uncle and Auntie. They come in every day and get their free meal. The Auntie sat down next to tall one, like Miss Havisham from a Dickens book – all dressed eccentrically in fancy gear, huge jewellery, large sleeves and straw hat. Her husband looked like actor Robert Englund who plays Freddy Kruger. She asked Tall one's name, to which he said “Michael” “Morris?”... “No Michael”... “Matt?”, Tall one said near enough. They left shortly afterwards, got a lfit from Mummy Hegarty and Rosanne and spent ten minutes counting sheep on a painting int he front room.
Tuesday 25th – Thursday 27th September 2012
Daddy Hegarty officially retired on the Thursday. Came home midday with a smile on his face, un-sure with what to do with himself. By the afternoon him and Mummy Hegarty were arguing over the day time TV as she wanted to watch Noel Edmunds on Deal or No Deal like she did everyday. Small and Tall took some old photos up town and had them blown up ready for his retirement party next week. Used the same photoshop as last year when tall one got his passport photos done, tthankfully this time round we got out within 5 minutes and weren't stuck chatting for an hour.
Conor had done some extra hours at the Shack Pub, as Mandy in the Galway Hospital had had some internal bleeding. After another operation, she should hopefully be better, but the next week will be critical. Small one's looking forward to leaving next week, he's no longer used to living with the family. Daddy Hegarty asked him to book flights for next month for Celtic Match, but gave him the wrong dates. Mummy Hegarty brought a lamp into our room and asked if we could work out why it was not working.... small one pointed out that there was no bulb in it. On another occasion we brought our washing in, dry off the line from outside. Mummy Hegarty suggested we might want to put it into the tumble dryer to 'air out'. Surely she has this backwards, thought Tall one – you hang things outside to 'air out' you don't put them in a dryer.
Tall one walked in to town to meet small one, and along the river Shannon he came across a very very short old woman (must have been about 4ft tall) wearing a black skirt and black hood standing with her back to him, just starting silently out into the water. He approached slowly as he remembered the movie Don't Look Now, where a dwarf woman in a hood was murdering people along the Venice canals. Just as he was walking past, it turned around and it wasn't a golbin at all, but a smiling, Harry Potter glasses wearing, dwarf Priest. Complete with the Vicar's dog collar, he was stood there in his black skirt and hood on a sunny day, staring out into the water... He smiled at Tall one and walked past, only to stop shortly afterwards and go back to staring out into the Shannons dark water.
Monday 24th September 2012
Today was the day trip up to Dublin. Alarm went off for 4am, to shower dress and walk up to the bus station in the cold and dark. Brought a coffee on the way which was freezing. Got on the 7.15am bus, and watched as a husband in very short blue shorts (in very cold weather?) came on the bus to carry his wife's bags on and help her get her child on. He was on their less than a minute and the driver was yelling at him to hurry up and get off as other passengers were waiting (2 passengers waiting). Don't think the driver would have been quite so rude had the family been white.... Further on the trip when the Mullingar-Dublin bus sent some of it's passengers to fill up our bus (as it was a direct bus), the driver started yelling at the mother again, to move the child off the other seat to make room.... !!
Got in to Dublin about 9am, had a Supermacs roll. It was absolutely pissing out with rain and did not stop all day. Small one and Tall one at least had a flimsy, 1 Euro umbrella each.... Our first stop was up to the Easter 1916 memorial behind the prison, where the likes of Padraig Pearse and James Connolly were buried in a mass grave following their execution. We walked about their in the rain a while and watched a ginger cat mewing down at us from on top of the ten foot wall surrounding the grounds. Then walked north through the streets from James Joyce's (long long) book Ulysses. Stopped off to see Irish Writer, Sean O Casey's house – where a drunk man was waving at us from one of the windows. Did a fair bit of walking, and saw statues along the canal of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavangh, then through Trinity College – more statues for Thomas Moore and Oliver Goldsmith. Then there was the very camp statue of a green suited Oscar Wilde sprawled over a huge rock in Merrion Square. By the time we were on Baggot Street we were both starving and also soaked to the skin. Our shoes were soaked through, with our feet squelching in wet socks. Had a soup and toasted sandwhich for 6.50 euros in Wellington Pub, then up to Grafton Street. Here we stopped in the Porterhosue Brewery, one of the few places you can still buy the old stout of 'Plain Porter', which small one thought smelt just like Bruce's homemade booze from St Johns. Also stopped in McDaids pub on Harry Street, a very small pub, but quite nice. Supposedly a previous haunt for Christy Moore, Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and Flann O Brien.
We then did some shopping on Grafton Street for small one. As we fumbled p the street in the rain, small one's umbrella was half collapsed, and tall one's suddenly broke in half. The top of the umbrella blew away leaving him stood holding a handle only, he turned around just in time to see the top of the umbrella hit some poor lady in the face with a wet slap. Small one did a fair bit of shopping in Dunnes, finding some 12 year olds shirts that fit, and buying a lifetime supply of socks. We then headed up to Dave's pub, Lotts, where we had previously spent an afternoon with Daddy Hegarty waiting for the Christy Moore gig.
In Lott's at 4pm we met little Paddy and his 'Scottish' girlfriend.... who small one endeared himself to after introducing her as 'also from England'. We sat round a table and small one handed out a pair of new Dunnes Stores socks to everyone. Paddy, Tall one and Small one all took their sodden socks off and hung them on the chairs to dry whilst they put on the new ones. We were then joined by Dave, as well as Andy (previously the chef at Searsons who we'd met last year in July). At 7pm we were hungry and small one reading the menu said he fancied the Iirsh Fry up, but it had stopped at 5pm. Dave didn't mind and got the kitchen making us 4 huge fry ups at 7pm, they were fantastic. After about 4 pints of Guinness Small one being very sensible said we should leave now at 7.30pm to get the 8pm bus. Said good bye to all, and hoped to see Paddy and girlfriend in New Zealand. Caught the 8pm direct bus in plenty of time. Small one was alseep within 5 minutes of getting on the bus, whilst tall one sat there awake for the 2 hour trip, waking up small one just before we pulled into Athlone station. Small one waking up and seeing where we were said “that was quick”. We then stood out in the cold and waited for Daddy Hegarty to be late, who was collecting us free of charge in his taxi.
Saturday 22nd – Sunday 23rd September 2012
Good news is that the two Hegarty patients of recent months are steadily improving. Grandad Ryan in the hospital is back to the way he was before, talking fine now. Even Mummy Hegarty on her visit how he wasn't going to bed yet as it was far too early, and then another day getting small one to give his back a good scratching... Little Polar the dog is also much better now, happily eating her pills each morning wrapped in delux ham or chicken, no longer panting and struggling like she was.
The en-suite shower in tall one and small one's room is still broken. This was after Daddy Hegarty's cousin came out and fixed it back in July and made it so it only came out with cold water, opposed to how it formerly only came out with boiling hot. So he came back and 'fixed' it again a week later, and from then on the temp was fine, but there was not enough water pressure to even wet your fringe. So on Saturday Mummy Hegarty phoned someone else who came out, and basically said she should be contacting the manufacture to get it fixed for free instead of spending more money on plumbers. He then had a look at the hot water system and suggested a service he can offer to flush the pipes out. He showed her some black stuff that was clogging the system and kept on and on saying that “this is the 'shit' that's in the system.... the service will clean out this 'shit'.... it's this 'shit' that's the problem”. I think Mummy Hegarty only agreed to the service to stop him swearing at her, once he was out the door she turned to tall one and said how much he was cussing.
Saturday night went into Shines next door, as Small one's asian (Second?) cousin Andrew was playing Piano and singing with his boyfriend. We sat with their mum (Small one's cousin) for a couple of hours drinking. They also played the violin on a few songs which was very good. At the end of the night small one's cousin was going to get a taxi home, small one suggested his dad might ake her as he was out on taxi tonight, but then suggested that he might charge her. He re-counted the story to her how when we got back from Canada, that Daddy Hegarty had given them the number of a good local taximan, as he didn't want to be lumbered ferrying us around for free.
On the Sunday Tall one walked Small one into work. Tall one's canvas coloured jacket (which he'd had since 2010 in Australia) had seen better days, huge tears appearing in the sleeves – so without having time to sew these fresh ones that morning, he used cellotape on the inside of the jacket to hold it together. Noticed on route how a string of shops and houses had all been painted the same shade of peach. It was quite hideous and bland. Small one theorized that it was probably the same owner of all half a dozen buildings who wanted to show they were all his.... tall one suggested this was the same as a dog pissing everywhere to mark it's territory. Dropped small one into the Shack, who was pleased to hear that Mandy (Mark's mum who runs the Shack) seemed to be a lot better following the operation to remove her stomach cancer. She was currently down in Galway Hospital.
Monday 10th – Friday 21st September 2012
The count down is going well.... not long left now.... with the help of God.
Which reminds me, just yesterday God was called upon to help change the TV channel, “you can change the channel now if you like... with the help of God” (or with the help of a remote control). Even little Richard has started to pick up on some of Mummy Hegarty's sayings. Someone surprised him coming down the stairs quickly and he exclaimed “oh me heart!”. We then had the event over the weekend in which a bird left a three foot long, white splash of faeces down the front glass door to the house. Mummy Hegarty said to leave it there for it was good luck for the lotto that night. Won nothing on the Lotto and a week later the door is still covered with bird shit.
Little Richard has stayed over a few nights this week, but has been told to not be eating sweets as he'd had some work done on his teeth. Sure enough, at 2am when small one got home from work, there was mummy Hegarty running around with Little Richard in her arms as he was throwing his little guts up everywhere. All of the walls and the floors, donm't know how he managed to get it spread so far.... Small one asked what was making him sick and Little Richard and Mummy Hegarty said they thought it was the BBQ food that small one gave him earlier in the day (despite the fact that tall and small one were fine). Of course this wasn't true, as tall one had come out earlier to make a cup of tea to see Little Richard eating a huge cereal bowl full of Skittle sweets which Mummy Hegarty had brought him. He tried to hide them from tall one but was too slow, and then a few hours later was throwing up rainbows.
