Well, what a stormer of an announcement today - Bertie Ahern finally got around to announcing that he will be stepping down as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland on 6th May.

While I greeted his stepping down news with delight, I quickly stopped when he mentioned the 6th May date - “That’s my birthday you bugger!” was screamed at the TV and noted on Twitter. The answer from the Twitterati was swift - just have a big “birthday / Bertie be gone” celebration bash! So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Based on further Twitter recommendations I’ve booked an area in the Longstone pub on Townsend Street. Celebrations start at 7pm on Tues 6th May and will probably go on until late (I know I’m going to take the next day off work!). I’ve even organised some finger food for 8pm. And finally, we’ll have some helium balloons to help you find us in case you don’t know what I look like!

Because of the food providing, I’ll need to keep some sort of a track on numbers, so if you think you might make it, then leave a comment below.

View Larger Map

Seeing that Google Maps now allows open collaboration, I’ve started a European Travel Map that allows anyone to add to it.

View Larger Map

Feel free to add in any useful info you can think of:
Hotels to avoid, ones that are good
Memorable restaurants
The best pubs & clubs
Engaging museums or art exhibits

I would envisage that in the future, a collaborative knowledge map could be a great resource when planning a trip away - combining hotel reviews and restaurant recommendations with a visual reference to the city - making it easy to find out what fun things there are to do in the area you’re in.

I’ve been himming and hawing about whether I should write this post or not - the last time I opened my mouth to stand up for girl bloggers (choosing of categories for the las Irish Blog Awards) I was shouted down quite vociferously!

But I think I can get away with this one…. K8 recently awarded me a “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” award!

It’s a meme that’s been doing the rounds and when you receive the award then you get to award it to the best girl bloggers of your choice. As K8 describes it:

It’s a sort of… pass the pink idea, sort of like a little dig of appreciation to your fellow girlie bloggers.

With that in mind, I took a run through my blogroll to see who I should award one to and the results are in. Being typically me, I didn’t stick to just 5 girlies, as I had 6 very deserving people that I couldn’t choose between…

Grannymar - how could I not? The woman who barely knew anything about blogging a year ago now has her own domain and is entertaining people with her wisdom and wit day after day…

Beaut.ie - the girls only came onto the scene late last year but they’ve revolutionised beauty blogging in Ireland and thoroughly deserve ‘yet another’ award!

Red Mum - Mother, Photographer and great drinking buddie, her column paints a true picture of life with a teenager while her photos display the many facets of Dublin life.

The Humble Housewife / Frugal Tiger - Deborah dispenses both delicious recipes and thoughtful money saving tips - an essential in today’s costly Ireland.

Maman Poulet - Recently moved to a nice spanky clean new home, the pilot of the mothership casts her acid tongue over Irish politics and anything else that catches her fancy.

Mary Gilmartin - The ultimate girl geek, the languages that she knows certainly aren’t the worldly ones that you and I speak! Follow her path to learning Japanese and other tidbits that cross her path over at her ‘Crossing the Net as I Work’ blog.

Darnit, I’ve been tagged by Grandad, so I now need to do some thinking. Eight things that you didn’t know about me:

1. I’ve played in two ‘men-only’ rugby matches when I lived in France. First time was for the local town team second string, they had 14 players for a match and the opponents had 15, so instead of canceling they asked the opponents if I could play (I was their First Aider) and the opponents agreed (let me just say that I did have rugby experience). They were kind enough to make me captain (really just to ensure that I understood what the ref was saying) and went light on their tackles. I can’t remember if we won or not, but I strongly recollect our team being clapped off the field and me getting multiple ‘cheek kisses’ from our opponents - as they commented, they were not going to get a chance to kiss one of their opponents again soon!
2. In one year my hair was red, green, blond & brown. This was also the year I lived in France.
3. I believe that i was strangled in a previous life, I have a total phobia about people touching the front of my neck. A friend once grabbed me there when joking around and she ended up halfway across the room, it was a totally instinctual reaction!
4. I don’t drink coffee ever (can’t stand the taste) and I rarely drink tea - usually only when eating shortbread in winter. I hate it when people always offer me tea or coffee, especially when they’ve been repeatedly told for years that I don’t like it. My favourite drink is ice-cold water.
5. Party Trick 1: Most people can cross both their eyes in towards the centre, but ever since I had surgery on my eye muscles as a teenager to correct my squint, I’ve been able to control just my right eye. It really freaks people out when I swing just my right eye in towards the centre. It also nearly earned me a spot on Podge & Rodge last year, but the guy who can drink and then cry milk was deemed to be even weirder!
6. Party Trick 2: This one dates form my university days… I’m a ‘well endowed’ girl, so I can hold and drink from a beer bottle without using my hands… I’ll leave this one to your imagination!
7. Party Trick 3: The newest party trick is one I learned this year when on a trip to Arizona. The wonderful Phylis from the Philippines was also visiting and we had a few drinks in the bar. She asked the barman for some maraschino cherries and proceeded to try and tie the stem in a knot in her mouth. I just had to have a go, and managed it - three times in a row. The men at the bar decided my husband was a very lucky man…

If you’re not familiar with the letters and numbers above, they are US movie classifications.

