Rome : view Rome photos >>

Florence : view Florence photos >>

Lucca : view Lucca photos >>

Pisa : view Pisa photos >>

Venice : view Venice photos >>

Enjoy,

B & G

We went over to Wales to spend some time with Gwen’s Aunt, Uncle and cousins. Veronica came up as well so it was a real meeting of the clan. We were very well looked after and had a ball. It was great for them to meet up after all these years. We both thought how much Gwen’s cousin David looked so much like her bother, they even had the same sunglasses! As you can see we even managed to get a singstar session in. See the photos >>

We also went over to France to christen the new swimming pool at my parent house. The pool is huge, 10m x 5m, and really makes the place. It was a little cold when we first went in as it was still filling up but we braved the cold. It was great and I couldn’t get Gwen out of the water she loved it so much. The whole family was there for the weekend and it was lovely to spend quality family time in the sun and just have fun together. It was so hard to come back to rainy Ireland. See the photos >>

Our next occasion wasn’t really a trip away as a trip into Ireland and its pop culture. We went along to the Oxegen music festival for 1 day with some friends. I’ll give you a little background. It is a huge 3 day music festival and a lot (80,000) of people attend. Most camp but I was having none of that as we have had a terrible summer and the whole country was sodden at the time, so we got tickets for the Saturday. We duly bought and borrowed our wellies (thanks Tom) and headed along to the music, booze and mudfest that was Oxegen 2007. We really had a great time. The music was fantastic, it was well organised and the craic was mighty (for anyone reading not familiar with that saying it just means we had good fun it is not a drugs reference) See the photos >>

Our next trip was again within Ireland but some would disagree with me there as we headed up to Northern Ireland. Now Northern Ireland is a separate state from the Republic of Ireland but it is on the same island. It is a beautiful place with lovely people but because of it’s unsettled past I had never actually spent much time there. I am sure a lot of Irish people would have the same complaint. Thanks to Gwen’s persistence we headed up to Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, The Giants Causeway and then on to Belfast. It is beautiful up there and even though we had typical Irish weather we were really impressed. Belfast is a great city with such a rich and ever present past that makes it such an interesting place to visit. A definite stop for any visitor See the photos >>

We are off ot Edinburgh next to celebrate a certain lady’s birthday so watch this space…

We popped over to Paris for a fantastic weekend and saw quite a lot of the sights. What a great city. We were staying really close the the Eiffel Tower and we could even see it from our hotel room. See the photos >>

We went to our friends wedding over in Galway. Amazingly the groom was in school with Gwen in NZ, Matt Moore. See the photos >>

And the following weekend we celebrated St Patrick’s day the proper Irish way and Matt and his lovely wife Donna, who came over to Dublin and celebrated with us See the photos >>

All this went on and I had been ignoring my blog. Apologies to all. To be honest not a lot goes on in this part of the world during the winter. it gets a bit cold and a bit dark and we just trudge on and drink and try and keep ourselves sane and well

My parents house is lovely, on the edge of a sleepy little French village with nothing going on, which is the beauty of it. We ate smelly cheese, drank beautiful cheap wine and soaked up the atmosphere for 5 days. Just lovely.

We then hopped onto a train and landed ourselves in Barcelona. What a beautiful vibrant city. The architecture, the culture, it is a real treat and I would definitely recommend it. The food and wine is just as good as France and a little cheaper too. It was great fun having Veronica there with us and we made the most our ageing bodies would allow of the legendary night life.

Well we have been back for a while now and getting back into the swing of things. But then we got a chance to go across to Galway, which is on the west coast of Ireland and do a little more holidaying. We took a ferry out to Inis Mor (pronounced inish more) which is a little island about off the west coast. It is a gaeltacht which is Irish for native Irish speaking community. I have wanted to see Inis Mor for years and I have to say it is beautiful. We were not disappointed. The sun shone down on us and we cycled all over the island. We even had a pint and caught the end of the New Zealand v’s South African match… The less said about that the better.

That evening Gwen had a chance to meet up with Matt Moore, a school friend of hers from New Zealand. He is now living in Galway with his Irish Missus’. It is really a small world after all.

Not much more to say for the moment except check out our photos which I have added to the website - www.bocsite.com Enjoy

We are about to head off on our first European holiday together. We are flying over to the south of France, near Beziers for 5 days and then getting the train to Barcelona in Spain for 4 days. We are both really looking forward to it.

I do have some new photos to put on the website but I am not going to get a chance to put them up until we come back, sorry Joan. But I promise to put up the holiday photos and the waiting batch as soon as we get back.

Au revoir

The people I am working with are all very nice and I have to say that I am really enjoying it. There is a good atmosphere in the office. I am a little bamboozled by how many tasks I have on my “to do” list but as most are at the stage of “do when I get to it” its great, very little pressure.

I know that I am writing this after only my second day and therefore I’m still in the honeymoon period, but hey let me enjoy it

Oh and the outsourced IT guy that looked after the servers that was in today to do a brain dump to me was impressed that I was running the excellent Dapper Drake (Ubuntu/Gnome/Debian/Linux) on my recycled (Thanks Sharon) laptop at home. So my little geeky side even got a smile today.

I will be in charge of IT for a property development company based in Clonskeagh. I will be able to walk to work with Gwen and they seem like lovely people.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I start on Monday…
I am happy as Larry!

It was actually great because I got offered a few jobs at the same time and was able to choose my preference.

Cool eh?

We then made our way into the city centre and ended up at the Tall Ships festival at the Liffey Docklands. There were loads of stalls and even one selling beer, so we were happy as you can see. We happily just enjoyed the nice relaxed atmosphere, the sun and the music. This city really is a great place when it pulls out all the stops.

We also celebrated our two year anniversary this weekend. Yes it has been two short (or long, depends on how you look at it) years since we first went on that fateful date after my first Friday at work. Who would have thought our drinking competition, I mean date, would end up with us engaged on the other side of the world…. I think I am sobering up, quick Gwen pass the wine .

We had a lovely dinner in Dun Laoghaire (good luck getting your lips around that one Kiwis, its pronounced Dun Learee) at the 40 Foot restaurant on Saturday evening and a Champagne lunch at home on Sunday just to keep it simple .

A quick note to all (read anyone) in NZ and Oz that I haven’t been in touch with, apologies but just keep watching this space.

I’m still waiting on feedback from both companies that I have interviewed with, seems like the biggest wait of my life, but as we all know “good things come to those who wait”…

I also have an interview next Monday with a completely different company. Nice company and we’ll see how it goes.

I will keep you all posted