Category Archives: Ireland

England, Ireland

If you’re looking for sunshine, stand here.

I lucked out in London four weeks ago. It was pure, blissful sunshine for five days straight. Then I went to Dublin. Surely it was going to rain in Ireland, so I bought a rain coat. A week in Dublin, a couple days in Kilkenny, then Killarney, then Dingle, Doolin, Galway… it didn’t matter where I looked, I couldn’t find rain. So I went to Scotland. I flew from Dublin to Glasgow and spent three dry days there, then I went to Edinburgh, and still, I couldn’t catch a drop. I got pretty close – the ground was wet in Edinburgh when I arrived, but I’d just missed it. Three days later, I took a bus to London and the sun found me there too. I’m just about to embark on day two in London and it appears it may have rained this morning, but now that I’m going out and about, the sun is beaming!

If you’re looking for sunshine, stand next to me. My shadow’s always dry.

 

 

Ireland

Oops, wrong side. Driving in Ireland…

The Irish call it the right side; I call it the wrong side. Truly, it’s the left side. It took me two hours to drive from the west coast of Ireland to the east, Galway to Dublin. I did a quick test drive through a small neighbourhood, swiping just one tree against the left side of the car. Ready, confident, and not a wee bit weary I headed for the real roads. Contrary to my Canadian heritage, I stuck to the speed limit. (In Canada they’re more like minimums. You won’t even get a ticket unless you’re +10 over). But this is Ireland, and my driver’s license card is somewhere in Thailand. So I stuck to the limit, 120km/h.

The only mishap was when I was approaching a toll station on the highway. I naturally reached my hand out to downshift and almost shifted the door handle. Wrong side, we shift with the left hand in Ireland.