Bonnie Wee Scotland

Polish Clan

We arrived at the port of Larne in Northern Ireland in plenty of time and more to spare to find our ferry cancelled due to the weather conditions.  We’d booked a fast ferry, which would have brought us to Scotland in an hour, a strategic plan to avoid, or at best, shorten the time of potential sea sickness!  As it worked out a conventional ferry took us across a bit later in the day, taking two hours to get there, and as you can imagine it was absolutely packed.  But gratefully we arrived in Scotland well and happy, even if pretty tired.

Princess Tiana and the Snow Queen

We’d booked a night at Premier Inn, a chain of hotels much the same as Holiday Inn and the like.  We highly recommend it though.  Large, clean, comfortable rooms newly built or refurbished, yummy breakfast in the morning, late checkout of 12noon.  And cheap.  What more do you want for a good night’s sleep?

Due to the late ferry we arrived at our friend’s place later than expected.  But to finally sit down and relax with Paul and Lisa who we met at our first campsite in Austria was really nice and quite surreal as it seemed like so long ago that we first met them.  Amelia, Noah and Emma played together like no time had passed.  We had a lovely evening with them and grateful for the dinner they’d prepared after our long day of travelling.

Next stop was Edinburgh, as lovely as we remember it.  The only place on Earth where men can get away with wearing skirts………..those strong highland legs and deep gruff Scottish accents…….hmmmm……Anyway!  We definitely recommend it as a city break.  Lovely atmosphere and so much to see and do.  Perhaps without the kids and the rain though, it would make the visit a lot easier!  We were lucky enough to be able to stay with my friend Keara (Sinead’s sister – The Murphy’s should start a hotel chain!) who has two boys so all the kids entertained each other.

We met Maciek’s 2^nd cousin Pszemek, and his wife Kate who live in Edinburgh.  They welcomed us with loads of food and drink in traditional Polish fashion while ‘Cho Cha Babcia’ (Aunty Grandma!) looked after the kids for 6 hours!  Poor lady, up and down the stairs all day, and not even being able to understand what the kids were saying to her the whole time!  We were grateful though as it allowed us to relax for the afternoon.

Our last day in Edinburgh was unfortunately marred by the lashing rain!  Negotiating the streets of a busy city with a toddler in a stroller and a bouncy 4 year old is hard enough without umbrella’s and raincoats and leaky wellies.  It was off to a bad start as on the way to the bus stop (the car was in for a service) Amelia chased the boys and not being used to running in wellies tripped and fell and then sat on the puddly pavement staring at her muddy hands wailing like it was the end of the world!  Needless to say her bum was soaked.  But on we went.  The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on throughout the month of August every year, and if we’d have known we may have planned our visit a little better.  We ventured into to town to catch a couple of shows for the kids and soak up the atmosphere, only to find the particular venue we’d planned to visit not open until the following week, and the only thing that soaked anything up were our feet as we hurried across Princes Street to avoid a bus and encountered an enormous puddle not unlike a river on the other side of the road!  I had luckily worn my new waterproof hiking shoes, but poor Maciek and Amelia squelched around for the next couple of hours until we finally gave up and went home!

Keara, Kenny and us

Love is in the air?  James and Milly

That evening though, after we’d dried off and warmed up, Keara and Kenny brought us into town to catch a snippet of the festival in the way of comedian Rob Deering.  We took a punt on buying tickets for his show as none of us had heard of him.  And we were glad we did as he was hilarious!  Laugh out loud funny all the way through.  So keep an eye out for him, you’ll not be disappointed!

It was lovely to see Keara again after so long, and meet her boys James and Conor (and Kenny of course!).  And thanks to Maribel for looking after the sleeping angels (?) while we escaped for an hour or two!

It would have been nice to head this blog with a gorgeous photo of Edinburgh Castle, but to attempt to take the camera out of the bag while outdoors would have resulted in it's death! 

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I’ve neglected to mention the traffic we’ve encountered. 

I’ve no pictures to account for it but rest assured we’ve been surprised by deer bounding across the road in front of us in France and Ireland; a herd full of cows surrounding our car (imagine the mooing coming out of Noah at that sight!); and a woolly cluster of sheep meandering over the bridge ahead of us. 

And lo and behold - la piece da resistance - one white lonely chicken, clucking its way across the road, in Fanad Head.

Booooookkk bok bok bokka!

Where on Earth is Fanad Head?



