Sitting here at the lakeside, looking out over the lawn and boat toward the locks. Does it get much better than this you ask?- yes,- if the rain would go away !! In fairness, we've had periods of very warm, sunny weather, but lots and lots of the wet stuff !
Anyway, we're almost totally settled in and sorted. This year we were lucky and found no creatures or 'evidence' inside the actual trailer or annexe. Plenty in lower porch and shed;- maybe that's the secret-feed them well enough outside that they needn't come in !? Tomorrow is Canada Day, so we're going to decorate the boat a bit and go off to the nearest village for a Blessing of the Boats, parade, various events and fireworks at the end of the day. That's all weather and energy permitting!! ............p.s. continuing this blog days later, we didn't get out of bed in time on Canada Day,- our excuse being the 'iffy' weather, which then cleared up beautifully for a lovely sail-by of decorated boats which we could have been in.Serves us right !
Ireland was fully as green as everyone said, and we must have had the luck of the Irish as we got only one day of rain! We had glorious sunny weather until the very last day. Can't complain of that!
Our first two nights were in Skerries, just north of Dublin, with a minimum of touring,- just pottering about and resting up from the trip. We went up to Newgrange and into 4000 year old neolithic structure with an amazingly accurate winter solstice light focus. For about 17 minutes each day for those 5 days in the year, the sun not only penetrates to the heart of the structure, but does so in a pencil point!!
Galway Bay was as splendid as the song suggests, but as it was a bank holiday weekend with two special events on, we spent little time actually in Galway, other than a bus tour. Instead we toured around a loop to the northwest of Galway. We passed the Cliffs of Moher on our way south, but didn't really explore enough to do them justice.
The Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry both caught our imagination and if we were going back for a less mobile visit, that would be where we'd focus.
The Blarney Castle was a treat to see and we did manage the rather daunting climb to the top, even though we'd no notion of kissing the stone. I reckon Anne already has the gift of gab, and there's no need (or room) for two 'gabbers' in the family. The castle and it
's views were well worth the climb though !!We stayed at various B&B's, mainly in smaller towns. One thing we really enjoyed was to go back out at 9:30 or so and find a pub with traditional music and sing-a-long going. Not a tourist thing, just local fun!
Along the way, it was so hot a couple of times we had to put our feet in the ocean. How's that?! One beach, where Ryan's Daughter was filmed, was right up there with Aussie beaches, to our great surprise!
We came back around to Dublin by the south shore, then stayed two nights in Dublin, where we took another commentary tour and saw such contrasting 'musts' as the 'Tart with the Cart', Molly Malone and the Book of Kels.
The day after we flew back into Heathrow, our 11 year old niece Sophia joined us from Canada for the rest of our wanders. We spent the first 5 days in a friend's apartment just south of Central London and commuted in from there. Despite a two day 'tube' strike, we managed to revisit a fair chunk of London. Sometimes what we thought we were showing Sophia was overshadowed by her delight in things like double-decker buses, English style houses, postboxes, phone boothes, etc.
Daughter Kris and her new guitar, Rose, joined us for a couple of nights as well, which was great. She is currently in Amsterdam and having a wonderful time there with a great group of friends, and lots of scope for her music!
We worked our way north from London through Windsor, Stratford-upon-Avon and up into the Pennines. We made a too short visit as well to York, and particularly Yorvick, a Viking excavation/reconstruction that we find fascinating. After a stop with cousins Ann and Vic in Easingwold we got up to Anne's home turf, Billingham. Sophia has been pen pals with Jessica there for some time, so the girls hit it off straight away. This year we stayed mainly with Fran, Anne's god-daughter, husband Terry, and daughters Jenny and Jessica, instead of our friends, Gladys and Rod. We did manage several visits to the friends though and it was great to catch up with them and the other family members. Sophia stayed with Jessica as much as possible. The girls slept either in Jess' converted attic, or the Hobbit-Hole! She` went to school with Jess for one day and Jess was allowed to take a couple of days off, which was great.
This travelogue is getting too long, so I'll just mention that we took another couple of days away to our namessake, Beamish, Hadrian's Wall, Alnwick Castle (think Harry Potter and Hogwarts) and Holy Island. Then back to Billingham for a few more quick visits with various family and friends, then drove down to Gatwick, boarded a plane.........
