Until Day Forty Nine – The Last of the Rest of Dublin and The Rest of the Last of London

Up to July 23rd; Man. That’s a big jump right there. I’ve been really lazy. Anyway, we take off from our second to last day in Dublin. We were on another day tour into the Irish Countryside.

Our tour guide this time was wicked. He knew what was going on. He had a sense of humour. He didn’t stop talking, and in a voice loud enough to hear. That’s all you need in a tour guide. If what he’s talking about is interesting enough to make you worried about sleeping on the bus, he’s good. The same goes if he is in fact a she. She wasn’t a she in this case. Is that right?

First on the list of ‘we’re seeing this’ was Powerscourt Gardens. It’s basically a huge manor with big gardens. Of course, in the fine old tradition of tourism it’s now nice and friendly for buses, the house has been turned into various souvenir shops and cafes, and every garden is well signposted, just in case. The place was quite cool, just a little… tame. I like big rambling gardens. The sheer scale was impressive, but the thing which most gave the impression of scale was the lawn. It had a nice lake and fountains though. Some nice roses. I stole a few petals, which I believe I later ate. I also got a stick of Venison Salami. Boy, was that good. All herbs and spices and vino. I still have some left. More on salami soon.

Glendalough, another high cross, another tower (not ruined this time), we had some lunch which took a really long time and made us late to get on the bus. We were always running late that day. The tour guy kept stopping the bus so we could chase sheep and other people could take photos. ‘We’re not from New Zealand, you know,’ I said to him. He had a chuckle. He was good fun though. He had lots of stories. They have all these artificial lakes on top of hills in Ireland, with lakes at the foot of the hills as well. At night when they’ve got spare electricity the pump the water from the bottom lake up to the top one. A few times a year they’ll run the water from the top lake to the bottom one through some hydro-electric generators to keep up with increased demand. Apparently the two busiest days for these back-up reservoirs; Christmas day and Eurovision. Some things never change.

We said our goodbyes to Aunty Terry the next morning. I would like to thank her one more time for being so understanding! When most people would be driven to the point of murder by five kids plundering her house, eating her condiments, savoury flavoured shapes, breaking glasses and bowls and generally spilling stuff everywhere, she managed to stay on the border of sanity and took good care of us. It’s more than I would have expected. Terry, what a dear! We were also saying goodbye to Hendo. He’d decided to stay on in Dublin for a while longer and then head home early. It was an early start and he was a little bleary eyed. I thanked him for coming on the trip, sticking with us until then. We jumped in the taxi and headed for the ferry port.

It turned into quite a hellish and expensive day. We arrived and were told that the ferry that morning had been cancelled and the next wouldn’t be until late that night. We got back in the taxi and headed to the other port, since there was one heading off at eleven. The taxi driver helped us a great deal. Thanks to him as well. Didn’t even include the tolls on the bridges. We arrived at the other port. We had been told that they’d take us onboard with no problems. Problem was, we needed to collect our tickets at the other port, apparently. Couldn’t do that. They said they’d let us on if we got our tickets faxed to us. I rang the ferries company, but since I’d booked through a sail-rail type deal, I had to get it from them. No luck. Spent a good hour trying to get in contact, got incredibly frustrated and ended up just buying new tickets for the other ferry. They cost more than our entire ferry-train trip originally did! We did make it onto the mainland eventually, though our trains were further delayed for some completely different reason. We got in very late. The guy was understanding though, let us just jump into our beds that night and we didn’t even ask us to pay him that night. We slept in for a long time the next morning.

Our time in London until now has been pretty sedate. We’d already done all the touristy stuff. We have been staying in Ealing – actually a really nice area. A while out of London, but it has the atmosphere of a little village which has just kind of expanded outwards. A while down the road there is a kind of main shopping area with lots of nice breakfasty cafes, stores, a cinema and a food market that seems to be there almost every day. Let me just say: small goods. I’ve been looking for a good stick of salami or at least a piece of meat that would last more than a couple of weeks. I found it there; two small goods stores in fact. I left with another venison salami, a bison salami (my favourite – on par with the original venison stick) and a couple of classic italian garlic sausages. They are great. The smell is intense though – more on that now.

