Sunday 26thApril. Happy Birthday to me… The US Postal Service talks about rain, hail, sleet and snow. Well, today I had three of those (no snow), but also plenty of sunshine, as well as a freezing cold wind (especially on the coast). It was really cold today! I spent the day touring Donegal, in particular the Glenveagh National Park and the Rosguill Peninsula on the coast. It seems that touring Ireland in a clockwise direction – south to north along the west coast – is the way to do it, because every day the scenery becomes more staggering than the day before. Each day one thinks “can the scenery get any better than this?”, and the next day it does. In Donegal, the combination of barren mountains, which in some cases plunge straight into the ocean, ... read more

Friday 24thApril. A cloudy day today. Once in a while a little sun would break through for a few minutes, but from one o’clock on it started to drizzle, with occasional rain showers. It gave a different look to the landscape, softer and more moody, with the mountaintops mostly shrouded by cloud. The Connemara scenery is very beautiful, endless lakes (loughs) and mountains. Very reminiscent of Scotland, but less lonely, with houses being more common. Some of the loughs are huge, but often the small loughs are the most scenic. Near the coast around Clifden it is very rocky, with vistas of grey limestone dominating the little houses that seem to pop out of the landscape, looking out of place. Also near Clifden I found the site of Guglielmo Marconi’s original radio broadcasting station, a gigantic ... read more

Wednesday 22ndApril. The fabulous weather continued today. Not a cloud in the sky all day, and the warmest day of the year so far in Ireland, real short sleeves and sunbathing weather. The locals are loving it and are out in droves. Can this continue? The answer appears to be no – Thursday should be nice, but the clouds and showers arrive Friday for the rest of my stay, and top temperatures will change from around 18 to around 10. Nevertheless, today’s excellent weather enhanced the variety of wonderful scenery of the day. Firstly I attended to a few chores in town, such as getting a haircut and doing a little shopping, then I headed off to drive around the Ring of Kerry. However, I didn’t just drive around the coast road the whole way, and ... read more

Sunday. Spent the day in Dublin. The weather was cold and cloudy until the middle of the day, when it became cold and sunny. They tell me it’s because of the nor-easterly wind, which is bringing cold air over from Scandinavia. If one was able to find a sheltered spot in the sun, it was quite pleasant. I went in on the bus from my B&B, about a 45 minute trip. The buses are all double deckers, which brought back memories of the sixties and seventies in Sydney. The bus stop to go into town is right on the corner – what I didn’t know is that the bus stop when coming back is about a kilometre away down the road! You do get a lot of walking done here, the public transport seems to stop ... read more

Friday. Airports are usually about queuing too (see last blog posting), and there was plenty of it at CDG. Lack of staff numbers really – check-in was very slow, and a huge queue for passport control. Spotted the Air Brussels Tintin aircraft - see picture below. If you want to know more, see http://www.brusselsairlines.com/en-be/misc/meet_rackham.aspx Arriving in Dublin was quite pleasant, with a very short line for immigration. The officer there read my name on my passport, and then said: “Well now, John William Bradley. Welcome home, John”. What a delightful welcome to the country of my ancestors, though one that I have never visited before. Car rental, why is that always such a torrid experience? They reel off a list of all the things you are liable for, all the huge extra charges you will have ... read more