Ahoy Mateys!

We're in the middle of a whole IT regeneration at work - and guess who is in charge? It absolutely sucks as there's lots of changes happening in the network and on the computers and of course you know who the go-to girl is when something doesn't work. I now officially hate computers, IT, “migrations” and networks. The only thing I love is techies that can fix my problems. Thankfully we have those. Love to Alan, Alan, Mark, and Niall, but particularly Alan Neville, who has been our main techie and general computer genius, apart from speaking quite good Spanish!

Anyway I don't want to talk about that here - I have enough thinking about it at work. Thankfully the week finished early on Friday afternoon when Bridget and I hopped in Gary's car and made our way down to Portumna to pick up our boat for the weekend! Hello sailor! The drive down was fairly long but enjoyable - the sunshine was brilliant and it always feels great to not be at work when you should be! On top of that on the way down Caroline from Concern (Ireland's biggest aid agency) rang Gary to say we'd won the project with them, which created lots of excitement in the car as it was a project Gary really wanted, and is really interested in doing. It was great ringing Una and Conor who had worked with Gary on the proposal, and also Roddy who was in France but was really happy for Gary. Everyone was ecstatic especially as earlier in the week we'd also won a big project with Davy, a wealth management company, which Gary had almost literally sweated blood to get. It certainly created a good reason to celebrate over the weekend!

When we got to the boat I was surprised as it was smaller than I thought it would be, but that proved to be only at first glance. There were four bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and three bathrooms on board, plus a sundeck (yay!). Michael, Una and John had bought mountains (and I mean mountains) of food on the way up so we started nibbling straight away - wine, cheese and crackers on the sundeck. I could get used to a life like that. We were still moored so I went for a quick swim in the Shannon, as I really wanted to swim and knowing Irish weather it may have been my first and last opportunity. The water was fresh but not cold. If it wasn't so slimy and green/brown it would have been quite pleasant. Then into the boat for our first bit of actual cruising. The boat didn't go very fast but Una and I both had our “Titanic” moments - standing at the prow of the ship with our arms outstretched. I must admit that I never saw the attraction in boating - why rich people would go out and buy a yacht was completely beyond me. I found out that this mindframe was a direct result of my never actually having been on a boat in my life (other than the odd ferry or two) since boating is actually great fun if you can put up with the cramped conditions.

After about half an hour of cruising we stopped at Terryglass for a pint and ended up staying and eating dinner there at the Derg Inn. Dinner was delicious and fun, and we went back to the boat for a round of Trivial Pursuit. I was looking forward to it all night as it's my favourite board game in the world. We split up into two teams - Gary John and I against Una, Michael and Bridget. At the first roll of the die I felt a slight rise in tension in the cabin, but shrugged it off as pre-Trivial Pursuit jitters (sometimes the excitement of Trivial Pursuit becomes a little too much for me). That rise in tension turned out to be only a precursor to what was to come.

Board games, while fun, are inherently competitive. So are some people. I, myself, sometimes surrender to the rage, despair and adrenaline of the lust for winning. Ask anyone that's ever played Pictionary with me - that game turns me into a wild beast beyond reason or even the capacity for cognition. And in a similar manner, aided and abetted by several glasses of wine, it didn't take long for my colleagues to turn over to the Dark Side. Pretty soon the air was thick with insults, accusations, and indignation. People who I have witnessed have reasoned and intelligent conversations on anything from politics and religion to whether or not broccoli is a natural or man-made vegetable and whether or not peanuts come from the ground (I swear) were reduced to this:

“We won that wedgie fair and square”
“You did not.”
“Give us the wedgie!”
“No!”
“Give us the wedgie...now!”
“NO! That's not fair!” *big pout*
“Is too. Now I'm taking the wedgie, and that's that.”

Oh dear.

We managed to finish the game without anyone mysteriously “falling” overboard, and went to bed exhausted.

Next morning an enormous breakfast courtesy of Michael (the new Jamie Oliver) and more sailing. Una decided she was going to go for a run, and while she only wanted to do about five miles, she ended up doing about double that. While she ran we boated up the river and met her at our next mooring. The dock was one of those that float in the middle of the river, so when Una finally showed up, Michael went to pick her up from the shore in the angling dinghy. Unfortunately Una's knight in shining armour turned out more a court jester as as Una was alighting the dinghy to get onto the boat, he manoeuvred the dinghy in such a way as to make poor Una fall headlong into the Shannon. Oops. Una took it well though, and it provided much humour value for the rest of us. Thanks Una.

We boated all day, and Mark, whos family lives in Killaloe and has his own speedboat came to meet us for a bit. He took us for a spin in his boat (totally fun) and we met his girlfriend Jean (who we all agreed looks scarily like Cameron Diaz - perhaps she should try out to be Cameron's stunt double?).

That night we went to a restaurant called “Gooser's”, which, although it has a completely stupid name, also features delicious seafood. I had crab salad and some other fish thing with mustard sauce, yummy. The portions were enormous and I was completely full afterwards and so relished the walk home in the balmy air. We got back to the boat and played cards for a while, thankfully this turned out to be rather more good-natured than the Trivial Pursuit for some reason! Surprisingly I turned out to be rather good at the game we played (beginner's luck maybe?) as I'm usually a disaster at cards.

Next morning I felt not so great, so I spent the best part of the day sleeping. In my bed, on the deck, on the prow, in Gary's car on the way home, wherever I was, I was asleep. It's not like we did all that much over the weekend to tire me out, but I just wasn't feeling well. Pity though as it was a beautiful day (we were really lucky with the weather). It was sad having to go home, but every experience has an expiry date unfortunately - and we do have to go back to work eventually and earn a living! Fortunately Una got lots of good material out of the trip to help her recommendations to Failte Ireland, so the trip actually served some useful purpose other than just a fun weekend away.

I got back home exhausted, so I pretty much just went to bed without unpacking. I had nothing ready for work the next day, but when am I ever organised? It's weird, I'm so organised at work but my private life is a complete mess. It's like I have a specific organization quota that I can use, and I use it all up at work and don't have any left over for my life. But what's life without a little chaos, right?