We have had a fantastic couple of days with Hopkin and the Morgan clan.
Hop woke up with a sore head after a biggish night and no memory of talking to his sister .We finished the night at their local 50 meters down the road and by the sign est 1400 on one sde and 1500 on the other. C had an Amaretto on ice which she said was like drinking liquid xmas cake icing.
We went into Bridgend because the local regiment was getting the freedom of the city and they marched through the streets led by a goat .Then a commemoration to local boy who was killed
in Iraq last year.C was intrigued by the Sgt Major barking out orders and adjusting the kit of the poor hapless buggers who may have had a slightly dull button.Sian Jo lipread him saying to one look at these fooking medals they are a fooking disgrace.He was apoplectic with rage when one of them fainted on parade and marched him to the side,this was at 15c so you did wonder about him under stress at 40c +.However the whole thing was very moving with the family of the dead soldier there.
After that Nicole Cook who won the gold in the female road race is a local village girl and there was fete in the village to celebrate her achievement ,the weather by now was very warm ,the best they had had all summer.There were masses of people and spirits seemed to be visibly lifted.
Then on to village house to see dear Gwyn ,David and his family.Hop and Sian left us there so we could have look around the farm.David milks 60 cows raises bullocks and lambs and grows grain,so a real mixed farm.He has also converted every olde barn and shed into flats and homestays and they are very popular .One flat has been occupied by the same person for 15 yrs and another for 3.I also know why Hop has to go to church on Sunday ,he has just sold for David an old stone shed on a corner with very small foot print for 100 thousand pounds.I will include photos later. David also runs down to the sea and old couple sit in a kiosk selling drinks and welsh cakes etc and clipping the ticket for him for parking. It was very moving going to the old church and seeing the old Morgan names and then seeing Sue ,Davids wife and Gwyn Davids mother all died in a short space of time and of course Trish.David took us back so we could have 2mins rest before heading out in Gwyns to meet a lot of the relations together.
In the mean time Sian Jo had done a family tree for me to keep the gaffs to minimum .
Gwyn lives on the farm and has cows around his house ,he actually still goes down at 7 every morning to help milk and other chores.At 82 he is as sharp as a tack knows all about our family and every thing about the farm business.We had a great time catching up with people that we had met and others that we hadn't. Rhys who was out 30 yrs ago remembered going to Freemans woolshed party .
Will finish later we are at Stratford upon Avon C has a neat brandy to warm up and we need food

Dad a little harrassed fitting luggage into shoe bov

Temple bar area by day

St Stephens park 25 acres in middle of dublin gifted by the guiness family

can you believe this its bulmers cider

Temple bar huge crowds of people great fun atmosphere

beside statue of Phil Lynnot (thin Lizzey)

Molly Malone the tart with a heart and blind man playing the irish drum

liffey river early morning Dublin

Dublin

Wash day Dublin

Same view in am the next day after we left there was a typhoon

From our window in Kowloon looking towads Hong Kong Island

Like the look of this hotel although C said can you get it for 10 imns

HK

C in Nathan steet HK didn't realise we wouldn't be wearing shorts again for awhile

View from window HK

startin out

Picked up car (small Ford ) in Holyhead and headed off not really knowing ant thing about Wales.

First stop Bangor, a university town by the sea .C was hungry for other than fried food so went into a cafe and had a magnificent antipasto a good antidote for what we had been eating..North Wales is extremely beautiful ,traveled through the Cambrian mountains then Snowdonia National park stunning scenery stone walls going right up the mountains .The only thing they didn't have far to find the building material. Lots of hikers rambling and caravaning and by the seaside poor buggers in row after row of cabins ,wandering around with jackets on.

