Myself and Hugh are moving to London very soon! We had a leaving party in MacTurcails pub last Saturday night. It was great craic. This is a photo of me changing the language on some poor unfortunate's phone to arabic. Below is a picture of Ian displaying his saxaphone breathing control skills by creating a maaaassive bubble. Rumour has it he can get equally good bubbles by blowing them with his nose....
This is Pierce, who is off to America soon to do a 5 year masters. He has a going away party in Doyle's last Friday which ended up in Tara Street, of course with the hats, and with a big feed of McDonalds. Here's Alice kindly feeding Pierce a chicken mc nugget as he fell asleep before the food arrived. 
This is me in my new suit that I got for interviews for new jobs in London. I think it's the hat that given it the final air of professionalism.
This is a picture of Hugh taking advantage of some curiously designed beermats. And this is me wearing a child's cow mask. I have a few interviews in London on Friday, I may go as a cow. 
This is the harbour of the village where we stayed for the weekend. There was a deadly ghost ship sailing off into the distance. The harbour has a little inlet with a few small fishing boats moored, a tea shop and lots of benches to sit on. It's very picturesque. This is a cave just behind the car park at the harbour. 
In Antrim this weekend we stayed in a little village a short walk away from the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. There is around a kilometer to walk along a cliff path after buying a ticket to get to the bridge. It spans a huge drop between the cliff and a small island. It's really cool. This is a picture of Hugh crossing back over the bridge. As you can see, Summer is in full swing here and everone is taking in the sunshine. The cliff in the background is where we came from. I imagine it's a lovely walk if it's less rainy.
This is a picture of looking down over the side of the island that the bridge crosses to. The water is flat calm and perfectly clear. We could see ducks diving to hunt fish, and follow them as they swam around underwater. 
Myself and Hugh went to Antrim over the weekend to see the Giant's Causeway. It was fantastic, but I haven't gotten the photos of it developed yet. Before the causeway, we went to see the Bushmills Distillery, which is in a small town called Bushmills, strangely enough. It is build around the Bush river, which it uses in production. The tour is excellent and well worth a visit (free whisky). It's the oldest licenced distillery in the world, getting a "Licence to Distil" (cool) in 1608. I'm hoping that on its 400th anniversary next year, they will figure out a way for the clouds to rain whisky on Ireland. 
Myselg, Hugh and Orla NiBhrian went to see Heyseed Dixie in Tripod last night. As usual they were absolutely fantastic. They are a bluegrass band and they do covers of rock and chart songs. They are touring their new album "Weapons of Grass Destruction" at the moment and there are class choones on it like their cover of Scissor Sisters I Don't Feel Like Dancing. Inspiring Stuff.
Here's the banjo player ripping into a deadly finger bursting solo. 
Myself and Hugh went to Cahirsiveen for the weekend with Frances and Peter. We stayed with Fran's parents who used run a b&b so they have a massive house with loads of spare beds and everything. There was a festival on and there was fantastic trad music and general shenanigans everywhere, including sheep shearing and sheaf tossing.
This is Fran's niece Sine just getting built up for taking a big puke on my arm. She's 6 months old. Underneath is her brither Aodhon getting his face painted as spiderman. He's 2 and a half. They are great craic and spend ages just laughing at eachother. 
This is Hugh in the local nightclub called the Harp. It's one of the last places in Ireland that are still smoking indoors and are showing no intention of stopping any time soon. 
This is the Elephant House in Edinburgh. It is where JK Rowling started writing the first Harry Potter book way back when. Over the weekend it was thronged with Potter fans and was possibly the most photographed building in the world. There was great atmosphere everywhere for the launching of the book. Me and Niamh went to a midnight launch and lots of people in the queue were dressed as witches and wizards and characters from the book. Here's a girl putting the books in the window a few hours before the launch. A big croud gathered around the shop window clapping and cheering. Mental!
I went to Edinburgh to visit Niamh McNamara this weekend and to get the new Harry Potter book - more on that in a minute. Niamh is officially impossible to photograph. Niamh is just finishing up a masters in Englishy something or other and is living in a lovely (if crooked) flat just outside the city centre. The floors in every room slan in a different direction and it's pretty dizzying to walk around the place. Like a rollercoaster. On top of that she has fantastic pet rats who climb all over the place. They can climb up and down a person in zero seconds flat. Here's one of them legging it down Niamh in a mad bid for freedom on the ground. They have cute little feet that look like human hands with another baby finger instead of a thumb. 
