On the Move - Ireland with Linda Marie
Oct. 21st, 2001 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetLast Saturday, the 13th, Jason and I left the house around ten and headed
out to Heathrow on the tube. Since we were departing from separate
terminals, we said goodbye on the train and went off on our different
adventures. My check-in was painless. I hear that traffic through Heathrow
is down 30% in the wake of recent events and it did feel empty.
Arriving slightly late into Dublin, I grabbed a cab and was amused by my
cabbie's commentary on the eejit tourist fares he gets. Dropped at the door
of Number 31, I checked in and rested for a bit before Brendan & Elana
arrived just after five.
We strolled through St. Stephen's Green, stopped by an art gallery to see a
fascinating sculpture of the human pelvic bone in jade and then wandered up
Grafton Street, the main pedestrian shopping street of the city. We met
Richard & Marina at Kehoe's Lounge and enjoyed a couple of rounds there,
hurried on our way by an effusive panhandler who gave us a heavily accented
speech on the parallels between his fight with drug addiction and the
jump-in-the-river scene from _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_.
Elana had made reservations for us at Jacob's Ladder, a very intimate
restaurant spread over several floors of a townhouse. The food was
stunning. I started with the seafood coddle, a mix of shellfish in a
buttery sauce that melted in my mouth. My roasted duck breast was
delicious, but the real stunner was the garnish of roasted plums. I
couldn't pass up dessert and went for the apple pudding with cinnamon &
raisin ice, which continued their winning streak. I cadged bites of others'
food throughout the evening and everything was delicious, including the
lovely Louis Jadot Fleurie wine that Richard chose for us. One of the
things I really enjoy in the UK and Ireland is that I think the portions are
actually about right so that three courses is a comfortable meal.
After dinner Elana, Brendan and I raced back to get their car out of the
garage before it closed at midnight. We made it with seconds to spare and
they dropped me back at Number 31. I set the alarm for 8am, figuring that
was about as early as Linda would arrive from her scheduled landing at
6:30am.
When she still hadn't arrived at 9:00am, I figured she'd been delayed and
went down to breakfast alone. The host, Noel, greeted me and when I gave
him my name he gasped. A friend had called for me a couple of hours
previously, she had been at the airport, but he told her I wasn't there,
since Elana had made my reservation and it was in his book under her name.
We tried calling the Dublin airport and having her paged, but she didn't
respond. I tried calling steve and then Pete, back in Boston, but the
former hadn't heard from her and the latter wasn't answering at 5:00am his
time. I wasn't actually worried about her--surely we'd have heard if there
had been some disaster and she's a seasoned traveler able to work things out
for herself--but I was beginning to be somewhat perplexed as to how we would
meet up.
After an hour or so, she called back to say that she'd missed her flight to
Dublin and been re-routed to the Shannon airport on the other side of the
island. Since we'd planned to fly there together the following day, we
agreed that she would stay there and I'd meet her the next day. When I went
out to let Noel know the outcome of our morning's mystery, he declared
"Thanks be to God, we've found Linda!" in his charming brogue.
That settled, I decided it was time to actually see some of the famous
sights of Dublin. I toured St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch
Cathedral before heading down Temple Bar to Trinity College and the Book of
Kells. That's usually quite crowded, but I must have picked my day well,
because I was able to stand around pouring over the two open pages of that
manuscript as well as one from the Book of Darrow and one from the Book of
Armagh. The level of detail and the surprisingly good state of preservation
after so many centuries is endlessly fascinating. After a walk through the
Old Library's famous Long Hall and a lengthy visit to the gift shop, I
continued through campus and came out on the far side near Merrion Square
and the National Gallery. Almost half the collection is currently closed as
they integrate the older sections with the new Millennium Wing, but that
meant that I could get through what was on display in the hour available to
me. I did not spend very long in the section dedicated to the art of Jack
B. Yeats, but very much enjoyed some of the pre-Raphaelite works.
There is a DART station just around the corner so I hopped on a train and
went south to Sandycove. Elana was impressed that having said I'd show up
around five, I knocked as the clock was striking. We chatted for a bit and
then I curled up to read on their couch and fell asleep. They woke me an
hour later and we headed off to dinner at Queens', a very nice, casual
restaurant attached to a pub in a nearby town. Still grooving on the
excellence of Irish shellfish, I started with the seafood chowder--exchanged
liberally for bites of Elana's chicken liver pate--and followed with a
lovely rare fillet steak. We tried a different Fleurie with dinner and were
not as impressed, though it's a fun new varietal for both Brendan and I.
