Gulliver’s Travels

Friday, 26 June

I’m sure I still have particles of black powder embedded in the left side of my face due to firing volleys at Waterloo.

With about a week of driving on the right hand side of the road, I’m almost getting used to it. I still use the phrases ‘Look Left and Live!’ (as that’s where the traffic is coming from) and ‘Right is Right’ (to remind myself that I have to drive on the right). So far things have been OK. It should be interesting when we get back to the UK and have to go around roundabout in a clockwise direction.

We couldn’t believe the amount of cyclists and the amount of bike paths in Belgium. I think they even have right of way on roundabouts. Germany, so far, is also supportive of bikes but not the extent of Belgium. So few wear helmets which seems crazy but that could because they don’t cycle on the roads and stay on the paths.

I think it’s an unwritten rule that whilst driving, campervan owners will wave to other campervan owners and never to caravan owners. I think this is also the reverse rule for caravan owners as none of those bastards have waved back yet. I have noted that very few Germans Motorhome drivers wave regardless. Do campervan owners look down upon caravan owners as they don’t have the dedication to the travelling cause to own a campervan and just hitch up their caravan to the family car? Maybe caravan owners think that the pretentious gits who own campervans need to get a life?

Whatever the case, I like campervans as you can stop in any weather, step into the back and have a coffee or a kip without having to brave the elements and have the greater flexibility to park for the night where I can get away with. Drawbacks include driving around tiny little streets when visiting tiny little towns and if something needs fixing or maintaining, it all needs to be handed over to the mechanic. Caravan owners have the flexibility to drop their home off at a caravan site and drive into a town and park in overhead parking structures.

Trucks in Germany seem to be limited to 90km/hour on the highway which means I can overtake them. Quite a different experience when previously it felt that they were blowing me off the road when they hurdled past. The lack of hills and lots of autobahns so far has been a Godsend although you have to actually leave the main roads to see the interesting towns with all those interesting shops that Dee is pining for.

Dee and I have finally worked out the ratio of 1:1 for driving and seeing interesting towns. If we leave at 9.30 and get to our finished point by 3pm so Dee can have her afternoon kip, we should have half an hour for lunch, 2.5 hours for driving and 2.5 hours for wandering through the streets and shops of whatever place strikes her fancy, as long as she gives me enough time to decelerate, not cause an accident and turn off.

One of the places we pulled up in had a ‘Miniature Land’ that Dee and Gene loved. About 20 towns in the local area had miniatures made of them with homes and businesses abound. There was even a factory of tiny wind turbines. Of note was the abundance of beach scenes where people were having sex in the dunes or a guy was running off with a woman’s bikini top. Lots of scenes of people doing first aid and CPR in various forms of accidents were also there.

Last night we were looking at maps and looking at the GPS and making the battle plan for the following day’s drive. The GPS told us we were in one spot and on the map we thought we further along. What had occurred was the town we thought we were at and the town we were actually at had very, very similar names but the tiny little inbred town we were at didn’t show up on the map.

Hopefully, we’ll be in Copenhagen by Sunday and into Norway and Sweden by the start of the week.

As we have already completed over 5,000km, I’m looking for a mechanic to do a minor service on Springy. I thought I found one yesterday but since he wasn’t interested in my business unless I spoke German, I’ll have to look for one in Sweden/Norway next week. And our fridge is playing silly buggers with us. We normally use the gas setting for cooling the fridge when parked but currently it’s not cooling as it was before. There’s still gas in the bottle and the pilot light is burning but it isn’t cooling the fridge. I just looked at the outside vent to see if there was any blockage to restrict the flow of air but it looks OK, even if it’s warm. We’ll probably have to see a campervan specialist next week for that.

Tonight (Friday) we went to a Greek restaurant next door to where we’re parked. Perhaps only in Germany will you get sauerkraut and a roast potato as part of your salad in your Greek meal.
J

One of the problems with a whirlwind visit over Europe is getting a grasp of the language of the country you’re in. My knowledge of the German language is limited to my grade 8 German classes 30 years ago, Hogan’s Heroes and Inspector Rex on the SBS…..

I googled up the sunrise and sunset of the most northern town that we’ll be in and there’ll be about 21 ½ hours of sunlight in the day. We’ll miss the summer solstice and the day where the sun never goes down but this is still awesome.

