Notnem

Ross and Sorcha are chatting about possible baby names, and the name Ailbhe comes up…

She goes, ‘What about Ailbhe?’ and I’m there, ‘Ailbhe? I mean, is that even a name?’ and she goes, ‘Hello? Of course it’s a name. It comes from the old Irish word for white. It’s Erika’s cousin’s name,’ and I’m like, ‘It’s just it sounds like, I don’t know, a kitchen appliance. As in, will we splash out on the Moulinex or will we just settle for the Ailbhe? and Sorcha goes, ‘Maybe you’re right. Ailbhe actually has an attitude problem? Takes after her cousin.’

From ‘Should of Got Off at Sydney Parade‘ by Ross O’Carroll-Kelly

Just got into work after spending the weekend in Oxford. It was Ailbhe’s 21st an I hadn’t visited her in a long long time, so I decided to make a weekend out of it. I few to Heathrow on Friday after work and took a direct bus to Oxford which got me there at about 2330.

I was expecting to meet everybody (Alf, Ais & Nif) in the pub for a drink or something, but they were all in bed… I had eaten a pile of coffee beans on the bus, so I knew sleep was not going to happen for a few hours so I just surfed until I was tired enough to fall asleep.

The next morning Ailbhe had a tutorial, and at about 1100 we all went for breakfast in the dining hall. Excellent food by the way. I then hit the town to do a bit of walking while the girls visited the shops. I just walked around and had a gander. It was something I had wanted to do and I really enjoyed it.

Dinner was a Chinese take away in Ailbhe’s room while everybody was getting ready. We were in the club (Escape) for 2000 and shortly afterwards people started to arrive. We had a whole section booked which was great. I think there were roughly 50 people at it which was a great turn out. We were there until about 0230, so it was a long night, but Ailbhe had a good time… and she scored a couple of guys.

Six people slept in Ailbhe’s room… I don’t know how she got us in by the night porter, but I think it is safe to say she flirted with him (go Alf). I was lucky in that I had an air bed for myself… where as Aisling and Niamh had to share one with Chris.

The next morning we did breakfast in the St Hilda’s bar. James (Ailbhe’s Guy) had said he would give us a tour around his college which is the oldest college in Oxford. It dates back to the 13th Century. James had the history and stories of the college down, and it was a great tour. The highlight of it all was when he brought up to the top of Merton Tower which has fantastic views over Oxford. It was a steep staircase which centuries worth of graffiti etched into the walls.  Fantastic stuff.

We got something to eat and headed back to  St. Hilda’s to chill out. Niamh and Ais had to get trains and head home. I wasn’t flying out till the next morning so I was able to relax and managed to get a couple of hours worth of sleep in. I woke up and it was just myself and Ailbhe. Some of her friends came around to eat some cake and for a chat which was good fun. Then we watched a DVD on her computer for a bit and hit the hay. I had my alarm set for 0300 and I think it was 0100 before I actually got to bed.

Obviously, knowing that you are going to be getting up in two hours doesn’t bode well for a good 2 hours sleep, and it didn’t. Maybe I got an hour, maybe I got 90 mins. I don’t know but it wasn’t enough. I got the 0400 bus to Heathrow to catch the 0650 flight to Dublin which came in on time. I got my bag and caught the Thrifty Bus to work for 0830 and here I am… hoping the day will pass without me having to drink to much coffee…

I have to get into the habit of writing about things on this blog when they happen. At the moment I am kinda putting things on the long finger and then coming back to them…

I travelled to Kingston with Niamh on a Thursday. I was doing a 15 hour trip which would have me take only a half day off work… as it turned out I took the extra day off anyway to go and try on suits with Mark.

The flight over was non eventful, but the bus trip from Heathrow to Kingston is not a journey I will ever look forward to. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t have tons of luggage for Niamh, but 1 hour 40 mins of crawling through the traffic in London in a bus and looking after some seriously heavy suitcases was a major pain in the ass.

When we got to Kingston, I was really impressed. It was a really bueatiful suburb of London and I was delighted that Niamh would be living her for the next few years until she finishes architecture. We checked her into her residence which I was also very pleased with, and then went about buying some of the stuff she would need such as sheets for the bed etc etc. As it turned out she is allowed have over night guests so for the 3 hours of sleep I did get that night, I didn’t need a hotel.

