I'M IN CORK!!!

4 days late but who gives a monkey's? I'm here!

Let the adventure begin!!

Well I did say I wanted moving to Cork to be an adventure and boy have I got adventure in spades. To give you an idea I still haven’t made it out of Wales yet!
It all started off OK with leaving work on time (Thanks for the cards & good wishes all) and was on the road as planed by 8. With the weather the UK has been having this last week I had planned to give myself 2 hours extra time, one of those hours was used up before we got to Brentford as London traffic wasn’t going to let me leave without a body shot. This meant that we missed a good dinner as we rolled into the Moto centre 5min after Burger king closed but the worst was yet to come.
Fast forward 3 hours of driving through atrocious weather and we’re making great time. Its 1am, we’re driving into Carmarthen with Pembroke only 30min away & the ferry leaves at 2:45am. Suddenly I lose power, not the spluttering you get when you’re a dumbass & run out of gas (I had over ½ a tank) but more like the accelerator pedal has been disconnected, as I slow down I try changing into a lower gear to kick-start the car, it worked but only for about another mile when I lost power for good. 5 minutes & quite a few choice words later X and I were quite wet & scratching our heads as to what to do when a coppa drove up, unfortunately he had a convict in the car so couldn’t give us a ride but did tell us that a 24 hour Tesco was only about 500m down the road. I think he thought that we would leave the car there & walk to Tesco…Silly police man! After pushing the car to the loading bay we wandered into the Tesco where -not for the last time- I would be reminded of the kindness of strangers. After the security guard heard of our situation & lack of AA cover he quietly came up and explained a policy that Tesco have of paying for the callout of any car that brakes down in their car park. So all we had to do was push the car another 5-600m into the car park…easier said than done as the last 150 metres were uphill! Just as we got it to the bottom of the hill & I was about to have a heart attack (It seems 15 years of smoking, drinking & little exercise have lowered my cardiac health levels!? Time to get back to the gym) another stranger stopped to give us a hand & we made it into the car park. It was now 2:30 so that nights ferry was out of the question but I had contacted them & they were happy to transfer our tickets to the 2:30pm sailing the next day. When the RAC guy turned up he confirmed what X & I had suspected that there was something wrong with either the fuel pump or fuel line. In the end we had him tow us to the industrial side of town so we would be close to a few garages when the sun came up & settled in for a cold, cramped night sleeping in the car. Sun up & I asked around for a good garage & left X with the car, while I toddled off find this guy. After a few hours waiting in the queue we started working on the car about 12 o’clock & around 1 we found the old ‘pull it apart put it back together’ had done the trick & the fuel pump was now working a charm. We had found a large piece of rubber in the tank & hypothesized that it had rapped over the intake of the pump & cut off the supply of fuel…Who cares we were on the road with more than enough time to catch the ferry…17miles from the ferry and I lose power…£*&@?!!! Long story short (Shorter) the mechanics couldn’t look at the car until today & won’t be getting the parts until tomorrow morning. Poor X obviously missed his 40min flight from Cork to London & had to catch an 8 ½ hour train ride home. So I couldn’t send him home without showing him Pembroke night life…I was thinking Matamata but it turned out to be more like Parramatta with a very funky pub, a tardis like club and a cute little shotie with glasses. Only thing was being trying to explain to Xavier that at 2am there is not going to be a takeaway store open in a town of about 7,000 people.
So sorry X promise to get you to the goal next road trip & the rest of you wish me luck and hopefully next time I chat, it’ll be from Cork.

Round up Part 2 & Leavings

Right so after the road trip & X&H went back to Canada for Xmas I settled down slightly to organise Ireland, apart from the normal drinks & a few early Xmas shindigs all was quite until mid December. I’m fairly happy with the places I’ve seen in England & the only 2 places I had yet to get to were Rugby & Bath. I’m not overly fussed about Rugby I hear there’s nothing there but a statue but Bath is another matter completely. Long time readers of this blog may have noticed how most road trips revolve around poor old Chris driving…Well I though this was unfair –Plus I like drinking with Chris- so I sorted out going to Bath by train instead of car, maybe £10 more but a shed load less hassle. Rolled into Bath about 11am & once we found the High Street fell in love with the town….Not to live in but retirement wise maybe (Spot the guy almost thirty, already thinking about retirement). We spent a few hours wondering around checking out the sights & sampling the local pubs and finally came upon the Roman Baths. Technically they should be called Celtic Baths as the hairy ones were worshiping the Goddess Sulis there way back before Mt Cook popped it’s head above water but it was the Romans that flashed it up & made it a money spinner (Kinda like what us white fallas did to New Zealand….JOKES!!!!) Anyway it was very cool and very interesting checking out not only the Baths but the Roman temple & altar as well as working out how those smart buggers sorted out plumping for a massive complex before Jesus was kicking around.
After checking out the old school baths we decided it would be wrong not to try the new school one since we were in town. These are WAY cooler that Miranda (Hot pools near Thames, NZ) with indoor pools, scented steam rooms & an awesome rooftop pool over looking Bath – The only pity is it wasn’t snowing. So after seeing how raisin like 2 hours of soaking will get you –very- it was on with sampling the local hospitality, on this note I can say Bath is a town of differences. With pubs were we meet some amazingly cute girls from some branch of Lloyds TSB on their Xmas do, to a pub that was trying to be the West Country version of the Red Lion out of ‘Once were Warriors’ (one of those 'Down the Pint in One' situations). Then off the McDs & the Offie to stock up for the train home to be back in London by 11pm. Wicked Day!
The next day I was up to West Hamstead for Orphan’s Xmas. Was a great day eating, drinking & catching up with old friends I don’t see as much of these days since moving out of Marlow Court.
I had several Xmas parties this year but as like last year no one made an arse of themselves by snogging the HR girl or telling the boss what you REALLY think of them or my personal favourite, climbing a mast of a boat so you can get a great picture of Sydney harbour only to get blasted by a high pressure hose & have to walk back onto the party dripping wet (We’d never do something that foolish ah Nick?) The biggest thing was a couple of Lads wasting A LOT of money on girls but that’s been happening since time began.