Stopped at Harlech Castle and although we only had half an hour till closing it was well worth the visit. You can walk around the parapets with a sheer drop probably 30 meters down and the wall only about thigh height. I dont like heights at the best of times. It was built in the 1200s by Edward the first and in the information there, there is a sketch of him with his castle architect ,as you would have. From there as it was getting late we looked for lodgings and called into a cute little pub. Inspected the rooms and although smelt a little smoky it was the cheapest we had stayed at .Installed ourselves then wandered around the town of Barmouth,Its another little resorty town. Our b&b had a little snug which you could fit maybe six people in ,so we after a couple of pints of cider we decided to eat it didn't sound the best when the land lady asked when we wanted to eat and that she would the steak out of the freezer. So from whoa to go it was half an hour and like eating shoe leather . But we had a great night talking to the for other people there . Two scousers had washed up there building the rail bridge over the estuary and one had left his wife for a welsh dragon as he put it. The other two were a couple from Leister that had been coming for their holiday for over 30yrs . Finally to bed and of course I went out like a light for a while because C was up and down all night ,finally getting me off the bed and putting the quilt from the single bed over us and sleeping on top of the bed, As the bed had warmed up the smell of stale piss had got stronger and stronger..We both told the couple separately about and both were a bit snippy and said it was a new mattress,well we were all new once ..The old bugger who owned it and just lived next took it as task to design our trip down to Lalestown . He also owned something in Tunisia and was doing up a b&b in Normandy. We traveled down the coast then inland to Breacan Beacons stopping frequently on the way. We made Hops place at 6 which worked out well .He lives in a lovely little village near Cardiff ..Sian came home from London to see us ,and Marg is coming on Sunday. I told Hop that we would be moving on Monday so the whole weekend is planned like a military operation.

We walked into the village and had a beautiful dinner then on the way home to his local (est 1400s) for night cap

We have found the driving very easy in Ireland because the people are so patient and pedestrians can just walk out any time all most and the cars give way .90% of the cars are tiny as was ours Opel Corsa 1.2 but when you are lanes that must have been a struggle for two horses they come into their own. There are 2 road signs that are very irish , first road calming which means the shoulder is going or the road is narrowing and take care ,second ,instead of saying give way it is yield. 1500 kms we have done cost 87 euro $182 nz

Well 2 days blogging to do and already can't remember what we did may be I'll make it up as I go along

Day dawned in Dingle no better ,worse if any thing. Abandoned the trip around the peninsular as it was really clagging in. Before that though ,the B&B was the best yet , the man was a very quietly spoken ex dairy farmer so after a beautiful breakfast (not full fatty Irish this time) ,we set off .Stopped off when we saw a farmer in his yard and had a look around his milking parlour and yakked for a time really putting us behind our schedule .As I said we didn't make the peninsular so we headed on up the west coast this the most unattractive place we have seen so far heaps of holiday homes on a desolate coast on a desolate day .Stopped cos C said she just felt that she needed fish and chips ,well what a mistake they tasted like shite ,so the next quiet wall received our offerings. Which reminds me ,the place has almost no bird life except, ....Rooks heaps of them and very quiet .But the look the part on top of the ruins On to The Cliffs Of Moher spectactular limestone cliffs .Completely over over run by tourists .we had to park our car and walk 5mins up a hill ,by the time we had done that the car had disappeared in mist rain whatever. Continued on to Galway ,we had heard from Anne D that Carmel had a job in a hotel there. We got to a moderate B&B about 730 and when we tracked Carmel down we found she was about 40 mins out of town, but C had a long talk to her. In a shop selling Aran jerseys I found that Morans have their patterns ,as all clans have. This was particularly handy when sailors were lost as they could identify them from their jerseys ,sort of early DNA testing.

Went out to pub in Galway city central called Paddy's(what else) for dinner and had a little wander around hoping that we could remember how to get home as we didn't have tom tom and didn't know what the name of our b&b was .However managed ok .Too tired now will finish tomorrow

The B& B s are improving all the time. We had a delicious breakfast in Kinsale , not such a fry up this time .Muesli ,fruit juice and the scrumptious irish bread.

On shipping out we went and and looked at the old fort guarding the harbour. This a british fortification built on the star principle with massive stone and earth bastions to enable them to with stand cannon ball fire and certainly give a lot back It was built in the 1600s and was occupied until 1921.

Went into Kinsale town to try and get usb connect looked at (something I bought in Hong Kong and has only worked once ,the transfer rate is to slow to get on line and it times out all the time) but all to busy.

Set tomtom for Killarney and by this stage the rain is a little more persistant no joy with computer place or Vodafone moved on C castled out at this stage.

Reset fort Dingle town and made our way there .It was probably a beautiful drive but by this time little visibility .We had to go through Inch to get there and C said that might be an appropriate place for us to stay ,I don't know what she meant by that. Any way Ireland is metric so they should have changed the name to 25 mm. So,Inch and Dingle tied for our name of the day.

