August 2007

Sorry in advance for the un-amazing photos with this entry! If you want to see more re Waterford and Lahinch, check out those entries seperately.

Well August was a pretty cool month - we got to travel to Lahinch in Co Clare to see my buddy Dave and his fiance Sinead and Courtney came along too which was pretty cool too as Courtney is ALWAYS up to something.
(for more on the Lahinch trip - see that entry on the blog)

But otherwise, what else happened in August - Cath and I went camping in Co Waterford to celebrate our 2nd anniversary - we got to see the Waterford Crystal Factory and would have gone for a canoe on the beach if the wind hadn't been too dangerous. Pah when you come from Cape Town, you're used to swimming with sharks - I tried to tell the silly lifeguards but they were having none of it.



Cath handed her notice in last month as for her to break that training contract, she had to give 3 months notice. So that meant she was going to be ending up around the end of September. Which meant that we, slowly but surely, needed to move our stuff down from Dublin to Cork.

And so, for the next several weeks I was carrying empty backpacks from Cork to Dublin on Saturday mornings and then carrying huge, humungous ones back on Sunday afternoons, dragging Cath's wheelie-bag behind me - also chock a block full of clothes, stuffed toys, games, DVD's, books or whatever.

I wasn't a huge fan of carrying a backpack around as whether or not you are aware in SA, the Irish have had an influx foreigners over the last several years as the economy has grown. Surveys have found that thousands of these foreigners have had people swearing at themtelling them to 'F£$% off back to your own country' or even beaten up sometimes...
At any rate, carrying a backpack at 5:30am could be asking for trouble so I was wary...

And my fears became a reality one Saturday morning when some drunk guy (he was staggering all over the place) of about my age started causing trouble with a Polish girl. I galantly (I repeat, GALANTLY) stepped in to let her get away and he spoke/slurred to me for a while, asking me if I could swim (I was standing next to the river). Eventually he took a swipe at me - punching me in the face and then ran away like a little girl.

I'm not sure what annoyed me most:
a) the fact that I couldn't dodge a punch from a clearly pissed doos
b) that I felt bad about beating the crap out of someone so drunk he was stumbling over
c) that the Polish girl didn't say 'my hero' and give herself to me as a reward for being so gallant.

Anyway, having Cath live with me has now eliminated the early-morning trips backwards and forwards between the capital and Dublin.

It was also a bad month for travel in that my bicycle came a cropper - but luckily, only as I was climbing onto it. It was quite weird really. Standing next to the bike, I held the handlebars and flung my right leg over the saddle (as you do) only to have the left handlebar basically snap off in my hands! If it had happened two minutes later, I would have been cycling down a flight of stairs - and that could have equalled PAIN! So that left me walking to work for a while but at the end of the day, I think I was bloody lucky!

Lastly but not least, Cath and I hosted our first poker evening at our old Dublin place - twas prett cool - but Courtney (who had never played before) basically ended up taking all of Michele's (who had never played before) money. Next time we'll just invite Michele - and up the stakes.

Well as I said, sorry there are no photos for this one - but we forgot ourselves in all the confusion of the move.

Mwah for now
-a-