Wanna see something really sexy? Something that makes me very happy?

It is the prototype for the Apple Mighty Mouse CORDLESS MOUSE. Yeeeee haaaaaaaa.

Ok - so - plenty of time for you all to start saving up for my birthday. You may remember I want one of these. I want. I want. I am kinda dribbling right now it has to be said.

This is a thing I have longed for, for a long time. It is a little thing to click on to illuminate your Powerbook (or MacBook Pro) keyboard. There have been times that the lack of being able to turn the backlight on during the day has frustrated me - but I have to admit now that I have it switched on - it is annoying the happiness out of me! Thankfully I can access the slider and turn it down in a few moments. I feel honour bound to complete this entry with it on even though I am developing a head ache!

I can think of plenty of times that it will come in handy though.

Isn't is gorgeous looking too?

After making it to the ferry we had a fairly uneventful journey from St Malo to Poole. There was a young family sitting at the table opposite us with a very young toddler. Iain reckoned they were Spanish. I reckoned they were Polish. . . it was 9pm after a very long day! The wife spoke a little English anyway so our kids had great fun lending their doggies to the baby and she took great delight in stroking them and pretending to bark. They *got off* at Jersey and their seats were not filled so we had the whole table to ourselves. I tried to keep the kids occupied by playing Old Maid and reading comics so Iain could sleep as much as possible.

On the Poole to St Malo crossing Jessica asked for beans and mash for her tea but the girl said "If it isn't on the menu we can't do it. . . " Jessica was devastated. How hard would that have been to organise? On the St Malo to Poole crossing there was a girl with a bit of common sense. We didn't bother asking for the beans - Jessica wanted mash and frankfurter sausage which she had taken a shine to in France. The girl asked "Would you like some extra beans on that?" and when she brought the dish back she had two dollops of mash at the top, a sea of beans and a long sausage arcing the plate. It looked like a face. She was well chuffed with herself and Jessica was delighted. I couldn't stop saying thank you to her - it is lovely when people take a bit of time on things like that. She didn't have to and her colleague certainly hadn't.

We hit Poole really late and once more Natalie decided to take us a really tortuous route towards Wales. I tried to remember village names along the way to look it up later to see how far out she took us out of our way but now I am home it hardly matters now.

There is nothing worse than trying to drive all night with everyone else in the car asleep - in fact it is downright dangerous! Bearing in mind Iain was doing all of the driving I tried to stay awake as much as possible to keep him company. I did quite well. Iain did a little better than me thankfully and apart from an emergency stop on one Welsh road to let a family of ducks cross the road there is little to report on for that journey. The real story was when we arrived at the Holyhead port.






We were something like 3 hours early so settled down for a little bit of a snooze. After being in the same clothes for what seemed like 3 days I managed to do a strip tease and changed most of my clothes in the front seat of the car! On the way out of the toilets at one point I watched two Irish gentlemen, possibly a father and a son, walking back to their car. It was a rather weird thing. I knew they were speaking English. I knew they were Irish. But for the life of me I couldn't make out a word they were saying. They could understand each other though and spoke rapidly and loudly to each other, through the terminal, through the car park and then got into the car in front of ours. One was dressed in trousers and jumper and the other had on a pair of ill-fitting shorts with a shirt on and wearing what looked like horse riding boots. They made a lot of noise on any of the surfaces the men were walking on. It just struck me as strange. For some reason I made a mental note of the car registration number. Something told me it had been stolen. For fear of being branded as politically incorrect, let me just indicate that these people gave me the feeling they were from the travelling community and were "Irish Chavs."

When the cars started rolling on to the ferry it was sudden and without much notice. The car in front had no one in it by then and we had to drive round it. We parked on the ferry and made our way to the lounge. Although we had originally been about fourth to arrive in front of the gates we were in the last ten cars to board the ferry. That means nothing unless you have children you will need to entertain around a table and a husband who will need to put his head down again.

We rushed to the food lounge where we had sat on the first ferry and found a seat easily. We settled down. After 3 minutes a family sat to our right with a very boisterous three year old who ran up and down and then started to bounce on the seats - making us jolt every time he landed. I looked around and saw a whole empty area further up to the right and said to Iain we could move up that way - but he told me the Irish people were just at the other side of that area which I couldn't see from where I was. He reckoned we should move to our left - closer to the food section. Which we did. David lay down. Jessica lay down. Iain sat opposite me reading a magazine and I sat on the extreme left of us all reading my book.

Shortly after I became aware of a granny and a mother sitting down beside us. Tut. There was hardly any room there - why did they want to sit beside ME? Hadn't they ever heard of personal space? Feck off would ye? They sat and it became obvious they were with the two gentlemen I had seen previously as they kept standing on the seat to shout over to Da and Paddy (I jest ye not). There must have been more than one car load of them as they hadn't been in the car in front of us.

