The second Christmas for me in Dublin. This time, I really felt like coming back at home, because I already knew what to expect. I was missing these Christmas lights in Grafton street and Henry Street, walking around in the big decorated shops and admiring the shop windows and of course buying the presents to all the children in the family. I would have wanted to do it the same way when my children were small, but it was a bit different then. Anyway, all this packing and walking around in the toy shops reminds me the time when I had to do the same things and pack my presents silently in my bedroom.
This year the big secret about Santa has been solved and I didn’t have to be so careful with what I said about neighbours and fathers playing Santa in Estonia. Last year the cookies were left under the tree and all the stockings had to be filled late after midnight when the children were in sleep. This year it was all done with a bit of humour, but anyway, the morning after the Christmas Eve was very early, because of all the presents that needed to be opened. When we reached the living room everyone had opened their presents already and we just gave ours in person.
On the Christmas Day we went out to visit some relatives, just as the next year. It’s a big tradition here to go and say Merry Christmas and sit down for a while and have a drink. After that, we had a big Christmas Dinner and watched some movies together.
On the second Christmas Day, the whole family came together and we had the next dinner and a lot of fun. It’s still a bit difficult for me when they all start to talk at the same time, but I am not so shy any more, I think I have got used to it already.
The biggest difference with Estonia is that we start with our Big Christmas Dinner on the 24th of December and the Santa also comes after that and all the children have to sing or read a rhyme and after that, they will get their presents. And nobody opens the presents till the Santa has left. Even when the Santa doesn’t have time to come, but leaves the presents under the tree, someone from the family starts to share the presents and nobody will get any presents without performing something. So you have to be much more prepared in Estonia.
And I cannot leave out the Christmas Crackers, this is something which is also taken from old children’s books, at least it is so for me 🙂
What do they sing at a snowman’s birthday party? Freeze a jolly good fellow
Why do birds fly south in winter? Because it’s too far to walk
Our tour guide is named John and he promises to speak as a real Dubliner and so he does all through the tour. He has thousands of jokes, stories and competitions, he predicts the weather, sings Galway girl, teaches us to swear politely and in an Irish way, using the word “feck”, which really doesn’t sound too rude, but a bit funny. And the least but not the last, at the same time he drives the big green Paddywagon bus with joyful elegance through all these narrow roads, and never loses his positive spirit, even not when we lose a couple on the Baby Cliffs. Ok, they just sat on the wrong bus and met us at the next stop, which means that at the same time there were more than one Paddywagon buses, to be honest, there were three.
The landscape is green, so green and even greener, with some rocks and lambs, cows and small houses, sprinkled over all that greenness that make up the Emerald Island. The name Emerald Island is the perfect match to Ireland, if you haven’t seen it, you will never believe how many different shades of green are possible to find there. The stone fences seem to be here as popular as on Estonian Islands, so I am pretty sure about our same Viking ancestors.
After twirling on the crooked roads that go up and down, back and forth, we end at the ruins of Corcomroe Abbey, a place where the Cistercian monks used to live in the 13th century. The abbey is located in Cleare County and is made of limestones, again something familiar. The views under the abbey vaults are nice, green and bumpy, but the big dark clouds are following us and when we are running on the bus it rains already. One of the Irish kings was buried under the abbey and lots of other noble and not so noble persons into the small graveyard that surrounded the abbey. Someone asked the guide if nowadays the graveyard was used and in which reasons you could be buried there. The guide answered that the only reason for that was to be dead (and of course preferably local, I guess).
I have been really happy to spend again some time in Duncannon, a nice small village at the seaside where the sea lies just behind your garden fence and where it’s possible to watch the secret life of the sea. This time, it was mostly stormy, even when it wasn’t raining and when going on the beach, it was possible to feel how the wind is fighting with you and holding you back when you want to walk. But anyway, there were a lot of brave people walking their dogs or just wandering around despite the heavy wind. I tried to be among them and spent some time taking photos and listening to the song of the wind and struggling with the flying sand.
There are lots of marvellous places around Duncannon and this time I had a chance to visit quite a lot of them. The village itself is also very nice with picturesque views, some pubs, locals and summer visitors, small shops and sandy beach. But if you drive a bit you can visit easily the Hook peninsula, and the nearby towns Waterford and Wexford, the last one has given the county its name too.