After dinner they gave me a ride back to Number 31 for the night.
On Monday I enjoyed Number 31's fantastic full Irish breakfast (egg, bacon,
sausage, tomato, toast, tea, juice), packed up and headed for the airport.
My flight to Shannon was painless and Linda met me at the Avis counter right
on time. We picked up our car, a green Opel Astra, and headed north. We
stopped for lunch at a pub in Ennis and then continued on to Ballyvaughan,
on the northern coast of County Clare. We checked into the Hylands Hotel
and then went out for a drive along the coast and through The Burren, the
treeless limestone plateaut that forms much of this section of the county.
We returned to the hotel for dinner in their pub-like restaurant. I had
their seafood chowder and Caesar salad, followed by a wonderful deep-dish
apple pie, while Linda had cheese fritters and a smoked salmon salad rounded
out with ice cream. She then introduced me to the show "Crime Scene
Investigations," which I enjoyed for its focus on forensics.
On Tuesday we drove out around the west coast of Clare. Our first stop was
the Cliffs of Moher, where the wind was so strong it felt like you could
just lie back and it would support you. The cliffs are very dramatic and
beautiful. At a stand in the parking lot there we bought a cheap CD of
traditional music to give us a soundtrack--the CD player in the car was
reluctant to take it, but once in it wouldn't let go and we never saw it
again, although we certainly heard its contents.
Our next stop was an area of the coast where the rocks stretch out to the
water, but have been eaten away to form a sponge-like surface of tidepools
filled with a wide variety of interesting creatures...barnacles and mussels
and cockles and anemones and something I'd never seen before that looked
like grapes stuck to the rock. We spent a very pleasant hour clambering
over the rocks before continuing south. We drove all the way out to loop
head before turning east to Kilmer, where we caught the ferry across the
mouth of the River Shannon. After boarding, we were both lulled to sleep by
the vibrations of the engines and completely missed the passage, waking up
only when the car ahead of us started its engine and drove away.
We stopped briefly for tea and directions in Tralee--which seemed like a
lovely little town we'd have liked to explore more fully--and then drove on
to Dingle. We spend the night in Bramford's Guest House and had a wonderful
dinner at the Beginish restaurant. We had a dozen delicious raw oysters,
followed by seafood chowder for me and potato-leek soup for Linda. Neither
of us could resist the excellent rack of lamb. I was ready to skip dessert,
but when Linda went for their chocolate mousse thing, I had to try their
sticky toffee pudding and a fine thing it was. We enjoyed our stroll back
to the hotel, where Linda found "The Sopranos" on TV, so I got to see my
first episode of that.
On Wednesday we drove out around Slea Head at the tip of the Dingle
Peninsula. We stopped to see some beehive huts and again to enjoy the
beautiful crash of the waves up on the point, then swung back over the pass
to Dingle and headed east again. The big town in that direction was
Tipperary and it was, indeed, a long way. The roads in Ireland are such
that any chance to go more than forty miles an hour is a rare treat, but
even in the rain the scenery is so lovely that it's fun to just toddle along
the narrow roads.
We reached Cashel around 5pm in the heaviest downpour of the day, so it was
easy to decide that the Legends Guest House dinner menu sounded perfectly
satisfactory. I had their chicken, wild mushroom and leek soup, while Linda
tried Cashel blue cheese in a puff pastry tart followed by salmon and
prawns. My main was seared scallops with bacon and leeks in a lemon butter
sauce that was simply divine. I had the passionfruit parfait, while Linda
downed the brownie-like petit fours that came with our coffee.
