Paris weekend: cest manifique!

Paris! How lovely, how grand, how majestic! How vast and how exhausting! So much to see, so much to eat and so little time! a mere 3 days..... We walked by the Seine, and around the city.. we hit the sites.. the Louvre (admired from outside), the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Monmatre and Sacre Coeur, the latin quarter... we walked and walked and metroed all day long. We ate crepes, brioche, croissants, salade nicoise, pomme frites, tarts and even french onion soup..
We saw many people walking around with baguettes, fresh from the bakery - albeit without the stripy top and beret.. The Parisians patiently listened to our horrendous french and smiled when Ivan greeted them with "Au Revoir"! (its funny cos its true) .. We wandered around in the evening, when Paris lit itself up and when the Eiffel Tower sparkled. (as above). We rode the metro confidently, tunnelled our way through the city as if we were locals.... except for the relentless map checking and popping up completely disoriented in random plazas and large roundabouts, no one would have known. We sat in cafes and rested our limbs, drank chocolat chaud (as it was very very cold), ate the tart of the day and watched the world go by. One of the best experiences would have to be the Artist's market we went to... with great art, jewellery and curious crafts. After 3 days, happy and exhausted, we carefully packed the few objects d'art we bought at the market into our small 10kg limit cabin luggage for the cheap Ryan Air flight back to Dublin, from some little known Airport 80 km away from Paris central.

L-R The Seine, at the Louvre, shadow puppets and big polar bear at Musee D'Orsay

...Paris Metro, Sacre Coeur, Eiffel Tower: Looking very tall!

The CLT experience

In September we were visited by Craig and Linda and our first nappy wearing guest – Thomas. There was an incredible amount of eating, quite a lot of driving and numerous nappy changes all over central and western Ireland. The first day was a relaxed trip, afternoon start, to Dublin city wandering about the shops and sampling ‘Strawberry fields’. Craig went shopping for a new look resulting in the photo below. We are still looking for a title for this image, existing entrants being: “Dude, where’s my tractor?”, “My chest has slipped again” and “Look, I can make a smiley face with my jumper”










The following day we got serious: a 14 hour car trip to far Galway and back. The road-trip was characterized by contrasts: lovely fast trip to Galway city, round-a-bout related traffic hell trying to drive around the city. Lovely gently sloping green fields were seen in east Galway, while wind-swept beaches and primal bleakness came to the fore the further west we went. Highlights of the trip included brunch at Spiddal in the new coffee shop, the windswept coast near Golam Head and the drive past Lough Inagh on the R344

Over the next few days the family went off to Powerscourt, via the Military Way, through the Wicklows and enjoyed the gardens and a rather good dinner was had by all at the Templeogue Inn. The Shepherd family left us on Friday morning, back to home to Australia and the imminent summer weather – sigh!

Wedding clock

We are very happy to announce the arrival of our beautiful ticking wedding clock!
Delivered by taxi a short 3 days ago, it arrived in perfect order and ever since it has been proudly sitting on our mantlepeice keeping perfect time.
A wedding gift from friends and family it has pride of place in our new home. (The BBQ is feeling quite upstaged)
Here it is sitting happily in it's new habitat, a close up view and it's lovely olde-worlde iron key.

Visitor - Gary

Our next guest was fellow PhD student-victim, Gary. After spending a few days wondering around Dublin and yet again sampling tea and cake at the "Queen of Tarts", which we highly recommend, we went for a delightful walk in the Dublin Hills.
It was a gorgeous sunny day, we had a relaxed walk up to Fairy castle for lunch on the summit.
We had a marvellous view of Dublin Bay and beyond, and all the way around to the Great pointy Sugarloaf mountain. On the way back to the car we suprised and were suprised by a small herd of deer, which promptly disappeared before we could get the cameras organised. It is true though, we promise.
L-R Gary and Ivan on the way up, The fluffy white irish grasses (name unknown)
Reaching the summit, Lunchin' at the cairn at the top of Fairy Castle hill, View looking south, getting a little cold, the path on the way down again

More visitors! Elena's family

August 2008 (High season at Chez Bushy Park) was not yet over and the main guest quarters were still heavily booked. This time, the visitors took the form of Elena's parents, who had been sunning it up for weeks in the north of Spain and thought some milder weather might do them some good. They arrived one moderately sunny morning armed with many many packets of chorizo and jamon and a big jar of vegemite. Naturally, they were made very welcome.
The weather behaved itself most of the time, but like all our guests they too experienced the lovely summer rain, though only on 1 day.
Lucky for them they arrived during 'Heritage week' and Ivan couldn't resist taking us all to the 'Battle of the Boyne' site to see cavalry, musketry, pike and cannon demonstrations by costumed men and women from the local 'we love the battle of the Boyne' historical society. Some of our number went grudgingly (namely Elena), but we all had fun and most importantly Ivan was chuffed. Elena learnt that she should lighten up a little.
One evening we met up with some of Elena's parents' friends (also visiting Dublin) and decided to splash out on a lovely dinner in town... a restaurant called Eden, and perfectly delicious too.. mmm. We also went for a walk down the coast from Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary) to Dalkey (pronounced Dorky), a very cute little village with a tiny 'small boat harbours' - just big enough for a few little boats and a few fishermen. Finally, no visit from parents would be complete without some form of 'learning', so over a glass of red, John gave us all some drawing classes. The results suprised us all, completely oblivious to the sheer talent that lurked sleepily below the surface. A little exaggerated perhaps... but we were truly happlily amazed.
Here we are... in some sort of order: Walking by the Liffey, Fancy dress demonstrations at the Battle of the Boyne, relaxing after picking lots of wild blackberries, John drawing unsuspecting pub patrons, Tere and long term friends Miguel and Maite out for dinner, on the coast at Dun Laoghaire, at Dalkey small boat harbour, with Dalkey island in background, checking out the hot properties.












Artists' corner:
(L-R): Still life by Tere, Ivan (foolishly unsigned) & Elena.
Bottom: Very 'naive' style portrait of Ivan by Elena.

Visitors - Gill & Peter

Monday morning arrived very quickly.... and it was time for Javi and Laura to leave us... Off we drove to the airport and said our goodbyes... and then, our next guests Gill and Peter arrived, only a few minutes later! Off we drove again back to the B&B, with the new guests. Hardly a moment to 'freshen up' the guest-room (change the flowers, refill the kettle, top up tea supplies, replenish the biscuit stack)... such a shame we ran out of time.
But it was so great to see them again ... a real connection to the lives we left behind :(
The next few days was spent catching up, drinking tea, seeing bits of dublin, drinking more tea and exploring some hills and greenery nearby. Ivan and Peter walked in the wicklow mountains one day, while Gill and I walked around Glendalough, sipped yet more tea and chatted all day long. All our guests so far (although it is summer here) have experienced plenty of rain, but there has been sunny clear days as well.
Very Dublin: Gill and Elena in the rain, taking a break in Neary's pub, Ivan and Peter walking in wicklow, Elena and Gill exploring Glendalough monastic site.