The Wedding Part 2

Sunday March 17—Saint Patrick’s Day

I awoke fairly early, I really don’t know why, I guess I was just excited to get on with our trip. Jeff and Nicola had gone out after we went to bed last night, and bought pizza for their dinner( they seem to eat fairly late) so we had leftover pizza for breakfast. Yummy.

It was sunny and cold as off we went into town for the Saint Patrick’s day parade. I drove my rental in to The University of Ulster where Nicola works and made use of her parking pass. We were just around the corner from the Cathedral Church of Saint Ann, a truly beautiful building, of which the UK and Ireland have many.

After a short walk we arrived in front of Belfast's City Hall where the parade was to start. I knew we were at the right place when I spotted Saint Patrick himself leading the parade. That's him with the beard.

 

 

The parade was very energetic but short. Very colourful too. I was told it gets better every year. They could learn a thing from the St. Patty's day parades (plural)  in New Orleans. Sorry , I digress.

Belfast city proper has a population of only 281000 while with the area around, it’s over 600,000, and it’s still hard to find a place to park. Luckily the downtown area is fairly easy to walk as we did several times. One of the places we enjoyed was Saint George’s Market. It’s sort of an indoor farmers market, something like the Saint Lawrence Market in Toronto, but probably 4 times older and as you can see by the photo below it’s fairly big.  Today, a number of events were taking place, including some young ladies doing Irish dancing.

We had lunch from one of the many venders and purchased  some hummus and some excellent sun dried tomatoes.

The day was capped off with drinks in (what else) a local pub. We both had Irish Coffee and it’s not a bad way to get your caffeine.

It rained on the way home, then the sun came out. Still colder than I liked.

 

Monday March 18

Today the rest of the story began. After breakfast we packed our hired car and headed off to Galway. The GPS (sat nav in the UK and probably Europe) said take the third exit from the upcoming roundabout.

Roundabouts are quite another thing about driving in the land of our forefathers. Here in the UK, Ireland and other so called civilized places, they don’t control a place where 2 or more roads come together with traffic lights, they have roundabouts. It’s a simple idea really, that works well when traffic is light. A car in the roundabout has the right of way. Normal 2 lane roads come together and carry on without much fuss. When multilane roads come together at rush hour it’s a whole different thing.  Strangely enough, many of the more  complex roundabouts  are now controlled with traffic lights. Sort of defeats the purpose. Some roundabouts have several exits. That’s what I was talking about in the last paragraph.

The GPS said to take the 3rd exit. Only problem was there was no roundabout. It had been converted to an intersection so what I really had to do was make a right turn. Of course I was in the wrong lane by the time we figured that out. Straight through then a U turn to get back to the intersection then a left turn and we were on our way, till next time. One nice thing about modern GPS’s, they never criticise your driving skills, they just recalculate and give you  updated instructions to get you on your way. I know because we caused our GPS to recalculate quite a few times.  

The GPS had calculated about a 5 hour drive to the B&B I had booked in Galway, it took closer to 8 hours. On the plus side ,we did see a lot of Irish countryside. We arrived at the B&B about 5 PM and after parking in a very tight space we settled in.

 

Tuesday March 19- Thursday March 21 (first day of spring???)

The B&B was an easy walk to the center of Galway, so the car didn’t move while we were there. One of the things I was interested in seeing was the Spanish Arch and Parade. My grandmother, Delia Goulding , was born in Galway and since she was 8 when she left, the only thing she remembered was the Spanish Arch. It was part of the wall built in 1584, that once surrounded Galway and was used for access to the docks when it was told to me Spanish ships unloaded their cargo (mostly wine).

This bird stood outside a restaurant door begging to be fed. It was there every day we passed.

Two bus trips (pick up at our door), the first to the Cliffs of Moher (where part of the Princess Bride movie was filmed) and The Burren (a somewhat desolate but beautiful National Park) adjoin each other.

Carolyn at O’Brien’s Tower.

The cliffs cover more than 8 km of coast and over 200 metres (700 ft.) in height at the tallest point. The pic below is a panorama from Wikipedia taken from the O’Brien tower. O’Brien tower in case your interested was built by Cornelius O’Brien in 1835 a local landlord. One version of the story says he built the tower to impress a lady.

