biminiblue

I'm so glad you went to the Tower Hill Memorial. I get teary-eyed at war memorials, too.

Thanks for Big Ben. Have a great day.

Hodd

I must apologise for this appalling weather, AL 😫

I’m not as tough as you, so haven’t been out running for a couple of days. I thought I’d drag the electric hoover out just now and make my car interior less embarrassing, but after two minutes came the rain! I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I have a new other half, and I recently decided to surprise her with a trip to a mystery venue. The slight problem was I didn’t know there it was myself and we ended up walking lost in the rain 🤣 it’s the thought that counts! At least I tried 🙂 Hope Harry Potter etc was all good.

AL48

No problem biminiblue and dont worry about it Hodd it was only a drop and the tour was 99% indoors. Being a tourist is exhausting. I am looking forward to my own bed tomorrow night.
So to summarise my weekend away it was a great experience and i wont wait 36years to come back to London.🙂.

tursiops999

So glad you've had a good weekend away, AL.

AL48

Great to be home😭. I love being away going out to eat and feeling pampered. No cleaning, cooking making beds and any other housework my wife and I have to do. Roll on Killarney February 6th new bank holiday we now have in Ireland one almost every month now. I'm spoiled thats my problem these days🙃.

biminiblue

Glad you enjoyed your trip.

Robbie64

I'm glad you enjoyed your trip AL and thanks for the photos.

AL48

Thanks guys.
Back to reality today but its not a bad one. Up 6am housework done, walk done just the recycling left to do, and when you have view's like this along the way while walking its hard to moan about anything.

venuscat

Lovely ❤️

tursiops999

That looks like a beautiful morning, thank you for sharing the pic.

AL48

This going back to work is brutal after having such a great time away. A feeling of sadness is the only way I can put it across. Strange and stupid really as I couldn't afford to live that way😅. Just putting it down to having a lovely time with my family in a lovely city and all done sober without even look at the inside of a Pub.
By the way its a wild wet day today so im better off at work.

biminiblue

I watched a few sailing channels on YouTube when the pandemic was making me want to get-away-from-life. Those small sailboats are nothing but one headache after another. Seems so romantic - living on a little boat and visiting French Polynesia etc. - until you have to do the constant maintenance just to keep from being killed by it!

Hodd

Awww, that post-holiday feeling after such a whistle stop break is understandable, AL. But take it from someone who grew up in London and goes back a lot, you soon get sick of crowds 🤣 Where I live now, if I want to go buy a coffee, I can order and be supping an overpriced latte in a minute. In London, I might be queuing for 20 minutes. Nice place to visit, though.

Plus you’ve got another trip lined up soon 👍

As for my Irish passport … progress at last. After getting the right grandfather (it’s easy to find the wrong one!) and all his birth (1888), marriage and death certs, same for my own dad and finally me (apart from the death cert!), then came the excitement of Christmas but I finally posted all the docs yesterday. This first stage takes 12-18 months and it’s just to register a foreign birth in Ireland. After that, the passport application is relatively quick. A lot of Brits applying (for obvious reasons).

Hope you’re feeling more upbeat soon, AL. The London trip sounded like a wonderful Christmas present 🙂

tursiops999

AL, I'm so glad you had a lovely time away with your family. Yes, it can be sad to return to the day-to-day, and especially to work. I used to work seasonally (spring and fall with lots of overtime, then minimal hours in winter and summer). It could be really depressing sometimes when the busy work season was starting again. Some people are lucky or plan well and can do work that they truly love, that is their passion, but for a lot of us, work is ... work. The thing that helped me was to try to identify a few things that work brought me -- economic security, mainly -- and express gratitude for that. Even when I didn't love my work, I was grateful that it gave me a home, food, and money for vacations.

AL48

Ive been doing a grateful list lately Tursiops(last few weeks) writing down a few things every morning. It seems to help. I know myself my mood gets better with the brighter evenings coming, but im trying to be more positive in general.
Hodd London was great and yes like any good city being a tourist helps, different story living and working there. Like when my wife tells people she's from Paris, she never says what part😅. Believe me its a rough part.
Great news too on the passport Hodd, before you know it you will have to practice the accents of the west of Ireland, they can be difficult.
Definitely don't do the Tom Cruise one from that movie with Nicole Kidman its awful 🤮 thats even embarrassing for the Irish to hear.

Hodd

🤣 I don’t know if you ever saw Sopranos, AL, the epic box set series about the US mafia guy trying to be a family man. In a few episodes, him and a couple of fellow gangsters travel to Naples. They think they’re 100% Italian but are just seen by everyone there as tourists who don’t have a clue. That’ll be me anywhere in Ireland! This London accent is hard to shift despite decades of trying 🤣

There must be a few people in Ireland who are less than happy that all these Brits are applying für passports and will probably never visit? For what it’s worth, I lived in Germany for a long time and would’ve qualified for a German passport after a couple more years. I knew this would be a wise move just on case the UK left the EU, but there was something about having a German passport that didn’t feel right. Difficult to explain as I liked Germany. I just feel more Irish than German I guess.

And yes, I can imagine living in Paris can be stressful. I did a lot of work near Versailles and was often in bars (no surprise) in dodgy North African neighbourhoods. I wouldn’t dare go to such areas now. And as for the traffic ….

AL48

You get a few bad apples in every community and they spoil it for everyone. Where she lived was fine right next to her Grandmother RIP (Mamie) she lived in a high rise for the elderly very secure and lovely people there. Not to many Irish in that area so i was a bit of a novelty back in in early 90s🙃.
Biminiblue never been a yacht person either but with rent skyrocketing here at the moment people are living in them now fulltime. Its even rough on the river these days so that particular one came in for shelter in the last day or so.

Almost bright walk to work but my knee is flaring up slow pace walk in order.

biminiblue

Heh. I would have constant nightmares about drowning. There are a couple single-handed sailors in small boats like that one in your picture who have YouTube Channels. Interesting to watch, but they completely erased my longing for sailboat life.

Wind Hippie is one, a young American girl.

I really like Sailing Nandji (young Aussie family) and Sailing Florence (young British couple) and Sailing Uma (a couple.) They all got trapped in various places around the world during lockdown.

Fun to watch, especially when you're locked down - which I hope never happens again.


**edited** after you added that image - it is beautiful!

tursiops999

Beautiful pre-dawn pic, AL. My late husband and I had a sailboat for awhile ... we lived aboard for a few months here and there, and with wifi we could still do our remote jobs. I loved it, but it is a lot of work maintaining the boat, and there were a few times in storms that I got scared. That's all behind me now, sold it when my Mr. T. died. Now I just launch my little paddle board, and I'm happy with that -- no maintenance at all!

AL48

Cant wait for paddle boarding season to come back. Definitely not today really rough. Last night was even worse, lots of seaweed on the slips this morning. Just get me out of this month and we can look forward to spring 🙂 bright, evening swims, kayaking into the night i cant wait.