Homeward bound

It's been a wonderful 2.5 years so far in Canada, I really love it here. We have great friends, great family (the few members that are in Canada) and generally a great life here. However; I haven't been home since we moved here. I'm delighted to report that I'm off home on the 14th of July for 5 days for my best friends wedding (I'm his best man). Whilst I'm delighted to be going home for a visit, I'm sure it'll be a little bitter sweet as I'm leaving behind my wife and our (soon to be born) child.. she's due in a few days and all going well the baby will be only a few weeks old when I head back to Ireland for the few days.

That aside, I'm seriously looking forward to quite a few things that I've been missing! Obviously I'm looking forward to seeing my family and of course my friends but other things I miss are; in no particular order:

Breakfast rolls/full Irish breakfast:

(Minus the blackcurrants!)


A nice bit of batch loaf:

A dozen pints in my local pub - 'The Pound' in Swords:

And of course, news, tv, newspapers etc from home:

But most of all I am really excited about seeing and tasting all the new craft beers that have hit the Irish market in my absence, particularly the cask offerings. I'll be hitting up 'The Bull and Castle' and 'The Porterhouse' as soon as I arrive to imbibe some craft beer goodness.

Hopefully I'll get to finally meet some of the Irish Craft Brewer members, in particular The Beer Nut and Barry Masterson (although Barry is in Germany!) as I've been a member of that site for a few years now and am yet to meet any of them.

So, hopefully this trip will go well, it's my first time flying with Air Transat and I'm on a pretty tight schedule. The Canadian dollar is pretty strong against the Euro too so that's a bonus.

Fingers crossed :-)