Anyway, small one still working hard at the shack. Tall one having cooked three fried breakfasts in a row for him to keep him fuelled. Tall one walked in to meet him oneday and sat at the bar with a coffee. The bar maid Lindsay introduced herself to him, despite the fact he'd met her only a couple of weeks ago. Tall one still at home getting through his second month reading dead Irish writers, though he's finishing these last couple of weeks reading three living ones... which is a relief as reading the words of so many dead people gets a little depressing. Tall one had a parcel arrive, a small parcel of books – which the postman delivered in this enormous canvas Royal Mail bag, with plastic tags hanging off it, he delivered it to the door holding it at arms length like a bomb and Mummy Hegarty didn't know what to expect....
These last few weeks have also been back in contact with the old Canadian Couple Stuart and Joy who we first met in Feb 2011 on our Tasmania Trip (where we have fond memories of her hitting small one in the face with her walking stick and of Stuart asking Joy to later check his arsehole for leeches...). Back in December in Toronto we had been in contact as Joy was visiting to Toronto herself (they lived over near Vancouver) and wanted to meet up. Though she was very awkward about it, not wanting to meet us in the City Centre, but out in some suburb (two trains away) and only if we went to dinner with her and her 80 year old Aunt?). This was at the time of Small One's 30th Birthday and it didn't sound much of a treat, so after numerous emails we said that Tall one's manager had broken a leg and he had to go in and cover for her.... we never heard back from her. We past through Vancouver a few months later, looking over our shoulders to make sure we didn't bump into this friendly couple. Now almost a ear since we last heard from them, she's emailed to say they are in Ireland on a tour for a few weeks and could we meet them. As before a lot of emails back and fourth trying to figure out what they are doing. Finally she told us their trip schedule (on a bus tour), and it's a nightmare tour to try and find an open window to meet them. Only being in Galway for an hour before they head to Belfast?! She also asked how Limerick would be for us as they are there for a few hours – well Limerick is a few hours drive each way, so no it's not very good for us. So, again in the end we made our excuses, and hopefully that's that.... Though I think she may have mentioned a possible trip to New Zealand.... God help us, we'll start working on that excuse now.
Thursday 13th Small one had a day off (his only day off that week). Walked into town and went to the cinema and saw Lawless. Outside the cinema we saw one of the many stray dogs we seem to keep seeing round town. Strangely they all seem to have collars, but are always walking themselves merrily through town. This one was a Labrador and we'd seen it a few times in the housing estates or outside the new Shopping Mall, this time it was outside the cinema chewing on a baguette??! After the cinema popped round to see Auntie Joanne. She greeted tall one by saying “Hello Michael” and then introduced him to her 12 year old student as “this is David”. We sat and had a coffee with her and the 12 year old from Spain who had these large, green framed, Elton John glasses. Before heading home we went to Sean's Bar for a Guinness. Sat at the bar and ordered off this somewhat new bar man. He took our order and gave us the drinks then walked off not asking for any money. We noticed a couple of other punters being given their drinks and then standing there with their money out and no one to take it. We then ordered another 2 and again he didn't ask fro any money, or even put anything in the till, we wondered how he'd keep up with all these orders? Then two middle aged American tourists came in and sat next to us at the bar taking photos with their impressive camera. We started chatting to them, they were nurses from San Francisco area. They told us stories about 9/11, when one of their daughters being a stewardess was in the air that day, and when her plane was grounded she was not aloud to make any contact with anyone for 2 days.... so they didn't know if it was one of her planes or not until 2 days later. They were chatty enough and sat drinking their spirits, refusing the Guinness. They asked if there were any 'Castles' nearby they could book into, they said they had a budget up to 250 euros per night??! We suggested they tried Buckingham Palace then. We had another 2 Guinness and a new bar man was now on, we were honest at least and told him we'd had 4 before these two and paid – where as the American women only paid for their last 2 drinks and not the first 2. Small one went home warm and happy with a bit of Guinness inside him.
Tuesday 18th was another day off for small one. Orla was around with all four kids today, and so the house was pandemonium. Tall one tried to keep the baby Ruby and young Lily May entertained in the bedroom with bubble mix small one had got from work. Only in the excitement of the bubbles, little Ruby bounced off the bed and landed on her head. She wouldn't stop crying and Tall one's babysitting days were over. We then spent the evening sanding and painting the bathroom ceiling.
Thursday 20th and small one had his second day off this week. Mummy Hegarty drove us out to Auntie Veronica's house in Mullingar, where we'd been to a family party last year. It was fairly quiet this time round, out at their nice country house int he middle of the countryside. We went for a short drive around the area with Mummy Hegarty driving and Veronica giving directions. We got to a junction and Veronica was telling Mummy Hegarty to stop here.... she kept driving though, “stop!” she told her, and by then she had driven on anyway... She had driven out onto the main road without stopping to check for other traffic instead of topping to yield. We rove on up to a Church where tjey had a forest walk called the Way of the Cross. You followed a windy path through the woodland and scattered about was various blue life size statues of the different stages of Crucifixion of Christ. It was somewhat haunting wandering in the woods with these blue figures standing motionless about with crucifixes, some were missing fingers from the age of the statues. We had a look at the stain glass windows then back to Veronicas for some amazing homemade Vegetable soup and homemade Pavlova. Back to reality at Orwell Grove and young 12 year old Jordan had gone out playing football with hsi friends. Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were carrying on like he'd been kidnapped when he wasn't answering his phone.... he's just a young teenager who doesn't want to be taking calls from his Mother or Grandparents when he's with his mates... this didn't stop them driving out scow-ring the streets to look for him. He was back within the hour and the panicking was over.
Friday 22nd more excitement, when Small one's older brother, Aidan went missing. His wife Rosanne went home and cleaned the house first before noticing he wasn't there. She was on to Mummy Hegarty who couldn't believe they'd lost another family member in two days. They phoned around and wondered where he was for hours, until it turned out he'd just been called into work earlier than the nigth shift..... panicking was over again....
Saturday 8th – Sunday 9th September 2012
Saturday morning off, Saturday evening small one worked at a 25th birthday party at The Shack Pub. Brought home some minature bottles of Champagne filled with bubble mix.
Sunday morning off. Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were out for the day at Mass and lunch, Rosanne was left on her own in the front room watching TV. She came and found us at one point to say that she could hear a bubbling noise in the front room and what is it? We were confused and she added that the hot water tank usually makes that noise when it's on.... well it must be that Rosanne. She sat back down, and half an hour later we picked up one of the bubble mixes from the pub and blew bubbles into the front room by the door. Rosanne started exclaiming “Bubbles! Bubbles where are they coming from?!”. Tall one hid back in the kitchen whilst she went upstairs to search around the hot water tank... The parents then came home and we sat and watched three different tv channels at once, on one side a Rhino was being transported in Kenya, on another was a Gaelic Hurling match and on the third was The X Factor.... Small one insisted on flicking through each one every few minutes, so didn't know what was going on.
For the last few weeks daddy Hegarty has been asking tall one to fill in various applications for him, turning tall one into his virtual personal secretary. He wanted his Esta visa for his Paddy's Day trip to New York applied for, but tall one found his passport would have expired by then, so daddy then handed tall one the application for passport renewal and said “would you mind filling that in for me”. Tall one did so, and handed it back for various signatures, explaining he needed 2 passport photos to send with it, and one signed by the Guarda. Aidan came back today with four passport photos and 2 signed by the Guarda, tall one said he didn't need all that, and explained it says clearly on the form “only one photo to be signed..... and 2 photos to be sent in total”. Daddy Hegarty said sure he'd probably send all four anyway would he?...
Friday 7th September 2012
After about 4 hours sleep each we got up at 6am to head off for our day trip to the west coast of Ireland. Last year we'd visited Galway Bay, The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher on the west, so this year it was Connemara and the Aran Islands. With half a breakfast roll each from a petrol station we headed down the motorway in mummy Hegarty's car. Complete with jangling St Mary's statues and a bottle of Holy Water in the ashtray – it may come in handy if we ran across Vampires. Detoured off near Loch Rea and down to Thoor Ballylee – a large, square castle like home, the previous house of William Butler Yeats. It was nice enough and we headed back through the narrow farm roads, passing hares jumping into the fields. Back on to the main highway past a large sign telling drivers not to bring their horses and carts onto the M18 motorway. Through Galway City then up to the north of Connemara into Joyce's Country.
The weather was overcast, but the very misty hills, and the wet grass and spiderwebs across the landscape was still pretty nice. Turned off a brief lane down to the famous 'Quiet Man Bridge' used int he John Wayne movie. It was a good cobbled bridged, surrounded by mosquitoes though, but at least the swallows were hard at work flying over the water catching them. Back to the car then an hours drive up to the village of Leenaun, a brief row of shops where the village setting was used int he 1991 Richard Harris movie 'The Field'. Back int he car and up to Asleagh Falls (also in the movie). There a man had his waders on and was fly fishing in the river, and behind him a horse was mooching about in the tall wet grass.
We were back in the car within minutes and speeding south again. The whole tour of Connemara was pretty rushed as we were trying to get back down to the coast to get the ferry over to the Aran Islands at 1pm. So our sightseeing was the equivalent of Guerrilla warfare. We were in quick and out quick, “get the camera... shoot shoot shoot...” then “back in the car let's go, let's go”. So then we speeded down the narrow roads south to the coast, zooming past some great scenary amongst the many clouds. Sheep were loose all over the roads, and round one corner two appeared running across the road in front of the car. One made it past, the other was right in front of the bumper and we were sure we'd hit it, when at the last moment it turned back and we missed the thing by inches. Heading to Rossaveel for the ferry terminal (listening to his mother's Joe Dolan CD), there were no sign posts for it at all when coming from the north, so missed the turning and had to speed back again. At the terminal we were told the car park cost 5 euros, so there goes the 5 euros we saved on the ferry price for booking online...
