I’m so sorry I haven’t updated here recently. I’ve been putting off shutting shop here for WAY too long now, but I think the time has finally come to say good bye to Casa Casey Courtney and hello to www.nathalie.ie!

I will really miss CCC. But since Eoghan stopped being able to blog, it just hasn’t been the same. I considered changing the name, but I’d rather leave it as it is, and remember it as the great thing that connected me to the many amazing Irish bloggers out there, who in turn invited me to their photowalks, gave me help and advice, linked to the blog and were generally lovely.

Even though this blog is no more, the same rants and ramblings will still be posted at my new home so  please, have a look around and if you like what you see update your feed reader.

Thank you for all your support 🙂

x

Taken at the Lynx Summer Fever Beach Party hosted by Thinkhouse at Tripod last night.

Who would have thunk that my battered red boots and orange umbrella could prove so photogenic? But the Dublin photogs on the Worldwide Photo Walk proved them so.

First, there’s this amazing shot by Rymus:

Seriously, one of the nicest pictures of me I’ve ever seen!

Then there was this awesome shot from Redmum – I thought she had called me over to borrow the umbrella, but no, the lady had ulterior motives:

Cool, huh?

There’s also this one, of Steve‘s runners and my boots, taken by Alan Wall:

So I am a muse. Sort of.

Thanks guys for the deadly shots!

Just a few shots from the fun Dublin leg of Scott Kelby’s Second Annual Worldwide Photo Walk. You can see all the pics the group took on Pix.ie and on Flickr.

I met some familiar faces – McAWilliams (who very kindly organised the whole thing, much to the detriment of his own snapping), Redmum, Steven, Julie – and some not so familiar ones, so I have a few new Twitter peeps and some great new photoblogs to follow. It’s so nice to go wandering with people who don’t mind if you stop every two minutes to take a picture! You can see the rest of the pics I took by clicking ‘ere. I’m still trying to figure out which two to submit to the competition – the prizes are pretty sweet, although the odds of winning are depressing low, given that over 37,000 photographers took part worldwide.

(P.S. Thanks a mill to Steven who let me borrow his 50mm 1.8 while my 50mm 1.4 rested up in the sickie shop. I have been seriously hooked on that lens and missing it big time. However, I am proud to report that the above shots were taken with a variety of lenses (the first two are 50mm 1.8, the third one was taken with the kit lens, 18-55mm 3-5.6, the fourth with the holga lens on my 400D body, then 50mm 1.8 again times two, then finally the shot of the couple was with the Sigma 70-300 4-5.6. Maybe I’m finally getting out of the fiddy rut….)

I am shamelessly besotted with this little boy. How could you not be with tiny toes like that? I must post the other pics I took, which show how he really walks – on his tippy toes!

Is this guy not the cutest kitten you ever did see?

His name is Mac, and he belongs to Steve and Pam.

When we went over to visit him, he was obsessed with the dishwasher and would sit infront of it, eyeing it up and waiting for something exciting to happen.

I love his feeding bowl. Too cute.

Chatty Spanish and German students hanging out at sunset in Howth yesterday evening.

I really can’t believe it’s been a whole year since this little guy was born. I just can’t get my head around how a squishy little thing who just cries, eats and poops can turn into such an active little kid, crawling around the place at high speed. I think he looks like he’s breakdancing in this one:

He is super adventurous and curious, climbing up on everything to pull whatever shiny, colourful thing has caught his eye down. Which, as you can imagine, is great fun for his poor mum.

We had a little party for him on Saturday to celebrate, complete with cupcakes, chocolate cake and goodie bags:

We got all the cute party decorations through fun Etsy shop Happy Papers. They create a customised PDF that you can dowload and reprint to your heart’s content. It was perfect for us as most of the family is off with the circus, so we’re going to throw another little party once we’re all together again. Ah, the hard life of a one-year old!

But if I remember rightly I have an important function to fulfil for this blog. And that is to discuss the rugby! (I know, I know, try to contain the excitement).

Since I last wrote a lot of water has passed under this particular bridge, most notably Ireland’s first Grand Slam in 61 years and Leinster’s first Heineken Cup title. If I talked about them now having been nowhere to be seen at the time you might reasonably accuse me of only commenting with the benefit of hindsight but I did gamble on both at the time… and won 🙂
Anyway, we can play catch up later. Right now the next big event is the announcement of the Lions XV for Saturday’s first Test against reigning world champions, South Africa.

So here’s my head on the chopping block and my prediction for who will be named.

15 Byrne
14 Bowe
13 O’Driscoll
12 Roberts
11 Monye
10 Jones
9 Phillips
1 Jenkins
2 Mears
3 Vickery
4 Wyn-Jones
5 O’Connell
6 Wallace
7 Williams
8 Heaslip

Bench:
Sheridan
Ford
Shaw
Croft
Ellis
O’Gara
Kearney

Now this is not to say it’s necessarily the team I’d select but rather what I think we’ll hear tomorrow.

The close calls are 3, 6, 7, 10 & 11. I think Monye will get it for the finishing he’s demonstrated so far, form-wise Fitzgerald is next and rep-wise Williams although no spark on tour so far.
At outhalf Hook’s injury makes it a straight shoot-out between Jones and ROGJ. I reckon the Welsh heavy management will be prone to remember the Lions v Lions mauling all those Wednesdays ago. In fairness SJ is a sturdier defender.
Blindside would have been Ferris’ but for the injury. He was a beast, quick and opportunistic in his displays on tour. Croft looks pacey but flimsy and I never see him emerge to pats on the back from a ruck, ball in hand or having effected a turnover. The breakdown has been the disaster area of the tour so far. For the Boks Broussow, the turnover merchant, is in. Scrums gone well, lineout’s been fine, but the ruck is X-rated viewing from a Lion’s POV. So we need two openside’s. Wallace plays his best from 7 and we’ve yet to see his top level on this tour but these guys are smart enough to move around the back row depending on the situation. A bit of a risk, a bit unorthodox but combined with Wyn-Jones selection it makes sense.
Alun Wyn-Jones has played well given the chance and, although not rated the bruiser Bakkies Botha is, he has a physical dimension to his game. That said I have him in mainly for the lineout. O’C, W-J and Heaslip = 3 lineout options, which is plenty.
Murray’s injury makes Vickery’s selection very probable. He’s a Wasp, like Geech, Gatland and Howley as well as a one-time tour captain and has two RWC final’s worth of experience on the tank. He’s rucked well on tour and scrummaged none too badly.
Sheridan and Shaw are the pack impact grunts. Hopefully Croft can run into some 60th minute holes. ROG and Kearney allow a change-up to a tactical kicking control game. ROG for his nous whereas Kearney’s distance off the left-peg makes him a FB and wing replacement, backline versatility required on the bench with Hook’s absence.

My one concern is that the bench doesn’t make me automatically think IMPACT but in fairness you pick your XV to do that job really.

Eoghan and Ethan, checking out the Sunday papers.