On Thursday morning the rain was still coming down, but it seemed a shame to
sleep looking up at the Rock of Cashel and not actually visit, so we headed
up the hill right after breakfast (scrambled eggs with cheddar for me and
smoked salmon for Linda). The rock served as the headquarters of the Kings
of Munster and then was handed over to the church. It is topped by a
complex of buildings including a cathedral, archbishop's palace, chapel and
living quarters for the vicars choral, all in various states of ruin and
renovation. We toured the vicars choral building, which is now enclosed and
roofed again and enjoyed the movie explaining the significance of the site.
Then we explored the chapel and cathedral. It's a very strange feeling to
walk around a church with your umbrella up.
Back in the car, we continued northeast toward Glendalough, stopping in
Carlow for a quick pub lunch. We arrived in the Valley of Two Lakes in time
to visit the monastery complex founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. We
wandered through the cemetery that surrounds the "Monastic City," a grouping
of an impressive Round Tower, a roofless cathedral and the secondary church
known as St. Kevin's Kitchen for a belltower someone thought resembled a
chimney. From there we walked to the Upper Lake and back along the opposite
side of this narrow valley in the Wicklow Mountains. It was still raining,
but much more lightly and we enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs a
little.
We checked into the Glendalough Hotel, right next to the vistors' center of
the monastery complex, and then headed out to explore the dinner options in
nearby Wicklow. Linda was ready for some non-Irish food, so we enjoyed a
nice Chinese dinner at Ping's. Their hot & sour soup was too spicy for me
to safely enjoy, but luckily Linda was willing to swap for the subtle and
tasty wonton soup she'd ordered. We ended up splitting a plate of
stir-fried veggies to accompany my black bean chicken and her beef with
ginger and spring onions. Our waiter, Onny, was very chatty and stumped us
by making us guess where he was from (Malaysia). We swung out along the
coast road on the way back to our hotel, but were prevented from seeing the
ocean by a lack of moon.
After breakfast on Friday we headed north to Powerscourt. Granted to the
Wingfield family by James I in 1609, a magnificent house was designed by
architect Richard Castle to incorporate the medieval fortifications and
convert the courtyard into an enormous entry hall and ballroom. It was a
showplace throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It was sold off in the
20th century and the new owners had just completed and extensive (and
expensive) renovation when a fire destroyed everything but the shell in
1974. They have managed to put a new roof and windows on and are working to
restore the ballroom, which is recently opened to the public along with a
brief exhibition in the former entry hall. Other sections of the house are
occupied by a series of shops, not only a gift shop, but a whole interior
design mall and garden shop. The area to the east of the house is now a
golf course, but it is the gardens framing the view of Great Sugarloaf
Mountain to the west that are the real claim to fame of the estate. Created
at the same time as the house, they have been maintained and elaborated by
each succeeding generation and are a wonderful conglomerations of sections
and styles. The formal Italian garden leads down over terraces to the
Triton pool. The Japanese garden is tucked into a little glen complete with
a pagoda, bridges, and a grotto constructed from petrified sphagnum. The
Pet Cemetery has touching stones memorializing the owners' dogs (favorite
name: "The Wup"), ponies and even a couple of cows. The Walled Garden
contains Ireland's longest herbaceous border and the Rose Garden next to the
house was stunning even in late October. In addition to the plants and
landscaping, the gardens also include a variety of sculpture and ornate
wrought iron gates.
After an hour in the gardens, we were happy to sit in their cafe and enjoy a
quick lunch as the rain increased from the light sprinkle to a serious
downpour. We headed on through the torrents, finding our way to Brendan &
Elana's place in Sandycove, where I left a note (since I'd managed to
misplace their phone number). We went on into Dublin and wound our way
through the Friday afternoon traffic for an hour or so. We stopped in
Parnell Square, thinking perhaps to visit a gallery of modern art nearby,
but we ended up cruising a mall for likely souvenirs for Linda instead.
The best part was a toystore where we browsed for quite a while before
collecting our car and continuing north of the city to the airport, where we
checked into our hotel. Luckily Linda's sharp eyes caught that the Holiday
Inn was until very recently the Posthouse where we had a reservation.
