Easter, hospital, Cork, alcohol and Dingle!

16-4 t/m 30-4

Easter Sunday! I was invited to spend it with the fam at Katie’s parents house. We left the house around 11. Her parents live in Buttevant, which is about 10-15 min drive. I met Katie’s parents before, they are very nice. I was in the house for about 5 min and I already got offered some wine haha. Gotta love the Irish hospitality! We went for an Easter hunt first. Katie’s dad, John, set one out for the kids. We walked to the castle, which is about 5 min and the kids started with their maps. Lisa and Gavin’s kids, Micheal and Sam, were there too. It was very exciting and stressful for the kids haha. Everyone had to get a turn and eggs were claimed very fast. One egg was lost, so we had to get John’s help for that one. When we got back to the house, the kids were hungry for chocolate. After a quick lunch for them, they were happy out with some chocolate and the TV. The adults, which were Katie, Sarah and Lisa (Katie’s sisters), Gavin (Lisa’s husband), Katie’s parents, Kevin’s parents and Margaret’s brother (Margaret is Katie’s mother). So it was a nice bunch! We had a lovely dinner, which made me feel like a stuffed turkey. A little after dinner we went to a playground not far from the house, to get the kids out of the house and run off some of that chocolate high energy! We had some more dinner, some dessert, good chats and great laughs. Around 8 I got a ride home from Lisa and spend the evening watching some TV. Kevin was working and Katie spent the night at her parents’ house with the kids.

I was off on Monday, because it was Easter Monday. I slept in a bit and basically chilled the whole day. I went to Costa in the afternoon.

Tuesday I was working normal hours. I had the boys and Fiadh sometimes. The day flew by, nothing really special.
On Wednesday I didn’t start until 2, because Katie took the kids to Doneraile Park. This day went by fast as well. I went to Alberts in the evening. And it’s not what it was when I first came here. Only Laurel and Lara were there haha. We had a nice chat though!
Thursday morning I took the kids to the playground, near the bus stop. I didn’t have Fiadh, so that made it a little easier haha. I met Barbara there with her kids. We spent about 1,5 there and made our way back. In the afternoon the kids played in the back yard for most of the time. In the evening I was working on my binging Shameless. Day gone haha.
Friday started with a training session. After the gym and a shower, Katie offered to go to Doneraile Park. I had never been there, so we all went. Before taking off to the park, Katie had to get some petrol. When she went out to pay, she asked me if I wanted a coffee. Uhmm.. YES! She’s so nice! She got me a cappuccino. After this pit stop, we went to Doneraile Park. It’s a huge park! There is a playground, tea rooms, a little maze and just beautiful walks. We couldn’t go to the playground unfortunately, because Conaill had chicken pox. He wasn’t really sick luckily, so we just went on a walk and the kids ran around. I was pushing Fiadh, so Katie had the task to make sure Iarlaith wasn’t running off haha. We stopped for lunch at the tearooms. Again.. I didn’t have to pay for a thing :O. We had a little walk through the park and went home around 2. The rest of the day flew by! I didn’t really do anything special in the evening.

Weekend again! On Saturday I went to Cork with Laurel and Patrice. We took the bus at 11.40. We did some shopping, had Starbucks of course and went to Nando’s for lunch. We all went to Oliver Plunkett for a drink later. Patrice wasn’t staying in Cork, so she went home after that. Laurel and I went to Wagamama for dinner and got ready for a night out after. We started at Electric, where I got the 2 cocktails for €12 (one was €9, so I had to haha). The rest of the evening we stayed at An Brog. It was a great night! We got home around 3.30, after a pit stop at McDonalds of course.

I want to say I woke up feeling fine, which is true for about 5 min. I had a hangover and it was kicking my ass. Hadn’t felt like that in a longgggggggggggggg time! So after a quiet time in Starbucks with a tea (yes so bad I couldn’t even drink coffee!!) we made our way to Cohb. We were visiting Spike Island. The island has been host to a 6th century monastery, a 24 acre fortress and the largest convict depot in the world in Victorian times and centuries of island homes. Now you can visit the 200 year old Fort Mitchel, the star shaped Fortress which became a prison holding over 2300 prisoners. You have to take a ferry to get there. We didn’t do the guided tour, so we walked around on our own. It was pretty cool to see, but the timing wasn’t the best haha. We were both tired from not sleeping a lot, my hangover wasn’t gone yet and it cost €18 to get to the island. In hindsight we should have gone on Saturday haha and it would have been a lot better! We made our way back to Cork and ran for the bus to Mallow. We got home around 6.30PM. It was a gooooood weekend!!

