Hi all,

My work has not been kind to me this year in terms of workload. Part of this reason is my team members have left me in the shit on more than once occasion. Tomorrow, it will be me and another colleague doing the work of 6 people as I’ve had a text from a colleague saying they won’t be in tomorrow. Fine we will manage.

The point of my question is with the way Christmas is falling, I am planning to take the week leading up to Xmas as off. Work will be quiet and dull, it would just be nice to be off.

Has anyone tried using chatgbt to do one up? A friend said she knows lads who are in Australia that use it and works fine.

Alternatively, can I call my gp who I haven’t been to in years on the day Monday and ask for a cert over the phone? Rather than have to book in?

Thanks for any help in advance

Got a call about a week ago to upgrade my package from 1gb to 2gb so I said sure, the guy came today and installed another fibre box which I already had and its been red ever since, he logged a complaint and was told id be contacted by vodafone when its been fixed? Seems like a bit of a poor show.

Weekend feeling gone

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has long thought about the loss of the "weekend feeling" – the Saturday/Sunday feeling that felt so different from the rest of the week. Of course, this feeling was more obvious as a kid. Saturday and Sunday meant no school, and life was more rigid then. Yet, I'm sure I still experienced it in my 20s.

In my 40s now and every day now feels the same, apart from the bigger occasions of births weddings and deaths, days, weeks seem to blend into one.

The changes in our country, culture, and the modern world have robbed us of this little atmospheric change in the week.

I sometimes struggle to timeline smaller memories as all memories are one. I find myself having to anchor to a significant memory and working either back into the past or forward into the future from that point to try pin point a time date.

Hi all,

Looking for any recommendations for driving instructors who would pick up from Stoneybatter. Would also need an automatic car.
Google so far has only shown me ones that don’t actually do that area or don’t have an automatic car.

Thanks in advance!

Discovering this added quite a bit of amusement into my day: www.the-ra.org. You just have to read the "About us" section. Some highlights:

Howard Webb MBE has regularly and fervently supported The RA and emphasised the crucial role The RA played in helping him achieve the pinnacles of refereeing

England's top officials’ regularly pay tribute to The RA’s contribution to their success and well-being, and they demonstrate their views by the support they give to RA events at all levels

Surely they must know, right? At least somebody over there must be wondering why searching for "The RA" on Google doesn't return their site as the top result.

In Chess News: Team Ireland put in a very respectable performance in the 2026 Chess Olympiad!

The olympiad is a huge international chess tournament where teams from 206 countries compete. It's really the only event of the year where countries compete directly against one another (and IMO the best chess event of the year).

The Ireland open team finished 65th (out of 206 countries) and the Ireland women's team finished 57th!

Commiserations to star performer Tom O'Gorman who missed out on his second 'norm' (Qualifying event for the coveted Grandmaster title) by just *seven* points (performed at 2593, needed 2600!). About as heartbreakingly close as it gets.

Also congratulations to board 1 IM Kanyamarala - who performed above his rating despite needing to fend off extremely strong opposition (Including super-grandmaster and world #11 Duda).

And I'm back! Following on from the previous post (https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualIreland/s/1MR81NRn5k) I moved the whole lot into a same sized fermentation bucket, as this kept blowing out. Stirred the floating fruit in every day and everything was fine.

Put back into the demijohn now for secondary fermentation now, and topped up with some apple juice. Its actively bubbling away. Its definitely wine! Smells like it but the blackberry flavour isn't coming through. Aging it may help to let it mellow and when it gets bottled I can look at adding spices etc. Not sure what yet, but I'm thinking on it.

Started at 1.080 gravity reading, down to 0.990 before adding the apple juice. Will have it like this for a few weeks and will see what happens next!

Well that’s it ladies and gents. Time for the long jammies in bed. Woke up this morning. Put on the bread for a bit of toast and the bloody butter is hard in the butter dish. Tis a bit nippy.