We made it in time for the boat and had a boring 45 minute ferry ride over in the fog. The ferry had a lot of coach tours on and behind us a group of American's could not stop exclaiming loudly how “awesome” everything was. We docked at the village of Kilronan, on the largest of the 3 Aran Islands named Inis Mir. Our return ferry was was 5pm, and straight off the boat were two tour vans and two locals pleading for customers to take their bus tour. We opted for the first guy, who was strange to hear an Irishman speaking in broken english – as over here it's very much the second language, speaking Irish Gaelic everyday. His tour bus was filled with rotten stuffed teddy bears, and soft toy leprechauns and sesame street characters. We were joined by a pair of Korean Women and a pair of women from Peru, who despite having spent 45 minutes on a ferry with perfectly good toilets, wanted the driver to stop for them before we headed off. Also on the bus was a group of four main landers from Wicklow, who were the most miserable bunch of people you'd hope to meet. The tour started and up through the village this driver turned out to be a bit noisy and somewhat eccentric. Making strange frantic clicking noises and barking noises when we saw animals. He point at a cow in a field and say “Burger King-McDonalads-SuperMacs-Quarter Pounder-Roast Beef and if your a vegetarian i apologies!!”. Nobody knew what was going on, and when he pointed to two goats in a field and said they are tied together to stop them escaping, the two Peru women asked him what he meant and in response he just made more clicking noises and smacked his hands together. The tour of the island (13km long and 4km wide) was entertaining to say the least, and despite the poor weather it was good scenary. The local houses, some made of thatched roofs were all surrounded by many tiny little fields all separated by many many stone walls. The driver stopped to converse with locals in Gaelic on a few occasions, at one point small one said hello in Gaelic to a local man seemingly digging a grave, and he could not understand a word he said back to him, mostly due to accent more than language. The main stop was at Duin Aonghasa, a stone built area built in the bronze age. It was a half hour walk up the hill, and it was right on a very steep cliff edge which had no fence. On a clear day you could see the mainland Ireland and Cliffs of Moher, but today only fog. A blonde lady in a hi viz top was a guide up there. She mostly sat on the floor on her own away from the tourists, until we made the mistake of asking her a question and could not get away. It was a National Trust site and you were supposed to pay 3 euros for entry. Thankfully the woman asked if we were students, and we said yes but had no cards, to which she asked “you wouldn't lie would you”, we said “of course not” and paid our 1 euro each, laughing our way to the bank afterwards with the huge saving we'd lied for. Met our intrepid driver an hour and a half later by the little thatched roof shops. The Wicklow group of four had not even bothered to walk up to the ruins, not sure what else they did for the hour and a half.
Next stop was the Seven Churches, at which we spent more time stroking a smelly donkey than looking round the graveyard, this time the Wicklow group did not even get off the bus, but complained that the Koreans were taking too long getting back on. Last stop was at a seal colony looking down at Grey seals int he bay. The Wicklow group again didn't budge off their seats and we wondered what the hell they had even bothered paying for this tour for. Back to the village and we caught the 5pm ferry. The journey back was a bit more bumpy than before, and everyone laughed and some poor cow who was so nervous she got the life vest out from under her seat and sat clutching it to her chest for the whole trip back.
On the mainland we headed back along the coastline, through Salt Hill and Spiddel, then on the motorway to Athlone. We got back pretty quick, then small one got us stuck at the toll bridge when he went to the credit card pay line instead of the much faster 'coin only' line – so all the cars he'd just spent half an hour overtaking now overtook us. Back at the house we exchanged cars with mummy Hegarty who headed out to a BBQ. Tall one and Small one left to their own devices decided to treat themselves to a Super Macs burger and chips up the road. They ordered and then were told they could not except credit card, but the other counter (the Super Macs is inside a petrol station/mini mart) would take it but we'd have to buy something else for 5 euro first, So after about 15 minutes of painful discussions with cashiers we paid for our burgers and left and went home and gorged ourselves on junk food.
Monday 3rd – Thursday 6th September 2012
Another thrilling week here in Athlone. Small one finally got his Canadian Credit Card paid off, which they were keeping open as he was 8 cents in debt, Joel now in Victoria generously paid in the 8 cents for him. Small one still hard at work in the pub, spending his days catching bar flies with his barehands. On one occasion he reached out and grabbed a fly, then realized it was a wasp – both were as surprised as each other. Tuesday after work we met small one's friends Viv and Don in The Shack Pub. We had met them last year out by the hotel up the river. When we had been in Toronto and met Matt (from The Corkman days) with his stand-up friend 'Jag' for a couple of drinks back in August last year – we hooked up Jag with small one's friend Don, as Jag needed some place to stay in Berlin, where Don lives and works. In exchange Jag had to go and knock on someone;s door and ask for a suitcase of girl's clothes to bring over to Berlin to give to Don's friend who'd left them in Toronto.... Anyway, the couch surfing match making we did last year sounded like it went fine.
Wednesday 5th and small one had a day off work. Went in to town and back to old school friend Doctor Conor to freeze the skin tag on the back of Tall One's head.... we had it on the ropes for a while there, but it's still hanging on in, though much reduced in size. Afterwards we walked over to the hospital to visit the Grandad. On the way we bumped into the one armed cousin of small one's father. She gave small one a peck on the cheek, at which point small one claimed “something from her face went into my mouth”. He quickly and politely made excuses and we kept walking, once round the corner he would not stop spitting onto the pavement. He said something small had gone into his mouth from her face, he didn't know what it was, but it tasted horrible, covered with perfume and all. We never did find out what he was talking about. Just outside the hospital, before we went in, we brought a pair of Mr Whippy ice-creams with chocolate flake, then walked into the hospital with our huge ice-creams.
Thursday 6th and small one was on from 12pm until 2am. He had a few hours lunch break in the middle though. Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were away at a wedding, but this doesn't stop sister in law Rosanne coming round to sit in an empty house and watch TV, her house must be spotless as she's never there she spends all her time at this one. The usual conversation with Rosanne upon arrival would be, “Hi Michael”, “Hi Rosanne how are you?”, “How are you Michael?”, “I'm fine how are you?”, “I'm not too bad Michael, how are you?”, “I'm fine”.... Young nephew Jordan came in at one point, no hello, just straight to the fridge, nothing of interest, then asked small one “you got any money”, then he left.... teenagers of today....
Saturday 25th August – Sunday 2nd September 2012
Small one has been flat out working in The Shack Pub. Paul has been sick in hospital, Colin is in Turkey and the owner/manager Mark has also gone away. Small one been opening the place at 10am, and closing it up at 1.30/2am for the four days Mark is away.
Sunday 2nd Sept was supposed to be his last time doing this, but Colin has phoned from Turkey to say his flight has been delayed and he doesn't know when he'll be back, so poor small one has to be up and in for 10am again tomorrow. He's a virtual zombie from tiredness. Even earlier in the week when the owner was still working small one was doing some odd shift arangements, starting at 12pm then stopping at 2pm to come back in at 4pm and work until 6pm and then told to stop and come back at 8pm and work until finish.... He was back and forth all day, probably spending more time traveling than working – but because of the economy they only want to be paying staff to be working when it's busy, which is unfortunately every other hour. Tall one would often walk in to meet him for his breaks and go for a coffee or snack. They walked up the Shannon river past the weir on one break to see a man walking his dog on a lead, except he wasn't holding the lead handle in is hand, he had it tied like a noose around his neck.
Tall one is still at home with small one's mother. Last night he sat and watched 'Homes Under the Hammer' with her. But usually he sits in his room hiding. Mummy Hegarty is getting worse with her questions though, she just can't take tall one's first refusal for food for an answer. So she'll knock and ask if he wants some potatoes, tall one will say no thank you, she ask if he's sure, he'll say he is, she'll say but you must be starving, he'll say no he isn't, she say i'll put something on for you, he'll say no it's fine, she'll say so you won't have a potato, he'll say no thank you, she say are you sure you want have a potato it isn't a problem, tall one (getting frustrated now) says no really i'm not hungry, then she'll end by saying, well if you want anything you can help yourself there, tall one says he knows that of course and thank you. She also confused Tall one the other day when they headed out together to pick up small one from his break at the Pub. They went out to her car in the rain, tall one got in, but then mummy Hegarty had to go back inside to get daddy Hegarty to move his car as he'd blocked her in. A few minutes later she was back and could not stop apologizing to tall one for leaving him out in the rain as she'd forgot to unlock the car for him while he was waiting, tall one sat there confused and said “i'm in the car”, she kept on apologizing that she hadn't pressed the clicker to unlock it and i'd been out in the rain, tall one then repeated “i'm in the car....!”. Poor God has also been asked to help out with the most trivial of jobs this week by Mummy Hegarty. Tall one took ten minutes to scrub and polish the outside of her kettle and when mummy Hegarty came home told her that it was just the inside now that needs descaling. Mummy Hegarty replied that, “oh yes, i have some stuff that will clean the inside of that.... with the help of God”. Why God would have to play a part in the descaling of a kettle was anybody's guess.
Grandad Ryan was getting a little better in the hosptial. Small one had visited him most days in the last week. A few days after the stroke he held Grandad's hand and asked him to squeeze it if he could see him, there was in responce, so he asked him to squeeze his hand if he could hear him, and he squeezed it with tears running down his cheeks. We met a lot of the family coming and going in the hospital visiting. Mummy Hegarty was there one day and told Small one that his Aunt was down the hall in the hospital 'smoking room'. We went down to have a look to find this tiny little room with one small window crammed with smokers. Four old patients in wheelchairs puffing away constantly being re-arranged to get others in and out, as well as visitors smoking and even a nurse with a fag in her mouth. This was all just in a normal room just down the hall, with the door wide open and the hallway filled with just as much smoke...and this was meant to be a hospital.
Heard from Stacey at The Corkman in Melbourne, who had spoke to the owner Chris about sponsoring tall one to go back as Hostel Manager, as the hostel hadn't been doing as good since he left a year and a half ago. Looking into the sponsorship seems do-able as Hotel Manager is one of the categories you can get sponsorship. So paperwork is being research and the details being verified to hopefully sort out to head over from New Zealand. The last details for New Zealand were verified, Bunac had asked for flight details and copy of Insurance polices as they claimed they would cancel the visa if we didn't. So we found a cheap Insurace (after much looking) with DUINSURE (130 pounds each), booked and paid it, sent Bunac a copy of the cert and summary, and then cancelled the insurance for full refund. Still waiting on that refund though, and it wasn't a good sign when once we cancelled on their website we received a confirmation email for cancelling which misspelt the work 'cancelation' using only one 'l' instead of 2.
Friday 31st August small one said we'd meet up with Abba for no more than 3 beers in the local pub Shines. There was much arguing as Abba didn't want to travel all the way out to us, he wanted us to travel all the way out to him, and he wanted more than 3 but small one argued he was in work early next day. We ate a Chinese take way first, who messed up the order when small one asked for no batter and they started going on about pineapple, and after giving him the order ran out after the car and said it was wrong and they'd change it, only to give us back the wrong order again. Went to Shines and met Abba, who showed us his red shoes, which apparently were red for aids.... he then took them off in the pub and showed us he wasn't joking, there was a sticker inside saying 'red for aids'. He then harassed the poor struggling bar maid, pointing to the three of us and saying that 2 out of 3 of us are Gay. She didn't know what to say We left before Midnight, and called Daddy Hegarty who was out on the taxi run to pick up Abba. Daddy Hegarty didn't look to pleased to be driving him into town, he spends most of his taxi days trying to avoid Abba.
