I’ve just uploaded a couple of albums taken over the last month. First up is the World Cup Downhill Skiing from Lake Louise a few weeks ago. It was -20C outside, and these women were hurtling down the hill at 120km/h. We were freezing our asses off just watching them, so I hope they have heated race suits or something!

When myself and Jacqui got to Ireland, Dad took us to visit Newgrange, Ireland’s most important prehistoric site. It’s a burial mound, built over 5000 years ago and oriented to sunrise on the winter solstice.

Jacqui’s brother, Mark, arrived for his first visit to Dublin, so I took himself and Jacqui on a walking tour of Dublin, featuring such highlights as Temple Bar, O’Connell St., the LUAS and Dublin’s oldest pub, the Brazen Head.

Finally, I had Christmas with my parents, so there’s photos of the day’s festivities.

Despite all the travails in getting there, I had a great time in Dublin. It was great seeing friends and family again and showing Jacqui and Mark around Dublin. Mum did a great job cooking up a storm, including my requested dishes of Pork Roast, Beef Wellington and non-baked cheesecake, and Dad made multiple trips to and from the airport without complaint.

Christmas Day was great fun too. Mark had arrived a few days beforehand from the UK, Clíona & Dave came over, along with Dave’s family, so we had a good gang around for dinner.

As for presents, Mum & Dad got me a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens for my SLR which was a big surprise. It’s great for taking photos in low light without a flash, as evidenced by the photo of myself and Jacqui above, and I got quite a few good photos from the day’s festivities. I’ll get around to sticking them up on the site in the next few days.

My travel back to Dublin was a bit of a disaster. The Mountain Perks shuttle was great, getting me to the airport in Calgary a half an hour early, so I had checked in and got rid of my bags a full three hours before my flight. Anticipating airline food, I filled up at the marginally less crap airport food court, bought myself some books and settled into the waiting game.

My flight was due to depart at 1755, but nothing much seemed to be happening at the gate. I was engrossed in my book – Heat by George Monbiot, well worth a read – so I didn’t really hear the explanations… something about cleaning the plane I thought. An hour after we were due to take off we were informed that the plane needed to be taken out of service and they were flying in a replacement from Vancouver, so we’d have to wait another four hours for that to arrive. Great!

While waiting, I finished my book and then realised I hadn’t heard any new announcements about when the rescheduled flight was due to depart, so I had to go looking for someone to fill me in. We finally got going only six hours later than scheduled.

On arriving in Heathrow, the Air Canada representative gave me the details of my rebooked flight to Dublin, so I tried texting Dad the updated arrival time. My Canadian SIM wouldn’t work, and both my Australian and Irish ones didn’t have any credit, so I tried getting online via WiFi. Turns out Heathrow doesn’t have any free WiFi hotspots, or at least none where I was at the time. As luck would have it, I tried to make a reverse charge call – which didn’t work – and as I replaced the receiver a pound fell out of the coin return which I was able to use to place a quick call.

Once I’d made it to the required gate I found out that the flight to Dublin was delayed, so I enjoyed another few hours sitting on my arse. I finally got airborne and arrived in Dublin only 29 hours after leaving my house in Fernie, and only 7 hours later than scheduled! The annoying thing was I arrived after dark, so didn’t get to see Dublin from the air on approach, something which always makes me feel like I’m coming home.