Snuggled in a snug

Last Thursday MB and I headed to Clarke's pub, rumoured to serve the best pint of Guinness in County Louth.  While I can't claim to be a Guinness expert, I think they pour a mighty fine pint.  We got drinks and headed to one of the pub's many snugs.  We'd seen snugs in Canada, but didn't realize what they were until coming to Ireland.  Snugs were designed to offer privacy within a pub and were used by wealthy patrons (drinks were more expensive in the snug) or people who did not want to be seen (i.e. priests, police officers, women). Today snugs simply provide a cozy atmosphere for enjoying your beverage.  

In our case the snug provided a perfect setting to write our Christmas cards.  MB is a perpetual planner and is always thinking 10 steps ahead.  In true MB fashion she wanted to send our cards extra early so they'd have lots of time to cross the Atlantic.  In true Scott fashion, I'll do anything at anytime if there is a pint involved.   With liquid inspiration in one hand and pen in the other, we got down to business.

Who knew writing Christmas cards needed this much motivation? 

Christmas Jumper or Cracking Good Christmas, which is your favourite?

MB doing the heavy lifting

Me doing the dirty work

Raking in rashers, having some happiness

Four months and one week after arriving in Ireland, I've found a job. Last week I started work at Esquires Coffee House, in the centre of Drogheda. Because in Ireland they call bacon "rashers', Scott and I joke that I am "raking in the rashers".

Inside Esquires, the site of a former bank.

It's definitely unlike a desk job and after working 35 hours last week, my shoulders ache from carrying trays and my fingertips have perma-prune from washing dishes. I have to admit, in my weaker moments, hunched over a pile of dirty dishes with wet feet and a stained apron, I ask myself: Why am I doing this? Why did I leave a good-paying, professional job to work for minimum wage in a country I've never been to before? Why did I sell a decent house in a decent part of Halifax to rent a room in a boarding house with five construction workers from Donegal?

Because, happiness is not only about good, professional and decent. It's also about new, exciting and different. So, as I walk home through the brisk fall air, over the dark Boyne River elegantly making its way to the Irish Sea, past the pubs pumping laughter into the streets and up the steps into our shared house, I realize that I am happy.

Posing happily in my uniform before a shift.