While looking at the UK Government Foreign Office travel advice pages, I was amazed to see that Iraq is not on the "really dont go here" list. I hate to think what Burundi and Somalia are like... I was actually checking up on the latest requirements for entering the US and was pleased to see there should be no problems for Brits until Oct 2005. But they did give this useful piece of advice:

Do not make off-the-cuff or flippant remarks about bombs or terrorism,
especially when passing through US airports.

I'll try to remember that!

Have been confused all day as to what day it is having missed out Tuesday. Fairly good day at work although mostly full of meetings.

Am sat here listening to Saints v Bolton on SaintsTV Online and cant believe how shite they are! Losing 2-0 before half time and sounding awful. And to make it worse some total tosser is interrupting the online commentary feed. How funny I don't think. Given that I have to pay for this I am not amused. As for what is going on at SFC I really don't get it. For those readers who don't know but can be bothered to read, SFC have parted company with their manager after 2 games of the season. The job has been given to one of their coaches who was not considered appropriate for the job 5 months ago, so I don't quite see what he's done to get suitable in the mean time. Since they've not called him "Manager" I can only assume a bigger name Director of Football will come along soon. Rumors are that Houllier has been seen in the area looking at houses... Could be Twoddle but I doubt the fans would accept that. Anyway, whatever Lowe thought he'd achieve by this is looking unlikely to happen given the current state of this game. Although I thought Sturrock was very poorly treated, I'm not sure I'd give Wigley that long to turn things around cause if we get too far behind that will be it.

Have recently got up after doing another (failed) overnighter. S got back safely last night and has made me a bagel and Chi tea which were both very welcome. She is now running round like a mad thing cleaning the place silly... Maybe I should get up and help...

It was a long day yesterday as I was in the office from 8:30am until 6:45pm as I was waiting for S to arrive on the Aircoach. Then I was in the office from 11:30pm until 6am with this upgrade work.

The little gits are testing the apartment block internal fire alarm system. No warnings or anything polite like that and the thing just scared the crap out of us both when it went off. Luckily I was already up and awake and not still sleeping off last night. When S asked if they wouldn't mind warning us before setting off something loud in our apartment they looked at her as if she were an idiot.

Just back from Winchester. Had a lovely weekend helped by a fantastically entertaining game of football on Saturday. I was close with my prediction but it was far more exciting than I expected! It ended Saints 3-2 Blackburn and had everything. Saints went started crap, remembered they could play football after 25 mins, then managed to go a goal up. The rest of the half saw lots of attacking. Everyone happy at half time. Souness must have thrown things in the dressing room as after the break Blackburn remembered they could play football and equalised. It was obvious that our defense was non existent and therefore what would happen next. Sure enough Blackburn obliged by going 2-1 up. Some how this spurred Saints to remember once again that they were there to win and so most pleasingly they didn't give up and fought back well to level 2-2 with a superb goal by Anders Svensson. I was amazed to see people leave with a few mins to go as it could easily have gone either way. Then Andy D'Urso give a massive helping hand by awarding us a penalty - which we had a superb view of. Beatts was undoubtedly challenged but perhaps a penalty was harsh. Still, Beatts took it with good composure and whilst watching was more scary that watching England, he struck it perfectly to win the game 3-2. Although the ref hung on longer than perhaps the heart needed at the end before ending the game.

The rest of the weekend was very nice and relaxing visiting family. Saw all the grandparents and had a lovely Chinese on Grandad's patio on sat evening. Visited Sainsburys and stocked up (large marmite, steak and kidney puddings and a 3litre box of red wine).

Went for a nice walk round Winchester this morning - nice enough weather for shorts. Then to Grandma's after where most relatives popped in to say hello. Again, nice enough to sit in the garden. Very nice to see everyone! Then the flight home. Grandma's garden to sitting in the departure lounge took less than 30 mins. Flight itself took just under an hour but then it took just under 2 hours to get luggage, the right aircoach to depart and then drive back from work.

With that, I am nackered and am going to bed!

S has gone off to Holland to spend the weekend with R (and M) to help discuss weddings. Looks like being around Feb time which will be something to look forward to after Christmas. Not that I really know what a Dutch wedding consists of.

While S is spending some quality girlie time with R, I am off to Hampshire to see family and of course watch the Saints. Given the rather poor show of last week at Villa (and my accurate score prediction) I am going to make sure I put a stop to my accuracy by predicting a Saints win - 2-1. Will be amazed if they can manage it but can but hope.

Worked last night so was not in today. Went to bed at 4:30am and got up at 9 to take S to the airport. Am feeling totally nackered now and kind of hungover. Should sleep well tonight. It's nice to get the extra annual leave for doing the night work even if the event itself was a total waste of time as someone else made a big mess of their part...

