June & July

My mum had to return again at the begining of June for a family funeral, it was so sad, but in the same way it was nice to have her and the boys here for a while. I managed to take some extra time of work at short notice, and spent a few days with them. My brother and his wife came up for the funeral too, it was good to see them, even under sad circumstances.

The boys had a great time here, they were wanting to go to the beach, but the weather wasn't all that good, so instead I got them a football and football net for the back garden which kept them amused, they thought it was great!

June flew through... all was quiet in the Friel house. I popped down to Laois for a weekend, which was great fun. I bumped into friends I hadn't seen in years, some of them more than 14 years ago! After that I nipped to Dublin to catch up with a friend from the UK, we spent a couple nights there which was great fun... then I hit the roads again, heading home.

I managed to get to London for a weekend as well... I had to go for a meeting for work in Aldershot on the Thursday evening, so I asked if they could book my flight home for the Sunday and I took the train to Olympia and surprised the family! Alfie and Morgan didn't quite know what to do, their little faces when they saw me were all confused... but quickly changed to smiles, and it was as if I'd never been away!

July itself was pretty quiet, I started spending quite a lot of time at the beach, taking photos and going for walks at least every other night... it's gorgeous there, so quiet and so few people... it's great to just unwind and think... even if there's nohing on your mind (pics in following post)!

Oh, and I also started a new job! I'm still pretty excited about the new job. I started at the end of July as Account Manager for the Inish Times, the local leading newspaper!!!! The team are great, they're a fab bunch and it works really well... Been there a couple weeks now already, and am looking forward to being there for some time!!!