I've taken to trusting my instincts with my plants these days and they are thriving. I can now share with ye my revolutionary secret...
Orla O'Kane and Nozomi Coen were in Dublin last weekend. On the saturday night we were having a quiet night in when Orla noticed the unusual amount of hats that are in the gaff and remembered that she had her camera. Madness ensued.
This is a picture of the lovely view from my desk window yesterday afternoon. On the other side of the building though was this monstrous storm brewing at the exact same time. It really looked like the world was going to end just above our building. 
This is the birthday cake that Clair had for her birthday yesterday in Japan. I wonder if it's possible to get over in time to sample some of it... Also I wonder if I spell her name wrong or do the Japanese? She turned 26, which incidentally is the same age as my Mom.
This is a picture of my family from last friday night. There's my Mom's cousin Willie, my litle cousin Peter, his Dad and my Mom's brother Noel, me (with rather bouffant hair), then just in front of me is my aunt and Peter's Mom Antoinette (quite confusing for me as a child, I thought her name was Aunty Net), then Mom and then Willie's fiancée Atchira from Thailand. She's fantastic and really funny and is going to be an excellent addition to the family. Congratulations to both of you!
I've temporarily mislaid my camera so haven't any new photos for the last while, but his is one from last year when myself and Clair did an adventure race in Blessington. That's me and Clair in the far boat. One of our team mates had just rather sensibly chucked his oar overboard leaving us with 3 oars for the duration of the spin. It was the same format as the one myself and Emily did earlier on this year, only this one had on road running and cycling and was a much shorter distance. I picked this photo as it accurately depicts the weather we are having in fair Ireland at the moment. Rainyest (sp?) summer ever.
These are the botanical gardens that me and Hugh visited. They are lovely. There are huge fields of different cactii. The ones just below are baby ones, and below that are spotty ones. Spain is a really dry and brown country. From the air it looks as green as Ireland, but once you start walking around you realise that there is no natural grass and the trees are like firs, so cactii and big tall tropical trees are the most common. 
There are lots of beautiful flowers too though. I like taking close up shots of plants and animals. These are my favourites from the gardens. The first one was taken by Hugh - a masterpiece!
This is Blanes (pronounces like flan-ease). It's another of the beach resorts north of Barcelona. Unlike Calella though this one seemed to be older, and a lot classier. We came here to visit some famous botanical gardens, and took a long walk around the area too (unintentionally - got lost). It's beautiful. The beach is perfect and the cenery is amazing. If we go for another sun holiday in Spain I'd prefer here to Calella, but I imagine it's a bit more expensive. Here's a few more pictures of the area, it's just perfect. 
The Sagrada Familia is Gaudi's famous cathedral in Barcelona. It's still in construction, around half way finished, and has been going for nearly a hundred years. There are people working on it constantly, and it's like walking around a very fancy building site. Here's the man of the moment, our Lord, on the front of the cathedral. The feel of the carvings at the front is very modern, considering that it was designed a hundred years ago. It's almost cubist in it's approach with very stylised shapes. 
Above is Hugh at the front of the building. Note the same stylised approach as the crucifixion, and the plain backdrop. Here's me then at the back. It's much more gothic here. The back face is very elaborate and has carvings representing the whole Old Testament. It's amazing. It's an enormous wall covered in hundreds of huge life size carvings. No wonder it's taking so long to build! There's John Hearn playing the basoon, Mom on the violin and uncly Noel on the banjo too (with girls hair). 
Gaudi was strongly influenced by nature and the colours and shapes he uses are inspired by plants and animals. The colums supporting the cathedral inside are modelled on tree trunks. The are huuuuuge. The light on the top left of the picture is the hole in the roof. At the moment the front and back towers are built, but there is still a larger central tower to even be started. 
This is looking up at the front towers. Each of these is as high as the spire in Dublin. You can take a lift to the top of one of them and walk around. It's very high up. These are pictures of the tops of the towers adjacent to the one we were in. Gaudi is using his fruity influence here. On one of the towers is a load of carvings of birds taking flight. It's fabulous. 
Here is a random hole in the wall. This is when I started to get a bit freaked out about the height. See the lads building away. I don't know how they don't fall off. 
You have the option of getting the lift back down or climbing down a narrow windy staircase. It's not so bad at the start, just narrow and steep. Here's hugh showing off his no fear of heights walking backwards. Soon after though, the centre of the stairs disappears and you are left clinging to the walls trying not to fall down the middle. I caused a huge tailback of amused tourists with my slowness on the way down. Never again. Next time it's the lift!