I've had a good day watching the Olympics. Badminton is far scarier than it should be and was great to watch even if the Brits didn't get the gold by a point or 2. Girls gymnastics is now on which is hilarious as they keep falling off the beam. I also don't get the floor bit either as they ponce about for about 75% of the time waving their arms around in a way anyone could do, then suddenly do something spectacular which defies gravity. Surely if they sodded the boring bit and just did the spectacular bit they'd get a better mark?? I'd certainly mark it higher.

Given I am going to the airport from work tomorrow, I really should pack.

Thanks to M's helpful editing service for corrections to yesterdays post. The blogger spell check was being very weird (although the corrections wouldn't have come up anyway). Hopefully today the posting mechanism will behave...

2nd day off out of 3 today. We started the day looking round the house we will be living in. It was lovely, at least will be fantastic once we get it sorted out. It has 4 good sized bedrooms upstairs and a small bathroom (this is the one room that does need a lot of work and in theory will be worked on). Downstairs has a lounge/dining room the length of the house on one side of the stairs and a smaller "lounge" room on the other - with the kitchen behind it.

After we finished there we went off to Blanchardtown to look round a possible area of Dublin to purchase a property that's further out of Dublin centre. On the way S let out by total accident a big secret she's been keeping. She has booked a weeks holiday for the 2 of us over my 30th birthday and has kept it secret from me for months. I knew something was planned but no idea what. She accidentally said something about "when we're in America" at which point it was obvious she was gutted to have said anything and it was too late to deploy a diversion. So she told me what's going on. We're going to New York for a week!! Fantastic! I'm going to have 2 totally unproductive weeks at work while I look up things to do on the net! I have the best wife ever!!

Blanchardstown was ok, but to be honest had other things on our minds to pay enough attention to what we were doing.

Got 3 days off this week to go flat hunting in Dublin. As previously mentioned we are considering buying one to rent out. Today we saw 2 in the centre of town. One on the south side of the river, one on the north, both very close to the river so in a very central location. The area around the first one was weird. On one hand it looked very scary with lots (and I mean lots) of graffiti covering nearby buildings, but cars parked in the street were nice enough and looked fine. The agent says the nearby buildings are like they are as they used to belong (possibly still do) to U2 where they had a studio. Inside the apartment was lovely. Quite small, but well laid out. Both bedrooms had a double bed in and space at the sides, even if there wasn't much room at the end of the beds. For a ground floor flat it looked very secure. The whole complex was well done.

The second one we saw was bigger and had en suit for one bedroom and a small balcony (which looked out onto a wall). The bedrooms were much better in shape for double beds and the en suite was nice, but the layout of the whole apartment was not as good.

After seeing them we left the inner city to look round some further out areas. Played on the LUAS - parked in Stilorgan then went to Dundrum for lunch, found a useless estate agent who had no properties, then got the luas to where S's new job is, then on into town. Looked at rings for S's birthday (of course the ones that looked nicest on her turned out to be platinum and bloody expensive). Had a nice cake in Powerscourt house (even if the guy serving was a rude arse), then got the tram back to Stilorgan to drive home.

Tomorrow we are looking at the house we will be living in which will be a nice change, then attempt to get some appointments in flats in another outlying area for comparison.

Just got back from the Liffey Valley having picked up Ss repaired engagement ring. Walker and Hall have been shockingly poor throughout the existence of this ring. I would never buy something meant to last a lifetime (or at least a long time) from them again as this ring has had problems almost since we bought it, which is very disappointing for an engagement ring. It has been back to them for repair 3 times in 6 years and still they cant get it right. They wont admit any kind of fault on their part so 2 of these repairs have been at our cost. She's decided not to wear it any more as having it repaired every other year is costing more than the thing did in the first place.

Sadly I was spot on with my Saints score prediction, shame I didn't have any money on it... Setanta did a good job with their first live game except the commentary was slightly behind the picture, so the guy gets all exited about stuff you've just seen happen. Either that or he was just crap at getting his words out in time. Looks like I'll get a fair few Saints games on telly here as the Chelsea v Saints game is on at the end of the month. Given Sky always pick ManU or the Arse then more chance of Setanta picking a Saints game on the Sat.

Anyway am sat here with my Wexford top on watching the Hurling and it's all going horribly wrong. Just as well I didn't get a ticket for Croke Park as Wexford are currently losing badly to Cork.

The end of another week... Quite a good one work wise except one meeting that could have easily ended up in chairs being thrown. Surprisingly enough I wasn't one of those involved in the spat but was sitting there sheepishly trying to work out how to escape.

Forgot to mention that we never did get to do the Splash Tour last week as it was so wet we got soaked having got less than 100 yards down the road to the DART station. We huddled in the entrance to the cinema and decided it was a much better idea to go to the pub instead.

S and I are considering buying a flat in Dublin to rent out given the sale of our UK property and that Ss new job comes with a house. So have started to put the thing in motion. One estate agent was very helpful (Youngs) and has arranged to show us 3 properties on Monday morning. Sherry Fitz on the other hand wouldn't listen to what we wanted, offered us properties that were well out of range and refused to show us perfect looking properties that are in range unless we tag along to a pre arranged viewing of some other people. If the time works out then great, if it doesn't I guess it's tough. Luckily there seem to be enough agents not to bother with this poor crowd.

