I’m not sure where to start this entry.

Do I start it by talking about the fantastic gig on Friday night?

Do I start by talking about how I didn’t make it to bed on Friday night?

Do I talk about the crazy crowds in Nury on Saturday morning?

Or, do I talk about decorating the house on Saturday night.

Ah!

Too much happened! It was a very busy one.

Ok. I suppose it’s more logical to start from the beginning.

Friday night, I did the usual gig in Dundalk. It’s an Irish music gig that I’ve only recently been invited to play at. Usually, it’s Malachy on guitar, Alan on fiddle and banjo and my self on Pipes whistles and the bodhran. This week though, instead of Alan, we were joined by Noreen. She also plays the fiddle but she has a very different style. Both musicians would be the same in terms of experience and talent but I really enjoy when Noreen plays music with us as the change is very nice. Of course, they’ll say the same when someone stands in for me. The change, no matter who stands in is always nice. As usual, I was last to leave the pub. We normally wait around after everyone has gone to stay for a drink with the bar staff. It was around 4:30 when I finally got out of there. There was method in my madness though this week.

I’d organised with Emma that we’d go straight from Dundalk on Friday night / Saturday morning to Nury. For people out of Ireland, Nury is in the occupied 6 counties in the north of the country. It therefore benefits people in the 26 counties who can travel to it to go up there for shopping as the VAT (Value Added Tax) is less up there than it is in the 26 counties. In certain shops such as Argus, further discounts can be found as for some reason, their prices are lower in the 6 counties.

The reason that we were crazy enough to go to Nury so early on Saturday morning was to avoid the huge tail backs on the way into the town. Last year, we left Drogheda at 8AM but it took us 3 hours to get into Nury! It should take 45 minutes at most!

So, the shops opened at 8AM, but the crowds started building at half seven! It was amazing! Ten people ascended on the door trolleys at the ready within a few seconds. By the time we got from the car park to the door at 20 to 8, the line was a good fifty feet long. By a quarter past 8, there were people in the shops complaining that there were no trolleys left.

I’ll not bore you with the rest of the events of the day but I have to tell you, I got 48 pints of Bulmers for around 50 Euro. You can really appreciate why people are travelling to get these prices.

I’d promised Emma that we’d put up the Christmas tree and decorations on Saturday night. I’d been invited to a large house party on Saturday as well but I decided to cancel. I’ll probably get an ear full next Friday though.

The tree I bought a few years ago is over six foot so with four sets of lights and a lot of decorations; it needs a lot to fill it. It’s not over done though from what I’m told. I have a picture of It on Emma’s camera but as usual she’s been too lazy to edit it for me. I’ll annoy her about it later.

The reason it is so big is I bought it when I was living in the most fantastic apartment ever. It was an old converted convent and I was on the top floor where the chapple use to be. It had really high vaulted sealing and the bedroom was up stairs over the bathroom and the spare room. The living room and kitchen had no sealing so when standing in the bedroom up stairs, you could look down into both rooms. I’ve a very scary blog post to write about my time in there.

Anyway, back to the decorations, it’s all done now for another year. We’ve a tree in the porch, we have a fibre-optic angel in the window of the living room and we have an electric candle thing in the front window on the other side of the house so from the front the two windows on each side of the house is lit up with the porch in the middle containing the fibre-optic tree. I hear it looks well.

Again, pictures will be available soon.

I have to admit, Sunday was more or less lost. Because I didn’t get to bed at all on Saturday night and was therefore up for almost 48 hours straight, when I did finally get to sleep on Saturday night, I didn’t wake until 4PM on Sunday afternoon. Terrible isn’t it? I felt terrible for losing most of the day. It’s not like me at all!