The picture below is from Wikipedia.

The view is spectacular on a clear day. We will have to take their word for it as we just got a good view of approaching rain showers.

Rain heading our way.

Lucky for us though this was O’Brien week. Seems the local tourist people are celebrating the Gathering in Ireland by marking each week this year with a different original Clan from County Clare and this week was O’Brien. We received a certificate and a  goodie bag.

 

Some parts of the cliffs are naked and unprotected. We didn’t walk out there.

The second bus trip was to another National Park called The Connemara. (You may have heard of Connemara marble). We also visited Kylemore Abby, originally a castle like home on a 15000 acre estate, built in 1850 by Mitchell Henry. The estate was very self contained with fruits and  veggies all year long from the gardens and greenhouses.

It was a rainy day but also incredibly windy. One of the staff told me he could not remember a worse day in the 20 years he had worked there.  We had trouble walking upright.

Mitchell Henry built a beautiful small cathedral like Gothic church in memory of his wife Margaret, then at some point he ran out of money and a group of nuns from France bought the place and turned it into an Abby and school. The school recently closed due to poor enrolment.

Friday March 22

The trip back to Belfast was a little smoother and faster. We took the highway towards Dublin ducking off a couple of times to avoid the tolls. On one of the side trips we stopped in a town (didn’t write it down so can’t say where) for lunch at a pub (where else?) The soup du jour, served with bread, was very good. When we mentioned to the waiter where we were going, he said he wouldn't go to Belfast today. Seem they had a bad snowfall and many roads were impassable.

This is what we found when we arrived back at Jeff’s house (our rental is the white one on the right). Not really a lot of snow by

Canadian standards but the city has almost no equipment to handle a snowfall. It was worse in the nearby countryside. Nicola’s parents were snowed in and lost power for two days. The farmers were out rescuing sheep and their lambs by digging them out with shovels. The evening we arrived back in Belfast we went to  dinner with Nicola’s parents at the Dirty Duck (a  favourite of Jeff and Nicola) then went to a play put on by the company that Jeff has performed with. The play took place in a pub(!!!) and dealt with a young mans return to his home town from America.

To be continued:

The Wedding part 1

The Wedding Trip 2013

Friday March 15.

We left home a little early on a cold cloudy day.  Should be no problem with the flight I thought, the computer said the flight was on time,   but why tempt fate? After all, it's a 2 hour drive if there is no traffic, but crossing the 401 through  Toronto almost screams traffic. Well the trip was  fairly uneventful and after parking at Park n Fly  we made our way to Terminal 1. The shuttle  dropped us off almost in front of the United  Airline counter and there was no line up. Wow  things were going well, so far. The agent said she was glad we were early because our flight had  been delayed--- but she could get us on an earlier  flight that had also been delayed. ??? We were a   little confused at that point but she assured us we would have no trouble making our connecting  flight. After borrowing a pen and filling out the  U.S. Customs form we proceeded through security. Again, fairly smooth, I didn't have to take my  shoes off, only my belt. Of course we were selected to have our carry on luggage hand inspected. No  biggy, I had my backpack repacked in less than 10  minutes. We proceeded to customs, and again  fairly smooth once the agent realized we were just passing through the U.S., they weren't that  interested. The plane was a smallish connecting  type that could handle maybe 40 passengers.  There were 7 of us. We pretty well had our choice of any seat in the back  two thirds of the craft.

 

Waiting for take off.

 

A smooth trip. The only exciting spot was the view between the clouds and haze of New York City as we approached Newark, New Jersey.

 

Our flight to Belfast was a Boeing 757 with 2 rows of 3 seats. It could handle about 180 passengers. We sat a little back of the wing on the right side.  Our seat mate was a young man who was on his  way to Galway with a church group to rebuild a  school. There were about 40 of them all wearing  yellow "T" shirts. We were reasonably impressed  with the plane and United Airlines, world travelers that we are. They served a lite dinner and then  several  hours later (as the sun appeared )a small breakfast. Carolyn tried to sleep without  much success. I watched a movie on the small  screen in the back of the seat in front of me. I  must have been really impressed because I don't  remember the movie at all. Maybe I did sleep, but I don't think so.

