Irish priests

I've just seen my first ever episode of Father Ted, round at a friend's place.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe I've been in Ireland all this time without having seen it until now. Honestly, it's the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. It's hard to believe it's so old; the last one was made in 1998, apparently.

I do love the way the Irish are good at making fun of themselves. Not that I'd dare to try, of course. I'd be too scared of putting a foot wrong.

Since the Chinese New Year Festival, I'd been planning to go to this exhibition of Chinese Art in the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle. It's just 2 minutes away from Trinity, so there's no reason not to. I just hadn't gotten around to it. I don't know that much about art, far from it in fact, but I can tell you that the Chinese stuff is really different to Western Art. For one thing, a lot of the pieces on show seemed to be basically very, very fancy early comic books. You could roll 'em out and see the story. Interesting. I made a resolution to find out more about Chinese history and culture -- when I have some free time, ha ha.

Honestly, I am trying to keep busy because I am still pretty sad. I keep seeing Him. I don't know if I can even refer to him as an ex-boyfriend, because I don't know any more if he ever thought of himself that way. When we were "together" I complained I didn't see him enough. Well, now I see him everywhere. And guess what. I think he's engaged to the mother of his daughter now. I saw them at college the other day, and she was definitely wearing a sparkly ring on her left finger. So what does that make me? I guess it makes me the last fling so that he can be sure she's really the Right One before settling down for good. I feel like a used Kleenex when I think about it, honestly. It's awful. I'm just hoping that the fact that St Patrick's Day is coming up and that the city is going to be mad-cram-packed with revellers will help. Although I don't feel like it, I'm gonna arrange to do as many things as possible in the hopes that being tired will make it easier to sleep!! Everyone from home's been writing enviously about how cool it must be to be in Ireland for the festivities and I suppose, yes, despite the stuff that's going on in my personal life, it is. And as there are a couple of weeks to go, I am sure it will get easier and it will be fun. I will check it all out this week, and blog on here about my plans. If anyone has any suggestions, that'd be great too.

Saturday, I took the kids I look after to St Anne's Park. Sure is pretty up there. Although there was a chill in the air, spring is definitely here. I noticed that small kids are a lot like dogs, in many ways. And I'm fond of dogs, so I'm saying that as a *good* thing. If they don't get enough exercise, they get cranky. When they've had enough, you've got to give them something to eat. So we went to the park and I threw balls for them, and then when they started fighting, I fished out the bananas and cookies their Mom had packed for them and it was all OK again. So, just like a day at the park with two labrador pups, really. I'm starting to think that this job is going to be OK!