Land of Rain and Sports Camps

I am in Ireland, land of my ex-pat dreams. Except when it is raining, solidly, ALL DAY, and then it just becomes land of wet and sog, and a place where I need to wear my six year old's rugby socks and  his sleeveless puffa jacket - yes, in the house; no neither of them fit - to keep warm. (I didn't think to pack either socks or a jacket for myself. Luckily however I brought three sun hats, so my face is at least dry.) Even the children are starting to be a bit bothered by the INCESSANT RAIN but possibly only because they've run out of dvds to watch, and I'm too cold to work out how to make the cable box thingy work. And anyway, no one is allowed to use any electrical items at all (this iPad doesn't count, natch) because the house we've rented has a coin-operated meter -!!- and I have run out of €2 coins, and it is too wet to go out in search of any. I do feel a bit like we've been catapulted back into the 1970s, but not in an entirely unpleasant way.  When it is not too wet and cold to venture outdoors, the children revert to their natural feral state, subsisting on Tayto crisps and a variety of ice-pops (the Boy's summer mission is to try every one of HB's deep freeze offerings) and insisting on marrying their cousins and sneaking their fingers into my wine for a sneaky lick. They are all up til at least 10pm every night - it's a little known fact that Ireland becomes part of the Arctic Circle in the summer, all bright and freezing - so I've had to blue-tack black bin liners over all the windows or else we'd never get any sleep. Between the bin liners and the coin-eating meter, we are quite the classy act, I can tell you.
But oh, the fresh air, and the food and drink. It's glorious. Cheese and soda bread, and eggs with bright orange yolks... I have turned into quite the breakfast fiend. As soon as I can work out how to add photos via the iPad, I will regale you all with my current morning  obsession (clue: it involves eggs and microwaves. I know, horror! Let me tell you, however, when you're trying to eek out an electricity allowance, the microwave is your friend. Electric stove-tops Are Not.)
Also pretty fabulous - and reason alone for anyone with offspring to spend a chunk of the summer here - are the kids' summer camps. Cheap as chips, amazingly run, and last all day. The Boy was unceremoniously dumped into a rugby camp the first week we got here, which he loved (or rather, didn't bitch and moan about all day and night) - and at €15 A DAY (which is currently only about £2.75, thank you Greece) including rugby ball, top and back pack, I loved it too. Also, it happened to be in my favourite neighbourhood in Dublin, right beside one of my best friends, and one of my favourite cafes. So mummy was both happy and full.  Of course then I got carried away and booked him into a camp  down here ('here' being a strip of land sticking out into the Atlantic) by which stage he had Had Enough, and just wanted to devote himself to eating Loop the Loops and thundering across fields, hollering like Braveheart. Still, it only cost €50,  and managed to get one day's childcare as well as another entire outfit and back pack. (In Singapore I'd have been down $700, not to mention the gear I'd have had to buy, and the wrath of the organisers.) So, all you parents of energetic young children - come to Ireland on your holidays, put your kids in camps, and spend all the money you've saved on tea and poached eggs and rain gear.
Little else. We survived the flight, which - shhhhh, jinxing myself- wasn't too awful. Although admittedly not great for the very nice man sitting one (empty) seat away from us, who had the Girl's head on his lap for the second leg of the journey. (Bless him, at one point I looked over - having given up hissing at her to Get Off Him Now- and there he sat, trying to sleep, with one arm up in the air so as not to disturb her as she lay across his knees, drooling onto his jeans. Irish people are lovely, no?) . We head to Spain on Thursday - to a village which I chose entirely because a glass of wine in a restaurant there last year cost €1.40. Now that I think about it, I don't recall a single thing for the children to do there. Oh well. I'm sure they have the Spanish version of HB. And I might even find some cheap summer camps.