The Nest

Bad weather...

Posted Friday, November 20, 2009 1:28 PM

Ok, I know that Ireland is known for its wet weather and it does get a bit damp from time to time.  But these last two weeks have been really bad.  Have a look at this picture:

So much rain (some places 3 times the normal rainfall for Nov and there's still 10 days to go) that the rain has nowhere to go but sit on the surface.  The rivers are flooding in the south and west of the country, with whole towns being cut off with roads and rail lines flooded.  One midland town is a town most people go through to go to the west and all the routes in are flooded.

How did this happen?  Believe it or not all the rain fronts are starting in the Carribean and are swept up to us.  It could be the tail end of huricanes that have picked up water across the Atlantic.  Climate change is also being blamed.  Most of the towns weren't historically at risk from flooding but river levels are rising and now the towns don't have flood defences. 

Here's a picture of a street in Cork, our second city (right on the south coast and the river broke its banks!)

Soccer World Cup

Posted Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:46 AM

Last night there was heartbreak all around the country and in Paris too... Ireland were playing France in the second leg of a qualifiying match, the winner of which would play in next year's World Cup in South Africa.

First leg was last Saturday in Dublin and Ireland lost 1-0 which was really not a good result because that meant France had scored away from home (which is better than scoring at home).  Last night's game was in Paris.  Ireland scored a great goal in the 33rd minute, which cancelled out the one that France scored.  So all we had to do was score another goal and then France would have to score 2 more(its like an away goal is worth 1.25 home goals...).  The guys went really close a couple of times and were playing so so much better than they had in a long time.  They really deserved something.

Then the 90 minutes were up and it was all square.  So it was an extra 15 minutes each way of extra time.  The unthinkable and unimaginable happened in the 10th minute of the added time.... France scored!! Not only was the person who scored offside (not allowed to be in front of the opposition players when the ball is played to you) but ONE OF THEIR PLAYERS HANDLED THE BALL AND THE REFEREE DID NOTHING!!!! It's not like the ball just hit his hand... that may have washed for the first time it hit his hand but the second time he actually directed the ball infield onto his foot!!!!! So not once, but twice he handled it!

You should have seen the faces of the guys who gave it their all for the next 20 minutes of play to try to get one back (as they had done for the previous 100), they were heartbroken when the final whistle went...  The commentators called the guy who did the handball "Thieving Thierry"... it being Thierry Henry who did it... Even the British commentators were saying that it was a shocking decision by the match officials....

Here is a link to show how bad this was... http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2009/1119/fai.html  (from our national tv station website)

Everyone is down in the dumps at work today (even lots of the non-Irish here, and there are a lot more non-Irish working here... though luckily not too many French at the moment!!)

Ah well, I won't really be following the World Cup next year so...

D'oh!!!

Posted Monday, November 16, 2009 11:27 AM

How about this for a Monday morning...

Physio appointment at 8am (neck and shoulder tension, it's getting better) and it is absolutely bucketing rain! Like I wake 200 meters down the road and I'm soaked.  And I have to walk/cycle to physio (20 minutes of heavy rain)... my jeans were sticking to me and no point taking them off in physio cos they wouldn't go back on they are that wet.  And of course it stops raining at around 7.50am... as I reach the physio! Typical!!

Get to work and the office is cold (I got to change clothes in work, but have to put on my jeans again this afternoon...) and not even a cup of tea warms me up. 

I went to the loo a while ago (post cup of tea) and realise that I put my knickers on inside out this morning... D'OH!!!

 

On a more positive note, I finished my tea cozy at the weekend including the pom pom.  No idea how to post a picture of my own one so i've put in one that looks kind of the same, to give you an idea - mine is in green and red though.

And I'm well into the first scarf for a christmas present, did it a bit too wide for my nephew but i wasn't going to undo what i'd already knitted when i realised!  It's dark blue with some red strips in stocking stitch and i'm going to back it with fleece material (red I think)

Half way there...

Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:55 AM

I'm half way through my knitted tea cosy! I finished the first side last night, so hope to start the second side this evening (though I have bootcamp too so might not get much done), have it finished over the weekend and then sew them up and make a pom-pom for the top.  I think it looks pretty cool.  I was thinking that now I am in the mood for knitting I might knit some scarves for my nephews and niece for christmas - their mum is always saying not to get them stuff cos they have too much, so this would be just somthing small and inexpensive.  I might get some fleece material to put on one side of the scarf to make it cosier...