Saturday, 27 June 15

From Bremen we travelled northish to Flensburg, a large city on the Danish/German border. See saw a caravan and campervan repair shop near where we parked and wished it was open for our fridge to be looked at but they aren’t open on Saturdays. Tomorrow was planned to end up in Copenhagen until Dee asked where her purse was. After a quick search of Springy (that’s all that’s required) we realised Dee had left it in Wacken, a small town in the middle of nowhere where we had lunch that day. The bonus of this 3 hour return journey is that we will come back to Flensburg tomorrow afternoon and hopefully see the campervan people on Monday morning.

Sunday, 28 June

The drive to Wacken was easy since there we no trucks on the road, maybe because it was a Sunday and nothing is open to deliver to. It’s quite a civilised thing to occur and pretty foreign to me where shops are open 24/7.

We figured we would be back in the carpark next to the shut supermarket by lunch, so we decided to go to visit the Schloss Gottorf Landes Museen as we saw signs for it when driving backwards and forwards from Wacken to Flensburg. It’s a great place to visit with Bog bodies, a Viking ship, Neolithic tool making demonstrations and art throughout the ages with the downside that the family ticket had to be shown at each area which became a pain if someone needs to go to the toilet or people want to see different things (which isn’t possible). Trying to translate the info into English was half the fun.

I had hoped to visit the Hedeby Museum but we ran out of time in the afternoon. It looks great but it probably isn’t possible tomorrow with trying to get the fridge fixed and a 3 hour drive to Copenhagen.

Monday, 29 June

The intended business we had hoped would fix our fridge only sold camper vans but gave us an address of a business that could. They were awesome and after about an hour we were on our way to Denmark. It was a fair drive to reach Copenhagen and we did miss the original Lego Land ( due to not knowing it was there until we had past it) and nifty Viking village that was too far off the beaten track.

Tomorrow we’re off to visit the sites of Copenhagen. It should be fun and incorporate a barge bride around the city to see the main tourist sights. Wednesday we have booked Springy in for a service before we leave Denmark. The poor guy has done 7,00km since since his last service and that was about a month and a half ago.

I had hoped that Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland would all use the same Kroner but unfortunately, it’s not the case so I have to be careful not to accumulate too much cash in each country.

Amsterdam

23 June
After 4 hours of washing and drying of clothes on Monday night, we were ready to spend Tuesday visiting Amsterdam. After a bit of fluffing around in the morning deciding whether to drive or catch the train, we decided to take the easier option and take the latter.

I didn't really know what to expect from Amsterdam since my only experience with it was from Pulp Fiction and Duece Bigalo. Gene was expecting something from that love story about 2 sick kids and things written in the stars. Dee was the only one who has been there before and that was in 93 and she was busy running off to catch up with some US Army dude who likes history and old things. Thankfully she got THAT out of her system........

I think I'll break down the trip to several points:

Bicycles. They are everywhere and it is awesome. I saw bugger all racing or mountain bikes with most people riding a simple model. Many men rode a bike we would in Australia call a 'girls' bike with no central bar that could pulverise your testicles if you slipped on your pedals. There are also very few hills about which makes cycling much easier. They have a massive bike way plan and the bike rack area near the train stations is unbelievable.

Canals. I know there were canals here and throughout the area but this felt like a northern Venice. It was suitably awesome and great to use as reference points when navigating around the city. We also found the bridge that padlocks with lovers names are attached. They seem to be removed every year or so as we couldn't find any old ones.

Cannabis. Trying to find a place to eat where I wouldn't get high from second hand smoke made lunch a challenge. It's great that there are heaps of happy relaxed people here though.

Police. To possible contradict the above post, it was great to see the police in their riot gear and woven round shields settling down protesters (what about, I have no idea).

Shopping. We possibly spent some more money than what we planned for on clothes (generally tops) Dee and I bought Cadbury purple French military caps for 8 euro each. A bargain!

Ann Frank. I went to look at the house of Ann Frank after Dee and Gene were starting to wear out. I think I took a photo of the right place.... The house next door was modern and obviously a museum to her. There was also a 200m line of people waiting to visit.

Subtlety Leaning Buildings. Whether it's the canals or dodgy buildings but there are many older buildings that have a bit of a lean to them. It makes it for some interesting architecture.

Genevieve's Reaction. We were surprised about how gene reacted to the overt presence of the sex and drug industry. We didn't realise how prudish she was until then. Maybe she was adopted............ I think she was also disappointed that Amsterdam was nothing like the book she read.

Tomorrow we head further north!

Waterloo

21 June 15

Waterloo.

