I have returned to Denver. It is always nice to get back to my own house (yes, even this one) and my own life, such as it is. On my first day back I went for an early breakfast to the Watercourse restaurant, and walking home in the morning sunshine I found myself happy to be here and looking forward to the coming months. It's a shame that at the moment it's too hot to stir from my house between the hours of 10 and 6, though. It's forecast to reach 37 ˚C on Monday. Glasgow is to be 17. I'd settle for something in between, but if it has to be one or the other I like the one which leaves me comfortable in my clothes.
I'd intended writing entries for the last month as I went along, but there was too much to do: getting the new visa, all that sorting and packing, seeing relatives and friends. So, here is the lengthy retrospective version.
Ireland
I took the car ferry from Troon to Larne with my parents. It takes around two hours, or somewhat longer if one of the engines isn't working. It's the only ferry I've ever been on that doesn't have proper external decks for passengers. You have to sit inside, or go up to the tiny walled in sheep-pen of an observation deck and hook your chin over the rail.
We drove down to Dublin, stopping for lunch in Armagh. The trip to the border took in lots of small towns with an unsettling number of flags and displays of red, white and blue bunting, making it look like America on Independence Day - only in this case it is clearly aimed at an opposing team, and not just for the day. Who would have thought that something so colourful could be so depressing?
Armagh was rainy and grey.
Dublin was rainy too, but interesting, and it became suddenly beautiful on our last evening when the sun came out. While there we walked for miles, usually in circles. We saw the famous bits in the middle - The Liffey, Temple Bar, Grafton Street, O'Connel Street. We visited St Patrick's Cathedral, the National Gallery, Trinity College and the Book of Kells exhibition.
Of all things, what I like most was Dublin's crossing signals:
I'd intended writing entries for the last month as I went along, but there was too much to do: getting the new visa, all that sorting and packing, seeing relatives and friends. So, here is the lengthy retrospective version.
Ireland
I took the car ferry from Troon to Larne with my parents. It takes around two hours, or somewhat longer if one of the engines isn't working. It's the only ferry I've ever been on that doesn't have proper external decks for passengers. You have to sit inside, or go up to the tiny walled in sheep-pen of an observation deck and hook your chin over the rail.
We drove down to Dublin, stopping for lunch in Armagh. The trip to the border took in lots of small towns with an unsettling number of flags and displays of red, white and blue bunting, making it look like America on Independence Day - only in this case it is clearly aimed at an opposing team, and not just for the day. Who would have thought that something so colourful could be so depressing?
Armagh was rainy and grey.
Dublin was rainy too, but interesting, and it became suddenly beautiful on our last evening when the sun came out. While there we walked for miles, usually in circles. We saw the famous bits in the middle - The Liffey, Temple Bar, Grafton Street, O'Connel Street. We visited St Patrick's Cathedral, the National Gallery, Trinity College and the Book of Kells exhibition.
Of all things, what I like most was Dublin's crossing signals:
Their compact little short-armed people are much nicer than the standard red and green men of British cities. I noticed a new crossing of a similar model in the centre of Glasgow last week, though.
Back in the north and on the way to Belfast we drove for some way along the coast of County Down to visit two historic houses, Castle Ward and Mount Stewart. The area from midway up the Lecale Peninsula and up the Ards peninsula was beautiful, with tunnels of trees and fuchsia hedges and nice little towns which seemed to be getting by without partisan display (or perhaps I was just distracted from it by the fuchsia and the sunshine). We saw the inside and outside of Castle Ward, a house built in two styles for a husband and wife with conflicting tastes, and then we took the ferry over Strangford Lough and arrived at Mount Stewart in time to see the formal gardens. The only gardens I've liked as much are those at Versailles, which are full of strange passages and unexpected objects. The Mount Stewart gardens are smaller, but they are pleasingly idiosyncratic. The terrace in front of the house is surrounded by statues of odd animals.
We drove on into Belfast, the partisan display taking a nasty turn for the worse as we hit the edges of the city. I was filled with the desire to leave before we arrived, but I'm happy to say that it all looked much better after a walk around the university area, a good pizza, and a bottle of beer.
The following day I went to the American Consulate to get my visa, an experience so entirely unlike going to the embassy in London that I am reluctant to mention it in case it becomes so popular with U.K. applicants that I can't get an appointment there in future.
And here ends the Ireland trip.
I think I had better make the rest into a new entry. However, I have already uploaded my favourite Edinburgh photo. So, I will end with it, and with the comment that when I first arrived back in Edinburgh I felt oddly indifferent - just a nice place I used to live long ago - and then, travelling on a bus through Tollcross, I was suddenly hit by the returning force of all my love for this city which still feels like my chosen home.
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