Our life in Ireland so far

So we left England on Good Friday, missed the ferry, stayed at the travelodge, got the Saturday ferry, Mr Clev returned on the same ferry we just arrived on, got to Glenamaddy, woke up on Sunday with Amelie vomming and needing hospital attention, spent Easter Sunday in Galway hospital, Mr Clev arrived on Monday, moved into our new house on Tuesday. Got that???

Since then we have been unpacking boxes, trying to find furniture as a lot of ours didnt quite make it over here, and settling into life in Castledaly.

We are located about 5 minutes from Moate which is a little village kind of similar to Banstead (ie one high street) but without a waitrose, 5 coffee shops, clothes shops or cafe italia. What we do have is Supervalu and a pretty decent (actually its award winning) butchers.

Our biggest town is Athlone which is only about a 10 minute drive away, there we have Aldi and Lidl and Tesco which I refuse to shop in as the prices are marked up so much from the ones at home! so Aldi and Lidl it is, man I miss me some Waitrose!!! There are loads of good shops here though so if I need anything this is where we go. It also has a Costa which Bammas loves! She had the people working there in stitches as she marched in and grabbed her fruit shoot and ordered her “croissant warm with Jam and Butter”.

The boys started school and have started settling in and making new friends. Maxi is LOVING it because there is very little actual work involved, and he seems to spend the time at school (9.30 – 2.00) doing colouring, playing Gaelic football (which he rocks at) and looking after the Chicks. Yup thats right, chicks, as in baby chickens that they hatched from eggs. He actually walked in and saw them in the incubator on his first day there and told his teacher “I already had my breakfast” but once he was informed that they would be chickens one day he was amazed and really excited. Daily ‘chick watch’ then commenced and they hatched about 2 weeks ago, Maxis favourite one is Chocoloco. I have told him to keep his hand firmly DOWN if the teacher asks if anyone wants to bring some home!He does Gaelic football at the GAA (Gaelic Athletics Association) club every Friday night with a lot of his school pals and he loves it.

Luis is taking longer to settle in to school, he has made plenty of friends which is great, and he loves playing ‘soccer’ at lunch time every day, he is not keen at all on gaelic games. He has homework each night and the level of work he is doing is different to back at home. They dont do ‘joined up’ writing here so he is having to learn to print write again, which he hates doing. However he is finally realising that if the teacher tells you to do something, then you do it, or face the wrath of the headmistress!!! He is learning Gaelic which is fun, he does his homework and myself or Mr Clev then have to spend 30 minutes checking it on google translate to make sure its right. Family Irish tuition starts next month and continues throughout the summer, so hopefully this will help us all, and get Luis (and the rest of us) used to doing homework EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!

I will leave you with a general photo dump of our time here so far, we have managed to explore Galway, have a day in Dublin, and see lots of Dobbin and granddad. Hopefully the weather has turned and will start to get nicer so we can explore more of our local area at weekends, and of course after school (which finishes for Luis at 3pm)