There's no place like home....

Don't worry, this isn't going to be another whining post about how much I miss the homeland! As most of you will know, the house that I grew up in my whole life in Ballinteer, Dublin 16, has been up for sale for nearly 2 years now. It is an awful time to try to sell a property in Ireland but it was time for us to downsize. As it had been taking so long, when I left in October, I didn't really expect that the house would be sold before I got back in July.

Lo and behold, on Skype last week with the family and the news was broken to me that the house has been sold and they are due to move out by the 31st of May. They have not yet found a new place but sent me on some of the links to properties that they are looking at. I couldn't help but think 'they look SHITE compared to our house'. In all fairness, I knew it was coming but I don't mind admitting that I shed a tear or 2. I didn't take full advantage of my last few days in that house to say goodbye to it properly and now when I get back to Dublin, there'll be some other family living there. Eewww.

In the spirit of nostalgia, here are a few of the more memorable moments/things from my 26 years living in 90 Ludford Drive;

• All those summer days in the paddling pool in the back garden (I know, summer days in Ireland, what??)
• The day Mary left a stew for us, all my dad had to do was switch on the oven.....we went to the park, came back, he'd never switched it on. 3 hungry children and a man incapable of cooking, good times. 
• The bathroom in the garage that EVERYONE used to use. 
• The day I got locked in the utility room and kicked a hole in the bottom of the door to yell through to the kitchen to get Mary to let me in. 
• When me and Jenny broke a coffee table in the sitting room by imitating dance routines from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. 
• The day the extension was finished and all us kids finally got our own rooms. 
• When we got the majority of the garage converted so that we would have a special room to play poker in and then managing to turn the whole downstairs pretty much into a casino every now and again.
• The shed that used to be THE hang out spot during our teenage years.
• Let's not forget the parties, planned and unplanned, from when we were kids playing musical chairs and giving out sweet bags to the guests; to the present, where you'll usually get breakfast cooked by Mary and an unbelievable hangover to take away with you. All the 21st birthdays, Christmas & Stephens Day sessions; not to mention the random nights that people would come back after a night out.

Strangely enough, this Skype conversation and all these memory lane trips occurred within a few days of me also making a move here in Canada. Having spent the last 4 months not even really seeing my housemate Greg, I decided it was time to up sticks and leave him, move somewhere a bit closer to work and with people that I am already good friends with. It's only been a week but I think it seems to be working out OK so far.....watch this space ;)

Moral of the Story - moving onwards and upwards, making big changes; it's what life is all about. Make sure to remember the good times and look forward to the times ahead.

Irish Facts Without Wikipedia

I'm not generally a major Twitter fan. There does be some interesting stuff but for the most part, I find it tedious and there is just too much crap! Occasionally though, you find some gems, like today. Rick O'Shea of 2fm started a trend by asking people to post #IrishFactsWithoutWikipedia, basically overly false 'facts' about Ireland. I spotted the trend and clicked through....and promptly nearly fell off my chair laughing. Someone had tweeted Rick suggesting that somebody should post it in a blog as they were too funny not to be published. Things are quiet in work right now so I decided to take it upon myself to transfer some of the ones I found most amusing here. Some of them are proper Irish universal truths, the others are pure hilarious. Enjoy!!

