Xmas

---

Geo: 53.363, -8.8209

Christmas was good but exhausting. Got everything done but I actually cried buckets it's very emotional seeing the last 10 years of your life (and the hoardings of about 17) go into the attic, but it all seems like a dream now. We worked like dogs 24th & 27-29th & then scrubbed the place, we were leaving at 9am on the Fri 30th so I was up at 6:30am vacuuming! Still we managed to go out 5 of the 7 nights we were home (the other 2 being Christmas night & 27th that was the packing til 2am night) so it wasn't all work but my back was a bit achy by the time we got back here. We waited til Christmas day to go to Galway & got down in 2hrs40 which is a 1st, normally takes 4hrs, but there was no one out & theres a new motorway & extra bypasses in county Galway. Then dinner in Radisson was disappointing!

So we went for big dinner & drinks on Xmas eve with 20 people in Dublin but I dunno how C. drove on 5 hours enibrated sleep or didn't kill us, all I know is I was in bits that morning so fair play to him. Cannot believe we packed up 10-17 years of material goods in 4 days but there ya go, anything is possible if you get up early & do it!

It was very funny driving in convoy with my mother from Galway to Sligo I thought she was ahead of me so I put the foot down to catch her up and then was home an hour before her, meanwhile she has visions of me dead in ditch somewhere (I don't have a full licence so she thought I'd be slow)! She was looking for ambulances all the way home, I thought she'd kill me for speeding but she was so delighted I was alive I was off the hook.

---