Dublin - Ireland

The Place: Toured Dublin on the hop-on hop-off bus, starting at the large spike, which replaces an old statue of Nelson (Battle of Trafalgar) - removed after Ireland gained independence from England because he had no real links with Ireland. We passed the statue of local Irish political hero Daniel O'Connel, which happens to be Liz' great great grandfather. A bullet hole from 1916 can be seen in the breast of one of the surrounding statues, see 3rd from top. We passed  some impressive old buildings including Trinity College and St Patricks Cathedral, a park which celebrated Oscar Wilde with a statue, and a statue of Molly Malone, a peasant woman well known in Irish folk songs for selling her 'Cockles and Muscles' from a wheelbarrow. A good end to the tour was arriving at the Guiness factory which takes you up 7 floors explaining the unique brewing method and family history, and finishes with a free Guiness on the top floor with a panoramic view of Dublin from above. An interesting fact is that the harp, which is the Irish political symbol, is used as the Guiness logo, except it faces the opposite direction so as not to infringe on trademarks (see 3rd & 4th pic).

We were lucky to be in Dublin on a day when the 'Tall Ships' had arrived in Dublins harbour. There were numerous stalls and small festivities along the row of these olden day sailing ships, which were all competitors in a race from A Caruna (Spain) to Dublin.

Following the recommendation of our cab driver from the airport,  we ate lunch at a great spot called the Brazenhead. In the evening we wondered around the area of Temple Bar and, avoiding the really busy bars, stopped in at an old pub where we were lucky enough to get some real traditional Irish music played by Bill and Shaky (Padraig O'Neill) on guitar and fiddle. Their album 'Cobblestones and Brittle Bones' became the theme music on our River Shannon boat trip beginning the following day. 

The River Shannon - Ireland

The Place: Together with Tim, Karen, Jamie, and Andy, Liz and I spent the best part of 4 days on houseboat on the Lough Derg (River Shannon) in Ireland. We boarded at Portumna and cruised at a leisurely pace stopping at little towns along the way.

Some features: The lake becomes quite broad in the middle and then in parts tapers off into narrow streams. On the lake we passed a lot of great scenery of green hills, cattle and sheep, old castles and historic churches built on little islands.

Tim and I, along with Liz who accompanied us in the row boat, found two great spots for a swim, where the river narrowed into long tributories. The first swim twisted for about a mile and the second was about 800m but half being upstream with a bit of a current, and then a swim back to the boat which took about half the time as going out.

Jamie did a bit of fishing and finally on day three managed to catch a small perch.

While heading to the last night's stop we needed to pass through a lock which was an interesting experience, having not done it before. Stopping in the lock at the lower end, the gate closed behind us and the water was then let in from the the front gate, allowing us to rise to the height of the river ahead and continue onwards once the front gate reopened.

County Tipperary - Ireland

The Place: Along the River Shannon, we stopped at various towns including GaryKennedy, Terry Glass, and Banagher all of which fall within or on the outskirts of Co. Tipperary, Ireland.
Some features: GaryKennedy had a great restaurant called Larkins, pictured at the top, where they screened the Irish sport hurling. We all sat down to hearty Irish meals and could barely move afterwards due to the size of the portions.
In the marina where Jamie skillfully mastered getting the boat into its tight mooring there are still ruins of an old castle that used to stand watch over the Lough Derg.
In Banagher, where we stopped for our third and last night on the river, the main street leading from the dock seemed to be mainly run by the Flynn's, with a gastro pub, supermarket and house all bearing the name as well as a flyer advertising a music performance by Kate Flynn coming soon! We enjoyed the evening in a pub which played live Irish music, with piano and accordian. Particularly interesting was an old painted portrait on the wall of a young lady at her piano with black bun in hair. Lo and behold the pictured lady was the actual piano player that eve, still wearing a black bun in her hair, only aged by about 50 years.
It was sad to see that in the town, many of the shops and even the Royal Shannon, built in an old bow-fronted Georgian style from 18th century (pictured at the bottom) are no longer in business due to the recession in Ireland.

Wimbledon - England

The Event: After getting our queue card the night before (number 671), we joined the long line of tents all queueing to get into Wimbledon the next day. With everyone getting woken up at 6 by the stewards, we were packed up and queueing by 7:30, to get into the grounds at 9. Liz, Stu, Amanda and I were lucky enough to get tickets for Court 1 by being early enough in the queue. This meant that amongst the players, we would be able to watch Maria Sharapova, the then topseeded lady. Even luckier were friends Gavin, Alexia, Kath and Tolis who (having started to queue 2 hours earlier the previous day) got Centre Court. They were kind enough to let us in to watch Djokovic (then also top seed) play the last 2 games of his winning match. They went on to watch Federer's epic battle in which he came back from 2 sets down against Benneteau to win his match.

Isle of Wight - England

The Event: Pearl Jam at Isle of Wight - great concert!
What was really great was to be there with some of my great buddies from university and school; Tim, Trev, and Steph and even Nick who happened to be in England for the weekend.
Changing our minds to drive up to the Festival on the Friday morning thankfully saved us from getting stuck in gridlock traffic on the Island due to the parking lots being too muddy for the hundreds of arrivals to park their cars that night. We ferried across in the morning and were parked and pitched by 12 o'clock. Though we had missed the worst of the rain, we still got the mud - sometimes sloshing through a foot of mud in our gumboots. Our tent was also pitched on a mud patch nestled tightly within a sea of tents - nice!
We watched some good acts including Biffy Clyro and Lana Del Rey, but could not have been luckier to watch an awesome gig by Pearl Jam. They belted out all their old hits including Given to Fly, Jeremy, Yellow ledbetter, Alive and Betterman and their presence on stage is powerful. We all had a great time and even managed to tour a bit of the Island afterwards, which included a visit to the needles.

Henley - England

The Event: After months of intensive training and with hopes being high for being selected to row, Liz made it into the Henley Womens Regatta 2012 to row in one of two fours for Barnes Bridge Ladies (BBL). Being one of the most well known regattas in the world and a familiar stomping ground for the likes of 5 times olympic gold medalist, Sir Steve Redgrave, it was great for me to witness Liz taking part in the race. 

Conditions were harsh in the blustering wind which seemed to rise from nowhere and then disappear just as quickly, but the team had a great race with the team giving it their all and making no mistakes. Unfortunately they didnt make it through to the next round, however as it turns out the other BBL boat went on to win it the following day. Despite some small intervals of rain, the sun did come out, making it a pleasant day out on what is a beautiful part of the Thames.

Les Gets - France

 

The Place: After a flight to Geneva, and a transfer across the border from Switzerland to France, we arrived at our chalet for 8 in Les Gets.
Some features: We spent a good 3 days snowboarding (Liz, Cath, Craig, Alison & I) and skiing (Tim, Hayley and James) in and around the areas of Les Gets and Morzine. The area has a huge selection of blue, red and black slopes all interconnected by chair lifts (thank goodness not button lifts or T-bars). We were particulary lucky to have good snow accompanied by sun which meant glorious days on the slopes. It took a while for us to find our feet but after a day of practicing on one side of the range we found that the rest of the slopes became much more accessible for days 2 and 3. Making sure we boarded and skiied till we were wrecked we headed back to our chalets for some unforgettable gourmet meals (provided) and a bit of jacuzzi goodness on day 2. The town had numerous festivities going on including jumping freestyle competitions and grafiti artist displays. For Apres-ski beers we headed to a great little Canadian bar called the Black Bear which featured an enormous taxidermied moose head inside. An awesome weekend was had by all with good friends, great runs, many wipeouts and thankfully no major injuries.