Trips to Ireland and Mortgages and Phone Upgrades

As Sinead's entire family is falling ill, we went to Ireland to keep an eye on them. Ciaran is doing fine, three rounds (out of 12) of chemo later. His hair is starting to come out, but he still has enough energy to pull a few shifts at the local pub and to do a great deal of going out, despite various protestations (generally when he wants something like another pint) that "My cancer hurts"...

Sinead's dad is still in hospital, but he's coherent, lucid, and actually has a chance of going home in the next month. We spent the visiting hours wrapped in plastic, half-bathing in anti-bacterial gel, having decent chats and betting on the horses.

When not in hospital, we had some lovely dinners with Sinead's mum and brother and one night on the town in a pub called Slainte: Traditional Irish Pub. Isn't that like going to China and seeing advertisements for Chinese Food? Seems rather naff if they have to say that they're an Irish pub when, blatantly, they're a pub in Ireland...

As for Mortgages, Sinead and I have decided that we might try our hand at the housing market again, despite the fact that we're currently in mediation for one housing dispute (previous landlords) and are starting the process for the most recent mortgage advisor (only registered communication has been exchanged, nothing filed in the courts yet). Rather than Buy-to-Let, we've been talking about getting a group mortgage with Pete and Kate, our flatmates. We had a lovely shiny unaffiliated mortgage advisor come by the house (getting white hair all over his pristine suit in the process) and almost laugh when he heard our four salaries combined. He's making some phone calls though, we'll see how it pans out. Fun to have it in the works though; it's something else to keep my mind off my career or lack thereof.

The most exciting news of all is that I made it through all 18 months of my phone contract and qualified for an upgrade!!!! I now have an awesome phone with a 3.2 mp camera which is also capable of video calling so I can have a video call with anyone who also has 3G service, as far as I can understand how it works... hooray! It also has radio reception, mp3 capabilities, and came with an iPod shuffle... my life is complete (I mean, you know, Sinead and an iPod shuffle, what more could any girl ask for?)

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Ipod Shuffle