Irlanda

Firstly, apologies for the quantity of photos.

Or maybe not; they’re probably better than reading my inane thoughts.

Anyway, we went to Ireland for a trip that we have been telling ourselves we should have arranged for a few years.

It was a holiday but it was also a sort of pilgrimage to see the family of Sonalee’s best friend Maeve who died early in 2021. She was our celebrant who informally married us in Yorkshire in 2017 which was, remarkably, the first time I had ever met her.

The death of any member of your family or friends is difficult but to lose your best friend in the world, well…

Thanks to Covid, Sonalee was unable to attend the funeral and say the Goodbye that we all need to express by the graveside.

And so, finally, we did so last week.

Birr Castle and the remarkable Leviathon Telescope

We met with many of Maeve’s sisters and brothers-in-law and her husband who treated Sonalee just as one would expect – as a member of the family.

I was shown many of the places that Maeve and Sonalee visited and loved as well as more stuff that the family told us to see.

We also got to spend some time at Maeve’s final resting place discussing her and remembering her fondly since she was person that it was easy to be fond of.

Wildflowers planted by Alan on his wife’s final resting place

And, yes, it was quite emotional at times for obvious reasons.

Cong. John Wayne made a film here in 1952

The dogs and cats were well looked after by a lovely German housesitter but, of course, we did miss them a bit.

Diamond Hill. The locals call it a mountain. Hmm.

A summer in western Ireland is, of course, very different to here in Andalusia. As were the prices. I think we would have wished to spend more time there and seen more of the people we know there but you can’t do it all.

I did get laughed at, naturally. I have a tradition of buying a football top from any country I visit but I was told, in no uncertain terms, that would be impossible in hurling and Gaelic Football country. I ended up with the Hurling top of the team that I was assured were the best in Ireland (opinions do vary).