Not sure why everyone jumps up as soon as the  plane stops at the gate because they can't go  anywhere. The people up in first class get off first although I think even they have to wait for their  bags like the rest of us. The airlines seem to load  the craft fairly smoothly, but getting out is a free  for all. Maybe it does work better that way.

 

Saturday March 16

That's right, it was the next day when we landed  in Belfast. We had put our clocks and egg timers  ahead 6 hours (usually it’s 5 hours but N. Ireland was still on standard time) At U.K.

Customs there were 2 queues (lines to you North  Americans), one for countries that are European  Union members and then the rest of the world.  Both lines went to the same place, the EU line was just much shorter. When it was our  turn the agent asked quite a few questions  including how much money we were bringing in  as well as Jeff's address. He did find it interesting that our Canadian son was marrying a lass from  Northern Ireland. He also found it interesting that Jeff had just received his "Leave to Remain"  papers, something like our landed immigrant  status.

Speaking of Jeff and Nicola, they were waiting for us as we exited the gate and it was raining.  Welcome to spring in Northern Ireland I thought.

I had arranged to hire a car through a friend of  Jeff's, so that was our next stop. Patrick (Jeff's  friend (good name aye)) had got us a fantastic deal on a brand new Hyundai I40 (not available here) with more bells and  whistles that I knew existed. I thought it could  almost drive itself, which would have been good,  because it had been a while since I drove a  standard and then there is the driving on the left  thing.

Somehow we made it to Jeff and Nicola's house  where they prepared a fantastic waffle, bacon and brie lunch. They called it lunch but my stomach  wasn't sure. Somewhere we had lost a day.

They had an errand to run to a town called  Killyleagh, so off we went. Killyleagh has the  distinction of having the oldest continuously  inhabited castle in Northern Ireland.

 

It was raining, but that's wet snow now.

It's owned privately and is very nicely kept. It was still raining so we found ourselves in the Dufferin Arms, the local pub. A fair size crowd was in the  pub watching a rugby game between Ireland and  Italy. We found a very small room (just big enough for the four of us) and ordered drinks.

The bar maid came around and offered us some  Irish stew. Seems they had made too much for the game crowd. Lucky us. After the game we listened to a group in the same pub playing traditional  Irish Folk and Bluegrass music.

A normal Saturday  so the sign says. On arriving back at the house we talked for a while then we excused ourselves and went to bed. At that point I think  we had been up for over 24 hours.

 

To be continued, soon I hope.

End of 2012, Merry Christmas to All

Christmas 2012

Hi All

The end of another year is approaching faster than I like. We have been keeping busy in our retirement and both of us wonder how we ever found time to work.

The weather has been a typical Canadian (at least southern Ontario) winter. I'm still wishing we had managed another trip south, but there are more important things afoot.

We spent the first 2 months of 2012 in Alabama at our favourite Escapee Park where I learned how to re cain chairs and took several cooking classes. Carolyn spent her time learning and teaching various crafts. We also toured several interesting places and even had a ride on a cotton harvesting combine. We discovered an interesting place to buy fish in Pensacola called Joe Patty's. The counter is over 40 Ft long with fresh fish from all over North America. Great cooked shrimp too.

In March we again went with good friends to New Orleans for the St Patrick Day Parades. I'm sure nobody does parades any better than the people of N'orleans.

The Gulf Posse (an Escapee sub chapter we belong to) held their spring rally at a pleasant park in Biloxi, Mississippi. We enjoyed learning about this city that was horribly damaged by hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. Many of the old homes will never be replaced because they can't get insurance anymore. The beach is one of the nicest we have ever come across.

On the way home we stopped for a few days at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania a place we have wanted to visit for a long time. The weather was great and we really enjoyed this area of so much American history.

The fun didn't stop after we arrived home. The Maple Leaf chapter of Escapees (another part of the Escapees Club we belong to) held their spring rally at Simcoe, Ontario.

