Rugby World Cup Quarters

Just read Simon's comments on his blog on the RWC quarter finals yesterday, and completely concur with everything he said. An amazing pair of results. Looking forward to the semis, though, it is hard to call. Both England and France played their hearts out to get this far - France will have home advantage again, being back in Paris next weekend, but they must have given so much to beat the Partly-Greys, and knowing their tempestuous nature, you have to wonder if they can pull off another significant victory. And as for England, no-one in their right mind ever thought they would get this far - so I guess it is easy to see either team losing, and neither team winning - but someone has to! As for England, a stupendous result to "go the distance" as even if they lose to France, they will play in the third place play-off. South Africa are through against Fiji, but the remaining northern team, Scotland, have still to play their match against Argentina. After thinking there would be no northern team in the semis, there could be three? That would make for a really gob-smackingly-strange weekend of rugby. I actually favour Argentina to go all the way - and good luck to them...

Cecil Williams' Funeral

I was privileged to be able to attend Cecil (CAB) Williams' funeral at Crinken last Monday. Cecil was 90 when he married Sarah and me at Cloyne, Co Cork, on 13 March 1999. He was one time minister at Schull, West Cork, Grandpa's last parish, and Crinken church was his last parish before he retired to Portstewart, near Coleraine. It was when he and Gwen were living there that Sarah got to know them during her university years.

Sarah and I are grateful that we had the chance to meet Cecil once again in Coleraine earlier this year. Our thoughts are with his family, but as Ken Clarke said during his address at the funeral, we celebrate his life, and the fact that he has now arrived at his destination. I find people like Cecil who have been so faithful in their lives and ministry for such a long time a real inspiration.

Camping in the West of Ireland

We had a great weekend camping with some friends from Yorkshire, Phil and Helen Ratcliff and their children Luke and Bethan. They caught the ferry across, and we met them in a car park off the Galway bypass before continuing on to Roundstone. The first campsite we looked at wasn't great for tents - a rough piece of land tucked away at the back (we did see people camping there later). Anyway we carried on to another campsite around the corner which had a big sign outside saying no tents - caravans only. Phil and I spoke to the owner, and he said that notice was just to "keep the rowdies out". He clearly decided that we didn't fit into that category, and agreed to let us set up our tents at the edge of the campsite, overlooking Dog's Bay. What a fantastic location! We got the tents up before the rain started, and spent the evening hiding inside, chatting and drinking wine! The next day was a glorious sunny day which we spent on the beach - Sarah and I actually went in for a swim which was cold at first but then great! We flew kites with the kids, played cricket, built sandcastles, you get the picture! We headed into Roundstone for a bite to eat on the Saturday evening before having another lazy beachy morning on the Bank Holiday Monday and then returned to Dublin in the afternoon, leaving Phil and Helen and the children to enjoy the rest of their holiday.

A few shots of the campsite and Dog's Bay

We had a catch up evening with the Ratcliffs this week when they called in to see us one evening in our flat, as they had come up from Galway and were camping at Clondalkin. We had a meal together before taking them on a tour of south Dublin to show them Crinken church and various possibilities of where we might live - if we ever decide to buy a house!

Henry's Baptism

Sarah and I popped over to Yorkshire last weekend for Henry's baptism as we were honoured to be asked to be his godparents. Henry is the one year old son of our friends Jaish and Carolyn Mahan, who lived opposite us in North Stainley just up the road from Ripon in North Yorkshire.

We stayed with some other friends, Chris and Liz Thomson, who we have organised to go sailing with in Croatia in September - who were good enough to collect us and return us to Leeds Bradford airport. It was great to be able to catch up with people, as well as meet (briefly) the new minister at our old church, Mark Tanner, who has arrived since we've been in Dublin.

The baptism service was very well done, informal and welcoming, as well as acknowledging the special occasion for the families involved. It was all followed by a buffet lunch downstairs in the converted crypt, which for Sarah and me, meant an ideal opportunity to catch up with loads of Trinity folk - including Tom from our old CYFA youth group, who looks like he hasn't had a haircut since we left!

Henry is a real cutie - as you can see from the photos, neither he nor his mother stay still for long!

Henry with his parents and godparents - Sarah, Liz (a university friend of Jaish & Carolyn) and me...

...and with Mark Tanner

Holidays in Donegal

The week before last we had a fantastic holiday in Donegal with Mum and Dad. We stayed in Ken and Helen Clarke's house between Milford and Carrickart
(north of Letterkenny). After a long-ish drive up on the Friday afternoon through constant rain, we were fearing the worst. However, we were very well spoilt with loads of sunshine, and only a few short showers.

