Move to O'Connor Street

We are just about ready to move! Next Tuesday is the big day! The removalist is coming so he says at 6.45!

A rubbish removalist came this morning and took away a lot of timber, two panels of fencing, the two blue and white outdoor chairs and the table from our deck, a wheelbarrow and lots of other rubbish.

Only need to pack the saucepans, some crockery, some groceries, blankets etc., TV and computer and we're ready to go. Unfortunately there's no cable service for Foxtel or Broadband so we have to go to Austar and ADSL. That's for the future!

OUr new phone number after next Tuesday is 5534 3131.

Regards to all.

Dad

mullwashire

Clare

I forgot to thank you for your email too in my original post! Sorry!

Regards Grandad

mullwashire

I had my carotid artery cleaned out this week! It involved four days in hospital about a two hour operation and 24 hours in Intensive Care Unit and has resulted in the artery being cleaned and a slash down my neck from my right ear to about my neckline. When I go to mass tomorrow I will look as though I have been mugged!

Thank you Ivy and Elsa for your lovely cards! They were beaaauuutifuuuuuul!!!!

We are well on our way to packing up ready to move to our unit! What a change, eh! Jim said today that I won't be able to grow my annual display of petunias from April to September because the salt air gets to them. What a shame! Anyway what with the help of everybody we hope to move on August 7 but maybe we won't have a phone, the Internet or Foxtel!

But we're looking forward to the change and the new adventure.

mullwashire

It has taken awhile to work this out but we now are entering news on our mullwashire blogspot.

NENAGH

Here we are on the last leg of our trip. Had a beautiful B&B at Milltown Mal Bay after a long wet drive through narrow lanes with hedges on every side. At San Antone we looked out from our bedroom and the dinning room over the Atlantic Ocean and great green paddocks and little white houses and the sea. Now the big quest for Mullins relatives....We fronted up in heavy rain to the parish office in Milltown Mal Bay to find that there was no Mullins baptised there between 1831 (the start of records) and 1900. The priest said there were Mullinses in the parish of Ennistriven some 7 miles up so off we went. Here the priest (none too fussed about helping!!) said there were Mulllinses even today and definitely none with the parentage and None called William. Ray had about had enough so we went to the Clare Heritage centre at Corofin to the museum hoping to find some traces of Mullins. In the rain we went to front and back doors. It was closed until nexxt Monday!! So Ray succumbed to paying money and went to the Clare Research Centre, to find his grand-father Michael who always said he was born in 1865 was born on 5/10/1861 and the sister Catherine who was supposed to be younger was older and there were also a number of others, namely Matilda and (I lost count). James and William Mullins, Michael's brothers, who Desley found were born after official government records were held in Ireland. Anyway we are going to get a full run-down with birth and death certificates copied and records of any land held and any relatives still living in Ireland.
Today we came over on the Shannon Ferry and went to Ballybunnion on the sea, drove up the Shannon river and have now a beautiful new B&B for this evening owned by Siobohn and Betty. However, I have phoned Biddy and Christie 3 times and the phone is always engaged. So they could be going to miss a couple of great Aussie Relatives if they don't stop talking!!
Great to hear you are home Amanda...and that you have new trainers. KOBI - best of luck for the cross country. Hope you recover from jet lag, Jim. Much love, Mum and Dad
PS Gerard look forward to seeing you at the airport Sunday morning. We don't have the itinerary right here but you should have one and the others do have one also.

Ireland in the rain

We are at Ballina on the west coast of Ireland in light rain. Our next stop going south is Galway on Galway Bay and then to night we are booked for 3 nights at Milltown Mal Bay, the ancestral home of the Mullinses.
After a catastrophic end to our time in NY, we are still anxious to know if Amanda caught her flight and is home safely. The shuttle to the airport (which the conceirge said would take about half an hour took one and three-quarter hours). We had a good flight on Aer Lingus but we were tired when we got to Dublin - picked up the car and got lost. We asked a man for directions and we have realised since that he was probably the Archbishop. Brigid Moynihan's B & B was a marvellous old terraced house, very pleasant - Brigid (a little vague) assured us we would find a B & B in Sligo on the west coast - NO bother. We drove through lush green countryside up to the Giants Causeway through Northern Island (Londonderry, Coloraine). The causeway is an extraordinary sight. Then we pushed on to Sligo, where every B & B was booked out because (1) it is the Bank Holiday weekend - the first long weekend after the long winter and (2) a lady from Sligo was being buried and willed her body to the University, so everyone from the Uni came up for the funeraland stayed in B & Bs!! After some wild situations (one where we ended up at a castle which took guests and Ray wouldn't go in because he feared the cost, then we tried to book ourselves into a truck stop and they were out, then also considered sleeping in the car), a kindly B & B owner phoned a friend and we got a bed on a farm just north of Knock with Joan and Sean - spotless with a large loop-pile wallhanging of John Paul II and our other guest was Fr Dan, an American of Irish roots. We are moving south today. Missing everyone and hope Solomon, Gill, Judy and the troops in Washington are all well. Much love, Mum

