Week 18 - Visit all 32 Counties in a week

First of all, I’d like to say that I’ve fallen in love with Ireland all over again this past week. I’m one of those people often guilty of overlooking our very own patch of paradise when looking for places to spend a few days. Like so many things, we think the grass is always greener… I can, however, confirm we have some of the greenest grass anywhere on this earth!

It was only a convenient break between projects that made me decide just 2 weeks ago to embark on a spin around the country and the ticking of a box I was worried wouldn’t get ticked! The challenge of visiting every county on the island in a week was the brainchild of my lovely sister Aisling (thanks sis) and at the time I thought it was a brilliant idea! As the year crept and the evenings shortened I wasn’t so sure and was worried that I wouldn’t get to doing it at all. I was already (and still am!) waaay behind in my quest to do 52 things in 52 weeks.

6 days, 32 counties and 2345km have taught me a lot about our lovely land as well as a lot of about myself… not to mention a detailed knowledge of diesel prices in every corner of the country!

Some people were surprised that I was doing the trip solo. I’m not weird or anything (those that disagree form an orderly queue here) but I’m someone who’s very happy in my own company when I need to be. I know people who can’t be alone in a room with themselves for more than 30 seconds before they go mad. The jeep was my own personal think thank at a time when I needed to do some thinking  about my next steps and work some stuff out. Doing the trip solo meant I could go where I wanted, when I wanted, catch up with who I wanted and stop to take photos of whatever I wanted, however ridiculous! There was also the small matter of getting through 13 Beatles albums along the way. For what it matters, I reckon they were a waaaay better band after they discovered LSD!

The criteria of the challenge was simple… visit all 32 counties in one week. I needed photographic proof so I decided the ‘Welcome to..’ roadsigns were as good as anything! Trouble is, some countries are more welcoming than others it seems (I’m looking at you Co. Clare) so I had to improvise a couple.

I'm not going to bore people with a detailed account of where I've been. There are way to many highlights and places worth mentioning for that. A few places in particular however, really blew me away. I was looking forward to exploring Donegal and it didn’t disappoint. It has everything, including the most northerly point in the country! The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in Antrim is a must, as is Harry’s shack on Portstewart beach (Breakfast bap alone is worth the drive!). Speaking of drives… the journey down through Co. Wicklow and Blessington Lake is brilliant and the road from Bantry in Cork to Killarney (taking in part of the Ring of Kerry) is one of the most spectacular I’ve ever driven.

It really has been a fantastic experience driving through this country that I’m now even prouder than ever to call home. It helped that, unusually for Ireland, it barely rained during the entire 6 days. This island has some of the most spectacular scenery and friendliest people in the world and for those lucky to live here, none of it is more than 3 or 4 hours away. If this all sounds like the spiel from a Failte Ireland brochure then I unashamedly put my hand up. I’ve been to so many new places the past week, met some incredible characters and learned a lot about both myself and the country I call home.

It’s a special place our lovely island… a paradise on our doorstep. All we have to do now is explore it!

Week 17 - Visit a museum

Spending a week or so in London gave me the perfect opportunity to tick off another card on my list of 52 for the year. Seeing as I haven't been doing all that well recently with the cards I said I'd go for broke with this one and not limit it to one museum. (I know, I'm crazy!!)

On Wednesday last I headed to the South Kensington to get me some culture. This area of London is home to a number of world class museums within a stone's throw of one another. The Victoria & Albert Museum is, in its own words, the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design. It's a spectacular building which houses a collection of some 4.5 million objects including incredible works of art, textiles, photography, sculpture, furniture and ceramics that span over 5,000 years of human history. I didn't have time unfortunately to see all of the exhibits that cover its 12 acre footprint but I'll definitely be back to explore it in more depth. Decided to bring Pac-Man for a bit of a stroll too!