Good weekend of sport on the telly, the start of the footie season sees Villa v Saints on a new Irish channel which is excellent! Then there's the Wexford v Cork hurling semi final on Sunday. Plus a Grand Prix to boot. Although they are rather predictable these days. For the most important fixture I'm sad to say I've predicted Villa 2 - 0 Saints. With Beattie injured and also looking ever more likely to be moving on (although please, Spuds?! Has no one learned from Dean Richards that Saints to Spuds is NOT a career move? Not sure Villa are much better. Given Owens likely move I wander if Liverpool will be interested...) I digress, with Beatts injured and the fact that Sainst never start a season well (esp when I'm watching) I cant see them winning it.

S is out at the pub as it was her last day at Hansard. Assume she's having fun and has drunk more than the one or two she reckoned she'd have... Guess I should expect a call asking for a lift from the station later.

The weekend was good. Lovely day on Sat (well lovely enough for t-shirt and shorts and hoping not to get cold). We went into Dublin on the DART and attempted to go on the Viking Splash Tour only having found the place it was fully booked for the whole day. We booked in on Sunday and wondered off to the Jameson Distillery which was not full and not expensive either. It was a good tour complete with a drink at the end.

The strangest thing of the whole day was S and Cs lunch. We stopped off at the same Cafe as last week and S&C ordered a baked potato with bacon, cheese and sour cream. When it turned up the sour cream looked a bit suspicious but they thought nothing of it and started. Turned out it was whipped cream! S went up to ask in astonishment what happened to the sour cream and they said that they'd run out so used whipped cream instead... She was so confused she was unable to complain!

Another weekend, another set of visitors! C&D arrived yesterday for their first visit to Ireland and are currently cooking dinner for the 4 of us which is just what you need on a Friday! I was amazed that they turned up in the right country on the right day and found the right hotel to wait for me in. C has been known to get on the wrong plane and then panic when they say where it's going... They are here for a week but are likely to hire a car and explore Ireland a bit while S and I are at work next week.

Fairly uneventful (which means good) week at work. There's still one bit of over night work to be done but due to other issues didn't happen this week. Maybe next. I have booked off the 16th, 17th and 18th which is after S finishes her current job, so the 2 of us can go flat hunting in Dublin. The estate agents seem to only be open during office hours which is highly useful. With a bit of luck we can find some potential property this week and book viewings on those 3 days and find they've not been sold in the mean time.

I think it's time to open the bottle of wine on the table and get my book and relax while dinner is being cooked.

Spoke too soon about the weather. S took S to the aircoach early this morning then after cleaning the flat we met D&T in Woodenbridge for a picnic and walk. Given that it had been sunny all weekend up until we stopped at a picnic spot and the last time the 4 of us attempted a picnic it rained silly, I was amazed when suddenly it started to thunder just as the picnic was taken from the car. It tasted just as nice in the car! At least this time it cleared up soon after we finished eating and was fairly sunny for our 2 hour walk in the Wicklow hills.

The weather so far this weekend has been fantastic. The breeze has been a little nippy but when out of it the sun has been lovely - and out for pretty much the whole time. Yesterday S, S and I went into Dublin on the DART which was a real novelty as it was the first weekend day it was running from the south side for about 10 months. Far nicer than the same amount of people on 2 double decker buses, far cheaper than attempting to park in the centre of Dublin too.

Since it stopped at Pearse St we had no choice but to get off there. We found a lovely cafe down a side street with tables outside where we had a lovely lunch. Several passing Americans seemed to find the concept of this cafe too hard to cope with. Granted it wasn't as snazy looking some of its neighbours and didn't have an alcohol license, but the food was superb and the price not bad. But I guess that's not what American tourists look for...

We wanted to go to Phoenix Park, but had no idea how to get there except on one of the tour buses and as S hadn't done it before, we decided to do the tour. Given the weather, it was lovely on the top of an open topped bus. Once in Phoenix Park we went to Dublin Zoo. It was very good on the whole - some things that I'd not seen before like Gorillas. The local zoo/park where I grew up didn't have Gorillas or Elephants... I wasn't sure that the Gorilla enclosure at Dublin was anything like big enough given the size of the largest male. Although he seemed happy enough sitting there eating cabbages. The most disappointing thing was that most of the large cats were out for the day. No sign of tigers or lions despite them claiming to have several of each. Must have gone away for the bank holiday...

After stopping for a quick pint in Temple Bar, we took the dart back to Bray in the early evening. We had a lovely quiet evening with a pizza and DVD (I-spy which I would recommend for a laugh).

Off to Dun Laoghaire IMC to watch King Arthur now. Given it has Keira Knightly in I couldn't care less how crap the plot is!