Via the Limerick Blogger this week is a little service from Mingle2 (a dating service I believe) that looks at your blog, website or My Space page and then gives it an appropriate rating based on the words used within.

My site easily came up as a ‘G’ rating, but I think there’s more fun to be had here… Who do you think would get the worse rating - Mr Mulley for his liberal use of the word cunt recently or Mr Twenty Major for his consistent use of all swear words?

Mr Mulley

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* gay (2x)
* dead (1x)

Twenty Major

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* fucking (6x)
* cocaine (4x)
* cunt (3x)
* dangerous (2x)
* sexy (1x)

Yup, looks like Ireland’s most foul-mouthed blogger runs away with yet another title, Use of the most swear words in a blog!

What about those paragons among us? Are they as clean as they seem?

Grannymar

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* pain (3x)
* breast (2x)

I know my mother had trouble encouraging me to breastfeed, but was I that much of a pain?

However the funniest one that I found had to be the Humble Housewife… Parents are now warned!

Humble Housewife

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* knife (2x)
* crack (1x)

So apparently cooking terms are now PG-rated - who’s have believed it?

Hmmm, I wonder if posting this post will cause my blog to slide downwards from it’s clean ‘G’ rating?

Oh God, I’ve been meaning and promising to post this for ages, and now that the wedding is out of the way I no longer have an excuse!

Our wedding was originally planned for 120 people, but as a lot of them were from overseas we ended up with 85 at the ceremony and meal. But anyhow, it was still kept to under €10k, which in today’s world is something of a miracle. I can’t guarantee that you can do the same for your wedding, but here are a few tips that might help (and a few geek notes along the way…)

Firstly, find out who in your friends and family you can tap for expertise. Send out a general call to all you know asking for advice, recommendations and suggestions for service providers. To that end, here are my top ten money saving tips!

1. I was able to ask my mother (grannymar) who is an excellent seamstress to make my wedding outfit, and as you can see - she did me proud!
2. My cousin, RichardM, is a wedding photographer. I didn’t want too many formal shots or any ’staged funny’ shots, so going to someone I was comfortable with was a great help, I could be completely clear with him. Most important advice here, have a clear list of any family/friends shots you really want and make sure they know they are needed. Give a copy of this list to the photographer, bestman and chief bridesmaid so that they can locate people in advance and therefore avoid stress for yourself.
3. My aunt is a florist so I was able to get my bouquet from her. Research in advance what styles and colours you would like and have an idea about the size - I went for side plate size (photos will follow soon), but what I hadn’t realised was just how heavy the bouquet would be by the end of holding it for an hour of photos.
4. Ask around and see if anyone knows a D.J. or band and compare rates. Try to see the band/D.J. at a previous gig if possible and give them any requests at least two weeks in advance. Having both a D.J. and band will push the costs up to well over €1000, we went with D.J. only and it was €350 for the night - a massive saving. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the music and the floor was crowded all night.
5. Make your own invitations. We went with plain card and designed and decorated our own, but you can also buy packs that come with invite, menu, placecards etc. Try and find out if anyone you know does calligraphy, always looks best on the placecards.
6. Take the headache out of doing your seating plan and managing your RSVP by using simpleseating.com it automatically takes people who you mark as not coming off the table assignment and displays everything in a nice visual manner. Also makes it easy to share your seating plan with your wedding planner / mother / groom wherever you are.
7. Check our the corkage charges at the reception venue. We found that it was cheaper to bring our own wine and let them open as many bottles as needed. I actually went to Lidl during one of their wine sales and picked up 24 white and 24 red and they went down a storm. Even if it doesn’t save you any money, it gives you more flexibility in your wine choice. We also brought soft drinks for the children and non-drinkers, hotels will normally not charge corkage on these.
8. Serve your wedding cake as your dessert. We cut the cake before dinner and then it was plated and served to the guests as dessert, which resulted in a saving of €1.50 per person to us! It may seem small, but all the little savings soon add up!
9. Decorate with helium ballons instead of flowers. Part of our hotel reception package included them putting flowers on all the tables, but I wasn’t sure about them fitting in with my colour scheme. I contacted a local party equipment firm (and availed of my work discount of 10%) and they decorated the function room for me for €250. This included a bunch of 4 on each of the tables, a small double arch over the cake table and a large twisty arch (solid ballons, no gaps) with flowers and netting behind the top table. I then completed the look by printing up my own menus, and designing my own favours (tall, solid bottomed shot glasses with little wedding themed stickers on them, filled with mini-eggs - because I hate sugared almonds!) and scattering little hearts in purple & silver over the tables (these were my colours).
10. Our biggest saving overall for the reception was doing buffet food instead of serving to the tables. We saved over €20 per person by doing this and no-one complained at all, in fact some people were seen to head up for second and even third helpings! People were able to pick and choose what they wanted from the hot and cold food selections, and they still served the top table so that the parents didn’t need to get up.