We managed to reach the Kehoes and they persuaded us to come back down to
Sandycove to accompany them to their local cafe's first night of serving
dinner in over a year. We got directions from the hotel staff (the desk
clerks couldn't do it, they had to call a porter) and headed south. Despite
driving around in circles on it for almost half an hour, Swords Road refused
to become Drumconda, so we ended up being quite late, but Linda did find our
way. Her navigational skills and relaxed attitude toward U-turns were
incredibly helpful throughout the trip.
It was wonderful to see Elana & Brendan again. They'd had a trip via ferry
to England during the week in order to see Elana's number one hero, Howard
Jones, performing two concerts in very small venues, so she was in heaven.
She said taking the ferry in rough weather should be counter-indicated for
women who are seven months pregnant, but both she and the schmoo survived
the trip. This was the first time they'd met Linda and, as I suspected,
they hit it off immediately.
Dinner was very good. The chef is sticking to a very simple menu: choice of
spicy battered calamari or house salad for starters and a choice of fillet steak
with mustard or peppercorn sauce or swordfish with salsa for mains, with
compulsory pommes frites and fried onions alongside. It was all quite tasty
and the very pleasant owner came out to talk with us several times during
the meal.
Knowing I had to be up at 4am, we left right after dinner and somehow
Drumconda Road turned into Swords Road on the way back without our even
noticing. I packed up and got to sleep as quickly as I could. The phone
rang way too early on Saturday morning and I made it over to the airport by
five. I dropped off the car and checked in for my flight back to Heathrow.
It was slighly delayed and quite bumpy, with a fishtailing landing at the
end, but we arrived safely. Then there was a significant delay in the
baggage hall while we waited--and waited, and waited--for our bags to roll
down the carousel. Beckie called me during the wait to tell me where to
find her, which I did with no problem once I could actually leave.
It was really good to see her and to start catching up on all the details of
our trips and recent life while we made our way down to the Underground and
rode back to Manor House. This is the first time she's been to London since
she was seven, so she's excited to see it all and I'm thrilled to be sharing
it with her.
I will leave my story there and save the rest of Beckie's trip for the next
report.
out to Heathrow on the tube. Since we were departing from separate
terminals, we said goodbye on the train and went off on our different
adventures. My check-in was painless. I hear that traffic through Heathrow
is down 30% in the wake of recent events and it did feel empty.
Arriving slightly late into Dublin, I grabbed a cab and was amused by my
cabbie's commentary on the eejit tourist fares he gets. Dropped at the door
of Number 31, I checked in and rested for a bit before Brendan & Elana
arrived just after five.
We strolled through St. Stephen's Green, stopped by an art gallery to see a
fascinating sculpture of the human pelvic bone in jade and then wandered up
Grafton Street, the main pedestrian shopping street of the city. We met
Richard & Marina at Kehoe's Lounge and enjoyed a couple of rounds there,
hurried on our way by an effusive panhandler who gave us a heavily accented
speech on the parallels between his fight with drug addiction and the
jump-in-the-river scene from _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_.
Elana had made reservations for us at Jacob's Ladder, a very intimate
restaurant spread over several floors of a townhouse. The food was
stunning. I started with the seafood coddle, a mix of shellfish in a
buttery sauce that melted in my mouth. My roasted duck breast was
delicious, but the real stunner was the garnish of roasted plums. I
couldn't pass up dessert and went for the apple pudding with cinnamon &
raisin ice, which continued their winning streak. I cadged bites of others'
food throughout the evening and everything was delicious, including the
lovely Louis Jadot Fleurie wine that Richard chose for us. One of the
things I really enjoy in the UK and Ireland is that I think the portions are
actually about right so that three courses is a comfortable meal.
After dinner Elana, Brendan and I raced back to get their car out of the
garage before it closed at midnight. We made it with seconds to spare and
they dropped me back at Number 31. I set the alarm for 8am, figuring that
was about as early as Linda would arrive from her scheduled landing at
6:30am.