 

 The next stop on my afternoon at the museums was The National History Museum, an equally impressive building. Like the big child that I am, I headed straight for the dinosaur exhibition which was extraordinary. I don't care what anyone says, you're never too old to think dinosaurs are cool! The exhibition went right through the various ages and varieties of dinosaur but as you'd expect the animatronic t-rex was the star of the show. After skipping quickly through a couple of million years of history, I made a beeline for the big cats but disappointingly they were just another display in a big corridor of far less impressive beasts. Somehow I managed to stumble across the biggest hall in the entire place, home to a full scale blue whale and a number of its brethren with a supporting cast of giraffes, elephants and dolphins but most impressively of all, a collection of wooly mammoth type giants.

 

 

Having raced my way through mosaics, mammoths, terracottas and a t-rex, I just about had enough time to take in some of the Science Museum and especially an exhibition about Winston Churchill and technology the Allies employed during World War One which I'd seen posters for dotted all around London. Churchill was fascinated by science and technology and put together what was effectively a brains trust of brilliant scientist and engineers who worked on areas like developing a reliable form of radar, the production of penicillin and antibiotics and Britain’s top secret research behind the first atomic bomb. Fascinating stuff for a complete nerd like myself!

So that concludes my mini museum marathon! Decided to add a fourth and go to the Tate Modern too but that may have been a museum too far. Incredibly cool building, even if it has some REALLY strange stuff in it that somehow counts as art! Who am I to criticise I guess... I'm a professional crayon engineer after all! :-)

Week 16 - Buy and build a Lego set!

This task started out as something and then became something a little different! I had the bright idea of buying my beautiful Goddaughter Mya a little Duplo set and building it with her. As I should have predicted for a near 2 year old, she decided to use the pieces as missiles and threw them everywhere apart from together. The below shows how far we got!...

With Mya's Duplo in every corner of the room I needed a plan B. And a simple one too! Alan my work colleague bought me the present of a Lego kit many years and it had always sat on the shelf behind me at work as a testament to things I should have done and finished a long long time ago!

And so it was time to break out the Lego, all 10 odd pieces, and put this bad boy together! Just ignore the fact that it says for 6-12 years on the box! Job done. Next!!!......

Week 15 - Talk to someone I haven't seen in a year.

There are many things that I'm pretty useless at and keeping properly in touch with people is one of them! That's why I included this seemingly pretty simple task amongst the 52!

I had a couple of people in mind when it came to this one and the reality is that I want to catch up with a load more people by the end of the year. My mind was made up when I ran into Mairéad Hannan who along with her sister Deirdre used to babysit my sister and I about 25 years ago!

My relationship with the Hannan household goes way further back. My mum went back to work in the Bank of Ireland after a couple of weeks of having me and I got shipped up to daycare/child minding, whatever you want to call it around the corner from Riverside (Tuam Road) to the Hannan's house which was marshalled expertly by Deirdre and Mairéad's mum, Phil. She was genuinely like a second mother during the early years of my childhood and her house was a magical place to spend my days.

Some of my most impressive scars were acquired in that place by ignoring Phil's orders to behave and slamming into doors, falling off walls, out of trees and into the giant freezer in the shed while trying to steal Mr. Freeze ice pops! Some may argue that I still havn't grown up but I think I did a lot of growing up within those four walls under Phil's constant and watchful gaze!

File photo of a young Farrell after realising I can't reach the pedals! 

I got into the habit of visiting Phil every Christmas for a chat and a catch up but as often happens (with me at least!) the habit started to suffer and visits got less frequent until a couple of years had passed. As soon as I saw Mairéad, I knew that I needed to go and rectify the situation. So... in the spirit of these 52 cards giving me a necessary kick in the arse to go do stuff... I went to visit Phil.

She's always lived in Galway so geography has never been an excuse. Only me being a complete eejit got in the way so in true Irish style the only thing to do was call over and catch up over tea and KitKats! An hour and a half or 2 later and I had to go but we'd spoke about family, work and everything in between. It might sound lame but it reminded me of the importance of not only catching up with people on Facebook or Skype or with a text but actually talking to them in person when you have the chance.

