John's TV debut

As I mentioned last month, John made his debut on live TV today extolling the virtues of surfing on RTE's Daily Show. Here's the link, John's bit starts around 1.54. We had a really enjoyable day, and we got to meet not only the Daily Show team (Dáithi O Sé being a not so secret crush of mine!), but also the presenter of our favourite morning radio show, Ian Dempsey. John was a wee bit nervous, since the show was going out live, but all in all he did really well and I was very proud of him.

Celebrity Surfing

Around six weeks ago, I had a missed call on my phone, followed by a text from one of the instructors from Lahinch Surf School. She was looking for John and only had a phone number for me. We kept playing phone tennis, missing each other's calls for days until she finally caught up with me at work a couple of days later. Dying to know what it was all about, I had to ask her. They had got a call from RTE (our national broadcaster, for my non Irish readers) the week before. They are doing a feature on one of their daytime shows about people who have taken up hobbies later in life than usual, and were looking for someone who has recently taken up surfing, preferably in their 40's, who is really enthusiastic about the sport. Needless to say John ticked all those boxes, so they got in contact with us.

John has been surfing several times a week ever since in all weathers, and today was the day for filming. So we arose at 6.30 this morning, packed up the car with surf boards and gimpsuit to head for Lahinch for 9am to meet with the show's director and cameraman. We were in the presence of greatness in terms of the Irish surf world, as John got to surf with this dude. Needless to say he was chuffed to bits, particularly as John Mc said afterwards that it was obvious that John had put in the time with his surfing. So on Tuesday 8th March we're heading up to Dublin for the show. It's going out live (Live TV! My husband on Live TV! How mad is that?!) at 4.50pm. I will put up a link to the RTE player after the event.

Just to bring him back to earth, I made him clean out the cat shit out of the litter trays when we got home. Can't have him getting too big for his surf boots, can we?

Fingers crossed....

I got an email from HR in the financial services company asking me to come in for an interview tomorrow or Thursday. I said I would prefer Thursday. That gives me a little more time to prepare, and also my car is in the garage getting serviced and there's a better chance I will get it back by Thursday. So I am delighted and crapping myself in equal measures. I really really really want this job. I want so badly to get back to work at this stage, and the job spec fits in perfectly with my experience from my last role. It couldn't be any more perfect.

We spent the weekend up at our little flat in Clare. The car was loaded to bursting point on Saturday morning with all our gear. Luckily our landlords run their own surf shop and hire out wetsuits and boards, so they have a wet room in their house to which they gave us a key. So we were able to offload our suits and boards in there. Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous, so we spent a good few hours in the water in Lahinch. The seafront was packed, but the atmosphere was great. John is getting very handy at the surfing at this point. I'm still keeping with the boogie boarding. My arms and upper abdominal muscles were aching by Sunday, but that's a good sign. If I keep this up I should have a flat belly and arms as toned as Mrs Obama by the end of the Summer!

So the next couple of days will be spent in interview preparation. As this job is all about capital markets and treasury management, I'm going to get my financial strategy textbooks down out of the attic tonight to swot up on financial instruments and the like, in the hopes that I will sound like I vaguely know what I am talking about on Thursday.

Good things happen in threes

1) We're getting the keys of our summer apartment tomorrow. Yay! The hallway of our house is packed with surf boards, boogie boards, wetsuits, surfing boots, camping gear and various household paraphenalia to load into the car and bring to Clare tomorrow. Then it's a weekend of meeting up with friends in Doolin and Fanore, for surf, food and most likely a few libations along the way. Weather is good and the surf forecast for tomorrow is looking good.

2) My phone interview happened on Wednesday, and went quite well I thought. Quite a few technical questions on cashpooling operations and associated issues, which I think I answered reasonably well. I expect to hear by the middle of next week, so we'll see.

3) We've got an appointment for July 16th for the fertility clinic in Dublin, rather a lot quicker than I expected to get one. So we'll see what happens with that. I'm more than a little apprehensive about the idea of heading into fertility treatment when I could be starting a quite demanding job, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now it's all good.