After 2 & a bit years I have finally seen Millwall score a goal live! (Every time I have been either down getting a beer or looking somewhere else in the grounds when the goal is scored) Also finally got to see Millwall win a game! Dec 29^th 2007, Millwall (2) – Crewe (0) - A day to remember.
On to the leaving partiesI’ve been catching up with people & having final drinks since I left CRUK but they have stepped up a notch in the last couple of weeks. They have all been fun & have acted as a timely reminder to me that outside of a few poor choices in the past I have been blessed with meeting some great people that I am lucky enough to call friends. It’s been a pleasure & an honour to roll with you all; with the power of the interweb & facebook I hope & expect you all to drop me a line whenever you in the part of the world I’m in at that time. Enough of the sentimental BS after a 5-6 year wait I bought a car the other day! YEAH BABY!92 VW Golf CL 1.8l
At 1.8l it’s smaller than most of the Cars I’ve owned but in saying that it’s way lighter than the Prelude or the Corolla. I was looking at hiring a car to get to Cork but only Avis would do it and they wanted £675 for 5 days rental, for the same price I’ve got this bad boy + Insurance for 4 months…Happy Days
Tonight I went to The Phantom of the Opera. I’ve been meaning to go ever since I turned up, but of course I wanted to take the love of my life. Unfortunately each time I remembered that I had a GF & it would be a good time to go, either I got bored of said love of my life or said love of my life moved on to better things (Story of my life). So with 3 days to go I bit the bullet & went solo. Her Majesty’s theatre is A LOT smaller than what I pictured in my head when playing the music as a child (isn’t everything) but the show was amazing, although like most shows I go to I spent half the time trying to work out how the props worked.
OK that’s the round up, off to Cork on Friday, Cheers for the good time London…BRING IT!

2007 Round up Part 1

OK I know I’ve been absolutely useless with updating the blog…It’s been over 6 weeks (Now 9 –Started this before Xmas) since my last proper blog – playing with my new toy doesn’t really count. So to start with…My old flatmate Jared stopped off in London for a couple of days on his immense round the world trip. This provided the perfect excuse for a night on the goon helped along with miniatures of absinthe as well as a Royal & SunAlliance reunion (Where we meet some lovely Polish lasses. Good to see you again Pie.
X&H’s flat decided to have a party for Halloween, even better they made it a costume party, even better than that it was a Pimps and Prostitutes! Girls from the other side of Europe wearing revealing clothes…Hooray. The last time I went to one of these I went in drag only meet my girlfriend at the time’s father for the first time, so this time I decided to go a pimp. Happy days!

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Road trip:At the start of November Xavier, Holly & I did the reverse of the trip Rich & I did earlier this year, only this time on my advice we missed out the Pikie park people call Glasgow. We started out in Cambridge – After a quick pit stop to feed Holly before she ate the back seat (Don’t mess with little white girls…They kick). The academia may lynch me for saying this but Cambridge reminds me of Oxford. It looks very nice in a Standard English town kind of way & had a very nice pub over looking some punting boats. Onto Newcastle on Tyne; where after everything everyone had told me I was heading towards with very high expectations, mainly of friendly girls wearing two belts & nothing else…Yay for northern girls. Unfortunately it all went ‘Phantom Menace’ and I was reminded yet again that you should never build anything up too much or Captain Karma will bite you in the arse. Firstly they were dressed (I didn’t realise it was possible) even more conservatively that Kiwi Lasses. The REALLY disappointing thing was how unfriendly they were. At one point I popped outside for a fag & a spot of Smirting… Now I’m not saying for one second that I’m ‘Robio the most beautiful man in the cosmos’ but even I have never been turned down from a casual conversation by 6 girls in a row!!! So after the ego slaughter called Newcastle I was in need of some home comfort…Scotland then! We stopped off at Holy Island (Well it’s very close to Holly Island & by this time it was Holly’s B Day) but unfortunately Father Tide wasn’t having a bar of it so we had to admire from afar. After & quick saunter up to Inverarity so Xavier could see his home town, that is smaller than Turua (Pity I couldn’t do mine but it would’ve taken another 4-5 hour one way) we headed back to Edinburgh. Now being Holly’s B Day I was about to excuse myself to a pub to meet locals so they could pop out for a romantic dinner but was vetoed by the big H. So we went out for some wicked Italian & onto (After some looking) a tight little club that gave a great student discount and a great floor show. The next day was Armistice Day (roughly England’s ANZAC Day) Once again I missed the dawn service but after some sightseeing managed to make it (late) to the 11am service. Edinburgh is an amazing city, really beautiful & the people are way friendly, plus there are green bits all over the show. Then we settled in for the big drive. Edinburgh to London via Lake Windermere in 1 day….BRING IT! I had the 1st Leg & since my passengers had fallen asleep I could see what the mighty C-Max could do…Not bad for a Super Hatch, just a bit rolly in the corners & very little mid range power. The B roads leading into Windermere have to be some of the nicest in the world & beg for a sweet little soft-top sports car and a quite Wednesday afternoon on the road…Not a small people carrier on a bank Holiday Sunday. Afternoon tea by the lake for sunset…its winter in England so sunset is about 3:30pm. Then we had the drive from the Lakes District to Home with a stop off in Birmingham for dinner with Holly’s Aunt/Family Friend? OK this brings me up to ½ way through November…more to come