Not Before Time

Just a quick update – we are having a few problems with the laptop at the moment which we hope to have fixed over the next few days.  Meanwhile, we spent a terrific week in Paris, and have now picked up the car and are in the Normandy area.  We will do a real update soon.

England again

Back in England, we headed for the Lakes District.  I know this is probably starting to sound boring to you all, but the scenery here is really stunning as well.  This time it’s craggy hills, meadows dotted with sheep, dry stone walls everywhere, and of course, lakes. We spent the night at Lake Windemere and the following morning exploring Windemere and Ullswater lakes.

After the Lakes District it was over to the east to have a quick look at Yorkshire.  We took a minor road which wound it’s way through the Yorkshire Dales and I’m sure David must have been cursing me for picking this road as it was really twisty and narrow with drystone walls on both sides, making it very hard to see what was coming, but we made it across in one piece.

Once out of the dales the country flattened out a bit into rolling hills and dales.  We were heading for Ripon as we wanted to see Fountains Abbey, an old cisterian monastry – and it was well worth the drive.  We spent 3 hours wandering around the abbey and grounds, but it would have been easy to have spent the whole day there.

From Ripon we drove to York which we both fell in love with.  York is a town of layers – it’s a medieval city build over a roman town, which was then taken over by the vikings.  Dominating the town is York Minster, a huge gothic cathedral, and the town centre is made up of tudor style houses in narrow cobblestoned lanes, most of which dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries.  The centre of town is a pedestrian zone and this makes it much nicer to wander around.  The following day we walked into town and spent 5 hours walking around and seeing the sights.  We had such a great time and would have liked to have spent much longer there, however, we had to get back to London as we are flying to Paris on the weekend.

That afternoon we headed further south to Malvern Link where the Morgan Motor Company is located, and David was really keen to visit them for a tour.  He had called ahead and the tour was organised for the following morning.

Morgan hand build cars which have a vintage sporty look to them.  I was going on the tour with David and initially was just going along for the ride.  However the tour was great and watching the process from just about start to finish was really interesting.  Working at Ford, I’ve seen the build process there numerous times, and I really like watching the cars going down the line.  However, Morgans are totally hand built and there are no conveyor belts or robots in sight.  Everything is done by skilled carpenters, metal workers and machinists, by hand.  We saw the wood components being shaped, planed and sanded by the carpenters.  Sheets of steel were laid out on tables and templates were used to draw the shapes on to the steel which was then cut out using a guillotine then finished by hand.  Each body panel is hand sized and fitted to the car.  All the leather work for seats, soft tops, gear stick covers etc, were done in a similar fashion as the steel parts.  The leather was laid out and templates were used to draw the pieces required  which were then cut out using a scalpel and passed to machinists who sewed the pieces together. These were again hand fitted to the car.  (I only saw 3 sewing machines, 2 of which were being used). In these days of high technology it was facinating to watch.  There were were some areas where visitors were not allowed to enter – the wood mill, the sheet metal shop and the paint shop – mainly due to OH&S rules I believe. The end product is a stunning motor car which sells for a very high price.  We spoke to some of the workers, and it takes from 2-3 months to build each car but the wait would be worth it.  I enjoyed the tour as much as David and the only thing missing was having a drive in one at the end!

We are now back in London at Naomi’s place, and we leave tomorrow for the next phase of our trip – Paris!

Photos will be posted next time we update.

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve updated.  This has been partly due to us being a bit slack (and having a good time) and our inability to find an internet cafe.  Either there hasn’t been one in the towns we have visited, or we have arrived after they have closed for the day.  Here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to.

We went up to the highlands for 4 days and saw some of the most beautiful scenery – glens, lochs and mountains (some of which still had snow on them) and of course lots of castles and churches.

Some of the other attractions were the whisky distilleries and golf courses (hundreds of them!)  We didn’t get to have a game of golf unfortunately, however, we did visit a couple of the distilleries where I sampled a few drams.  Just as well David was driving!

We had superb weather while there – I even had to take my jacket off!  The lochs are beautiful and usually surrounded by hills, and the days we were there the water was very calm, with Loch Lomond in particular being as smooth as glass.  Just gorgeous.  Once again we stayed mainly in small towns and villages, usually on the coast, where we met some of the locals (both 2 and 4 legged ones, the latter being the highland cattle which I think are the most beautiful of all cows).  We also saw Culloden battlefield and visited the village of Glencoe where the MacDonald clan were nearly wiped out by the Campbells.  The food has been great, but I think I’ll be better off without all the full Scottish breakfasts – I’ve put on a couple kilos despite all the walking we are doing.

The last 3 days in Scotland were spent with Ann, David, Pamela and Dawn.  We have had such a great time with them and it was sad to leave them when we had to head south again.

Scotland

We are now in Scotland. It’s funny, but as soon as we drove over the border I started talking with a Scottish accent again. Very strange! (For those of you who don’t know, it’s been 38 years since I was here).

The original plan when we arrived back in England from Ireland was to spend a few days in the north of England before heading up to Scotland, but we both really wanted to see our aunt and uncle and our cousins, so we called them to see if they were home, then made a bolt for Glasgow.

We have had the best time with them, and also caught up with other aunts and uncles. It’s been a real trip down memory lane for me – I’ve found the place I was born in in Glasgow, and other houses I’ve lived in, Troon and Berwick Upon Tweed. Yep, the houses are still there, even after so long! They are both really lovely towns too. Berwick in particular, which is a border town dating back hundreds of years and was involved in heaps of wars between Scotland and England.