We have moved to more optimistic premises

Hello all, and welcome to my new blog. I felt like it was time for a change. The title "Lacking Expectations" had started sound too much like negativity, and I'm trying to adopt an attitude that's all about the positive.

Since the start of this year, I embarked on a weight loss programme. Over the course of twenty weeks, I have slowly but surely managed to shed 24 pounds. I'm going to keep going until I lose another six pounds or so, and then I will work on maintaining a BMI of 23. Getting back in shape has had a hugely positive effect on me both mentally and physically. I am wearing size 12 jeans for the first time in my adult life. That's not to say I can fit into every size 12 I try on, but the ones I am wearing right now are 12s and they are fitting me very comfortably.

Every few years we get a summer that really stands out in our memories. A lot of this has to do with the weather. The last three summers will go down as the summers that never really happened. In addition to absolutely woeful pissy wet weather, 2007, 2008 and 2009 for me were about recovery from consecutive miscarriages, large doses of clomid that nearly sent me off with the men in white coats, surgery and, last summer, losing my job and turning 40. So this summer, we have decided that hail, rain or shine, we will make it a summer to remember.

At the end of last month, we booked a weekend away in Co Clare for our anniversary. The package included a surf lesson for John. The following weekend he booked another one, and I went along for the trip. I've only tried surfing once, and that was years ago in Australia. Let's just say I quickly realised that surfing is a skillful pastime, and that bodyboarding is much easier and more my bag. So a few years back John bought me a little boogie board. I hadn't used it in about four years, mainly due to my self consciousness and horror at the thoughts of having to squeeze into a wetsuit. Well now that I'm 10 kg plus lighter, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a new wetsuit.

So off I trotted to the nearest surf shop on the seafront where I purchased a particularly fetching little black and pink rubber number. I'll spare you a photo of me in it. I'm not *that* confident about my shape yet to be posting those photos. Anyway I grabbed my little boogie board and spent a fun filled hour or two in the water catching wave after wave. The sun was splitting the stones, and the waves were nothing like I have ever seen this side of Australia. Years ago my granny used to comment that anything new fangled or fancy was "like America at home". Well this was like Byron Bay at home.

Each time I caught a wave that brought me into the beach, I just screeched with excitement like a six year old. The only way I could describe the feeling of being propelled through the water is like when playing Mario Karts and you catch the rocket that sends you zooming around the race track. Just pure speed and fun.

When I was paying for my wetsuit, I noticed an ad posted at the counter for a studio apartment to let nine miles away from the town where we were surfing. John and I went back after our surf to get the phone number, and it turned out that the flat belonged to the people who run the surf shop. They live in the downstairs part of the house, which also has a recording studio. So basically these people are a couple of English hippies in their forties, whose kids are grown up and have left home, and they spend their time between surfing, teaching surfing, running a surf shop and a recording studio. They also own three dogs and a cat. My kind of people. So we decided to take a lease on the flat for the summer, so that we can be nearer to the sea and the outdoor life for the next three months. We figure for what it will cost us in rent for three months, we would easily spend in a week's off season sun holiday. So this way we will see far more benefit for our money.

So that's the plan for the Summer. Sea, surf and hopefully sunshine. And very little sitting around moping about our childless life. I hope. Ok, I'll probably have the odd wobbly day, but who doesn't. But for now, we are concentrating on getting back the fun in our lives. Getting back to life. So tune in next time to read about our first ever camping trip, to the campsite in Fanore, Co Clare made famous by that Fr Ted episode with Fr Noel Furlong (Graham Norton) and the St Luke's youth group doing Riverdance in a two berth caravan. And the tent we bought which could house a medium sized family. And the yummy yummy crab which our good friend Paul caught and we devoured on the campsite. And.........! We've taken up salsa dancing again, after a break of over five years. It's all go in the Jane and John house this year.