Out of the Christmas Fug

Well of course the parents got here for the Christmas, though it was touch and go til the last minute - Shannon Airport had run out of de-icer according to Michael O'Leary on the radio - unusually not in rant mode - so we were in bits thinking that meant planes wouldn't fly into the airport. Then there was fog when we got there. But in I went to wait among three flights' worth of happy relatives and friends it said on the board that the Liverpool one was landed. What relief.

Now we're about to go off in the van for a few days. Possibly foolish given the weather forecast. But we have to go and check the boat and it seems the best way to do it. Or at least I thought that was the case until five minutes ago when Joe said, having just heard the weather forecast for the north, 'I was thinking we might go and visit Rob the Bones'. Rob is an old friend from years back who now lives in Cork. The bones bit is not as macabre as it sounds. He was (and is) a wizard playing bones of the percussive kind. Reset the mind time.

Along with me will come my new smart phone. I haven't been so frustrated by a device since the early days of computers when an axe was the instrument you were looking for. It isn't an iPhone (so intuitive! so exactly like my Mac!) but an LG with Android fittings. This is much better for my use (pre-paid), so much cheaper and uses Open Source software which is A Good Thing. But I couldn't get it to produce words properly. Or change between numbers and letters. Or delete photos. Or or or.....

However, I am beginning to enjoy it. The other day we went to Coole Park to see if the wild swans were still there. A beautiful flight of them rose from the lake and disappeared. And didn't come back. I managed to take a photo, but not of the swans. I think I took three videos of water not moving. Then my battery was flat.

Have to go and pack the van. Wonder where we're going. How exciting (I do like sudden changes of plan, I do I do).