After spending most of our time in Oxford looking for an internet Café that could print documents but not rob us at the same time (the city was lovely but we didn’t have the opportunity to stroll the streets and take it all in) we travelled to Runnymede for the 800 year anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta.

Irony abounded the event. The Magna Carta was written to bring King John down from his high horse and stop him from acting like a spoiled child in a toy shop and give more power to the Bishops and Barons. Not one brass farthing was given to the well-being of the lower class. Luckily in the future, the document was used to help those they hadn’t thought about at the time. For the anniversary you could only attend the official, barricaded event if you one of the specially invited 4,500 guests. For the others of lesser importance, a large screen was provided at the other end of the field. There were a few hundred peasants in the field, most of them were school children and only one was dressed like an unrepresented medieval peasant and he wasn’t even British.

Dee and Gene decided to stay at Old Windsor, the town literally down the road, and I tromped off and followed the no parking signs and the constant roving police presence to find my final destination. I was able to see the Queen and her entourage to and from the event as they drove from Windsor Castle which was also just down the road (You could actually see it on the high ground at the end of the road. Surreal.) The MC opened the event, the British PM had his opportunity to speak and the Bishop of Canterbury also had something to say but didn’t lose his head over it *boom boom*. The Queen then tottered up to open the little curtain so everyone could see the little plaque to commemorate the occasion and tottered off to meet a few specially chosen people from the specially chosen people then drove off. She had a fabulous hat.

I don’t honestly believe she wanted to be there. Basically, this event celebrated the losing of royal power by some git 800 years ago and I can’t imagine that she really appreciated the fact that such a large thing was being made from it. You can wonder what her duties would be today if this hadn’t been brought in. She probably wouldn’t be spending most of her time pulling ropes for little curtains and knighting rock stars.

After Runnymede we drove to Kent to catch up with the rest of the British and Australian contingent of 95^th Riflemen (we would later meet the American Riflemen of our contingent at Waterloo) as we were driving off the following day. A nice dinner at the suburb’s social club, a thing I’ve never come across before, that night prepared us for the drive to Dover, the ferry crossing and the drive to Waterloo the following day. Luckily with the use of our GPS, we arrived there safe and sound as the mini bus and van were off the ferry before us and we weren’t able to catch up. I even handled the driving on the wrong side of the road quite well….

Soon the camp was set up and we had found a spot to park the campervan for the next 5 nights. We had 2 days prior to the event to see the sights and cover the drill required to look good to the punters and not get killed or maimed on the field.

Even before the event started, casualties occurred. An Australian female rider was thrown from a young fiery mount at a previous event and she broke her leg and ankle (that horse was then brought to Waterloo and threw another rider). A Canadian had a heart attack and died near the toilets situated next to the walls of Hougoumont. It’s believed he wasn’t managing his diabetes properly (a warning to all those who suffer from this disease). A Cold Stream Guard was killed by a car late at night; Several horses were put down, most from slipping on the duckboards that were the roadways of the site. There also human injuries from the boards. The boards became even more dangerous after a light rain to make them even more slippery. Even the person playing Napoleon broke his arm. I lost track of how many broken bones, strains, sprains  and eye and ear injuries occurred over the event. To top it off, Dee’s borrowed dress that she was wearing caught fire at the encampment’s kitchen due to high winds. Luckily, we were there and she dropped and rolled and I patted out the flames. The back half of her skirt was burnt away but the chemise was fine which was why she only received the lightest of singes on her right shin (I did suggest she shave those long hairs…). An hour later she was fine, showing everyone how much of a hot arse she has.

Regardless, Waterloo was a fantastic experience. To encamp in the area of the battle, leaning against the walls of Hougoumont to make cartridges, watching the Allied army march to take up their positions, kneel in the wheat fields in the skirmish line and feeling the shock waves of artillery salvos go through your body. The rumour mill was abound with stories how the French wanted a re-match and how some will be fighting hard. In the actual when the 2 forces met, it was with lots of smiles, handshakes and even hugs. From the stands it must have looked like some pretty savage hand-to-hand fighting.

One of the guys was casting about for half an hour before the start of the battle, hoping to find a musket ball from the actual battle to no avail. One of the Riflemen from my team was lying down and relaxing and glanced at the ground and notice a small round protrusion between the wheat stalks and plucked up a musket ball. That started an amateur archaeological dig by all and sundry but to no avail.