I had been to Waterford before, but that time my stay was limited at the bus station, waiting for the bus that took us to Duncannon. This time, I was lucky to see the town twice, and try again this quite common way of travelling from one side of the river to the other. So it means that we just drove on the ferry, and after 5 minutes off again, and very soon we were in the centre of Waterford, where the Street Performers’ Festival took place. The first time when I saw this way of travelling, was when going to Cobh. This is something that we don’t have, but here it seems to be very common.
The centre of Waterford was very nice and the people who had come to see the performers didn’t mind the rainy weather. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining all the time and children could enjoy the performances. Especially cool was the drum band from Ireland which consisted of children in different ages and of their really enthusiastic teacher who encouraged them to play and act, what they did really good.
As the big clouds arrived we didn’t stay for the fireworks and we were smart because it started to pour rain and I don’t know if they could carry out any fireworks with such a weather. I would definitely want to come back to Waterford and spend some more time there.
With a rainy day, we visited the most haunted house in Ireland – the Loftushall. It is said that the Devil himself had visited that place and put a hex on a daughter so that her ghost hasn’t found peace till now and haunts in the house. In the 90-s one boldfaced man started to run a hotel in the house but on one night all the guests and staff ran away without any explanations and left all their belongings into the house and never came back to take away a thing. After that, the house has been abandoned and no one had wanted to come to live there. Nowadays it’s a tourist place, where they make guided tours with ghosts jumping from around the corners and spooking the poor tourists who have willingly paid for getting scared. But it is said that the house decides on its own who can stay there and for how long time. It seemed that our stay was quite accepted because we didn’t meet any real ghosts but of course, we did our tour and went quickly away. Maybe the ghost has got used to the crowds and stays still in some hidden place 🙂
Tintern Abbey was founded in 1200 by Count William of Marshall and it got its name after the bigger namesake in Wales.
One of the vainest family members let to build such kind of a bridge, just only because its decorative and beautiful appearance. And especially decorative it looks seen through the upper window of the Abbey where our tour guide tells us stories about the Colclough family’s history. Yes, we are having a guided tour, so smart. The tour guide makes the place more alive, especially that she knows a lot about the characters and habits of every single person who has lived there.
That’s how they built the walls during the old times – the blend between the lattice was made from so many different ingredients that the restoration workers of nowadays were not able to catch up on it. But at least they tried! And it’s possible to see the wall building process in different stages. The guide says that this filling made the walls warm keeping and let the stone breathe. Probably it will make sense for our school’s construction department 🙂
The little road that goes through the wood takes you to the Colclough Walled Gardens, which have been restored and trimmed recently and look quite nice. You need to buy a ticket again when entering the gardens, but I think they are collecting money for some more restoration work. The gardens are nice, full of flowers and there’s also an orchard part with vegetables and scarecrow which looks huge and decorative, probably not so decorative for the crows. In Estonia, we call these things not Scarecrows, but Scarepeas, instead, although they are meant to scare the crows, not the peas 🙂
“By hook or by crook” is an English phrase meaning “by any means necessary”, suggesting that any means possible should be taken to accomplishing the goal. The phrase is very old, first recorded in the Middle English text Controversial Tracts by John Wyclif in 1380. I learned that phrase when we visited the Hook peninsula and Hook Lighthouse. I think that the weather was perfect to get the right feeling of the peninsula, surrounded by cliffs and the sea, ok, it could be of course a bit warmer, but the wind gave the special taste to that day. Despite the wind, we took the Lighthouse tour as well and climbed the top, where it was really stormy.
The Hook Lighthouse is the oldest continuously working lighthouse in the world. Kõpu Lighthouse in Hiiumaa is the third, I looked it up afterwards because it looked so similar to ours. It is said that with better weather it could be possible to see the dolphins, but we were not so lucky and maybe it was too stormy even for the dolphins and they spent their time relaxing in some bay. It was a great experience to stand on the top of the lighthouse, almost unable to walk and totally unable to hear anything else but the sea and the wind. But that’s exactly what I came to see and hear here.
Dublin Accent 