After buying the necessary items, we had some food in Pizza Hut and then spent the rest of the evening walking around Kingston. We headed up to see her college and just explored the town more than anything else. It is actually really cool with little avenues and streets everywhere. It has a nice sedate feeling to it… a comfortable place maybe. I don’t really know how to describe it.

Luckily the same bus we got from Heathrow to Kington operates 24hours, so I was up and on the bus for 0420. The architecture of the place is beautiful, and as I stood there waiting for the bus to come along I had the strange sense that i was standing in a painting…

I got to say I was really proud of Niamh. She took to the whole thing very well, and I’m sure the challenges she will face over the coming times will be no problem to her. For the first time ever, at 0400 on this Thursday in August, she was on her own… out on her own.

Some pictures from my recent trip to Kingston where Niamh is now going to college… I’ll update the blog about that trip soon. These are just pictures I took at night when I was messing around with Niamh’s new camera…

With my family home this week, the apartment is absolutely full with bodies sleeping on pull down beds and mattresses on the floor. The place is a mess with half opened suitcases with all manor of things all over the place. But it has been fun having almost everybody together for the first time since early January.

On Monday night there was a family dinner in Eden in meeting house square with 12 of us for dinner. Fantastic food is all I can say but it was expensive. I walked in to get the exercise. On Wednesday night we all met up for dinner in the loacal Italian which was fun. I hadn’t been there in a long time… but the food was great.

I have no idea what is going on over the weekend, but there is talk of a bowling competition or something. As far as I know Dad leaves on Monday and the two girls are going to hang out in Dublin for a while.

As far as I know Dad, Ailbhe and Niamh will be in Ireland within the next two hours… Just keeping everybody updated…

I have decided to put this picture up for two reasons: a/ I get a lot of questions about my accident which I am always more than happy to talk about b/ a lot of people who I know now didn’t know me then. This August will be 11 years since it happened and maybe it is a reminder to me as much as anything else.

There is one other reason why I am putting this picture up and it is due to the way people remember each other. It is my experience that people remember each other with a recent picture in mind and not the way the person was back then and because of this I also wanted to put the picture up.

I look at this picture and don’t see me in it. I remembered what it was like being like that and I remember as clear as yesterday the day this picture was taken because it was the day I got home from hospital. But I don’t see me in it. Maybe part of the reason I have no problems talking about it is because I haven’t yet or probably will never realize all this stuff / any of this stuff happened to me. As always I am more than happy to talk about it and answers people’s questions even though to me it feels as if I am in some way telling somebody else’s story in the first person.

As regards this picture, I was just over 7 stone and my face was still swollen from the reconstruction surgery. One eye is bloodshot from the surgery around that eye socket and the other eye is swollen from having the other socket fixed. The bridge of my nose also had extensive plating and I believe one of my checks was re-fractured. There is lots more I see here but this post is getting away from its original purpose… This is to give people who are interested in the accident some more information.

PS – My mum made me wear that jumper

Nobody believes me when ever I tell somebody that I weighed 16stone (102 kilograms). I found a picture of me when I was 15 and half stone… this was taken on 14th June 99 and I had lost a half stone in the two weeks before this picture was taken. I was leaving to go to Montauk and this picture was taken just before I left. Even if I do get people to believe I was 16 stone… the next thing they say was it must have been all the drugs after the accident, but the fact is that I wasn’t on medicine… One year after this picture, I weighed in at 8 stone 12 lb or just over 54.4 kilograms which was way too light so I started to eat chip butties to gain weight

I spend the weekend in Leitrim, and I got to say just getting out of Dublin is a relief to me. We were staying in self catering houses in the centre of Leitrim and each house had a boat which is ideal for spending a few hours on the Shannon. I was surprised by the houses which were very well equipped and spotlessly clean. Myself and my sis were invited down by my aunty and uncle in thanks for the few times we have helped them out over the last year with babysitting.

On Saturday we went down river to Carrick on Shannon for coffee and a sandwich. On Saturday night we eat in ‘The Moorings,’ a pub / restaurant which I have eaten in before and a restaurant I particularly like. We ended the night by going for a couple of quick drinks.

On Sunday we headed to Keshcerrigan to my Aunty Mary’s boat; spent a couple of hours there reading my book before heading back up river to Leitrim and heading home. It was a great weekend. Some of the pictures are from the Leitrim Quay website, a place I could not recommend enough.

These are a few pictures from my little sister’s art show as part of her IB exams. She sold 8 paintings at the show which is a fantastic result. I am trying to get her to buy an xbox 360 with the money but it isn’t looking good.