I’ll talk a little about my food emergency kit. It started in Dublin, though I’d been thinking about it for some time now. Number one is a small tube of mustard. This is in case someone cooks something terrible, or I have to eat something beyond even my relatively open reach. Mustard gets anything down. Number two is a little pot of honey. Not as essential, but the sweet brother of mustard. Keeps forever, a tiny mouthful can keep you on your feet for another few hours when you’re tired. Number three is my tea collection. I have near a hundred bags now, varying green teas, some peach, some mango and cinnamon, all sorts. I bought some of it, and I’ve got a lot of others from hotels and hostels. The life of a backpacker. Number four is my small goods. A perfect snack, varying flavours, takes a really long time to go off – really, it kind of already has. It’s the food equivalent of trying to kill the undead. Number five is less official, an unplanned addition. Goji berries. Blame my mum for these. They’re a good snack when you don’t feel like meat (I don’t often have that problem) and they’re apparently healthy.

The problem with small goods, like I said, is that they start to smell in confined spaces. The problem with one of my pairs of jeans is that the fly broke beyond my means of repair, and so they had to be scrapped. So, one afternoon, I dedicated myself to sewing a small goods pouch. The others were all off doing other things or in other rooms. I measured out a leg of my jeans, cut it down, sewed the bottom together, put my small goods in, still had room so I cut a slit at the top and sewed a drawstring into it. It may well be the greatest thing ever. My small goods don’t smell too much. My tea box was also decaying in my bag. The next day, at the Spitalfield markets in London, I found and bought a leather scrap. Took it home that night, and sewed myself a tea pouch. This time with some minor improvements – inside out sewing so it looks nice and it’s a bit more waterproof, drawstring again but also a hole with another string so I can tie it so my bag or whatever else I need it to. I am the sewing king. I bent a few needles on the leather though.

We headed into town one day to get our tour documents. It starts on the 23rd; tomorrow morning for me, though in reality it’s only a few hours away. I also had lunch at Porky’s Pantry. Bacon, cheese and mushroom ciabatta. It was the best breakfast I’ve had… well, probably since the start of the trip. Maybe it was imbued with the strange taste of nostalgia and recollection. Last time I was in London, about four years ago, every morning the family would come down and eat breakfast there. It was good, it wasn’t too pricey, it has a nice atmosphere. One of the same guys was even working there. It was nice. It’s right next to Trafalgar Square, on Chapole place or something like that. Worth going to.

Our last day in London was spent organising. Doing washing, sending things home. I had lunch at a place called the Walpole. They did amazing things with onions. I ordered tomorrow’s breakfast take-away and said I’d be back in half an hour. I got out of the post-office after being stuffed around for an hour and a half and saw the place closed in ten minutes. Cue a two kilometre sprint to get my food. I made it. This one is in Ealing – it almost reminded me of the old eating houses of history; pay a few pence, get today’s meal (saloop, hugsknuckle, galoosh or some name like that) and eat it right up before going to work. The food has nicer names though.

The guy at this little hotel has been great too. He’s let us use the phones, internet, he’s given Ben extra cheese most mornings. We’ve been getting special treatment. Tonight I thanked him for looking after us the whole time, gave him my card and asked to chuck us an email sometime. He told Ben that the new box of cheeses came in tonight. He tried one since Ben ate so much. ‘It was really good!’ Kate ate all of our cheese without me knowing. He stocked up Ben with extra cheese. He came in later an announced ‘I have had six cheeses in two hours!’ Then he did a very nice thing, he gave me a game for my DS which hadn’t come out more than a month ago. Apparently he’d sold the rest on ebay and had the one left. I was a little speechless. It was worth at least two nights stay at the place, if I had bought it at the store. What a great guy! I don’t think we even caught his name. Apparently he was quitting this Sunday, so don’t come expecting great service, since we took it all.

That’s our journey up to this point. I kind of cheated my way into getting up to day, but at least the pressure is off. I’m not sure how updates will from now on, since we are camping most of the way around Europe. I’ll do my best.