Get wedding insurance! Due to illness in George’s family, we were considering having to move the wedding date (luckily we didn’t have to). In the case of anything going wrong you’ll be incredibly glad that you bought the insurance. Shop around online and you can pick up coverage for a €20k wedding for as little as €200.Now for the geeky stuff as promised!

We used WeddingWishlist.ie to put together a nice little wedding website with the ceremony and reception info, accommodation, maps and our wedding registry. The choice of shops to choose from for the wedding is limited, but the cool thing is that you can also set up ‘Couple Funds’ which your guests can contribute to. We did this for our honeymoon hotels, grand prix tickets and our ‘new flooring funds’ for our new house.

Finally, on my blog I used a nice little applet from whenismywedding.com to count down the days to the wedding date - handy so that you can keep a track of just how many days you have left to panic!

I hope that this info is of use to some of you out there, and if you have any questions then just leave them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them!

As the bride sneaks in a quick fag…

Photo credit: Triona Ryall (Bridesmaid)

Damien had a bit of a saga with his luggage the last time he traveled out of the country, it was lost in transit and took several days to get back to him. In the end it was returned by Aer Lingus, even though he hadn’t traveled with them!

Sky Handling Partners were awful to him and I honestly couldn’t believe what he went through trying to get his bags back. Regular readers will know that my luggage has been lost twice already this year (once going to Phoenix and the second coming back from Israel) and both times I was very well treated.

On the first occasion British Airways were able to tell me that my luggage wasn’t on the plane before we even landed in Phoenix and issued me $50 dollars on a disposable Visa card to buy anything I needed. They then ensured my bag was on the next plane out (24hrs later) and delivered it to the hotel.

The second time was less hassle as I was returning home, but even still… I had to wait for ages at Dublin airport to discover my bag hadn’t made it, even still they delivered it to my house two days later (at my request, BarCamp Dublin had me out of the house the day after I came home) so everything was fine.

However, even though Damien did get his bags back, the saga took a whole new turn today, when he started receiving lots of emails from internet dating sites confirming that he had signed up with them. One of the emails contained the IP address that was used to sign-up, and when he did a reverse DNS lookup it was traced back to City Jet Handling (the former name of Sky Handling Partners).

When he called Sky Handling Partners to complain, they weren’t even interested in his complaint. Like lots of bloggers, he lists his email address on his blog, so it was easy for someone to come across. But did the perpetrator really think that he/she wouldn’t be found out? I’ll hazard a guess now that it turns out to be someone who isn’t terribly computer savvy, and I really hope they get canned over this!

Link to Damien’s post and show your support!

The wonderful K8 the GR8 over at cackaloo.com sent me this meme over a month ago now, but I’ve been so busy that I’ve let it slip until now… Sorry K8!

1. What period of history would you most like to have lived in and why?

It’s a hard choice, maybe the sixties for the sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll and those groovy fashions; or hanging with the American beatnik poets of the 50’s while watching the growth of the civil rights movement…

But I’d have to be really sad and say that I’m such a geek at heart that I wish I was a true generation X-er. To have been a child of the late 60’s/early 70’s, seen the economic boom and technological development of the 80’s and had the chance to be part of the early stages of the internet. Born in 1978, I straddle Generations X & Y and identify with both of them. I love all the new technologies around the place and couldn’t live without the internet, but I wasn’t born when Star Wars first came out and didn’t use early computers, unlike most of the people I’m friends with…

2. If you were abducted by aliens who had never experienced ‘earth’ music
before, what one song would you play for them to demonstrate what music is
all about?

I think it would have to be one of the songs from the greatest ever live set, yet another thing I was too young to appreciate at the time… Queen playing at Live Aid in 1984. It’s a close call between ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘We Will Rock You’ or ‘We Are The Champions’ but I think I’ll go with ‘Radio Ga Ga’ in the end for the pure crowd participation!

3. If you were to be re-incarnated as an animal, which would you choose to
be?

I’m allergic to cats in this lifetime, but I’d love to be re-incarnated as one - to stretch and sun yourself all day while humans fetched you food on demand…

4. If you had to be stranded on a desert island with any person from the
past, present or future for a whole year, who would you choose?

I think that the only person that I’d be able to stand for a whole year would be my new hubbie - but since I only got married two days ago, I’m kinda obliged on this one! But seriously, I love him to bits and he’s the only one that can deal with me longterm!

5. What was your most embarassing moment?

It’s a while back now, but I was involved in church youth groups and choirs when I was younger. In my teenage years we were asked to perform as the singing group on RTE’s Sunday morning service. On the day one of the two lead singers was sick and I was thrown in at the last moment. Those who know me are aware that my singing ranges from very good to very bad… At the very end of the service as they were fading into credits the sound guy really caught me out as he dropped all the microphone volumes at the end with the exception of mine, just as I hit a really bum note! This was the final sound from the service just as the credits rolled and was really noticeable - and I got slagged about it for years after!

So now I need to pass this meme along, I hereby call out:

Grannymar
The Hubbie
Conor O’Neill
Keith