the blog of brendan o'ceallaigh
OK so here is the lazy man’s link to our holiday snaps. I will write up some info this weekend.Needless to say Italy is a beautiful ancient country.
Rome : view Rome photos >>
Florence : view Florence photos >>
Lucca : view Lucca photos >>
Pisa : view Pisa photos >>
Venice : view Venice photos >>
Enjoy,
B & G
OK so I know that I haven’t been keeping up to date at all with my blog but at least when I do get to it I am putting up plenty of embarrassing photos and letting you all know where we have been. I will try and do this in chronological order so you don’t get confused.
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…
Well a lot has been happening. We have been over to Nottingham to see Gwen’s sister, Veronica, for her Birthday. Her friends took us all out to celebrate and we were again shown how good the night-life is in Nottingham… See the photos >>
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 >>
I now know where Gwen would live if she wasn’t living in New Zealand or Ireland, the south of France… She loved it. We were in the country about half an hour, all we had seen was a tiny airport and some motorway and Gwen announced “this place is beautiful”. What more can I say.
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 😉
Just a quick note to let you all know that the new job is going great. We are both working away and likeing Ireland a lot at the moment. I have been down to Cork on business twice now… My company is treating me very well and I am happy with them.
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
Hey everyone,
Just to let you know that I have uploaded the photos of our travels to my website.
They are on the main menu so you might need to flush your cache to see the new ones.
There photos there from Oz, Thailand and a few from London as well.
Enjoy 😉
Brendan : See Gwen I told you it wasn’t that cold here.
Gwen : Yeah, I see what you mean. Why are you turning blue Brendan?
Brendan : Hmmm it could be because we have just come from Koh Samui, Thailand to Heathrow, England and it was 34 degrees there but it’s 4 degrees here and I am standing here in shorts and a t-shirt. Hold on (sounds of rucksack being opened and clothes being ruffled noises) That’s better!
Gwen : Yeah but you do look a little silly with ALL your clothes on…
This is basically what happened (with a bit of humour thrown in for those that didn’t spot it) when we arrived. At first I was actually trying to put a brave face on, but it froze like that and when it did eventually melt I covered it up but not after catching a cold first.
Gwen was wise and went out and bought a hat, scarf and gloves immediately and managed to fend off the cold for a week, but the persistent little bugger eventually got her.
Being here is like a double edged sword for me because it is great being this side of the world where my family is but it is bloody cold. Ok I will stop going on about the cold once you get the idea it is really cold here and the wind cuts through you. I had forgotten this…
We made our way to Clapham Junction and made my sister Gillian’s place our home for the next week thankfully.
Gillian and Dave (here Kiwi bloke he he he) and Gwen and I all went out and got nicely pissed on Cuban coctails and then had some lovely Argentinian steak in a Lonon Resteraunt. How cosmopolitan are we?
We did some sight seeing as well notching up The London Eye, Big Ben, Covent Garden, The Houses of Parliment, Dali World, Picadilly Circus, Leiscester Square, Buckingham Palace and I am sure others…
We had a great time and Gillain and her flatmates were very good to us and made us feel welcome. Dave did his bit too and supplied some alternative accomodation for Gillian so we could have her lovely double bed, how nice of them to do that ;-).
This is just a quick update to let you all know that we have been to Oz and it was amazing. Thank you to everyone and I will give detailed info and thank you all very soon.
We have been to Bangkok and it is big, full of people, brilliant fun and most of all smelly.
Were now in Koh Samui just having the most relaxing time in the world and sweating like pigs, sorry that should be “glowing”. Sure beats working…
Thinking of you all and more to come soon.
Brendan
Australia…. Australia is a big big country with a lot of peopla and it is hot. For those of you that didn’t know this it may come as a surprise.
We have had such an amazing time here with Bella & Paul Norton, Ca & Vincent Carroll, Liz & Innes (and Harry & Elisa) Hendry in Brisbaine. We were chaufferred to Surfers Paradise and Malooloolaba on the coast and South Bank in the city. We ventured into the city ourselves and hopped on the City Cat (water taxi type catamaran) and had a wander as well, so we got a really good feel for the city.
We then Jetted to Melbourne where we were extended the legendry Kelly family hospitality. Geoff picked us up from the airport and took us over to Donna and Brett’s. Chelsea, Sharny and Chloe all came home one by one and suddenly I had more family than I ever knew.
Then we went out for a meal and I got to meet more of the Kelly side and there is even another Peter Kelly that looks like my Dad a little in Oz. Great people.
I also got to meet up with a good mate of mine from school, Eamonn and his partner Anna. Chelsea, Sharny and one of Gwens mates, Kristal, from NZ came out with us and we ended up in a place called Big Mouth funnily enough in St Kilda. Needless to say there was some chatting done that night and Gwen got to meet some of my Irish mates, the transformation has begun. It was lovely to catch up Eamonn and hope to see you on the other side whenever that is 😉
Donna, Brett and the girls took us up (or across) to the Yarra Valley and Mansfield where we ate, drank and generally had a brilliant weekend. I got to see a kangaroo in the wild, which was lovely and we also saw a bush fire on our way back on Sunday… Quite awe inspiring and humbling when you see how it can destroy peoples lives in an instant. Chelsea was able to give us all the inside info as well as she works for the Rural Fire Department that covers a lot of the big fires. On Monday we took the train to Epping to visit Gwen’s lovely Auntie Wendy, the Whanau (family) just gets bigger by the day on these travels… 😉
After we had washed our clothes and rested up and been looked after so well we headed off to the airport for yet another flight to another city (Sydney) for a connecting flight to Tahiland.
Sydney airport is expensive but there is a few free Samsung internet terminals which are cool to use if you are there for 8 hours. It was initially meant to be 4 hours but the outgoing flight was delayed twice. Needless to say we were glad to finally take off.
All in all Australia was wonderfull, we were looked after very well by all 3 sides of the family (Donna and Brett) and had such a lovely time. I know that it will be a great place to go back and spend some quality holidays…
Well it has finally come around. After so long talking about it Gwen and I have managed to get everything packed and are ready to leave New Zealand for the sunny shores of Ireland tomorrow morning. But we will have a few stops on the way, namely Australia, Thailand and England. We have been offered generous accommodation by many friends and relatives in Australia and England, which we will be gladly taking up. It will be great to see you all and catch up. I am just looking forward so much to seeing Australia and Thailand and just generally having a holiday with Gwen on the way home.
I have to say that I have a million mixed emotions right now. I am really sad at leaving New Zealand and all the wonderful people we have met here. My cousins and friends, we both really do have family away from home here in Napier. Gwen’s friends in Palmy have been so kind and welcoming to me as well once they figured out I wasn’t a dodgy Irish fella. And basically everyone else I have met here. From my sisters mates in Auckland that became my mates (Congrats Barney & Sue) to the lovely farmer I worked for who became a mate in Central Hawke’s Bay (Thanks Mike) and to Gwen’s lovely Mum, Joan.
Joan, God bless her, has been looking after us both this last week and as you can imagine we have both been a little stressed but Joan just kept smiling and serving up the loveliest home cooked meals to get us through it. Thanks Joan!
I would also like to send a special shout out to all the people we have both worked with. I know that I have met people that have changed the way I look at the world and I will cherish their friendship forever. Just keep giving me hassle guys 😉