On arriving in said Dingle we find thats a little fishing village with the usual umpteen pubs and shops and B&Bs .Very nice though .We stopped at the first one we found ,this usually means the first where we can get a park and are staying at a lovely one called The Archway Lodge owned by an ex dairy farmer. Walked into town and found that they have a dolphin called Fungi that has been here for 25 yrs .I didn't like to say Gar that ,when we were in Mahia we probably had 1000 around the boat. I decided Robyn that I would like to compare your beef and guiness pie ,so that was how the choice was made .It was a great choice we were sat right next to the performers who played nonstop from 9.30-12.15 with help from people who got up and sang and played as well .A boy from Dublin was wiping the tears from his eyes as the Rocky road to Dublin was played and he was only visiting .Then near the end he got up and danced a reel or jig ,it brought the house down .He said that he was in Riverdance before it got famous.A great evening .

Well the land lady was in much better frame of mind in the am as we set about yet another wrestle with the Irish brekkie .Food and beer are playing havoc with waist lines.

Visited Kilkenny castle (free cos heritage week we like that) lovely grounds . We were told that the ruins at Kells were worth a visit and have told you how fantastic tom tom is don't you know she (got the voice set to Irish female) got us there easily ,some roads you think you are going up some ones driveway.

Any way Kells is really worth a look a very large 12^th century abbey divided by a beautiful stream which had had more recently 2 mills on .This was a time when we wished that we brought vid camera because it is hard to capture the scale on still.

At breakfast we were talking to same aussies that we saw int , although the wife and daughter were looking a little shabby declaring that they were not drinking any more Kilkenny (its not the drinking ...yeah right).Any way the man said don't bother with Waterford it's an industrial dump,and as time is of the essence we accepted that and on his recommendation set tom tom for Kinsale.

On the way Robyn had said Lismore was a favorite of hers and Rob you weren't wrong you come around a corner and there is this beautiful castle set on a hill overlooking a river just stunning more photo ops.It has a large ,I mean LARGE garden (5gardeners) looking after it .Through complicated marriages etc it is owned by the Duke of Devonshire . You enter down a large drive through a gate house and the garden is comprised of 2 levels the top level ,herbaceous borders pottager and fruit trees and the bottom one shrubs and trees .Some of the garden dates from planting 1600 and the apples sure looked like it.

From there it was on to Kinsale by passing Cork not because it wasn't recommended but we are by and large not going to big cities this time any way.

To humour our selves we have been having place name of the day and I think you will agree that Ringaskiddy would be disappointed if it was bettered.

So arrived in Kinsale beautiful little seaside village and found our B and yes unfortunately breakfast and then proceeded to discover the town .Being so close to Cork (17kms) it looks like its the escape for them with expensive little boutique shopsandheaps of eateries .

We settled for the White House pub and had a huge meal of oysters from the bay and fresh farmed duck and C had of course chowder and salmon accompanied by delicious Irish soda bread dark and treacly but not heavy , the chef pronounced the food a success.

We sat beside a lovely Italian couple and through pictionary ,mime his pretty good English and C's terrible Italian we found out that they lived in Luca and had a villa for rent and a web site that we can book at. Also Robyn,he trained for 5 years at Fabriano something to do with printing which I remembered was its claim to fame. That will do now the dominatrix land lady is banging away down stairs and the breakfast times are quite rigid . Looking from our window over the bay its a misty old day.

The day started well with a friendly taxi man seeing us trundling our bags down to the bus and took us to the airport to pick up car.

We knew it was going to be a small one and they were right ,its an Opel something and its tiny but goes well .

Switched tom tom on and set off.Tom tom took us back into the city ,but then corrected its mistake and we were on our way.

First stop Wicklow ,pretty rainy at this stag .Have had one to many Irish breakfasts now so we went to super market and bought muesli.

Set tt for Kilkenny ,now we have a cunning plan we made a deliberate mistake then let it find another way .Well we went through some tiny little villages on tiny roads that we would never have found our because most don't have signs.

Stopped at Ferns to see a Church 5^th Century The first King of Leinster buried there (famous for inviting the British in so the locals take turns spitting on his grave)

Stopped at Borris more photo ops they are around every corner.

Finally made to Kilkenny,mildly panicking about finding kip for night ,bank holiday weekend and heaps of tourists also.

We are at Carlys B& B the land lady a first graduate of the Basil Fawlty school of service .How ever the rooms fine and safe off street parking .

