The best laid plans of mice and men...

I really wish I knew the end of that expression, no-one ever says it... Anyway, in my last entry I said that Maria and I were planning on having a quiet New Years Night in because we didn't want the effort of going out... Good plan, no? Sadly that plan went downhill at about 5 o clock when Maria rang me with her 'I am about to suggest something you may not want to do' voice on...

Maria's parents are both from the same village in Limerick, and a lot of her family still lives there. They go down there every Christmas but Maria wasn't able to this year because of work etc and she was really missing it... after various convos with different members of her family on New Years Eve she looked at the train timetable and saw the the next (and last) train was leaving at half 6. It was 5 o clock. So she rang me and asked if i felt like going down to Athea, and in a momentary fit of spontaneity and adventure I said 'yeah sure why not?' and wandered into the sitting room to persuade one of my loving parents to drive us to Heuston Station. My mother said fine, I will make your father do it but you will have to leave in 20 mins if you want to make it. I was in a towel, having just got out of the shower, and had to pack. Never fear, in the quickest dressing/packing known to mankind I was ready to go by half 5, at which point Mermy and I set off on our adventure to Limerick. I was surprised by how ok my mother was with it, until she pointed out that this was in fact the second time Maria and I had done this (last time was for Monday Night Madness) and asked me to stop planning trips an hour or two in advance and give her at least a days notice. My father thinks that we are the most random people in the world, but as it was Maria's idea and in their eyes she can do no wrong he was more amused by it then anything.

So Maria, her little sister Orflaith, Orflaith's friend Hayley and Maria's cousin Erin and I went to Listowle ( I think that is how you spell it) for the night, to a random club called Mermaids. I had to borrow a dress because in my 10 minute packing I managed to forget one, but it was ok. We spent most of the night dancing (and complaining that they didn't have any Abba) then seriously missing Dublin taxis as we waited half an hour in antarctic conditions for our taxi to come get us. We were pretty amused by Maria's cousin, Eoin, who was fairly drunk and kept saying 'sound as a round pound' which became our catchphrase for the next few days. It was rather difficult to explain to the Ashy and Emma when they rang us at 4 to see if we were still up in Maria's house that we had randomly hopped on a train to limerick when we had claimed that town was too much of a trek for us. 'You guys are so weird' was the lovely response we got, a bit rich from a group of girls who had just stolen a pile of magazines from outside a shop. (Why? I don't know, and I don't really want to either!)

We spent Thursday sleeping apart from a big lunch at another one of her cousins house, which was nice. We sat in the sitting room at what we nicknamed the kiddy table (which was hilarious because all 5 of us were between 16 and 19) and watched the aristocats, which a brilliant movie. (Maria liked it because it was set in France, the french nerd) Then Maria and I had a nap, and hung out with Orflaith and Hayley. It felt like we were back in 6th class as some of the boys were trying to persuade them to go back to Erin's because Nookie liked Orflaith and I think Eoin liked Hayley. Maria and I were helping them come up with excuses like 'we were going to take the ponies because we have no lift but Hayley just got thrown off one and is stuck in a ditch' and laughing at the back-to-6th-class of it all, though it was slightly wierd because Nookie had previously tried to get stuck into Maria at Monday Night Madness, and Orflaith is her 16 year old little sister. Then Maria and I went to sleep, because it had been like 5 hours since we last slept and woke up at half 12 with her mom telling us we were driving up to Dublin in half an hour. I seriously think that Maria was a koala in a past life, she is constantly sleepy! It also appears to be contagious...

So I had a random and fun few days in Limerick,(not to mention extremely well resting considering we slept for about 24 hours,) and I have learned two important lessons from our adventure. Firstly, that it is fun to be spontaneous and do random things and that sometimes it is better not to think and just to do something. (the wierd thing is I had just decided that my new Years resolution would be to stop taking things so seriously and just have a laugh when Maria rang... two hours later I was on a train to the other side of the country.. go figure) Secondly never plan a quiet night in with Maria, you will end up in Limerick.