Day 10

I was up to Monday evening.

I had been wondering where all the Celtic beauties have been hiding. They've been hiding in the pubs! Silly me. This is Ireland; should have been the first place I looked.

This country is full of Celtic beauties! When I walked into the Persian (on both Saturday and Monday nights) there were a few beauties sitting down, all eager to hear my Aussie accent.

But a funny thing happened; the later it got - and the more Guinness I drank (though surely this has nothing to do with it) - the more Celtic Beauties there were in the pub. By the end of Saturday night, it was positively crowded with them! Hmm.

I came back here at 8:00 on Monday night, drunk out of my head! I couldn’t believe the time when I walked in. I once again performed remarkably well in front of a room full of sober people.

I was watching television for a while and found that the room was empty. On top of the dressing table in my room (and in the drawers) are lots and lots of videos. I think there must be about 60 or so video cassettes up there. I went up there and chose one. I came down with The Scarlet Pimpernel! I started watching it; being drunk didn’t help of course, but it was an extremely boring film.

I fell asleep on the couch in front of the fire. Every now and then I woke up to see if the movie had finished and, satisfied that it hadn’t, closed my eyes and fell back asleep.

In the end I was woken at 1:30 when Maura came in! I don’t know what she was doing at the time.

On Tuesday I overslept and woke up at about 11:00 and wandered down stairs. I was having breakfast when Annette came home for lunch! Never mind. I offered to do some vacuuming and then helped Fergus clean the chimneys. Well actually, that is a bit of an exaggeration. But I did shovel the ash out of the bottom of one of the fireplaces (there are two in this house).

Hmm. I think I am getting bored in this house. It's not that I’m not enjoying myself, but there is nothing new here and I’m getting quite comfortable. I could quite easily stay here for another three weeks and then catch the bus to Dublin, but no matter how warm and dry I would be in the meantime, I wouldn’t be experiencing anything new.

So, I will go on Friday.

I started work by 11:00 today. Finally, the painting has started. After a bit of mucking around, I got started and did two hours work before the kids came out of the nearby school. I went into town at this point to post this journal and then onto a place upstairs from a pub where I could go onto the Internet! £5 for an hour got me Hotmail, the kibbutz volunteer homepage and two seconds of The Jerusalem Post.

I got home a bit past 3:15 and did an hours worth of painting. I am painting from the gateposts and wall that border the road and the grassy area where all that rubbish was (and has now started to collect again - bloody kids). Once again I have done bugger all's worth of work. Tomorrow I have to put in a good day’s worth of work. They know it’s my last day of work.

This place smells of stale smoke; it seems to give me a permanent headache.

I have to leave - I think for the first time I am not enjoying myself.

From where I am writing (the table in the sitting room) I can see the tower (and clock) of Carn's church. I can hear it ring out the hours (every 15 minutes!) from most parts of the house, certainly whenever I am outside.

All the locals don’t call this town Carndonagh; they call it Carn. (Pronounced like Cairn, or Cannes).

I might go down the pub for a pint. I can see why the Irish have got their stereotype. It's a full moon tonight ... perhaps I should go run up to the hills, find one of the standing stones or crosses around and do something strange, like paint myself blue, strip down and run around in circles like a banshee...

I think I'll go for that pint.