The Lighthouse



Well, it’s the second most northern point of Ireland, in County Donegal and my friend Olivia happens to live there, otherwise we’d have no reason to go!  But I’m glad she does live there, because we would have missed out on seeing a gorgeous part of the country.

It’s about a 5 hour drive from Dublin, so half way there we stopped at The Murphy’s for lunch.  I’m giving it capital letters, because even though it’s my good friend Sinead’s family home, it’s also good old fashioned Irish hospitality at its best, and we may as well have stopped in at a pub or restaurant of the same name!  Lovely Margaret treated us to a full lunch including desert she’d made herself as well as special orders for the kids!  I think they must have been happy to see the back of us though, as Amelia and Noah went absolutely mental in there, running laps around the table squealing and screaming.  I guess that’s what happens after nearly 3 hours stuck in a car! And it was lashing rain, so no hope of letting the energy loose in the garden.

The Murphy’s are in Northern Ireland, and the quickest way to reach our destination was to pass through it.  It was a bit unnerving when we passed through a town and came across thousands of cars parked near a field.  A music festival? A fair?  Men in bowler hats, others wearing some kind of uniform with sash’s bearing numbers/dates?, and Union Jacks flying all around.  It felt like a bullseye on the political dartboard of religion, or country, whichever rings the truest.  Not sure, but with the trouble going on in the North again we were glad once we’d left it behind.  Chatting to Mr Murphy about it later the words ‘march’ and ‘Black Saturday’ were mentioned.  Not sure what that really means, but haven’t heard any news about it since so all must have gone well with it.

As we drove further north out of Northern Ireland, the landscape became more rugged and wild, but despite this we found Olivia’s place with no problem at all thanks to her no nonsense straight talking right on the money brilliant directions!  We had packed all our woolies in the boot to have on hand as we expected our heads to be blown off by the gale force winds upon stepping out of the car on the driveway of the house at the end of the world!  But, not so, it was sunny and calm!  Albeit not so warm!

Olivia, Colin and little Ollie live in a gorgeous house with a sun room attached which has a spectacular view of the rugged hills and rocky cliffs that make up the coastline.  The one full day we were there the weather was great, and we spend time on the beach, exploring the rocks while the crazy Irish Fanad Head people actually swam!  Olivia thought we were mad, going to the beach dressed in our winter best with runners and socks on, while she sported flip flops and had little Ollie in a swimsuit!

We had a lovely time, beer drinking, chocolate eating, and catching up on the past seven years (Oh my God, we’ve got kids now!!) and Amelia scored an Oopsie Daisy doll complete with a musical bed!

Room with a view

Thank you for having us.  We’d love to visit again someday.  Apologies though for leaving you with the howling wind and lashing rain in our wake!  It appears we spent our one day in Fanad Head on it's only sunny day of the year!

Freezing feet!

Top o’ the mornin’ to ye…..



Glendalough



Splashing in the 'Lough'

First of all nobody says that.  And there are no leprechauns running about, except for the man dressed up as one by the Molly Malone statue in Grafton Street. And not everybody can play the tin whistle, or is an expert at jigging about without moving their arms.  But tis true what they say about the craic!!



Jack and Milly and Little Timmy Cahill



According to Trip Advisor, Dublin is one of the top 5 cities for having the friendliest locals, and you really do feel that.  My friends that live here might beg to differ, but it’s what we’ve always loved about this place and still do.  We’ve had a great week, visiting places we used to go when we lived here that hold memories of friends and funny times!  We’ve enjoyed listening to Ray Darcy on the radio with his entertaining accent and talk back topics!  The weather had been quite good too, as far as Irish weather goes!

It’s been nice to have spacious accommodation, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and big ones at that.  We’ve enjoyed being in Glendalough, away from the hustle and bustle, but close enough to it with a short enough drive.



Wayne, Esme with all of us



We’ve spent a couple of days with Wayne, Esme and their three littlies, having lunch and sorting out disputes about who this block belongs to or who had the ball first!  We dropped in on the gymnastics club I used to coach at and met Louise again who now runs it and two of my former protégés who are now coaches themselves which left me feeling very old! 