It was very interesting to learn the 95^th’s, 2^nd Battalion weapon and parade drill as it differed from ours. At first, the words of command left us pretty perplexed but after a while we finally figured out what they wanted us to do. A great group with fantastic personalities. I’m hoping on gaining some new FB friends soon.

It was unusual to start the actual battle so late with the first salvo at 8pm with everything finishing at 10pm. Considering the sun doesn’t go down until 11pm and it’s much cooler, it’s pretty logical but, again, surreal.

Today, we cleared out our possessions from the camp, had the group photos that we forgot to take during the event, made our farewells. We traveled less that 80km to Antwerp to the north. We were pretty tired and were planning on a ‘make and mend’ day where our clothes from the last week could be washed and dried. Unfortunately, the camping site doesn’t have washing and drying machines, so we will have to wait until tomorrow when we’re in Amsterdam.

The sacrifices for the holiday budget

Friday, 12 June 15.
I think it's an accepted fact that you can't go everywhere and buy everything you want over a long holiday. Yesterday we blew our 'food and fun' budget at Bath and it was worth every penny.

Today, we looked at visiting the Longleat Safari Park and Stonehenge. We drove up to the gates of the first and turned around and Gene and I looked at the visitor centre of the latter. A drive by of the site was enough for us.

We also tromped around Old Sarum and enjoyed the bits we didn't have to pay for. It was a great site.

Salisbury was great but caused Dee a bit of a concern about the cost to see the cathedral but since it was only voluntary, we just walked in.

A beautiful building which almost beggers belief that they were able to construct it using the most basic of tools.

There was a wonderful grave statue ( the technical name escapes me right now). The plaque says it was initial thought to be made about 1250AD but has later been revised to the 14th century. I couldn't help myself and I talked to two guides and one of the priests about how I thought the original age was correct due to the type of hand protection, the leg armour, the integral hauberk of mitten and coif and the lack of armour normally seen on a 14th Century knight.

We also saw one of the 4 original Magna Cartas and was a bit entranced by the wall sculptures in the room. I think I found documentation for a large travelling bag that isn't like a man bag and a pouch attached to the belt of the braies. A bit excited about that.

Tomorrow we'll go back to Salisbury for a look around, find the Church where Dee and I were married in in 1999 and off to Winchester. We have only a few more days before we cross over to Waterloo and we'r hoping to also fit in Oxford, Runymede, a quick hello to London and catch up with the members of the 95th in Kent.

Bath

11 Jun 15

In the morning I took a walk around the various footpaths of Stanton Drew as the actual roads are frighteningly narrow and not worth the risk to walk along. Most of the paths were through milking cows pastures which is slightly safer.
:)

One of the paths I was on lead from the fields to the milking shed and it was hard packed soil and slightly depressed. I'm assuming that the milking shed hasn't moved dramatically from it's current position for the last thousand years or so (considering the village's church was built in 1341), that would mean this path has been used for at least hundreds of years. It's things like that I love.

Bath was wonderful. A clear warm day was perfect for climbing into our Regency period clothes and walking the streets of Bath. In fact, by the end of the day I had removed my stock, jacket and unbuttoned my shirt.

The Bath exhibition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Baths_%28Bath%29) has improved dramatically since we were there in 1999. Before you walked up and saw the central bath and that was about it. Now, as much as possible, you can see the entire site with finds, audio guides and even video displays.

We then retired to the Pump Room (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_Pump_Room) for lunch for their High Tea. A beautiful place with so much history. We even took in a refreshing drink of the spring water.

As we bought a family, super saver ticket, we visited the Fashion Museum in the afternoon and then reasted in 'The Circus' a beautiful set of homes built from 1742 looking into a central park. A great place to lie down and watch a bike race that was also occurring in the town and playing havoc with the traffic.

After the GPS played silly buggers with us, we're now at the Horse and Groom in Westbury, just down the road from the White horse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westbury_White_Horse). Maybe the intent for tomorrow walk. Tomorrow's adventure will take us to Longleat.

What’s that place with 15 letters but only one vowel? Wales

Apologies for the long posts. We seem to have more access to electricity than wifi!

07 Jun

With the successful crossing of the Irish Sea, even with an interesting conversation with an Iranian who was a fundamentalist Muslim and is now a fundamentalist Born Again Christian (he has a you tube site of https://www.youtube.com/user/mostafa4jesus) , we were off on firm Scottish soil. We had planned to reach English soil by the end of the night but too much fun was had along the way. We stopped at Gateway on Fleet because it has an interesting name and there was a weaving industry and a kilt maker there. We pushed on to Dumfries, the home of Robert Burns, and stayed the night next to the Nigh and celebrated Dee’s birthday at an Italian restaurant. After an excellent morning walk and completion of the morning routine, Springy decided not to start and wanted a new battery *Note to self: the radio uses the main battery and everything else runs off the leisure battery*. I did get my man card stamped by purchasing and replacing the battery all by myself.

