August 30 and August 31, 2008

2008-August-31

I’d had a restless night, as I am prone to when there are early morning demands, and when the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. I wasn’t too terribly impressed. We’d set the clock for an early start as mom wanted to get to Dublin as early as possible on this our last full day in Ireland so that she could go into Dublin City and explore some of the sights. We had given her the option of making a loop down to Avoca, stopping at Glendalough on the return, and then carrying on to the Airport; however, Dublin was her first pick. We went first to the Radisson Hotel at the Airport (arriving just after 10:30 a.m.) so that she could (possibly) organize her room and we were lucky in that they had rooms available for early check in (which meant we could get rid of our luggage). Mom wanted to go into Dublin right away. We don’t drive into Dublin and even on our previous visit had taken the bus in every day. The hotel is well situated in that it is in the Airport complex and has 24 hour shuttle to the airport proper where you then catch a bus into the city centre - which she was planning to do when we saw her in the lobby at 12:00 noon. As we no longer required the car, we made arrangements to fuel it up and get it back to the company offices (within 10 minutes of the hotel) and they drove us back. Due to the issues and time we’d had to spend related to the first vehicle (because of it having no road tax certificate), the manager of the local office (where we’d picked it up originally) gave us a two-day credit for our troubles – which basically paid for the fill up prior to its return. Just as a note – we think we have it bad with the price of fuel …….. the cost to fill was 139.9 Euro per litre (the equivalent of 2.19 Canadian per litre) and it’s less expensive in the south of Ireland than in the North. We settled in and then went down to the hotel pub/restaurant for the carvery lunch (George had again a huge plate of roast beef WITH baked ham and all the trimmings and I had salmon with dill sauce and sides). After lunch, I had a luxurious soak in the 6 foot tub and then, believe it or not, despite it being mid-day, we had a nap. Our hotel room is on the 5th floor, with full-width wall windows, and is an excellent vantage point – close enough to see the flights arriving and departing and yet far enough away that we don’t hear the jet engines (at least that's what I thought - I heard the first one tonight around 8 - George said they'd been taking off all day - but I guess that means that the traffic must have lessened, as the traffic however is another matter). With such a great network of shuttle buses and city buses, as well as vehicle traffic, I’m finding that the traffic noise is a bit annoying (didn’t interfere with my nap however). While it had rained for a great part of the journey down to Dublin, the weather has cleared - there is actually blue sky and a foreign substance (we believe it to be sunshine as best we remember) now on view. Mom hasn’t yet returned from the city centre and perhaps she’s found a wee snug somewhere with a party going on and won’t be back until late, but, we’re staying put and relaxing with the plan being to go down for dinner in a few hours and get a good nights sleep. We took the shuttle over to the Airport and then walked back arriving just before 8:00 p.m. and mom was already back in from downtown. We invited her to come downstairs to the pub/restaurant with us, but she declined as she'd already been down for dinner. We went ahead and had appetizers and a last glass of Bulmer's cider and returned to the room to watch a scary movie and get to bed.

2008-August-30

The morning was spent tidying the house and doing the final organization for our trip. Mom went into town for a final view of the shops and also top up her cash supply. At 12:30 p.m. we loaded into the car and drove mom out to Andy Billy’s Pub, etc., in the country. The establishment has a pub, tea room, and restaurant and also apparently on Saturday afternoons, live music. Rather than chance missing it, she had decided to stay there from 1:00 p.m. for the music, have dinner and then pub it until about 11 p.m. and had made her arrangements to taxi it back to the house when she was ready to come home. We, on the other hand, didn’t want to spend 10 hours through a Saturday afternoon and evening in a pub, and took her out there and made our own plans for the evening. We decided to spend a calm, quiet and relaxing afternoon and evening together, and have dinner at the Curran Court Hotel near the harbour. The servings were enormous and while George (somehow) managed to make it through half a plate of stuffed pork tenderloin, champ, and vegetables in addition to his appetizer of baked brie, there was no way I could make it through my appetizer (garlic, cheese-stuffed, breaded and deep fried mushroom caps) dinner (lamb cutlets, champ, and vegetables) AND have dessert. I so rarely want, or are able to eat an entire dessert, I thought it would be nice to actually have enough appetite to have a nice dessert – and so, for a change, I had, and finished, a Peach Melba. And, for the first time I think EVER, George was unable to finish his dessert. After dinner we went for a drive along the harbour and went to see Olderfleet Castle (or what’s left of it) on a small point of land that is now mostly an industrial area. There had been a time when the castle looked down on three tiny cottages, one of which was lived in by George’s cousin Robert’s grandmother, and on the other side, a row of terraced homes, where an uncle had lived. The cottages were levelled in order to allow for industrial expansion; however, the terraced homes still stand and are still lived in. At the end of the terrace homes is a long stone wall that was originally part of the castle wall. We’d been invited to drop by Robert and Sandra’s around 8:00 p.m. so after our visit to Olderfleet we drove over and spent a pleasant hour visiting with them. We went back to the house did our final mundane chores and we close to going to bed when mom returned, happy with her evening. For one of the few times on our holiday, we set the clock for an early start and went to bed.