Well, that escalated quickly

It has been three months since our last post but it feels like an eternity, doesn’t it? We have all seen the world change completely in this time due to the Coronavirus and global economic collapse, so wherever you are and whatever your circumstances, we hope that you are safe and sound.

For us, documenting our new adventure took a back seat to meeting our basic needs here. Myself and the other employees at my work office were furloughed during the week of St. Patricks Day after all events were cancelled and Covid-19 began to take over our lives. For seven weeks after my first payslip I had no welfare support payments, despite being entitled to them. This due to a technicality about payslips and reporting between my employer and Revenue. It has since been resolved through Welfare instead of Revenue, many thanks to them, but it was a stressful process nonetheless.

As we were just getting “settled in” at the time of the shutdown, we had no internet connection as this required a bona-fide Irish bank account to sign up. Until the banks could reopen we could not get this arranged, and lengthy tedium ensued. Suffice to say it was an enormous weight lifted off once we were able to get connected. We completely agree that in 2020 the internet is a basic human right and essential service.

Adding to the fact that Aoife still had both of her jobs, which at that point she had just started, and both required a stable internet connection. Tethering our phones seemed to barely work at times, but as our service provider stumbled under the administrative weight and burden on the network, this soon became impossible.

Fast forwarding to now, we’re grateful to have moved beyond these roadblocks. I guess, like many others, we are still uncertain about many aspects of our lives in the midst of this. We have been very fortunate and grateful to have made it to here with all of our basic needs met. Many others we see here have not been fortunate enough to have that outcome, so as we enter the real “mental game” stretch of this crisis I/we aim to continue our practises of gratitude. Writing this here is to some degree a note-to-self and self-reminder.

Yesterday was the first time we caught up with someone we knew. We were delighted by a surprise “exercise visit” from Rob, and we walked our quarantine quota distance back towards Blackrock in the beautiful May weather. Ireland is still in Phase 1 of reopening at the time of writing, and has one of the strictest health mandates in Europe still in place. As such the per capita infection and death rates among the lowest, and with any luck the restrictions will further ease according to schedule in a couple of weeks time.

In other non-Covid, non-Trump related news, the days are getting longer as we approach the summer solstice. We are beginning to understand why the Irish gush about spring and summertime so much here: it truly is glorious. Sunup is at about 4:30am and sunset at 9:45pm with clear skies and hardly a drop of rain in the last few weeks. On that note I shall keep this brief, get off my backside and go enjoy it, and let you do the same 🙂 From both of us here in sunny Corcaigh, we wish you every blessing and providence to endure these wild and strange times. Simon & Aoife

Relaxing beside the River Lee

About nine-thirty on the Michael Collins Bridge

Further down the road

#Cork #Ireland

A Wee Tour Of Our First Irish Home

After 11 weeks living out of our suitcases, we’ve made the jump and set up in our first Irish home. We’ll start with some quick snaps from last Friday when we got the keys to our little terrace house just 48 hours after applying on the spot at the viewing. Needless to say with the rental market in Ireland being epically competitive when you find somewhere that hits the budget, location and specs trifecta, you find you’ll move heaven and earth to try to make it yours!

Prior to getting this place, we had been on the property hunt for a solid two weeks before we were successful in applying for this place — I say successful because I’d honestly lost track of how many properties we applied to look at, how many we managed to book a viewing for, how many we actually got to see, and then how many we applied for. Like I say, a very competitive market and if you’d told us this time a week ago that we would have a place let alone a place we like so much, we would likely have scoffed a bit and gone back to trawling the Daft app hoping that a property in our range had listed.

As Simon was up in Dublin for his first three days of work (training in head office), I traversed the city going to viewings and hammering out preliminary EOI messages to property agents. The moment I walked into our home I knew it would be perfect for us. It was adorable on first sight and easy walking distance to St Patrick’s Quay (20 minutes on the flat — so the same as a walk to James Street from our past Bowen Hills house), plus it had a surprise ground floor bedroom for Simon’s studio. Despite this, I’d learned after our first application disappointment that surviving the rental application game is 100% more about mental fortitude and odds-playing than anything else. You’ve got to be in it to win it and do the legwork of getting to as many viewings as possible. I knew better than to get too excited even with things looking so promising from the first seconds in the door.

