Daoine

I’d been having a bit of a bad patch in the run up to my trio to Dublin and had thought of giving it a miss. Thankfully, I convinced my very good friend Catherine to accompany me and into the bargain we got to stay with her family in her childhood home back in the village of Ardclough.

Catherine is in the not-so-exclusive one-of-my-colleagues group. This blog has taught me that I have a lot of colleagues, ex and current. We started new jobs in our clinic a week apart and have been inseparable since- right Catherine?

That weekend I arrived into the airport in Dublin and was picked up by Catherine and her mammy, and taken out to meet the first of her sisters and her children- the weekend continued in this pattern and I got round about 3/4 of the immediate O’Neills.

 

On Saturday night, the ladies O’Neill (Catherine, Emer and Claire) showed me the what the craic in the Dublin was like, and very good craic it was too.

Mrs O’Neill, Philomena, Phil as they say, cooked us up three square meals a day and took us out in the car for a tour of the surrounding hills and wandered around Dublin showing me the sights and generally being a mum and looking after things.

There was also Mr. Donal O’Neill, brother Paul, partners and in-laws, and a gazillion hyper and gorgeous children. A fantastic family, who all made me feel very at home in their homes- thanks guys!

During the race, I made a few friends along the way, chatting about running and where we’d travelled from. Near the end I was running alongside a woman on her first half race and she was struggling, so I ran along with her until we could see the finish line ahead and knew we would both get over it. Team work!