Moira turns 40 - oops, I mean 20 again

I know it is hard to believe but the wife has gone and turned 40 on me, and there was nothing I could do. Well, actually there was something I could do, and with the kind assistance of Neil, Lorna and Anne, they baby-sat Lily for 3 days and allowed Moira and I to run away to Dublin.

Local friends told me of a hotel named The Schoolhouse, which has luxury King sized beds and in-room massages, so I immediately booked it up. It was a 15 minute walk of Trinity College, and Grafton Street, so easily within the right distance of places to eat and drink.

Upon arrival Moira booked an Indian Head massage, and I headed downstairs to the bar with a book, and ordered my first pint of Guinness. An hour later I returned, expecting her to now look like Ghandi, but she didn't so I am not sure the massage worked at all. My Guinness head massage had worked a treat though, as Moira managed to convince me that we should now go shopping in Monsoon.

The first afternoon was spent eating outdoors, as the weather was brilliant the whole weekend we were there. While Moira spent her time in Monsoon, Brown Thomas and other shops, I finished off the red wine while browsing through the guide book. After returning to our hotel room and walking around in our bath robes, looking incredibly similar to Luke Skywalker, we were able to enjoy the gift of not having our beautiful girl around, and partook of a refreshing afternoon sleep. Upon waking we found ourselves a delightful Malasian restaurant, which set us up nicely for the evening.

Moira had spotted in the guide book a pub that played traditional Irish music ( or 'diddly-dee' music, as we like to refer to it ). It was situated in a very run down part of town, and when we entered the bar at 9 pm there were only 4 other people in there. We had increased the number of punters in the bar by 50%, as well as increasing the stats of people who owned their own teeth. I was ready to leave but Moira said we may as well stay for 1 drink. I think she just wanted to show off that her gnashers didn't fall into her glass. While she went to the ladies, I ordered our drinks. An incredibly short, wizened, man of about 60, ( he potentially could have been 40 but had never left that pub in his life ) came straight up to me and says " oi dere big marn, would ya be loiking for a foight ? " and then he starts laughing away saying " oim only messing wit cha ". To show that I also have a sense of humour I clocked him one and laid him out. No I didn't really. The guide book had said to get in early to avoid the crowd, so I think this guy had also bought the same book, and had been there since opening. As it happens, at about 9:45 various musicians turned up, and started playing music in the small room next to the main bar. We asked if we could sit in, and the whole evening took off from there. The initial 5 players eventually swelled to about 12 in total over the next two hours. We got talking to an old boy next to us, and he gave us the background to the whole band who are essentially just a group of friends, and lots of stories from his time growing up. The evening was absolutely fantastic, and we left at about midnight with cheery goodbyes from the makeshift band. Fantastic.

Saturday morning was spent looking around the markets, and then we jumped on a sight-seeing bus to get an idea of the whole city. Naturally this led to a little more shopping by the wife afterwards, and then another afternoon sleep. With her energy restored we went to a comedy club for some cocktails that evening, and a few cheeky drinks. It was a ' roight craic '. Late supper and then bed.

Sunday morning was a leisurely sleep, downstairs for breakfast, and then retiring to our room to walk around in our bath robes a bit more, and then read the papers. That was rather hungry work, so we then went out for lunch and walked around the sites of the city for some time, until we bought lots of magazines, pastries and fruit juices and then and went and sat in the park for the afternoon. We went for a local meal that night, and then retired to our comfy bed, in preparation for rising early and leaving for the airport in the morning. Breakfast was sent to our room, a taxi whisked us off to the airport, and then we were back in Scotland by 09:15am on the 16th, Moira's birthday.

Moira was home by 10:30, and then she spent the next half hour opening presents and cards from all her friends and family. Anne, Neil and Lorna had made Moira a splendid birthday lunch, where Ruth and Archie joined us to celebrate.

Having missed our wee girl so much, we went up to the nursery at 2 pm and stole her back. We spent the afternoon in the garden, drinking tea and eating orange cake until it was time to put our girl to bed.

A fantastic weekend of eating, sleeping, walking, talking, laughing and shopping was had, all made possible by the baby-sitting patience of Neil, Lorna and Anne. We thank you, thank you, thank you.