Kinsale

September 30, 2012

What a fun day we had!  We picked up our car at Hertz in the morning.  We bought all the insurance they would offer.  The only thing not covered is the wheels and if we put something other than diesel in it.  We went out to put our stuff in the car and I noticed the back passenger side was side swiped and both left wheels were all scratched.  It had already been used by a driver not familiar with driving on the left.  The good news is if “we” have an “incident” with a bush, no one could tell.  We think that’s an advantage.  We had them check it and they had marked this damage on the car rental paper.  But I took pictures of it with a date stamp.  So, off we went to go to Powerscourt.

Powerscourt is a lovely old estate.  Evidently the people who owned it were royalty of some sort.  They had a fire which really gutted the majority of the place, so they took the insurance money and left.  It is now a tourist attraction with gorgeous gardens, nice shopping and restaurants. 

I belong to an internet based quilt group called “The Quilt Show.com”.  I have friends all over the world now.  One of them is Rita Connolly.  She lives in Wicklow, so she and her husband Shaun Davey met us at Powerscourt for lunch and a walk around the gardens at Powerscourt.  We had a great time getting to know each other.  Rita is a famous singer here in Ireland and her husband Shaun is a famous composer for movies, TV commercials and currently writes music for theatre.  Here is a website about them.

  http://www.taramusic.com/biogs/ritacobg.htm   And of course, she quilts!  We discussed all our quilts and quilt people and quilts to be made and quilts and more quilts.  Rita and Shaun are great people and we hope to see them again.  I know I’ll be “talking” to Rita a lot on TQS.

We had quite a drive from Powerscourt to Kinsale.  The roads are so small, that basically everyone takes their half out of the middle (but that’s because there is only half a road) and hopes for the best when passing each other.  We got on the freeway and every so often we stopped and threw money at a machine as a toll.  We only got lost a little bit coming into Cork, but “Annie O’Brian” our GPS gal got us turned around just fine.  The late afternoon sun was quite bright against the bug stained windshield, but we got to our hotel The Trident around 6:30 pm. 

We set out to find a place to eat.  Between the Ryder cup and Hurling, every pub in Ireland is busy with yelling patrons drinking a pint, or actually several.  We did find one place, The Silent Banjo, a wonderful local place owned by Frances.  BC had 16 year old Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskey. Andy, he sure enjoyed that!  Then off the "The Crack Pot" for dinner.  I had langoustines which BC had to clean for me.  They were very good and left quite a pile of stuff on my plate.  BC had duck and it was good.  We went back to see Frances for a port and to watch the Americans lose the Ryder Cup (!!).

The Irish people are so kind, open and generous.  They have explained things to us with a smile, given us directions, suggestions and insight into their lives.  It really is nice.  We’ve had pretty good weather.  Right now we are sitting at the window eating breakfast looking out at the bay at Kinsale.  Reminds me a bit of Whidbey Island. 

Wish us luck driving around today!  Take care, bc and gc