Le fheile Phadraig gan dabht

This year, I'm going to see just how Brisbane celebrates the day of the Oirish. Plan is for a breakfast in the Irish club in the morning, maybe hang around for the freaks in the parade for a half an hour. Then home for a while to pile all the cr&p in our yard into the skip and then out for a couple of hard earned Guinness in some Irish bar in the city. Thats the plan anyway, and I've even managed to recruit a couple of heads from work to join the festivities so I shall report back on the relative success of the mission in the next update. Its a long time now, but I still retain fond memories of the best Paddy's day I've ever had. Sydney with the boyezz back in 2000. Pedro, Nolo, Breno, Dayo. All bedecked in black. On fire we were back then.

We now have a front door in the place where its meant to be, and where it will stay. The renovations have come along quite quickly over the past week. We have walls. We have stairs. We have most of the wiring complete. I believe we will have ceilings shortly. Getting there. Pictures tell the story.

Spent last weekend down in Sydney, staying in Quay Grand on circular quay (not messing with muck here) - mind you that was purely thanks to the fact that Barb came down with us as she was looking at some interior design places that only had outlets in Sydney. So we crashed in her private suite. With Aibhe. In the master bedroom. Aibhe seemed to have some serious craic over the weekend, doing the hotel lift run as regularly as we could manage.... up and down, up and down (rather fascinated she was with this little moving mirrored room), running around the steps of the Opera house yacking her head off as the tourists watched her flying by, chasing the multitude of seagulls on the banks of one of the most spectacular scenes in the world and quite importantly - sleeping quite well. That said, the hour and a half trip on the plane with her was.....interesting. Absolutely NO IDEA how one would manage the long trip home with a child of Aibhe's age and current desire for mobility. Nightmare. Drugs perhaps?

While there I spent a bit of time with Murt of Malahide - great to catch up with a face from the old sod - and we even met his folks (over for a month and left to head home on Monday I think) and Shelley and little Molly the next day. Am sure the kids will see plenty of each other in the future. To cap it all we attended an engagement party on Saturday evening (the primary purpose behind our visit). On Circular Quay staring out at the Opera house and the coathangar (the Harbour bridge which this weekend celebrates its 75th year). Not a bad party location.

Slan agus Slainte.