We enjoyed our time with this friendly group. We joined them again at the fall rally in Meaford where we learned that the underground railway that helped slaves escaping from the south, actually ended. The War of 1812 had an impact here too. The guest speaker one evening was a high school history teacher with a specialty in the War of 1812. He spends his free time re-enacting famous battles with authentic replicas of the original equipment.

Our trailer is stored for now, but should be ready next spring when we plan on going to the spring rally near Kingston. Another busy War of 1812 area.

Kevin and Sarah are both working, leading busy lives. Kevin is working shifts for a temp agency with a contract to Rogers. Unfortunately he drives to Scarborough every day (and night) and frequently has to work weekends. Sarah is the trainer for a school bus company. She helps out in the office as well.

Emylee is 17 now,(that alone makes me feel old) doing well in school and plays for the school rugby team. (in June the team went to the Ontario Girls Rugby Championship and did very well)

She also just got her first job with Old Navy and is working on her drivers permit.

The younger ones Ethan (11 next Feb) is nice and tall and loves his hockey, while Evelyn (9 in January) follows her grandmother in her love of crafts. They spent a week with us this past summer, with a trip to the Reptile Zoo and swimming almost everyday. Another hi-light was a boat tour of the Peterborough lift lock.

The big news is our son Jeff's up coming nuptials. That is happening in March 2013 in Belfast, Northern Ireland and is the real reason we didn't go south this year. We plan on spending a month in Ireland and England and we didn't want to be driving home in late February, early March.

Jeff and Nicola are homeowners in Belfast and we connect on SKYPE almost every week. Jeff still does some acting (He had small parts (one speaking) in the first 2 seasons of HBO's "Game of Thrones") Other than working he is in the final year of a course on Environmental Studies. Planning the wedding is taking up all their spare time. More later.....

We hope you Have the best Christmas and New Year you've ever had.

Pat and Carolyn

Our time in L.A. is winding down.

As usual, time flies when you’re having fun. Or at least when you are busy all the time. We have been busy and most of it was fun. I should be keeping notes so I can go over it all but I haven't so I can’t.

The plan is to leave Lower Alabama next Friday morning (the 9th) going to New Orleans in Louisiana. We will be there for the St. Patrick day parades which spread over 2 weeks, then east again to Biloxi Mississippi for a week long camping rally before we start north. I expect to be home around Easter week end.

Mardi Gras is the big deal around the south and Lower Alabama is no exception. Carolyn did a piece on the history of Mardi Gras at the beginning of the festivities while the newly chosen King and Queen prepared themselves for their coronation. Carolyn did an excellent job. The clips are too big to include in this  blog, but I’m trying to put it on a service called “Drop Box” so all that want to can enjoy. More later if I’m successful. The following are just some random pictures. Hope you enjoy.

Carolyn and Barb at the Mardi Gras opening.

Mardi Gras parade in Pensacola. There were 61 parades in our area.

Birthday breakfast at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear.

We road our bikes through Gulf  State Park where there was a fire last year caused by a careless camper.


Carolyn and Dottie grooving to the music.


Carolyn teaching a class.

Tour of the USS Alabama.

Me on the bow of USS Alabama in the fog.

Helping in the kitchen at Mardi Gras.


Carolyn on her birthday with friend Joan.


Sea food sales counter at Joe Pattie’s in Pensacola on a quiet day.
It was the largest display of fresh fish we have ever seen. Shrimp were fantastic and they cooked them free. On busy weekends the crowd is 3-4 deep.


Learning how to make knitting needles from bamboo skewers.



Me with the 2 chairs I caned. About 50-60 hours each. The snow- flake pattern on the back of the left chair was particularly difficult. The chairs (22 in all) were auctioned off raising $4300 for CARE, a facility in Texas that helps full time RVers when they are sick.

Hope all is well were you are.

The past weeks have been exciting, interesting and fattening all at once.

The front entrance to our campground. Photo thanks to Barb Ellis.

Just before Christmas we went to see the Fish River Christmas Boat parade. Over 20 boats (a record number we were told) took part and it was a cold but otherwise pleasant night. We went with Terry and Barb then went out for pizza at the Yellow Mushroom, a place I have been wanting to try.

A tremendous amount of imagination goes into many boats.

