sneaky willy
What a great day out, here was the plan:
He loved dipping so we shall dip. Tide is 7.29am so Nicko will be wading in at 8.30am at Balscadden Bay Beach (Google Maps)
He loved hiking so we shall hike. Howth was one of his favourites so we'll grab a coffee after the dip from Il Panorama Cafe (Google Maps) and aim to leave the cafe at 10am to do the Bog of the Frogs hike. It's a good +3hr hike but people can cut it short at different points. Safety is number one so make sure you have good hiking footwear, a backpack and a minimum 2L of water. Nicko will pop a weather update the night before in the Whatsapp group so make sure and join (see link below).
He loved an auld pints so we shall pint. Dan is putting together a small pub crawl (see planned route below). After the hike and food we'll hop on the dart and aim to be at The Stags Head for 5pm. (Google Maps)
He loved gigs so we shall gig. Nicko is going to head to a small gig for a few hours then return to the pub crawl. If anyone wants to join but nay pressure. The gig link is here. (€20 in Pepper Cannister Church)
Lastly, to keep everyone in the loop of website updates and the birthday day stuff we have set up a WhatsApp group where only admins can pop updates in 👍🏽👍🏽 join if you would like here
And here's how it went (according to Nicko lol):
It was a birthday he would have loved, it's a birthday I think we all loved. The craic was 90 from the get-go.
Only for John Lorigan some of the crew would have never made the 8.30am swim (late by 10min I should add).
There was a great mix ready to go, from VDP heads and camp kids, to Fintan's boys and even a work mate.
30km/hr winds were southerly so the bay was flat calm - didn't make the cold water any easier to bare. In and out in a flash, we all slapped on our clothes and headed for a cup of coffee. John boy pulled out a birthday cake for the boss man everyone had a fill of. Some had to head and some had to join.
We headed off for the cliffs and the bog of frogs loop. We had been warned it was a deceer of a hike but sure we had nothing else to do.
Winds whip and waves smashed against the cliffs as we chatted and laughed for the 3.5hrs. Stopping to dab for a pic every now and again. Yurt.
When we didn't make a wrong turn at the top near the mast and made it to the Summit Pub at precisely the correct time we dived into a few plates of food and a cheeky glass of G-banger while watching the rugger (lol we dranks pints, just one had the glass...).
We each went our separate ways with ambitions of starting the pub crawl at 5pm! (side note the pub crawl was following Andy's top 13 Guinness pubs in Dublin which can be found here).
It took us until 6pm to regroup and we had the engineers strengthen our numbers - with a good mix we were away! Nicko headed off for a gig (which you can listen to here) which turned out to be "one of the best in the past few years".
Pint after pint after pint after a shot of gin outside Toners.
What a day and what a group!
Happy birthday horse box, I know you were there with us for every minute.
- Love Nicko
All pics of the day can be found in the slideshow below, yiz are all only gorgeous!
If you have any photos from the day you'd like to add, stick some into the Google Photos album here!
If you would like to add more to the story just send it into us via email andydonnellywebsite@gmail.com where Nicko or Catherine will pick it up.