And of course, this is where things hit a bit of a hitch with this seemingly perfect home: the third floor attic bedroom had a staircase so small even I have to crouch to get through the doorway. Adorable and perfect, yes. An absolute physical hazard for one Simon Lane, also yes! To combat Simon (or ‘My beloved’ as he referred to him) not being there in person, the property manager very kindly suggested I video call Simon from the house and so I walked him through the house from top to bottom, knocking my head a little along the way, then ultimately paid a deposit on the spot!

After a nail biting 24 hours, we received word on Thursday that the house was officially ours and then picked up the keys on Friday afternoon. A totally joyful and unreal whirlwind that’s wound up our second month here in Cork. My Uncle Barry and I collected Simon from the Friday afternoon train, then we headed to sign the lease before moving in on Saturday with help from friends. With only our suitcases plus a bit more ‘stuff’ we’ve acquired in the interim, it was the easiest move of our adult lives and we’re already trying to work out how to minimise our overall ‘stuff’ so that every move can be two carloads that are unpacked in an afternoon.

The area is historic and the house itself feels like a wee lighthouse with the stair bannisters reminiscent of a ship, little light portholes in the galley kitchen and a huge skylight in our bedroom that opens out over the street and water. It’s newly renovated and we love all of the furniture that’s part of the rental. The location itself is also magic: we’re right near the river, a 10 minute walk from the train station for both our jobs and about 25 minutes from Lidl (ahem, priorities). We also walked past a very cute bakery in the Victorian Quarter (about 15 minutes walk) on Sunday that I can’t wait to check out.

We will probably send a video through privately however here are some initial photos. To give an idea of the overall feel of the place, it’s a terrace home spread over three levels and with a view of the River Lee. It already feels like our own home and it just had a positive vibe the moment I walked in. It’s equally great that Simon has wound up loving it, too!

My final thought is that we wouldn’t be here in our new home without the support of our family and friends here, in Aus and NZ, and all around the globe. It’s bittersweet to be here in our new home (although Simon is back in Dublin for the week training again) and to dream of having people visit us from all over here all while not knowing exactly when that might be. It’s a bit strange to have that sense of the in between right as life starts to take up the shape of normal routines again. Another part alongside this is that while we’re so grateful to have this wee home, we are already missing our housemates we were living with initially, Rob and Rebecca, and all in all we so enjoyed our time together at Jacob’s Island. With this in mind, we hope to have them round for a Sunday Roast as soon as we’ve a table as this was a tradition introduced to us in our time living together.

We’ll have more updates soon as I have my first day of work tomorrow and we’re hoping to book some warm weather sale flights for another adventure in the coming months. Until then, wherever you might be, happy spring or happy autumn. The days here are still cool while the daffodils are blooming and the days are getting brighter and longer. It’s going to be a glorious stretch ahead that we’re in just the right place to enjoy most thankfully.

Day Two of An Overseas Job (and The Rest of The Day’s News)

Well today was a big improvement on yesterday, both practically and emotionally. The best news of all was that we got a place to live(!)

In the space of 24hrs Aoife looked at a place on the inner north, facetime’d me a squiz, and managed all the leasing and paperwork while I worked up here in Dublin. A monster effort from her that paid off big time. Photos / videos to follow soon!

On the work front, it was better today spending a full day at work here. I was able to become more familiar with the processes and how a day plays out with the Dublin lads. A little bit of craic thrown in there too. I’ll be heading back down to Cork tomorrow, whereby we will get the keys and then move in over the weekend. I’ll then come back up Monday to Dublin, work the week, then head back down again thereafter.

Getting the keys will be a big boost for us no doubt, as finding a place is by far the biggest challenge the countries’ renters face. Followed closely by finding an affordable place.

Hopefully with a decent night’s sleep in the industrial complex, and provided no security alarms go off again during the night, I’ll be back to report on the move in over the course of the weekend. Until then…