This past weekend was a rather full-on and busy long weekend over in Ireland, but good in terms of getting things sorted and check boxes ticked off. Uns and i met up on Friday early evening at Liverpool Street and caught the train up to Stansted. After checking our bags in and through security, we grabbed a bite to eat at The Windmill and caught the evening flight over to Cork. We had hired a car for the few days so after picking that up we made our way (via the centre of Cork city) to Claire and Michael's place for a quick catch up beer before calling it a night.

On Saturday morning Michael and Una walked into town with Jack while Claire and myself followed a bit later and met up with them at Douglas Farmers Market for coffee at Costa. We weren't there too long before taking a walk around the market outside and grabbing ourselves a bite to eat there. Once we were done Claire and Una headed back in the car while Michael and myself took a walk back with little Jack.

Once back at the house we waited for Mark to arrive as well as Donners & Emma and Brian & Lorraine. While Mark and Brian headed off to meet Noel for their suits, the rest of us made our way to the On The Pig's Back for lunch. After lunch we met up with Noel and Megan and the guys at The Silver Key pub for a swift one and then cruised on home. Saturday evening, once everyone was ready, we grabbed a taxi and made our way into town to The Oval where we settled in nicely for a while. It was Claire's birthday that day so they had organised pre-drinks there followed by dinner at Soho House. Luckily we had dinner booked else I doubt any of us would've moved from our corner seats in The Oval. After a few there we made our way down to Soho House for dinner and stayed there until closing.

On Sunday morning after a good fry up to start the day, the others all started making their way back home - Mark up to Dublin, Donners and Emma to Galway and Noel and Megan back to London. Uns and myself decided to watch the first half of the Ireland England rugby game and then head down west before it got too late. We had our food tasting night booked into the hotel so after picking up a few wedding things from the house we headed back to the hotel and checked in for the night. The food tasting wasn't until 8pm so we had enough time for a swim and a relax in the jacuzzi and the stream room before sitting down to our meals. There certainly wasn't a shortage of food or beer or wine at the table, and between all of it I think we managed to narrow down our final choice of starters, mains and desserts for the wedding. After dinner we spent a bit of time in the wedding reception hall doing a test run of our outdoor lights which we'll like to do have up on the night and think we got there eventually. Once we were happy with our setup we decided to call it a night and get some shut eye.

Yesterday morning was an early start and after breakfast we made our way down west to Skibb to the registry office to get all the wedding docs sorted. It was there, as one of the requirements, I needed the infamous apostille stamped birth certificate and all processed OK so it looks like we're all set and good to go for the 2nd May :)

After sorting out the forms the rest of the day was spent missioning around Skibb, sorting the suit hire, over to the church, down to Angie for the cake and then around the house getting bits and pieces sorted. Once done there we made our way up to Cork, popped in to see Jack briefly and then over to the airport to catch our flight back to London, knackered after a couple of busy days there!