Beaten...

like a disobidient slave.
The long awaited work in the nursery finally took place.
We met at 0730 hrs at Christchurch Cathedral and peddaled on our crappy bikes out to Crumlin.
The weather? Contrary to the forcast, it started out pretty nice with blue skies and sunshine and a light breeze.
Well, coming to the preliminary location of the trees, we didn't have keys to enter the premises.
So, we did like burglars and jumped across the wall. I'm sure, in Germany, we would have been very suspicious. Here, noone seemed to take notice.
Well, didn't matter.
Looking at the trees for the very first time, I was REALLY taken back: it was difficult to make them out under all the secondary growth they were covered with.

Doesn't look like a nursery, does it?
Well, we set out to work. The goal was to be done around 1200 hrs. Always optimistic me (or is that just a mild case of experience?) had my serious doubts.
Well, 12 o'clock came and went and we had roughly 1/3 of the work done.
IIt took us until 1800 hrs to get all the trees out of the grass and weed a big portion of the pots. THAT was the timekiller...I would have not meticulously weeded all the pots, but only taken out the worst weeds.But it wasn't my show.
So, around 6 o'clock, as mentioned, we were finally done. Not without getting drenchbed by some good ol' Irsih rain- again.
In the end, we worked on 2237 oaks,

493 maples (I think, they were all maple),

64 sweet chestnuts,

30 ash trees

20 hazel

16 chestnuts

and all sorts of weird and wonderful plants, I was only partially able to identify.

Despite the rain and being really worn after the day, it was really fun. Working with Stephen, our Irish supervisor and two French girls, I really enjoyed myself. Sharing a common goal and working towards achieving something realls seems to be a bonding tool.

Talking to some kids from Düsseldorf coming in by airplane, my observations were confirmed:
                                         
                                                DUBLIN IS INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE!!!

The cheapest meal, I was able to get as a takeaway was Fish and Chips for 4 Euros.
Admission to the Leprechaun Museum is 10 Euros and jsut getting into St.Patrick's Cathedral ranges around 5,50. They, I do believe, try to rip off the tourists, because the economy is very weak. 700,000 people unemployed, 300,000 moved away. By a total population of only 4 to 5 million.
Again, being an unsensitive German, I have to say, by what I hear, they didn't live very smart, when the economy WAS doing good. Stephen keeps telling us about how wasteful people were, when they had money.  Which is normal, but not very smart. It's always better to safe for a rainy day. Or, even better: it is always better to live within or below your means- you never know, if or when it's getting worse.
I probably should heed my advice and eat more stuff bought at the grocery store than the take aways...

One final note on something, which popped up on my mind today: living your potential.
A lot of people are unhappy, because they see what the neighbor owns. What they don't see, is what that neigbor might have had to do in order to get what he has.
I tried to explain to a youth group you have to recognize, what your potential is and make the most of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to belittle anyone. I'm just giving examples. Someone might be a genius with numbers. So, he becomes a Doctor in math. Obviously a brainiac.Someone is good at driving a truck or other sort of heavy equipment. Should the heavy equipment operator be unhappy because he's not a doctor? Only, if he didn't strive to be all he can be. If he has more potential than a truck driver, he should try and make other stuff happen. But at one point, any person also needs to admit, that this is all they can ever be. In the Forest Gump book, he plays checkers with a chimpanzee. And it dawned on Forest Gump, that neither will ever win this match, because they are both equally smart. THAT must be sobering: realizing, that's it, there is no more for you and there is absolutely nothing, you can do about it.
But then again, people do amazing things and surprise the ignorant rest of the world. 
Hopefully, my attempts of deep thinking make at least some sense.