• If your Granny doesn't light a candle for you before an exam, you're going to fail
• You must say 'goodbye' at least 3 times at the end of a phone conversation or the phone won't actually hang up
• Bono can shoot beams made of Tayto crisps out of his wicked uniglasses
• In Ireland, Father Ted is seen as a hard hitting documentary
• If you're sick, you don't need a doctor. 7up and toast will do the job
• Abrakebabra have 2 Michelin stars but don't like to advertise it
• Jackie Healy Rae is only man to hold the Irish, European and World Combover of the Year titles
• Not turning off the immersion leads to a fate worse than death (classic)
• Cork is actually only about half the size of the Phoenix Park but we let them draw it bigger on the map just to keep them quiet
• If you say 'Gay Byrne' 3 times fast, Uncle Gaybo will appear and give lollipops to everyone in the audience
• It's an old Irish custom to declare your intent to marry a girl by draping a large raw steak over her face
• Iceland used to be a county of Ireland before it broke off in 1941. Nobody noticed because of the war
• We are all fluent Irish speakers but we don't want to get stuck talking to Daithi O Se in a bar
• Bono can hear a hungry child's tear hit the dust from 100 miles away
• All toastie specials served in Irish pubs contain molten lava
• There's no money resting in ANY Irish bank account anymore
• 'An bhfuil cead agam dul go dti an leithreas?' is the most used phrase in the Irish language
• Vincent Browne had a successful acting career as Worzel Gummidge
• In Ireland, it's widely accepted by the Vatican to break Lent on Paddys Day for crisps and chocolate
• The tallest mountain in the world is actually Muckish in Donegal. It's just lying down, so you can't tell
• It is compulsary to say 'aahh' after the first sup of tae
• Members of the Irish Parliament use croissants as emergency sideburns
• If you die of alcohol poisoning, you're considered a lightweight
• Contrary to popular belief, Jim Corr wrote the Irish National Anthem
• Our blood is 90% tea
• We're obliged to have a pint or 2 at the airport before getting on a plane - even if it's 7 in the morning
• Red lemonade is the reason we are all mental because the chemicals used to make it are banned in every other country
• By law, you are only allowed to worship Premier League Foottballers until they put on an England shirt
• Honda Civics, Subarus and Mitsubishis are not as preferable modes of transport as horses
• Dublin Zoo is running a captive breeding programme of leprechauns to replace the current government
• If the perpetual lamp under the Sacred Heart picture goes out, all members of the household die that instant
• Shortcuts always involve fields
• St Patrick actually smuggled snakes over by accident, though diligently rectified the problem himself
• Anne Doyle is completely octopus from the waist down
• Starving is a word used by the people of Ireland when they haven't eaten for a minimum of 2 hours
• To be considered truly Irish, the wooden spoon must have been a fundamental element of your childhood
• The Vikings originally introduced the battered sausage to Ireland in 956 AD as building material for huts
• The mass decline in population in the mid 1800's was actually caused by a zombie apocalypse

Moral of the Story - Irish people are great craic. Our sense of humour will get us through anything.

Christmas in Canada

On Christmas Eve, I posted on Facebook about not feeling very Christmassy. Because I just didn't. There were decorations up, people walking around with Santa hats, 12 Pubs of Christmas crawls going on. It was the little differences. There were Christmas songs being played, but I didn't hear Slade, Wizzard or Fairytale of New York ONCE! Except for when we did it at karaoke in the hostel after many many fizzy drinks. I miss the lights on Grafton Street. I miss the stalls on Henry Street, with the shrill cries of "wrappin paper, 5 sheets for a euro". I missed the 12 Pubs of Christmas with the girls. I missed doing Kris Kindle with the family and then all of us just swapping around anyway to get who we had a gift idea for.

Working Christmas Eve also wasn't the greatest way to get myself in the spirit. I tried playing some Christmas tunes. No. I wrote my cards out for the Plummer Family. No. I Facebook creeped my friends to see what they were up to. That just made me sad. Then I found my saviour on the RTE iPlayer. "The Toy Show Unwrapped" gave the history of the toy show and showed lots of old clips. I could not help but get into the spirit. As much as people sneer, I do love the Toy Show. Dara O'Briain's explanation that the Toy Show is the reason for the recession because it showed us all the things that we could have but would never be able to afford!

Thankfully, the Plummer family had agreed to take me in over Christmas. I only had Christmas Day off so it was a bit of a flying visit but it was nice to be with a family, even if they weren't my own. My family had sent some packages over for me too, so I was looking forward to opening them on Christmas morning while Skyping with them. The Plummers also made sure that I had several presents of my own to open with them, including this very fetching stocking filled with an array of handy gifts!

There is very little that differs with Canadian Christmas to an Irish one. Time spent with family eating too much food, watching shite on TV and basically just hanging around, being together. St Stephens Day - now that was a different matter. I know at home a lot of pubs close early and what not but the city was like a ghost town! Thankfully, the hostel bar was open so I went there and spent some time with my new friends, lamenting my homesickness and getting over it by drinking $10 pitchers of Moosehead. That is definitely a good way to forget that one is homesick. That's how the rest of my festive period was spent actually, working and drinking with a whole bunch of other people who were also far away from home. In my opinion, New Years is always a let down but this year, I actually had more fun that I remember having most New Years. Champagne at midnight, great music, a bunch of strangers and new friends. It was pretty great.

Moral of the Story - Christmas is about surrounding yourself with your family the people you love. When that's not possible, the next best thing is to get yourself a sweet Canadian family around and a hostel full of drunk backpackers. Just make sure you show up for work on time New Years Day......