Travel

Baltics II – Klaipeda, Lithuania to Kuldiga, Latvia

22 September, 2024
Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Siblings, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

The purpose of our trip to Klalipeda was to give us a chance to visit the Cuoronian spit. This was a geographic feature of which I had previously been ignorant. But it’s a 100km long narrow sandy spit. 50kms are owned by the Lithuanians and 50kms by the Russians (Kaliningrad). It’s one of the few places where you can look south to Russia.

We took the very regular car ferry across to the Spit. The Spit itself is a national park and you have to pay to get in (unclear what happens at night when the booths are deserted – and people do live and stay on the Spit – presumably some guest tax covers it). There is one main road through the middle of the Spit (not very main, just one lane each way) and the rest is pretty much all cycle and walking paths. As is often the way when we go on an outing, it takes us so long to get out of the house that almost the first thing we have to do when we arrive is find somewhere for lunch.

We had lunch in Juodkranté and very nice it was too – both the lunch and Juodkranté which is a smallish holiday resort.

I was very taken by the weather vanes which are a feature of the Spit (each town has its own design) but they were a bit large to buy. If you ask me, they are missing a trick by not turning them into miniature Christmas tree ornaments for the discerning tourist. Do I have a photograph? I do not.

We then went on down the Spit to Nida. What an absolutely charming little town it is. We hired bikes to avail of the fantastic infrastructure and went to the beach. Sadly, not all of us love a beach but those who do really liked it.

We then cycled along the cycle path towards Russia. There is a “nature reserve” along the border so we were stopped from seeing it. Possibly for the best.

We then cycled up to the big dune. The Spit is just basically one big sand dune. When they cut down the trees for shipbuilding in the 18th century, the sands began to shift and whole villages were engulfed. It’s quite woody now for obvious reasons.

The big dune gives a great view into Russia.

Great views all round in fact.

Sartre was here on his holidays, I think, and there is a sculpture to celebrate. I can’t say it looks like he had a fantastic time.

We went back into Nida.

Such a pretty little place. There were lots of older German tourists but otherwise not so many visitors.

We gave the bicycles back and had dinner outside.

On the way home, we stopped again at Juodkranté to go to the cemetery at Mr. Waffle’s request (I am normally the cemetery enthusiast but it has clearly rubbed off on him over the years). It’s full of graves with German inscriptions. What a complicated part of the world this is.

We drove to the (very regular) ferry at a sedate pace within the speed limit and were passed by a number of speeding Lithuanians. Lithuanian driving is adventurous. When we arrived at the port, we were literally the last people on the ferry, we made it with one minute to spare. No wonder they were speeding past me. But, you know, there was another one along in 20 minutes.

I must say the Spit was a highlight of our trip and I would love to go back and cycle the length of it (maybe even into Russia after the war?). Apparently you can fly direct to Palanga (nearby, more anon) from London. It is definitely on my list for a return visit.

Wednesday August 7, 2024

In the morning we left Michael in the flat and Mr. Waffle, Daniel and I went for breakfast. We found a trendy cafe a bit like the trendy cafes everywhere else. Grand but not exactly local. We explored the small market in the square. Klaipeda was known as Memel back when it was East Prussia and there’s a balcony in the square where apparently Hitler addressed the locals; it seems a surprisingly small and intimate venue. Following World War I, the French were briefly in charge in Memel which is why there is a building that used to be a French prefecture in the main square, honestly, weird man.

In the market there were two women speaking to each other in what sounded like French with American accents so I asked whether they were French Canadians. Mr. Waffle explained to me that this was a rather 70s expression and I certainly felt a chill when they replied, “Nous sommes Québécoises”. We live and learn. However, a black woman beside me also looking at goods turned around to them and started speaking to them in French explaining that she was from Haiti. They all seemed delighted with themselves; I did feel under the eye of the all-powerful Francophonie with this all happening within view of the former prefecture and everyone, one way or another, a long way from France. The tourists had come from a Baltic cruise boat. Mr. Waffle muttered that if he were going on a cruise, he would certainly not come to the Baltics on his holidays. A certain amount of cognitive dissonance there.

The town was a bit run down and not as nice as the places on the Spit. But grand. There was a nice area by the river.