Kilkenny is beautifully preserved medieval town ,the streets not really suited to cars .We had a lovely night in Bollards bar listening to trad Irish music ,having the difference between reels and jigs played to us .Then finished the night in a small talking bar on the river .

There was an Aussie family in there and they told us about flooding in the Ring of Kerry where we were heading to next

The weather I think makes them such good entertainers because it really is quite cold and rainy. So you probably had to make your own fun inside.

The hotel has been great not flash but very adequate and I'm assuming it will be down from here.
It is very handy just off the River Liffey which divides the city.
We were to tired to go out and had dinner in hotel and loike a lot of the time it was a great meal .

Watching tv at the moment and seeing tropical cyclone in Hong Kong and very glad we missed that .
It is 7am and we are moving on today which we are ready to.
Spent all day wandering around, must have done quite a few kms.
The city is accessible on foot very compact .On observation would be, is that although they drive on on the same side as us they walk on the right on the foot path. The Garda on foot and in cars are a real very presence although not threatening and there seems to be no element that we would have at home,the only disturbing sight is kids sitting in doorways with paper cups, heads down begging, addicts apparently.They seem to be tolerated but you get the feeling if they put a foot out of line it would be different.
There are a teeming throng of tourists here and the locals are very proud of their city.I went to Trinity College and saw the book 0f Kells ,and religious wouldn't describe me but was special seeing the calf skin book written in the 8th century and the old library around 100 meters long and probably 4-5 stories high all in dark stained oak.
We have missed the sort of cafes we have at home, you know sitting with a drink out side and looking. There are plenty of cafes and 709 pubs but mainly inside and no verandas ,odd with the climate.Speaking of which its not just tee shirts when leaving for the day because the wind can be very cool.It must be bloody cold in winter ,just looking at weather on telly (not encouraging).

Well we have just got home from Temple bar area .We had lined up for a dinner at restaurant so busy and got a time for about an hour later (when we give our name we have to say it like Tim Horan otherwise they can't understand what we are saying).Any way they said come back in an hour so we went to a bar that was close and we could hear the music .First we had a beer then we decided to have a Jamesons after that we quickly realised that we wouldn,t be going back so the next whiskey was a soup then a main .Are we going to have dessert ? Why not maybe coffee.So the long and the short dinner has been a museil bar back at home.But we have had a great night.The music has been fantastic .What looked from the outside a small bar was like the tardis inside people just kept coming in .C said by the sound of the singer he would be gorgeous but when i went to the loo there was sort of a Van Morison moment he sang like an angle but looked like a boilermaker But fantastic Irish music.C said she could smell cigarette smoke and I said the Irish have come up with an ingenious way of getting around that.In the bar back room there is a sign that you can smoke cos its an out side area .Well technically it is because there is no roof in that part although no demarcation in any way.Today after a lovely sleep we caught the city tour bus(hop on -hop off)and had a great look around jumping off now and again.When we got to the Guiness factory C decided that she would carry on(which was a good call on her part ).There was was not much to it except a great look around at the top.

Hello ,well we have finally made Ireland.
Had a great time in Hk the transport is so easy and cheap .We had a great (already running out of adjectives) hotel ,typical asian 4 star pretty swanky with a view over HK island ,we were on Kowloon. Thought the airport was not that big on arrival but it just turned out that it was very easy to get out.
Arrived about 7 in the morning and straight on airport express train to Kowloon then shuttle to hotel.
Went straight out into the throng .Went to Nathan rd got some prescription lenses put into CK frames for Lisl . Continued on to ladies market off jordan rd same old same old copy asian stuff which C didn't feel abliged to buy then onto Star ferry over to Hk.
Went back to hotel intending to have rest then go up the mountain for view over city but woke up at 10 oclock to buggered to do any thing but eat moderate chinese at hotel.
After brekky in am it was time to resume our journey we able check in and drop bags at railway station all the way to Dublin (they made it phew).
It was interesting at Dublin airport, first we seem to be taken into a little door in airport with all asians trying to cram through first ,then we were put in the misfits line with the non Eu passport holders and the girl questioned every dark skinned person interminably ,so took 1 hour to get through caught bus into city got off at Oconner st and we were just around the corner only had to ask where to go once, as guys know thats pretty important.
So for today getting city bus tour,that we can get on and off where we like

nearly there only one more sleep