New York

I see most have caught up with the news that Solomon Steven Belcher arrived on 24 April - 9 lb. Gill was induced but the cord was in a difficult position, so fairly quickly the doc. decided on a caesar. Gill is still in hospital recovering but Solomon is well. Judy is flying back on a delayed ticket on Sunday and Peter is coping except that nobody is able to do Lizzie's hair...
To say NY is a buzz is an understatement. We only walk a short walk to the Metro (tube) and the first morning we crushed in like sardines - an announcement being made all the time "Do not put wallets in your back pocket - hold your handbags infront of you". We bought a 2 day Grayline all loops tour in Australia so we set off atop on Monday a double-decker bus with a ytour commentator and drive through the mesh of downtown NY - the taxis (only 4 per cent of people in Manhatten own caRS), THE BUSES, THE VANS, AND people . wE SAW ALL THE SITES, sEINFELD'S SOUP KITCHEN, THE aPOLLO THEATRE, WHERE lENNON WAS SHOT, ETC. wE CHANGED TO A MOTORIZED OLD TRAM TO TOUR bROOKLYN AND THEN ON tUESDAY, WE DID THE UPTOWN tour around museums, beautiful buildings, Central Park, Fifth Ave. Then we went at night on a night loop - the lights and activity in Times Square is mind-boggling. Tomorrow we go to Ireland and Amanda goes home via Sydney. I am on a time limit here. It was great to hear from you all and especially Ivy's message. Don't know how we will go finding internet in Ireland. No many cafes for it in NY. Much love to everyone, Great-granma and Great-0grandad

Probably last blog from Washington

Great to hear from you, Jim - blogging is a challenge!!! and great to contact, Leo - no penguins at the zoo, but I did watch the "March of the Penguins" on the plane on the way over - great show.... Desley and Mark, Peter now says the birds at the zoo DO fly south for the winter (and he's sticking to that story!)
Well, we are heading for New York tomorrow. There is still NO baby. Gill is to be induced on Monday - Sunday Aust. time - but Judy's time is running out. At the moment, she and Peter are trying to organise an extension for a couple of days, which will mean a more expensive fare back but also they would have to pay more money on the trip over which Judy has already made....so it is still in the melting pot. Peter has arranged to finish work at 4.0pm next week and the kids are back to school on Monday.
Amanda has succumbed to a bad head cold. She has been invaluable with the driving and entertaining and showering the children. Ray and I have not driven and we could not have done without her. However, as Jasper, Freyja and Kobi will attest, the kids are all worn out!! She ran a boot camp 2 days ago and the kids are still recovering. There is to be a dance exhibition this evening. We have a photo of a rain dance on the back deck, and it has been raining since then.
Ray and I have had 2 return visits to the Smithsonian, but the highlight of our week was being taken to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, which is advertised as an Australian experience. On the menu is Toowoomba Pasta, Cyclone fettucini, Prime Minister's ribs, Kookaburra wings....However, the food was not at all like Australian fare. We did have a good laugh and did let them know we were genuine Aussies.
Yesterday we had a day at the movies, after mild panic getting lost. Amanda and Nathan saw Benchwarmers, which we hear was grose. Clare, Lizzie and I saw The Wild. As a Disney film it was loud and pretty ordinary, except that the lion cub who is the star was called RYAN and the giraffe, who was the beautiful friend was BRIDGET. Hope to find an internet cafe in New York, but the photos may well stop. We are going up on the Greyhound bus - just under 5 hours. Our thoughts and prayers are with Gill and Phil and Madge, and Judy and the support team in Canberra. Much love, Mum/Granma/Pat

A day at the National Zoo

Today is Wednesday here. On Monday there were plans for a golf game with Peter, Nathan and Ray, but we woke to fine rain and so the golf was cancelled, so we relaxed with a karoke set which the kids got for Christmas. I got a score of 86 - eat your heart out Kamal!!
Yesterday (refreshed) we hit the National Zoo set in 163 acres of wooded land in the heart of the city (or I should say downtown). The brochure said there were 2800 animals, but after 2 hours and some serious foot-slogging, we had seen 1 seal, a colony of turtles, and some mekong-delta cat-fish (infront of which we are pictured). We took a cut lunch and Amanda queued for coffee - after half an hour, Ray went looking for her. After another half an hour I felt sure both Amanda and Ray were being held hostage, but soon after we did get our coffee.
However, the second half of the afternoon was much better. We saw some hippo, elephants and a baby one born in captivity, a giraffe, some praire dogs, monkeys and their kin, and at a distance the panda bears (You can see Amanda indicating our view of the pandas). That really does not make 2,800 animals, but on some fenced areas the notice read "This animal may be pregnant and so is probably resting in its den"....However, the country walk was beautiful and we had some laughs.
No baby as yet. Poor Gill went to the doctor yesterday and will go again on Friday, with a possible induction next Monday if nothing has happened by then. Judy is due to return Wednesday of next week, and we are due to go to New York on Sunday. Thinking of you all in Australia, Much love, Mum/Granma/Pat