Friday 24th August 2012
Another thrilling week here in Athlone. Small one finally got his Canadian Credit Card paid off, which they were keeping open as he was 8 cents in debt, Joel now in Victoria generously paid in the 8 cents for him. Small one still hard at work in the pub, spending his days catching bar flies with his barehands. On one occasion he reached out and grabbed a fly, then realized it was a wasp – both were as surprised as each other. Tuesday after work we met small one's friends Viv and Don in The Shack Pub. We had met them last year out by the hotel up the river. When we had been in Toronto and met Matt (from The Corkman days) with his stand-up friend 'Jag' for a couple of drinks back in August last year – we hooked up Jag with small one's friend Don, as Jag needed some place to stay in Berlin, where Don lives and works. In exchange Jag had to go and knock on someone;s door and ask for a suitcase of girl's clothes to bring over to Berlin to give to Don's friend who'd left them in Toronto.... Anyway, the couch surfing match making we did last year sounded like it went fine.
Wednesday 5th and small one had a day off work. Went in to town and back to old school friend Doctor Conor to freeze the skin tag on the back of Tall One's head.... we had it on the ropes for a while there, but it's still hanging on in, though much reduced in size. Afterwards we walked over to the hospital to visit the Grandad. On the way we bumped into the one armed cousin of small one's father. She gave small one a peck on the cheek, at which point small one claimed “something from her face went into my mouth”. He quickly and politely made excuses and we kept walking, once round the corner he would not stop spitting onto the pavement. He said something small had gone into his mouth from her face, he didn't know what it was, but it tasted horrible, covered with perfume and all. We never did find out what he was talking about. Just outside the hospital, before we went in, we brought a pair of Mr Whippy ice-creams with chocolate flake, then walked into the hospital with our huge ice-creams.
Thursday 6th and small one was on from 12pm until 2am. He had a few hours lunch break in the middle though. Mummy and Daddy Hegarty were away at a wedding, but this doesn't stop sister in law Rosanne coming round to sit in an empty house and watch TV, her house must be spotless as she's never there she spends all her time at this one. The usual conversation with Rosanne upon arrival would be, “Hi Michael”, “Hi Rosanne how are you?”, “How are you Michael?”, “I'm fine how are you?”, “I'm not too bad Michael, how are you?”, “I'm fine”.... Young nephew Jordan came in at one point, no hello, just straight to the fridge, nothing of interest, then asked small one “you got any money”, then he left.... teenagers of today....
Saturday 25th August – Sunday 2nd September 2012
Small one has been flat out working in The Shack Pub. Paul has been sick in hospital, Colin is in Turkey and the owner/manager Mark has also gone away. Small one been opening the place at 10am, and closing it up at 1.30/2am for the four days Mark is away.
Sunday 2nd Sept was supposed to be his last time doing this, but Colin has phoned from Turkey to say his flight has been delayed and he doesn't know when he'll be back, so poor small one has to be up and in for 10am again tomorrow. He's a virtual zombie from tiredness. Even earlier in the week when the owner was still working small one was doing some odd shift arangements, starting at 12pm then stopping at 2pm to come back in at 4pm and work until 6pm and then told to stop and come back at 8pm and work until finish.... He was back and forth all day, probably spending more time traveling than working – but because of the economy they only want to be paying staff to be working when it's busy, which is unfortunately every other hour. Tall one would often walk in to meet him for his breaks and go for a coffee or snack. They walked up the Shannon river past the weir on one break to see a man walking his dog on a lead, except he wasn't holding the lead handle in is hand, he had it tied like a noose around his neck.
Tall one is still at home with small one's mother. Last night he sat and watched 'Homes Under the Hammer' with her. But usually he sits in his room hiding. Mummy Hegarty is getting worse with her questions though, she just can't take tall one's first refusal for food for an answer. So she'll knock and ask if he wants some potatoes, tall one will say no thank you, she ask if he's sure, he'll say he is, she'll say but you must be starving, he'll say no he isn't, she say i'll put something on for you, he'll say no it's fine, she'll say so you won't have a potato, he'll say no thank you, she say are you sure you want have a potato it isn't a problem, tall one (getting frustrated now) says no really i'm not hungry, then she'll end by saying, well if you want anything you can help yourself there, tall one says he knows that of course and thank you. She also confused Tall one the other day when they headed out together to pick up small one from his break at the Pub. They went out to her car in the rain, tall one got in, but then mummy Hegarty had to go back inside to get daddy Hegarty to move his car as he'd blocked her in. A few minutes later she was back and could not stop apologizing to tall one for leaving him out in the rain as she'd forgot to unlock the car for him while he was waiting, tall one sat there confused and said “i'm in the car”, she kept on apologizing that she hadn't pressed the clicker to unlock it and i'd been out in the rain, tall one then repeated “i'm in the car....!”. Poor God has also been asked to help out with the most trivial of jobs this week by Mummy Hegarty. Tall one took ten minutes to scrub and polish the outside of her kettle and when mummy Hegarty came home told her that it was just the inside now that needs descaling. Mummy Hegarty replied that, “oh yes, i have some stuff that will clean the inside of that.... with the help of God”. Why God would have to play a part in the descaling of a kettle was anybody's guess.
Grandad Ryan was getting a little better in the hosptial. Small one had visited him most days in the last week. A few days after the stroke he held Grandad's hand and asked him to squeeze it if he could see him, there was in responce, so he asked him to squeeze his hand if he could hear him, and he squeezed it with tears running down his cheeks. We met a lot of the family coming and going in the hospital visiting. Mummy Hegarty was there one day and told Small one that his Aunt was down the hall in the hospital 'smoking room'. We went down to have a look to find this tiny little room with one small window crammed with smokers. Four old patients in wheelchairs puffing away constantly being re-arranged to get others in and out, as well as visitors smoking and even a nurse with a fag in her mouth. This was all just in a normal room just down the hall, with the door wide open and the hallway filled with just as much smoke...and this was meant to be a hospital.
Heard from Stacey at The Corkman in Melbourne, who had spoke to the owner Chris about sponsoring tall one to go back as Hostel Manager, as the hostel hadn't been doing as good since he left a year and a half ago. Looking into the sponsorship seems do-able as Hotel Manager is one of the categories you can get sponsorship. So paperwork is being research and the details being verified to hopefully sort out to head over from New Zealand. The last details for New Zealand were verified, Bunac had asked for flight details and copy of Insurance polices as they claimed they would cancel the visa if we didn't. So we found a cheap Insurace (after much looking) with DUINSURE (130 pounds each), booked and paid it, sent Bunac a copy of the cert and summary, and then cancelled the insurance for full refund. Still waiting on that refund though, and it wasn't a good sign when once we cancelled on their website we received a confirmation email for cancelling which misspelt the work 'cancelation' using only one 'l' instead of 2.
Friday 31st August small one said we'd meet up with Abba for no more than 3 beers in the local pub Shines. There was much arguing as Abba didn't want to travel all the way out to us, he wanted us to travel all the way out to him, and he wanted more than 3 but small one argued he was in work early next day. We ate a Chinese take way first, who messed up the order when small one asked for no batter and they started going on about pineapple, and after giving him the order ran out after the car and said it was wrong and they'd change it, only to give us back the wrong order again. Went to Shines and met Abba, who showed us his red shoes, which apparently were red for aids.... he then took them off in the pub and showed us he wasn't joking, there was a sticker inside saying 'red for aids'. He then harassed the poor struggling bar maid, pointing to the three of us and saying that 2 out of 3 of us are Gay. She didn't know what to say We left before Midnight, and called Daddy Hegarty who was out on the taxi run to pick up Abba. Daddy Hegarty didn't look to pleased to be driving him into town, he spends most of his taxi days trying to avoid Abba.
Friday 24th August 2012
Eddie and Elena's wedding today. A long way since we'd met them in Scruffy Murphy's Irish Bar in Sydney and told them how we carried our own teabags into the food courts and asked for cups of hot water to get free cups of tea. We'd dropped off our wedding present earlier in the week (gift bag full of Lyons pyramid teabags) and brought our wedding outfits for 45 euros each in Penneys. They only had matching grey trousers, which were a bit tight.... small one's were too long so were altered, whilst tall one's were too short and so they had to cut the turn ups loose so they hung a couple of inches longer with frayed bottoms. Getting ready to go small one ironed the paper thin budget shirts and the ties – which were so cheap they melted from the heat of the iron. In the end we had to raid daddy Hegarty's tie collection – though tall one's had some vague stains on.
The service was due at 1.30pm at St Peter and Pauls Church, we raced over and got in at 1.15pm to find not many people there yet, and everyone wearing suit jackets except for us and the children. The church gradually filled up, we barley recognized Eliza (from our Giants Causeway trip) who was dolled up well. Other guests arrived and a lot of women had a strange array of bizarre hats with little arrows protruding out the top or large satellite dishes made of mosquito netting fanning down across half their face like something out of the Phantom of the Opera. Eddie waited at the front of the church, big Abba was one of the 3 best men also up the front. Elena the bride turned up around 2pm, they had had to wait outside a lot as guests had arrived so late. Elena looked fantastic and the ceremony all went very smoothly. A pair of casually dressed tourists wondered in and walked amongst the guests looking at the Church at one point, but didn't stay long. The mass was quite long and religious, the church benches uncomfortable... not use to being in church. There were a few musical interludes with the local Vard sisters singing church harmonies. At one point whilst the girls were in mid harmonious singing one of the priests at the pulpit did not realize his microphone was still on and loudly cleared his throat – which sent this throaty coughing sound out the speakers drowning out the Vard sisters momentarily. After the ceremony the bridge and groom headed off in their Beetle car dragging cans behind them. The weather had held at least, though overcast.
Guests went down to Sean's Bar (the oldest bar in Ireland) around 3.30pm. Completley packed out the small bar and the locals made a quick exit. Eddy and Elena came in later, with Elena's wedding dress sweeping the saw dust from the floor as she walked through the bar. Abba showed us a video on his phone taken the night before – the groom and the best men having gone on a ramble in an Enterprise rental van and stole a friends 700 euro prize sheep and bundled it into the back of the van.
