Great to be back in Ireland – and especially great that the weather was still holding. Well, pretty great, we had a bit of fun with a smelly fridge when the milk which had been frozen (while we were away) split and then run down and out of the fridge, pooling in the evaporator tray. It was one of the more disgusting smells I’ve witnessed. No use crying over spilt milk, but, quite a lot of use in getting rid of it as quickly as you can. Gross.

Foxes were playing though, so, that was nice!

Went out for a short walk with my brothers’ family to a place a bit south of Wicklow. Just a few kms but some nice views and the seals were in town so that was fun.

I’d managed to miss this walk before, but, went for a lovely walk with my college friend Lorcan around Howth. Not sure we did it in it’s entirety, but, the bog of frogs loop was what we went for.

Just great views, nice weather, we dropped down to a couple of the beaches where there are some pools built up and some brave (foreign) souls were going for dips.

Caught up with some of my cousins for games and chats. I used to garden for my great aunt – and her place has been left to rot as it was bought at the height of the celtic tiger and seems like the owner is just sitting on it. I’m wondering if they have a plan to buy up my cousins place which is close by and then develop the entire section. They let it go so long that the council put a “notice of dereliction” or something on it. My cousins were kind enough to let them know so they cleared some of the jungle that had been let grow up. Still pretty jungley though! It’s simultaneously sad to see it in that state, and also quite impressive what mother nature can do in just a few decades.

We had a lovely few days hanging out at my Uncle’s place. They’re two of the most lovely gentle souls and they have a lovely cottage in the middle of Wiltshire, a very restful place to hang out.

I put openstreetmap to good use and found a lovely walk with so many little byways to go through. They really don’t make some of it obvious! And a really weird statue of ?hermes? bang in the middle of nowhere. No plaque, nothing. Very odd.

I was also gifted a very very warn and incomplete copy of Struwwelpeter, kinda a precursor to Cautionary Tales. Kids getting thumbs chopped off because they sucked them – that kinda thing. You can read a copy on gutenberg as it’s well out of copyright. Published in 1845!

Not sure I’ll ever read it to Anna, still gives me nightmares ;)

And with that, it was time to head back to Ireland for the final leg of the trip. Has been a wonderful holiday so far.

We had a couple of stops on the way to my Uncles in Wiltshire. Firstly we went to see Dad’s cousin David. Had a nice bimble around the village and out for a very nice lunch. David is 85 I think, and is still sailing this magnificent Thames sailing barge. These were basically the Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV’s) of the day. It’s a massive boat, but, because of its clever setup you can actually sail it with just two people. Amazing.

It’s available for hire if you want to go for a sail!

After that we headed on to see my niece who has been working as a conservator at Godinton House, a stunning house built in the 1400s? (though probably bits are older than that). Anyway, it was super cool to get a private viewing of the place and to be able to take our time. It was one of the more “fun” old houses I’ve visited, mainly because there’s so much stuff there. Basically all the old furniture and place-settings and paintings etc. are all there, so you really get a sense of what it might have been like to live there. Very cool.

After that, headed on down to Buxted to visit my maternal grandparent’s graves, and then on to have a delicious lunch with Margie – mum’s cousin. I think I got one of my (step)grandmothers old recipes for biscuits which I remember very fondly from childhood. Looking forward to trying them out.

I distinctly remember the video my family shared from when they went to see a total solar eclipse in the US (Yellowstone I think it was). My brother Matt exclaiming something like “that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen”. So, I was very motivated to get to the path of totality.

We went to the coast of Spain and we were rewarded with perfectly clear skies. There were a lot of people there. If you’ve wanted to eat at a restaurant you’d have had to book about 4 months in advance, but, it actually all went really well. We were able to get parking, there was plenty of space to see the eclipse.

It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I was expecting it to go completely dark (i.e. as dark as the middle of the night dark), but, it was more like a sunset all round. We had about 90 seconds of “totality” which is when you can look directly at the sun (no glasses required). During that time you can see the corona around the sun (the “crinkly bits”) and the photos just do not do it justice. It’s extremely beautiful and awesome (properly awesome). Here, watch this and you’ll get a sense of the real use of the word awesome.

There’s a total solar eclipse passing through NZ in 2028 and I’m extremely excited for that one (also going directly through Sydney which is crazy).

The photos simply do not do it justice.

After the GOTC we headed to Spain – to the Galician Coast with just my immediate family (mum, dad, siblings, grandkids). We booked out a massive AirBnB for the 16 of us.

The reason we chose Galicia (and indeed the timing of the GOTC the previous week) was because of the total solar eclipse happening on August 12th!. I’ve spent very little time in Spain, probably the last time I was there was rock-climbing back in the day.

One of the highlights was the town of Lugo which is the only town with still intact Roman walls (3rd Century). You can walk the 2km circuit and get a nice view of the place, and it’s just pretty cool to be up there knowing that they’ve been around quite that long.

The place we were staying had a 15m pool which was extremely welcome! Europe is going through a heatwave (new normal?) and being able to just jump in the pool to cool off was bliss.