Barnna, Galway, Ireland a work trip.

The view out into the Atlantic Ocean / Irish Sea.

I'm in Barna, Galway, Ireland for 2 days.  Flew in on an Aer Lingu flight from London Heathrow to Shannon then it's just a 90 minute drive to Barna.

There are three of us from work and we're staying a hotel called 'The Twelve'.  It's a pretty nice hotel, it's modern with great rooms.  After a quick drink we ventured out and ended up in an extremely good fish restaurant 'O'Gradys on the pier'.  The food was fantastic and service very good.

http://www.ogradysonthepier.com/

Tomorrow the real purpose of the visit, a meeting at TG4 the Irish National Broadcaster.

British GP Qualifying @ Silverstone

It rained...... a lot.

After the BBC telling people in the public car parks not to attend (approx 20,000 people) and deciding not to go despite getting up early then reading weather reports etc about 1030 I thought I'd just get in the car and go.  Silverstone is around 120 miles from home so after packing up what I was doing and filling up with diesel I arrived there at around 12:55.  Qualifying one starts at 1pm so I was right on time.  I had a little trouble parking although not because it was busy I simply couldn't find the car park.  I asked an attendant who with great efficiency told me where i wanted to be heading.  I then turned into a muddy field and with great rally cross precision guided the car across 2 muddy fields.

Then a couple of other attendants told me the best way to get in to where I needed to go.  We were lucky enough to have been given the tickets which were pretty good ones in an under cover grandstand right by Abbey corner which is the first bend after the pit straight.  

In qualifying round 2 the weather got pretty bad and the session was stopped with just over six minutes to go.  The rain came down for quite a time and the commentator said the weather radar indicated the rain would stop at 14:40....Guess what dead on that time it stopped.  A huge team with brooms and trucks to collect the water appeared and within around 15 minutes the track was much clearer.  The announcer says the session will restart at 1507.  A few minutes before that there's a mighty roar as those who wanted to go out to finish the session start their engines.  A formula one car's engine noise is really loud so imagine 20+ cars on the track flat out.

Q2 finished and then Q3 starts.  It's the final 10 cars battling for places on the starting grid.  Thankfully the rain hold off enough for the session to end immediately after which it starts to pour down and there was a mass exodus to the car parks.  A shame really as there were GP2, GP3 and Porsche cup races still to go however most people probably only go for the big F1 cars.

Got the car out without too much drama in the car park and despite warning there was no traffic jams at all so headed home.  I think if the weather was better I would have stayed longer but the rain and wind got the better of me.

Busy Week

Wow a busy week this week too after last weeks fun at Google's new London HQ.

I've been in the office for three days this week sorting out dull stuff, I'm off to MTV in Amsterdam early tomorrow morning for the handover meeting of the system there.  I then fly back early doors from Amsterdam to London City to be at google around 9ish to meet one of our engineers and 2 of the new guys. (Oh yes, we've also had 6 of our 8 new starters start this week).
Next week it's 3 days away with a short trip to TG4 in Galway, Ireland to offer some 'operation' knowledge into a planning meeting.  You can only fly to Shannon it appears from Heathrow which isn't especially close and then it's around a 2 hour drive at the other end and no doubt we will have skimped on the hire car and it will be something pretty rubbish.

BBQ @ Mike and Sues or better title some adults and 14 kids

A great BBQ this afternoon at one of our friends houses.  Our hosts were Mike and Sue and they live in Dulwich, which is a nice town(village) in South East London.

Despite the kick off at midday we arrived a little late as little J was asleep.  Always best to let them sleep otherwise they end up a monster.

Upon arrival things were in full swing.  The BBQ was on the kids were playing out the back and little J joined straight in.  It was good to catch up as a big group as we are rarely all in one place very often these days.

Amazingly as well as all the adult there were 14 children and i think they are all under 7.  I think that Hannah and Duncan's eldest, Megan, is the oldest of them all.

As you can see above it's a good crowd of people.

Above is Iza, Tim and Paul.  I'm sure that that conversation was either about kids or weddings.  Iza and Tim are looking forward to their first child due 30th October 2012 and are also getting married next year in Poland.

Here's Duncan, Hannah and again Paul.  We don't often get to see Duncan, Hannah and their 2 too much as they live in Taunton, Somerset which google maps tells me is around 180 miles from us.  When we do get together though it's always great fun and we are looking forward to seeing them in 2 weeks time as it's the christening of Paul and Zoe's youngest, Annabel.