WOW I'm a terrible blogger.

I guess it's a mixture of not having enough time/motivation to write on here, as well as the weirdness I feel whenever I do write, because I never really know how to present what I have to say without sounding like a vapid narcissist. That's the nature of blogs, though: you talk about yourself. And I never feel like anyone else's blog is teeming with self-love. I actually love reading about everyone's daily lives and all the stuff people are up to back home (yup, I just admitted to being a complete blog-stalker. Watch out!).

Ranting done. I will now catch up on what I've been doing for the past 3 months because I only have a little over 5 weeks left out here.

July flew by in a blaze of sunshine. Everyone kept telling me what strange weather it was for England; sunshine almost every day. I just did my normal thing: work through the week, travel around on the weekends. I went to...

Dartmouth

Totnes

Plymouth

and Bristol.

In August, the kids were out of school (they only have August off, how sad is that?) and naturally it rained almost every day. I wasn't able to leave much during that month because I ended up working through most of my weekends. I didn't mind that at all because my job doesn't feel like "work" at all, and we did some random stuff that I wouldn't have been able to ever experience otherwise. Such as a hound show. I didn't realize how entertaining it could be to watch a bunch of Englishmen wearing velvet top hats, double-breasted jackets, and those funny pants that make their hips look incredibly wide parade their dogs around in front of a panel of judges. I still don't understand the point of it all but it was fun to watch anyway.

The last 2 weeks of August were the highlight of my trip because we went to Ireland.

There's so much to say about Ireland and how beautiful it was and all we did there. I'll write the condensed version. The main reason we went was to get the baby christened, and since this mom over here is from Ireland and her parents live there, we were able to stay with them for a week while we were getting all of that organized. I was blown away by how much goes into orchestrating a christening. Maybe they aren't always as extravagant, but we had fancy lunch and dinner parties all day, every day, with people showing up in their best dress and being served course after course after course. I ate enough Brie and pavlova to satisfy me for an entire lifetime I think.

While all the craziness was going on, I had a chance to sneak away to Dublin for a day. I'd been told by another au pair out here that it wasn't much to see, but I didn't find that to be true at all. I thought it was really interesting! I saw Trinity College, where the Book of Kells is kept, and the Guinness Factory (the Irishman's Mecca), St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Famine Statues, and St. Stephen's Green, which was my favorite part. It's basically Ireland's equivalent of Central Park, and it's beautiful.

After the christening shenanigans, we spent a week in County Kerry in a place called Caherdaniel. We stayed in a house right on the edge of an estuary and at high tide the water reached up right to the garden gate! Amazing. We had beautiful weather all week, much to the amazement of the locals, whom I couldn't understand to save my life, but apparently they all commented on the lack of rainfall during the time we were there. Every day we waited for the tide to go down and then we played on the beach and in the ocean. We picked mussels and had fresh lobster, and wild blackberries grew all along the banks and in the hills. It was the most unspoiled place I've ever been, and I hope it stays that way!

Now it's September and I'm leaving on October 14! I can't believe the time has gone by so quickly... I'm sad to think that I'll be leaving soon, but I'm really excited to come home.