Aug 4 2017
Today begins with a story. Part One: Back about 25 or 30 years ago, when Jeff was a fairly avid golfer and his mom was a fairly avid knitter, she knit him the most amazing golfer clown doll. The knitted golfing clown had the most amazing detail – a golf bag, clubs with separate head covers, a bracelet with separate tees, a golfer’s watch, shoes with spikes, and so on. I found a picture of what was the pattern she probably used. Part Two: A bit of a segue, but I promise it’s relevant, Jeff and his friends used to drink at a local Kingston bar called O’Toole’s. They liked it because it was a couple of blocks and a back lane away from home. In fact, O’Toole’s was one of the first places Jeff took me when we were first dating. But whatever … back to the story. Where were we? Oh yes! The golf clown! Well, today we ended up in a teeny little town in County Wicklow called Aughrim (more on that later) and we found our way to the (one) local pub which happens to be called O’Toole’s. The place was virtually empty so we grabbed a random table next to a display case and guess what was inside this case along with photos of local sports teams? The EXACT SAME golfer clown!!! Whaaaa???? No word of a lie!!! Photos below for evidence. Jeff asked the bartender where it came from and he said someone from England gave it to him a few years back. We are still speechless…
And, back to the beginning of the day. We had a small crisis this morning when I found out that our Wicklow booking had cancelled on us because they had two simultaneous bookings from two different booking sites and we lost the coin toss. So we quickly re-booked into a guest house in the middle of nowheresville (I am still in the middle of trying to guarantee that we won’t be charged for the first booking as it was through booking.com and is said to be non-refundable). Since there was then no hurry to end up where there was literally nothing to do, we explored Kilkenney Medieval Town a little more. We walked down to the Church of St. Canices and the Round Tower, a site that was founded in the 6th century. A very limited number of people at a time are allowed to climb the Round Tower (we would soon find out why) and because we were early and it wasn’t busy we decided to go for it. I expected the climb to be up stone spiral stairs as is typical of European towers, but instead it was up a series of ladder-like staircases, increasingly steep and narrow (explaining the limited numbers of people allowed). I am not a big fan of ladders so the whole thing made me a bit anxious, to be honest.
However, we did go up and we were rewarded with some splendid views of Kilkenny. After surviving the Tower, we made our way to our remote country inn and, since there was literally nothing at all around it, we drove into the town of Aughrim where there was a little bit more than absolutely nothing to do (a very little bit more). We were too early to eat dinner so we walked along a “scenic route” only to be attacked by swarms of little black flies forcing us to hurry along and miss most of the scenery. I managed to catch a couple of fly-free photos, although I’m still not sure how. In the picture below, Mitchell is using his coat as a fly-shield.
We made our way down to a little fly-free lake where they proudly claim to have wheelchair accessible fishing, and there we saw a man in a wheelchair fishing. The town is so small I can’t help wonder is he’s the only man in town in a wheelchair and if maybe they made the lake accessible just for him. And if so, good on them!
We had a lovely dinner in a restaurant that was not-a-pub and I had my first glass of wine of the entire trip (I have missed you, wine!). Back at our country manor, our host lit a coal fire for us in the sitting room. Yes, that’s right. A coal fire. Personally, I was hoping for peat but this will have to do 🙂
Tomorrow … Glendolough and then back to Dublin!