To Be Sure...

Is something I did not hear once while I was in Dublin.

So to backtrack for just a moment, last Friday I made my way to Heathrow Terminal 1, to meet my fiancee and her family to fly off to the Emerald Isle and enjoy the wonder that is Dublin (and possibly Guiness). And in the interests of disclosure and honesty, I was a tad nervous. My reasoning for this was simply as follows - I'd only ever spent an evening with my future family (Father in law, Mother in law, Brother in law and girlfriend) and here I was going to spend Friday night through to Sunday evening with them! I had slightly irrational thoughts of making a complete fool of myself or worse not making a fool of myself and just being found to be not very nice. Thankfully this did not appear to be the case!

In short, I had a wonderful time, the Connollys welcomed me with metaphorical open arms, laughed at and with me, treated me like one of the family and were absolutely great. It was a wonderful weekend. We ate lots, drank lots (although I didn't end up having any Guiness!), walked lots, slept um very little, saw lots, ate lots, laughed lots and generally had a fun time.

So thank you John, Carol, Rich, Jenn and Vikki, you were wonderful. In summary, I got to hold Vikki's hand all weekend and see the wonderful city of Dublin, it doesn't get much better than that.

And here hopefully are a couple of pictures

Have I Got News For You? Probably not although maybe, I dunno...

Tis funny how things change and you don't really notice it. I am currently afflicted with a cold and so being a sensible sort am refraining from playing football this evening. Thus I have a completely free night to chill out, do whatever I want, do nothing, watch a movie, play my guitar, no hassles, you get my drift.

I find myself though not wholly enamoured with this, right now all I want to do is curl up on the sofa with my fiancée and finish off the coca cola cake (side note - don't knock it as it tastes unbelievably gorgeous).

Tuesday is Cells so she is literally going from work to youth work to bed.

The thing that amuses me about this is Vikki had a very similar experience on Sunday while I was listening to the earbleeding genius of Demon Hunter. I love how we have fallen in love and just want to be with each other. I'm trying to think how I can fit in something about the last nine months and birthing analogies but my brain is a tad fuzzy right now!

So I'm gonna watch have I got news for you and endeavour to make the most of this quiet evening even though it might not be everything that I want.

Presence and Presents

So at the weekend we had our engagement party. A wonderful lil affair it was too.

Many thanks to everyone for their presence and the presents. Without doubt the stand out present was from Vikki"s uncle Mike and Debbie - a basket for toilet rolls! Vikki's bathroom is now complete and I feel that it has become a home for me! Albeit one i'm not living in but soon enough! And maybe I exaggerate but still it was a present that made us both giggle and me feel part of the family.

More important though than the presents was the presence of so many family and friends. We were greatly touched by the presence/sincere apologies for absences and grateful for the alcohol everyone consumed thus meaning we got our deposit back!

Oh and a massive THANK YOU to Jenn for the cupcakes. They were amazing!