Kevin's Watch

Frosy (aka Softy) is currently en route to the mystical isle of Eireann. We debated what to title this mini-fest: the 'VikingRe-invasionfest' didn't really trip off the tongue, 'Celtfest' was catchy but not accurate (as neither the Finns nor the Irish are really Celts), 'ussfest' just sounded wrong, 'Frostyfest' too snowmany, 'Softyfest' would have left too much room for Ananda's Scandianlous mind to roam....

So I eventually came up with 'FinnoGaelfest', which is accurate and sayable, and once I got over the unfortunate Irish political overtones associated with the name it's what we plumped for. ('Gael' is another name for an Irish person and is the root of the word Gaelic (the name of the Irish language)).

Frosty's flight is currently delayed by an hour, but she should be underway soon. I'm already in Dublin and plan to meet her at the airport later on.

We'll try and keep you up to date as the trip goes along. Expect pictures of green fields, hills, cliffs, Long Men, Giant's Graves, cows, dolmens, round towers and more!

u.

[EDITS: to change thread title.]

The fest of giants and gourds. .

You, u, and the little giant have fun!

Thanks, Damelon!

We'll do our best to not stomp and squash our way across the fair land of the Decies!

u.

Decies - interesting. I've been to Powercourt Gardens - anything to do with the Power family? I know it was in Killarney because when we got to the doors to the gardens there were McGillicuddy's Reeks right in front of us!

Have a good time. We shall get over to see you one day, maybe in a couple of years.

Oo there's a whole thread! Hi guys, planes love me as usual. Stuck in Germany for many hours and getting re-routed via some additional flights. At least I'm not the type to stand around confused with a finger in my mouth when plans go awry.

Iolanthe wrote:Decies - interesting. I've been to Powercourt Gardens - anything to do with the Power family? I know it was in Killarney because when we got to the doors to the gardens there were McGillicuddy's Reeks right in front of us!

Have a good time. We shall get over to see you one day, maybe in a couple of years.

Thanks, Io! Hope you'll make it over sometime.

Powerscourt Gardens are in Wicklow, so there are mountains. You might be mixing it up with Muckross House which is in Killarney, in Kerry, and so not far from the McGillycuddy Reeks.

The Power involved was a La Poer from the 13th Century (so Wiki says). Powers generally are descended from De Paor, a Norman name.

u.

Looking forward to y'all's updates.
Have a grand time!

ussusimiel wrote:

Iolanthe wrote:Decies - interesting. I've been to Powercourt Gardens - anything to do with the Power family? I know it was in Killarney because when we got to the doors to the gardens there were McGillicuddy's Reeks right in front of us!

Have a good time. We shall get over to see you one day, maybe in a couple of years.

Thanks, Io! Hope you'll make it over sometime.

Powerscourt Gardens are in Wicklow, so there are mountains. You might be mixing it up with Muckross House which is in Killarney, in Kerry, and so not far from the McGillycuddy Reeks.

The Power involved was a La Poer from the 13th Century (so Wiki says). Powers generally are descended from De Paor, a Norman name.

u.

Doh! Funny thing, memory. I do remember though that they had a graveyard, with headstones, for all the animals - cows and dogs etc. I took a photo of one. Been to Muckross of course, went round in a jaunting car in 1972, but walked round last time we were there.

ussusimiel wrote:Long Men

Have a great time, you guys!

She made it anyway!

Frosty had her usual trouble with planes and the hour delay of her flight out of Helsinki had a knock on six hour overall delay. She got into Dublin at 11pm and I met her on O'Connell St. at around 12pm. I had the onerous task of having to drink a couple of pints in The Flowing Tide opposite the the Abbey Theatre while I waited for her to arrive I saw a couple of famous Irish people, Brendan Conroy and maybe Paddy Maloney of the Chieftains.

We're off to Tara now to slog around some hills and, if Frosty has her way, crawl through some passage tombs!

u.

