Powerscourt and Volcano Induced Disruption

Had a great last-few-days in Ireland. Maaike had always wanted to get to the Powerscourt Gardens in Wicklow (just outside of Dublin). The actual ‘house’ (castle really) has been gutted by fire and partially restored – but the Italian style gardens surrounding are worth a walk around. This we did with my friend Emma Towey, who had a nice chat with Maaike about all things Dutch.

So – while this is late being posted – all of the above was going on in the shadow of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. The main purpose of this trip to Europe was to be in The Netherlands for Maaike’s sisters’ wedding (Femke). No bleedin’ volcano was going to get in the way of that.

On the Sunday evening we booked a ferry from Ireland to Cherbourg, and there we were to be picked up and driven to the wedding. This would have meant a 20 hour road trip just before the wedding. Hardly ideal.

I had rebooked the tickets for Wednesday morning (11:45) and the boat was just incase at 21:00. All the flights up until 13:00 were cancelled, and basically we’d given up. Fortunately my wonderful brother Matthew had been checking up on Aer Lingus – while calling me to say goodbye. He said that flights were going in the afternoon and that we should try to book on.

So went online, checked – and somehow there were seats available. Bonus!!… booked on, didn’t really believe it was going to happen until the tickets were printed out and bags checked through. And then, I still didn’t really believe it was going to take off.

But take off we did, and flew all the way to Schipol in The Netherlands. This pic was taken on the approach in. You actually land at about -10m or something.. not that you can see that. I was expecting it all to be quite flat – but I’d not quite realised just how flat the reclaimed land would be. Still, more to come on that – and all wonderful and unique things Dutch.. ;)