On the DART



At Bray fair

We’ve walked around beautiful Glendalough.  Enjoyed an evening at the fair on the Bray seafront.  Caught the DART into the city where we wandered, dodging the crowds and tried to have a drink and experience a bit of the ‘craic’ which didn’t turn out so well!  Because Noah was asleep ( a positive thing in most circumstances!), we couldn’t go into one of the good pubs as they were busy and the music was loud, so we had to settle for a near deserted one, with not so traditional decor, playing not-live Irish music, which was better than nothing.  But then Amelia fell of her stool.  And then she needed the loo so I spent most of the time waiting for her in the toilet cubicle listening to her chattering away!  As Maciek said, we love Dublin, and have great fun memories here , but it’s been difficult to really soak up the atmosphere.  And it felt quite strange walking my daughter down the very steps towards the loo that I must have staggered down, drunk, many a time at two in the morning! Later in the afternoon we met another coaching buddy Sinead in St Stephen’s Green for a coffee while the kids played on the park, a lovely end to a full day in the city. 



Where's the Pot of Gold?



We went to Blackrock, the place Maciek and I lived when we were here together for a year and still loved it.  There used to be a crèche in the shopping centre which we were hoping to avail of.  Unfortunately it wasn’t there anymore, but to our amazement the poor Romanian lady sitting on the corner trying to sell copies of the Big Issue WAS still there!  After 7 years!  I always re member passing her on the street and hearing her quietly call out ‘please lady, Big Issue, please’.  I doubt she’s that poor really.



Collecting pebbles Killiney Beach



The food we’ve had here is the best, eating out.  We always remember it being good quality.  And it was nice knowing when we ordered anywhere we’d have an enjoyable meal (so long as Amelia and Noah were in the mood!)  And Maciek has loved the Guinness!  A bit too much judging by the spare tyre he’s sporting at the moment! (I can’t talk, I’ve been getting into the chocolate digestives with my cups  of tea!)



?????



Coaches old and new



On a parting note, Maciek bought himself some new flip flops (thongs for all the Aussies!).  I’m not sure he realized what colour they were.  Let us know what you think?  To keep or not to keep, that is the question!













How’s Yer Craic?

My Bitter Sweet Pint

Arrh Dublin, it is great to be back in Dublin. We felt it from the moment we drove off the ferry, which was very smooth this time. We are staying about an hour out from Dublin city in the Wicklow mountains. It’s a bit far out but most of the people that we know here live about 20 minutes away in Shankill and when we lived here we said if we were to stay we would want to live in this area and Glendalough is Melanie’s favourite place in Ireland, we are about 2 minutes away from it.  So this is why we chose to stay here and we couldn’t get accommodation anywhere else, to be sure, to be sure.

Its feels very bitter sweet to be back here, as represented by my bitter sweet pint of Guinness pictured.  We would love to be sitting in a great pub drinking and listening to the Irish “go on, go on” but unfortunately that is very difficult with the kinder in tow.  For some reason they don’t seem to like the pub scene very much.

Yep that is a measuring cup!

I BIN to Glendalough

We don’t mean to be harping on AGAIN how the kids are limiting our holiday experience, because we absolutely adore them and love what they have to throw at us, but it’s hard to reflect back and feel nostalgic when you’ve got Amelia asking for ice cream every two minutes and Noah trying to put crayons into your pint of Guinness.  Also his bin obsession seems to have reappeared since we docked here. But nevertheless I have still managed to add at least two pints of Guinness every day to my ever expanding waste line (jogging has given way to napping!). I have discovered that if Ihave one beer during the day it just puts me to sleep, but two makes me quite jolly indeed, in fact, I had a headache today , could have been hay fever, after one pint I felt terrible but the second one cleared me right up and I felt good for the rest of the day.  Well until about 4 o’clock

Us on the dart, taken by Milly, great snap princess

when I felt tired (as I didn’t get my nap) and had to have a coffee.

Anyway, sorry about the rambling just thought I’d get the weeks blogging started.  Melanie will fill you in about what we’ve been up to soon.

Cheers

maciek

The Only Australians in the Villaaaage

For one night only we are Myfanwy and Dafydd in Llangefni.  You will only understand the title of this blog if you watch Little Britain!

We are staying at the Bull Hotel, advertised as being a 4 star establishment which makes me think the star ratings system in Wales is seriously overrated!  Judging by this place if we'd have booked a 1 star we would now be looking up at the stars surrounded by half standing stone walls and being greeted by wandering sheep with a hole in the ground for a toilet!  I can't believe they have the nerve to call themselves 4 star, they must have made it up themselves, as i can't see anyone else awarding it to them!

It is a one night stop over.  Our ferry for Dublin leaves at 10am tomorrow from Holyhead.  The bar is downstairs and sounds a bit rowdy so hopefully we don't get any drunkard skunkard welshmen staggering about and knocking on the door at 3 o'clock in the morning!

