So, my excuse is that it’s been a summer of doing, seeing, going, tasting- and not of writing. Now there’s writing. Yay!
So, starting from when I SHOULD have written: I flew to England at the end of June. The flight was shorter than I had expected, but not quite short enough, because of the cold I was fighting against and the very talkative youngster I was seated beside. No sleep was had on that flight, despite plans to the contrary. In any case, the plane landed, and I was in England! And there was a terminal and a real British guy put a stamp in my passport! (Okay, so that looks pretty lame in type, but at the time it was very exciting!) Uncle Richard picked me up (cause Aunt Mer doesn’t do mornings), and we drove to Oxford. I like the highway between London and Oxford. There’s this one hill on the right (if you’re heading away from London) that has a path winding up it, and there’s always sheep on it. It’s lame, but by the end of my trip I’d decided that that was my favourite hill. Anyways, we got to Oxford and Aunt Mer, and had breakfast. Please note that due to extreme tiredness and some jetlagginess, the first day was a little bit of a blur. There was reading and walking Levi, and there was purposely no napping. They took me ‘punting’ which doesn’t involve chucking stuff, as I’d originally assumed, but instead involves a long, shallow-bottomed boat that one pushes down a river with a big stick. Uncle Richard punted while Mer and I sat with Levi, and we went all the way up the river to a pub for lunch. I punted on the way back- and I did well!
First thing the next day we left for Ireland. Mer and Richard teased me cause I had less luggage than Levi. The drive through Wales was long, and I slept, though I didn’t mean to. The first thing we did in Dublin was break the law! Mer and I decided to go downtown even though it was evening already, so we bought tickets for the tram (called the ‘Luas’- Irish for ‘speed’), but we didn’t pay to go far enough (by mistake). But, we just stayed on the tram a little longer to get where we were going. If we’d been caught- well, we’re just helpless tourists, now aren’t we? The first evening in Dublin was great- I walked over the river Liffey, on the Ha’Penny Bridge! That was awesome. That was, pathetically, one of my major reasons for wanting to go there. And I did it! Yay! Then there was random shops and Temple Bar, street performers and drunks and ice cream for dinner and screaming soccer fans. Like I said; awesome. Two days in Dublin and we had the city core down. Tram to St. Anne station, walk north and cross the Liffey. Northeast is Temple Bar, northwest will get you to Trinity College (I saw the Book of Kells! It was amazing- but apparently, dangerous; there were signs everywhere warning tourists about pickpockets. Mer fell in love with the library upstairs. It was wonderful, and I cursed the lack of photos- but understood it. Further north and you get to the Museum block. The National Museum of Ireland is very interesting, but it needs lessons on labeling from the ROM. Mer and I had to keep a list of things to look up on the internet when we got back to the hotel. We saw a W.B. Yeats exhibit at the National Library (I liked the poems read by famous Irish people at the entrance best). There’s some shops across the street, which is where I got Lauren the Claddagh ring she wanted.
Walking along the shops, Mer and I ducked behind them when something colourful caught our eye (the magpie Atos gene strikes again). There was this gorgeous mosaic along a huge wall- of a parking lot. Amazing. I took many photos.
…but not as many as I took later, at Tara. Tara of the Kings, I was there! It was perfect. The long drive down along stone-walled winding roads, the lack of ticket booths and operating hours, the emptiness and the light at the end of the day. It was empty and desolate and magic. Tara is probably pretty lame to everyone who isn’t me. It’s a field with lumps in it, and one hollow hill with a locked gate on it. But it’s amazing because it was considered the spiritual, religious and royal center of Ireland. The Lia Fail is there, which is a large stone that screams if the future king of Ireland touches it. (We tested it; I’m not the king of Ireland. Neither is Merilee. Or Richard. Or Levi.)
I saw the Mound of the Hostages, which the past king used to use to keep the sons of his liegemen prisoner, to keep them under control. Scarily cool. It’s also a hugely significant archaeological site- experts believe that there are still up to 150 bodies buried under the mound. Tara was my favourite part of Ireland.
The next day we went to Newgrange. No one seems to know what that is but it’s a grave mound that is over 1000 years older than Stonehenge. It’s huge, and amazing, and surrounded by hand-carved curbstones. Very cool. And unfortunately, you can only get there with a guide, and that drives me nuts, in the bad way. Ugh. Still, we got to see it, which was great.
Then we drove to Clonmacnoise, which is the actual center of Ireland, where a monk built a church forever ago, and then they built another church when the first fell down, and then another, and then another. Now it’s this amazing religious site with a cluster of falling-down churches, and a very cool watchtower, and a castle that looks like someone smashed it with a hammer (mostly cause someone pretty much did, when it was invaded). It was cool. And we got chased by cows!
A long drive to Blarney, and then a long walk up a winding staircase through a crumbling castle, and Mer and I kissed the stone. (So, it took me like a month to write this blog; that doesn’t make it any less eloquent, does it?) After vague deliberation we decided to pass Cork up for Kilkenny, and we drove on. Kilkenny was neat, but there were supposed to be artsy shops that weren’t there (most notably a hand-made bead shop that had moved to a new town). Still, we did some great shopping, ate some great pastry, and laughed about the fact that pedestrian signals in Kilkenny sound like heart monitors. Halfway through our Kilkenny day Mer got a call that our ferry was leaving six hours earlier than scheduled, so the side trip to the bead shop was cancelled, and what was supposed to be a leisurely trip back to Wales became a sleepy early morning one. But we got there, and were exhausted, and hungry, and full of amazing memories, and pictures.
So ended the first half of my UK adventure.
Also, I have some new pieces of soapstone from my trip to BC, and I wanted to bring some along to carve. I don't want to tote along ALL my tools and stuff, though, just a set of files and some sandpaper, so I was trying to do everything to prepare the stone ahead of time. Thus, I figured out (last night, in my head, in my bed, while I was supposed to be sleeping), that it needed a hole. Skip forward to this morning, which found me freshly showered and dressed for work, using a towel as an apron, and drilling into a piece of stone.
