So! What have I been up to over the last few months?

We went to Berlin, which was a fantastic trip. We had a great tour guide for the first couple of days in the form of Mister Rampers, who had to go to work for the last couple of days which gave us the opportunity to explore on our own, working at our own (or rather Landers') pace - which was good because he had (and still has!) mahoosive blisters from all the walking we did!

Although we did do a lot of walking, transport in Berlin is fantastic. You're never far from a train or bus, and there are cyclepaths everywhere. Not that we had bikes, but there you go. They all have bells, and if you hear them it means you're walking on the cyclepath. Whoops! That would be fine, if the bikes stuck to the cyclepath, but they don't.

Rampers' place is above a bar, and one evening we were sat outside it having a drink and chatting away when all of a sudden the barmaid (who looked like a scary German Pat Butcher but was actually really friendly and was sat chatting with some other customers) shoved her chair back like something out of Howard the Duck. She'd spotted some cyclists heading our way along the pavement - the cyclepath was about 10ft away, along the side of the road. The pavement runs between the bar and the seating area - if she comes out of the bar with a tray of drinks, these cyclists could knock her (and the drinks!) flying! It's not really on when the cycle path is literally just the other side of the seating area. And she told them so. I get the feeling she has done it often.

Also worth mentioning is that the inside of that bar was like your nan's living room. With a pool table.

Rampers took us to some interesting places, from an Ethiopian restaurant and Goth bar - Landers blogged about those so I won't bother - to a place called Cake which was full of second hand furniture and much alcohol. And also a beach. In Berlin. A long way from the sea.

As I said, Rampers had to work for the last few days of our trip (every evening when we met up, he said something along the lines of "I've got work tomorrow, so I can't stay late" - yeah, right...) so we had booked ourselves somewhere else to stay so we weren't in his way in the mornings. That other place was the Eastern Comfort Hostel Boat. The website made it look lovely, but from the outside it did look like a bit of a dive - the riverbank was being done up at the time and it was just rubble, which didn't help. However, the inside was clean and the room was comfortable, and it was cheap enough! It was quite cool to be on a boat, and it was behind what's left of the Berlin wall - or "the Eastside Gallery" as it's known, due to all the murals (and graffiti). Note - if you go to berlin, the Eastside Gallery is not a building!

We saw the big famous sights, but there's plenty more to see to warrant a return visit. Let alone the cheap beer and food!

Also, if you order an ice-cream, NEVER change your order, even if they haven't actually made it yet, because the horrible Polish lady behind the counter will give you false smiles but you just know that she's actually giving you a tub of cherry-flavoured hate. They had a menu, which had loads of combinations of different flavoured ice-creams and sauces - but apparently even if you choose from the menu, you have to tell them what flavours and sauces you want. We ordered, Landers' was done first and it was MASSIVE so I asked for a smaller one, and you'd think I'd asked to milk the cow and go to the north pole to make the ice-cream. We (or rather Rampage) clearly asked for cherry sauce a few times, but we had to ask again after she passed the little cup of ice-cream over the counter. Silly bint.

The best part of the Berlin visit (apart from the kebabs... excuse me, I need to wipe up the drool that just started from the memories...) was the company though. Rampage is a genuine and open person, easy to talk to and funny. And Meno, well, it was an experience! I had been warned about the hugs but I still wasn't quite prepared for their ferocity. I'm still not sure exactly how she managed to get her arms around me, Landers and Rampage all at the same time! She must have go-go Gadget arms.

It was also nice to meet NittyGritty and some of the Blog team - it looks like a fun place to work (there was BEER in the fridge!) and Grit was good to talk to, even if I got my fairytales mixed up. The Pied Piper is from Hamelin, the musicians went to Bremen.

We took a gabillion pictures, some are on my Flickr page, but this post will be long enough without them!

What else has happened... Hmm. We have had major headaches with the car, which is still not quite sorted. We finally got our Dyson from Wales! Yay! Clean carpets! The hoover we had borrowed was great for most of the house, but the landing and stairs were a major headache - no more!

Nick, Mrs F and Mr S came to visit, got sick and went home. Ha, no, there was a bit more to it than that, we took the dogs over to Lough Corrib and threw them in a few times. Nick broke their favourite toy and Hillie was heartbroken (not really, it was new, if that makes you feel any better Nick!) and we sat outside a pub for hours because it was still light and we didn't realise what the time was.

We did the tour of Galway city but I'd forgotten that it was a bank holiday weekend and so it was a bit rammed, so we went over to Kinvarra but (again) I'd forgotten that it was a bank holiday weekend and so it was a bit rammed. There was a festival type thing going on as well, with some nutter wandering round dressed as a cuckoo drinking beer through a straw so he didn't have to take his costume off. Worst of all, the reason we'd gone to Kinvarra was to eat at a fantastic place called the Pier Head - and they stopped serving food for the afternoon as we arrived.

Back home, and Mrs F performed her (in)famous orange therapy for Nick - we kept the orange for your next visit, Row! Anyway, an evening meal of various cheesy type things and bread and pickles and chutneys and the like, followed by some Gay rum and vodka and things of that nature and a good chat. It was a nice relaxed weekend, no stress and good company.

