Beautiful Ireland (cont'd).

A last minute change of plan had us heading further south in the Republic to Waterford. Main reason to again visit the Waterford Crystal Plant and do the factory tour. The craftsmanship that goes into making every piece is unbelievable, any wonder it is expensive, as the whole process from blowing to engraving to finishing is labour intensive. In recent years Waterford have diversified into the "one off" market of trophies etc. for big name events such as the Volvo Ocean Race, the Ryder Cup golf challenge and of course Wimbledon to name but a few.
The factory tours are very popular, but fortunately we were able to get on one within 1/2 hour of our arrival there. From Waterford it is only a relatively short drive to Wexford, where we arrived about 5pm. Stopped at the Visitor Information building on the Quay and obtained a map and instructions on how to get to Florrie & Jack's. They were eagerley awaiting our arrival and greeted us like long lost family members. They now live in a lovely modern townhouse in a housing estate just a little way from the centre of the small township of Wexford. They have a lovely small rear garden and outdoor entertaining area, complete with a glasshouse vegie garden and a small timber aviary where Jack breeds canaries and finches. This is a hobby he has taken on in the last 5 years since moving to this roomier home. It was very interesting to see his setup and compare it with Jim Benhams - very similar but on a smaller scale. Jack told me that when I took him to see Jim's avaries during on!
e of their previous visits to Australia he took note of several of Jim's ideas and had subsequently incorporated them into his setup. He obviously derives a great deal of pleasure and relaxation from his birds. They were disappointed to find that we were only staying 3 nights, they had anticipated at least a week. After dinner Florrie phoned her sister Renee and her husband Thomas who also live in Wexford and are close friends of ours also. We had the craziest night reminiscing and laughing over past times together, over a guiness and wine or two or three or four - or was it five or six?. Sleep definately came easy that night for all involved. One lovely feature of this community is that everyone lives so close that they tend to walk everywhere - particularly when it comes to having a drink, either at home or at the local pub which generally gets a visit around 11pm. The Irish population seem to be "night people" as they seldom rise before 9am, but love a guiness at the lo!
cal around midnight.
The next day Gail & I were picked up by Thomas & Renee around lunch time and taken out for the day. We had lunch at a typical Irish pub somewhere north of Wexford, then continued on to the small fishing village of Courtown where a walk along the seawall and onto the pier rounded out the day.
On Saturday we took them all to lunch at a great seaside pub called "The Wooden House", located at Kilmore Quay. This place had an original thatched (or tatched as they call it) roof. We then visited a lovely ocean-side memorial park that has been established in recent years in memory of all those seamen, fisherman and life-boat crews who have lost their lives over the years on the very treacherous Irish coast. This is a very special place for both Thomas and Jack as they both served many years at sea with an Irish shipping company and many of their past sea-faring friends ultimately lost their lives at sea. Thomas is still very active in an on-shore role with the Lifeboat organisation whose members frequently risk their own lives by putting to sea in terrible conditions to rescue other seamen in trouble.
Saturday night was another hilarious night - less guiness this time, but lots and lots of laughs together. At one stage Florrie even texted her sister in Australia (Joan Smith) to find out a name that neither Gail or Florrie could remember. The answer came back within 1/2 hour - 7am Sydney time. We finally turned in about midnight as we have to depart around 6am to drive 140km to Dublin in order to catch our flight to London. An absolutely fantastic 7 days in Ireland, particularly the time in Wexford. We arrived at Dublin airport about 8:30am, returned the rental car and had time to relax before the departure of our British Midland flight to Heathrow. We have just received an email from Rodney, who has been very ill over the last two weeks with glandular fever and ended up at RPA hospital on a drip because he could not swallow as his throat was so swollen. Thanks to Angie he is being well looked after.
Kevin & Gail.
www.alaska-2006.blogspot.com

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