unironedman

IN WHICH WE BID FAREWELL TO OUR OLD BUT RATHER EXPENSIVE ‘LEISURE CENTRE’, WATCH QUITE A LOT OF FOOTBALL, AND KEEP THE MILES TICKING OVER…

We welcome a new blender into the house. In a recent post, we lamented the loss of our much beloved and reasonably well-used smoothie-maker. I say lament, and no; one cannot really lament such a loss (though I recall Will Smith was fairly miffed about his blender in Enemy of the State). We’ll see how it goes. So far, so good.

The World Cup is on right now, and for the record, I would just like to say the teams I picked in the station pool are pants. Okay, apologies out there all of you lovely Uruguayans, Peruvians and Australians. I am sure you are cheering on your respective teams. So am I, as it happens, but to no avail. I don’t think I’ve picked a winner there. But it does mean we get to hear that rather excellent line from partners and wives that comes around every four years: “What do you mean there’s MORE football on? You just watched a match…”

The uncommonly fine weather (for Ireland, anyway) has temporarily left us, but it was lovely while it lasted. It gave us lots of hours to get out into the garden, and no excuses not to do some much needed work out there too.

Hoverfly love

Grass

flag Iris

Frog

The Hoverflies and frog above, plus the Flag Iris flowers, are all from around our pond, which received some much-needed TLC. The grass is up at the Leixlip Castle demesne, and it’s on the way to a spot where I like to have a little dip in the local lake.

While I’m here, if you like your footie, and also appreciate some quirky humour and excellent artwork, then you should really check out this blog. There is a follow-up post to this one, and it’s equally wonderful.

And so, running continues. The stats show about 115k in June already, and that’s a reasonable amount to have clocked up. As the dust settles on the Barrow Run, we salute a fellow traveller, Eamonn McEntee, who knocked out a cracking Marathon along the Stone Mad route. This was a race I considered doing, and it follows a section of the Barrow Way. Something along the lines of three and a half hours. I salute you, sir; that is a great piece of running.

And so, as June peters out, so too does our membership at Carton House. It’s been fun while it lasted, though it is quite expensive, and although the grounds are lovely, the gym facilities are skinny enough, and the pool is quite short, and you can be unlucky sometimes and not get a lane or a decent swim. So we have joined a gym in Maynooth, so we’ll see how that goes. Much wider range of options there, plus two pools. The luxury!

Next up should be the World’s End Triathlon in Limerick, on the Shannon. We’ll see. That’s not ’til August, so before that, there’ll be plenty of running, some cycling and lots of swimming. Then in October, we’re off to the Great Fjord Swim in Killary Harbour out in the west, followed by the Dublin Marathon for myself and Mark.

And if all goes well, I may be able to help out with one of Ireland’s premier sporting spectacles: The Liffey Descent. Our fire service training gives us swift water training experience and qualifications, so I have put my name forward to be part of the on-site safety teams. It will be a long day in a dry suit, helping to pluck fallen paddlers from the water, but it will be great experience. That’s in September.

So, there are a few things on the horizon, and once we hit July, it will be full-on training for the marathon, so no rest for the wicked.

As for Holly. What does Holly know, or care of football? Exactly…

And though I normally sign off with a quiet word from our hairy hound of loveliness, I will leave you with this wonderful meme from S. It’s a gentle hint to stop faffing about in the office, pretending to work while in actual fact, signing up to triathlons, writing blog posts, and watching Poland v Senegal on the computer monitor…