We explored around Donegal plenty, as I had never been, and got to Donegal Town, Killybegs, Fanad Head, Bloody Foreland, Slieve League cliffs, across Lough Swilly to Inishowen as well as paying a day trip to Londonderry.

The photo was taken on the beach at Rathmullan, and seems to rather spoil the whole idea??

We also had the privilege of celebrating Mum and Dad's 37th wedding anniversary while we were away, which we did in good style in an excellent restaurant just outside Dunfanaghy.

We met up with Graham, Angela and Megan Cooper at the Church of Ireland in Stranorlar, where a mutual friend of Dad and Graham is now the vicar. We all went out for lunch afterwards to celebrate Graham's 60th birthday.

Then it was back to Dublin, and back to work for Sarah and me, but we continued to enjoy Mum and Dad's company for a few more evenings, while they did their own thing in the day time. This seemed to involve going out with Auntie Alison, and looking at Yummy Mummies (you can work that one out for yourselves!) The last night Dad and I went out for a couple of beers in the local pub in Stillorgan for a bit of male bonding, an excellent end to a great 10 days.

Follow this link for more holiday snaps...

Now it's 11, Tiger!

At last we got to see a serious 5 set final at Wimbledon - a bit more dramatic than the straight sets victory Federer achieved over Roddick two years ago. Great match, and amazing for Federer to equal Bjorn Borg's record of 5 Wimbledon's in a row under his nose! But I was hoping Nadal would win....

I was amused to see the following ad played on BBC Wimbledon coverage yesterday.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Yesterday was Sarah's birthday, so in the evening we went out to a great restaurant n Blackrock called Dali's to celebrate. The sweet sultana, coconut and ginger crumble was the best dessert I've had in a long time.

Didn't she look fantastic?

Congratulations

Congratulations to Ben for passing his Bac - Kristin passed on the good news this morning. I understand a degree in International Law now beckons, starting in Essex, and then continuing (some may say "progressing") to France and America.

To help him prepare for the first stage of this global adventure, the following links may prove useful:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6581720
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_girl

Just remember Essex also has a "country end"!

Well done !!!

End of Sailing Course Dinner

Our sailing course has come to an end (sob, wail & lamentations). Here a few photos I took last Friday, on our last trip out - it was extremely calm, so we didn't get very far.

This is the view from the NYC landing, Dun Laoghaire west pier alongside

Helping out with the rigging...

The Toppers setting out for their race

...and our sister 1720 yacht

Carole at the helm

Cian, our adventurous nstructor

I'm laughing because we're not actually going anywhere!

...and the most glamorous new member

Afterwards we had a sit-down dinner in the sailing club, where Alan the Rear Commodore made a speech

This is Neil, another of the instructors. Today I saw him walking down the street in Dun Laoghaire with a leggy blonde (just in case anyone was wondering.....)

The good news is they're running a follow-on course in August, so we'll be signing up for that, and may be give the Toppers a go...

And he's gone...

Funny to think that Tony Blair has now finally left Downing Street, though having said that, I can remember 1 May 1997 like it was yesterday. I was with some friends in a house in Leeds, watching the results coming in, seeing Michael Portillo lose his seat and realising how big a majority Labour had actually won. I remember getting up the following morning, and walking down to Horsforth railway station and thinking that the sky hadn't turned red after all. I had grown up under 18 years of Conservative government, so it seemed like the world had changed.

Obviously a lot has happened since then, and I guess a lot of people won't be sorry to see Blair go. Gordon Brown as the new PM seems to be striking a good note so far (24 hours in) and I for one approve of his action on debt cancellation and aid for the poorest countries so hopefully that's a good sign of what's do come. Douglas Alexander (who was interviewed in the Christian Third Way magazine over a year ago) has been appointed Development Secretary.

As for Irish politics and that awful Flynn woman (http://www.independent.ie/national-news/bev-says-she-has-nothing-to-be-sorry-about-772999.html), I am left speechless... I know, that in itself is worthy an entry in the blog!

Meanwhile, the annual Strawberries & Cream & Tiger Tim fest is under way in SW19. Having heroically survived his first round match, finally overcoming Carlos Moya 13-11 in the final set, our Tim crashed out in the second round to someone I haven't heard of, tasting some of his own medicine by going down in the 5th set after clawing back a 2 set deficit.

It reminds me of the day 2 years ago when Sarah and I were fortunate enough to win tickets to the Men's Final in the public draw. We saw Federer work his magic against Roddick, which was fantastic.

