Before........................

To Ireland for middle son's wedding.........................................

Lovely bus conductor at the airport telling us how to get to our hotel without having to wait another hour.

Kind gate man at a music festival pointing us in the right direction for the hotel after we turned the wrong way out of the Dart station.

Lovely helpful girls in the shoe shop buying black wedding shoes for Him Outdoors - just happened to have some that I 'needed' too.

How perfect a mug of tea can be.

Walking along the pier in bright sunshine at Dun Laoghaire (sp?) watching the storm clouds over Dublin.

Getting soaked on the pier at Dun Laoghaire listening to the band that were playing in horizontal rain.

First curry for ages in a pub trying to understand the vagaries of Irish football on the telly.

American foursome in the B and B. Two well travelled and name dropping, one just got his first passport and totally overwhelmed.

Young student Gavin leading the historical walking tour of Dublin. Extremely elderly American woman who arrived for the walking tour pushing an oxygen cylinder on a trolley! Watching Gavin trying to suggest that perhaps a 2 hour walking tour wasn't quite what she needed to be doing. (she managed half of it).

Fish and chips in the garden of the cathedral.

The amazing treasures at the Chester Beatty Library.

Eccentric book shop owner telling tales of James Joyce

Meeting a chinese waitress who looked about 15 and turned out to have 2 children and an Irish husband so was probably early thirties. She goes back to China for a month every year with the kids so that they can see the family.

First sight of the spectacular beaches of Donegal.