Monthly Archives: October 2006

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I’m back in London. It’s a long trip back from Ireland by train and ferry, but it was nicer than flying.
One brother is back in Bristol, the other is staying with me for a few days. I said goodbye to Mum and Dad in Ireland, I’ll probably see them as they pass through London on their way back home. They have to stay in Ireland until Mum has another x-ray so I’ll know more after that.
The drive from Kilkenny to Wexford was quite nice. We passed through Inistioge, which is an almost-too-pretty village in a lovely valley setting.

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Last day in Ireland

We’re in Kilkenny, and will head to Wexford tonight. We couldn’t find anywhere affordable to stay in Rosslare so we’ll get a mini-cab to the port from Wexford.
Last night I went out for dinner with my brothers and then we found a pub with live music (trad Irish). It was actually a pretty good night until the band finished and we went to the disco upstairs. I wouldn’t last a week living in a small town like this, based on that disco. Still, the crowd in the pub was good value – there was a group of girls out for a night out who sang along to all the songs and actually offered more entertainment than the band.
We were in Cashel the night before, but I didn’t get to see the Rock of Cashel cos Mum’s cast was tight overnight, and her IV puncture was infected, so we took her to the hospital again. She’s fine, but needs to be careful to keep her foot elevated all the time. Being Mum, she was trying to see and do too much still.
They’ll probably have to head straight back to Australia after her x-ray appointment in Waterford on the 18th. She says they’ll be back in Europe next year, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

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A 90 year old nun tried to flash me today

What a day.
To put it in context, I was visiting Mum in hospital. She’s broken a bone in her right ankle and is in a cast, but should be out tomorrow. They didn’t need to operate cos they’re trying to manipulate the bones through the skin first.
So much for touring Ireland! We might get to Borris and some of Kerry but it’s going to be very different. It’ll affect the rest of her holiday – no hiking in Eastern Europe for us – but at least she’s ok.
We actually had a good day together, the nurses let me stay through non-visiting hours so we had a good catch-up.
The poor nun was in the bed opposite. She has dementia, and was distressed because she’d been waiting for an operation all day. The tubes into her arm and nose kept bothering her, and at other times she was desperately looking after some cotton swabs she thought were matches. It was pretty upsetting watching her, I hope she has her operation and gets some rest soon.

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It’s been a long time coming:
“Judges, police officers and prosecutors will attend sex-assault seminars under radical reforms to be introduced to NSW Parliament.
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Industry experts believe an increase of 41 per cent in callers who were sexually assaulted as children shows victims feel they are now more likely to be treated with respect, the newspapers said.” (Age)

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“A waiter who looked like a guard from a hospital for the criminally insane would hand you a menu the size of a book of wallpaper samples. Slowly it would become clear that the items described did not constitute a list of items for sale, just a kind of collective folk memory of the entire Russian nation on the subject of food.
Trying to tease out of your server the one or two dishes that were actually available nearly always took longer than the process of eating dinner itself.” BBC
It’s about the old Russia, but I found that it still applies in the smaller cities of Ukraine.

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I wish I could see this: “Is Not is “uniquely Melburnian”, its designers claim, because of the centralised, pedestrian-friendly nature of the city and the relative abundance of bill-postering sites.” (Age)

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“A YouGov survey to be published tomorrow will show 3% of people have already stopped flying and another 10% have cut down because of concerns about climate change.” Times