The planes have to make special accommodations for giants, hence the cause for the delay.

U, I'm sure you performed your task heroically at The Flowing Tide.

Have fun!

having to drink a couple of pints

We in healthcare know that patients always underestimate the amount of alcohol they consume out of fear of chastisement. This is especially true when the word "couple" is used. The rule of thumb is to take whatever amount that is admitted to and multiply it by a factor of 6.

I suspect Irish Mike didn't mind waiting.

Off to Galway to do some soloing. I hope I won't return entirely caked in mud akin to Innsbruck.

U. is being fun and pleasant company, as usual (and not going to withdraw the opinion that he's a very cute guy, eve if he did decide to hide behind three cows and a bull come Thursday ).

dlbpharmd wrote:

having to drink a couple of pints

We in healthcare know that patients always underestimate the amount of alcohol they consume out of fear of chastisement. This is especially true when the word "couple" is used. The rule of thumb is to take whatever amount that is admitted to and multiply it by a factor of 6.

I suspect Irish Mike didn't mind waiting.

And here I thought I was the only person who believed "couple" wasn't an exact number.

Have fun, Frosty! We're expecting LOTS of pictures!

Okay! Okay! I give!

I had 1 and 1/2 pints, which makes me a complete wuss (I put the uss in wuss!!!) by Irish standards. To my credit I did later drink a shot of the Patron tequila that I brought back from ABQ for my friend (never buy a gift that you wouldn't enjoy yourself! )

Myself and Frosty went to Tara today:

That's not me in the picture.


Frosty got her passage tomb fix and so was happy with the day. (The images that I am using are generic ones from the web as I don't carry a camera and the Giantess insists on taking her pictures in 'roll format' (whatever that is! ) which can't be directly uploaded to flickr. (I may have to resort to taking some myself )

The weather was good and it was a very enjoyable day. I learned a lot about Tara (I'd never been there before) and I now know that it was a neolithic site and its place in Irish myths and legends relate mostly to its later use rather than its origins.

u.

RAW format, my good sir-gourd. Also the reason for the bucketful of memory cards as they eat space like the Worm. The camera does have a double raw+jpeg option, but my five hours of sleep caused bafscatterwittedness all through the day. We'll put that on so the watch can follow the show...
But you ought to register a flickr, I place mainly post-processed content on mine. *giant perfectionist syndrome*

Nice! I hope you two have fun. I just have one question, though: who is Frosty?

Ananda wrote:Nice! I hope you two have fun. I just have one question, though: who is Frosty?

Aina morkkaamassa rajanaapureita, mokomat svedut. >:[ Perkele. Ishjärta. Ishjärta!!!

Been shooting today in two-mode saving, so u. can dump some jpg's to this thread later. Takes up a bit more memory card space.

Part Deux of the FinnoGaelfest kicked off today. I met up with Softy (the Watcher Formerly Known as Frosty (WFKAF) ) in Kilkenny. We had a really nice time there, where we saw the Castle, Rothe House and Canice's Cathedral. We then swung down through Thomastown and onto Inistioge. We stopped at the Tullaherin Monastic site, where we saw two ancient Ogham stones (which fulfilled Softy's neolithic fix for the day ) Then we tried to find Long Cantwell, but failed miserably due to my lack of research (We did photograph a Cantwell grave in Tullaherin and I had previously bought a book on the history of the Cantwell's in Ireland, so ali will have some consolation )

We drove along by the Nore river through Inistioge and then onto New Ross, where we took some pictures of the Dunbrody (a replica famine ship). We finally reached Waterford City where, after some well earned food, we took a kind of ghostly tour around the Viking Triangle. Softy will return in daylight to consume the contents of the three museums at a later stage.

We hope to behold mountains and sea tomorrow!

u.

P.S. Pictures will arrive in due course. Today was too long (but not Cantwell ) to allow for such fripperies!

Sounds like fun, can't wait to see the pictures.