One last hoorah 19/9/06

So, with Scott's departure soon and our overhungness out of the way it was time for one last hoorah at the local. Pool, pints and button pushing were the order of the day.

Gem's 30th!!! 17/9/06

With the festivities of the night behind us, we celebrated Gem's 30th in style...bacon and eggs, then a curry, broken up by lots and lots of balloons!

Yay! Friends arrive! 16/9/06

With Gem's 30th looming like a large pink powder puff on the horizon, we were joined by our three determined friends who decided to make the (epic) journey to our little village. Thanks again Scotty, Claire and Gee (who made the most epic journey of all!), you guys made the weekend really spechh!
So what better way to start the weekend of birthday celebrations than some pims in the front yard followed by a crawl through the local establishments.

A Big Hello to Everyone!

Hello everyone, just wanted to let you know that we haven't dropped off the face of the planet after all... Have just been in a small country town with limited internet access. Finally managed to update the blogspot (sorry its been just under 3 months), so there's a lot to catch up on. Our last entry was mid june when we moved out of London, so there is a lot of catching up to do. (Might as well pop on the kettle if you're planning to read it all!) Just scroll down until you get to "Edinburgh 20/6/06" and work your way up. Also realised that as the website grows some of the old entries disappear. If you wanted to see them click on Archives - March 2006 at the very bottom of the page.
Meanwhile to those of you we haven't spoken to in a while... we're still happy and healthy and having fun. Sorry we're so slack at staying in touch. Miss everyone lots, and hopefully won't leave it so long until we touch base again.
Love Sara and Gem

Giant's Causeway 7/9/06

Went to the Giant's causeway, luckily it was the first day of real sunshine we'd had in about a month, so it was just briliant being out in it! The causeway is made of a whole bunch of hexagonal stone shafts which were formed by lava which had cooled into patterns much akin to dried up mud in the bottom of a dam. As the earth then moved it pushed each individual column up out of the ground and as they came up at differnt times etc it gives the impression of stairs. The other hypothesis is that a giant called Finn McCool made them. Hmmm... Anyway, we walked down into this valley of really cool stone structures, then had to basically walk up the hill out of there. That wasn't the most fun we'd had all day, but the views were awesome.

Rope bridge 7/9/06

So flags behind us we spent the second day of our mini road trips going to a scary rope bridge right at the top of Ireland. Gem was a bit more confident than me at crossing it (I was amused that I got to spend £2.50 for the pleasure of being scared out of my wits!) as I am just a wee bit scared of heights. But with another phobia on it's way to being crossed off the list (flying by air has kind of gotten beat out of me now :) it was back onto the road to our last touristy place, the giant's causeway.

Northern Ireland and it's Flags

One thing you notice driving around Northern Ireland, are the flags! There must be more Union Jacks here than in the whole of England. Some towns are so crazy, they paint their curbs and electricity poles red, white and blue. Haven't spent much time in Belfast, but heard that in some parts, people actually paint their houses in the union jack colours. People don't really talk about it here, and kind of clam up when you ask about the flags and the whole unionist/republican thing. But it seems so obvious as you drive through these towns that their message is clear... We are Protestant unionists and if you're not of a like mind, then you're not welcome! Not so common is the Republic of Ireland flag (orange, white and green) which people hang outside their houses, which I guess means they are catholic republicans. Saw a few more of these in Southern Ireland. I thought flying a flag to be a proud and peaceful gesture, but here it is done in such blatent abundancy, that it just highlights the nation's tensions, which would otherwise be simmering below the surface. It seems that for a nation with such a history of conflict, the flags are definately not a way of showing peaceful intentions toward one another, but instead are used to piss each other off.

Janus Stone 6/9/06

Our second stop on the day trip was to the caldragh graveyard to see the Janus stone, which according to the lonely planet guide is around 2000 years old. It's in the middle of a cow paddock, you just walk through a little gate and you're in a 2000 year old graveyard, mouldy, crumbling tombstones and all.

Marble Arch Caves 6/9/06

With Gem having a couple of days off, and my job finishing up, we finally had a few days together for some fun stuff. So we hired a car and set out on a couple of day trips through northern ireland with our first stop being the marbel arch caves. It was beautiful and very cold down there!

End of our trip to Dublin

What's a better way to finish off the day in 'ol Dublin town than in a cozy bar with a real guinness. Ok, I'm not a huge guninness fan to begin with, but it did taste better there! But we still think it tastes like normal beer with vegemite in it...That's about as traditional as we could get with the local fare though as we decided against the usual combination of a pint of guinness with fresh oysters. I was happy to hear that those two parts of the delicacy were given separately as opposed to one large glass of smelly vegemite beer.

Dublin 2/9/06

Went on a day trip to Dublin to see some of the sights. Found our way around to the Dublin university then to the natural history museum. This museum was a taxydermists dream where there seemed to be every creater know to humans, stuffed and mounted in threatening poses. From there we went onto the archealogical museum where we got to see some bog-men, literally people who were fished out of bogs! Cool! And from there we wandered into the really touristy area called Temple Bar. We found the temple bar in temple bar so rounded the day off with the obligatory real Irish guinness!

All creatures great and small

Thought I'd include some random photos of some furry little friends we've made along the way.

The inside attractions of Enniskillen...

To those of you who know us best it may come as some surprise that we've seen the inside of quite a few pubs by this stage. I know, shock-horror! But considering how small the town is, there are a surprisingly large number of watering holes, each with their own atmosphere and crazy locals. It's become the ideal hobby for us, that we can both agree on :)

Out and about in Enniskillen

As Gem's said, Enniskillen is maded up of three (yep count them, 3) main streets. This suits Gem just dandy as she thinks she can't get lost here (although I'm still in doubt!). We've got the main street, which is pictured above, a little church, a castle (which we havn't actually taken a photo of yet) and some nice loughs with pretty swans in it. I guess the little town is growing on me (for all of those who got my early email likening Enniskillen to a scene from Deliverance, it has gotten better!) and on the plus side it is really quick to walk to the shops! And to the pubs...