We’ve also been in to Glasgow itself and went to Edinburgh for a couple days. We’ve really enjoyed both cities. Glasgow is a real mix of the old and the new, and Edinburgh is a beautiful city with all its old buildings and the castle.

We are off tomorrow to visit the north of Scotland (and the whisky distilleries), so will update with more photo’s when we get back.

When we left Dingle we headed north west up the coast. Again we drove through some lovely little villages and towns. We spent the day mostly driving and stopping to look at some of the ruins and celtic crosses which pop up everywhere. Another thing we saw a lot of were all the shrines to the Virgin Mary – nearly every little town has one, places where you can stop and pray if you want to. Also, a lot of the houses we passed had religious statues in their front room windows. Obviously a lot of people feel very strongly about their religion. Being Sunday, all the shops were closed, including café’s, and bakeries. Again, this was obviously due to Sunday being the Sabbath, but coming from a place where shops are open nearly every day of the year, including Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, this came as a bit of surprise to me. That afternoon we arrived in Clifden, another gorgeous seaside resort and decided to stay the night there. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day – even hot enough for me to take my jacket off! The pub across the road from the B&B was packed, so we joined the hordes of people sitting outside in the square having a pint. Clifden is, at this stage anyway, still unspoilt, but looking at all the building work going on, mainly apartment blocks, it looks like it’s heading for a boom in the holiday population very soon! After a pint we went for a walk around the town, then had dinner at the pub. A very pleasant afternoon. The next day we visited Kylemore Abbey – an absolutely stunning girl’s school run by Benedictine nuns. We had watched a program last year which highlighted Kylemore Abbey and decided we would go there when we got to Ireland. Kylemore Abbey started life in the late 1800’s as a private home of a very wealth English man, and the Benedictine nuns bought it in 1924 and turned it into a school, and have opened some of the rooms to the public. There is also a beautiful gothic church on the property which looks like a mini cathedral. The location of the abbey is so gorgeous it takes your breath away when you first see it. I can’t do justice to it – so I’ll let the photo’s do the talking!

We spent about 3 hours looking around the abbey, church and the walled gardens. This place is a must see for people visiting this part of Ireland! Later that day we arrived in Northern Ireland, and stayed the night at a really nice pub with accommodation. The next day, driving further north, we arrived at the Giant’s Causeway which has magnificent rock formations. Again, the pictures are much better at describing it than any words I can come up with!

About lunchtime we arrived at the little town of Bushmill.  Now, as you all know, I don’t drink very much (you do know that, don’t you?) but my 2 favourite tipples are whisky/whiskey (depending on whether it’s Scottish or Irish, and I like both) and red wine, (which I’m sure we’ll have something to write about when we get to France and Italy), so of course there was no question that we had to do the Bushmills Distillery tour!

Now for some reason David thought that, it being a small distillery, this stop would only take about an hour so we could do the tour then have lunch and be on the way again (he must have been tired from all the driving!).

There was a tour just about to start when we got there and we joined a group of 10 or so other people.  The tour was really good and the tour guide, Petra, had the very Irish gift of the gab.  At the end of the tour, before Petra even had the words “I need 2 volunteers …” out of her mouth, my hand was in the air!  I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to taste a couple of whiskeys.  In the bar, my fellow taste tester Jim and I had to sit at a table where there were little cups of whiskey laid out (8 cups!) and we had to taste each of them, determining the differences in smoothness, quality etc.  Jim was a bit slow, I’d finished testing way before him, must have been because he was an elderly gentleman and his reflexes had slowed down or something.  There was a mixture of scotch and Irish whiskeys, and they were all good, so I had trouble working out my favourite.  Then I had a (big) sample of the 12 year old Bushmill which was really good, until I tried the 16 year old which was great.  Now I’d found my favourite!  By the time we’d finished tasting, having lunch and talking to people it was time to go.  I thought that was a pretty good way of spending an hour, until David told me we’d been there for over 3 hours.  Amazing how time flies when you’re having fun.

For some reason I was a wee bit tired.  Time for an afternoon nap, so I suggested we find somewhere nearby to stop for the night.  Easy enough to do you would think, but I forgot all about the roadworks happening over nearly all of Ireland!  It was 7pm before we managed to find somewhere to stop.  We booked in to Seaview House in Larne, a really nice B&B run by a Scottish lady called Marion Muir.  It was an early night for me – I think I was asleep by 9pm. 

The following day we decided to have a nice lazy day, so we caught up with the washing, walked around the town, had a picnic lunch in a park by the harbour and just chilled out for the day.  That night we met up with some of the other guests from the B&B at the pub and had dinner with them.  A very pleasant day.

The next day we headed south towards Belfast, stopping at Lisburn to see the Irish Linen exhibition which was excellent. 

We drove around Belfast for a while, but because we were due to catch the ferry on Saturday we decided to drive a bit further towards Dublin before stopping for the night.

The last 2 nights in Ireland were spent just outside Dublin where we could easily hop on a bus into the city.  We had a great day in Dublin, using the hop on hop off city tour bus to move around so we could see all the sights we were interested in.  Two of the sights that were excellent were the Guiness Storehouse, where they do a tour of the Guiness production facilities, and where you can buy merchandise, some of which isn’t available anywhere else in the world,  and the Brazen Head pub, the oldest pub in Ireland, where we had a couple of pints and lunch.