Anniversary weekend away

On Friday, the eight of us headed to the Rep of Ireland to a place called Dundalk, where Christina is from. Half of us stayed in a hotel (compliments of groupon!) and the other half stayed at Christina's parents place on Friday night. We went out for dinner to a place called the Windsor, and did our Secret Santa draw, with Barry dressed as Santa!! I don't have pics on my camera but Barry has some on his, so will upload them another time. Needless to say we had quite a late night, and only surfaced at around 10am. We left for Newgrange at about 11am, and the journey which should have taken us half an hour, took us 2 hours! Thats what happens when you leave the gps at home! :( We passed the time by having a few competitions along the way tho. Christina, Mark, Barry and Harps in one car and Karl, Jimmy, Fionnuala and I  in the other, and  both cars had to write down the names of all the counties in ireland, and the other one was to name all the states in the US. there was some fierce competition, but thankfully, we tied, otherwise there would have been some kind of revolt. The Grahams are a competitive bunch!


Newgrange is pretty amazing, since it was built 5000 years ago. whats weird about this site is that archaeologists are not sure why they were built, and only few human remains were found in them. There are also several of these types of structures all over Europe. Whats amazing is that the roof box was constructed so that on the days of winter solstice, it aligns with the rising sun, which illuminates the whole dome for 17 minutes. How people so long ago, with little equipment managed to construct this thing is incredible! Especially considering that their lifespan was approximately 25 yrs! There are also interesting drawings on the stones, and there are many different interpretations.

After Newgrange, we stopped off to get things for dinner and we all headed for Christina's parents place, as we all stayed there on Saturday night. We made dinner, watched x-factor, played cranium, and had a little bit more wine, and laughed til it hurt! I think we were all burnt out from the night before though, and were in bed before midnight.

After breakfast and the handing over of gifts for our anniversary, Harpinder, Barry, Jimmy and Finn headed for Belfast and Karl and I left for Portmarnock at around midday. It was about an hours drive from Dundalk and its beautiful! The hotel is also a golf estate, and the view from our bedroom window was the first tee!

After dropping off our bags at the hotel, we headed out for a walk on the promenade. Despite the sunshine, it was pretty chilly, but it didn't seem to bother anyone, people were out with their baby strollers, dogs, and toddlers, and some even ventured into the Irish Sea!!! I love this sleepy seaside town. It reminds me so much of Cape Town.

After the walk, we showered and changed and got ready for our dinner at the greedy goose. its was a 5 course meal! But they cheated as tea/coffee was also included as a meal, but the food was AMAZING! I had a prawn and shrimp platter, lamb hotpot, and duck in phyllo pastry and ended it with raspberry and white chocolate and raspberry sorbet. Karl had deep fried mozzarella sticks with tomota jam, a pork platter and a beef rib dish and dessert was chocolate parfait with butterscotch and hot chocolate. It was the perfect ending to our first wedding anniversary.

We got home yesterday afternoon, and Karl went with me to the forest to collect acorns and small twigs for my next project. I am starting a flower arranging course with my mother-in-law on Thursdays, and we are making xmas wreaths, so we collected a few bits yesterday. We are also having a very early Xmas dinner on 10 December, because the fiances and girlfriends are going to spend this xmas with their families this year, so we decided to have a big formal xmas party with everyone where we exchange our secret santa gifts etc. Just another excuse to eat and dress up really! Everybody is bringing a dish etc, so I'm trying to co-ordinate that at the moment. Thats about all from my side at the moment. xx