We went for a barbecue in Howth yesterday and found a brilliant beach in the middle of nowhere. We had to walk along crazy goat paths and through tunnels of weeds and thorns to get there and then kinda down a cliff. As soon as we finally got to the beach after the epic struggle, we found a damn hippy and her toddler down there before us. Hippies have strange skills. This is a picture of us at the top of the hill with the lighthouse in the background.
Myself, Laura, Hugh and Emily went to see the Republic of Loose on Saturday night in the Village. It was fantastic. It's definitely the best I've seen them play and the crowd was lovin it. Like myself, my camera was somewhat freaking out over the volume of people and heat, and started taking some pretty psychadellic snaps. Here's one of the lead singer bathed in neon lights. It took some serious bodily injuries to get close enough to the front to take good photos but I think the upcoming 4 weeks in hospital will be worth it.
While walking through Temple Bar on Saturday afternoon (after a fine burger at the Bad Ass Cafe) we found this gem spraypainted on the kerb confirming Emily's renoud fame and excellence. Congratulations.
After the tremendous excitement of taking the bus, we needed to have a calming sit-down so we went to Phoenix Park where Laura had to keep her eyes closed in case she saw something even more exciting than a bus that may drive her over the edge altogether.
We had a visit this weekend from Laura. Here she is on a bus. Busses do not exist yet in Cork so it was a very exciting time for her. Note the glee.
These are pictures from a race I took part in on Wednesday. It was a 9k run across the 3 Rock and Ticknock mountains, near Palmers and Lamb Doyle's pubs. With a time of 58:18, I came 176th (woohoo!) out of 217, and took 173% of the winning time (33:32), which is close on my best ever mountian result of 170% of the winning time. The race was pretty tough and I had to use my patented "20 steps walk, 20 steps run" policy on the steeper uphills, but in general it was a great race with beautiful scenery. The winners of these races are unreal machine runners and are the fastest in Ireland. I was only 16 minutes slower than the fastest girl, which I'm pretty happy with. My aim for this season is to get my time down to 160% of the winning time. Last year i went from 183% average to 170%, so I think it's possible. May have to cut down on my deep devotion to chocolate and crisps for this though. Will keep ye posted.
Mom and George played a round of golf in the famed K Club yesterday. It's where the Ryder Cup took place this year. It's also full of cute little ducks and massive mansions, like a walk down millionaire's row combined with a game of golf. It's all on my Mom's own blog here.
This is a picture taken by the talented Catherine during a little wine tasting session on Saturday night. I think I'd make a great human fly.
Last night I played the Ravel String Quartet in F first movement with Niamh Farell and Liam Sutton. Clara Grimes stepped in at the last minute and saved the day after our viola player was stolen away by the NSO. It's always pretty unusual seeing yourself from behind, but this picture really stunned me with the spherical afro appearance of my hair. Interesting.
Myself and Emily took part in a gruelling adventure race in the Blessington area on Saturday. It involved 4k of canoing, 20k of off road mountain biking, 10k of trekking (over bloody mountains) and then finishing with around another 4k of cycling. It took us around 5 hours and now neither of us can walk that well. Herself has the photos so I'll put them up as soon as they are developed.
On Sunday then we went to see Hugh's brother David playing a cricket match. He's the captain of the Trinity seconds. The match was on in a cricket club in Rathmines. It was a really nice day, with only one torrential shower, and there was a barbecue and everything. Fantastic. Thankfully cricket is nice and relaxing and doesn't require anyone to move a lot (not even the players), so that suited myself and Emily down to the ground.
These are the boys I live with. Thibault is on the left. He's French, from Brittany, and works as some sort of financial something in City West for some big company. David, on the right, is half Welsh, half French, and grew up in both places, as well as in London. He went to college in Scotland and his family has lived near malahide now for around 6 years, so he's a real cultural mixture! He's an engineer in the ballsbridge area. We all have similar interests, shown below, mainly cycling, surfing, music, food and drink. This causes a fair bit of clutter in our front room, where we've had to pile the couches into the corner to make space for stuff.
Last weekend myself and Emily went to see Munster getting completely embarrassed against that bloody Welsh team. This is herself in front of the big screen in Rody Bolands in Rathmines. The next day we comiserated the failure in style and made friends with some chocolate bunnies. This is Alfred enjoying the wee small hours on Dame Street. I'm holding him hostage till Easter Sunday when I will set him free (in my belly).
