The Day it Rained in Cork

 



Lulled into a false sense of security by yesterday’s sunshine and mild temperatures, we were shocked (slight exaggeration!) to wake up to rain and muted views of the buildings across the River Lee, so we pondered what to do for the day. 

We have to admit we were struggling to work out the idiosyncrasies of the heating and hot water systems, so much so, that Mark and Julie had been treated to cold showers last night. Stephen and I had declined cold showers this morning. 

However, an angel called Maggie, who lives in the flat below, called in to see us, and competently answered all of our many questions. The upside of this was, Wallsy and I were able to have warm showers after breakfast. 

We then decided to brave the weather and walk down to Wellington Bridge where we could hail the Hop on Hop off bus. Thinking we had plenty of time, we were surprised to see the bus arriving at the stop 14 minutes early. We flagged him down anyway, and he obligingly stopped on the bridge for us, much to the chagrin of all the cars behind him. Here we discovered, rather than being early, he was 16 minutes late due to an articulated lorry on the narrow streets that was ‘for having an accident!’ 

Safely undercover on the top deck, we rode into the city, jumped off for lunch in the Farmgate Cafe, situated upstairs in the beautiful English Market, and back on again to continue the  journey and our view of the city through rain spattered glass. 










By 2:30 I was flagging, but Mark and Julie decided to stay on for another round as they wanted to do some shopping back in the city.  Wallsy and I decided to hop off at Wellington Bridge and go on a reconnaissance mission to find the supposedly nearby Tesco Express, and our closest bus stop for the city bus. 

By the time the driver overshot both the stop before the bridge and the first stop over the bridge, we had quite a walk back to the small shopping area we had been told of, but we did succeed in finding the Tescos, sourced something to cook for dinner tonight and made it back home in half an hour, door to door. 

As the drizzle continues, we have settled in for a quiet night indoors. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Exploring the Emerald Isle

Image
And so the story begins before we have even left home… Bounding out of bed to the sound of the 06:30 alarm, my mind already running through the checklist of things to be achieved before our arranged pick up time of 11:00 am, the first task was to strip the bed of our sheets, get them washed and (hopefully) dried, and the bed made up with fresh linen ready for the arrival of the second of our two teams of housesitters in ten days time. Next, was to do the same with the towels, but as I was pressing ‘start’ on the washing machine full of sheets, Stephen wandered out, phone in hand, saying ‘don’t hurry, we have plenty of time!’ Singapore Airlines had helpfully ‘retimed’ our flight ex Melbourne to 20:05, from the original time of 15:20, according to an email sent at 01:38. Going back to bed was obviously not an option, although of our fellow travellers M & J, J wisely reported taking the decision to grab a couple more hours sleep in lieu of the delay!  We instead, went ahead with o...
Read more

Robin’s Birthday Surprise - Christchurch

Image
 In the series of birthday surprises, the first was that we got to fly Business Class in a very empty plane (30 passengers!) from Melbourne to Christchurch. Apparently the stars had aligned - a Qantas sale (who can pass that up? Certainly not Wallsy!) and an event, still to be revealed, in NZ. I was also presented with sweet treats, champagne, a qantas cap, qantas keyring and a birthday card. How’s that for a series of surprises!?  The second surprise was that we are staying at the gorgeous Adina Heritage Hotel which I had admired last time we were here and staying over the road from this impressive old Government building that is now the Adina. Not only do I get to see inside this time, I get to sleep in one of its spacious studio apartments for two nights. But that was not the only surprise, it was more importantly the fact that we actually managed to get into the hotel at 12:30am!  Initially faced with a locked door, no response to the intercom and our taxi driving off...
Read more

Robin’s Birthday Surprise - Dunedin

Image
 Well, here we are in Dunedin. But how did you get there from Christchurch, I hear you ask?  The fact is, as I had already speculated, the motivation behind my birthday surprise trip, was a Qantas sale which coincided with a scenic NZ train tour!  The perfect recipe for a wonderful surprise trip.  We left the hotel in Christchurch by taxi a little earlier than the appointed time of 06:45 and it wasn’t until we pulled up outside the Christchurch Addington Railway Station, that I knew for sure we were going on a rail adventure.  Following check-in and some people watching while we awaited boarding, we eventually pulled away right on time at 07:45 and journeyed through beautiful sunshine, across the Canterbury Plains before hugging the coast the majority of the way to Dunedin, the huge picture windows affording unhindered views of the vistas around us.  The Southerner, a heritage rail journey between Christchurch and Dunedin, replicates the seaside journey tha...
Read more