Dublin visit

We visited daughter in Dublin, youngest of our combined children, and took the eldest of the grandchildren.

Daughter did us proud in hosting us, escorting us, showing us interesting places:

• Kilmainham gaol, 
• Dublin castle, 
• museum - there was ever so much gold jewellery in Ireland thousands of years ago
• Trinity College Library where we saw the book of Kells
• Guinness Storehouse mmm - I don't normally drink Guinness, but there it tastes different, creamy and less bitter
• St Stephen's Green - a relaxing park of beauty

and eateries: Queen of Tarts, Joy of Chai.

We met up with an old friend, saw the marathon, and went to the theatre (Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera'). All in three days.

Of great interest to daughter and me was the house in Grafton Street where my grandfather and his six siblings grew up.  It's a shop, as it was in 1900 and something, but no one lives above it any more

Ireland photos

Here's the bloody nose husband made himself when he fell down the double decker bus stairs.

And here's the view from the honeymoon suite. It was lovely.

The third photo is what I could see when we got lost trying to find Powerscourt. I couldn't enjoy the views because I'm too short to see over high hedges. Husband pointed the hostel out on the hill in the distance and I scrambled up to get the photo. See how far we'd already walked, and there was another hour's walking yet to come. Notice too the rain clouds - it wasn't even a sunny walk.

Finally, I got one photo of the Powerscourt gardens, that I had no energy left to stroll round. Notice how the weather cleared up to make a glorious afternoon.

Sunday in Ireland

Still away celebrating the fortieth wedding anniversary of old university friends (OHFs). After a long late evening that included a Spanish buffet, a quiz on our hosts' friends' activities,

• (who has an o-gauge in his garden?
• who has a dog called Ceviz?
• who're vegetarians?)

and a sing song round the campfire, we repaired to our various dormitories and bunks. People worried about waking each other in the night.

"Do you snore?"
"I have to get up in the night - I'm sorry."
"I always have to get up in the night."

We allayed each others' fears and set to sleep. At 3.30 in the morning, my new friend in the top bunk quietly crept down her ladder, and..

kicked over the bedside stool of my friend sleeping in the next bunk. Over went her alarm clock, book and contact lenses. On went someone's torch. Muttered apologies all round, giggles from some of us. Since we were awake, four out of the six of us then got up and went to loo. One of the loos didn't lock very well - there was a man in it. Given that we're all old enough to be celebrating decades of marriage, you might not have expected this much activity in the wee small hours. Or perhaps it was the wee bit that was the problem.

Morning dawned. We anticipated a long or a short walk. Some stalwarts set off to trek to the top of Powercourt Waterfalls. Others (like me) just reconnoitred the river, leaving some including the children for a nice swim and a splash. It was a lovely spot so not surprising that it was rumoured that some of us women had been skinny dipping that that morning. I came back to the hostel and sat in the sun, listening to interesting chat, looking over the hills, idly watching a helicopter.

The swimmers returned with our hostess. Sadly, our hostess's mobile phone rang with bad news. Three of the stalwarts had gone even further ahead of the main party and one had collapsed with a suspect heart attack. The helicopter had picked the invalid and her husband up, and taken them to hospital. The third was walking back on her own.

Fortunately, an hour later we heard from the husband in the hospital that heart attack victim was alive and well, and having tests. We were able to take the bus back to the station in peace. It had been a lovely weekend.

What was lovely?

• The Saturday afternoon weather was sunny, not rainy like during the morning walk.
• The meal was delicious.
• OHFs' friends were as lovely, as interesting and as bright people as our OHFs, people you'd like to get to know better.
• The honeymoon suite was lovely - comfortable, and fun.
• The hostel was clean and functional.
• The green countryside was fascinating, smelt and looked beautiful.
• The Irish transport (DART, taxis, buses) worked and went on time.

Saturday in Ireland

Am I tired!

Husband suggested we take a stroll to Powerscourt, this ancient Irish house, with wonderful gardens. We'd need to walk back and catch the bus - not far. But he thought we should walk round the back way and be there quicker.

"By coffee time"

he promised me.

"That's eleven o'clock?"

I checked. Yes, fine.

At ten o'clock we leave, down narrow lanes with high hedges. I can't see a thing. We're not there by eleven, and then he starts to read his map. We're not there by twelve. We're not there by one o'clock. We arrive around 1.15, and I don't get to sit down until 1.30. We must have walked nine miles. And husband's in the doghouse again.

We lunched, then sat around a bit - my legs being too tired to explore the gardens, enjoyed a cup of tea on the terrace, then got a taxi back to the hostel, where all the other guests were beginning to congregate, ready for the party - our friends' fortieth wedding anniversary.

Now we are allocated bunk beds in dormitories. There are seventy guests, so I assume lots of us are in dormitories. I'm in the girls dormitory and our husbands are in the boys dormitory next door. I bag a bed and start to make it up when two jolly women arrive. I've already met them in the hall, greeting long friends. But now I see them together I realise they look very much the same.

"We're twins."

I spend the next few hours meeting friends of our friends, memorising names, comparing how we know know them. I videoing meeting and then the speeches, and the song that two of the granddaughters sing. I'll put them all on a CD as a memento for friends.

Champagne drunk and toasts made we repair for the meal - a Spanish buffet

Ireland - youth hostel

We're in Ireland, some miles from Bray in a youth hostel, here to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of some university friends. Tonight we're berthed in the "honeymoon" suite. May be it's called that for its splendidly large double bed - the sort that comes with two single mattresses that fit onto one slotted wooden frame, like you get in Germany. It promises to be very comfortable. But even more impressive is the view. (Wait for photo - not allowed uploading from hostel). Lying on the bed, I look out across rolling green hills, pine trees and deciduous, dells, dales a farm house and a pair of serious walkers with big back packs.

