First Stop – Ireland – Faaaamily

After the US we flew to Ireland. Arrived into the usual grey sky. For the following 10 days everyone told us how beautiful the weather had been, right up until we arrived ;) Ahhh well.

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It was lovely being back in Dublin and seeing family. Everyone was looking well and in good health. It can be quite jarring when you come back after a few years and especially parents have become older. Maaike and I went for a few walks, up to the lead chimney, and my first (I think) wander past the “rath” of “Rathmichael”. A rath was a Celtic fort.

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Games of scrabble were played, we had a family party with cousins. I also had a most fun game of bridge with dad (partnering me) and an old (89 years old) friend Raine whom I used to play bridge with when I last lived in Ireland. I do miss playing that game. Dad and I even came out on top, quite satisfactory!

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We also had a party to celebrate Helene (my brother Matt’s wife) getting her MD (a sort of PhD for doctors). The string of letters after her name goes on for quite a while! Congratulations to her, massive amount of hard work and effort! And yes, I did make some Dr. Dr. jokes. Oh, we also were at Matts when Ireland was having it’s “street party” day. Really good turn out on the street, what a wonderful idea. I think NZ does the same but I’m not quite sure. It’s certainly not countrywide on a specific day, not that I know of anyway.

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Finally, a quick catch up with Domhnall who was in town for a conference. Funnily enough, Declan was also in town too – so Domhnall organised a reunion for climbers, and it was a really really lovely evening. So many friendly faces, it’s amazing how quickly the real conversations flow in Ireland.

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Finally, it was time to pack up in Ireland and head to The Netherlands. My brother Chris very kindly offered us his tandem to bike back from NL to Ireland on. We had planned on buying second hand tour bikes, but the offer of the tandem was too good to pass up.

We butchered a couple of bike boxes into a frankenbox, brought it to Dublin airport and hoped that they’d accept it. They did. Technically a tandem is well outside the size limits, but we got through. Did seem somewhat chancy whether you would be accepted or not. Don’t forget the 60 Euro charge for sporting equipment either.

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