Went up to Enniskillen in Norn Irn this weekend, for Julie’s belated works Christmas dinner. Nice hotel, great views across Lough Erne (the pic is from our bedroom window), but the event was a bit of let-down… it was all booked months ago, so they could at least have saved us some Christmas crackers, made sure the carvery included a turkey, or hung up a few decorations. Unfortunately, all we got was some local crooner and a drum machine murdering the usual Elvis and Beatles repertoire. Still, the six hour round trip drive was pleasantly traffic-free, and it’s always fun crossing the national border on one of the minor roads– you can only tell you’ve changed countries when the painted stripe at the side of the road abruptly turns from yellow (Irish side) to white (UK side). Changed times indeed.
On the plus side, got back just in time for the live Motherwell game on Setanta, in which Jim Hamilton crashed in as good a goal as I’ve ever seen a Motherwell player score (we still lost though), and to find that Eircom’s DSL upgrade has gone to plan (now up to 3Mb/384kB… upload speed still a bit crappy, but better than the 128kB we had before).
The joke used to be that you knew when you crossed the border into Ireland cos you hit a pothole…
Now the tables have turned and you know that you’ve crossed the border back into the North cos you hit the potholes.