A weeks worth of news

Right, here goes... I spent a couple of days going into Dublin city doing the Tourist thing. The first thing I did was to go and see the book of Kells. It's quite impressive the amount of time and effort that went into it.

I just had to go and tour the Guinness storehouse while I was there, so spent most of that afternoon doing that. They give you a free Pint at the end of it which I struggled my way through. And the Jameson experience was quite good too, even if they no longer distill the whiskey there. You get a free sample of that as well.

Of course I also did some non-alcoholic things too. I had a wander around looking at some of the older buildings like Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The trip down to Youghal was quite a nice drive, I think the Irish countryside is much like home. We stopped off at the rock of Cashel, a bunch of old ruins on top of a big rocky outcrop. My stepsister Denise had a bit of trouble finding the rock when she was here a few years back. I think I might have found the actual rock, but I'm not 100% sure...

Youghal itself is quite a nice sleepy little town. It was an old walled city and one of the gates still stradles the main road. It's noot far from where the Titanic set out on its first and final voyage, and the fact is well advertised with posters and newspaper articles hanging on the walls of many of the local pubs. Most of the week was taken up with relaxing, a few pints at some of the local watering holes, and day trips out to see what we could see.

Of course, being so close to Blarney castle, a trip to see it was a must. And yes, I did kiss the Blarney stone. Whether or not it bestowed it's gift of elequence on me or not remains to be seen...

I even paddled my feet in the Atlantic ocean, although it was far too cold to put the rest of me in.

So that's basicly my last week in a nutshell. I only have a couple more days here in Naas before I head off to London for the start of my tour, so I'm quite looking forward to that. Although the terrorism that's been going on over ther in the last couple of days is quite scary. Here's hoping it's all blown over by the time I get there...