Friday 19th June Another walk on the Dales The weather has improved a little today from yesterday and so has my cold.Mind you being out in that chilling wind would have cleared the worst sinus or head cold!!! With the black pudding and bacon from Tuesday market finished it was back to scrambled egg today.Heres hoping the Skipton market which we plan to go tomorrow has black pudding on offer somewhere. Cousin Iain and his wife Chris called for us around 10am and we drove off in their Renault Clio to Malham via a rather windy and narrow road to Malham from where we would start our walk on the dales. The weather was actually quite good for walking as the wind from the past couple of days had died away and although it was overcast ... read more

It had to happen.The dry weather had to break.And today it has!! Well actually its not that bad just a little light rain and its not going to stop us taking a road trip to York a city we have heard so much about for its style. With all the goodies we brought at the market day yesterday we could hardly not have a full English and so it was,Eggs,bacon,black pud etc etc.We left on the road so full we didn't think we would need any lunch. We took the A65 to just outside Skipton and then switched the A59 where the rain actually sopped.We had thoughts about visiting Bolton Abbey but decided that we would be best to make the most of getting to York as soon as we could and hopefully before the rain ... read more

Well,one good thing that came out of the little medical drama from last night involving Eric,the husband of my cousin Rhona,is that I am now sleeping in after 5am!!!!And Gretchen reckons that that in itself is a great achievement. We were of course late to bed after returning from the hospital with Rhona,Eric and Jean around 1.30am. So it was a very leisurely start to the day as we waited to hear from Eric and Rhona as to how Eric had been during the night and whether they felt comfortable in driving back to Leeds later in the day. Thankfully he was much better when they called around late morning and it was good to see he had his colour back again.He had even had a hearty breakfast. We chatted away again about things in general ... read more

We were booked on the first ferry crossing of the day on the Stena Adventurer from Dublin to Holyhead and we needed to be at the ferry terminal at 7.15am. It was silly really to worry whether we would wake in time to shower,breakfast and drive the short distance to the ferry terminal considering that my usual hour to wake has been 5am for the past few weeks since the days have lengthened so much.So setting the alarms on the weather clock and cellphone for 5.15am turned out to be a waste of time because we were already finished showering by the time the alarms went off. We tried to be as quiet as we could because we were aware that one of the other rooms in the quartet of bedrooms became occupied during the early ... read more

Thursday 11th June Limerick to Cork via The Ring of Kerry The Tour Directors cold is improving but for the cough and I am still waiting my turn but are eating oranges and any type of vitamin C I can get my hands on to keep it at bay.Perhaps more Guiness will be a good idea. A long day is planned for today as we will take in the Rink of Kerry which is reported to be the best and most scenic touring road in Ireland. As we had travelled the River Shannon road yesterday we took an inland road,the N21,to Tralee and then onto Killorglin to start the road that circles probably the most mountainous area of Ireland. As we expected the road was busy and at the start the buses were particulary noticeable although ... read more