The gale force winds were still on the highways which made driving south on the main highway a bit hairy. Springy has been making lurching actions when accelerating with high revs. I think it’s due to clogging fuel filter but since it was a weekend, it made trying to find a new filter a bit hard. She’s working well though as long as we take care of her.

We were able to grab a bit of free wifi in South Ribble (all I can think of is a questioning frog) at the BBQ grill pub we stayed at for the night but not long enough to say a decent hello to anyone.

Shrewsbury was a great experience but not what we were expecting. The cathedral was amazing (Ellis Peters has a stained glass window in honour of her Brother Cadfael books. There wasn’t  any info about how the Monastery looked. There was a very cool building that was the foregate but it was being used to host a Vegan Festival. Shrewsbury itself was wonderful with some Tudor buildings and alleyways. We spent the night at the Horseshoe Inn that night. We had a great chat with some of the locals whilst sewing Gene and Dee dresses. 

It was great to be able to talk to people whose accents were understandable. I’m not saying that they could understand me though……Whilst I speak Strayian, I think I can understand other forms of English but some places absolutely lose me.

Sunday had us visit a Roman City in Wroxeter and back to Shrewsbury again to rummage through a car boot sale. More clothes and books were purchased. There was some heavy drooling at a scythe that came with 2 blades (one a replacement) for only 25 pounds but I doubt I could have brought it back to Australia. For the rest of the day we have been driving through Wales.

So far, we are of the consensus that Wales is the prettiest place so far in the British isles, even better than Scotland.

Monday had us eventually in Cardiff. Springy wasn’t enjoying rapid accelerations and it was a similar experience when we had Bob in 1999 when we picked up a filthy load of fuel. I finally found a place to buy new fuel filters and we were off to Cardiff. We lost the first half of the day ginning about with poor directions and driving and then couldn’t make it to the Dr Who Museum which is good as it would cost another 44 pounds including buses and we just didn’t have the time or money. 

Gene and I then had a nice couple of hours in Cardiff looking around while Dee had a kip. We found the library and hoped to pillage it for its Wifi but they didn’t have any there but their ‘Pop-up’ Library did. Fun ensued trying to find the free roving library (the Librarian even looked like Peng’s Mum) but we finally relented and had a nice look around instead.

We’re now looking at the straits and the bridge that crosses from Cardiff and Bristol with bridge just to our right. As we were making our way there, we drove past a Military base with ‘THE RIFLES’ emblazoned on the gates and I became slightly fangirl squeely. I’ll be walking back to the gates for morning PT and hopefully getting a photo.

Tuesday, 09 June 2015.

With a short walk down the road, I was able to have a chat with the 2 Rifleman on front gate duty. I made sure I had ID on me to show that I was who I said I was but still had some anxious calls on the radio from the guard 2IC wanting to know who I was and what I was doing.

That set me up for the rest of the day. We visited the Clark Shoe Museum, had a late morning tea at the Mad Hatter Café and became so lost in in a retail village we had to ask information how to get the hell out.

We stopped only a few minutes down the road at Glastonbury to look at the Abbey where Arthur is alleged to be buried and visit all the estoric shops that surround the Abbey. Merlin and Morgan le Fay have much to answer for.

From there, things didn't go as expected. We must have stuffed up the plotting for the GPS and instead of ending up at Exeter, we realised we were heading back to Bristol.........

After a bit of swearing we plotted a new course to The Druids Arms (http://www.thedruidsarms.co.uk/) another Brit Stops pub. Apparentely, it has a girl ghost called Grace, standing stones in the back yard and an easy stroll to stone circle around the same age as Stonehenge but more accessible. Best of all, it has wifi!

Since we have gained a day by not going to Cornwall as planned, we are staying put and doing some last minute sewing to finish the girl's Regency dresses so we can visit Bath the following day in appropriate clothing.

There once was a man called Michael Finnigan

The high winds over the last few days have made travelling a bit harder, blowing Springy with gusts making driving on the highway slow going and a bit hairy.

