Harbott Reports - Shannon River Drunken Santa's Xmas

Steveo writes about his Xmas adventure in Ireland.

The first part of my Xmas New Years tour began in the middle of Ireland at the Shannon river. A mate of ours Seamus (he is actually a kiwi) came up with the idea, on the piss, of having a orphans Xmas boat trip. After flicking out a email to all and sundry in this hemisphere enough responses came back to fill 3 river boats. The dates were booked and then we were on our way. The trip down was a interesting affair. If only the Guinness book of world records were there to watch us smash the record for most people in a 3 seater transit van with 11. We met up with the rest of the crew mates, who had congregated from all parts of the British Isles. In total there were 20 little Anzac Xmas orphans reading themselves for 4 days of drunken deborchey up the Shannon river.

As the boats launched I gingerly cracked the first Guinness (sorry Murphys to DB friends who might be reading) , I knew I had to draw on my NZ new years binge drinking experience to survive the next 4 days. To be fair I had done myself no favours as the Snap printing work party was the night before and with only 3 hours of sleep under the belt and the promise of bugger all to follow in the next few day I new things would be tough, but hey.... I've never been one to turn down the corporate donut. In all honestly the body goes into drinking autopilot anyway at this time year.

Once boarding the boats the uniforms were handed out to the members. Being Xmas what else could the uniform be but Santa Suits...... Brilliant! if there is one thing that I like more than a drinking sessions, it's a dress up drinking session (just like a four day floating Globetrotter party). The next few days were spent rampaging up the Shannon river pulling into little towns, pub crawling through the bars, shooting the shit with bemused locals, hitting on everything that moved then moving on. Basically Santa uniforms were compulsory at all times so by the final days they were looking a little worse for wears. The drunken Santa's proved to be a big hit so much so we made the front page of the local rag in this one town called Ballenmore (Photo at top right). I guess they were a little short of news on that day.

But all good things must come to an end as there is only so many drunken hakas, break dancing Santa's and bullshit stories about being jipped by the All Black selectors that the locals could take. So it was time to leave on a high, farewell my new friends and move on to phase 2 of the Xmas/New Years tour, Edinburgh with the rest of the Flat. More to follow.

Harbott