Headed up to the Shamrock Lodge Hotel for the wedding reception sometime around 5pm. Abba and the other two best men gave small one and tall one a ride up. Abba in the front passenger seat lent across to the drivers side and held his hand on the car horn for the whole drive up. The poor little woman driving in a red car in front of us didn't know what was going on as we drove close behind her beeping this horn incessantly. She eventually swerved into a little driveway entrance up a narrow street – don't think she was actually heading that way, but just turned off the road out of sheer panic.
At the lodge had some Champagne and strawberries, next to a Chocolate fountain. Went to find which table would be ours and on the guest list saw that we were on the same table as Eliza and her brother, the table was called 'The Notebook', Abba said they were movie themed table names, though tall one suggested perhaps it was a stationary themed wedding. Sat down for the meal sometime around 7pm. Abba up on the top table was the M.C. For the night and announced that “i'll keep it breif as i know there's a lot of hungry people out there, before we dig-in Father John will now say grace”.
It was very good food, a starter course, then soup course, main, dessert and coffee. Small one being elergic to fish and seafood was a bit worried when the only two choices for main meal were 'Surf and Turf (Steak and Prawns) or Seabass – they gave him the turf without the surf in the end. During the meal an old boy at the wedding was walking round with his huge Ipad held up to his eye level making videos of the top table as they ate. There was a little disposable wind-up camera on every table for guests to use, and we managed to break the flash on ours – being to used to digital cameras.
The speeches started over Dessert and Coffee. Each table was given an envelope to have a sweepstake on the length of the Best Man's speech... which ended up being 7 minutes 8 seconds, tall one winning our tables 16 euros being 8 seconds out. Abba being the M.C. Only decided to add his own story of the groom, a story which only small one knew as it took place when he met Eddie for the first time in Edinburgh. Abba brought Eddie out to meet small one who took them out in Edinburgh for the night, in one club Abba went down to the gents to find Eddie with his hand round some little fellas neck pinning him up against the gents toilet wall... Abba asked what was going on and Eddie said “he tried to SHIFT ME!”. Abba then rewind the story to point out that this was a gay bar in Edinburgh and moments before this Eddie had been on stage stripping off and dancing to the Bay Watch theme tune... This speech was delivered despite the presence of the two priests from the church sat a few seats from Abba.
After the meal the Lodge setup the dance floor and we had the Bride and Grooms first dance, the band was very good. Abba was thrown off the dance floor many a time for his erratic dancing stye, joining us at our table dripping with sweat and wiping his head dry using the table cloth. At one point he took small one up to dance, swinging him around the floor upside down. From the large size difference between the two it was like watching an Ox and a field mouse trying to dance. By 2am we were sat outside the dance floor in the bar. It was fair to say Abba had had a fair bit to drink by now, we went off home and left him shouting after the elderly guests that he'd finger them later.
It was a lovely day and a great night. Though the next morning small one was virtually disable from the hangover. It was only the fact that a Celtic game was on at noon that he dragged himself out of bed.
Sunday 19th August – Thursday 23rd August 2012
Sunday/Monday drove out to watch the sunset over Lough Ree. Was kind of cloudy, but still a good sunset and view over the bay. We left about 20 minutes early as after the sun went behind the horizon the sky turned bright pink. Stopped off at the hospital to see small one's Grandad. He was the most alert small one had seen him in years, and knew that small one had been away traveling. Mummy Hegarty had taken him out in the chair around the gardens earlier as well. Back at the house had noticed that mummy Hegarty uses the expression “with the help of God” at the end of most sentences. So after tall one wishes her goodnight she would say “see you in the morning...with the help of God”, or she would be organizing a lift into town for small one's work and say “i'll drop you in town.... with the help of God”, then there was the promise that “we'll take you to see Jordan play a football match...with the help of God”. Tall one was thinking that most of this was with the help of her car and not God.
Tuesday 21st, some bad news with Grandad Ryan. Mummy Hegarty went in for her daily visit and found him looking unwell, the doctors rushed in and apparently he'd had a stroke. They said he was lucky to still be alive, and may not be if Mummy Hegarty had come 15 minutes later. He could speak well enough to ask for a priest who came in and administered the last rights. This wasn't the first time he'd had them read to him over the years. The family took turns going in to see him over night, the next day he was still with us but was having trouble breathing and did not seem to be able to see or connect with people so much. At the age of 96 he's been hanging on in since he took sick about 5 years ago, and the Doctor's think that he won't get any better from the state he is now in.
Wednesday 22nd, busy with the family coming and going to see Grandad. Small one took tall one to get his long hair finally cut off. Went to the locally renound barbers 'Deck'. Deck looked a bit hung over and was conducting strange meetings out on the street when someone would come and tap on the window. It's usual in this barbers to turn down the other fella cutting hair and say i'll wait for Deck, so the other fella just made us some God awful tea which small one did not touch. A few local lads had their hair cuts before us, everyone seemed to be wearing jogging bottoms and track suit bottoms in Athlone, and all the lads were getting the same shaven hair cut. Deck managed to shear off tall one's hair, whilst the other fella cut about 3 peoples hair in the same time. He asked tall one where about in the UK he was from (one of the other customers earlier thought he was Australian), he then asked what parts of Ireland he'd visited and then asked if he followed the football. Tall one said he didn't follow the football at all.... that was the end of the questions from Deck. He finished and said that that was a challenge first thing in the morning, having cut about 6-7 inches of length of tall one's hair, probably nearer ten inches on the back. After the hair dressers went across to the post office in the petrol station by the house. Tall one had managed to sell another book on ebay and make a huge 3 pound profit. The queue for the desk was coming out of the door, turned out it was dole collection day. Tall one had a good while to queue, and noticed in the garage/post office's small display of greetings cards they had a birthday card section for people celebrating their '100th' birthday.... they can't sell to many of them, wonder why they'd bother stocking them in a tiny local shop. Also picked up small one's trousers for the wedding on Friday. Modern Stitch out by The Shack had turned them up, we'd gone in last year to get our travel badges sewn on and was served by the same Polish/Russian woman this time. When small one went in to collect his trousers a few days later, he'd double parked and rushed in to find a different lady parking who was busy pinning and turning up a dress for some woman. This woman ignored him and kept on pinning this dress up, small one called out that he was doubled parked and should he move....the woman then got up and grabbed his trousers off of a rack of other clothes and gave them to him.... this was without him saying his name or anything, they must not get many short Irishmen in to often.
Saturday 18th August 2012
Borrowed the mummy's car again for another day trip around Ireland. This time it was just tall one and small one, so there were less witnesses to small one's dodgy driving in a manual car. Was good weather this time round and headed out for a 2 hour drive to get to Newgrange. Were both shattered as small one was back very late from work the night before and then up again at 6am to leave for 7am. With the help of a breakfast roll and some coffee stops we made it there.
Newgrange and Knowth above Dublin, were two old tomb mounds and ceremonial sites dating back to 3,500 BC. You could only access them via a visitor center which you paid for a bus to take you there. Luckily we got in just before the bus of people, as apparently spaces are limited. Whilst we queued a man with white hair, ginger eyebrows, one brown eye and one blue eye came and asked which site we were going to, we said both and he gave us a colored sticker each stating the bus times for us to catch. We stood out by the bus stop and waited for the bus to pick us up, in the background we could hear a funny wurring noise an small one said “that sounds like a kettle”, to which the staff member stood there collecting tickets said it was, it was his tea break coming up.... he had a kettle stowed away in a cupboard in the middle of this layby.
The bus was packed and a pale Irish couple struggled to get seats as too many tickets or colured stickers had been sold. At Knowth first we got off the bus and no one ever asked to see our paid tickets, they were happy to see our coloured stickers which you get given long before you pay. There was an Irish girl who guided us round the mounds, bit nervous with her over rehearsed talk and the same jokes she does day in day out. The mounds were nice though, and as tourist numbers were limited to 24 per bus at one time, it wasn't too crowded.
We then had to catch a bus past the Newgrange site and all the way back to the visitor centre, to get on another bus to bring you back out the Newgrange site. This one was one huge, round, white pebbled tomb, compared to the many little grass mounds of Knowth. Went inside the big mound in groups of ten with a new guide who kept speaking Irish Gaelic when there was only one Irishman amongst us. Inside she shut the lights off and using electricity they recreated the winter solstice – which is essentially every year , the position of the sun is only in line with the tomb's door on the 21st December, and for 17 minutes each year it illuminates the inside. It was a nice little show and every year on the actual date for the event they don't charge extortionate prices, they raffle tickets for the event in a lottery anyone can sign up for (as only 24 people a year can see it).
Caught the final bus back. Behind us on the bus sat a tall, young Italian, wearing shorts, sunglasses and talking very loudly in Italian on a mobile, with his long legs sprawled out into the aisle of the bus. He sat in the aisle seat and the only spare bus was next to him by the window. When a little Irish woman (with a huge whitehead on her chin) came on to take the seat he wouldn't move across to the window seat or even stand up so she could get in, he just sat there still talking on his phone while she had to clamour over his big legs to the seat.... it was only a 5 minute ride he'd had to of moved for, can't believe the ignorance of some people.
Stopped off at the Hill of Slane whee St Patrick lit a fire back in five/six hundred AD and started Christanity. Great views with the clear weather from the top, even though tinker's children were nosily climbing over the old abbey ruins. Then a stop at the Hill of Tara, from ground level it's just a few dips in a green field, but from a helicopter (on google that is) its a few big rings molded into the landscape. From the google aerial photos you can't make out all the sheep dung either. Still a worth while visit and again some great views of the Irish countryside.
Back in Athlone by 5pm. The little dog polar had been sick twice so had to go back to the vets. She'd not been eating her regular food, so small one had been feeding her slices of expensive turkey r pork with her little anti-heart attack pill smuggled inside. The vet just said the pills were making her sick and that she needs to eat more with them. It was nice to end the day with a little bit of dog sick.
