Factory tour in Midleton

The kids and I explored Cork more thoroughly on our own the next day.  Our hotel sits on a steep hill so that it takes about 15 minutes to walk down to Bridge Street, which leads into downtown, and then 30 minutes to walk back from the same point.  Add another hour or more to walk downtown, and it’s a nice stroll for some fresh air.  It is much like smaller towns in the U.S., only with more pubs.  I have to chuckle when Riley repeatedly asks if it’s true that Cork is the second largest city in all of Ireland?  It’s definitely different than what we’ve seen up to this point.

Back in 1899

Today!

Because the Irish have made a national commitment to preserving traditional agriculture, people are close to their food sources.  Fresh markets and butchers abound and they seem to predominate over bigger grocery stores.  There is a deli/grocer just about half a mile down from the hotel, and the kids make daily treks to it to buy actual food provisions and also sodas, yogurt-covered raisins and bubble gum, which Aidan has discovered for the first time.

Even better on the inside!

Always on the hunt for good coffee, I strike out a few times.  Then Riley notices a sign up ahead:  Cork Coffee Roasters.  Sounds promising.  Double cappuccino should put them to the test.  It is heavenly.  It becomes a daily stop on Bridge Street, which means I have to hike 45 minutes for that little cuppa.  And totally worth it.  The barista gets to know us, and we eventually bump into the owners.  The husband is Irish and the wife is from Seattle, where they lived for a number of years, natch.  No wonder they know how to make good coffee.

The next day, we go into work with Ken and have our own private guided tour of the manufacturing facilities.  There are towers of Term-a-rests stacked up high as they are tested for leaks.  You really want to climb up and jump on either those or the bins of foam scrap that are just begging some someone to dive in.  Pretty cool for the kids to see how everything is made.  It’s no L’Occitane tour, but it is what allows us to buy the L’Occitane products.

From the factory we hike a trail into the tiny town of Midleton.  We do a little Irish hurling and football jersey shopping, visit a French patisserie, wander through a park, and eventually meet Ken for a late lunch after the plant closes at 2pm.  We went to the Farmgate café and had a fabulous Irish meal.  And a few hornets. 

Mmm - if only every restaurant could grow its own menu

I don’t think I have mentioned this before, but I seem to have a bee problem.  Not the cute, fuzzy bumblebee or the valiant honeybee, but those damned yellow jackets.  They like something about either my blood chemistry or my hair products.  Every freakin’ day they come and investigate me.  It has become a running joke.  I had hoped it would end in England, but no.  They are here too.   

 The worst part is they get in my hair.  I haven’t run a flat iron through my hair since we left Seattle.  I brought it, but it blew the converter.  So between the curls and the humidity and the different kinds of water and lack of proper curly hair-care products, I am walking around like Hermione Granger in the early HP books.  Maybe closer to Hagrid, I don’t want to think about it. 



But at any rate, there was no harm done to anyone involved.  I will go on to attract hornets for some time to come.

What I look like to a yellow jacket who has been trapped under my water glass