We were able to take a double decker bus to Dublin from the caravan park which was a massive bonus. It was interesting that only half of the top floor was covered making latecomers, like us, cower in the front top part until the bus took off. Cool, swirling winds and a light drizzling rain added to the experience.

Overall, Dublin was nice. It wasn’t fantastic. We may have had a better experience if the weather was better but it would be hard to say.

We first ummed and ahhed over what to see first and finally decided to walk to the Dublin Writers Museum. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to open for another 20 minutes, so we went to an art gallery on the same street to escape the weather. That one wasn’t open because it was Monday. While we waited, I visited a memorial across the road for soldiers who had died for Irish freedom. Once the museum opened, we realised it was going to cost us half of our daily budget and it didn’t look that great, so we moved off to see the Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells display had really picked up its game from the last time we visited. In 1999, you could just walk up and look at it siting under the glass. Each day a new page was turned, unfortunately, we had a rather boring page that day. This time there was more information displayed on the history of the book and others from the same area and time period, how the books were made, the style of writing and how they illuminated the books. You then came to the separate room to view the book (a much better page this time) with 2 leaves being displayed, one an illumination and the other a written page.

It was in the centre of the room with a short description to the left of the book. This would make you gravitate to the left to read the description, move to the right to look at the illuminated leaf (Ooh! Ahh!) then continue to the right to see the written leaf with the blurb after. This created a bit of an anti-clockwise spiral of viewing which would then fling you from its gravitational pull upstairs to view the long room with its thousands of ancient books. This was spoilt by buggers just pushing in to look at the book for 10 seconds and move away instead of just waiting in line like everyone else. It might be worth letting the Trinity College know about that….. Either that or re-assess my OCD-ness.

We also stood outside the childhood home of Oscar Wilde before looking for something that would appease Dee as she wasn’t very impressed with the weather. Luckily we found a lovely jewelry shop and a coffee/chocolate shop that put her in a better mood. After walking the streets of Dublin, we decided to hide in a café for 2 hours while waiting for the double decker buss to take us back to the caravan park.

The Carrolls have done well for themselves by almost cornering the entire market for Irish souvenirs and memorabilia. You couldn’t walk 200m without seeing one in the city heart.

Tuesday was a domestic day with showers, washing and drying in the morning and on the road at noon. A fairly straight drive enhanced with gale winds trying to push us into the next lane. After finding our next point of call, a pub called, ‘Lumpers’ we decide to do some shopping. This required all of us to drive and after a massive exploration of the local countryside (*NOTE! Use the GPS search for ‘Markets’ and not ‘Shops’*) we came back with the makings of an awesome dinner of spare ribs and cheesy vegetables (where the ratio of cheese to vegetable is 1:1).

We also started on Dee’s Napoleonic peasant outfit and I was doing the final fitting for Gene’s (hopefully finishing the sleeves soon). At some point in the last 13 years my little girl has grown up into a young lady………….

We woke to a beautiful, and dare I say, warm Wednesday morning. With no excuse about the weather, I took an hour long walk up the hills behind Lumpers. We saw walkers preparing at the carpark the following evening at 7pm for a 2-3 hour walk up the path. You would think it would be too late to go for a walk until you remember the sun doesn’t go down until 10pm. The path is named, ‘The Tain Way’ in memory of Cuculain, the Hound of Ulster, who stole cattle from another Chieftain. Honestly, it’s worse than us Australians glorifying a suicidal sheep stealer as the most patriotic song of our society.

The irony of the track that the Hound of Ulster is named after doesn’t allow dogs………….

After the walk (it had a fantastic view at the top) we travelled to Northern Ireland again in preparation for the early morning crossing back to Scotland and into England by the end of the day. We were distracted by a sign and visited the marvelous Irish Linen Museum. With the expected normal display stuff, there was a hands-on area and we were able to feel the various stages of linen production from the flax to the thread. It was very interesting. They even had B&W footage of workers taking the flax through the process that probably hadn’t changed for thousands of years. They also had the looms working with 2 weavers showing us what they were doing. Beautiful items with an amazingly complex loom that used punch cards to weave damask linens.

Thursday is also Dee’s birthday, so we’ll be celebrating it in 3 countries (Northern Ireland, Scotland and England). I did offer Dee a haggis birthday cake since we’ll be in Scotland but she wouldn’t enter the idea.

We have 3 days of driving south to get to Shrewsbury (an exciting prospect if you are a Brother Cadfael fan, as we are) and into Wales, Bath and Cornwall before we catch up with the other 95^th Rifles members on the 16^th for Waterloo.