Happy New Year 2009

Well, I'm back. It was fun having a break from swording, visiting relatives and friends over the Christmas holidays. It's been almost a month since the last entry. Either I've just been too lazy or don't have much to write outside the remit of sword related material. In either case, that's a bit pathetic. So, another new year's resolution for my list, blog more!

L and I spent a few very relaxing days in eastern Finland. We got the chance to go skiing, which was a lot of fun but I'm not so fit and was well out of practice. Not surprisingly, both L and her Dad were much more comfortable with skiis on. I found that I was concentrating so hard on not falling over and keeping my skiis moving properly that I didn't really have much time for admiring the scenery, except when we stopped for a breather. Still, I'm looking forward to spending some time with L's family in Lapland later this spring. Once you get used to the motion of cross-country skiing you can relax a lot more and only have to worry about staying upright going down hills and (my least fave aspect) around bends.

I flew to Ireland on the 28th of December by myself; Lea had some night shifts at work and followed on New Year's Eve. Ryanair lived up to its usual "cheap & cheerful" reputation and did that stupid fanfare on the PA when we landed informing us that we were on time in Dublin. People actually aplauded! Doh! My biggest peeve though was that to fly on the 28th cost me nearly 400 quid, but was 100 euros cheaper the following day. You pay all that extra dosh and the service is still exactly the same. I wanted to get home because my sister and her husband (and his brother) were over from England and were due to leave on the 30th so it was worth every cent. It's only money after all.

Most of the holiday in Ireland was spent at my mum's house drinking tea all the day, sitting around chatting, eating and sleeping. Some evenings we went to the restaurant, the cinema and to my brother's place. We spent New Year's Eve at home singing songs and drinking. It was a lot of fun especially as my brother and his girlfriend played music. Which was nice. One memorable day was spent driving around west Clare, where we visited Lahinch and Doolin. It was one of those really sunny days with blue skies and was quite cold. The air was very clear allowing excellent views of the Aran Islands, particularly Inis Oirr (Craggy Island, for Father Ted fans). My brother kindly drove us around the place and even up to Galway the following day.

It was quite a wrench to leave home this time around. I really should go home more often. Then again the clan is coming over for our wedding party in April, which should be a lot of fun. I've been back now a week and slowly getting back into some sort of routine. This is a bit difficult as I'm out of work so the temptation is to just stay in bed and sleep the day away. Instead I come in to uni and well, faff on the computer all day, doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Thankfully the sword training has begun so I get some exercise, which lifts my mood a lot.

Some good news. I got offered a job, starting in April. I still have to finalise the details but it means that with another job lined up later in the summer I may well have most of 2009 in gainful employment. Yaaay! The first gift of the year.