And that's what hearts are for; you give her one, she breaks more

I am returnéd from what was referred to by muzz as "the motherland", the place in question being of course ireland, after two weeks of.. not being at home. what occurred was varied throughout the fortnight, as can be seen by the fact that over the two weeks, i slept in about 6 different beds (there was lots of moving around). suffice to say that the trip had unfortunately less alcohol than i would have hoped for (although the more intelligent of you might take from that that i got drunk off my head every night for 14 days, recognising there is quite a large upper limit to my desire for the old alcohols) but there was some. staying with 18 year old cousin for a week has it's benefits.

truth be told i didn't really get drunk, because the time i started spending money on alcohol, i was running out of money to spend on alcohol (sucks to be me) and all i was drinking was mostly cider, which i haven't ever used by itself to get drunk (but i have plans for whenever a bunch of us get together next, which is something i'm plotting for this week while most of my family is still in ireland. the plans go something along the lines of saying "look! 8 cans of cider! anyone want to race me to see who can drink 4 the fastest?" which could be entertaining.

anywho, among the highlights of my holiday were:-

- lots of swimming. lots and lots of it. a week by the beach and then near a swimming pool with fairly active (and rather bored) relatives will do that to you. there was even nearly a point where we went swimming at 1 AM. in the sea. the oh so very cold sea, which causes the numbness. like ice. luckily, the swimming in the dark was abandoned, and we ended up just trying to scare some people in a car who were (in my cousin's words) "canoodling"

- avoiding a fight between two not exactly tall or well built drunks and my cousin, who was surrounded by about fifteen friends. as we walked home it transpired he had someone elses blood on his jeans. fun.

- lots of Halo 2 late into the morning (and generally lots of late nights/early mornings, but that's hardly unusual for me) and i would argue that i probably improved there. i was beating both of my cousins by the end of the week (although not all the time, obviously) but that might have more to do with the tendency to respawn with a sword or a rocket launcher because we had it on random weapons.

- i went fishing. it was dull, as expected, and so the next two times my cousins went out fishing, they went at 5 AM, so i could do something useful in the meantime (like sleep)

- lots of walking. the cousins i was staying with live in the middle of nowhere. having said that, it only took about 15 minutes to walk into the nearest town, and it takes me more than half an hour to walk into aylesbury, and i do that all the time so it was hardly a big deal. walking out further into the rural-ness to the free house of my cousin's friend was a bit of a trek though..

this would not be an exhaustive list, and there was much fun to be had, but a lot of it focuses more on details than whatever, so i can't be bothered about it (and/or can't remember it) but it was striking that most of the people in kilkelly made me feel like we're all posh, prudish and well behaved little schoolboys in comparison, who go to church and are all pious and crap. scary.

anyway, i've probably said as much as i'm going to say, so let's wait and see if something worth posting about happens. cheerio.