From February 7th-18th, my wife and I were outside Switzerland to explore Ireland on a fact-finding mission. After months of intense web research, Ivette had identified the counties of Galway and Mayo as two areas we'd enjoy moving to given that Switzerland was getting too costly to live; and that we wanted an English-speaking location in Europe. Picking this time of year was deliberate. We wanted to see the weather at its worst. As it happened, we arrived in just the right year. In many areas, Ireland was suffering flooding. Their count of storms for the season—adopting the naming tradition of the Pacific—had reached the letter 'I' by the time we landed in Dublin. The northern edge of Galway Bay had plenty of suitable rental properties but the area's general flatness didn't completely appeal to us even though we loved Galway as a city.


Within a day of arriving in County Mayo however, we'd not only found our new stomping grounds. We learnt about an as yet unlisted house for which we'd sign a lease by the end of our stay. Someone was looking over our shoulders. In fact, a red-haired faerie appeared in Ivette's dreams twice. She admonished us to hurry and get there. What 'there' was we didn't appreciate until we saw Ireland's holiest mountain Croagh Patrick. It dominates this part of the country and was covered in a dusting of snow during this time a year. As legend has it, Ireland's patron saint St. Patrick performed a 40-day/night vigil on its peak. Today there stands a small chapel in his memory to which, once a year, the faithful flock along a 2.5-hour trek up to attend an outdoor mass. Ivette's photos show what we saw in February; as green as the Emerald Isle's alluring name. We knew we couldn't imagine what it'd look like come May when we'd unpack.


Given the timing and considerable expense of our relocation, I won't attend the annual HighEnd Munich show this year. Marja & Henk are booked instead. If necessary, they'll explain why the boss is strangely absent. Looking at an uncertain future where 'experts' predict another global economic crisis, Ivette and I decided to act whilst we had the advantage. As we learnt from our international mover, we are far from alone. Over the last few years, his firm has resettled many native-born Swiss. They can't afford to grow old in an admittedly gorgeous country where, year in year out, three of its cities appear in a 10-deep list of most expensive places to live, anywhere. In fact, our new local pub's proprietress in Ireland told us that just a month prior, another couple from Geneva had arrived. Starting May 2016, 6moons will thus be headquartered in very rural County Mayo. We'll drive on the left and live in a house without name, number or street. The postal ladies assure us that they need no such mundane mainland cheats to deliver our mail. We'll have very woolly sheep for neighbours. We'll have the Reek to guard us; that's what the locals call the mountain. I rather doubt we'll really pick up on the Gaelic. But it would be nice to at least learn how to pronounce things like Íocfaidh an bhean seo as gach rud which no gentleman should ever say to a lass in a bar ("the lady will pay for everything" in case you were curious). Obviously taking down a household, moving it across different countries, then setting up again on the other side takes time. As such, my own review coverage will suspend a bit during the transition before it slowly ramps back up to normal. I trust that our readers will tolerate this adjustment just fine. With the new sound room being once again spacious and with high ceilings but this time on the ground floor—translation: no stairs or steps—I'll be able to accommodate physically larger speakers for a change.