Cuisle

We went to Kilarney this weekend. It was really great. We only had the end of Saturday and start of Sunday, as Saturday we had to stop in Limerick to pick up the Cuisle Award.
It was very stressful in Limerick. Apparently the one thing (one of the things) the family has trouble with is directions.

Try having ONE person look up the directions on Google maps, then give those to ANOTHER person, who has to shout them out as fast as possible to avoid missing turns, and then doesn't clarify that the last turn was the WRONG turn, so now the directions don't work. Then try the fact that we hadn't eaten anything for hours, and only two of us had EVER been in the city before (twice). And the fact that the woman on the phone, telling DD and MM where it was located said to DD St. Dominic's Church, and to MM St. John's Church, when it was actually at St Mary's church.

Well, it was to start at eleven, and we arrived in Limerick at ten...and got to the place at five to eleven. The worst was the one way streets and SOME of us not knowing their directions well enough (wasn't me!*cough*).

Anyway, it was really cool. It was a refurbished chapel, and looked really amazing inside. It was the perfect size for an open-plan house.

I did get a slight surprise, because I had to read out my poem. Astonishingly, I had been afraid of that, then asked DD, "Do you think they will ask me to read it?" He said "Oh, no, I talked to her on the phone, it didn't sound anything like that." Well it was, and I had never read it out before. AT ALL.
MM and DD said I read it nicely. More importantly, so did one of the judges. (Parental loyalty and all that)

And turns out that highly commended is actually really good, as there were submissions from across the country (Cork to Antrim!).
It made me wish that I had tried harder though. Maybe I could've made first in my age category.
And I felt bad that me, who had written a poem for English, didn't like it, then saw the award THE NIGHT BEFORE and sent it off, made fourth (first, second, third, then highly commended, so fourth is pretty much correct). What about all the people who spent days on their poem, only to not even place?

Well, next year I WILL get first. I will try. Trying is always the key, I think. (Not 'doing your best', making an effort, and believing.)

And don't anyone get discouraged by MY success. After all, even if you can't compete with my glory, aspiring to second place is just as good. (Kidding obviously)(hopefully you found it obvious)