We Have Moved!

Not just us physically, but our blog too!
Please visit http://allanandsocs.wordpress.com

Its in its initial stages and it will be a work in progress, but please do drop by and update your links.
See you there!

Moving out and moving in

It's been a while since I've blogged, on this blog or my personal blog, and a lot has happened. My good friend William and Kate got married, Aunt Elizabeth visited Dublin, and Uncle Barack and Aunt Michelle visited both Dublin and London. Fancy that!

On a personal note, I (read we) have moved once again this time to England and make it our new temporary home. It is quite stressful moving house, all the more moving to a different country. England quite has a chicken and egg thing going on in settling in. You need a proof of address for pretty much anything. Including a bank account, which you need to get your proof of address (by paying bills and actually getting a damn place to live in).

So far so good though and I was able to settle in my new flat without any big issues. So, bank account - check. Tenancy agreement - check. Electricity supply - check. Gas supply - check. Water supply - check. TV license - check. Cable/Broadband/Landline - Check, check and check. Council tax - check. NHS - check. National Insurance Number - check.

Now settling into the community might take a while. Finding a good place to source your food and household items when you are travelling weekly is a little difficult. We still need to find a good/cheap place to get our meat and veggies. As well as an Asian foodstore to keep our stock of preferential items (good vinegar will always be Datu Puti). We still have to sort that one out.

Moving to a bigger city like London is great, lots of options for shopping, eating out and groceries but choosing the right lifestyle for you then becomes the challenge. Well then, challenge accepted!

Plenty of Fish in the Sea

Its been months since the last update!  Since then, well, Allan's found his (our) apartment in London, I'm moving out of my Dublin apartment to a shared one still in Dublin.  We're trying this based-in-different-countries again and see where this will take us.  The main thing though, is that we will be working on the same project, so we're together most of the week still.

But lets forget all these complicated matters for now.  We finally got off our behinds long enough to explore a little bit of Dublin.  We consulted the magic Trekkin in Dublin guide and figured we'd give Howth a try.  Its about half an hour away from the City Center by train, and promises great views and even greater seafood.  We were craving for the now more frequent sunshine and fish other than salmon (we love salmon, but we need variety) so we decided, Howth it is!

other Howth tourists enjoying the view

The trail started out as walking right beside the main road.   With a backpack and hiking boots and a variety of wet/cold weather gear, we felt a little odd.  Especially since most of those walking were in sneakers, leather shoes, boots and dresses even.  Eventually we found the path that went up the cliffs and snaked around to give us great coastal views.  It even became a little more "forest"-y at one point, with trees and shrubs all around.  We wandered off the path at one point to find a spot beachfront and break for lunch, before we found the trail and followed it until it crossed a golf course and back into civilization i.e. roads again.

It took us about 5 hours, with breaks included.  At the end we ended up in a pub having Fish and Chips and some Seafood chowder for our efforts.  Needless to say, it was a tiring day but well worth it.  We enjoyed Howth so much, we returned the weekend after with some friends.  The second time around we didn't follow the trail and just went Fishmonger hopping and sun soaking.

More photos from both trips are in my flickr account.