When she still hadn't arrived at 9:00am, I figured she'd been delayed and
went down to breakfast alone. The host, Noel, greeted me and when I gave
him my name he gasped. A friend had called for me a couple of hours
previously, she had been at the airport, but he told her I wasn't there,
since Elana had made my reservation and it was in his book under her name.
We tried calling the Dublin airport and having her paged, but she didn't
respond. I tried calling steve and then Pete, back in Boston, but the
former hadn't heard from her and the latter wasn't answering at 5:00am his
time. I wasn't actually worried about her--surely we'd have heard if there
had been some disaster and she's a seasoned traveler able to work things out
for herself--but I was beginning to be somewhat perplexed as to how we would
meet up.
After an hour or so, she called back to say that she'd missed her flight to
Dublin and been re-routed to the Shannon airport on the other side of the
island. Since we'd planned to fly there together the following day, we
agreed that she would stay there and I'd meet her the next day. When I went
out to let Noel know the outcome of our morning's mystery, he declared
"Thanks be to God, we've found Linda!" in his charming brogue.
That settled, I decided it was time to actually see some of the famous
sights of Dublin. I toured St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch
Cathedral before heading down Temple Bar to Trinity College and the Book of
Kells. That's usually quite crowded, but I must have picked my day well,
because I was able to stand around pouring over the two open pages of that
manuscript as well as one from the Book of Darrow and one from the Book of
Armagh. The level of detail and the surprisingly good state of preservation
after so many centuries is endlessly fascinating. After a walk through the
Old Library's famous Long Hall and a lengthy visit to the gift shop, I
continued through campus and came out on the far side near Merrion Square
and the National Gallery. Almost half the collection is currently closed as
they integrate the older sections with the new Millennium Wing, but that
meant that I could get through what was on display in the hour available to
me. I did not spend very long in the section dedicated to the art of Jack
B. Yeats, but very much enjoyed some of the pre-Raphaelite works.
There is a DART station just around the corner so I hopped on a train and
went south to Sandycove. Elana was impressed that having said I'd show up
around five, I knocked as the clock was striking. We chatted for a bit and
then I curled up to read on their couch and fell asleep. They woke me an
hour later and we headed off to dinner at Queens', a very nice, casual
restaurant attached to a pub in a nearby town. Still grooving on the
excellence of Irish shellfish, I started with the seafood chowder--exchanged
liberally for bites of Elana's chicken liver pate--and followed with a
lovely rare fillet steak. We tried a different Fleurie with dinner and were
not as impressed, though it's a fun new varietal for both Brendan and I.
After dinner they gave me a ride back to Number 31 for the night.
On Monday I enjoyed Number 31's fantastic full Irish breakfast (egg, bacon,
sausage, tomato, toast, tea, juice), packed up and headed for the airport.
My flight to Shannon was painless and Linda met me at the Avis counter right
on time. We picked up our car, a green Opel Astra, and headed north. We
stopped for lunch at a pub in Ennis and then continued on to Ballyvaughan,
on the northern coast of County Clare. We checked into the Hylands Hotel
and then went out for a drive along the coast and through The Burren, the
treeless limestone plateaut that forms much of this section of the county.
We returned to the hotel for dinner in their pub-like restaurant. I had
their seafood chowder and Caesar salad, followed by a wonderful deep-dish
apple pie, while Linda had cheese fritters and a smoked salmon salad rounded
out with ice cream. She then introduced me to the show "Crime Scene
Investigations," which I enjoyed for its focus on forensics.
On Tuesday we drove out around the west coast of Clare. Our first stop was
the Cliffs of Moher, where the wind was so strong it felt like you could
just lie back and it would support you. The cliffs are very dramatic and
beautiful. At a stand in the parking lot there we bought a cheap CD of
traditional music to give us a soundtrack--the CD player in the car was
reluctant to take it, but once in it wouldn't let go and we never saw it
again, although we certainly heard its contents.