As I said, there are many more people I intend on catching up with before the year is out. I didn't want to take the easy way out with this card and just Skype a mate I hadn't seen in a while. I'm delighted I went to see someone who means an awful lot me and despite Phil Hannan's house being the site of countless trips, falls, cuts and scars... I wouldn't have wanted to spend the first 3 or 4 years of my life anywhere else!

Week 14 - Take a photo every day for a week

I think I'm gonna have to throw the numbering system out the window because I'm about 8 weeks behind at this point! I've got Saibh Egan to thank for this week's challenge, and a couple more for the coming weeks at that! Fittingly for a photographer, she picked out the 7 of Clubs, 'Take a photo every day for a week'.

It's something I should be doing anyhow really and something I'm gonna try to keep up now. What I took are pretty rubbish but hopefully they'll get better with daily practice!

A sneaky Dublin pint pre-bus journey home!

And so the catching up begins! Thanks a lot Saibh Egan!

Cup holders are useful for loadsa stuff!

Hands up if this kinda thing doesn't drive you bat shit crazy!

Friday night pizza at Dough Bros. The best around.

Barca v Juve. Two of my childhood favourites head to head!

On a sunny day this country of ours looks pretty spectacular!

Week Number... eh.. never mind! - Getting Shit Done!

As it happens my last post to this blog was pretty much 2 months to the day! It was about failure and my inability to get one of my tasks done because I was too busy. Well, in that case I've failed miserably since! Not getting it done really pissed me off but it made me realise that I was too busy because I was getting other shit done, stuff that at the time was far more important. The whole idea of the 52 cards and the mini challenges on them was to get me into the habit of getting stuff done and working towards accomplishing the bigger challenges that I've set myself.

A lot has happened in the last 8 weeks or so, much of it a result of pursuing opportunities that I may ordinarily have passed up or even avoided altogether in the past. I've met some amazing people, I've learned a lot about myself (and others!), burned the midnight oil and have had lots of highs as well as the odd low but I've enjoyed every minute.

In times gone by I'd have stood and waited for opportunities to arise but I've learned the hard way (ridiculous as that sounds) that things don't happen like that. Yes it's been an eternity since I last finished one of my 52 cards but I'm ok with it (and the constant abuse!) because I've been busy... getting shit done!

Week 13 - Failure

This post is not about succeeding at task 13 on my list. Instead, it's about failure.

This week's challenge was to learn 10 cocktail recipes. As you can guess, I didn't manage to do it and to be honest I spent most of the weekend pissed off at myself in the knowledge that I probably wouldn't get around to ticking another thing off my list of 52.

The thing is last week was a pretty damn busy one. It's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks in fact and by Friday I was fit to drop... physically and mentally drained. Sometimes you only realise you're running on empty when you stop and come up for air. Failure is tough for a lot of people to deal with. Some embrace it while others get consumed by it. This week I let it hang around like an unwelcome guest. I let the prospect of failure effect the colour and complexion of my entire weekend.

Only on reflection (and writing this while drinking a coffee and getting weird looks on the Salthill Prom!) am I realising that my task for Week 13 is probably the only thing that I didn't get done the past week that I'd set out to do. On reflection I got a hell of a lot done, had a brilliant weekend and managed to catch up with some of my favourite people in this world, many of whom I hadn't seen in a long long time and are the type of people that make you feel infinitely better from just spending some time in their company.

I'm lucky to have some incredibly inspiring and talented people in my life who are doing amazing things, personally and professionally, on a daily basis. Like us all, they fail sometimes but they also get up, dust themselves off and go again. I know my failure this week is a minor thing and it means nothing to anyone but myself but we all need to cut ourselves some slack at times and appreciate what we HAVE achieved and, if faced with failure, dust ourselves off and go again.

I'll get around to learning my 10 cocktails... just not this week! :-)