Fast forward to the weekend just gone. December and July are big birthday months for our clan, this month so far my brother, sister and niece all had birthdays, and on Saturday it was my dad's turn. Every year we have a party, and this year we took advantage and invited some of our friends so that we didn't have to rush around visiting everyone - we made them come to us!

We landed on Friday night, caught up on news with my parents and had a Chinese takeaway (I have to have one every time I visit my parents cos I miss the food from that place so much!). We stayed up chatting til about 2am.

Saturday morning we went over to Landers' parents' house - it was his mom's birthday yesterday, and she didn't know we were coming over so we surprised her. Which reminds me of a story that I'll put at the end of this epic post if I remember. We spent a few hours there, had lunch, then headed back to my parents to help with cooking and stuff like that for the party.

Come six o'clock, it was time to go and pick up two honoured guests from their hotel - Rowtheboat and Soyunperdedor! We know Row fairly well, she's visited us a few times and we met up in Birmingham last year, but meeting Soy was long overdue. We met in the bar for a drink before subjecting them to the full horror that is my family - what seems like seven million kids running around is best faced after a pint or two. Soy is lovely, she has a cheeky smile and a quick wit (slurring not withstanding), and the biggest brownest eyes you've ever seen! We spent the evening giggling, and I'm just sorry that there were so many people there because I didn't get to spend as much time talking to Row and Soy as I'd have liked. I hope they didn't feel too neglected.

Another first meeting that night was my brother's new (to me, anyway - they've been together since February) girlfriend. Didn't get much chance to talk to her until the end of the evening, when most people had gone home and we got the cards out to play some games. She seems really nice, she isn't shy, she joins in (which is a refreshing change from his exes!). She's a teacher, and she still likes kids. Very refreshing. But seriously, I think they make a nice couple and I'm pleased for him.

I won at spoons, but, alas, not at shithead. The table survived, no further scratches but several heavy thumps from fists. I got to bed at about 4:30am.

And was rudely awakened at 9:30am to go over to Landers' moms' again. Ugh. The ugh is aimed at the time, not the mother-in-law.

We spent a few hours there, much coffee was consumed, not least because Landers was probably still over the legal limit to drive. We headed back to my parents' house at around 1pm for lunch, and when we arrived we found out some awful news: one of their neighbours had just died, and in the most awful, pointless way.

He had a long stretch of bird houses/aviaries in his garden, but they were thankfully empty - he'd gotten rid of his birds a while ago. Some how a fire started in one of them, and it spread. He did his best to put them out but it was no good - and he hadn't phoned the fire brigade. My brother-in-law went to try to get him to come away, but he wouldn't until the fire brigade finally arrived, and he was put in an ambulance. The next thing we heard was that he had died! He hadn't been burned, I'm not sure if it was smoke inhalation or a heart attack or something like that, but it's so sad. His wife died last year, and one of his sons has learning difficulties, I've no idea what will happen to him. It must have been a horrendous fire - the back of the house is burnt and even the house two doors down had damage from the heat and flames. I've not spoken to my mom, so I'm not sure of any more details. Terrible tragedy though, made all the worse because it was avoidable.

So, the rest of the afternoon was a bit subdued - we had a house fire when I was ten, nobody was hurt thankfully, but we have some idea what that family is going through.

We ate leftover food, chatted, embarrassed my brother by getting his baby photos out for his girlfriend, and I tried to fix my mom's computer. I was only partially successful.

It was nice to have the family together for a weekend, although it was a bit strained at times for a couple of reasons I won't go into here. Generally a good weekend.

Flight back was quiet, which was nice. Bumpy landing, drive home seemed to take three times as long because we were tired. As we got to the town where we live, Landers told me to get the keys out of his bag. They weren't there. I checked the pocket in the door of the car. Not there. The little cubby hole in front of the gear stick. Nope. The glove box. Nothing. "Wait til we get there, and I can have a proper look in the bag," I said. So we pull up outside the house, and there are the keys, in the door. After locking up and starting to drive off to the airport on Friday, I'd had to run back in to get my contact lenses. I'd unlocked the door and left the keys in for when I came out - but instead, I pulled the door closed and jumped in the car! We're lucky we live in the middle of nowhere, nobody had seen them. Phew!

So, we're up to date really. Plans for the next couple of months are getting exciting - my family is visiting at the end of this month - 9 of them, anyway. We're struggling to find a rental minibus as cheap as we'd like, but there you go. A friend I've not seen for years is hopefully visiting in mid August - she's booked her flights but not the time off yet. And then the (now mini) Galway blogmeet is happening at the end of August! Really looking forward to seeing Meno and Rampage again, and spending some proper time with Soy.

Long weekend in the UK in early September, and hopefully the Annual blogmeet in November. Then it'll be bloody Christmas again!

Ok, I haven't forgotten I promised a little story at the end, but this is far too long already, so I'll do it in another post later. Maybe.