Our next stop was an area of the coast where the rocks stretch out to the
water, but have been eaten away to form a sponge-like surface of tidepools
filled with a wide variety of interesting creatures...barnacles and mussels
and cockles and anemones and something I'd never seen before that looked
like grapes stuck to the rock. We spent a very pleasant hour clambering
over the rocks before continuing south. We drove all the way out to loop
head before turning east to Kilmer, where we caught the ferry across the
mouth of the River Shannon. After boarding, we were both lulled to sleep by
the vibrations of the engines and completely missed the passage, waking up
only when the car ahead of us started its engine and drove away.
We stopped briefly for tea and directions in Tralee--which seemed like a
lovely little town we'd have liked to explore more fully--and then drove on
to Dingle. We spend the night in Bramford's Guest House and had a wonderful
dinner at the Beginish restaurant. We had a dozen delicious raw oysters,
followed by seafood chowder for me and potato-leek soup for Linda. Neither
of us could resist the excellent rack of lamb. I was ready to skip dessert,
but when Linda went for their chocolate mousse thing, I had to try their
sticky toffee pudding and a fine thing it was. We enjoyed our stroll back
to the hotel, where Linda found "The Sopranos" on TV, so I got to see my
first episode of that.
On Wednesday we drove out around Slea Head at the tip of the Dingle
Peninsula. We stopped to see some beehive huts and again to enjoy the
beautiful crash of the waves up on the point, then swung back over the pass
to Dingle and headed east again. The big town in that direction was
Tipperary and it was, indeed, a long way. The roads in Ireland are such
that any chance to go more than forty miles an hour is a rare treat, but
even in the rain the scenery is so lovely that it's fun to just toddle along
the narrow roads.
We reached Cashel around 5pm in the heaviest downpour of the day, so it was
easy to decide that the Legends Guest House dinner menu sounded perfectly
satisfactory. I had their chicken, wild mushroom and leek soup, while Linda
tried Cashel blue cheese in a puff pastry tart followed by salmon and
prawns. My main was seared scallops with bacon and leeks in a lemon butter
sauce that was simply divine. I had the passionfruit parfait, while Linda
downed the brownie-like petit fours that came with our coffee.
On Thursday morning the rain was still coming down, but it seemed a shame to
sleep looking up at the Rock of Cashel and not actually visit, so we headed
up the hill right after breakfast (scrambled eggs with cheddar for me and
smoked salmon for Linda). The rock served as the headquarters of the Kings
of Munster and then was handed over to the church. It is topped by a
complex of buildings including a cathedral, archbishop's palace, chapel and
living quarters for the vicars choral, all in various states of ruin and
renovation. We toured the vicars choral building, which is now enclosed and
roofed again and enjoyed the movie explaining the significance of the site.
Then we explored the chapel and cathedral. It's a very strange feeling to
walk around a church with your umbrella up.
Back in the car, we continued northeast toward Glendalough, stopping in
Carlow for a quick pub lunch. We arrived in the Valley of Two Lakes in time
to visit the monastery complex founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. We
wandered through the cemetery that surrounds the "Monastic City," a grouping
of an impressive Round Tower, a roofless cathedral and the secondary church
known as St. Kevin's Kitchen for a belltower someone thought resembled a
chimney. From there we walked to the Upper Lake and back along the opposite
side of this narrow valley in the Wicklow Mountains. It was still raining,
but much more lightly and we enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs a
little.
We checked into the Glendalough Hotel, right next to the vistors' center of
the monastery complex, and then headed out to explore the dinner options in
nearby Wicklow. Linda was ready for some non-Irish food, so we enjoyed a
nice Chinese dinner at Ping's. Their hot & sour soup was too spicy for me
to safely enjoy, but luckily Linda was willing to swap for the subtle and
tasty wonton soup she'd ordered. We ended up splitting a plate of
stir-fried veggies to accompany my black bean chicken and her beef with
ginger and spring onions. Our waiter, Onny, was very chatty and stumped us
by making us guess where he was from (Malaysia). We swung out along the
coast road on the way back to our hotel, but were prevented from seeing the
ocean by a lack of moon.
