Notnem

First off, it was a great night. I enjoyed it immensely and I was proud to see Fergal enjoying himself. He had asked me for a baseball cap (which I got him) and a box of cans of coke (which I couldn’t because I was walking home and couldn’t carry them).

Chris called over at about 8 and we got to the Regency for about 9 for the party. It was great to see so many people I knew and hadn’t seen for so long. The warmth the Healy family have shown me and continue to show me is something I really respect.

I am not going to talk about particular people, but I had a great time and the little bit of aprrehension I felt going was quickly dispersed. The rest of the details I am just going to keep in the memory banks.

I ended up drinking a lot of vodka because Damo and Chris keeped refilling my glass, and once they gave me Red Bull, I knew I was going to be in trouble the next morning, particularily when Mark had promised to pick me up a 0830 to go camping Ok, it was my idea to go to Trampco, but it wasn’t like I was sober… Hopefully I’ll get some pictures from Marion for the blog.

I am catching up on stuff that happened a couple of weeks ago now so this post will probably just follow the order in which this stuff comes from my brain…

Damien and myself headed into the Portabello to meed David Martin and his friend Pat. We stayed there and actually drank a lot of beer. I managed to leave my phone in the taxi but luckily Damo had taken a card of the taxi driver. I called the company and they were able to trace the taxi. They called me back in a couple of minutes and said to call my phone and that the taxi driver had it. I called him and he said, no worries, my phone was safe with him and just give him a call when we want to go home and he’ll pick us up which was handy.

It was about 12 when we left the Portabello to go down to Hogans to meet John Mark and his crew. I needed to stop drinking because I was driving to Limerick in the morning and I had an early start. Damo wouldn’t listen to me… but I didn’t drink anymore because I would have been fucked. When time came to go home I rang the taxi driver and told him where we were (on Kebab Street) which as it turns out is really George’s Street and that I wanted a Kebab. Taxi Driver was sound.

Sleep for about 4 hours before I had to get up and go to pick up a Santa Fe in Thrifty. I left Damo at home to sleep on a bit more and get a shower while I picked up the car. I got home and called Marco to say I would pick him up on the way to drop down town home and we could then go to help Ann Marie bagging. Damo was fucked…

Bagging in Tesco Roselawn was as it turns out good fun but there are some really strange people out there. We did that for two hours before going back to pick up Julie and meet Eoin and Scotish Dave in town and head to Limerick.

We called Steve and he told us to pull in at Moroe and meet him in the pub for a drink, which turned out to be 7 or 8. Luckily I was driving because although I was feeling fine, too much alcohol too soon would have killed me later on in the night. We hung around there for a while before heading to Elke’s parent’s house which was in a really beautiful park of Limerick.

The party was very enjoyable, and hanging out with people I had met at the wedding was good fun. I made it to about 03.30 before I had to go to bed and get some sleep, but in reality I hadn’t said a word for the previous hour and was just listening in on the conversation and enjoying the relaxed feelling of being among friends. I got a text message from Ann Marie to let us know that she had raised e1700 that day for MS.

I can’t remember what time we left at on Sunday, but it wasn’t late so we could beat the traffic on the way back to Dublin. Pretty uneventful as everybody was tired and we only stopped so Eoin could take a toilet break… in a field.

I have a lot of stuff to catch up with as far as the blog is concerned. This month has been a bit mental and I am busy in work these days too. I am also trying to get out most evenings for a walk and I’m making an effort to read more books, take more exercise and watch less TV.

I had planned to take the weekend easy because during the last two months my weekends have been hectic and I have been drinking way over my quota of alcohol. I was all set for catching up with my books and cleaning my room (again) when I got a call from Steve to head into town for the day to wander around… Sounded like a plan to me and in the end it was a great day which I really enjoyed. We eat a bagel, bought some books, had a couple of drinks, went to see Superman and went for a pizza afterwards. Should do it more often. Thanks for the call Steve…

I haven’t been keeping the blog up to date this month, and now it is time to catch up… After the excitement of New York, writing about life in Dublin just didn’t seem to do it for me. Anyway, here we go…

1st July

The plan was… to meet Damien and Chris at the apartment and go to The Ivy House to discuss plans to go back to Malaysia in August. We did make it to the Ivy House for one or two, but persuaded Damo to head into town to meet up with the Browne clan. It wasn’t easy because he had dressed for a couple of pints in a local, not clubbing in town but Chris leant him his jacket.

We went to the Clarence Hotel, AKA which to be honest I will probably avoid from now on and to Lilly’s which I always try to avoid. I generally don’t like going back to places that don’t let me in for no reason, and Lilly’s is one of these places. We ended up dancing for most of the night with Ann Marie and Jeff.

We left there at the very end and headed to a wine bar. I had never been here before and I found it a strange place. It was mixture of people from all ages and walks drinking overly priced wine which to be honest tasted of nothing.

When the wine bar was opened we left to walk home, but first stopped in Abrakebabra for a chip butty. The place was closing down so we waited outside while we eat on O’Connell Street. The place was empty except for a couple near us. A couple of more people came and soon were fighting beside a parked cop car which was waiting to see what was going on. They guy with the girlfriend attempted a punch, but missed and before he knew what was going on was in handcuffs.

The walk home was great. As we were going through Summer Hill the sun was rising. It was 0615 before we got in…