And the summer comes to a close... Tullamore for the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann

Well... It's hard to believe that it's actually the end of August... I should be flying "home" now and I'm not. Truth is, I'm feelin' very cozy and at home here, but it's definitely strange that I'm not headed back to school next week. Cheers to all you who are! Slee... good luck with the kiddies and hi to everyone for me, k?

Tullamore was absolute madness... it was really really really amazing fun. Music until all hours, a great campsite, just everything was wonderful. Spent so much time with friends... saw so many who I hadn't in a year or even two or even three.

Jayne and Jen (from home) were up and that was a special treat. They were at our campsite and were able to meet everyone :)
The whole gang was up... what fun.

Big Congrats to the whole gang for their amazing performance in the Ceili Band competition finals! We are all so proud of you!
Also big cheers to Sean & Gearoid for winning the duets...
Amazing work by Tommy for his awesome 2nd in the flute comp and great work in concertina!
And to Jayne for her brilliant playing in both fiddle competitions!
Everyone is so proud of all of you!

The last night was interested... on monday the campsite, that was supposed to stay open until Tuesday, just decided they would kick everyone out. Oh it was raining and quite a disaster. So, Sean and I went on a bit of an adventure to figure out where to move 7 people (some went home instead of staying then one more day). We found a wonderful B&B and Maureen took us all right in... all of us with our wet selves!

During the commotion, Tommy misplaced his flute. Well, that's an understatement... he lost it. It was REALLY lost and so all of us went on mass contact to the entire musical community that was in Tullamore... texting, talking, going to venues asking around, looking at every flute case, everything we could do. They left heartbroken on Monday night without his flute. The next morning, a sweet old man rang Tommy saying he found it, heard there was a musician missing a flute and tracked down the number from a message that Miriam had left at the hospital (where they were parked). AMAZING. They flew back to Tullamore and met the man and I don't think I've ever seen them so relieved. So, the flute made it back home to Tommy... where it belonged! Yay.

The night before, during the flute frenzy, we had an amazing dinner at Davinci's that night and great tunes back at Kelly's and then an AMAZING night's sleep in cozy beds... with a leisurely wake up, amazing breakfast and then we rolled into Delicious for some wonderful lunch and then on the road. I went back to Portlaoise (sick as could be... ugh... tired) and caught a lift with Kathleen again back to Galway. We were both so out of sorts that we had to play the name game for the entire 2.5 hours of the drive! It was nuts. Now I'm back home, recovering again... All is well otherwise...

Hope all is well with all of you :)
smiles, Jess

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