Socially Awkward Moments on the Tube

There seems to be a Law of Social Awkwardness stipulating that, as the Tube nears its terminus in the distant suburbs, the last two remaining passengers will invariably be seated directly opposite each other, resulting in awkward averting of gazes in an otherwise-empty carriage...

Páirc Uí Ruislip

With the benefit of a quiet night in on Saturday, and the United match not on until 4pm, we decided to drive to Ruislip (Nuala does it again!) to the HQ of the London GAA scene for the London Senior Football Championship clash (no, honestly! Stop sniggering Jer...) between Ivor and Johnny's team, Kingdom Kerry Gaels and Fulham Irish.

Although Ivor and Johnny are both out of the country at the moment (or 'minute' as the KKG lads would say), the two lads living with us in Ivor's place were both featuring. In fact Mike had a good game, scoring virtually all the KKG points. Here he is sizing up a free:

Unfortunately, the efforts of Mike and Andrew were in vain and KKG were 'bet handy' by the superior side. The lads had no complaints after, though they were disconsolate. As we know from planning holidays with Ivor, however, the intricacies of the London SFC are such that you're never really knocked out of it, so the lads will have one last chance to redeem themselves, when they should be bolstered by the return of Messers Enright and Buckley.

It was a great set-up all the same with a fine pavilion with a bar and canteen. They even had RTÉ to show the day's GAA action. There were three matches on in total, the sun was out, people were milling about and there was even a smell of fertiliser in the air! It could have been a Championship Sunday back home really.

Oh, except everyone was drinking Magners!

New numbers!

Yesterday we were all excited when we got our chip and pin bank cards meaning we were able to go and get new phones!! Yippee!

We got them up and running today with a full nights charging on board and sent out the numbers to all our Irish buddies!

Big shout out to all those who replied to our Irish numbers with your name - you know who you are and there were quite a few of you!!

Living the London dream...

Today's the first day of the new Premier League season, and we have spent the afternoon in IKEA, Sainsbury's and Asda...

Living the dream I tell ya!

Community Shield, Wembley

We went to Wembley for United v Portsmouth with Ross and Gemma. Forgot my camera of course, but my mobile filled in manfully..

Wembley Park Tube Station

(new?) Wembley Way

Sarah on Wembley Way

Jim on Wembley Way

Jim and Ross

Jim and Sarah

Pre-match rigmarole

First Saturday Night!

After a long day traipsing around Fulham and Kensington trying to find the dream flat, it was time to kick back and enjoy our first Saturday night in London! As perhaps a portent of things to come, there was no shortage of people for us to go out with! Between cousins, hockey buddies, and partners we mustered quite a decent crew...

left to right: Shane, Gemma, Jill, Laura, Sarah, Jim, Yvonne, Chris, Conor, Ross

left to right: Yvonne, Sarah, Conor, Laura, Chris, Jim

Introducing "Johnny Wine"...

Sorry José - hope this isn't our first Sir Thomas Barry Arms moment.. if so, I'll have the Cav-Sav!

The Journey

I remember as if it were this day last week, taking to the high seas at a blustery and bleak Rosslare Harbour. We had risen at 3.45 to fit in emotional scenes with the O'Driscolls before hitting the road for Wexford. In all honesty it was a miserable morning, so it wasn't too difficult to bid the auld sod farewell.

We took our seats in the 'executive' lounge on the strength of a promise of reclining seats. This entailed a saucy £18 upgrade each - not even €! The seats didn't recline but we were afforded some sanctuary from the bedlam below, as 400 punters prepared for the crossing. Also, there was free access to a bar/kitchen area and loads of newspapers.

The captain addressed us with the news that one of the four engines was 'not operational', so the journey would be prolonged. Furthermore, despite the lack of wind ashore, conditions were bad 'out there' so we could expect extreme maritime turbulence, as it were. Sure, it wasn't exactly coffin ship conditions, but it wasn't ideal at the same time. There was a fair bit of seasickness amongst the hordes, including one creature who vomited in our executive kitchen area. The steward told us that it was a 3.5m swell, with 4m being the cut-off for cancellation! He also revealed that he would not be serving food on the return journey...

Entering the UK involved driving off the boat, and as we looked closely for some sort of customs and immigration facility, we suddenly found ourselves on the open road to London!

We had a glamourous lunch at the Services at Junction 26 before crossing the Severn Bridge into England. Now it was a matter of counting down the miles to London. Which was actually a little confusing having becoming accustomed to kilometres. Bloody Brits with their medieval imperial system...

The highlight of the remainder of the journey was spotting the sign for Slough Trading Estate (of "The Office" fame), we even managed to get a snap of it without causing a pile-up on the M4...


The next task was negotiating our way tentatively around the edge of London, avoiding congestion charges, emission charges, police baton charges... The sat-nav (which we dubbed "Nuala" - forgotten why) was initially being used as a back-up to the printed google maps instructions, however when one direction was "go through 5 roundabouts", we decided enough was enough and we entrusted the situation to Nuala. Happily, she didn't let us down and after a fairly painless half an hour, Nuala smugly announced that we had reached our destination. Welcome to Burnt Oak!

We popped into town later for a bite to eat and to meet our official London Greeter, John Enright. And so, we were suddenly Londoners.

Goodbye Johnny Dear

The name of the blog and the lyrics at the top are from a song called "Goodbye Johnny Dear" by some crowd called Íon... never heard of them in all honesty but the quote seemed apt when my dad came out with it a few days before we left...

The full lyrics:

Just twenty years ago today, I grasped my mother's hand,
She kissed and blessed her only son, going to a foreign land;
The neighbours took me from her breast and told her I must go,
But I could hear my mother's voice, though her words were sweet and low.

Goodbye, Johnny dear, when you're far away,
Don't forget your dear old mother far across the sea;
Write a letter now and then and send her all you can,
And don't forget where e'er you roam that you're an Irishman.

I sailed away from Queenstown, that is the cove of Cork,
A very pleasant voyage we had and soon we're in New York;
I'd plenty of friends to meet me there and work I got next day,
But with all the hospitality I could hear my mother say.

Goodbye, Johnny dear, when you're far away,
Don't forget your dear old mother far across the sea;
Write a letter now and then and send her all you can,
And don't forget where e'er you roam that you're an Irishman.

One day a letter came to me, it came from Ireland,
The postmark showed it came from home, it was not my mother's hand;
'Twas father who had wrote to say that she had passed away,
And just as if from Heaven above I could hear my mother say.

Goodbye, Johnny dear, when you're far away,
Don't forget your dear old mother far across the sea;
Write a letter now and then and send her all you can,
And don't forget where e'er you roam that you're an Irishman.

Hello, good evening and welcome...

This blog, such as it is, is where Sarah and I will occasionally jot down our musings on settling down in London…

Expect rambling, occasionally pretentious nonsense coupled with sporadic, puerile humour…

Coming soon, the exciting tale of driving the M4!