Chill farewell

Our last day in Dublin dawned cloudy and cold, just barely above the freezing mark. The chill breeze seems at odds with all the cheery daffodils everywhere we turn, along with the summery dresses and shoes in the shop windows. We decided to play tourist (since that’s what we are) and hopped onto a double-decker tour bus that took us around town, letting us off wherever we wanted. Only a few brave souls dared sit in the open top, ourselves among them.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon poking around the countryside, discovering a little corner we’ve never visited before just the other side of the Wicklow mountains. We found an exceedingly picturesque town called Moone, that has not only a 17^th century mill and manor house, but a thousand year-old high cross. When we finally located the cross (on the other side of the bridge with the swans swimming below), it was absolutely pouring rain, so we huddled in the car and read aloud about the Master of Moone, who took course granite and created delightful renderings of biblical stories and a bestiary to make a monk proud.

On both outings, we needed to warm up afterwards. With our fill of Celtic carvings, we headed up the road, stopping short of the Dublin suburbs and found an Edwardian-era pub, complete with (fake) peat fire, where we filled our bellies with pub grub and cider. Number One Son decided he wanted some meat, and ordered a cheeseburger—nothing like the McWhatever, this one was a hefty patty of Wicklow County beef, with real local cheddar melted on top. Little One’s fish and chips (malt vinegar on the side) were more fish than chips, and it wasn’t a small portion of chips. I enjoyed a “salad” of smoked salmon and shrimp (what they call prawns), while Darling Husband swapped me his chips for my brown bread and Kerry butter.

This afternoon, our cheeks reddened from the upper bus deck, we alit in Phoenix Park and found a tiny tea house, where a frothy cup of Cadbury cocoa and toffee biscuit cake made our noses run as they thawed.

We’ll have supper in tonight, and polish off our own breaded haddock and brown rice with Bullmer’s cider. Unfortunately, real lettuce could not be found, so it’s salad from a bag, and designer peas from Marks and Spencer (“petit pois and baby onions”). Our (very) early breakfast tomorrow will already be continental; pain au chocolat and orange juice eaten on the airport shuttle bus.