There was the obligatory Irish pub. Named after Rory Gallagher – a bit of a deep cut as herself would say but nice to see a Cork reference. It had closed down though.

If I were to come back and I think I might, I would definitely base myself on the Spit and I would book good and early.

Anyhow, clutching our touristic purchases from the market – including a shawl for me, it’s time – we said goodbye to Klaipeda and went on our way. We stopped in Palanga for lunch. It’s a huge tourist resort and I thought it was loathsome. Not recommended. Good lunch though once we avoided the pizza restaurant by day discotheque by night venue.

And then it was on to Latvia.

In my experience Latvia has the most exciting driving in the Baltics (and that is saying something) and the worst roads. We began our trip on a dirt road, the kind of thing you might get at home for 500 metres, if there were roadworks. It went on for 17 kms. I could have done with a warning from Google maps. Saintly Mr. Waffle was driving but it was like Mad Max Fury Road. The photos really don’t convey the white knuckled horror of it all.

Anyway as we are going through this definitely inhospitable territory, my phone rings. “I have to take this,” I say to Mr. Waffle. “It’s the man about the engraving on my parents’ gravestone.” In retrospect, did I, did I have to take this call? Relaxed Cork voice rolls into the car saying, “I’m in the cemetery now, in front of the grave, I’ll just facetime you.” It is odd to be driving down a dirt road in Latvia with your parents’ grave in the car with you and your husband’s eyebrows up around his hairline. Anyway we agreed on what was needed, eventually, he was in no rush. And then he called me back again because he’d forgotten some detail, very relaxed indeed on his part. God in heaven, it was stressful. I still haven’t seen the gravestone in the flesh, as it were, I’ll keep you posted. It cost us a fortune and probably shortened my own life.

Anyhow, miraculously enough, we arrived in Kuldiga uninjured. We stopped at a supermarket on the outskirts of town and it had an extremely soviet feel. It reminded me a bit of the supermarkets in Bosnia in the 90s.

The Airbnb was nice and bigger than Klaipeda – which would not be hard – but it still only had 2 bedrooms so the guys had to share a room which they were very good about to be fair. I finally cracked and cooked dinner. A regret.

Daniel went for a run and said that people looked at him like he was crazy. Were they wrong? Surely this whole running enthusiasm must be close to, forgive the pun, running its course. Maybe it wasn’t the running but the fact that there was a tourist in town that turned heads. Kuldiga may be on the UNESCO world heritage site list but tourists are few and far between.

The rest of us went for a wander around Kuldiga after dinner while Michael dealt with the disturbing news that two friends of his are engaged. There’ll be more of that in his future.

Kuldiga was very, very quiet and a bit run down but clean with lots of interesting wooden buildings. It felt a bit like a town in a Western.

The town has depopulated slowly since the 1990s. It felt like somewhere that had once been prosperous but now was on its uppers. But still immaculate. I was very struck by how clean everywhere is in the Baltics compared to extremely grimy Ireland, Dublin in particular looks filthy compared to the Baltic capitals.

My brother rang to say that he had missed his train to Dublin, where our cat was anxiously awaiting his arrival. The neighbours fed the cat and my brother told us about his trip to the Olympics. He saw the pole vaulting world record and he met some Canadian Olympic rowers in a bar (that’s my brother). One of the rowers let him hold her medal though in the pictures he sent, he is holding one side and she is holding the other very firmly. Wise.

We spent the evening wondering why we thought it was a good idea to spend two nights in Kuldiga. More thrilling content soon. Something to look forward to.

Baltics I – Lithuania – Vilnius to Klaipeda

14 September, 2024
Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Friday, August 2, 2024

Our flight was at 7.40 in the morning. Flights from Dublin to Vilnius are not frequent and you take what you can get. It’s quite far east I was surprised to discover (geography is so often a shock for me) and a three hour flight. It’s also two hours ahead of Dublin. A world of wonders. We did not travel light. For some reason I regarded the 20kg baggage allowance as a target rather than a ceiling. Herself was doing an internship in London so not with us for the beginning of our adventure. She would later have stern words to share about our poor packing skills.

The arrivals part of the airport in Vilnius is lovely though currently being extended. For their own reasons, the Soviets built it like a train station. I found it rather charming.

We got a taxi into town to our Airbnb. At the time I booked it, I thought herself would be with us but due to work obligations she was not. I wanted all the children to have separate bedrooms so we needed four bedrooms and if you have four bedrooms that’s usually enough for 8 people and so basically, we found ourselves staying in a flat that could have doubled as an oligarch’s lair.

Pricey but vast.

By this point the troops were getting hungry so we went to a revolting pizza place up the road for lunch. Then we had a stroll into town. Well, what a nice spot. I am here to tell you that Vilnius is delightful. Here is the last tower of the city walls left.

Here is a poor shot of the most touristy street in the city. I mean there were tourists – mostly Germans and Americans – but certainly not an overwhelming number.

The weather was absolutely perfect. Mid 20s and sunny. After our stroll around the old town, we hit the supermarket – always the glamour – and Daniel made dinner thereby adding several years to his exhausted parents’ life span.

Mr. Waffle, Daniel and I went out for a post dinner stroll and drink but Michael preferred to stay behind. We found the city hall square and had a drink.

We came home through what had been the Jewish ghetto. Vilnius had a huge Jewish population before World War II and it was a centre of Jewish learning. I think you know the depressing next steps.

More generally, we began to learn the extremely complicated history of this small part of the world (so much more to come). Lithuania was only christianised in the 14th century (the Teutonic knights are big here). The Germans are kind of the mercantile/upper classes in the Baltics and there are lots of German names, schools etc. Lithuania was previously part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and also East Prussia. Also, the Lithuanian language? It’s an orphan only related to Latvian, and not very closely related at that. Are you all following at the back of the classroom?

When we came home we settled ourselves in front of the ludicrously large television and experienced the weirdness of watching our own Netflix account on TV abroad. Also, when you turn off the lights in an oligarch’s lair, small star-like lights twinkle in the ceiling. They do themselves well these oligarchs.

Saturday August 3

I love my husband and this is the only reason we remained married when he revealed to me that he had hired a car for pick up from the airport – early enough – on the morning after we arrived. I believe his thinking was that we could get ourselves settled and then take day trips out of the city. But, if so, why not the day we arrived? A mystery. Anyhow, in the interests of marital happiness, he agreed to get a taxi to the airport rather than explore Vilnius’s tram/trolleybus network as he had originally planned. We had some difficultly finding the car hire place when we got to the airport but we found it eventually and took possession of our car from a very young man.

Mercifully the airport is near the city and the traffic was very light so we drove back without difficulty while I pointed out to Mr. Waffle how bike friendly the city was. Naturally, our oligarch’s flat had come with underground parking. You had to drive into a lift. It took us an embarrassingly long time to work out how to do this and involved several calls to the patient Airbnb host and I would rather not list the ways in which we failed to get it to work. Suffice it to say that we were exhausted by the time we got back to the flat.

For lunch, we went to a Georgian Restaurant which Daniel picked. They are big eaters the Georgians but we all quite enjoyed the food offerings and I got to use my (almost non-existent) Russian with the waiter who spoke no English so thrills all round.

After lunch we went to the university which is central and lovely. These photos do not at all convey its attractiveness.

It has a viewing tower. I love a viewing tower.

The symbol of Lithuania is the Gediminas tower. It’s at the top of a hill and a caterpillar type yoke was parked half way up. Oddly impressive.

I honestly thought I was too exhausted to climb up this hill but, ladies and gentlemen, there is a funicular!

There was, inter alia, information in the tower about the human chain in the Baltics and lots of pictures from the time. This was when the people from the Baltics all held hands – which I remember from TV at the time (1989, children) – the chain started from the Gediminas tower and went to Tallinn and it was the beginning of the end for the Soviets in the Baltic countries although that wasn’t entirely clear at the time. It was funny looking at the pictures because I remember seeing them on the TV holding hands – it really grabbed everyone’s imagination. I also remember thinking, “Where are these strange countries I’ve never heard of before?” And also, “Why are their clothes so weird?” I would not have anticipated that in the future I would be there on a family holiday or that looking at the photos in 2024, I would find it impossible to distinguish their appalling 1980s clothes from those I wore myself at the time. It’s really hard to explain to the children how deeply unlikely the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to those of us who grew up in the 1980s and how alien and distant these countries were to us.

After a day of entirely worthy tourist activities we went back to the flat and saintly Mr. Waffle made dinner.

Sunday August 4, 2024

We went to mass in Lithuanian. Vilnius is a city of many many churches but we went to the cathedral for mass. Just as well we had the architecture to look at. An almost pointless duty to be honest. Not the faintest idea what it was about. My father always lamented the post-Vatican II disappearance of the Latin mass because he said that you could always understand mass wherever you were. “How true,” I thought.

Daniel came to mass with us. When he was in Sardinia with his friends, he suggested that they go to mass on Sunday because, “Isn’t that what you do on holiday?” The ongoing secularisation of Ireland appears to be coming as a surprise to him.

In what is clearly a local habit, people put money into the collection basket and then took out change. How peculiar.

The four of us went for a forgettable lunch in a Belgian restaurant but it was our first taste of local borscht. The beetroot is big locally. Fine but not amazing. Maybe you need to be brought up on it.

After lunch we went to the KGB museum which was on our street. Honestly, I found it traumatic and would not recommend. I did learn a lot about Soviet deportations and Lithuanian history under the Soviets more generally but the building is offices above and cells – almost dungeons – below. It leaked misery and grimness. No wonder the Baltics are so worried about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s only 40kms from Vilnius to Russia-friendly Belarus and Vilnius is as far from Minsk as Dublin is from Cork. They feel a chill.

Daniel took himself off to a basketball court. He was extremely impressed by the facilities. You access lockers via an app for kit (basketballs, table tennis bats etc.) and there were loads of different sports available. There were people from everywhere. He ended up chatting to a Ghanaian- Lithuanian basketball player based in England. He knew all about Gaelic games as his PE teacher in school was from Ireland. Honestly, the world is a lot smaller than when I was a child.

Saintly Mr. Waffle made dinner again and no one had, as yet, guessed my dastardly plan to avoid cooking at all while on holidays.

After dinner we walked to the “Gates of Dawn” – an entrance to the city. I knew it was an important tourist landmark as it featured on fridge magnets but I could take or leave it. The walk there and back was really lovely though.

We passed a kiosk and they had the weekend FT for €6.70 and no magazine. I dithered but I purchased. How great was my ire on getting home to discover that it was the previous weekend’s edition which I had already read? Pretty great.

Monday August 5, 2024

After breakfast out, myself and Daniel went to visit the chapel of St Casimir which the guide books had kind things to say about. In fairness, it was nice.

Out again for lunch which was fine but we made a key discovery (one which I had to make several times in the Baltics before being convinced) which is that focaccia in the Baltics is pizza base with nothing on it except maybe some oil. Learn from my tragedy.

We then packed up and left Vilnius to go to the coast. We stopped at Trakai castle just outside Vilnius. This is an island castle in a beautiful village with a fascinating history.

Tourism levels were pretty low and the locals have turned their fields into car parks. We ended up dealing with a Lithuanian granny in a field. She spoke no English, we spoke no Lithuanian and, yet again, my wholly inadequate Russian came in useful. I meant to tell her we were visiting the castle (literally the only thing to see in town). For reasons I will not bore you with (see editorial discretion is alive and well) I have learnt the phrase zamok vraga (written in Roman letters here, cut me some slack I don’t think this site supports cyrillic, it means the enemy’s castle – zamok is the castle and vraga is the enemy). In my excitement I mixed up the two words and told her we were visiting the enemy. Crazy foreigners huh?

The village is beautiful. The castle is beautiful – though largely reconstructed by the soviets – but it is, and I cannot emphasise this enough, very dull inside. It boasts collections of ivory, porcelain, pocket watches and glass. Be still my beating heart. For the others the highlight was waiting outside and seeing me go into the gents instead of the ladies. I mean it does remind me a bit of the Game of Thrones castle and I wasn’t the only tourist wandering around humming the theme tune but, overall, not worth it. But yet, if you came to Trakai what on earth else would you do? A mystery.

It took us a long 3 hours to get to Klaipeda on the coast. August is the time for roadworks in Lithuania, in case you were wondering. We got in quite late and after trying several establishments managed to persuade a slightly reluctant waitress to let us have dinner in a restaurant in the square which was a real mercy because it was 9.30 and tempers were a bit frayed.

We found it really difficult to book accommodation in Klaipeda and the little flat we found was central and despite an unlovely hallway, very appealing. But small was the word; it was two-roomed and tiny. And pretty warm despite the air conditioning (though some saboteur may have turned it off in the middle of the night and opened a window, so the fault may not entirely lie with the air conditioning).

More soon. Hold on to your hats etc.

Pre-holiday Round Up

2 August, 2024
Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Reading etc., Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Last weekend Mr. Waffle, Michael and I went out to Dun Laoghaire for lunch. We met Mr. Waffle’s sister and her little girl. The latter very bitter to be fooled into walking the pier after lunch. Her mother asked her “Do you want to walk to the end of the pier or just as far as where it bends around?” My niece knew, at some level, that like generations of children before her she was being had. Michael sympathised. My sister-in-law maintains that she loved walking the pier when she was a child. I’m going to call it: unlikely. Much like her abiding belief that it never rained on family holidays in Kerry when she was a child (a belief which is not shared by her older siblings).

Michael drove us out to Dun Laoghaire. It was pretty painless to be fair to him and I think the time is coming when he will need to take his driving test. There is a 12 week waiting list so he’ll need to do it when he gets back from holidays. He is unenthused. But think of the saving on our insurance bill.

Mr. Waffle and I went to see Twister. Maybe it is doing great box office but it was pretty terrible. After the lights had gone down an elderly person came in alone and sat near me. Mr. Waffle whispered to me – did I know who the person was? I did not. Mr. Waffle identified him as a very senior person in a very serious and important job. I found it quite touching that he was making time in his life for Twister. I hope he enjoyed it more than we did.

Michael has kept the existence of his siblings, if not secret, then certainly not front and centre, in his relationship with his new college friends. Unfortunately evidence of his siblings is available in the house. He was chagrined when he invited over one of his friends who looked at the picture of his older sister on the landing and said, “Is that your sister? I was on a course with her.” Again, the size of Ireland makes it hard to keep a sense of mystery alive.

Herself is in London doing an internship having spent a couple of weeks in Estonia brushing up on her Russian (the obvious location for this activity being currently unavailable). She got back to London late in the evening and I followed her progress with some anxiety, worried that she would miss the last train from Stansted. Funniest message of the evening was her description of running to get her luggage from the carousel: “I sent a group of West Ruislip Scouts scattering like bowling pins.” You will be pleased to hear that she made the train and is now in her aunt, uncle and cousin’s lovely house in the lap of luxury. They are over here and will be staying a couple of days in our house and also, taking our car. I am inordinately pleased that we are all getting value from our available assets.

If all goes according to plan, by the time you read this, I will be on a plane to the Baltics where we will be disporting ourselves for three weeks. When we went to Argentina last year, I spent the day before we went tidying the bookshelves. Herself felt that this was not the most useful way to spend my time at that moment. She said that I am a victim of “stress tidying”; whenever I am worried about something, I start tidying up. Over the last 12 months I have noticed that this is correct. This may be why I have the tidiest office in my building. Never mind, there are certainly worse vices. And the good news is that this trip to the Baltics has not entailed an entire bookshelf re-organisation. Perhaps I am not as stressed as I was before our epic trip to South America. On the other hand, I do remember that the last time we went to the Baltics en famille we missed the plane so perhaps I need to be more stressed?

Speaking of Argentina, some considerable time ago we sent some presents to people we had met in the North of the country which never arrived. We were resigned to the fact that they were lost forever (contents plus not inconsiderable cost of postage – €43 since you’re asking). But would you look what arrived back just before the holidays? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this parcel has been to South America and back. Sigh.

Is this my life now?

31 July, 2024
Posted in: Travel

Keen readers will recall that late last year, I had an internal hordeolum. For the first and, I foolishly assumed, last time. Not so, it is back. I’m less panicked this time but much more fed up. Also I look horrendous with one large bulbous swollen eye. My mood was not helped at all by a colleague saying, I fear truthfully, that he hadn’t noticed until I pointed it out.

I am going on holidays on Friday. Is it too much to hope that my eye will be restored by then? Also posting will be non-existent between Friday and late August. But after that, well details of my thrilling tour of the Baltics will follow.

Family Holiday or Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth 2

20 July, 2024
Posted in: Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

As the children get older, the whole family holiday thing is getting a bit more complex. We’re going to the Baltics in August and people will be coming and going and the planning and organising has nearly killed us all.

I thought Argentina last summer would be our last full family holiday but I’m not entirely sure that this will be the case. Argentina was great when we were there (though a little tiring and perhaps not all members of the group were equally enthusiastic all the time) and since we came home we have often spoken of it. I pointed out to my loving family that it has had the bonding effect I had been hoping for. Michael said, “Have you heard of trauma bonding Mum?”

Mid June Round Up

30 June, 2024
Posted in: Family, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Travel, Twins, Youngest Child

Friday, 14 June, 2024

Our next door neighbour turned 60 – honestly looks absolutely amazing, an inspiration to us all -and invited us to a party in Donegal where her mother was from. We decided to proceed slowly (it’s a long way from Dublin) and set off Friday evening after work. We stayed in Monaghan at Castle Leslie about which I have heard plenty. The Castle was full for a wedding so we stayed in the lodge. I guess I must have been through Monaghan before but I’ve never stayed there. It feels very northern (though in the Republic). Castle Leslie is only 20kms from Armagh and it was obviously cut off from it’s natural hinterland by the Border. There used to be a train line but it was shut down, in the 20s I think, following partition. Odd spot.

The lodge was quite pleasant in a Victorian gothic kind of way (it reminded me a bit of UCC) but the rooms, though nice were a bit bland – an interior designer’s country house. But fine and the food was good at breakfast and reasonable at dinner.

We went for a walk up to view the castle. Holy mother of God, it is so ugly. Scottish baronial (not a style I am partial to, I must confess) but an insult to that name. It is the ancestor of a million McMansions. I regret to say that I have no photos but doubtless the website will give you an idea. The older church in the grounds is a much nicer building.

I was a bit confused by the Protestant church, as the guide to the peerage in the main house had the young Leslies attending Downshire and Ampleforth (Catholic boarding schools in England), but apparently one of the baronets married an American (sister to Winston Churchill’s mother) and her son either converted or was always Catholic. Apparently he was a big supporter of independence and while his father (a staunch unionist) was parading the Ulster volunteers at the front of the house, he was sneaking out the back to join the rebels. I think it is to the staunch unionist, or possibly his father, that we owe the insult to Scottish baronial style as the architect (I looked him up) seems otherwise to have produced inoffensive enough buildings albeit in the heavy style of the time. I can imagine him getting directions. There is a loggia round the back. Honestly, not awful but not consistent with the style elsewhere. Inside there is a portrait gallery filled with, I’m sorry, terrible paintings by this 19th century baronet. There are also frescoes, the less said of these the better.

However, overall, it’s actually grand inside with lovely views and the interior is much less bland than the lodge.

I wouldn’t mind staying in the main house some time, if it didn’t beggar us.

The grounds are massive and lovely to stroll around provided you keep your back to the castle (“where every prospect pleases and only man is vile” or words to that effect as someone or other said).

In the car on the way up there, I was congratulating myself on currently having no injuries. Hubris. Alas, I gave my toe an almighty wallop on a hidden step in the very fancy bathroom attached to our room and was convinced I had broken it. However, it was fine in a couple of days so possibly I exaggerated the pain.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

It has been a long held ambition of mine to visit the Ulster American folk park. My children will tell you that I love a folk park. Mr. Waffle said to me, “When will we be this close again?” so rather than go immediately to Donegal as we had originally intended we stopped off. Well, what a treat for folk park lovers. Firstly, it’s pretty empty and secondly, it’s excellent. It’s built around the old Mellon homestead. When Mr. Mellon went to America he became one half of Carnegie Mellon and his descendants bought the house and provided seed funding for the park and possibly still provide money for all I know. My friend from Belfast remembers it opening in 1976 and he says it was such a grim time in the North, its opening was a positively thrilling event. I was thrilled, I can tell you.

There is a slightly dull exhibition which tells you about the lives of three emigrants whose houses you will see in the park; one is, no surprises, young Mellon; another is a Catholic young man whose mother wanted him to be a priest and who ended up as bishop of New York (dream big young man) and is buried under the altar of the cathedral there; and the third is a relatively rich man who went trapping and ended up with a house in the American South (where you ask? You might well ask but I have forgotten. Alas.)

We pushed fairly quickly through this and started in the park proper. You start off in Ulster. They’ve moved buildings into the park from other parts of the North which was something I thought only Americans did. They had people dressed up in old fashioned clothes to tell you about the history of the houses. They also have turf fires going in the houses (very bad for the bogs, I know, but so pleasant) and somehow the smoke coming up from the chimneys made it all seem so authentic (though the spotless nature of everything slightly detracted from that, surely, even in Ulster, labourers’ cottages were never so clean and tidy?). God, I was delighted. When people ask whether I would prefer to have the power to fly or be invisible (more frequent than you might think), I always pick invisible as I just want to see into other people’s houses, so the visit to the park is basically a superhero adventure.

Then having seen old Ulster, you’re brought to a town to get on a ship to the new world. The town is fantastic: shops and pubs brought from all over the place. We were chatting to the man in the draper’s and he told us that it originally came from Derry. This was my favourite part.

I was amused to see this sign which the authorities have obviously not yet removed in their post-Brexit cull.

Then you go into a big shed and you’re on the quays with a ship awaiting your departure and a ticket office on the quayside.

You get on the ship, you come out the far side and, hey presto, you’re in the new world. I thought it was really cleverly done.

Once you clear the town, you’re into all sorts of American homesteads many of them (possibly all of them) brought from America. How extraordinary. One of the guides said that the house brought from Tennessee ran into some difficulties as it was set up in a bog in Northern Ireland but they seem to have addressed this.

After our successful tour of Ulster and the US, we pushed on to Donegal. Although it was alternately overcast and lashing rain in the Ulster American folk park, the sun was splitting the stones in Donegal and we had the most beautiful drive into Falcarragh.

Our hosts had laid on all kinds of trips during the day – a walk up Mount Errigal, a boat ride to Inishbofin – but none of these things would be much fun in the rain. How great was my FOMO when I discovered that the weather had been beautiful all day on the Donegal coast? Very great, I have to tell you. Many of our neighbours were there and if another one told me about the amazing swim they had on Inishbofin, I was not going to be responsible for my actions. You can’t have it all, I suppose.

The party was great, however, with music and dancing and food and cake. I took these, not great, photos from the balcony of the hotel at 22.33 and 00.38. What a glorious day.

Overall, a good day. It was my mother’s anniversary – she died five years ago and I think she would have been delighted to think of me having such an enjoyable day.

Sunday, June 16, 2024

We checked out in the morning and heard the hotel staff speaking fluent Irish to each other; it was so nice to hear Irish being used in that way. Utterly incomprehensible, mind you. Mr. Waffle chatted away as Gaeilge but I could only watch and admire.

We went for a walk on the beach and a bite of lunch before heading back to Dublin. Honestly the weather was much more what I expect from Donegal in June.

The house was empty when we got home which was a bit weird. The guys were in Cork for the weekend helping their aunt empty out the attic before the roofers came. Augean stables spring to mind.

Monday, 17 June 2024

I was up with the lark to get the ferry to Wales.

Then I drove to Oxford – about four and a half hours solid – went into town and helped herself pack up her things. I thought she might be sad about saying goodbye but she was quite cheerful. When we had finished the epic packing task we went out for dinner with her young man. I retired to my bed exhausted about 10.

Tuesday, 18 June 2024

I insisted on us setting off at the crack of dawn as I am always worried something terrible will happen near Birmingham and I am terrified by the prospect of having to overnight in Holyhead due to having missed the ferry.

We had breakfast in Oxford and set off before 10 (ok, technically, possibly not the crack of dawn). Despite the best of intentions to travel along the M6 (tolled) motorway, we failed to find it. The main M6 is exhaustingly busy in my view. Nevertheless, as herself confidently predicted we made good time so I was merciful and we stopped in Conwy (which I find a charming town though a little down on its luck) for lunch.

We made the ferry no problem and were safely home by 7.30 or so. Still and all I was extremely grateful to all the gods that I did not after all have to travel for work the next day.

Herself came home with me but then promptly left two days later to fly to France for a post-college holiday (isn’t it well for them etc.). She will be restored to us on Tuesday, I am pleased to report.