Now, will ye have a cup of tea? oh go on, go on , go on ...etc

Righto, I'm back and ready to write a long, interesting, informative and funny post on this blog. But seeing that has never yet happened I don't see why I should start now, so here is the normal drivel.

The last week in August the family of Mick all traipsed across the sea to Ireland. We stayed in a lovely cottage with the Wifey's parents which wasn't that bad and worked out quite well.

One of Wifey's cousins was having a Christening for their newest family member, Éile (they have a thing for traditional Irish names that don't sound anything like how they're written, this one is pronounced "ayla") so we went along for that which was a great day. The kids had fun on a bouncy castle and Big'un became good friends with his Irish cousin who is similiar in age (they have a mutual interest in Pokemon games)

Little'un and the Baby, bouncing

We visited Bunratty Castle and folk village, which is an attraction we have done to death now and won't be going to again. It is very interesting and well worth a visit.

A dramatic picture of Bunratty, taken with my new Panasonic FZ-8 camera.

We had a lovely time in Ireland, it has been 4 yrs since our last visit but we will be going back next year because Wifeys elder brother is getting married out there.

They grow up so fast!

Well some changes are going to have to be made to the naming convention used here. Big'un had his 9th birthday on the 4th sept and the baby had his 3rd on the 13th. So although "Big'un may be suitable for a nine year old, "the baby" is not for a three year old who has just started pre-school. From now on then my boys will be referred to in chronological order as "number 1 son", "number 2 son" and "number 3 son" (I don't like doing "real names, too many weirdos about).

Breaking-news-flash-update-bulletin-broadcast.

well to say I've been busy would be something of an understatement. So here's a very brief update of events from Chez Bloggocks

No comment :- My (rather unreliable) comments provider, Enetation, went offline for a while and although their website stated that no users would be affected the comment code prevented this blog from loading so I had to remove it. I found that the reason I can't get Bloggers comments to work is due to this being a custom template that I fannied around with a lot so as soon as I can get round to it (don't hold your breath) I'll be changing the template and layout of this blog and ditching Enetation.

Ouch! :- A couple of weeks ago Little'un shut his little finger in a door at school and has lost the nail! Wifey is very squeamish about this. He was very brave and is fine now.

Commutation :- Well I'm sad to say my bike has been sold and now I join the great unwashed hoards on the tube every morning. There will be more on this.

Holy Communion Batman! :- After much preparation, much decorating (including a complete refit of my manky old bathroom), much charging about and a great deal of money spent, Big'un made his first Holy Communion last Saturday. It went really well and I'll give more detail when I can devote a bit of time to it.

Communication breakdown :- I have changed my phone line back to BT from Bulldog (only to take advantage of an offer from Sky Television who insisted I had a BT phone line, not because I wanted BT or that there was anything wrong with Bulldog). So on friday, the day before the Holy Communion malarky, my phone was cut off. After two hours and several frantic mobile calls to BT it was all sorted. I am not a fan of BT and it is not often that I would have a good word to say about them but in this case they were very good and realised that it was an important day coming up and that I needed the phone. Well done BT.

I'll have no internet access at home for a couple weeks which is a pain.

and finally :- We are now the proud owners of a nintendo Wii. Big'un keeps whooping me at Wii sports tennis.