Saturday, June 26, 2010

Long Days in Cork

The return from Germany melted into working full-time at, yes, the warehouse. My current phase of manual labor in Blackpool ends with the month of June, but, as my boss has confirmed, there could always be a July or August "guest appearance." By July or August the money will seem quite attractive, I'm sure.

Offering our place to friends and family who want to visit Ireland has resulted in a flood of visitors––a cousin of mine comes in tomorrow, and a friend of Katherine's is showing up (with a friend) in the first week of July. The more the merrier, really, because visitors give us convenient excuses to visit some pubs and chippers, and to take road trips to the west of the country.

As for Irish current events––a topic I've neglected for some time––instead of focusing on the extremely repetitive glum economic news the country is in a highly positive mood thanks to some wonderful early summer weather. June has been just about perfect: clear sunny skies, highs in the 80s (or about 90 at the hottest), and long, long days. Seriously long days...I've never seen anything like it. But then again, I've never been this far north around the summer solstice. Consider last Saturday, when I was out until 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning. At 11:15 p.m. I glanced at my watch and noticed that it was still twilight some lingering sunlight still visible in the west. When I turned in for the "evening" at 4:30, the first rays of sunshine were visible in the east. Only about four hours of full darkness!

It is quite agreeable all around. Even if you work full-time, when you get home you still have four or five hours of time to soak up some rays. The only (slight) problem with the situation is you don't get as much sleep as usual. But that's where the Irish winter comes in handy, when you only have six or seven hours of daylight.

Anyway, the country is loving the weather. We've been told that June 2010 has had more sunshine than the entire summer of 2009. Just add this to the list of extreme weather we've encountered during our stay.

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