Dreaming of a White Christmas?

Well, no need for dreaming this year, cause we've well and truly got a White Christmas. Though it might not actually snow on the 25th, we've got enough of the white stuff lying around to get the idea.

So Merry Christmas to all our family, friends and fellow bloggers, who still take the time to read our ever more slowly updated posts. Hope you enjoy these pics of us playing about in the recent snow...


Snow!!!


Making the snowman... some more productive than others.


Proud snowman makers. We were going to call him Frosty (which is the tradition at our place), but once we added the "See Yoo Jemmy" hat from Scotland, we changed our minds and called him Jimmy.


Jimmy's starting to lose his hair in the cold.


Lucy wasn't exactly thrilled with her makeshift sledge.


Luckily the girls down the street lent us theirs, and it was smiles all round.


Freezee Keezee


Chilly ducks on the canal


The canal is a good place for photos when its snowing - not so good for long boats, though.


See what we mean?



Our designated snow driver on the school run.


And here's Lucy all done up for her Nativity play - her class represented Spain.

And for your listening pleasure... Caiti's class song from the school Nativity play...


And finally, a quick Merry Christmas from Class 3B.

Ireland - Cliffs of Moher

Sorting through these Ireland photos is tough work.... geez we took a lot. So here's a quick peek at our fly-by visit to the Cliffs of Moher.

Without going into unnecessary details, Keezee (and his sat-nav) missed the turn off on the way out of Galway and got us hopelessly lost as we criss-crossed our way across the narrow County Clare back roads. We ended up arriving about 3 hours behind schedule, and still had to get onto Killarney, where we were booked for the night, so it ended up being a bit of a quick visit. We still took time to enjoy the view on what was quite a nice afternoon. We did make it to Killarney eventually, thanks to the Irish summer twilight which just seems to go on forever.


It's a walk up the cliffs, and there's a tower at the top - presumably for those who wish to take in the view from a bit higher up??


This is the most dangerous bit, where fence is a touch rickety, so we have to keep a good hold on Caiti.


Looking back south over the surfie town of Lahinch / Lehinch (seems like you can spell it both ways)


Lucy (like her mum) loves the tourist gift shops, and here she is showing off her Irish doll (whose name we've forgotten) and her "I ♥ Ireland" hoodie.


The view

Ireland - Leitrim (and beyond)

So continuing on now with more inventively named blog posts, we continue our journey across Ireland, as we head North by Northwest to the wonderful county of Leitrim. Leitrim is a lovely, lush place with rivers and lakes everywhere you look.

We stayed in the "cruisey" town of Carrick-on-Shannon, in a wonderful apartment complex right by Ireland's longest river. It proved to be a great base, with lots to see nearby; the beaches of Sligo and Mayo (love those names) were not far off; and even Northern Ireland is only a short drive away, for when we felt the need to save on foreign exchange charges.

In the end, the girls didn't want to leave, but in Ireland there's so much to see, and (in our case) so little time to see it. But for now anyway, please enjoy these pics...


Here's the girls hamming it up in front of the Carrick Bridge, which has historically been a strategic crossing point of the River Shannon - it still is.



The kids were fascinated by this beautiful statue in the town park by the banks of the Shannon. We explained to them that the message was "respect your elders", but somehow they didn't seem to understand.


This is the historic Parkes Castle, which lies on the shores of Lough Gill.


One of Leitrim's loveliest nature spots is Glencar (which translates to "valley of the car") and the famous Glencar Falls.


Our hostess welcomed us to Glencar Falls... a short walk up the path.


It did in fact rain as we walked up to the Falls. Luckily, Lucy was fully prepared.


There's the Falls at the back there.


This is Monea Castle in Northern Ireland. It's a very cool place, just sitting there on its own in the countryside amongst the cows.


For the record, Monea Castle has no toilet.
Lucy's gonna kill me for mentioning that.


This is the very pretty town of Westport in County Mayo. Caiti loves mayo, and, as a result, she loves County Mayo.
Seriously - ask her if she liked Ireland and the first thing she'll tell you is that there's a place called Mayo!

Ireland - Dublin

We really need to think of some more creative titles for our blog posts. We were going to go with "The Emerald Isle - Dublin" but that's a bit too obvious.... then there was "40 Shades of Green and 40 billion euros of public debt - Dublin" but that's a bit too topical, so we decided to keep it simple. Anyway, as you no doubt have guessed, here's some pics from our summer visit to Éire, and in particular Dublin, where we stayed on arrival before heading off to greener and quieter climes.

Apparently it always rains in Ireland, but Keezee seems to have had a bit of luck on his previous visits (the luck of the Irish perhaps) because he's, on the main, avoided much in the way of precipitation. His good luck continued this time, and we hope you enjoy our pics from a sunny Sunday morning walk along the Liffey (plus a few more from our Saturday afternoon sail across the Irish Sea).


Not exactly Ireland, but this little green patch is Holyhead in Wales, where we ate our McDonalds after a long drive, and looked out at our ferry in the distance which would take us over the sea.


Our aforementioned ferry. Bigger than a Sydney Harbour ferry, granted.


On approach to Dublin, and the girls are still smiling in their new sailor hats.


Keezee still smiling too, with the shores of Killiney in the background.
Our mate Roger, has a good story about an American who got a taxi in Dublin and asked the driver to take him to Killarney, instead of Killiney....


Dublin's changed in recent years. We don't remember the Samuel Beckett Bridge shown here, or the nearby James Joyce Bridge, or the Sean O'Casey Bridge (where's the Dave Allen Bridge???) or any of those swanky banking buildings from our visits in the 90's.


This statue's new too, but we remember Custom's House in the background there.


As above.


New bikes as well (with the old Customs House).


Ah, O'Connell Street, we remember that.


And that's the Ha'penny Bridge in the background. We remember that one as well. The toll on this bridge was quite reasonable, from memory.



And finally we have the tiny, but fabulous, Palace Bar in the Temple Bar precinct. Keezee remembers going in here back in the 90's, for a few pints of Guinness. Strangely, he can't remember coming out again.

More Portugal

Oops.. we're back. We still have a few photos from Portugal to share before we get onto some more good stuff, which is also not in England. So without further ado...


Here's Caiti at what used to be the end of the world... Capo St Vincent on the S/W tip of Europe



The fort and the cliffs at Sagres... there's surf here and there's a beer named after this place as well - Wow!


The pool



Here we are at the waterpark


Sliders


Splashdown


Here's the girls feeling a bit hot in the town square on the hillside town of Silves, a few miles inland from the Algarve coast. It was spectacular, but a bit hot.


Luckily, you're never too far away from an air-conditioned gift shop


Big scary bloke... standing in front of a statue.


The castle walls at Silves... nice views


The Castle from down in the town


The streets of Faro


And here we are at the marina in Faro... almost ready to get on our flight and head home