Wednesday 15th – Friday 17th August 2012
A small update on the adventure's of small one and tall one. Small one still working his guts out in the shack. For the second week in a row he used tall one's name to put down on the number 24 lotto bonus ball sweep stack, just to piss off the old man in the bar who'd been picking that number every week for a long while. Whilst working the other night there a girls voice called out to him, “we're a long way from Toronto aren't we?!”. Small one turned to see it was the Irish girl that they had randomly met their first week in Canada, when they were signing up for a Fido Mobile phone account in the Toronto Eaton center. They had over heard her complaining about her phone plan in her Irish accent and small one asked where she was from, and she happened to be from Athlone. He bumped into her a couple more times (as she worked in the Eaton centre as well), but had not seen her for a good few months until now. Turned out her sister Lucy used to work in the Shack with Conor years ago.
Meanwhile Tall one was back at the house continuing with his month of reading Irish writers. Stuck on trying to finish the book length letter Oscar Wilde wrote in prison – which is essentially 50,000 very depressing words of him saying what a shit his partner was to him. Tall one made progress through it to the bitter end though, with mummy Hegarty on hand to give him a Smarties ice-cream to lighten the mood.
Tuesday 14th August 2012
A good lie on after our long day of travels yesterday. Small one received confirmation that our New Zealand visas had been granted, so we were to look at booking flights soon enough. Small one made dinner whilst tall one sat outside in the brief sunshine. When small one came outside with the dinner, little deaf dog Polar started limping, shaking all over and walking sideways. She then lost her back legs and toppled over on her side, not being able to get up. Small one phoned daddy Hegarty at work, who in turn phoned mummy Hegarty visiting Grandad Ryan. Mummy Hegarty came home all worried that something had happened to small one, but it was the dog. Polar was looking alright now, she'd had a heart attack about 2 year ago and was taken to the vet and put on medication for a few weeks. Tall, Small and Mummy Hegarty took her back to the same vet now in the centre of Athlone.
Inside the vets 2 other people were waiting to be seen. A mother with 2 young girls holding a small kitten in a box, claiming they'd found it lost yesterday and it was having trouble breathing. The other was a man with a huge Rottweiler, it kept staring at little Polar who was laying in small one's arms. It had an inflated belly and was seeping watery blood all over the floor. The man told us she was soft as butter, never bitten anything, he said her partner he died a year ago and he was trouble he'd have to be brought in the back door. Finally went in to see the vet, a thoroughly serious and unfriendly man. Polar didn't mind being examined and the vet asked why did they stopped giving her the medication last time it happened? That this heart problem would be for life and so would the medication. He told mummy Hegarty that they could have killed the dog and he was surprised she'd survived this attack. She got an injection and some new pills (2 types once a day), and the bill was only 50 euros. Polar was carried home and she seems to be alright now.
Monday 13th August 2012
Had gone to bed after midnight having stayed up to see the Olympic ceremony through to its bitter end. Managed to get about 2-3 hours sleep before waking at 4am to set off for our day trip to Northern Ireland the the Giants Causeway. Tall and small were heading up with Elisa (who took them to Cliffs of Moher last year). She didn't want to drive but small one ha managed to get insured for free for 2 weeks on his mothers car, though it was a manual and he only drove automatic.
We collected Eliza and headed to Belfast via all the back roads through Cavan to avoid the tolls on the motorway through Dublin. Small one took a long while to get used to driving the manual, Eliza in the back of the car was a virtual driving instructor, telling him that now would be a good time to change Gear. Small one did his best to avoid stopping on hills, shouting at any car infront that slowed on a slope. He went through a roundabout in 5th gear at about 65km an hour, much to Eliza's concern for the un-born child she was carrying. Small one said he couldn't see the point of changing gears when he knew he would only have to change it back in the next minute or so anyway...
Into the North and we stopped at a shop, forgetting that the currency was now only in pounds not euros. Thankfully the shop took euros, but only gave change in pounds. Noticed a big change once in the north, as all the little towns had strings of bunting and flags of the Union Jack up everywhere – maybe there was so much up for the Olympics, but after seeing the Spice Girls play I think i'd have taken it down. Then up the Causeway Coastal drive, from Larne to Ballyvoy. A nice ocean drive, through some small harbour villages, and through the Nine Glens of Antrim scenary. Did not get to our first stop – The Carrick-a-Rede rope brige, until 12pm, had been driving for 7 hours to get here!
The Rope bridge was nice, it was under a huge grey sky and drizzle, but nice scenary. Eliza doesn't like heights so stayed in the car, tall and small saw that there was a National Park entrance fee, which was (randomly) 5 pounds and 9 pence!! They asked if they took euros and how much, the guy said he only took euro notes and gave change in pound coins. In Euros for 2 of us it would cost 15 Euros and 12 cents.... tall one had 15 euros in notes and the 12 cents in coins, but they wouldn't take it, so they had to pay by card. Quite expensive considering all it is, is a long walk down a cliff side to a small rope bridge to a very small island and back. Across the bridge itself (which could only take 9 people at a time) small one could hear a husband calming his wife down behind him “it's aright, jsut don't look down” to which her responce was “LET ME OFF!”. It didn't help it was so wet and very windy either though. Across the bridge took us 5 minutes to see the island, then we had to queue with about 20 people waiting for some very very miserable chubby lad to get a radio call to let us across (as we had to wait for the on-coming people to be stopped so we could come back).
Back on the road in the rain and over to the Giants Causeway. It was another National Park so we wondered about fees, though after we parked we didn't go into the big building that said Admission, we just walked down the path to the causeway. A long walk down the hill with an awful lot of tourists. Everyone seemed to have these plastic blue phones telling them all about the place, we couldn't think of anything more boring. There was also a bus service that for 1 pound one way (or 2 pound return??) would take you down the hill, but the drivers drove like maniacs speeding down the hills, so tourists who could be bothered to walk had t leap out the way.
The Giants Causeway wasn't as impressive as imagined, or shown on TV. It was quite sparse, and hard to get a sense of the scale. The hundreds of tourists moping about didn't help either, nor did the rain that fell quite hard. It was still well worth seeing though.
Further up the coast stopped at Dunluce castle which was pretty impressive. Then a stop in at the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, there was a public entrance which was a boring foyer, the rest you had to pay for, so we left. Then a stop at White Rocks beach outside Portrush. A great sandy beach, with white cliffs and lifeguards.... the weather had turned about and it was hot sun blue skies, people in shorts where swimming.... half an hour ago we were getting drenched in rain. Struggled to find somewhere to buy food, a lot fo places took no Euros and took no cards. Ended up buying a petrol station sandwich with a credit card. Headed home at 4pm, and leaving the sunshine behind us drove into torrential rain. Went back through the backroads again, and home in Athlone sometime before 9pm.... all three of us were shattered.
Saturday 11th – Sunday 12th August 2012
Small one worked at The Shack Pub both days and it rained hard all weekend.
Sunday night watched the London Olympics closing ceremony, a trashy affair featuring dug up British pop singers who belonged on bad reality tv shows (The Spice Girls? And George Michael?? what were they thinking?).
Wednesday 8th – Friday 10th August 2012
A quiet house this week. Weather was mostly good and pretty muggy. Wednesday took the little deaf dog Polar out for a walk at 10pm. Walked in the dark down small one's old housing estate, the dog choking herself on the lead with the thrill of getting out the house. Small one took his grandfathers walking stick, the estate was full of cats, and we stopped on the way back to look at some cows in the dark. Little Richard stayed over one night, sleeping on the sofa bed outside the bedroom, the snores of him echoing through the house. Was a good week for Ireland in the Olympics, watched a few of the boxing matches – the Irish were excelling in the fighting, it's a shame there were no medals for drinking.
Friday helped uncle Sean with his turf run from the bog. It must have been the clearest and hottest day we'd had in Ireland since we were back. Drove out in his little car to the outskirts of Athlone to the bog fields. From there we could see the twin spires of the St Peter and Paul Church over the horizon. Parked the car and walked out to the bog field. This plot had been in the family a long while and small one used to help collect the turf logs (for burning in the house fire) here when he was a boy, and his Grandad before him. The bog had now reached the end of it's supply and 2014 would be the last year anyone would be able to collect from it.
It was a good couple of hours work in the hot sun. Small one and Uncle Sean bagged up some more turf logs into large plastic sacks ready for the tractor to collect. As they'd been so much rain this summer the field was to boggy or the tractor to drive out and collect the piles, so we had to wheelbarrow it out to the road. Tall one did wheelbarrow runs, fitting four sacks into each run and moved 135 sacks in total. The bog was peaceful, a family a couple of fields over were out with their kids filling up their van. Swallows darting in the sky, little frogs by the feet and biting flies on the arms. The fella with the tractor turned up and we loaded the back, just about fitting the sacks in. Followed him into town to Uncle Fergals house to drop of 100 sacks. The tractor had o brakes and so we all had to rush around looking for a wedge for the wheel to stop it rolling, having to jump out the way of it as it rolled backwards. Small one cleared a space in the back garden for the sacks, Uncle Sean had found a stray cat had had 3 little kittens there a couple of days before and had been moving them back and forth amongst the sheds, they were now just about out the way. Heaved in all the sacks, gradually building a wall blocking small one inside the little garden, in the end he had to clamber out. Another drop at Sean's house and then small and tall headed home aching and sweaty. At least had a chance to use the BBQ in the backgarden.
Mummy and Daddy Hegarty got back from there week in Galway Bay. They'd had a grand old time on the deserted beaches in this hot weather all week. Daddy hadn't thought to take all his shorts and summer gear from all the rain they'd been having, and so came back with black arms and face, and a pair of ghostly white dead man's legs on him. At one point mummy Hegarty went rushing out the front door to the Spa shop next door, Small one asked her what she was at, and she said she thought someone was holding the place up (a man in a transit van holding a crowbar) and went out to him holding her phone. Small one asked what she would have done approaching a robbery in progress with just a phone in her hand. She said she would have phoned the police. Turned out they weren't robbing the Spa but were doing something with the Clohtes donations box, still not sure what.
Wednesday 1st August – Tuesday 7th August 2012
Small one has been tearing down the house. Much to the worry of mummy Hegarty, he's been pointing out the lack of cleaning here and there and everywhere, then started to re-arrange all the furniture only to put it back the next day. On the Thursday he started to take down the photos in the upstairs spare bedroom which had been glued to the wall. He decided the best way to take them off would be to also get a knife and scrape off all the paint on the two walls and have them re-painted. Tall one's been doing his best not to get involved with this obsessive over haul, and has opted to try and set aside some Irish writers to read this month, which is hard work in itself if you've ever tried to read 'At Swim Two Birds'.