We haven't had internet for the past week, so just catching up on some things tonight while we have it, and not sure if we'll have it next week either. 

And another thing or two:

• The Not-So-Magic Roundabouts in the UK are terrible!!
• Before we left home we put all our music onto the Ipod thinking it will be great on long car journeys to listen to our favourite tunes.  Only it doesn't work.  For some reason we can't tune it in.  Or if we do it drops in and out of range which is extremely annoying.  More annoying is that the only CD's we brought with us are Norah Jones (it was just in there) and The Wiggles:  You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.  So for those of you who think we've been galavanting around the beautiful countryside listening to really cool tunes (or what we think are really cool), we've actually been learning the words to 'Old Man Tucker' and 'One Finger One Thumb' off by heart!!
• I never mentioned the water in Austria.  It comes out of the tap lovely and cold and so velvety smooth tasting better than the bottled water we get at home.  The sad thing is I hardly drank any!  I will definately make up for it when we go back.
• Noah still hates the car.  He seems to spend 4 hours whinging and screaming only to fall asleep 20 minutes before we reach our destination! 

Before I go I just want to say that whilst i've been here in Wales I've noticed quite a few strange looking flags hanging about displaying a picture of a fiery red dragon?  Not sure what that's all about, except that it could be the spirit of Nana Lol following us around??!!

he he he he!!

I say, Chipping, Old Chap

Chipping Campden

The farm owners residence

Our next stop in England was just outside a lovely village called Chipping Campden (rather posh), in the Cotswalds, on a farm where the stables have been converted to cottages.  It’s a stunning area, beautiful historical villages (must be good as even Maciek is impressed) and endless countryside.  And our cottage is not unlike the one we had in France, a bit more modern and luxurious though. There’s even towel warmer in the bathroom, and lovely thick luxury towels to hang on it!

Horsing around on our farm

Harry and Emily taking charge

It’s been a very full week, catching up with family and friends.  Saturday was a BBQ at my cousin Warren and Caron’s house with Nan P.  A lovely afternoon where Harry and Emily looked after the kids the entire time so we could just relax!  And to top it off, Maciek got to see Cadel Evans win the Tour!

A couple of days out in Stratford-Upon-Avon with Uncle Stephen and Aunty Karen and then Nan and Grandad.  Some photo’s outside of Shakespeare’s house, a beer in a 16^th century pub, a boat ride on ! Avon, a picnic, fish n chips and ice-cream and a pink balloon made into a pony for Amelia which was put down for a rest and subsequently carried into the air by a breeze which prompted Karen to say “That pony’s just blown off!” which of course had me in stitches!

Caron was kind enough to offer to babysit on Tuesday night so me and Maciek could enjoy a much needed dinner to ourselves in a traditional country pub called the Howard Arms a couple of villages away.  I went the whole hog and ordered a starter, main, dessert and coffee and was so full i had trouble breathing while i tackled the tiny unlit country roads on the way home!

Nan P outside our cottage

50P ferry across the Avon

Shakespeares house with Nan and Grandad

Fish n Chips with Steve and Karen

A trip to Tamworth to see friends and family and a day out a Warwick Castle.

Warwick Castle dates back to the 11^th century and is extremely well preserved.  I have been twice before but now they’ve added some attractions to it which makes it feel a bit more like a theme park.  At various times throughout the day there are shows such as sword fighting, birds of prey display, jousting and we even saw a medieval trebuchet (catapult) shooting a fireball into the distant countryside (mind your head!), all in full costume with hidden speakers belting out medieval music to go with the display.  It’s very impressive.  There are people wandering the grounds in medieval costumes, playing the part, and a Princess Tower, visited twice by Princess Amelia!  We paid to visit the Dungeon with live actors (Maciek was called up to demonstrate an execution and had his ear chopped off!) and the Merlin Tower, both new since I last went.  I wouldn’t recommend them though, not so much for the extra cost but the time they took up.  As children are not allowed into the Dungeon Maciek and I had to go separately which took up nearly two hours, and personally we don’t think they are worth it.  It would have been nicer to have more time to wander around the castle and grounds, as even though we were there for almost 6 hours we still didn’t see it all.  Amelia was given a pea in the princess tower to put under her mattress and she went to bed that night SO excited at the prospect of waking up a real princess if she felt the pea (we put it under her sheet and crossed our fingers!) but to no avail!  She was very disappointed but that didn’t stop her dressing up for the rest of the week in her princess dress and tiara!



The real princesses!



Warwick Castle