Q1

Time for our first quarter Ireland report:

We have an apartment, mobiles, a VW Polo (with a working stereo--that's new), a guest room tested by actual guests, radiators, biscuits, tea, muesli and yogurt, washing-up liquid, two torches, crisps, and Dubliner cheese. We're sorted, I guess you could say.

I haven't been behind the wheel of a car in three months. Although I frequently, as recently as yesterday, walk to the driver's side. Bill has brought home the rashers and fried them up in a pan. He's navigated our Irish life paperwork, with varying degrees of success. I've talked to scores of recruiters and interviewed enough times to be sick of it. We've visited Cork, Galway, Kilkenny and Drogheda. We've navigated the DART and the LUAS. Experienced the Christmas throng in City Centre. Took a new year's day walk on Dollymount strand. Quaffed pints of Guinness and Bulmers and Smithwick's and soothed sore throats with hot whiskey. Watched the sky turn from blue to grey to blue.

We welcomed the new year with the flu. Bought a selection of chesty cough and even (accidentally) ibuprofen with codeine. Being sick brings a certain kind of homesickness. You want all things familiar and easy. But then you start to feel better, are grateful to be upright, and that carvery lunch with three servings of potatoes tastes as good as anything is the world.