The weather broke for a few hours in the last week to give us some sunshine. Sat outside for a while though it was too hot and dry for our liking so moved inside. The back patio must be finished by now, though small one keeps 'adjusting'. The bird table seems only to attract the hundred resident Jackdaws, there seems to be no other species of bird. On the wednesday morning small one had had his wisdom tooth pulled out by a dentist. The dentist was a husband and wife buisness and she stood the other side of the chair handing him the tools.... small one hoped that they weren't arguing that day. Much to the joy of the rest of the family he struggled to talk for the rest of the day waiting for the numbness and pain to subside.
Tall one is trying to keep up with the many intricate rules of the household and family. There are certain tables that can't have hot cups of tea on, unless it is one of the green cups in which case it is okay. If your using one of the other cups you can have a china plate put under it as there are no coasters. The brown mats by the back door are not to be used for wiping ones feet they are decorative only, though there are no other door mats there to wipe them on. Because of poor mummy Hegarty's claustrophobia she can't drive through the narrows of the town, so any trip across town must be taken on the ring road which takes three times as long, there must also be at least one other person in the car for such trips, though 8 years old don't count for this, but 12 year olds do. Lastly, you must be offered food to eat at least tree times every hour, and if you answer no it must be questioned further, “are you sure?”.... “not even a biscuit?”.....
On the friday the small deaf dog Polar tried to bite tall one's ankles off, his height must have scared her or something. That evening had a few of small one's friends around to try out the new BBQ. It rained pretty hard and so small one and Eddie were out cooking under an umbrella, the next two evenings turned out to be perfectly dry though.
On the sunday Daddy Hegarty came home after spending a week in Scotland for a family wedding. He was off work for another week as they were due to go away on a holiday together to Galway, though mummy Hegarty was not talking to him as he went drinking after a game last week. On the Monday tall one walked in to The Shack Pub to meet small one who was finishing in an hour or two. Apparently he'd had a message from the mother that she'd gone to Galway with Daddy and so we'd have the house to ourselves for the week. In the Shack they have a board where the locals guess what the bonus ball in the lotto is going to be that week, put in 2 Euro and the winner wins the pot. There's one local who always insists on picking number 24 every week, this time small one had got in before him and written Tall one's name on number 24. He showed it to the local today, and all tall one could hear whilst he sat waiting at the back of the pub was this old man giving out “whose this Michael Bar...tonn?....or is it Bartone? He's probably never even played it before as he? Michael Barton...?!!”. Hope fully that number comes up on Friday. When small one finished they went for a pint in Gerty's pub. Old local character Jimmy came in, he gets a free drink whichever pint he goes into, and sits on a stool on his own making bird whislting noises and clicking sound with his mouth, occasioanlyl rambling about something. Apparently if you listen it does all make sense if you put it together. Hit his head years ago when he was a sailor and has not been the same since apparently. After Gertys had one in Shines, then walking back got drenched witj rain (though only the front halves of us). Back to a joyfully empty house where small one cooked us some healthy fried mince and cheese on wedges.
Wednesday 25th July 2012 – Tuesday 31st July 2012
That's another week gone now.... and another month as its the first tomorrow.
Small one ended up getting more and more shifts at the pub from Mark. He's now got full time work, from 1pm till 6pm or from 6pm til 1-2am.... the regular staff are getting jealous, and small one is getting tired.... he only wanted 1-2 evenings a week. Meanwhile Tall one sits at home working away on his laptop, planning and so forth.... there's bound to be money made on re-selling books on ebay... surely?? Most of the time he stays hidden in the bedroom, whilst outside the door mummy Hegarty watches Wrestling or Sponge Bob Square Pants for hours on end with the boys. if mummy Hegarty goes out she locks the front door from the outside, locking him in the house so he can't get out (or so nobody can get in).
On the Thursday 26th little (8 year old) Richard was given his new tablet computer that small oen had brought him. He announced to everyone that it was a great day as he got his computer, his mum had brought him football boots and there was a cookie in the fridge for him. Tall and Small one headed into town to meet Eliza for a cup of tea by the Shannon – they had previously met her in Sydney, Brisbane – Australia and also went ot the Cliffs of Moher - Ireland with her last year. This year she as pregnant, and met us in the coffee shop only asking for tap water, whislt tall one and small one had a 2 euro cup of tea between them, much ot the delight of the owner. Fo once it was a nice sunny day at least. On route to the cafe tall and small had brought new shoes for Eddie and Elenas wedding in August, Shoe Zone had a sale on and a new pair were 14 euros each – they would probably be for the bin afterwards. Went to the small Chinese phone shop to get a new phone battery for daddy Hegarty (the door opens from the street onto the bottom of their stairs, and they come down to stairs to see you)
we didn't stay long as some big Dublin girl and the Chinese counter girl were going at it as the Dubliner had brought some naff phone wire for a couple of euro and it had broke. Went to the further phone shop and got the battery, asked for a receipt and this guy with a weird Irish/London/Turkish accent said “he don't do reciepets it ain't no good to him as if someone brings somethink back it could be there phones broke not what i sell em'..... oh right. We then mixed up the new battery with daddy's old one and so just gave them both to him not knowing which to throw out. Eliza drove us out to Eddie and Elenas new house, where we stood outside waiting for 20 mintues for them to get home late from work. Left discarded on the driveway was a worn leather whip, small one hung it on the doorbell. They arrived and we went inside to watch the dog do some more tricks and then Eddie cooked a BBQ. Since tall one's blood test a week ago his arm had turned black from bruises and the needle hole swollen and red – he looked like a Heroin addict.
Back at the Hegarty home put the new shopping bag with the new shoes in one the table for a minute, only to have mother Hegarty screaming to get them off. Tall one looked a bit confused and said they were new shoes..... Apparently its bad luck to put new shoe son the table. We took the ancient, deaf Jack Russell for a walk, she almost choked herself with the excitement. We promised we would do that twice a day and have not been out again since.
Over the weekend daddy Hegarty left for Scotland for a week with young Jordan, who'd just got back from football in Wales for a week. Went back to the Woodys Warehouse with mother Hegarty double checking we all were wearing our seat belts. Brought another bench, sent another 2 hours putting it together. Small one then spent the next few days (inbetween work that is) re-arranging the back garden, filling baskets with new flowers and dog turds, then re-aranging them again. Watched the London Olympics opening ceremony, tuned out during the 2 hour long march of all the athletes.... the rest was alright.
Wednesday 18th July – Tuesday 24th July 2012
Well, that's a week gone by..... been here about 2 weeks now. Finally applied for the New Zealand visa this morning, took an age to find somewhere up town with a printers. The first place we'd been using (and used last year to print our American visa) has closed down, the small Indian newsagent with internet said the printer was broke, the PC shop said their printer was out of ink, the Office shop said she could not print from USB, finally a place that prints wedding invitations printed it all off. Got proof of funds from the bank, small one had been in and out all week lodging 1,000 euros brought back from Canada, then lodging anther 1500 lend from the mother (to bring the minim funds aloud up to 3,000NZ) then back in the next day to draw it all out and give back to the mother.... the bank teller was giving him a queer look on his fourth time in. Got some passport photos done for the application, last year had got them done in small one's old place of work in a local photo shop but was stuck there for 50 minutes chatting to the owner, so this time opted for the passport photo booth in the shopping mall – which was operated by some strange London/Essex woman's voice asking “ar ya red-dee?'.At the post office we asked to borrow a stapler to attach the 2 passport photos to the form and the woman behind the counter said she could not give us a stapler for health and safety reasons, so small one asked if she could do it for him, then he asked for some extra cellotape for the parcel and asked if she'd have to do that aswell for him? Anyway, finally both sent off.
On Friday 20th July went to see the Dark Knight Rises premiere at Athlone cinema, this was the day after 12 people were shot dead at the Denver premier of the same movie. Thankfully Athlone wasn't considered a target and we safely watched the movie! It was good to get out the house at least, though we need to stop spending money as we literally have none and all small one seems to do is keep buying laptops for people. One evening at the house the door bell went and small one went out to find nobody outside, but then he saw a car in the driveway and a woman sat int he front seat. He went over and it was his old next door neighbour from their previous house, she had the window down and said she didn't want to come in as she didn't want to keep his mam long (seemingly she ends up chatting for hours) so she'd rang the bell and then hopped back into the car waiting for mummy Hegarty to come out to her. Anyway, small one got her to come inside and she ended up chatting for hours as expected.
Headed into town a number of times. Small one chasing up work at various places. Walking past the army barracks a dead cat was outside the gates in the road, wondered it had done to piss off the army. Up town brought daddy Hegarty a laptop, exactly the same on as we brought Jordan. So tall one was busy updating and setting up that one, he'd had enough practice as within the week he'd done the same for Jordan's and his own, and small one had now had to order a laptop (small tablet) for Jordans brother as he wouldn't stop crying until he got one. Up to the Shack Pub (where small one used to work) to chase up work, and outside small one spoke to one of his old regulars outside. An old fella smoking, white hair, big white moustache, white shirt, white body warmer and white trousers on, the only thing that wasn't white were his eyeballs which were red with blood shot. Anyway, the trip was succesful and Mark at the Shack called later and told small one to come in Sunday 22nd 1-7pm for a shift.
Saturday was out in the garden, small one painting the shed and fence brown whilst it wasn't raining. Little Richard was helping tall one put together another new bench. Jordan came in and started playing footbal with Little Richard ending in tears when eh started hitting the ball on little Richards head. Small one thought he teach Jordan a lesson and took the ball off him booting it over the garden wall over in a neighbours garden up the road. Little Richard cried even more at this and it was then that sister Orla said, the ball is Richards not Jordans.