Christmas Eve we attended the Episcopal church in Foley. St. Paul's was decorated like no other church we had seen before. There were evergreen boughs all over. The pine smell was delightful. Along the walls at each window large candles in hurricane chimneys were lit. The altar area was a red sea of poinsettias. We went early to make sure we got a seat and to listen and sing Christmas carols. Strangely enough half the songs were unknown to us. But the sermon was interesting. Its' theme was “what had brought us here tonight?” That sounds simple enough but the priest had some very thought provoking points. It was one sermon I would like to hear again. Meanwhile back at the ranch, there was a Christmas party of sorts on at the clubhouse but we decided to skip that and spend the rest of the evening in our home on wheels eating some snacks Carolyn had prepared.

Christmas day started with breakfast with our Canadian friends, Terry and Barb. Barb had prepared a delicious sausage and egg dish and Carolyn brought our Christmas morning traditional cheese pie.

Christmas morning with Barb and Terry

Around noon we went to the clubhouse to set up and decorate our table for Christmas dinner. We had 13 at our table. Normally the tables are set up for 10 but our table was so popular we ended up with 13. The way it works here at the Plantation, the park provides the meat and gravy and the table participants bring everything else. It took a little arranging  but it all worked out quite well and again we ate too much.

The next day we were eating again as the park had a pot luck dinner to use up all the leftovers. There was new stuff too.

New Years Day was fairly quiet except for one thing. At noon we jumped in the pool. This was a little unusual since the pool is not heated and is not normally open in the winter. A large crowd gathered to watch the 30 or so of us who can now officially be called dipsticks. We even have a certificate to prove it. Water temp was 65F and air was 69F. I don't know why but the air temp felt a lot better than the water. After the dip we were served a lunch of hot chile and drinks.

Carolyn showing off (last one out)

Joan lives in the park and organized this event.

Smiling before our dip.

Terry was late jumping in. (looks happy doesn't he) There's me in the background.

Most weeks during the winter there are 3 meals provided by the park. The Tuesday meal (at $5) is usually a simple dish while the Thursday dinner ($6) is a little more elaborate. Saturday morning breakfast ($3.50) is a straightforward bacon or sausage, eggs and coffee, sometimes pancakes or french toast replace the eggs. Sunday there is also coffee and bagels. I'm sure these meals are one of the reasons this park is so successful. This past week we skipped Tuesday’s meal (it was too close to Christmas) and Thursday's was moved to Friday. To keep costs down, Larry (our cook) asks for help preparing and serving the meal. We quite often help out and we jumped in on Friday. I got to cut up cucumbers and green peppers for the salad then we put the food (this time it was chicken steaks, linguine with broccoli and beans in tomato sauce) on the plates. The advantage to helping is you get to meet more people and you prepare your own plate. Yep, more eating.

Carolyn has been busy with knitting baby hats. These are donated to hospitals for newborn infants. She has also learned how to make fancy pillow cases. We now have a new rug in front of the kitchen sink in the trailer. Carolyn's talents go on and on.

Last Wednesday, Carolyn went on a day trip to New Orleans. Two bus loads pulled out of the campground at 7 in the morning. I was signed up to go but the original date was changed and I had already signed up for a cooking class on the new date. Carolyn was with several friends but still managed to accomplish the one thing she wanted to do, that was to purchase a Mufalata sandwich. In fact she got two of them. The sandwich was developed in the early years of New Orleans for workers who wanted a hearty portable lunch. It's made from a special loaf of Italian bread with slices of meat and cheese with an oil, chopped olive and a vegetable sort of salad. We had them last year in New Orleans and they are good. A quarter of a sandwich is a good meal.

In my cooking class Barb Phillips showed a select group her secrets to making chicken roll-ups, jezebel sauce, fresh garden salad (with pineapple, strawberries and pecans). Lunch finished with a custard pie. I've already put my name down for the next class in a couple of weeks.

I've also started caning another chair. This one will need the back done too, so I can learn the snowflake pattern. More on that later. 

Cook's corner- first class.

Barb showing her method for peeling a pineapple.

The class just before lunch.

I've been playing around with this blog entry too long now. There are many other activities I could include. All the best to all of you for the New Year.