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Posts Tagged ‘Dublin’

Porky Matters!

Posted in Pigs, tagged , , , , , on December 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The last few days have been quite hectic!  So much so that I have not had an opportunity to even turn on the computer not to mind write up blog!

I travelled to Dublin on Thursday evening last in preparation for the presentation I had to make to the panel at National College of Ireland on Friday.  This was the final part of the Entrepreneurship module I had started there in September.  I had deliberated for weeks on what I would write the requisite Business Plan on, and in the end decided I should do it on Pigs and Pork and how we could develop a Pork Business here.  I think the presentation went well and I got lots of great suggestions as to the direction that we should consider for the enterprise…. thank you to the members of the panel!  So this week I will be doing some more research and checking out some of the websites they told me about.

After the presentation, I drove back down home …. and then had to head back to Dublin on Saturday morning with pork deliveries.  I had hoped that the butcher would have had meat ready for collection on Wednesday evening prior to my trip to Dublin, but unfortunately it was Saturday morning when it was ready.  So once boxes were sorted, it was back into the car and off to Dublin with me again.

Farmer Alfie could not do the run to Dublin as he was busy trying to finish off renovations to the livingroom in preparation for visitors coming for Christmas, and he was also the Stagehand for the Lorrha Amateur Dramatics group who had their annual play on over the weekend.

However, it was a good trip – five deliveries to be made and all to new customers. That has to be good.  It is especially good, as when we add in the local deliveries as well, we’ve once again been left with no pork for ourselves!  Needless, to say, Farmer Alfie is quite disgusted that we have none left for ourselves – he is going to have to wait until after Christmas now for pork!  At least we have some of our own ham for Christmas dinner….. at the moment anyway!

By the way, the turkeys are putting on a nice bit of weight!  So they should be good by next week!

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The Beginning

Posted in Home, tagged , , on October 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

As I have started this, I suppose I shouldn’t presume that only those who know us will be reading this blog!  Perhaps there will be complete strangers reading and will wonder what it is all about!

For those who don’t know the story….

In June 2003, we were running a rather successful business in Dublin, but then out of the blue the landlord pulled the plug on our lease and we had to move out of the premises rather promptly.  Unfortunately, try as we might we had grown the business to such an extent that it was not possible to operate from home, and at that stage rents and the infamous ‘key money’ to relocate were way out of our bracket.

So what do you do??

Well, looking back perhaps we were mad.  However, we didn’t fancy starting to work for someone else… start commuting into Dublin city centre.  So, rather than sit at home and cry, we decided to relocate!  We literally took a pen and piece of string and drew a circle of a 2 hour journey from Dublin and started to search for a new home. Each of us, of course, had different ‘must haves’ in the search for our new home, and of course, compromises, eventually had to be made! 

We started in Cavan, and almost literally followed the Shannon down through the country.  Every Monday (which was our day off at the time) we took off and looked at new properties and different counties.  It was at the end of a long, tiring Monday house-hunting that we stopped in Birr – had a row – and stormed off in different directions each heading to different estate agents.  It was Alfie who stopped at the agent, that had this property for sale.  We came and visited the house over the next few days.  

It is amazing how the minute we both walked into this house we knew this was the one.  Naturally there were certain things that we didn’t like, but it had such a nice ‘feel’ these things were soon overcome.

More later…

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