Sunshine in Dublin?

The weather has been cold and wet and generally grim in Dublin recently - our sailing was cancelled tonight due to gale warnings. However, we have seen some sunshine recently - when our friends Alison and Michael came over from Ripon, we took a walk a long the sea front between Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire. When we got there, we found the rest of the city was also there! Alison and Michael actually braved it for a swim - whilst Sarah and I sat on the rocks.

We also saw a seal swimming off the rocks. Looks cute? Apparently a sailor loses a finger to one of these monsters every year!

Charlotte tells us that there has been flooding in Sheffield - in fact she had to abandon her car and walk home in the pouring rain.

Anyway, looks like we're going to be blessed with a day of sunshine in Dublin on Thursday - I'm laying out my t-shirt and sunscreen just in case... http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0031

New Arrival in Wicklow

Last weekend Sarah and I went down to Wicklow to look after Jacob and Zac while Philip and Laura headed up to Dublin - and last Saturday evening Beth was born!!

This was taken a couple of days ago, last Thursday when she was only 5 days old. I'm looking forward to going down to Wicklow again next weekend with Sarah and Charlotte to see her for the first time.

Meanwhile it was our job to keep Jacob and Zac entertained, and so we got the electric trains out again - I suggested laying the track on the kitchen floor. After some initial sceptism from Jacob ("My Dad would say this is a bad idea!") at which point I reminded him he wasn't around to complain! a great track was laid, winding around the chair legs and under the table.

The following day we met up with Ian and Jane and the gang at Redcross church before heading back to theirs for a Sunday lunch with Jane's parents.

This weekend we have started the dreaded house-hunting - things started looking up with a beer in our local TGI Fridays and then we decided to have a pizza next door in the little Italian restaurant. Today we met Kristin - or should I say she met us at our flat at 10am (good effort, Kristin!) and went to Glenageary church before returning to our flat for a delicious Sunday lunch of pork tenderloins (good effort, Sarah!).

This week, we have an extra sailing course tomorrow night as we missed a couple of sessions owing to the inclement weather - that is if our instructor manages to get back from delivering a boat to Kinsale - he set off from Dun Laoghaire at 3:30am Saturday. This week is our last week of the course - we have met some great people, and are looking forward to our end of term dinner on Friday.

On line photos

Rather than filling my blog with photos, I think I'll add some links from here to the online photo album. Here's a couple of Nicola's cottage we stayed in near Oughterard Co Galway this Easter. You may need to click on My Photos - not sure...?
www.picasaweb.google.com/dsmumford

Sailing Course

Sarah and I are really enjoying our sailing course with the National Yacht Club at Dun Laoghaire (http://www.nyc.ie/)

Sarah's Mum's cousin Cynthia and Andrew Gray introduced us to the club and told us about the adult sailing course.
It started last week - and runs every Wednesday and Friday evening in June. We are sailing 1720s yachts (crew of 5 plus an instructor). There are also one man dinghys (Toppers) but I haven't tried one yet.


We didn't do any sailing at all on the first evening due to a lack of wind - however, we spent a very pleasant evening sitting on the boat in the middle of the harbour soaking up the sunshine. On the Friday we got under way practising manouevres out in Dublin Bay, and yesterday with the wind stronger still, we became more adventurous and sailed around Dalkey Island and back to Dun Laoghaire harbour. As it is raining hard now, I am not sure we will be sailing tomorrow evening - so we may stay ashore and learn how to tie knots!

Our instructor, Cian, is excellent, very knowledgeable and only 18.

We have drinks and nibbles in the club house bar and chat with the Commodore! Watch this space...

How to enjoy yourself on a Dublin bank holiday weekend II

Yesterday afternoon we headed down to Wicklow to see Sarah's brother and sister-in-law Philip and Laura and their two boys Jacob and Zac. After dinner they got the old trainset that Sarah and the others all used to have back in Midleton years ago..........

How to enjoy a bank holiday weekend in Dublin...

We have really enjoyed seeing Andrew and Hannah in Dublin for the past couple of weekends. They arrived Friday week ago, and we spent the day sightseeing in Dublin before going out to celebrate Hannah's XXth birthday in Dalkey.

The usual Crinken church followed by lunch with Auntie and Kristin, followed by a quick trip to Greystones.

A&H then headed off to Galway and the Aran Islands for the week, before returning to Dublin for a second weekend with us. Sarah and Hannah had an inactive Saturday whilst Andrew and I went to see the Tall Ships in Dublin's Docklands: