The predicted storm has arrived.
Its the tail end of Hurricane Cattia and it has howled all night.
Today its raining and blowing a gale.
So we spent a quiet day, went out for lunch but spent the rest of the day at home.
Too dangerous on the roads.
Above is Lough Derg, (Lough = Lake) which is only 5kms from here.
It had surf on it today, these photos don’t do justice to the wind speed.
Mum & Dad went out tonight to an Irish dinner and music evening.
Until next time, 
Kim
We picked up our next car this morning.
Its a Toyota something-a-rather.
We surprisingly managed to squeeze all our luggage into it and drove west to County Clare.
I would like to put a map in here but the internet connection is really slow and it won’t upload.
So I may add it later…
The East Clare resort is lovely, but rather isolated.
The nearest town is Bodyke which must have a population of at least 10 people.
Hopefully we will have some time to relax after the hectic pace of the last few weeks.
We have a nice 2 bedroom unit with a kitchen and 2 bathrooms.
Its about 5 years old and next to the East Clare Golf club.
The roads are so narrow here.
There is a winding narrow road to get to the resort – very difficult if you meet another car.
Until next time, 
Molly Malone is also known by Dubliners as the Dolly with the trolley or the Tart with the cart.
She is very shiny on the part that people rub,,,,
We started today at Trinity College which was a short walk from our hotel.
We had a guided tour which ended at a viewing of
The Book of Kells.
This is a beautiful book which was lavishly decorated by the monks of Iona in the 9th Century.
A pic from Wikipedia of the Book of Kells
The tour ended in the long room library.
Wow, what a room, huge and shelves and shelves of ancient books, and I wasn’t allowed to take photos but here it is above thanks to the magic of the www.
It reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University Library – although minus the smell of bananas.. Oook.
We then went to Kilmainham jail, and learnt about the various Irish up risings.
(They seem to spend a lot of their past history fighting each other and everybody else)
Do you know that Kil or Kill means church – so that Irish towns starting with Kil mean church of somebody.
A couple of observations on the Irish.
They have a reputation for being odd, in an Irish kind of way.
1/ There is a library in Trinity college that does not file the books in order of subject or alphabetically.
It took them six years to put the books on the shelves according to size…
2/ They once had a statue of Nelson to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar.
They blew this up because he was English.
So for the millennium they had a competition to design a piece of street art as a replacement.
They winner was to be the millennium spire, which wasn’t finished until 2003 (as they had trouble getting planning permission), so its now just called the spire.
It is the worlds tallest piece of street art.
It has a light on top to stop air traffic flying into it.
However no one thought of what would happen if the globe blew.. which it did a few years later.
They had to get the tallest crane in Europe in to replace the globe at great expense.
However, its just not the Irish..
Overheard by Graham during our tour was an American tourist asking their companion what accent the guide had.
(the guide was Irish of course).
We are to get another hire car tomorrow and are off to County Clare.
They are predicting a Hurricane, 80 mile an hour winds! .. – really.
Until next time, 
Guinness is good for you.
I think we’ve been brainwashed!
Today we took the hop on hop off bus to get around and visit a few of the sights of Dublin.
Visited the Guinness storehouse, which is a museum on how Guinness is made and the history of the factory.
It ends with a free pint in the Gravity bar, which is a round glass bar at the top of the factory with great views of Dublin.
(Andrew , Nan & Pop declined their free pints and would have brought them home for you but didn’t know how they would pack them…)
They provide you with complimentary alcohol and then the next stop is the Guinness gift shop, hmmmm.
Above: The Ha’penny bridge across the river Liffey
Until next time, 
We had to repack the suitcases and left London in the morning.
We took a London cab to Euston Station, even had a real east-ender cab driver!
Then we had a 3 hour train trip up to Holyhead in Wales.
Then changed to an Irish Ferry for a further 3 hour trip to Dublin.
I went up onto the top deck of the boat to take some photos and nearly got blown off!
So, no photos.
But we were lucky as yesterday the seas were heavy, at least today they were only moderate…
Grey sea, grey sky and grey land!
We are staying in the Temple Bar area of Dublin which is sort of the pub, live music and nightclub district.
But we have a really nice hotel, and asked for a quiet room.
It has a nice view of the Hard Rock cafe next door!
Until next time, 
Last day in London.
So we decided to split up to cover the museums we wanted to see.
(Yes, there are still some museums in London we haven’t seen)
The girls went to the V&A, (The Victoria and Albert museum)
The boys went to the Imperial War Museum.
Big day tomorrow, off on the train & ferry to Dublin.
Until next time, 
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