But I'm hungry! We left home before eleven, so well after breakfast, drove to the airport where we ate our packed sandwiches, tomatoes and apples while waiting to board. The airport was the usual unpleasant experience, bombarded with warnings about liquids having to be in plastic bags, and anecdotes from fellow travellers on being allowed only one bag and squashing a handbag into your on board bag. If they hadn't killed themselves in the tower, I could thump those terrorists that have caused all this hassle round the world. And I guess so would everyone else in that queue.

We ate nothing on the plane, landed and caught a city bus straight into Dublin.

On the city bus, husband took suitcase upstairs. So we're looking out from the top deck, when he suddenly decided it was our stop, hurled himself and suitcase at the stairs just as the bus jolted away. Husband and suitcase tumbled down stairs, he splitting his nose open as his head hit the wall at the bottom. The whole incident made a whopping big noise and upset everybody on both desks. The driver was most concerned - bless her - it wasn't her fault. But at least it meant the bus stopped again for us to get off at the station.

At the station, we don't break for tea, nor even for plasters, but jump onto the DART (rapid transit) to Bray. At Bray I drag behind him, pointing out the tea stall as we're leaving the station but he says we'll look outside. Then he looks for a bus, not for tea. Not for plasters - you should see his bloody nose - wait for the photo. We catch the bus. I put the suitcase on the luggage rack and we stay downstairs.

At the end of the bus line, we have to walk for 40 minutes along a peaceful and increasingly narrow country lane. It's a nice walk apart from the din that his suitcase wheels make on the tarmac. By six o'clock we arrive at the hostel. The hostel doesn't do food.

Bah! Husband's in the doghouse.

He's arranging a taxi now, to take us back the seven miles to the nearest pub for supper. Good.

Irish scandal

Years ago, at school in north west England I had a left-handed friend. LHF was very shy and under confident. When she blushed, and she blushed often, she blushed well. The pink would visibly rise up her face. Years later, she told me how when she was in reception class at her Catholic convent, the headmistress nun used to smack her across the back of her left hand with the wooden ruler. Try it on yourself. It stings with a plastic ruler. The headmistress was so cross that my friend was left handed that she kept her down a year before letting her into the next infant class.

That nun accused me of 'dragon-tears', and answering back, but didn't smack me. I can't remember if she was Irish, but there were a lot of Irish Catholics in the north-west. Nuns and clergy were held in great respect, and had much power. So I'm not surprised, though I'm sad to see here how much worse it was in Ireland.

---

Dragon-tears were false tears - putting it on - crying to impress a hard-hearted nun - and I didn't know what she meant

Cork tour

Daughter was tired so we took our time leaving today. We passed on our maps, guides and spare food to people in the hostel. I had a printout of the spec for the eeepc (I've just bought one, and left that for the woman C, who had been fascinated by it. She said that she was sorting out things, starting afresh I think, and thinking creatively about how to set up her own business in event management, so an eeepc would suit her situation well.

We caught the round-town bus up to the gaol, where they sentenced us to serve time and charged us 6 euro. Cork gaol is just as forbidding a place as any other gaol, but rather cold too. Its history is that it served as a prison for both men and women since before the 19^th century. It doesn't seem to have been overcrowded and the first Catholic governor, Murphy, seems to have been a sympathetic man who managed both the scoundrels and the political prisoners.

The bus tour included a guide to various sights, including mentioning the citizens' pride in the Cork town hall, not exactly a sky-scraper, but the tallest building in the country, currently.

We also stopped off at the Butter Museum for an excellent lesson in marketing, branding and advertising, then nipped across the road to St Anne's church (see photo) where I sat and minded our luggage, while daughter went up the tower to ring the bells of Shandon.

We caught the tour bus back into town, with just the time to collect some souvenirs from the tourist office before waiting for the Skybus back to the airport. It was 10 minutes late and we were both getting worried, when two buses arrived at once. On the plane, we sat next to a priest Father MS) who had some interesting tales to tell us about some of his experiences, such as unclean hospitals, and characterful people with few close relatives around when they died.

Got home with time to see husband enjoy his three bottles of whiskey (miniatures) - daughter delighted in buying them and showing her passport as evidence of her 18 years to the cashier, who wasn't interested.

Kinsale

We took the bus to Kinsale this morning, There's a cool wind today and daughter is a bit off colour, cold and sleepy. We had a look round, the city in the morning, stopping at the Crawford art gallery where we had scones and a drink and then nipped back to the hostel for daughter to have a quick nap, and we fetched warmer coats.

The road to Kinsale is lined with golden gorse and cordylines - an odd combination. Daughter slept.

We wandered around first, found the Tourist Information to get a map, and then, being as this is the gourmet capital of Ireland, treated ourselves to a light lunch of sea food and tabbouleh in Max's wine bar followed by a rhubarb tiramisu and a succes cake (meringue & caramel). We then strolled round to see sights. We observed the influence of the British history in the post boxes.



Another thing that interested me was the brightly painted houses. There are terraces of them in Kinsale and Cork.

The most interesting place to my mind was Desmond Castle. This has a long history as a customs house, an arsenal for the Spanish and a prison for French prisoners in the 17th century. It might have been rather overcrowded and there was a disaster in 1747 when a fire killed 54 prisoners. It is now a national museum and includes an exhibition not only of the gaol but also of the history of Irish wine links. Being a port, Cork has imported wine from Spain and France for centuries if not millenia.