I didn't make eye contact with them, thankfully I was engrossed in finishing my book. I did see another female joining them because I made the mistake of glancing up as she walked towards us. She was of my build (fat) with a figure hugging top that allowed her belly to hang out and a mini skirt that allowed her legs to hang out. Both the top and the skirt were white with black polka dots. OMG. Oh. I forgot to mention the white high heels she was wearing.

At final count there were five women and a child in a pushchair all around that table. They were loud. They let the child out and she started to climb over the seat I was on and finally came and fell into my shoulder. No one told her off or tried to get her off me. I was sitting there with her hanging on to my shoulder. What did the women do? They started to fed her her beans from a can (ok I made that bit up - the beans were on a plate) while she steadied herself by gripping my shoulder. It was surreal. FECK OFF.

Finally the child jumped down off the seat and I found out her name. It was "Shaddap." Every time she whined she was slapped and five women said "Shaddap" so it must have been her name. This carried on for some time.

I had to move away when the granny started to change the child's nappy on her knee right next to me. Give her her due, she did say "Sorry love" when she realised I was retching.

Finally the women became tired of trying to get her back into her pushchair so her mother picked her up by the sides of her head and lifted her off her feet and put her in the chair, buckling her in before she could wriggle free again. This was accompanied by another slap to the legs and when the child screamed she was told to shaddap again. Now. I know you will think I am joking. You will think I made that bit up. But I didn't. She was picked up off her feet by her head.

I read the same page about 6 times.

Finally I realised they had more or less all left the area, leaving behind only two of the women as Polka Dot Woman jumped up on the seat again to shout over the railing to say "Da, look after me pop would ye?" and away she flounced as fast as her white high heels would let her.

When it all quietened down I made eye contact with Iain and said the only thing I could think of to diffuse the situation for us.

"I am sooooo blogging this."

It took us about an hour to get through Dublin centre but then the next thing I knew we were going round the Newry Roundabout because umm I may have fallen asleep. Technically.

We came home to a pile of junk mail waist high which we still haven't opened. Perhaps the letter from the ferry company is in there telling us the sailing times have changed . . .

Read about the day we went to Mont St Michel in Brittany, France. See a few of the photos I took. Read More...

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Iain woke up early and trundled off with Jessica to go horse riding. David was supposed to go to the Quad bikes but his throat was too sore. Iain and Jessica came back a while later with bread and milk but not having any saddle sores - the places had been all booked up by the time they got there. Iain had booked both her and David into places for the next day though.

After my shower, I bent over to lift the towel off the floor and pulled something in my back - I was in agony all day. Mega sore. And mega embarrassing every time I had to get in and out of a seat.

In theory we then got ready and left to go to Concarneau - but - it all took some time and I don't think we were leaving until 1.30 or so.

We make good progress on the roads with Natalie the Sat Nav. We have worked out how to say "Save THIS place" when we are somewhere we want to go back to (like the Caravan - always handy to know how to get back to base!). She does take us the best route now we think after our little diversion in Wales at the beginning of the holiday. I can heartily recommend these machines now - don't leave home without one!

Concarneau has a walled older part of the town. We were there years ago with the folks and I am kinda sure we totally missed the centre attraction at least once. We think this is the third time we have been here and it hasn't really changed any. The walled centre is crammed full of old houses and and buildings - all home to shops now. I took the cameras with me this time and got loads of photos on the digital and a couple on the film / slide for next year's HND project.

David got hold of the wee camera (*with* memory card) and the camcorder and was very happy to be taking photos all day. Poor Iain burned. Jessica moaned. Jacqui shopped. And I took more photos, happy in the knowledge that some of them were crackers.







We then went for a wee drive down the coast - ending up at a Buffalo Grill for tea. This was the first establishment where the menu wasn't in English and the waitress (although very pleasant) didn't speak fluent English. We have been very spoiled on site so far. David could hardly eat anything because his throat was so sore. We try not to molly coddle the children too much but threats of "no ice cream" didn't make him eat any more.





When it came to choosing the three scoops of ice cream for us - Iain had vanilla, strawberry and something else pale in colour. I chose Chocolat, Chocolat and Chocolat. OMG! Was that Chocolat the most gorgeous ice cream ever?!!! HUH UH! Mind you - Jacqui's Chocolat Mousse was kinda nice too though - you see a common denominator here somewhere?

We stopped at a church on the way back and took some more photos, ending up coming home quite late again.

While Iain tried to fix Jessica's personal dvd player Jacqui and I looked through our photos. I hate looking through photos that I *think* are great - they are always so disappointing in the end. The ones I took are just not as good as they were in my head at the time. These ones are the best of a bad bunch. I like these ones - but thought they were all as good as these and they just weren't. Tut.

























Let me know what you think of them. . .


You will also be very relieved to hear that Iain found my iPod! I was starting to resign myself to the idea that it had been well and truly lost but he found it after some considerable searching by all of us - in a place Jacqui, David and I had all looked - my camera bag! I was in the throes of wording my insurance claim - I fancy one of those video ones. . . I shouldn't jest just in case!

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