Cork and Blarney

Just a door I found

Time is relative, right.  Sometimes it flies; sometimes it drags and sometimes you feel like you bounce in and out of the flow of it.  As if there were eddies in the current.  Or you fall down the rabbit hole where you experience fantastic adventures, and then come to realize that you were only gone for an hour.  

You experience it on vacation.  You get your own speed of time, which is slower than that of the rest of the world.  Maybe like us, you might spend two weeks in Wyoming and live a month’s worth of days.  Then you re-enter reality and Hurricane Katrina has destroyed New Orleans.  And you want to go back to Wyoming.

The weekend we just had was only three days but it felt like a week had passed since we were in Cork.  Ken left Tuesday for England, and the kids and I had plans to run around Cork, Cobh and Blarney while he was gone.  Wednesday I made a mistake and triggered a migraine. 

One horrid aspect of migraines is that you know the triggers, but that doing something that triggers a migraine doesn’t always mean it WILL trigger a migraine.  You only know after the warning signs appear that you did trigger it and then you kick yourself for being so stupid.  That’s what happened to me.  I had one in early June and that seems to be about the frequency I get them – about every other month.  This one came when I made the mistake of having a hot chocolate that was way too rich.  It was like a melted bar with cream added, I don’t know.  I usually don’t drink hot chocolates because they are either crappy or so rich that they are an overload on the sweet tooth. 

About an hour later I started to feel nausea.  It's almost like vertigo.  It's feeling sick and dizzy at the same time, but it's neither one nor the other.  Medicine helps you cope, but it doesn't shorten the duration.  Mine are usually three days, which I like to call "onset day, catch up on your sleep day, and the day of departure."

The kids didn't mind.  Cobh was scrapped.  Thursday we met up with a guy from Cascade who used to work at Blarney Castle when he was in high school and college.  He was going to give us and his adorable five year old son a tour.  Not thinking clearly, I left my camera at home.  Maybe next time.  So I bought these at a horribly high price.
We went to the Witch's kitchen in the Druidic oak circle on the back side of the castle, past the poison garden (which had a fake marijuana plant among other, more nefarious things.)  It's the oldest evidence of cave-living in Ireland and a fire mysteriously appears in the kitchen every night.  We went down and then up the wishing stairs, backwards and with our eyes closed.  We're told this means that our wishe will come true within the next year.


I would be remiss if I didn't point out something funny, and not "funny-ha-ha" as we like to say.  The hotel we are in is ok.  Not great, not a pit.  Each week, we change apartments, and each week there is a charming amount of odd things which are broken, stuck and missing.  Riley calls them "lovable inconsistencies."  I don't dare criticize (except for now), because the family views me as sort of a softie who doesn't want to endure hardships.  (Ok Ken thinks that.)  So I'd like to take a moment and show you the disparity between where the family is staying and where Ken is staying on his trip to Derbyshire.

Mod Dunny is very disappointed

First up is one of the twin beds in our apartment.  It had such a sag to it that I had to take a picture to prove I wasn't exaggerating.  I laid an ironing board on top to try to give a horizontal plane.  Shame on you Best Western.  I know the economy is hard, but this hotel is full, your pub and restaurant are hopping every night.  Replace your mattresses a little sooner, ok?  Gross.  Now for Ken.

That's a king size 4 poster bed with 6 pillows.  The house was built in the 1600s.  The owner rents out rooms as a B&B for fun.  She's a collector and will sell many of the true antiques in the house.  Ken claims that it might be the best night's sleep he's ever had.  Indeed.  One might be extra tired after roaming around the English countryside in one of these...

And the rental car agent just happened to give Ken an upgrade to this Alfa Romeo sedan.  Suspicious.