Sunday came round and small one headed off to work midday. Tall one was left at home for the day with mummy and daddy Hegarty. There was a family wedding party up the road which they were going to at 4pm, and small and tall would join when he finished work at 7pm. When daddy Hegarty left he came down and gave tall one a packet of Diarrhoea tablets, asked if he'd like them as he'd just found them upstairs and was going to throw them out. Tall one said fine i'll put them in our wash bag, then noticed they were exactly 4 years out of date. The mother then came down and daddy Hegarty told her that he'd jus given tall one some diarrhoea tablets, the mother was shocked, she thought tall one had got something from the food she'd been giving him, it was all pretty confusing. Tall one walked up the road to the Shack pub to meet small one just before 7pm. Small one had got on pretty well, though begrudged the food service at the pub, would rather just be doing drinks. He'd found a lot of the exact same locals coming in who he'd been serving four years ago before he went travelling. Most of them came in and said “i'll have a pint of Guinness there Conor”, as if he'd just been there yesterday, they'd then double take and say “where the hell did you come from?!”. Walked down to the cousins house for the wedding party, mummy and daddy Hegarty had already left. We were given a huge plate of curry to eat and piled with booze. We were then convinced into going drinking up the local, and seemed to be the only people in the place. Tall one commented how he'd never seen so many women in all his life, there was over a dozen women and pretty much just him and small one the only men. We were joined later by cousin Rory and Uncle Sean (who we'd seen Christy with last week). The night wore on and each time tall and small were getting up to leave a new bottle of beer would be put in front of them. Then the singing began, Uncle Sean finally convinced into singing Nancy Spain and more. One of the other cousins was behind the bar who said he couldn't turn off the terrible pop music playing as he'd get in trouble, so the family had to sing louder to be heard over it. Got back pretty groggy sometime around 2am, small one not able for drinking like he used to be.
Last night, Monday 23rd – small one went to local Bingo with a car full of his aunties. He had high hopes of winning the big 4,500 euro jackpot, but came back with absolute nothing. It may be the only way we can fund the rest of our travels though, all our hopes are resting on winning the Bingo...!
Tuesday 17th July 2012
Small one and Tall one went to the doctors for check ups this week. Small one first, turned out that Doctor Conor used to go to school with him, which was a bit disconcerting as he was filling up 3 test tubes of blood from his arm and he was looking a the face of someone he knew in cub scouts. Tall one went a few days later, and though small one had to pay the $50 euro for the visit, tall one got it free with his UK National Insurance number, so was better off being the foreigner.
Dropped off the two french students at small one's old school, where we had a chat with his old deputy head master. Mother Hegarty then took us shopping for the new back garden, we brought a BBQ, Outside Fire Stove, Fountain (complete with statue boy and girl with Village of the Damned demon eyes) and a bird table.... Father Hegarty will be pleased. On the way out we past young Jordan cycling back on his bike, Mother Hegarty was very worried, asking ten minutes later as we crossed the river Shannon if we could see him still, incase he'd fallen in the river.
Back at the house spent 2 hours putting together the BBQ before we noticed the fella had given us the wrong box. Drove it back (now completely put together) and they gave us the right box this time. Got home and spent another 2 hours putting together the correct BBQ. Outside was a virtual monsoon, so unsure when we'd be using any of this new stuff, but it'll be there ready alright.
Monday 16th July 2012
Up early and exhausted with the alarm clocks. Got all set for the Christy Moore gig in Dublin. Padraig's friend Keira was driving us up in the Hegarty taxi, and there were to be 5 of us, daddy Hegarty, uncle Sean Hegarty, Sean's friend Jimmy and tall one and small one. Keira was picking us up at 11.30am and at 20 past Sean had ran to ask if he should walk up to the main road from his house for us to collect him, small one said that daddy had gone missing so it would be a while yet, plus it was pissing with rain. Small one phoned daddy Hegarty to see where he was as they were due to leave any minute, Daddy answered and said he'd gone clothes shopping in Dunnes stores.
Finally on the road and up to Dublin within the hour and a half. Sean and Jimmy went round the museums (which all turned out to be closed on a Monday). Tall, Small and Daddy went into Lott's bar, where small one's Friend Dave worked. Arrived about 1.30pm and stayed until 6.45m, had 3 Guinness and a couple of bottles of Bud. Tall one feeling very groggy from the lack of sleep. There was a new bartender on from Donnegal, Dave told small oen that the guy wouldn't last much longer (this being his first day) as he'd turned up with a shirt right out the packet (with the neat fold creases still on the shirt), small one pointed out that the guys fly was open too. The small bar was like a creche, two shaved headed guys had their young kids with them as they bet on the horse racing no the tv, daddy Hegarty chimed in about who the favourite was and the 8 year old boy answered all his questions like he was a professional gambler already. We headed into Temple Bar before 6pm, with Daddy Hegarty calling Conor his brothers name Padraig. Met Sean and Jimmy and headed inside. Found a seat in a nice raised booth overlooking the other seating area. Plastic garden chairs were crammed inside in tight rows, there was not much room to breath. We thought the booth was a good spot, but daddy Hegarty came back from the toilet, tripped over a plastic chair to the floor and said he'd never be able to get out to the toilet during the show so we moved back to a farther booth, but it was still not far enough. So daddy Hegarty went and sat on his own on the furthest row back on a plastic chair. This was mostly due to all the horror stories heard abotu how Christy Moore imposes all these very strict rules whilst playing, such as the bar must be closed, no cameras, no late entrances, people get up for the toilet during the set have been known to be told to sit down or he wouldn't play anymore..... So daddy Hegarty for his 65th birthday present sat on his own at the back, joined by some lone man who chatted merrily to him.
The gig started and Christy turned out in fine form. He was very relaxed, light hearted and made for some good craic. He gave a call out for Aidan Hegarty who was here for his 65th birthday and his family were 'whores for the ballads'!! He sung the family anthem, 'Nancy Spain', along with other tributes to Woody Guthrie, and a song that Bobby Sands sent him from jail in the UK. It turne dout an excellent night, Christy playing an encore and didn't stop between 8pm and 10.45pm. Keira picked us up and on the way back we stopped off in a town for takeaway. Small one buying half the shop with 3 bits of chicken, curry chips and cheese and 2 sausages just for himself. Then we got lost and ended up in Mullingar so took an extra half an hour to get back by 1.30am. A great evening out!
Friday 13th July – Sunday 15th July 2012
A long day in the house Friday, very confused about time, thought it was 1pm but it was almost 5pm, then later thought it was 7pm, when it was almost Midnight. Headed out Saturday late afternoon to buy small one's nephew Jordan a laptop. Took us a long time to find the cheapest one out there.... this was mostly because small one knows so many people. We went door knocking on seemingly every other street in Athlone, “oh my aunt lives here we'll stop by.... this one is my uncle at this house.... few door sup is an old friend we'll have to give a knock”, we knocked on so many doors, tall one felt like he was doing door to door sales again. Then up town a man called Howie dragged us into his closing down bar “The Local” where he gave us a free bottle of beer, he was drinking one himself and smoking a fag behind the bar and he wondered why they were making no money.... another lad came in and he offered him a beer to. Through the shopping centre bumped into another 2 sets of women that small one knew, next time we would have to come out in disguise. Back at the house mowed the lawn.... struggled with the downstairs shower which was either all cold – so a plumber came for an hour, and when he left it was all scolding hot, so still using the upstairs shower. The four language students, (13 year old French, Italian and somewhere else) are leaving in a few days, with them, the two nephews, small one's parents and us two it's quite a full household. The Athlone weather has been pretty standard, have not had the 15 days of solid rain as forecast, though has been overcast with a few light showers. Small one's big friend Abba popped round last night to try and lure him out for beers, small one offered him a cup of tea instead. Online we had the news that our blog had a fan. A Canadian named Laura who knows Joel from Newfoundland. Well that's one person other than me whose read it at least, perhaps she can correct the spelling and typo errors.
Thursday 12th July 2012
Landed in Dublin at 8am local time. Waited for what seemed an age for our bags to be un-loaded. Missed the bus to Athlone by about 5 minutes and so had to wait an hour for the next. Brought a coffee, bacon and black pudding roll and some Irish/UK chocolate bars we'd not seen in a year. Boarded the bus on which the wifi was not working and sat listening to the congregation of bus drivers chatting like old comedians outside. Got into Athlone by about 12pm, stopping on route to pick up two middle aged twin women. Caught a taxi to Small one's family home
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Surprised the mother, as had not said the exact date of our return, she was still in her dressing gown. The garden was int he process of being done up, back had taken 3 times as long due to the constant rain for the last few weeks, though it was blue skies when we landed in Dublin. Got settled in and that evening had a couple of pints of Guinness in Shines with the father (been waiting for a good Guinness all year), then a lift over to The Shack for a couple of drinks with Mark at the bar, walked back into town into Coppers to see Eddie, then caught a taxi around 1am. Had slept about 3 hours in the last 3 days, so pretty tired by now.
Wednesday 11th July 2012 (continued)
Heading back to Ireland from Montreal, Canada. Caught the airport shuttle bus from downtown Montreal to the airport. Putting up with an old french man who fumbled on to the bus, lost his ticket, searched his pockets, his change fell everywhere. He then had to stand in front of us holding on to the bar as there was nowhere to sit, he kept falling into two women sat down. He tried speaking tot hem in french and they looked away and said “i don't speak french”, this didn't deter him from speaking to them though.
Got to airport about 3pm, flight was at 9.15pm. Had a Burger King and ate a burger the size of a car. Queued for check in around 5pm, but some fella came from nowhere and started to speak to us in french, we looked confused, then he said “follow me please”, didn't have a clue who he was – we'd spent the last 2 hours being eyed by some Canadian policeman with a big rimmed hat so thought it was another random security check like we'd had at bus stations. Turned out he was from the Club class booth and was just helping to reduce the queue of the waiting poorer passengers.
Sat by our gate for a few hours and an hour before the flight the other passengers started arriving to wait. More and more Irish voices started cropping up around us, an little elderly Irish couple fussed about where to sit and started to read there books, another old Irish fella started complaining about the price of beer, and a young Irish tinker lad started chatting to the poor poor air hostess waiting to board, he got out his neck pillow and started to wear it even before we boarded and started to take photos of the airline logos on the boarding desk.
Boarded the plane and we had two seats next to the window so small one would have to sit next to a stranger on the aisle seat. Turned out to be this very weird ortistic like son, with eccentric parents with manic white hair who sat behind us. The son had on thick glasses, long matted greasy curly hair, thin but had a pot belly with his stripey t-shirt pulled over it. He sat down very clumsy and awkward, fidgeting the whole trip. He complained to his parents that the seating design was hardly adequate for him as he like to get things out of his bag which would not fit under the seat. So he proceeded to get everything out that he'd need for the trip, including a huge book on 'Psychology', a small paperback, a kindle ebook reader, a notepad, pencils, pens, giant headphones, a packet of earplugs which he nursed into his ears. During take off he sat clutching his passport out in front of him like a lunatic, only putting it away once we were in the air. He then spent the 5 hour trip bouncing his legs up and down erratically hitting small one whilst he underlined quotes in his psychology book with a pencil.
