Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

It being the bank holiday weekend and a fantastic warm and sunny day (rare in Ireland) we decided to go down to the National Stud and Japanese Gardens in Kildare. They are well worth a visit. Apparently they are the best Japanese Gardens in Europe – Having never seen a formal Japanese garden I cannot verify that claim, however we really enjoyed the gardens and the Stud (Nice if you like racehorses).

Here are some photo’s we took on the day.

More photos are available here.

Today I lost my wallet. Don’t know exactly where, but it is was somewhere between paying for Petrol at Donabate Garage and the Aldi store in Coolock; and I am royally angry – mostly at myself. I remember paying for petrol from the wallet; I remember being in the store in Aldi and thinking “where is my wallet” and being horrified that it wasn’t in my pocket. The real fustrating thing is that it wasn’t in the car either!!! so I either dropped it when getting into the car at the petrol station, getting out of the car at the Aldi shop – or I was pick-pocketed in the Aldi shop when I got there. In any event I have lost the wallet which contained 150 euro, my credit and ATM card, my Library card, my Automobile Association card and a nice picture of my daughter. I don’t really mind loosing the money, its the inconvience of it all and the thought “where the bloody hell did I loose the wallet”.

Naturally neither the Store or the petrol station had the wallet, so its down to the luck of the draw and some one handing it in with at the local police station – not that I am going to hold my breath at that likely hood. Anyway within 90 minutes I had cancelled my ATM and Credit cards, and I don’t keep my PIN numbers in the wallet (just my head) and my driving license in the wallet either; I am not too sure if Automobile Association card had my address on it – which would have been useful for “Identity Theft” reasons. But why does it take 14 working days to get a new card to me? And why do I feel so dumb. Such is life I suppose. It’s not that I havn’t lost my wallet before (twice to my memory), but everything is based around those little bloody pieces of plastic.

Maybe I will finally get an ATM/Laser card that will work in all shops – that will be something worth waiting for.

I was down grocery shopping at my local mega-store “Tesco’s” yesterday where I came across a very odd sight in the “Cheese” and “Yougurt” section… There was a middle age lady, shopping basket half-full flurtively looking around to make sure she was not being watched and then using a Digital Camera to photograph a shelve of Yogurt; she then repeated this in the cheese section and other places. Very Very Odd I thought. It is amazing what some people do for a hobby. You can just imagine the lady showing her extensive collection of snap-shots to her close friends (well you would not want anyone you work with seeing them otherwise they would consider you a candidate for the local psychiatric hospital) and say “here is a strawberry surprise collectors edition yogurt I photographed at Tesco’s in Dublin last September – lovely carton isn’t it”.

The world is a strange, strange place – would be rather dull if we were all the same.

I – NO we have been eagerly awaiting three months, for reasons which will become obvious when we say that we are having a baby!!!!

The Baby is due (please God) around January 8th 2008. We had to wait for 3 months since the first trimenster is when you are in danger of loosing the baby, and then we had to tell all the nearest and dearest. We went to the Hollis street hospital last week for the first ultasound scan – and what a thrill. We could see a little head, arms and legs waving around and the heart even beating!!!! Fantastic. We were so excited we forgot to ask for a photo of the little – un.

I still have not gotten my head around the fact I am going to be a first-time-dad at 43!!!! Wow.

Life is fantastic Still cannot stop grinning.

Well the election has come and gone, and we have still no government. Fianna Fail got the most votes – Ireland is virtually a one party state, but the party is “mostly harmless” due to the lack of imagination, drive, will and passion for the people that Irish politicians have. So we will get the same-o middle of the road chaotic crap we have had for the last 80 years or so. For a country founded by revolutionary zeal, there has been a pronounced lack or revolution in the political mind and process. There is little difference between the government before independence and that afterwards!!!

The only interesting thing from the election is the Progressive Democrats (PD’s) were absolutely hammered at the poll’s down to a miserly two members of Dail. The best news being the much-despised Micheal McDowell, PD leader, Minister for mis-Justice loosing his seat and bowing out of politics. One of the PD’s was whining about “not getting any electoral credit for taking the portfolio’s of Health and Justice” – excuse me!!! you only get credit if you a good job, not for being a disaster!!! Micheal McDowell has been particularly bad in that we have gone from one crisis to another. If it’s not the release of paedophiles for being imprisoned illegally due to badly drafted legislation it is some other badly thought out policy or law.

So who is Bertie going to sleep with to form the next government? its it the Green’s? the PD’s or even Labour? I’ll keep you posted.