Fishy fishy fishy fish.

I have been living in Ireland for almost a year now (how time flies) and realised the other day that I had not been proper fishing yet. A couple of times I have put out a line behind a boat that the mackerel have chosen not to bite at (bastards), but I had not been fishing with a rod.


This situation needed an immediate remedy and I managed to persuade my friend FF to take me out today with his girlfriend ER (royal dont you know?).


I got to Seaforde just before 5 and we went out in a rowing boat. FF showed me the basics and we started casting away hoping to catch some fish. 

FF was using what looked like a small fish with hooks attached and I was using what is known as a spoon bait which looks like a table spoon with a three pronged hook on the end. 


We were out there for about an hour before one of us got a bite. Just my luck it was FF who got the first one. After a battle of 5 or so minutes he successfully hauled in a 10 pound pike - a veritable monster.

I felt like it would soon be my time and it was only a matter of minutes after FF had put his pike back into the lake that I got what felt like a bite, quickly followed by confirmation that I had a fish on my hook - Woohoo! Get in there my son! Heave it in.


My battle with the fish was over a lot quicker than FF's and I initially put this down to my superior strength. After only a minute I had landed my fish onto the boat and it soon became apparent that my muscle power had nothing to do with it. FF's fish had definitely been trying to eat his fish-like bait. My fish had other ideas and must instead have been trying to make sweet fish love with my spoon-like one.

We're definitely not gonna need a bigger boat!!

Easily excitable Karl?

.....I was over in England last weekend for my sister's son Jacob's christening which was an absolute blast - great to see lots of friends and family over an action packed weekend.


As I was going straight from work on Friday I had to do one of the most uninspiring activities known to man - choosing between various options for airport parking.


At Belfast International airport you have a lot of choice. There is Cosmo, BCP, Killead Airlodge, Mccausland and Karl to name but a few.


In the end I went with Mccausland as I could book online and it is very close so you do not have to wait very long at all however on the way to the airport I drove past a sign for the Karl carpark that caught my eye. 

    

I was very happy that I had not chosen this option. There was something about it that I found a bit depressing for some reason. 

It was on the way back home on Sunday evening that I went past Karl again, from the other side this time, and I realised that actually Karl is the most exciting of all the airport carparks and the one I will be using from now on. 

Bar Bar Barber, have you any skills?

....I went to the barbers this week.

Called Shear Madness it is one of the many in Ireland where the name seems to be more important than the standard of cutting (another notable being "Curl up and Dye".


I asked them for a bit of a trim and thought I was happy with the results until I got home and had a better look which was when I realised that she had left me with a patch of longer hair at the back.

The plan was to get LB to cut it down to the length of the rest of the hair until I realised that instead of being a bit scatty and also a bit unprofessional, the barber was actually doing me a big favour and starting me off with the foundations for a comb-over. I will now be cultivating this patch for my hair-swirl of the future. Hopefully Northern Ireland will become wind free or I may be in trouble.