Thursday evening I finished up at the office, shut down my computer for 2012, and headed home to pack, save having to do that on Friday on my day off. Then on Friday morning I headed down to the High Street first thing to grab a few last minute items for my holiday, as well as buy a new luggage bag. Needed something a bit smaller than the massive trolley bag I've got.

From the High Street, it was over to Tried & True where myself and Uns met up with Noel and Megan for breakfast. Megan had just arrived on the Wednesday from Sydney, so still really fresh off the boat. They were heading over to Ireland too for Christmas, but driving instead, and were only leaving on Saturday so figured we'd do breakfast the Friday. After something to eat and some good coffee, it was back home to re-pack everything into the new bag then over to Heathrow Airport for a quick bite to eat and pre-holiday beer at The Tin Goose, then onto the flight over to Cork.

We were welcomed at Cork Airport by Claire and Caroline (their cousin from the States), and then back home to their place for delicious home cooked lamb shank and a few bottles glasses of wine!

On Saturday we started off with a fry up for breakfast, then drove into town for a walk around. The weather wasn't ideal, so none of us too keen to spent too long wondering around outdoors, so decided to stop in at The Bookshelf coffee shop situated in the old Cork library.

After coffee and cake inside there, we decided to split from Claire and Michael and each do a bit of shopping and meet up a bit later for a beer. The shops were fairly busy, but Uns managed to pick a few things up she wanted, and then met up with the others at the Mutton Lane Inn which they say is probably one of the oldest drinking establishments in the city and situated on Mutton Lane - one of many alleyways that lead into the famed English Market and used to be where live sheep were run into the market at one time.

After a drink there, we made our way home, dropped the bags and then made our way out to Blairs Inn in Cloghroe for dinner, a good traditional country pub. Food there was excellent, and was really nicely decorated - very festive for the Christmas season. After our meal we made our way back to Claire and Michael's and all chilled out in front of the TV on the couches and fell asleep watched a movie.

Yesterday morning we decided to start with another fry at home and then headed down to Kinsale, about 30 minutes drive south of Cork City. Kinsale is a small fishing village on the coast near the Old Head of Kinsale. The town also has several art galleries as well as being well known for it's restaurants, and is a popular holiday resort for both Irish and foreign tourists.

We spent the good part of the afternoon there, walking around by the harbour as well as through the streets higher up. It reminded me a lot of some of the smaller fishing towns around Cornwall, with a mix of their waterfront shops and fishing boats in the harbour.

After a stroll through the market, we stopped in at one of the shops for some coffee and cake before taking an easy walk back via the waterfront and to the car to head back up to Cork.

That evening we were out for dinner at Carmen and Tom's place, Michael's sister and brother-in-law, who live out near to Millstreet. They live in the most stunning house and were quite easily able to accommodate all 14 of us and the troop of kids as well. It was a good night, I'd not met most of the people obviously, but was good company and good food to match! I'm just glad I wasn't the one in the group who embarrassingly thanked the hosts for coming when we were leaving :)

From Millstreet we headed back into Cork and to The Market Tavern for a couple of hours, where a live band were playing some good traditional Irish music. It wasn't very busy actually, we did think there'd be a few more people, but was a good way to end the evening sitting around listening to the few guys strumming out some Irish tunes.

Then this morning after breakfast we hopped in the cars, me and Uns in Claire's car and Claire and Michael in his, and made our way down to West Cork for Christmas and New Years.