When I was in school I never managed to finish any of the knitting projects that we had to do... there were always half finished piles of knotted wool with stitches dropped stuffed in a bag somewhere... with me hoping that the end of term would come before I had to sort it all out... I'd say the teachers would laugh now at the thoughts of me planning to do knitting.  And I know my mum certainly raised an eyebrow when I told her about the tea cosy!

It's Monday

Posted Monday, November 09, 2009 11:39 AM

The weekend was really good.  Got to see lots of my family with all the celebrations.  My future SIL's engagement ring is lovely and really suits her.  My bro picked it by himself - solitaire on platinum with a twist on the setting.  The restaurant on Friday was nice - they printed up a menu specially for them and it said "Congratulations on your Engagment"... yes, it had that spelling mistake in it! We had a bit of a chuckle about that.

Saturday I met up with my girlfriends in the afternoon and I bought a couple of things.  I got a wool dress and a pair of high boots which look fab together with a pair of leggings.  The dress is a purpley navy and has a bit of cashmere in it - so soft.  In the morning, I'd gone to the driving range with DH to hit a few balls - that loosened me up a bit and was a little bit of exercise. 

Yesterday, went to my parents house for dinner.  So many people there that there was dinner at 1.30pm and 5.30pm!! We sat down at 5.30.  We'd gone to the city (a 5 minute cycle from where we live!) earlier to get replacement contacts for DH and I picked up some knitting needles and wool - started on my project last night - a green and red tea cosy!!! Haven't knitted in years, and don't know why I got the urge to take it up again.  I'm not the fastest knitter in the world it has to be said.

Funniest thing happened as we were about to leave.  I might have mentioned to one of my brothers and his wife and 4 kids are staying in my parents at the moment.  Their 2 1/2 year old is my godson.  His mum asked him did he want to go with us for a sleep over.  He nodded yes, so his mum said to go and get his pyjamas and teddy.  I was kind of looking at her going "what are you thinking of?!?".  So off he trots to get his things... only for his dad to call him back and say it was only a joke.  Poor thing... he was upset then!  Not sure why his mum suggested it seeing as it was a Sunday and we both had to work today.  I told him he can come next weekend instead and that we could go to the zoo if he wanted to... that seemed to placate him a bit (though he didn't really want to wait til next week...)  Bless...

Weekend celebrations

Posted Friday, November 06, 2009 1:02 PM

This weekend is full of celebrations!

My brother D got engaged to his girlfriend, A, after 7 years.  This happened around a month ago, but she stayed on in London when he moved back for work reasons.  But she is home this weekend.  So tonight we are having a big family dinner in a nice restaurant.  Most of my family and her two siblings (there's a family history there about her parents that I won't go into).  Really looking forward to that.

Tomorrow, they have reserved an area in a city centre bar for a full on engagement party.  All their friends and family, so it should be fun too. 

And tomorrow afternoon I'm meeting up with a couple of girl friends for a girly chat and perhaps some retail therapy.  It was supposed to be tonight (with a glass of wine) but my mum only told me of tonight's dinner on Monday so the friends thing got changed to tomorrow.  But in a way, I prefer that it is tomorrow afternoon and that we'll get to wander around some shops too.  It's supposed to be a late celebration of my birthday from last week, but that'll be understated.

And tonight is going to be my last night drinking for the rest of the month and I'll only have a couple of nights out before Christmas.  It's kind of a detox pre-christmas party season!! There'll be one in January too I reckon (that will hopefully disguise a lack of drinking if we do manage to conceive by then... fingers crossed!).  DH is not drinking for the whole of the month so he's driving tonight! Handy!!

No going back now

Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 3:37 PM

Well, I haven't taken the pill since last Friday morning and AF started yesterday... but that is it, no more pill for me! 

Also, no more regular periods, no more (relatively) pain-free periods...  I've bought a thermometer on-line so plan to start charting once it arrives tomorrow (I know I really should have started yesterday...) and there we have it.  I'm still obviously taking my folic acid supplements, but going to be pill free for first time in around 14 years.

The weekend away was lovely, but a pity I had such a bunged up nose.  Didn't sleep well on Friday night (neck and shoulder sore - going to physio for that) so I booked myself in for a full body massage on Saturday afternoon.  Once I had that I pottered back to our suite (they upgraded us), we had some rose champagne and then got dressed and went down for dinner.  Never got around to using the outdoor tub or the lovely huge bath that was in the bathroom... shame... we'll just have to go back sometime!