I can hardly believe that seven years ago, John and I brought everyone to Ireland for our week of Harry Potter and coincidentally, Mother's Day <3 It's just John and I this time, and we wonder how we ever afforded that trip! ;-)
I wasn't sure if it would be Mother's Day in Ireland, so we set off for church in hopes of hearing Irish lads and lassies singing "I Often Go Walking". But before that, unbeknownst to our BnB and our server, I was given a delicious Mother's Day breakfast which is wonderful in a strange kind of way. I mean, at home we don't go out on Mother's Day, so it was fun to have a real excuse to be served beautiful food in the morning before church. The beauty of our BnB extended into the "conservatory" where not only was there a lovely buffet of any kind of bread/scone/muffin you can imagine, but also a full menu. We were dressed for church so it really felt like a lovely event. Look at the menu and see what you would pick:
Me? I could hardly decide. Eventually, I went with the pancakes with a scrambled egg on the side (I asked for them to add cheese and they DID). We were running a bit late thanks to an unnamed party, so I horked it down, but just being given the chance to sit there was so delightful!
At this point, Glo came through with the sweetest message for the day:
Church was in an actual chapel, and I think that's the first chapel we've ever entered in Ireland. In the past, we've gone to "church" in Ireland in hotel ballrooms. It looked a little like a German elementary school with red cloth-covered benches (not pews)...and the red extended up the walls behind the podium. I have to give it to the leaders of that ward though--the talks were EXCELLENT. In fact, one woman spoke for a good 15 minutes about the crosses we bear, and it was a good time to reflect on what cross I can give to the Savior.
Once again, however, Relief Society failed me. What is up with that? I hear that comment from all kinds of women of all ages in all locales. I'm not sure why it never meets expectations. I walked in when I saw the two sister missionaries in there (at least, I thought they were hermanas ;-)), but when I asked them if it was Relief Society, they just replied "we think so".
Okay.
Long story short, they set up a small circle of chairs which I helped them finish, but over the course of the next twenty minutes, more and more women came into the room, and each time there had to be an adjustment of the circle...and the number of chairs. Just when I didn't think we could fit one more chair in the long, narrow room, another woman walked in and set up a chair next to mine. Blocking any other comers from the nearby door, I thought that I had better move my chair, but the only place to do so was BEHIND the one sister missionary who up to this point was completely oblivious to the fact that she should've scooted back. So there I am, wedged in sideways, facing backwards from the teacher, staring at the back wall. It was at that point that I realized that the latest addition was drenched in perfume, and not wanting to fight a headache the rest of the day, I tried to lean as far away from her as possible without being obvious, but when she starting COUGHING? I stood up and walked myself right out of there.
Of course I ran into the elderly gentleman in the parking lot who had conducted sacrament meeting, and after asking about me, he looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Where are you going?" I just told him I had to leave and hopped in my car not five feet from in. Thankfully he went inside and I read the conference talk that was supposedly being discussed just through the window in front of my steering wheel.
To be fair, John said he thought there was a schizophrenic man on meds in Elder's Quorum, so there was lots of talk about the metaphysical....
It's all good though. I was ready to begin John's vacation! Our first heritage site? The Hill of Tara.
I think I was expecting at least a small centre (see what I did there, keeping it Irish with the spelling?) to explain exactly what was there, but we only found a sign that showed what we would be walking on from the air. We wondered why there was a sign of "No drones" as we entered the nearby field, but it soon became apparent when we had no idea what we were seeing or walking on. I mean, we weren't supposed to walk on the mounds, but what was a mound?
It had just rained through the night, so the grass was soaking wet as were our feet within minutes. Like, I could wring out my socks when I got back to the car. But I let John live his best life, and he was off 'splorin' like he loves to do. Of course, when he led me off into a field and I didn't see anything ahead, he pulled the axiom from my children's lives of "c'mon, Aris, there's something over here" and I stopped. No way, man. I know what you're doing. He tried to convince me by telling me that he had seen people coming from that direction, but in Ireland you can't throw a stone without seeing someone walking so that held no credence. Sure enough, there was nothing. But when we got back to the original sign, we were like, "Ahhhh, so THAT'S what we saw." ;-)
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| If I could only BUY John a burial mound... |
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| John would take a selfie with me every step of the way, but I try and limit him ;-) |
The tour was great! An hour long, and we got to go to the top of the castle which had been renovated three times, the last time being in 1290. That's right--no typo here. 1290.
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| The perspective from the top floor. Of course, in the day, there would have been actual floors between stories, but for our purpose, it was REALLY high. And notice something different on John's HAND? Only on vacation is he ever married ;-) |
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| This photo looks like nothing except for the hill in the distance? That's the Hill of Tara! |
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| John, coming DOWN the stairs so that his swinging sword arm is free to fight the attackers! |
We also walked to the "tallest Anglo Norman tower in Ireland." Now don't ask me how many Anglo Norman towers there are in Ireland--for all I know, it could be the only one. But it's seven stories high, and it used to be connected to a monastery. In fact, at one point, this tiny village of Trim had FIVE monasteries. (And if you're wondering who the Anglo Normans are, they are British but they speak French.) But with all castle tours, there was lots of talk about execution and warfare and hierarchy and dungeons and torture. All those things that John thinks are COOL! ;-)
The best part of the day though came when Glo FaceTimed me from Spain while we were walking on the castle grounds. John just kept running around the grounds while she had I shared stories and views over the phone. It was good to hear about her day, to assuage her worries about having to buy dinner on Sunday, and to just see her sweet face. Man, I've missed her.
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| My favorite picture of the trip so far! John was just 'splorin' while I was talking to Glo, and man, he made for some funny pictures! |
I've tried to plan for just one meal a day that we need to buy, and aside from the terrible/not fresh fish and chips John got before we headed into the castle, I found a great steakhouse in the village. In fact, we had mentioned that it was Mother's Day, and they came through! It didn't surprise me when the next day I saw that Trim had been nominated for the friendliest town in Ireland ;-) I have gently "encouraged" Gordon to learn how to make sticky toffee pudding drenched in butterscotch sauce, because I think I need to make it a Mother's Day tradition.
There were some funny things I photographed in Trim:
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| Is that really one word? |
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| I have NEVER seen that word. |
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| This is one of my favorite trees in the whole wide world. We had them in Germany as well. And no, they are not BUCKEYE trees, but are HORSE CHESTNUTS. Don't forget it. |
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| Check out the windows. As if I didn't love Guiness marketing enough... |
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| I thought this was unusual, but I have since seen others. Who knew? |
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| A word I literally have never seen. |
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