On Monday I only had to work when Katie and Kevin went to the gym, which is from about 4 to 6.30. I went downtown in the morning and met Katie and the kids at Costa. Another example that they are just lovely: Katie paid for my stuff at Costa. When Katie got home with the kids, she had to take Iarlaith to the doctor. This turned into the hospital, because they thought he had pneumonia. I had Fiadh, Conaill and Naoise. I put the kids to bed as well, because Kevin and Katie were in the hospital. Kevin offered to get his parents to come down, but I said that wasn’t necessary. I could put them to bed, no problem! Katie got home around 11. All the kids were sleeping! I felt so proud haha.

On Tuesday I started at 8.30, so Katie could go to the hospital early. I took Fiadh and Conaill to do some grocery shopping. With just two it’s very easy haha. Conaill was such a great helper in the store. The rest of the day went by pretty fast! Katie was home around 6.30.

Wednesday I started at 9, again so Katie could go to the hospital. I had some more shopping to do, so I went to Lidl again. And again it was a piece of cake. Fiadh was asleep the whole time and Conaill gave me a hand pushing the basket in the store. Iarlaith was discharged from the hospital luckily, so he was coming home later. Naoise had a party at 3, so Kevin came home to collect him. The only constant child-wise was Fiadh haha. In the evening I didn’t do much, just watched Shameless haha.

Thursday and Friday went by as normal. Nothing really special, except for the scones Katie baked on Friday special for me! They were delicious! I got the recipe and will try to make them at home haha.

On Saturday I went to Cork with Patrice. I FINALLY found a suitcase had the requirements haha. We also made a stop at Starbucks and went into some other stores. We took the bus back around 2.30 and went into some shops back in Mallow. In the evening we met Laurel at Bella’s for some dinner. It was lovely! After some food and wine we decided to go to Ocana’s for the night. We met Katie there, who was out with some friends and Lisa for Lisa’s 40th birthday. The band played mostly old songs, like 80’s-90’s. It was great fun! We got home around 1.30AM.

Sunday was tourtime again! Kevin dropped Laurel and me into Cork around 7.30. The tour left at 8.20. We were lucky that Kevin had the time to do this, because there was no other way for us to get to Cork. Because of the bankholiday on Monday, all the hostels, airbnb’s and even hotels were booked. So we couldn’t spend the night. All the busses and trains left around 8 or after, so we wouldn’t have been there in time. We left with a lot of rain. The forecast for the day was showers, showers, and oh yeah showers. Still Laurel and I were hopeful, because the weather changes here so fast! And we were right!! We had lovely weather all day! SUN! The tour stopped in Killarney first. This stop was a little unnecessary, because all the shops were closed. So we went for a coffee.. well.. I had tea. And I ordered a lovely carrot cake cupcake. Laurel ordered before me, so she was already going on about how lovely it was! 5 min later.. the barista comes over and tells me there were no more carrot cake cupcakes. When I ordered there sure was! What happened? Someone from another table went back after I ordered and got the cupcake. Ridiculous! Biatch stole my cupcake! I had to get a red velvet one and it was not even that good. Yeah.. So after Killarney we were on our way to Dingle. We stopped at some lovely views and a beach called Inch beach. When we got to Dingle, the driver drove through.. without stopping.. Laurel and I were like ‘isn’t this our destination??’. We were doing Slea Head Drive first, which is part of the Wild Atlantic Way. Very pretty! And again we were so lucky with the weather. It was just windy, which made taking pictures a little hard sometimes haha. When we got to Dingle, we had about 1,5 hours. We walked around for a bit, grabbed a coffee and had ice cream at Murphy’s. It’s a famous ice cream place in Ireland. They have flavors like ‘Silky smooth chocolate’, ‘caramel honeycomb’, ‘dingle sea salt’, ‘blissful butterscotch’, ‘irish coffee’ and ‘caramelised brown bread’. I went safe and got chocolate haha. It was very expensive though! It was €4,50 for 2 small scoops. Delicious though! After the stop in Dingle, we made our way back to Cork. We got there around 6 and were in time to get the 6.25 bus back to Mallow. I got some food at Soos on the way back home. It was a goooood day! I can talk to Laurel about everything, which makes the day go by fast and feel effortless ! I watched Guardians of the Galaxy in the evening! Good way to end the day!

Thanks again for reading it :)! Greatly appreciate it!

XO