Well would you believe it

The ice cream truck came at 3:30 in the afternoon today.

My wife quickly raided her wallet for change and ran out with the boys to buy them ice creams.

By the time she got out to the road he had done a u-turn and sped away.

Maybe he's reading this blog.

If so Mr. Ripple or whatever your real name is please wait a few minutes at the kerb tomorrow. Thanks.

Pesky Ice Cream truck

There's a guy with an ice cream van that drives by the house most evenings during the summer.

Granted with all the rain we've been having he hasn't been around much lately but as I drove out this evening there he was coming up the avenue with the usual O Sole Mio (also known as the Cornetto music) blaring out the top of his Ford Transit.

He's a bit of a pied piper this fellow. As he pulls up to the kerb the kids come scampering out of the houses with coins in hand. He does a good line in ice cream cones, you know the whipped variety with a chocolate flake stuck in the side, in ice pops or lollies, and also a fair range of chilled soft drinks.

The funny thing is though that his timing is all off. I have to say I never paid much attention to it but my wife mentioned it to me a while ago. She said that he always arrives to sell ice cream just as it's approaching dinner time.

Just when parents everywhere are lining up the children to eat something healthy for dinner he sails in to the road at 5:30 in the evening.

I suppose he just has a strange sense of timing. Or humour.

Paracetamol - can you be trusted?

So you may know by now that I was holidaying in Spain recently. On one of the days I woke up with a blinding headache so when I went out I headed straight for the supermarket to pick up something for the headache.

I normally take paracetamol since I find aspirin just doesn't work for me. I drove over to La Cañada, a big shopping complex near Marbella and about 30 minutes from where I was staying.

Inside this complex there is a huge supermarket and I mean huge. I walked all through it but not a sign of anything for a headache.

Outside the supermarket there are all manner of shops, dozens and dozens of them. I walked along and spotted the customary blue and green cross that in Spain means pharmacia, a chemist or pharmacy as we call it in Ireland.

I went in and after the customary 'hola' from the shop assistant to me and me to him I asked for something for a headache. He bent down behind the counter and reappeared with what could only be described as a bullet-shaped object. It was brass coloured, about an inch long and looked like a bullet. He said that this was all he could sell me for a headache and that it was a kind of personal massager.

Ahem.

I asked him where could I get some paracetamol and he said I'd have to go to a pharmacy for that. Turns out this was a para-pharmacia, I suppose some kind of almost-a-pharmacy concept that we don't really have in Ireland. I suppose natural health stores would be the nearest thing we have to this.

Once we were done with our shopping we all got back in the car and headed back along the A7 towards Estepona where we were staying. About 3 miles before Estepona I saw the blue and green neon sign again ahead on the roadside. I pulled off the road and parked the car.

I entered the pharmacia which was literally in the middle of nowhere. The door made a ding noise as I entered the empty pharmacy. The female pharmacist finally appeared and called out hola to me.

I asked her in spanish if she had paracetamol. She replied 'si' and proceeded to take a Spanish-made product from the shelf. I noticed right beside it a brand I recognised and asked her if I could have that instead.

In the car I took two paracetamol with some water and my headache started to subside almost immediately.

So the question is why in some countries can you buy paracetamol in supermarkets, petrol stations and just about anywhere while in other countries it is extremely difficult to do that. I also know that paracetamol is much more expensive in some countries compared to others.

I have a colleague from Germany who frequently buys a large supply of paracetamol whenever she is in the UK on business because the price of paracetamol is 5 times higher where she lives in Germany.

Then you have this law in Ireland where you can only buy one pack of paracetamol per visit to the supermarket or chemist. They are not allowed by law to sell you two packs.

Paracetamol seems to be viewed differently depending on where you are in the world and seems to cost more in some countries than others.

Why is this?

My tip if you're travelling anywhere on business or for leisure. Bring something for a headache with you. You just never know when you might need it and you just don't know how difficult it might be to get some welcome relief.

Just to clarify

Just to be clear. It's not bad to have the brain of a 60 year-old man.

In fact I was talking about my brain age.

The problem is that I am not remotely close to 60 years of age so I should have a younger brain-age.

There is nothing wrong with having the brain of a 60 year old man. 

Old man's brain

According to Dr. Kawashima I have the brain of a 60 year old man.

This is not good.

Time to use it or lose it.

Aside from that, I drove back to Dublin tonight and it's great to be home. This month is going to be a bit mad. 

I'm adding some new music to my iPod and then off to bed. I am very tired. My brain is soooo tired. 

Puddle-hopping in Tullamore

Howdy everyone. 

Today I am in Tullamore attending a training programme. The programme will last three days so I'm going to spend tonight and tomorrow night in a Hotel.

Tullamore is about an hour and a half's drive from Dublin so I set off early this morning. It was a really nice morning, bright and dry and I loaded up my iPod last night with some of my favourite music.

The drive down was uneventful which is always good. 

I arrived in Tullamore just before 9 AM and found the training venue without any great difficulty. The class started at 10 AM and since then it has been raining.

Now people often ask why Irish people are obsessed with the weather. It's not entirely true. We are simply obsessed with better weather and spend a great deal of time wondering if the weather is ever going to get better.

Me, I can't complain. I've been in Spain for 2 weeks in glorious sunshine and 34C temperatures so a day of rain won't bother me.

I have some evening work to do tonight, reading a whole pile of stuff in preparation for tomorrow. Pffffff.

So that will be all for now. Spare a thought for Stephen Smart who is on his way to China right now. 

Back home and wet again

Hello again

I'm just back from Spain where I have been on holiday with my wife and 2 boys for the last 2 weeks.

We had a fantastic time and the weather was really wonderful.

During the time we were there we didn't have a TV set or access to the internet or newspapers so we had no idea what was going on in the world. This really helped the holiday mood to be cut off from all the usual doom and gloom. We received the occasional text message from Ireland to say that it had rained pretty much every day since we left.

We stayed in the small town of Estepona, in the south of Spain in the region known as Andalucia. We toured about a fair bit visiting many of the places we went to last year. This year we also drove to Gibraltar to check it out.

I might write a little about that in another post if anyone is interested :-)

We left on Friday morning and pretty much made it back to our house, dropped off the kids with the grandparents and then headed north in the car to a wedding last night up in Dundalk. It was a great night but to be honest I think my wife and I are probably a bit dehydrated so that likely increased the potency of any drinks consumed before the night ended.

So today we are back properly at our home. The back garden was like a jungle and my car looked like a skip so I had a busy afternoon generally getting things ship-shape again.

Needless to say just as I was finished washing the car the heavens opened and the rain poured down on the car and the idiot washing it in the rain.

Not sure what I'll do tonight. Maybe I'll just watch rubbish TV. I've had no TV for 2 weeks and feel somehow unaffected.

Maybe I'll read a book instead.

It's always great to be home again.