After breakfast on Friday we headed north to Powerscourt. Granted to the
Wingfield family by James I in 1609, a magnificent house was designed by
architect Richard Castle to incorporate the medieval fortifications and
convert the courtyard into an enormous entry hall and ballroom. It was a
showplace throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It was sold off in the
20th century and the new owners had just completed and extensive (and
expensive) renovation when a fire destroyed everything but the shell in
1974. They have managed to put a new roof and windows on and are working to
restore the ballroom, which is recently opened to the public along with a
brief exhibition in the former entry hall. Other sections of the house are
occupied by a series of shops, not only a gift shop, but a whole interior
design mall and garden shop. The area to the east of the house is now a
golf course, but it is the gardens framing the view of Great Sugarloaf
Mountain to the west that are the real claim to fame of the estate. Created
at the same time as the house, they have been maintained and elaborated by
each succeeding generation and are a wonderful conglomerations of sections
and styles. The formal Italian garden leads down over terraces to the
Triton pool. The Japanese garden is tucked into a little glen complete with
a pagoda, bridges, and a grotto constructed from petrified sphagnum. The
Pet Cemetery has touching stones memorializing the owners' dogs (favorite
name: "The Wup"), ponies and even a couple of cows. The Walled Garden
contains Ireland's longest herbaceous border and the Rose Garden next to the
house was stunning even in late October. In addition to the plants and
landscaping, the gardens also include a variety of sculpture and ornate
wrought iron gates.
After an hour in the gardens, we were happy to sit in their cafe and enjoy a
quick lunch as the rain increased from the light sprinkle to a serious
downpour. We headed on through the torrents, finding our way to Brendan &
Elana's place in Sandycove, where I left a note (since I'd managed to
misplace their phone number). We went on into Dublin and wound our way
through the Friday afternoon traffic for an hour or so. We stopped in
Parnell Square, thinking perhaps to visit a gallery of modern art nearby,
but we ended up cruising a mall for likely souvenirs for Linda instead.
The best part was a toystore where we browsed for quite a while before
collecting our car and continuing north of the city to the airport, where we
checked into our hotel. Luckily Linda's sharp eyes caught that the Holiday
Inn was until very recently the Posthouse where we had a reservation.
We managed to reach the Kehoes and they persuaded us to come back down to
Sandycove to accompany them to their local cafe's first night of serving
dinner in over a year. We got directions from the hotel staff (the desk
clerks couldn't do it, they had to call a porter) and headed south. Despite
driving around in circles on it for almost half an hour, Swords Road refused
to become Drumconda, so we ended up being quite late, but Linda did find our
way. Her navigational skills and relaxed attitude toward U-turns were
incredibly helpful throughout the trip.
It was wonderful to see Elana & Brendan again. They'd had a trip via ferry
to England during the week in order to see Elana's number one hero, Howard
Jones, performing two concerts in very small venues, so she was in heaven.
She said taking the ferry in rough weather should be counter-indicated for
women who are seven months pregnant, but both she and the schmoo survived
the trip. This was the first time they'd met Linda and, as I suspected,
they hit it off immediately.
Dinner was very good. The chef is sticking to a very simple menu: choice of
spicy battered calamari or house salad for starters and a choice of fillet steak
with mustard or peppercorn sauce or swordfish with salsa for mains, with
compulsory pommes frites and fried onions alongside. It was all quite tasty
and the very pleasant owner came out to talk with us several times during
the meal.
Knowing I had to be up at 4am, we left right after dinner and somehow
Drumconda Road turned into Swords Road on the way back without our even
noticing. I packed up and got to sleep as quickly as I could. The phone
rang way too early on Saturday morning and I made it over to the airport by
five. I dropped off the car and checked in for my flight back to Heathrow.
It was slighly delayed and quite bumpy, with a fishtailing landing at the
end, but we arrived safely. Then there was a significant delay in the
baggage hall while we waited--and waited, and waited--for our bags to roll
down the carousel. Beckie called me during the wait to tell me where to
find her, which I did with no problem once I could actually leave.
It was really good to see her and to start catching up on all the details of
our trips and recent life while we made our way down to the Underground and
rode back to Manor House. This is the first time she's been to London since
she was seven, so she's excited to see it all and I'm thrilled to be sharing
it with her.
I will leave my story there and save the rest of Beckie's trip for the next
report.
