Wet T-shirts

I went on my first ever trip to the gym last night. I was looking for an aerobics class but I ended up in a room filled with medieval torture machines and I willingly strapped myself in to a number of them. After 20mins (this might be an exaggeration - I may have only been there for 2 mins) I was covered in sweat and my t-shirt was wringing. My legs were wobbly and my face was red from a mixture of 'oh dear god I'm gonna pass out' and 'oh christ, don't look at me, don't look at me, don't LOOK at me'.
I think I'll go back, no hunk of metal, plastic and flashy orangey lights is gonna defeat me.
Also speaking of hunks - a gym ain't the place to find any- instead it seems to be populated by men with enormous bodies but tiny heads. Its really disconcerting to speak to them. You keep waiting for the body to wander off to do its own thing while the tiny head hovers in front of you to continue the conversation.
And don't get me started on the dressing room, my eyes are burning. I think I might have actually inadvertently uttered the words 'Oh dear Lord woman, where's yer vest'. I was definitely thinking prudish thoughts along the lines of 'it's Ireland not the bleedy Med' or 'oh we're all European now, are we?

Kerry Holidays

I've escaped from the Big Pisspot (there is a surprising lack of public toilets in Dublin forcing many men who tragically missed out on toilet training to take a leak on the street) for the weekend and am currently updating this on a home computer. Despite the fact that there is slurry spreading going on somewhere this place still smells a whole lot better than Dublin.
I was walking through Temple bar a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine, when we noticed something was amiss. First it was simply that people walking against us seemed to be going faster than the usual Dublin trot, the second sign of amissness was noticed after a few more steps...the smell, the smell that somehow had managed to escape from the pits of hell. I can't fully describe it, a nightmarish mix of rotting rubbish, burning tires and Beelzebub's gaseous excretions, no matter how hard I try, but I can assure you it was bad, so very, very, very bad. Luckily the finest feature of Temple Bar came into use, all roads lead away.
One other thing I've noticed which I find kindof odd, all election posters have been taken down across Dublin and Kildare but in one place, Kildare Street.

Anyway enough....Kerry is gorgeous and sunny, we went to Ballybunion yesterday and walked along the beach barefoot. Well I did, S left his boots on and kindly pointed out the number of dogs on the beach and shared a story of dead donkeys and long nourished scars.

We watched as parents inflicted some of the worst embarrassments of childhood on a new crop of sufferers. In particular the 'go on and get changed, sure I'll hold up the towel' method which I always fell foul of. Do you think parents take classes, is this something we'll be required to do to our children when the time comes?

It's Listowel's writers week and Glen Hansard was down giving a songwriting course and played in St John's on Friday night. The place was filled and the crowd were all fans. Bloody brilliant, I'm not much good at describing music, I've two definitions 'me like' and 'total pants' and this was a 'me like' event. The lighting guy was pretty good too.

Wallpapering is going on at home and I've learnt a number of new swear words.